Apocalypse Now

[martyn94]

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.

[martyn94]

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.

[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.

Gus

[martyn94]

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.

[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.

[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!

[martyn94]

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.

[GrahamC]

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.

[martyn94]

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.

[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.

[martyn94]

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

[GrahamC]

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.

[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

[GrahamC]

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

[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.

[martyn94]

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.

The facility to edit these posts is a mixed blessing. I made a very short, and entirely accurate, response to something you first said about Jean Monnet. You accused me of petulance. You then came back and entirely modified what you thought about Monnet - but left the accusation of petulance standing.

While I'm here, my problem about referendums is not that they produce the "wrong" answer, but that they produce the "right" answer to whatever question happens to be on the individual voter's mind, very rarely the one that happens to be on the ballot paper. If that is wrong, you have to assume that intense study of the Treaty of Lisbon (and its iniquities) is the norm in our communities which are under the lash (and old, and ill-educated) but relatively absent in those that aren't. If that is condescending, I plead guilty. The referendum seemed to me to be a cynical and wholly irresponsible exercise even before I lost. I believe I said so, but can't be bothered to look. As you say, it happened, and I lost.

[GrahamC]

Your response was not entirely accurate. Most the past 40 years have been spent denying that the EU has federal ambitions. After Lisbon and the Brexit debate this outrageous lie has been outed.

But the charge still stands, Monnet wanted federalism but his path began with economic integration. The really blatant lying came later when the likes of Wilson and Heath denied that the EEC was anything other than an economic community and when d'Estaing subtly subsituted 'community' for 'federalism'.

Now that Theresa May (far from being a comitted Exiter) is to be PM hopefully we will achieve a balanced, compromise solution which goes at least part way towards satisfying the diametrically opposed needs of Remainers and Exiters

[martyn94]

Your response was not entirely accurate. Most the past 40 years have been spent denying that the EU has federal ambitions. After Lisbon and the Brexit debate this outrageous lie has been outed.

God help me, what I said was 22 words about Jean Monnet. How many lies, or even inaccuracies or incompletenesses, about Wilson, and Heath, and Giscard d'Estaing, and Lisbon do you think I managed to pack into that? I am entirely ready to believe that politicians try to make the best of their case, and sometimes get things wrong, or fail to anticipate what will come next. But the mindset that everything you don't agree with, in hindsight, said by any public figure, was all just "lies" seems to me depressing and toxic: not a monopoly of Brexiters, obviously, but prevalent there.

[GrahamC]

Seriously? I mean seriously Martyn? You, the person who said before the vote that the EU was 'nothing more than a messy set of institutions' is now trying to deny the federalist agenda cover up. What utter disingenuous tosh.

Next you'll be saying that when we all voted for the EEC we were actually all happily voting for an EU superstate.

And more ad hominem attacks - how tedious.

[martyn94]

I will put up with a lot, but I don't like to be accused of arguing ad hominem, if only because I know what it means.

It means that I reject your arguments on the basis of some extraneous fact about you, which does not go to the merits of your argument - you are gay, or straight, or have red hair or whatever. The fact that Brexit voting seems to be correlated, ex post (I can do Latin too), with various broad statistical characteristics of the voters (old, ill-educated, back-of-nowhere, to put it unacceptably crudely) is interesting, and even suggestive, but not remotely ad hominem: none of that was my idea. And the fact that your arguments seem to me like overheated nonsense doesn't make it ad hominem either: lots of people seem to agree with you, and I would happily say the same to them for the same reasons.

[Gus Morris]

Quote from Graham C's reply to my last thoughts

"In my opinion it would not be right to go for a complete Brexit because there isn't a strong enough mandate."

Starting to change tack are we?

Leadsom has gone down the drain too. Looks like being pro Brexit is suddenly not such a good idea in British politics. Where is the golden dawn that the tabloids promised would greet Britain once it had voted to thrown off the shackles of EU control? How has the taste of the honeyed milk of sovereignty lifted the spirits of the British to new heights? Or was it all an illusion?

If Theresa May can gather a good team around her there is hope.She needs all the help she can get. From wherever it may come on the political spectrum. The socialists need to get their act together. There are, without a doubt, major problems in Europe. Instead of standing outside the tent and pissing in maybe, at long last, Britain will find a way to facilitate change and get us out of the mess.

Sometimes you've just got to believe in miracles.

Gus

[lonesome paddy]

Although i have lived in France for many years, i am Swiss with an American father and an Irish mother. I have worked and lived several times in the UK & the Republic of Ireland so im quite ambivalent as to whether the UK stays or leaves the EU but i do think that Nigel Farage & Boris Johnson ought to be ashamed of themselves, no matter what excuses they're using. They led and pushed so hard for a Brexit, after achieving it they saw what lay ahead and have done a runner and left others to clean up any mess they had a huge hand in creating

[neil mitchell]

So, now the online petition for a second referendum is going to be debated in September, Theresa May has said that Article 50 should not be applied before the end of the year and what must be every constitutional law barrister in the UK has written to the PM to say that leaving the EU can only be done by an act of parliament. Brexit isn't going to happen is it?

