Apocalypse Now

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Gus Morris
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Apocalypse Now

Post by Gus Morris »

If current affairs are not your thing then you might want to switch off now.

My remarks are addressed primarily to concerned UK citizens permanently resident in France. We are now in a post-apocalyptic world and don't know what the future holds. It seems to me that we are not all in the same boat. There are those who possess dual nationality, have lived and worked here for many years, are fully integrated into the French system and have little or no income in sterling. On the other end of the scale there are single people with few, if any, financial resources for whom large swings in the foreign exchange markets can be catastrophic.

So what do we do? For myself I shall be seeking to renew my Carte de Sejour. When it expired I was told by the prefecture that, under EU rules, it was no longer required. My research shows that I can demand that it be renewed as I fit the criteria. I shall also be exploring obtaining a passport from a country that remains within the EU. Again I qualify but have yet to discover what is involved.

As I look at the media I get the impression that the case made by the Brexiters is starting to unravel. Bojo is already backpedalling furiously. Maybe one day he will be regarded by many as a rival to Tony Blair in the contest to become the most despised politician in 21st Century Britain.

Perhaps the Brexit is not a done deal. The results of the referendum were not legally binding and have been challenged. The Scots are in revolt. One has to wonder is there anybody in the current UK political scheme able and wiling to take the tiller and guide the ship of state into calm waters. Talk about a mare's nest.


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Re: Apocalypse Now

Post by martyn94 »

Gus Morris wrote:One has to wonder is there anybody in the current UK political scheme able and wiling to take the tiller and guide the ship of state into calm waters. Talk about a mare's nest.


Gus
But why do you suppose that the waters are any more stormy for Brexiters than they were a few days ago? Or at any rate stormy in a way they find unwelcome. They can see the "elites" getting into a tizzy, but that was exactly what many of them wanted to achieve. They may pay a bit more for a tank of petrol next time they fill up, and be disadvantaged in various other financial ways over the months and years, but hardly so obviously that they will suddenly decide that the EU was OK after all. The British Lion (or perhaps just the English-and-Welsh one) will be roaring again, and that counts for more than mere money or jobs.

What I find bizarre as a former bureaucrat is how exactly you handle a complex and protracted negotiation when the only certainty is that what you might get is going to be worse, or much worse, than what you started by rejecting. And how you handle trade-offs - how much more control over immigration or regulation, say, against how much economic damage - which make no intuitive sense except from the worldview of someone pissed-off in Nuneaton (or, I suppose, someone senile almost anywhere). And how, then, you sell the messy end result to the GBP. It will be droll to watch if you have a taste for black humour.

The paradox is that the vote has entirely rejected the metropolitan elites, but they are still the people who are going to have to sort it out. Thank God I'm retired, and live here. We have our issues, and I very much take your point that they could be critical for some of us. But mostly they will be resolved: nothing like as grim, on the whole, as having to live over there. And I would call myself a patriot.

(Incidentally, I have no real animus against Nuneaton, if anyone happens to come from there: it's just a family joke.)
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Post by russell »

Boris clearly never thought he would win. His manner isn't that of someone who has just won an historic vote. He has a tricky choice ahead of him if and when he becomes PM, either; career suicide, by ignoring the referendum, or worse, enact article 50, and destroy the UK and most likely the EU too.

I'm about to take a holiday and forget about this for a while but on my return I shall be enquiring about French (or Irish, or Swiss) nationality.

Russell.
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Post by martyn94 »

russell wrote:Boris clearly never thought he would win. His manner isn't that of someone who has just won an historic vote. He has a tricky choice ahead of him if and when he becomes PM, either; career suicide, by ignoring the referendum, or worse, enact article 50, and destroy the UK and most likely the EU too.

I'm about to take a holiday and forget about this for a while but on my return I shall be enquiring about French (or Irish, or Swiss) nationality.

Russell.
God knows what Boris expected, but he was evidently ready to take a punt, and no doubt will be happy to profit by it. I doubt that he does "gravitas" easily or at all, but that seems to be a large part of his appeal to whoever he appeals to. Having a PM who trades as a cheeky chappie will be novel, but stranger things have happened: in a parallel universe we might get J Corbyn.

