Off Topic The Politics Thread

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Should the UK remain a part of the EU or leave?

  • Stay in

    Votes: 56 47.9%
  • Get out

    Votes: 61 52.1%

  • Total voters
    117
  • Poll closed .
If there's a mug of coffee in front of you as you type, Oslo, I bet it's half empty... :emoticon-0100-smile

I'm just allowed 1 mug of freshly ground perculated expresso a day with milk now, and it goes down pretty quick. Right now my pint of pale ale is about 7/8 full. Everything is good. Probably not what you really wondered but then I got no idea what you did mean!
 
That's where you and I differ Goldy. I believe Obama achieved world peace in his 8 years because he didn't make idle threats. He didn't invade other countries. He achieved things like the Paris Climate change agreement for the good of all the people of the world together, irrespective of Borders. He saw the full picture. Trump will reverse all that in an instant.

Each country in Europe is retaining it's own culture as far as I can see. I would rather go on a journey from Dublin to Istanbul and enjoy the different languages, the different food, the all the different cultures and landscapes than a journey from LA via Taxas and Oklahoma to New York where nothing changes throughout the journey. Trump believes in dividing his own nation and upsetting his neighbours. I can guarantee you one thing, the world today will be a far better, more peaceful place overall than the world the day Trump walks out of office. America will be far more divided in 4 years time than it is today. Not too sure why you say Michelle Obama looks down her nose at the Emerald Isle. I always got the opposite impression.

A lady - not That lady!
 
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I'm just allowed 1 mug of freshly ground perculated expresso a day with milk now, and it goes down pretty quick. Right now my pint of pale ale is about 7/8 full. Everything is good. Probably not what you really wondered but then I got no idea what you did mean!

I meant that where the future of the UK is concerned, you seem to be a glass half empty, not glass half full man. Good to hear the pale ale isn't following suit!
 
Not sure about doing nothing, Obama had a big thing with using drones on civilians. As to independence ? How much of that would survive a free trade deal with the USA if it included any of the conditions of TTIP or CETA ? Do you want global players to be able to take whole countries to offshore courts if their products fail safety or environmental standards - Philip Morris did exactly this because of anti smoking posters in Mexico. Do you think it does anything for British sovereignty to give up the pooled sovereignty of the EU. simply to go into another trading zone which has even worse conditions attached to it ? The Brexiters should have been running around waving the stars and stripes because it is what many of them wanted all along - this would, at least, have been honest.

Personally, I want a similar trading arrangement with the EU as I do with the US. Don't think any of us should have preconceived ideas on what a new trading deal with Trump US will contain
 
Many sucessful businessmen do in the US. It's accepted that entrepreneurs do sometimes fail.

And there's me thinking 'entrepreneurs' were supposed to be risk-takers. It's easy if you only risk other people's money.

Note so self:
The secret of success in business - don't pay your creditors or your taxes.
 
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And there's me thinking 'entrepreneurs' were supposed to be risk-takers. It's easy if you only risk other people's money.

Note so self:
The secret of success in business - don't pay your creditors or your taxes.

I'm sure Trump would have taken a big hit on his failed ventures. The US law is such, to encourage enterprise, and creditors know they trade in that environment. The whole concept of incorporation limits liability, and we invented it.

I have more sympathy with your tax argument. Americans think Trump was smart to avoid taxes by contrived, technical schemes - if that was the case here, we wouldn't think Jimmy Carr was the cnut that he is
 
Just a wild guess Finglas, Russians are not your favourite people?
For the record, she comes from Slovenia, in the former Yugoslavia, nowhere near Russia...
Thanks Shawswood for pointing that out. Maybe I was confusing Melanie with the classier ex-wife Ivana :emoticon-0100-smile. I see Melanie was born in Slovenia in 1970 when it was an iron curtain country so.......at the time she was born, Slovenia was a Russian ally.
 