[Owens88]

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk ... ck-leavers

[Sus]

Although i have lived in France for many years, i am Swiss with an American father and an Irish mother. I have worked and lived several times in the UK & the Republic of Ireland so im quite ambivalent as to whether the UK stays or leaves the EU but i do think that Nigel Farage & Boris Johnson ought to be ashamed of themselves, no matter what excuses they're using. They led and pushed so hard for a Brexit, after achieving it they saw what lay ahead and have done a runner and left others to clean up any mess they had a huge hand in creating

I couldnt agree with you more, what cowards to just do a runner. Especially Farage, just managed to get his company to go into liquidation and then keeps his seat in the European parliament for the salary, what hypocrisy...

[Sus]

Quote from Graham C's reply to my last thoughts

"In my opinion it would not be right to go for a complete Brexit because there isn't a strong enough mandate."

Starting to change tack are we?

Leadsom has gone down the drain too. Looks like being pro Brexit is suddenly not such a good idea in British politics. Where is the golden dawn that the tabloids promised would greet Britain once it had voted to thrown off the shackles of EU control? How has the taste of the honeyed milk of sovereignty lifted the spirits of the British to new heights? Or was it all an illusion?

If Theresa May can gather a good team around her there is hope.She needs all the help she can get. From wherever it may come on the political spectrum. The socialists need to get their act together. There are, without a doubt, major problems in Europe. Instead of standing outside the tent and pissing in maybe, at long last, Britain will find a way to facilitate change and get us out of the mess.

Sometimes you've just got to believe in miracles.

Gus

I agree with Graham that there needs to be a compromise as the mandate was not strong enough. danger for May is that she is not going to make anybody happy, what a job she has in front of her... couldn't pay me enough!

[neil mitchell]

Part of the debate will be about the very misleading information used in the campaign which, it is argued, makes the result unsafe.

I see the point. It only takes one person to say " I voted leave because I was told that it costs £350 million a week to be in" and with no way of finding out how many other people thought the same, it may be reasonable to think that many others did too and with such a small margin it could easily have changed the outcome.

I also take the point that the referendum was just an information gathering exercise and that, using that information, it is the duty of parliament to debate the matter in depth and detail to decide what actually is best for UK.

And TM is, in my opinion, correct to allow some time to elapse in order to give time for thought and reflection. It is foolish to think that any government would take action straight away on the outcome of a referendum with such a close margin and an allegedly rather corrupt campaign.

I guess we should allow the grown ups to decide.

[GrahamC]

I don't think that arguing forcefully for what you believe is right necessarily means that you must then insist on being prime minister if/when your argument's prevail. Political argument is one thing, fitness for the very highest office is another.

It's not at all wrong for Boris and Gove to make way for Theresa May who is much more likely to command the following and respect of more of the country. Boris and Gove are certain to be formally involved the Brexit process.

No Gus I am not changing tack. From the very outset of this debate I have always maintained that I am a reluctant Brexiter. Nothing would have been easier for my life in the PO than a Remain vote. But when it was clear that the EU Commission was too damn arrogant to listen to the concerns of its second largest member it was obvious which way to vote.

Now look what has happened. Suddenly they are all over themselves thinking of ways in which Europe should be made more democratic. Why didn't they do that BEFORE the vote? Do we really think that would have happened if we had voted to remain?

In future Gus (this is the second time you've done it) please try not to take a small piece of a widespread response and imply something that isn't true.

Corrupt referendum? In what way? Are we talking about the £9m of taxpayers money to fund a biased and unbalanced booklet posted through every door in the country (an action that would have been illegal during a normal election plebiscite). Or are we perhaps talking about the Treasury report that slanted every single assumption to make the consequences of Brexit look dire? Or are we referring to Osborne's penalty budget that would have to happen but -oh look - no it doesn't?

If 'misleading information' makes the result unsafe then perhaps we had better annul the result of every general election ever held.

Neither side came out of the debate smelling of roses. But 17.4 million votes to leave cannot be ignored.

[GrahamC]

What I REALLY can't fathom in all this debate we've had is why anyone on here or in the UK would vote for the current EU system of governance.

As it stands 70% of all the new laws and regulation that we are subjected to are devised in secret by people we can't vote for and can't vote out.

Worse still laws made by the elected members of our parliament in a transparent process of openly accessible debate can, since Lisbon, be struck down by a politically motivated court over which we have no control.

Luxembourg has one EU commissioner for every 500,000 people. We have one for every 30 MILLION.

Again people WHY is this not a huge problem for you? I genuinely don't understand how anyone can be so sanguine about this.

I think it can be taken as read that every reader of this forum loves Europe and the European ideal but can someone please present me with cogent arguments why this trumps democracy?

PS

Please don't respond with the argument that we have more chance changing it if we're in. We tried that for 40 years without success.

[GrahamC]

Where is the golden dawn that the tabloids promised would greet Britain once it had voted to thrown off the shackles of EU control? How has the taste of the honeyed milk of sovereignty lifted the spirits of the British to new heights? Or was it all an illusion?

Gus

1. We have't yet thrown off the shackles.
2. Only 20 days has elapsed since the vote.
3. The sky has not fallen in as predicted.
4. The £ has fallen - thank god for us business exporters.