For the rest, I think we have to get used to the idea that lots of our people, and pols, don't mind the idea of pulling the house down round their ears. Would a very English politician like Boris be punished by his electorate if the Scots went their own way? I don't see why.
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Brexit - Frexit

Post by BT »

Came across this article on the New Yorker website. I am not expressing an opinion, just posting the link in case anyone wants to read it.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk ... r-a-frexit


REgards

BT
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Post by Lanark Lass »

Guess what - Boris the propagator has now back-pedalled and won't be standing as P.M. to sort out the mess he has created.

Even in Northampton I am now being eyed suspiciously as a Scot with questions like "how long have you been here?"

Will be in P.O. next week. Hoping for a friendly reception in France!
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Post by Gus Morris »

Surprise, surprise.

Bojo has run away. Like the little boy who played with matches and burnt down the town. An act of political cowardice which would have been branded as treason in another time. He can always run away to the US. After all he is an American citizen Will Farage be next?

The French media seemed to have seized on Theresa May as a potential reincarnation of the Dame de Fer. Who knows, they may be right. Having seen the damage that the Brexit campaign caused maybe MLP will tone down her message.

BTW. I assume Lanark Lass does not live in Corby

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Post by Lanark Lass »

No,not Corby.

Westminster politics are now in a right mess.
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Post by martyn94 »

Lanark Lass wrote:No,not Corby.

Westminster politics are now in a right mess.
Or maybe we need a new electorate. I suspect that I'm not the only person here who hoped that the undecideds would eventually come round to the right answer, as in 1975. The striking thing is not just that they didn't, but that their votes - unlike 1975 - were so strongly correlated with age, education and geography. I never expected to see the day when my own home town - Liverpool - would vote in the same way as the other "sophisticated metropolitan elites", but so it turned out. But Wigan, say, to pick a local example at random, very emphatically did not.

Our successive politicians have a lot of responsibility for the alienation felt by so many people in the "other" England. But only so much: it's not their fault that people are old, or wouldn't or couldn't do well at school, or live in places that the best will in the world couldn't revive economically. Or that they just feel nostalgic for a world which never existed.

It's clear that our old party set-up wasn't designed for this world. God knows what the new one will be like. But I suspect I'll be glad that they no longer govern me.
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Post by GrahamC »

Typical socialist view of life Martyn. If the electorate doesn't come up with the 'right' answer ('right' being, of course whatever a true socialist says is the right answer) then they must be dumb, xenophobic, reactionary Little Englanders and thus need to be replaced.

As Kate as already said, this is supposed to be a website where like minded individuals can happily help each other in their lives in the PO.

Stop peddling your left wing champagne socialist ideas - take them to the Momentum website or perhaps Twitter.

Kate, PLEASE can you close this thread.
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Post by martyn94 »

GrahamC wrote:Typical socialist view of life Martyn. If the electorate doesn't come up with the 'right' answer ('right' being, of course whatever a true socialist says is the right answer) then they must be dumb, xenophobic, reactionary Little Englanders and thus need to be replaced.

As Kate as already said, this is supposed to be a website where like minded individuals can happily help each other in their lives in the PO.

Stop peddling your left wing champagne socialist ideas - take them to the Momentum website or perhaps Twitter.

Kate, PLEASE can you close this thread.
You rise like a trout. Though I suppose it was my mistake to attempt even the most obvious joke. My whole point was that UK politics no longer divides on the sort of stereotyped lines you are stuck on, but in much more interesting and difficult ways. I have always, as it happens, voted Labour, faute de mieux, but have never regarded myself as a socialist, let alone a Trot. But I'm up for the champagne if someone else is paying. I have not the first idea how I would vote if there were an election next week.
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Post by Owens88 »

Martyn: Liverpool was successful in pulling down eu funds and was grateful. Fair Game

Graham C: There are many people in the UK trying to play spoilers on the result. Alas not many leaders trying to push us forward.

Kate. I don't see why this thread should be pulled. It is civil and in the P-O café area though it might as well now lie fallow until we get some leadership from Westminster.



Good luck all.

J
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Vernet Les Bains and East Midlands
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Post by Pearsonb »

I suspect quite a few people are like me - getting by on a small income in pounds and having to tighten my belt as a consequence of the vote.

