Off Topic UK / EU Future

Really? DUP fascists?
You think the largest vote in NI - 36% of the electorate voted for fascists? So that essentially means loyalists are fascists?
I would take a lot of persuading.

 

As a second generation Irish Catholic I struggle to discuss the DUP or the Orange Order with any level of rationality. I think they're fascists but it is not an objective view so I will leave it there and also apologise for bringing it up in the first place as I usually don't put up points I won't debate!

 

Well I didn't call them Nazis. It is a very, very, short step from the right wing of the oh ever so respectable conservative party into fascism. One enables and legitimises the other, as we are seeing in 'murica. NF is blatant. JRM and Raab are more subtle and much more dangerous. They would have no compunction in manipulating to the system to further themselves.

 

Unfortunately the word Fascist has become a catch all word to describe anything we don't like - there are others, such as Nazi, Marxist, Trotskyist, Commie etc. etc. Rarely do they stand up to historical scrutiny when used in a modern context. I have also used the words 'Fascist pigs' about the police at demos in the past, and then thought what a twerp I was for doing it. The DUP. Trump in the USA. the shower we have for a government - they are all too right wing to be Fascists. In the absence of a generic Fascism, we are left with the Italian Fascists of Mussolini as the prototype for later forms - they were a) anti Capitalist b) anti Monarchist and c) anti church, all of which rather rules out any connection to Trump, the DUP or the Tories of the UK. (even Ukip). The Italian Fascists had Jews and Moslems in their party - in fact Mussolini said that he had no regard for race as a criteria, and that everyone was mixed up anyway ! Though offshoots such as in Rumania and Croatia were different on this last point. Italy actually had more state ownership than any country other than the USSR. at that time - so why do we place Fascism on the right of the political spectrum ? I prefer to use religious bigotted morons to describe the DUP, and racist clown to describe Trump. It pains me to say it but both Fascism and National Socialism were born on the left.

 

How do you like your egg?

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Again apols for the cut and paste... but these sorts of things speak to me...

The article is even less pleasant

 

Under a freedom of information request, the Home Office has been asked how many front line customs officers it employs. They actually do not know is the answer. They do not know if the number has increased or decreased over recent years. To find out they say would require manual checks, which would take weeks and cost too much money. The government say they are recruiting 1,000 new custom officers, yet in April this year the job adverts were pulled because people living in Northern Ireland, with passports that they legally hold from the South, would have been excluded from applying. So far these jobs have not been re-advertised.
So we don't know the numbers, but the government answer is that " we are responding in a flexible manner". From what I see in Newhaven ferry port, there are frequently two Border Force officers, and half a dozen sub-contractor employees with clip boards taking a note of car numbers and having people open their car boots. There are two people in the customs office going through the paperwork for lorries and their drivers. Already that creates a queue in a relatively small port, so goodness knows how they would cope with lots more paperwork.
This shows up the problem of outsourcing. Give a private company a contract and then leave them to do it in the best way for the company to earn their profit. This really is a major problem already at airports as well as ferry ports, with long queues for passengers as there are the minimum number of desks open. Goodness knows what it will be like when we cannot use EU member lines.

 

Without doubt the daftest comment on these political threads for years.

 

Well done to Dominic Raab who has made it abundantly clear that without a trade deal there will be no £39 billion Brexit bill paid to the EU. This backs up the position as defined by the HoL all party committee who stated that there is no legal basis to pay this bribe.
Hopefully this will concentrate the minds of the EU negotiators and stop them blocking all and every sensible idea coming from the UK side.

 

Number of countries in the World who currently have zero trade agreements = none.

Number countries who’ll have zero trade agreements come next April, if we leave the EU with no deal = one.

 

You can trust us, despite being a third country, to collect duties on behalf of the EU is one of the planks in the white paper. A backstop to the NI situation was agreed last December and confirmed in March. The money due to the EU was agreed last December. So now Raab is talking about breaking those agreements. What sort of trust is the government showing to the EU? It already has shown it cannot collect the right duties which is why there is a further substantial bill to sort out. Would I trust a company that didn't honour it's agreements? No, I wouldn't do a deal with them. In the same way future deals with other countries, if any, will be set back by dealing with a dishonourable country.

 

It was understood by all that nothing is agreed until all is agreed. I am not aware that policy has been changed. There will not be a shortage of countries to trade with, no wonder the EU are terrified of the UK gaining an advantage once many of the current restrictions are removed.

 

And this is without doubt the most myopic response to a comment on these political threads for years.
Racism, casual or otherwise, is endemic within the tory party. Times have moved on but some elements still hold the 'superior' colonial attitudes... and we won't mention the Romanians, eh? Just that some tories are pragmatic enough to swallow their bias in order to maintain power.

 

The Independent Commission on Referendums has concluded the 'Remain' side had an unfair advantage in the run-up to the 2016 referendum. The pro-EU camp used millions in public funds to distribute leaflets containing much of 'project fear' that has since been fully discredited. The Commission recommends a ban on such practice in the future.

 

I know, let us pretend the Romanian pickpockets and human smuggling gangs don't actually exist, just ignore the statistics.

 

No, let's just not ignore the fact that they are not the only ones pickpocketing and trafficking humans, and stop inferring that they are.

 

He's only trying to wind up Fez. The fact is that Italy has 1,151,395 Rumanians, Spain has 1,117,597 (amazing that they know the exact figures !) and Germany has 657,000 - all, apparently without problem. The UK. has 220,000 and if you listen to how some people go on about it you would think that this minute number constitutes the end of all civilized life. They actually make up about one in 300 of the population yet, according to some, they are solely responsible for Britain's crime.

 

Please kindly point to any post of mine where I have inferred that Romanians are the only offenders? Of course they are not. They do however specialise in those areas I have mentioned. I applaud those many Romanians gainfully employed, I look forward to the UK only accepting migrants on merit not being forced to take anyone who fancies living here.

 

I do not think that professional visiting pickpockets actually live in the UK. They just come, do their job, and then go - and that will not be any different after Brexit. You can already stop and deny entry to known criminals - everyone else goes through, and that will not change. Start making life difficult for the millions of EU. tourists coming to London and the few pickpockets amongst them will have no victims left - because most of their victims are also foreign.

 

And do feel free to point to any post where you haven't.

I'm well aware of what he's trying to do. I'm fairly sure you've pointed out the above figures before as well. I also found your previous political commentary interesting.

 

President Trump's approval rating has risen to 45% whilst the other President, Macron, has seen his fall from 64% last year to 40% now.

Funny old world.