Off Topic The "Discuss Anything Else" Thread

They won't be setting up in Frankfurt .london is the global capital of the world and English is the global language
Not German or French.

 

What's hard is that you expect circumstances to set your country back from time to time but you don't ever expect to vote for them.
As looks likely we will now see the break up of the UK with Scotland leaving, stirling has dived, as have share prices, Morgan Stanley already moving 2000 jobs and this is only day 1. Construction likely to be reluctant to begin any new projects reflected by the plummet in share prices, multi nationals moving base to Europe. There must surely be some huge reward to offset this if we voted for it?

I am fortunate enough to be pretty secure but walking around looking at younger people today they just looked depressed, like someone just sold their future. The best speech I will say was Nicola Sturgeon, I was very anti her and the independence referendum at the time, I simply can't argue with her point of view now and say good luck to her.

A sad day that I feel will take many leave voters by surprise with the extent of it's consequence.

 

By the time sturgeon organises Indy vote 2 attitudes will have changed. The Euro won't seem as inviting. Scotland rejected it once with oil on its knees they will do again.

 

When you consider it in view of sacrifice and reward it just looks a startling choice, a huge risk for a small reward.

I would not rule out a reversal of the result within a further referendum. If perhaps after 2 months after which they will realise that as of today everyone stopped spending money and the economy has flat lined we could find the little Englander vote not willing to suffer for their vision, if the EU did what they needed in the beginning and offer genuine across the board reform, the premier elect could call another referendum on a face saving we have a better negotiation ticket and all the leavers will now snatch his hand off.

For today they face very real, very immediate and deep reaching consequence and by way of reward a theoretical prize some way in the distance, already Frage has said there is no 350m for the NHS, Boris has said we want to embrace immigration and we have no sign of a desperate EU offering an easy trade deal. (they can simply wait the two years on existing terms and then cut us loose without a deal).

 

I think that the Eurosceptics on the continent will be bolstered by the success of the British Leave campaign. There is a very strong anti-EU feeling in The Netherlands and the EU has consistently forced them to keep having referenda until they get the right result. Given the parlous state of their banks, will the Italians be tempted?

The EU has demonstrated an inability to change over at least the last 35 years that led people like myself to conclude that the only way is out. I have nothing against Europeans but I will not be unhappy if we have dealt the EU a mortal blow.

If the UK first past the post electoral system were used, the EU Referendum would only have been fought in a handful of key marginals just like General Elections. By their nature, Referenda are binary questions, so one vote each has to be the fairest way on a non-party political issue.

 

The talk of a re-united Ireland was coming largely from the Republican side, who naturally campaigned for Remain. There is no prospect of Northern Ireland wanting to leave the UK because the majority in the province are unionists so a Referendum would be a waste of money.

They should give the English a vote on whether to give Scotland independence. Given that Yorkshire has a bigger population than them, I think the English are probably fed up of the Scottish tail wagging the British dog and would gladly jettison them. What would happen is that the wealth creators would move south of the border and Nicola Sturgeon would be off to Brussels to beg to join the EU and get a €2bn handout to bridge the deficit in the Alex Salmond fantasy budget that was based on $100-a-barrel oil.

No trade deal is necessary with the EU. We can trade with them on the same terms as many other major economies under WTO rules. If they want to impose tariffs on us them we will do the same to them. Their economies are in a much worse situation than ours and they need to trade so commonsense ought to prevail over punitive tariffs.

 

As I do not bet online, I never had a penny on Brexit. Given that the British electorate are a dreadful form guide for any election (remember those pollsters got stitched up in 2015), it was not something I would have bet on anyway.

A friend of mine has been invited to a Vote Leave party to celebrate their success.

 

There are a few interesting points in this article on the BBC News site: Eight reasons Leave won the UK's referendum on the EU

I think that points 1, 4 and 5 are particularly apposite. Too many (often EU-funded) bodies coming up with stories of economic meltdown, a Remain campaign led by a Tory PM for whom sixty per cent of the population never voted; and an ineffective campaign by a Labour Party whose leadership is completely out of touch with its core vote.

As it says in point 2, it was widely known that the £350m on the side of the bus was inaccurate but it captured the public imagination.

As I have said repeatedly, we do not have to do a deal with the EU to trade with them. Although Farage played the immigration card well with low paid workers, what the country needs is controlled immigration from anywhere in the World as Boris was happy to confirm.

I would say that if the EU can perform real reform in the next two years, I would not be averse to staying in the EU; however, I will see flying pigs before that happens. Free movement of people has to go, the supremacy of law has to be at a National not European level and the whole structure of the Brussels establishment has to be fundamentally changed. The EU should be the servant of the people of Europe not the other way around.

