Off Topic Brexit

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
Big problem with politics globally that, politicians are just highly educated people who had politics as a side interest and decided to hop into it.

Or, they're career politicians and have learnt how to do the "politicking" very well. not actually how to do the job at hand.

I still hold that the Swiss have the best system, people hired for very specific jobs, the best people for the job. Not some Eton educated or Cambridge attending toff who knows as much about ancient Greek or the infrastructure of Pompeii as they do the economy.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rafman
Ha ha unfortunately the competition for him is pretty similar, in all parties.

Starmer has a razor-sharp mind. A bit dull and robotic, but Labour has a future again if he can hold it together.
Ed Davey's a bit of an ineffectual lightweight, but his heart is definitely in the right place.
Johnson has no attributes except making people laugh with his affected goofiness and an empty but nice turn of phrase. Not many are laughing now.
 
Johnson has an optimistic personality, that kinda **** grabs people by the balls and never lets go.

I've said this for ****ing years on politics threads on this site, Labour's biggest weakness is their consistent underestimation of the Conservative loyalists, it's spreading like ****ing wildfire across England and even now Wales too.

Every single time I've said Labour will lose, they have lost heavily despite the polls. I'm sorry, being extremely toxic and shouting people into hiding isn't working for Labour, they just pop up again at the election and vote blue again and again.

Labour need to kick out these ****ing useless mongrels who flooded in with Corbyn and start fresh.

I like Starmer, I think he would be a good prime minister, btw.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Number 1 Jasper
Johnson has an optimistic personality, that kinda **** grabs people by the balls and never lets go.

I've said this for ****ing years on politics threads on this site, Labour's biggest weakness is their consistent underestimation of the Conservative loyalists, it's spreading like ****ing wildfire across England and even now Wales too.

Every single time I've said Labour will lose, they have lost heavily despite the polls. I'm sorry, being extremely toxic and shouting people into hiding isn't working for Labour, they just pop up again at the election and vote blue again and again.

Labour need to kick out these ****ing useless mongrels who flooded in with Corbyn and start fresh.

I like Starmer, I think he would be a good prime minister, btw.

Agree with all that. Can't understand why anyone would find empty optimism appealing in a PM. In his case it's an acronym for Prime Micawber.
 
I'm hoping, but not confident that there will be a deal of some description. Only the US election result has given the ERG no deal mission something of a jolt. It amuses me that fishing is still out there.
As a fairly old man, I doubt I will see the moment we rejoin the European community, but I will live in hope.

'Pause here a moment to consider what monumentally dishonest use the Brexiters make of the romance of coastal ports and fishing villages, whose 12,000 small boat fishermen are more precious for picturesque tourism than the value of their catch. True, the overall UK quota is historically unfair. But the greater injustice by far to our fishers is our own government’s allocation of quotas to large companies. Two-thirds of the UK’s quota of fish goes to just three multinationals; boats under 10m long get just 4% though they account for 77% of fishers. A Greenpeace report found a quarter of Britain’s quota was owned by five families, all in the Sunday Times rich list.

What’s more, Britain is almost alone in allowing holders of the UK quota to sell it to foreign companies: so one Dutch ship, landing its fish in the Netherlands, had the right to catch 23% of the UK’s quota. British “slipper skippers” were allowed to put their feet up and live off the earnings from selling their quota to foreign companies. If concern for our small boat fishing fleet were really the impediment to a vital Brexit deal, the government should be getting tough on preventing this sell-off. If Brexit was for protecting the little boats championed in a flotilla up the Thames ahead of the referendum, where’s the pledge to take the quota off the giant companies to give to them?'
 
Much of your passionate retort relates to places like Greece and southern Italy. I was referring to the UK referendum and a general view of the E.U. Regardless, the 2019 polls for these two countries (which are among the most hostile to the E.U) were Greece 53/43 in favour and Italy 58/38 in favour. Results suggest they very much wish to remain even if they have suffered economically in the past decade.
Of course sanction measures apply in E.U states if violating regulations. Are you suggesting the abolition of beaurocracy and red tape? It's a necessary evil for any country, let alone 27.
Freedom of movement and immigration are two distinct issues. Immigration for economic or refuge-seeking reasons is not a problem created by the E.U. If anything, the UK has played a part in creating the instability in regions like the Middle East.

There's a huge movement in Italy and Greece similar to what we had 5 or 6 years ago campaigning to leave the EU. Sweden, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Austria are also said to be watching what's happening with us and whether we can make a success of it without the EU.

The General feeling is that Poland will be out of the EU next, both them and Hungary are absolutely fed up of the bureaucracy of the EU telling them what they can and can't do and they want a reform for the EU to revert back to what it was supposed to be, a coalition of countries which share free trade and travel, not a government telling them what to do.
 