Personally, I want a similar trading arrangement with the EU as I do with the US. Don't think any of us should have preconceived ideas on what a new trading deal with Trump US will contain
Same as. I keep reading so much negativity as if people want us to fail so they can say "Nah nah, I told you so".
Sky News/BBC/on here. The point is, a lot of the 'remoaners' will be disappointed when it sorts itself out and that's sad.
Amazed how they can knock Brexit when things look bad but say nothing when good news like growth figures are announced? It's like you can here a pin drop. Anything negative.. "It's bad". Anything positive... "We haven't left yet". I also love all the long arsed complicated explanations trying to explain things to sound intelligent when it actually means bugger all. Or some bloke on the news referring to people who voted to leave as racists/idiots and telling us what will happen and when it doesn't he disappears up his own a@@@.

Yesterday President erect Donald Trumpton said he wanted to do a deal with us. This should be welcomed. Today Sky news said he can change his mind and we should take with a large pinch. A few months back Obama said we would be back of the queue. Sky reported said it was the end of the world?
Answers on a postcard addressed to "impartial press dedicated to the Remoaners"
 
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I meant that where the future of the UK is concerned, you seem to be a glass half empty, not glass half full man. Good to hear the pale ale isn't following suit!
OK! The UK seems to me to have been committing financial/politico suicide since Cameron decided to make a referendum on the EU. And a quick look at the fall in the £ since then confirms that glass is totally empty. A full casket remains of the good fundament vintage grapes in larger, but fragmented opposition
 
OK! The UK seems to me to have been committing financial/politico suicide since Cameron decided to make a referendum on the EU. And a quick look at the fall in the £ since then confirms that glass is totally empty. A full casket remains of the good fundament vintage grapes in larger, but fragmented opposition

Our exports are flourishing on the low pound, and we're still the fastest growing economy in the G7 which must count for something.
 
Our exports are flourishing on the low pound, and we're still the fastest growing economy in the G7 which must count for something.
There is lots of reasonable economic news coming out of the UK for the last months during which time we have of course remaimed in the same single market. But it counts for little in the financial markets when the noise coming from the Government regarding the future is repeatedly hari kari.
 
OK! And a quick look at the fall in the £ since then confirms that glass is totally empty.
About 4 years ago I got €1 to £1 (give or take a few pence) We were in the EU then. The pound will always go up and down. That was said from the Bank of England guy.
 
Personally, I want a similar trading arrangement with the EU as I do with the US. Don't think any of us should have preconceived ideas on what a new trading deal with Trump US will contain
Trade agreements consist of agreement on tariff levels on the goods/services involved (which should be easy), the standards which the goods/services need to meet (more complex, where these differ between the two parties), and the regulation/customs processes surrounding buying and selling stuff. With the EU at present we have zero tariffs, harmonised standards and a customs union. The EU agreements also govern the quality of what is imported from outside the EU and the tariffs (only 3% for the US goods - virtually no food because of GM - at present). Presumably we will want something similar with all of our future trading parties. On the Standards stuff, which is very important for us consumers, it will be very complicated. Or we could just adopt EU standards as ours, which would make things easier, but still exclude certain products/services from certain countries.

One thing which (probably to your surprise) I think we should do is politely tell the EU to **** off with its 'you are not allowed to formally negotiate bilateral trade agreements while you are still in the EU' line. This is an unprecedented situation, no country has left the EU in this way before, as soon as we invoke Article 50 we will be going and we have the right to look to the future, especially as we know most of these agreements take a minimum of three years to sign off. We would not implement any agreements until we have left, but should be free to set them up (though I doubt we have the capacity and competence to do many).

The thing which confuses me is that free trade is what the big business globalists like, and I thought many Brexit voters don't like them. Surely a more protectionist stance would be better for the core vote, at least in their opinion. Is the UK government both pro free trade but against the impact of globalisation on British citizens?
 
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About 4 years ago I got €1 to £1 (give or take a few pence) We were in the EU then. The pound will always go up and down. That was said from the Bank of England guy.
A few years ago, well more than a few, I received £1 for $1.05. For me they were the good old days as my US salary was calculated at $2.30/£1.00.