I wouldn't mind so much if the Brexiters could agree amongst themselves on what positive action needs taking. However, it seems that all that unites them is negativity.
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Post by martyn94 »

Owens88 wrote:Martyn: Liverpool was successful in pulling down eu funds and was grateful. Fair Game
Good luck all.

J
But lots of places which voted emphatically "out" also got hatfuls of structural funds: Ebbw Vale, Cornwall, Wigan and many more. I think there really is a split between the big cities and everywhere else (with the exception of obvious outliers like Oxford and Cambridge) which doesn't jibe with traditional party allegiances.
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Boris

Post by Sus »

I like Boris, he always looks like he just came home from a night out and then he plays with fire like a little boy and runs away when it catches on. To top it off he then starts hackling through his weekly column on what to do different and better!

I dont envy anybody becoming the next PM, what a mess to steer out of. Mind you it cant be worse than England playing football. but I also think that it is an opportunity to find a new place for the UK, whatever that will be but how to trade off the political vs the economic consequences will be an amazing balancing act.
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Post by martyn94 »

Owens88 wrote:
Kate. I don't see why this thread should be pulled. It is civil and in the P-O café area though it might as well now lie fallow until we get some leadership from Westminster.



Good luck all.

J
Indeed:a bizarre thing to say about a thread on P-O Life Café. GrahamC can hardly be surprised that he is in a minority on a site like this. But it is not us that have been spray-painting abuse on a Polish social club, or swastikas on Michael Foot's memorial.
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Post by martyn94 »

Owens88 wrote:
Kate. I don't see why this thread should be pulled. It is civil and in the P-O café area though it might as well now lie fallow until we get some leadership from Westminster.



Good luck all.

J
Indeed:a bizarre thing to say about a thread on P-O Life Café. GrahamC can hardly be surprised that he is in a minority on a site like this. But it is not us that have been spray-painting abuse on a Polish social club, or swastikas on Michael Foot's memorial.
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Post by Gus Morris »

It occurs to me that the long term effects of a Brexit may have something in common with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The latter did not plunge France directly into armed conflict. Nor did the state collapse. But hundred's of thousands of industrious and talented people left the country and took their skills with them. Making France the poorer. The intellectual basis for this decision was virtually non-existent. The motivation was blind bigotry.

It resulted in France being distrusted by many of her European neighbours who actively sought her downfall. A century later France was in turmoil with the revolution whereas countries like Britain made the long transition to democracy in a relatively peaceful manner.

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Post by martyn94 »

Gus Morris wrote:It occurs to me that the long term effects of a Brexit may have something in common with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The latter did not plunge France directly into armed conflict. Nor did the state collapse. But hundred's of thousands of industrious and talented people left the country and took their skills with them. Making France the poorer. The intellectual basis for this decision was virtually non-existent. The motivation was blind bigotry.

It resulted in France being distrusted by many of her European neighbours who actively sought her downfall. A century later France was in turmoil with the revolution whereas countries like Britain made the long transition to democracy in a relatively peaceful manner.

Gus
I think it's too flattering. France was the great European power at that time. However self-defeating, it was a decision taken out of strength. Ours was taken out of failure. Nobody is going to seek our downfall (why bother when we do it ourselves?); they may trust us even less, but it will hardly be a major pre-occupation in the world's chancelleries.
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Post by GrahamC »

OK so the thread continues - so time for some balance.

No Martyn, our decision was not taken out of failure. It was taken by a plebiscite comprising people who have lived through the consequences of EU expansion. They didn't like the stealthy theft of the UK's sovereignty and they didn't like the creeping hegemony of the EU over all aspects of UK life. They also didn't like the way that the entire EU project was packaged in a cocoon of lies and deliberate deceit - even before the first moment when most of us voted to join what we believed was the EEC.

They foresaw the problem with remaining - a huge and increasing democratic deficit which the EU was actively reinforcing; an utterly corrupt and dysfunctional political system which the EU had no plans to change and a relentless attack on UK law by an out-of-control ECJ acting blatantly ultra vires.

Cameron himself saw the problem which is why he tried renegotiation. Unfortunately drunken anglophobes like Juncker were too arrogant to wake up to the threat of Brexit and too myopic to negotiate like statesmen.

