The EU debate - Part III

Brexit Means Brexit is a sound bite May is using to appease simpletons like Pete while she tries to work out what Brexit means.

 

This is the salient point.

All of the pre-referendum economic predictions were based on Cameron doing what he said he'd do i.e. actioning article 50 the next day.

So now those predictions haven't yet come to pass, the Tory press and some of the balloons on here are proclaiming that those predictions were wrong and the effect of Brexit was well overblown.

Only we've not ****ing done anything yet ffs, The true impact of brexit will be felt once article 50 is invoked and the process begins. Only then can we judge the accuracy or otherwise of the predictions made pre- June 23rd.

 

So far it appears that Brexit means keep kicking the can down the road.....

 

Is it the total banking sector thats 4% or the bit that needs the EU for passporting?

 

It would be hilarious if the implications weren't so dire - we had a supposed Head of Government who put a referendum up - not because he thought it was good for the country, or he thought leaving was possibly a good thing, but just because he wanted to attract Ukippers back to the Tory party and wanted to pass responsibility to someone else. He then jumped ship as soon as the **** hit the fan without even a semblance of a plan in place. His No 2 hid away snorting coke for the crucial 3 days after the vote.

The person leading the Leave campaign, and a leading contender (at the time) to be the next Prime Minister/leader of the Tory party, wants to lose, has absolutely no plan on what to do if he wins, and as a result jumps ship in horror as soon as he realises he's won - again without leaving a plan in place - just a big red bus with a massive lie on it.

The Opposition decide this is the perfect time to deflect attention away from the Tories and create a car-crash Chicken Coup orchestrated by Portland House PR/Alastair Campbell to ensure there's no effective opposition.

The new PM keeps saying meaningless phrases like 'Brexit Means Brexit' while having no clue what to do. She also keeps entrenching herself into positions such as 'no free movement' and wanting to kick no-UK nationals out of the country if they earn under £35k, but has no idea how she'll get all 27 of the other EU countries to accept such a hard-line stance while we are desperate for EU trade deals. Especially as a lot of senior EU figures are saying Free Movement is non-negotiable, the Eastern Bloc will veto any attempt to restrict it....

 

The obvious thing to do would've been to stay in and address freedom of movement from a position of strength.
It's become a Europe-wide issue and it would've been very easy to get others onside, especially if we had working MEPs.
Instead of that solution, we've now got an utter, utter mess and nobody with the slightest clue of how to get out of it.

 

Yes I forgot to mention the other hilarious issue - people moaning about under representation in Europe so... they elect UKIP MEPs who attended the least amount of European Parliament sessions out of any MEPs in the whole of the EU, they voted on barely anything and indeed even voted against UK fishing interests!

 

They did collect their salaries and expenses, while hiring their own family members, though.

“If you used the secretarial allowance to pay your wife – on top of all the other games that you can play – I reckon this job in sterling terms is worth over a quarter of a million pounds,” - Nigel Farage, criticising MEPs in 1999.

“I said I need somebody to help me work midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock in the morning, unsociable hours. And that happens to be the person I’ve lived with for seven years," - Nigel Farage, defending the decision to use the secretarial allowance to pay his wife in 2014.

He also had to deny that he'd employed his mistress, after accusations from a former UKIP MEP.

 

Agree totally.

Free movement with an upper cap to ensure that particular countries weren't suffering from unsustainable immigration could have been achievable imo.

Now, we're going to try and negotiate exactly that, but from a position of weakness and from the outside looking in.

 

Unless we follow Pete's idea of agreeing no freedom of movement before erasing the memories of the EU's negotiators with a Men In Black style laser and then negotiating full single market access.

 

Pete thinks we can wander in and tell Johnny Foreigner we're British, we won the war you know! so let's crack on and give us what we want without question as you'll all suffer otherwise......honest...

 

That's The City overall. Anything that contributes to UK total earnings.

The EU passport is vital, IMO. It's the only way we can be sure that the major banks can still be headquartered in London, but have unfettered access to their EU clientele.

 

True!

I believe that Cameron called the EU referendum to try to overcome and quieter down the significant anti-EU contingent in his party. He believed that he could win, as he did with the Scottish independence vote. He was wrong!

The Gvt's official policy was to remain. Yet Cameron allowed senior figures in his own party to openly defy him and back the leave campaign. Ridiculous!

 

I have to say that it didn't help that Corbyn openly displays his less than luke warm enthusiasm for the remain campaign.

A Labour leader who was truly supportive would have been out there, on the road, explaining that this wasn't a Tory campaign, that it crossed party lines. That this was something that was going to affect everybody in the country. That voting to leave wasn't going to send all the immigrants home, want going to get them millions more a week for the NHS, etc.

 

I think most knew it was going to have a negative impact on the economy, but many simply didn't care, as they're disconnected from it (or rather they think the are ), and the '2 fingers' vote was as much aimed at the comfortable 'haves' as much as it was a poke in the eye for the politicians.

 

Imo he did just that, but he/Labour/Plaid/SNP (South of the border) never got much air time - it was all dedicated to either Cameron vs Boris or Cameron vs Farage.

Corbyn did point out a lot of things PleaseNotPoll said - we were stronger making change within the EU than trying to barter for them outside it. That our NHS would be weaker and that jobs would be at threat.

It's just hilarious that the main people attacking Corbyn's EU performance from within Labour are Owen Smith - his whole constituency is reliant on EU funding - it's the only thing keeping the Valleys on life support yet they voted to leave - great performance Owen! Angela Eagle - her constituency voted to leave and her party members want to give her a vote of no confidence. And Alan Johnson - the guy Leading the Labour Remain campaign is criticising it's performance and blaming it on someone else!!!

 

I heard a few say 'it wouldn't make much of a difference if we stayed in or exited'!!!!

 

I can only speak from what I saw and heard. And that was that his 'enthusiasm' was virtually non existent and that he viewed the whole thing as a necessary chore that he had to do.
If that transmitted itself clearly to me, I'm sure it must have done to many others too.

 

It wouldn't matter what Corbyn said or did. He doesn't have the charisma or press support to matter.
He was ineffective and virtually invisible because he opposes the EU, though. He always has.
Several more years of him in charge will simply see the Tories strengthen, I'm afraid.

 

Sad, but true. An effective and credible opposition is essential, and he won't provide it