My point was that a referendum of such great importance that was going to affect that age group more than someone aged, say 80, should have been included in that electorate. Just because it's not been done before doesn't make it right - history has shown that over and over.
In my opinion, 16 and 17 year olds should have been included.

Utter bullshit. Why not campaign against every vote ever held then and say it wasn't fair because 16 and 17 year olds at that time weren't included. In my opinion 16 and 17 is far too young to actually have an opinion on politics.
 
  • Like
Reactions: magpie290761
Sounds like you're arguing for regular referendums on the E.U. 2026 may be a goer as it'd be a decade since the previous one.

No one wants another referendum apart from people who can't accept the result of the last one.

I do actually think the public should be consulted more though like an actual democracy. I wouldn't be against for example Boris and the EU having an agreement and then putting it to a general vote to see if the actual people of the UK think it's a good deal.
 
  • Like
Reactions: magpie290761
Starmer has a razor-sharp mind. A bit dull and robotic, but Labour has a future again if he can hold it together.
Ed Davey's a bit of an ineffectual lightweight, but his heart is definitely in the right place.
Johnson has no attributes except making people laugh with his affected goofiness and an empty but nice turn of phrase. Not many are laughing now.

Yet for someone who has a Razor sharp mind, he likes to sit on the fence and then agree with the tories anyway, until afterwards when he turns in to Mr Hindsight.
 
  • Like
Reactions: magpie290761
It's not about the fish, it's about taking back what belongs to us, it's about freedom and being able to control our waters, something which the UK has thrived on for hundreds of years.

How is it right that EU vessels are allowed to attack our vessels without any sanctions, without any payback, why are we allowed to be bullied in our own territory?

If its only 0. 01 % of the economy, why are the French and Dutch so concerned about it? Why are they panicking and stating that it will ruin their coastal communities if they no longer have access to our waters? Why are they so adamant that they won't give us a deal, if Fish aren't really that important to them, why are our fishing communities allowed to be ruined like they have been for decades, we used to have some of the finest ports in the world, now they are run down hell holes like Grimsby and Boston.
Our deep sea fishing fleet largely died due to the cod wars. This seems to have been completely erased from history for some though.

70% of what we catch, we export to the EU. Without a free trade deal with the EU the already small U.K. fishing industry is ****ed. The idea that we’re about to be create a huge fishing industry again is for the ****ing birds. Oh and most of our territorial waters are off the coast of Scotland btw. That’ll be the same Scotland who are being dragged out of the EU against their will, and will undoubtedly have another independence vote in the none too distant.
 
There's a huge movement in Italy and Greece similar to what we had 5 or 6 years ago campaigning to leave the EU. Sweden, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Austria are also said to be watching what's happening with us and whether we can make a success of it without the EU.

The General feeling is that Poland will be out of the EU next, both them and Hungary are absolutely fed up of the bureaucracy of the EU telling them what they can and can't do and they want a reform for the EU to revert back to what it was supposed to be, a coalition of countries which share free trade and travel, not a government telling them what to do.
This is absolute bullshit. Poland leave the EU? Hahahahaha, go have a look at their recent economic history and come back to me. Oh and this.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-union/
 
  • Like
Reactions: Munson.
Our deep sea fishing fleet largely died due to the cod wars. This seems to have been completely erased from history for some though.

70% of what we catch, we export to the EU. Without a free trade deal with the EU the already small U.K. fishing industry is ****ed. The idea that we’re about to be create a huge fishing industry again is for the ****ing birds. Oh and most of our territorial waters are off the coast of Scotland btw. That’ll be the same Scotland who are being dragged out of the EU against their will, and will undoubtedly have another independence vote in the none too distant.

But but but ... blue passports.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tobes
Our deep sea fishing fleet largely died due to the cod wars. This seems to have been completely erased from history for some though.

70% of what we catch, we export to the EU. Without a free trade deal with the EU the already small U.K. fishing industry is ****ed. The idea that we’re about to be create a huge fishing industry again is for the ****ing birds. Oh and most of our territorial waters are off the coast of Scotland btw. That’ll be the same Scotland who are being dragged out of the EU against their will, and will undoubtedly have another independence vote in the none too distant.
Can’t we trade without a free trade deal?
 
But But But ...... it’s not fair we want another vote

I don't want another vote. I think the reasoning behind Brexit doesn't stand up to most basic reasoning and was emotional rather than rational but it happened and let's roll with the punches. I think it was going to be a major negative to the economy for a number of years but has probably been dwarfed by Covid-19 now anyway so it's not going to be something we can judge.

Like most people, I'm just bored of it really.