Many of those who voted to leave, including myself, have a profoud love of and affection for all things European. However, unlike those who voted to remain we did not allow our pro Eurooean sentiment to blind us to the egregious rejection of democratic principles. We would have preferred a new model Europe based on democracy - had that been on offer many of us would have voted to remain.

Rather than accept this alternative viewpoint (which has considerably more factual weight behind it than yours) you (Remainers) continue to characterise Brexiters as bigots and little Englanders. That we are not. We have simply arrived at a different conclusions from your own.

Ironically, now almost everyone from the Council President downwards accepts there is a problem which must be addressed. Something perhaps you might have done in the pre-vote arguments rather than adopt the absurd position that the EU is nothing more than a 'messy set of institutions'.

It took a vote for Brexit to put the necessary bomb under their complacent backsides. Now, who knows what might happen. If Juncker and his federalist cronies are given the boot, and saner minds work the problem, then Brexit as you imagine it may never happen.

Certainly there is no apocalypse now - stop reading the Guardian. The sky has not fallen in, corporation tax has fallen, and the the pound has fallen - fantastic news for businesses like mine and fantastic news for our huge and unsustainable balance of trade deficit.

Yes, there will be considerable economic and political pain ahead, but perhaps not now a European war of seccession ten years hence.
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Post by vmaxvmax »

Good grief.

Interesting use of the word balance... I didn't realise my english was so poor.

If I were in your boots, I might cool down in the local pub with a beer, a fag and Nigel. Now that would bring about some balance!
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Post by martyn94 »

GrahamC wrote:
Certainly there is no apocalypse now - stop reading the Guardian. The sky has not fallen in, corporation tax has fallen, and the the pound has fallen - fantastic news for businesses like mine and fantastic news for our huge and unsustainable balance of trade deficit.
The UK will be paying far more for all the things it continues to import, and its exporters have not, for decades, shown any ability to respond to falls in sterling in a way which would remotely compensate. Meanwhile the capital inflows which used to fill the gap look like going south. Let's compare notes on the trade deficit in a year or so's time, and judge how much more or less sustainable it seems then.

Corporation tax has not fallen, though it may do. It doesn't seem to me anything much to be proud of, though desperate times may indeed call for desperate remedies.
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Post by GrahamC »

vmaxvmax wrote:Good grief.

Interesting use of the word balance... I didn't realise my english was so poor.

If I were in your boots, I might cool down in the local pub with a beer, a fag and Nigel. Now that would bring about some balance!
Not an interesting use of the word at all - completely routine. I merely articulated some of the views held by the majority of the UK voters. No need for me to present both sides here because the Remainers' views are more than well represented on this forum ;)

No need for me to cool down at all. I'm hugely relaxed about the turn of events. By the bye Farage is not to my taste at all. But I note with regret the continuing theme on this forum of ad hominem attacks rather than rational counter argument.

Happy to debate macroeconomics with you in a year's time Martyn. If the UK economy has tanked then I'll simply see it as a price worth paying to retain my democratic privileges. I note your complete silence on the issue of democratic deficit. Every single Brexiter that I have spoken to put this at the top of their list of reasons to vote to leave.

As for the economic effects Martyn, it is entirely within the power of the remaining EU members to make the UK's transition to some form of associate membership virtually painless. This would be the statesmanlike thing to do.

If they choose to make the UK suffer then that would reveal the European project to be something quite different from a coalition of the willing.
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Post by martyn94 »

GrahamC wrote: I note your complete silence on the issue of democratic deficit. Every single Brexiter that I have spoken to put this at the top of their list of reasons to vote to leave.
I didn't comment on the "democratic deficit" (a) because I've already said all I've got to say, and (b) because your latest formulation ("stealthy theft of sovereignty", "creeping hegemony of the EU over all aspects of UK life") seems too ludicrous to address. And that is not in the least ad hominem: I just happen to profoundly disagree with you.