 

There are plenty of other English speaking countries in the EU whom are willing to cut their corporation tax to ridiculously low levels to attract them (ahem Ireland). I agree that most financial institutions are better off in London but the tech, pharma, etc companies would see more reason to be in the EU simply to have greater access the whole of Europe and still be able to deal with Britain from within the EU. Look at Google Facebook Apple etc all based in Ireland. Plenty more would consider Ireland a greater gateway to the EU than London.

 

I would also think it is unlikely to see NI leave but when five of the six counties voted to stay in the EU it would cause the same sort of anger as the Scots feel about being pushed out of the EU against their will. One other point that should be made is that Northern Ireland's economy is heavily dependant on agriculture and tourism, both of which have been strongly supported financial by the EU. I can't see the British government filling this hole in their economy.

 

A sincere question for those who voted leave.

Having now seen the fall out and real possibility of isolation rather than independence, seeing how much the impact of the vote has had on the economy, recognising Scotland is likely to go, and that recession long and deep is likely.

If you could change the vote, would you? or would you choose where we stand this evening?

 

what fall out? its not even been 24 hours, looks to me like markets just were not expecting leave to win and there was a big overreaction as it became obvious it was going to

ive never voted in my life and wasnt interested in the outcome of this, irrelevant to me, at the end of day, scumbags are still in control and the best interests of the man on the street is never going to be on any agenda

 

Because the vote was counted differently in NI, it is difficult to be sure but it would be reasonable to conclude that the Republicans voted Remain almost to a man and the unionist vote probably split along similar lines to many places in England. A Referendum on uniting Ireland would be heavily politicised so unionists would vote for the Union.

Remember the £350m a week? Actually, we know that it was £342m, but we also know that we were only getting half of it back. The rest was being spent subsidising other EU member states.

What we can do is continue to give grants to the Northern Ireland tourist industry and continue to give support to farmers all over this country (whilst not subsidising the French, etc) and we can spend the money that never came back on things like the NHS or other public services as we choose.

During the campaign, Farage (amongst others) claiming that £350m could be spent on the NHS was somewhere between fanciful rhetoric and a bare-faced lie but it got the public’s attention in a campaign of spin.

 

I do not agree with the notion of isolationism. This is not the USA between the wars. We have the whole World to trade with and many of them are our friends in the Commonwealth. If Juncker thinks he is going to play hard-ball, it is the EU that is going to be the biggest loser even though that would inflict damage on us.

There is a recession coming anyway, which will doubtless be blamed on this vote by those in power as it is a convenient scapegoat.

I have nothing against the Scottish but it has become evident that they have rabid socialist tendencies that are incompatible with England, which outnumbers it more than ten to one. Their MPs vote on laws that do not apply in Scotland, which I believe to be fundamentally unfair so I will be quite happy to see Westminster shorn of 50 SNP members as the money saved would fund 100 NHS nurses who would be much more useful to the rest of the UK.

Therefore, at this stage I am expecting to get what I voted for and I will be watching to make sure that our less than honourable members do not try to water down my demands by simply signing up for some sort of poor Norwegian-type deal with the Failing Superstate.

 

Jeasous lads what have you done

 

Has the stock market collapsed? Has Armageddon occurred?

Well, not quite.

The markets had become so convinced that Remain were going to win that they had risen for the last couple of days and currencies had stabilised. Then they woke up on Friday morning and found that Leave had squeaked it.

The markets east of here took a nose-dive, starting in the Far East and spreading across Europe. The FTSE 100 opened down more than six-and-a-half per cent, reflecting the declines elsewhere.

By the time the Dow Jones started trading in New York, the FTSE 100 had started to recover much of its losses. Anybody that day traded the FTSE 100 and bought at the bottom could have make a tidy sum as it climbed back up. The Dow only opened down two-and-a-half per cent and FTSE 100 jumped to join it.

At close of play, the FTSE 100 was down 1.9 per cent on the day but was actually UP on the week.

The FTSE 250 had a much worse time of it, with the Mid Cap market trading down almost twelve per cent but rallying to close off by 7.2 per cent. Perhaps that is more of an indication of the real economy than the big blue chips.

When the Dow Jones closed, it had lost 3.39 per cent, led – just like Europe and the UK – by the banks and finance houses. Morgan Stanley, who have already announced that they intend to relocate 2,000 British jobs (probably to Dublin) lost over ten per cent.

 

Loving the fact that Boris says we should "embrace immigration". My estimate is that 95% of the leave vote is from people that want us to shut up shop!

Would also like to take issue with Nicola Sturgeon wishing to challenge the result as Scotland clearly wanted to stay. Well love you knew the referendum was coming and you voted to stay as part of the Union. That Union has voted to leave. Tough titty Nicola, yet another referendum you have been on the losing side of!

 

You stupid

That was not the case QM.

I am currently exiled in leafy South Belfast which is a roughly 50/50 area re religion and had a significant remain vote.

It should also be noted that the population here are largely professional and people who actually contribute to the UK economy.

The turn out in Nationalist areas,such as West Belfast,was very low.

 

Incisive.