The UK has asserted its sovereignty in a robust way very few times in my lifetime: once was a fiasco (Suez) because the US wouldn't tolerate it; another was a fiasco (invading Iraq) done under US pressure; two were a success, though entirely trivial, (recapturing the Falklands, and invading Grenada) entirely because of US support; and the last (resolving the "Troubles") was a genuine success, but relied on support both from the US and the EU. None gives me much hope for the brave new world when we have "taken back control". Agonising over UK sovereignty, to be exercised by giants like Leadsom (or May, or Corbyn), is like bald men fighting over a comb.
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Post by GrahamC »


I didn't comment on the "democratic deficit" (a) because I've already said all I've got to say, and (b) because your latest formulation ("stealthy theft of sovereignty", "creeping hegemony of the EU over all aspects of UK life") seems too ludicrous to address. And that is not in the least ad hominem: I just happen to profoundly disagree with you.
Ludicrous to you perhaps because it appears that you haven't taken the time to read in any detail about Jean Monnet's deliberate tactic of federalism by stealth. Ludicrous to you because it appears that you haven't bothered to try to understand why the UK supereme court is up in arms about the creeping dominace of ECJ rulings. Nor do you appear to have analysed in any depth the history surrounding the genesis of the Lisbon treaty or question the democratic validy of a treaty signed in contempt of 2 national referenda.

Not my 'latest formulation' I supplied you with all the relevant articles to read at the time.

And no, you haven't said it all before. Indeed not once have you countered the democratic deficit argument in any of your posts. You just carry on as you are doing now - dismissing fact after fact with putdowns because they simply don't accord with your world view.

The UK has asserted its sovereignty in a robust way very few times in my lifetime: once was a fiasco (Suez) because the US wouldn't tolerate it; another was a fiasco (invading Iraq) done under US pressure; two were a success, though entirely trivial, (recapturing the Falklands, and invading Grenada) entirely because of US support; and the last (resolving the "Troubles") was a genuine success, but relied on support both from the US and the EU. None gives me much hope for the brave new world when we have "taken back control". Agonising over UK sovereignty, to be exercised by giants like Leadsom (or May, or Corbyn), is like bald men fighting over a comb.
Now whose being ludicrous.

But inadvertently you've put your finger on the knub of it. Remainers like you don't actually give tuppence about democracy. You consider yourselves to be part of an enlightened elite - a priestohood of socialists who alone know the truths. You abhor democracy when it comes up with the 'wrong' answer which is why you yearn for a system that doesn't need to trouble itself with meaningful elections.

And your responses are sounding more and more like petulant sour grapes.
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Post by martyn94 »

Jean Monnet died 37 years ago. The French thought he was so destructive of their sovereignty that they put him in the Panthéon.
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Post by GrahamC »

martyn94 wrote:Jean Monnet died 37 years ago. The French thought he was so destructive of their sovereignty that they put him in the Panthéon.
More petulance. You use condescension as a technique to try to portray yourself as knowledgable and sophisticated. But in truth Martyn, your understanding of the EU is out of date and you are ignorant of the profound issues that have arisen since Lisbon.

P.S.

Having now read his memoirs I've modified my view of Monnet. He did indeed believe that economic integration would lead to slow transfer of sovereign powers and he was convinced that a federal europe was the desirable end game. But he doesn't appear to have wanted to do this through deliberate subterfuge. (That comes later with Heath and Giscard d'Estaing). Rather he thought economic integration would lead to a dawning realisation that federalism was the way ahead.
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Post by Gus Morris »

If I read all this correctly then, basically, Graham C believes that Britain should leave the EU because the said organisation is tainted. It is inefficient, undemocratic, corrosive, corrupt etcetera. He thus implies that, in comparison, the UK government is as white as driven snow.

What a load of hogwash. I'm just an ordinary guy with little education and hardly with my hand on the pulse of world affairs. Yet even I knew that US oil companies were extracting crude from under Iraqi sovereign territory and that UN weapons inspectors could find no trace of WMDs. All this information straight from the mouths of guys actually on the spot. Yet the spineless types who sit in Westminster, who presumably had access to similar sources, voted for the war. Cash before conscience? At least the French had better sense.

The House of Lords is a joke. None of them elected. Some of them there solely by the accident of birth or because the wear a bishop's mitre. Talk about the EU being undemocratic.

The fiscal probity of the House of Commons was exposed with the expenses scandal.

And so it goes on.

Why should we not contest the outcome of a referendum which was seriously flawed. Surely such a grave decision should only be binding if fifty percent of the electorate approve. Which is not the same as half those who bothered to vote. When the remnants of the British Army were rescued from Dunkirk, when the Luftwaffe rained bombs on our cities and invasion seemed imminent, did we down tools and say "Fair enough Fritz, you won" Did we hell. So we will continue to fight the Brexit decision. We may not win. But at least we will have tried and history will judge us.

Maybe Graham C would make better use of his time doing something about the problems in the UK. They are real enough.

Gus
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Post by GrahamC »

Gus Morris wrote:If I read all this correctly then, basically, Graham C believes that Britain should leave the EU because the said organisation is tainted. It is inefficient, undemocratic, corrosive, corrupt etcetera.
Bang on - absolutely correct.
He thus implies that, in comparison, the UK government is as white as driven snow.
Utter nonsense, I imply no such thing
What a load of hogwash. I'm just an ordinary guy with little education and hardly with my hand on the pulse of world affairs. Yet even I knew that US oil companies were extracting crude from under Iraqi sovereign territory and that UN weapons inspectors could find no trace of WMDs. All this information straight from the mouths of guys actually on the spot. Yet the spineless types who sit in Westminster, who presumably had access to similar sources, voted for the war. Cash before conscience? At least the French had better sense.
This is obviously something you feel passionately about but it has absolutely nothing to do with the EU argument.
The House of Lords is a joke. None of them elected. Some of them there solely by the accident of birth or because the wear a bishop's mitre. Talk about the EU being undemocratic.
The fiscal probity of the House of Commons was exposed with the expenses scandal.

And so it goes on.
Agreed, but we can do something about this by taking an active interest in politics and voting in a government that will clear up the mess. You can't do that with the EU becuase there is no mechanism for voting in or out any of the key players or any of the law makers.
Why should we not contest the outcome of a referendum which was seriously flawed.
Seriously flawed? In what way? I didn't hear you screaming about flaws before the vote Gus. But now it's gone the 'wrong'way for you, you say it's flawed.
Surely such a grave decision should only be binding if fifty percent of the electorate approve. Which is not the same as half those who bothered to vote. When the remnants of the British Army were rescued from Dunkirk, when the Luftwaffe rained bombs on our cities and invasion seemed imminent, did we down tools and say "Fair enough Fritz, you won" Did we hell. So we will continue to fight the Brexit decision. We may not win. But at least we will have tried and history will judge us.
Bit of a rant here Gus eh? But I agree with you insofar as the decision shows a huge split in the country. In my opinion it would not be right to go for a complete Brexit because there isn't a strong enough mandate.

But there is a mandate for change and so change must take place. For the last 40 years the Remainers have had it all their own way. The 17.4 million Brexiters feel that for the last 40 years their rights have been trampled on and slowly taken from them without their say.

Now that they have finally had a chance to voice their opinion you can't just ignore them and say that the status quo ante (which is ever more federalism and ever more reduction in sovereignty) must remain. Something has got to change.
Maybe Graham C would make better use of his time doing something about the problems in the UK. They are real enough.
Ah, so only the Remainers should be allowed to post to forums so that they can have a nice little uninterrupted rant in their own echo chamber, untroubled by other, contrary opinions. Is that what you mean Gus?

In my other time I run businesses, employ people and export all around the world. And I still have time to read deeply about EU matters and try to think them through ;)

I don't just turn a blind eye to the disastrous management of Europe for the sake of an easier life in the PO
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Post by GrahamC »

This thread is titled Apocalypse Now.

It may be strangely prophetic but don't think this relates solely to Brexit. Look at what's happening in Italy. Sooner or later - and very probably sooner - Italy will implode under the weight of contradictions of the disastrous Euro experiment. When this happens Brexit will seem like a little sideshow.

And if Italy isn't the first to go then 50% youth unemployment in Spain is a powder keg just waiting for a spark. (It always amazes me that pro European socialists like Martyn seem to think that destroying the employment hopes of a whole generation is an acceptable thing to do for the sake of European 'unity').

Think Germany is immune, then think again and ask yourself why German bank shares have plunged 75% over the last 3 years.

Brexit? - you ain't seen nothing yet.
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