Brexit

zamproject said:

I don't think there is a EU motivation to make UK suffer just for the example, everything have consequences and a cost that's it  :-\

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We are both speculating about motives. Self-preservation is common behavior of large bureaucracies. 

EU can't fall because of brexit, other countries won't let this happen... (I'm sure some UK politician like to bring EU down with them, better for ultra-liberalism and business)

Also I don't get how some UK citizen can believe May will renegotiate ?!? this is a lie... like some of the brexit argument
EU was clear and repeat it all day long again, this one is the deal or no deal...

And last, about UK as "example", and why I think it's not necessary a pain wish from EU.
This is one point nobody never talk about, nuclear weapon, UK is fine alone, but now in EU only France have it, I don't see any country leaving EU, and lost this protection.

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NATO which is independent of the EU common market provides a (US) nuclear umbrella to balance against the threat from Russia. (I even served in one NATO maneuver (US army First Infantry Division) in Bavaria (1970) just across the border from east Germany where Soviet bloc military units were massed doing the same thing mere kilometers away. )

I have no idea what is the cost for this, I think it's in the unofficial balance, and why FR is relatively free with it's "3%" since years

Best
Zam

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All NATO member nations are expected to invest a percentage of their GDP into defense spending, something like 2% by 2024. Only recently have they been prodded to meet those commitments and many still don't.

JR

Hello JR

I don't write about NATO on purpose  :
So sure you will do it  8)

I agree with you, but NATO have issue too especially with your president now, as you say self preservation of large bureaucracy...
like US (through UK sometime) better need a weak EU  :
I'm sure there is some side agenda "in case", this start long time ago when FR start nuclear program in the late 50'
It's a De Gaulle wish somehow, he never completely trust US

I know more or less the NATO coast for the members.
I'm talking about what is in the balance in EU between EU member for the French nuclear military programme and hypothetical shield associated, especially since UK is no more in.

It's not in the common talk of our politician and bureaucrat (it don't look that peaceful), still I suspect it's not a marginal consideration for them.

Best
Zam

JohnRoberts said:

This sentiment is why the EU is playing hardball with UK over exit... They don't want it to be painless and encourage other member counties with similar complaints to follow a similar path.

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I don't think it's playing hard ball. The rules were pretty clear from the beginning. But Brexiters thoroughly hid the ugly truth. Now the UK citizens discover with stupefaction there is a price to pay...
It's like a divorce; nobody in their right mind would expect to come out of it unscathed.

It's a De Gaulle wish somehow, he never completely trust US

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De Gaulle was a very very very proud man and so he was ashamed of what happened to France in 1940.  He absolutely hated being obliged to the US and UK to recover France from the Germans.  He drove both Churchill and Roosevelt mad with his tantrums and they got completely fed up with him before D-Day.

This is the main reason he mistrusted the US and the UK and refused the UK membership to the CEE (EEC) when it first applied.

DaveP

abbey road d enfer said:

I don't think it's playing hard ball. The rules were pretty clear from the beginning. But Brexiters thoroughly hid the ugly truth. Now the UK citizens discover with stupefaction there is a price to pay...
It's like a divorce; nobody in their right mind would expect to come out of it unscathed.

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Yes exactly. Since the inception of the EU it has always been pretty clear that to have free access to the markets, you need to accept free movement (among other things). Nothing has changed and EU is simply standing by its rules....

ramshackles said:

Yes exactly. Since the inception of the EU it has always been pretty clear that to have free access to the markets, you need to accept free movement (among other things). Nothing has changed and EU is simply standing by its rules....

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The trouble is people and especially  EU bureaucrats have forgotten, that the definition of free movement when the EEC was  was formed was limited to person travelling to and from a job interview and subsequently after an offer of a job had been made. THe so called rules have been abused for many years.

Cheers

Ian

Which ignores the fact the the public were not interested in 'info'.

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Interesting how perceptions can differ. Outside the UK, from a distance of almost 12 hours by plane, it looked pretty much like people desperately wanted more info back then. But politicians and actors ON BOTH SIDES did not 'deliver'. But then again, how could they? Remember all the TV debates? Often just a lot of empty rhetoric coming from the stage, with people in the audience shaking their heads in consternation, mere disbelief and even fits of despair.

The trouble is people and especially EU bureaucrats have forgotten[...]

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Are people(?) and especially EU bureaucrats also to blame for the shortage in housing, the strain on the NHS, unbalanced opportunities in education as well as several years of workers' wages falling? All these issues had been part of the leave campaign back then. However, I'd still claim that all of them are mostly home-made and the outcome of shortcomings and failures in domestic policy marked by austerity-driven cuts in public spending and so forth, all entertained by successive UK governments over many years. It has been very popular in the UK to blame the gods for rainy weather.

Anyway, a lot of empty campaign rhetoric has cleared up and 'info' is mostly here today -- so the consequences are also much clearer now. Could easily call for another referendum asking people whether they want 'that deal' or 'no deal' -- reality changes as time passes, so that would sure be the most consistently democratic (magna carta etc).

Either way, after Brexit, I honestly wish all Brits a new government that is a little less self-serving and instead really caters to the needs of all people -- and especially to the needs of all those who voted 'leave' because they naively thought that leaving the EU would 'magically' also solve all other, domestic problems.

Better to be poor and free.

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?
I hear the passion, almost heroic, but not sure I fully understand. Leave rhetoric demystified?

-------
Xmas cookie break now and then back to work

However, I'd still claim that all of them are mostly home-made and the outcome of shortcomings and failures in domestic policy marked by austerity-driven cuts in public spending and so forth, all entertained by successive UK governments over many years.

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Successive UK governments have allowed excessive immigration over decades in order to keep wages down (basic supply and demand).  The knock on from this is that all the housing has been used up by said immigration.  As the UK is a finite island, people are reluctant to concrete over what green space is still left, so we have a housing crisis.  The price of houses goes up  (basic supply and demand) so higher wages are needed to pay for housing, but immigration holds down wages......crude social engineering, but that is why most wanted out of EU IMHO.

You are right in your analysis of the info being clearer now.

Better to be poor and free.

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  We were poor and free when we applied to join the EU  back in the 70's as I remember.

Theresa May has done her best to implement Brexit, but the compromise she has achieved has pleased no-one, so it looks like parliament will be unable to ratify.  With the 29th March looming, it is looking increasingly likely they will throw it back to the electorate with a second referendum.  Now having the info, they have changed their mind and want to remain, so two years of wasted effort.

DaveP

Wasn't it Theresa May who last year announced the biggest social housing programme in the UK since the 1950s or so? It's a start, albeit a bit late and maybe even for the wrong motives.

DaveP said:

Successive UK governments have allowed excessive immigration over decades in order to keep wages down (basic supply and demand).  The knock on from this is that all the housing has been used up by said immigration.  As the UK is a finite island, people are reluctant to concrete over what green space is still left, so we have a housing crisis.  The price of houses goes up  (basic supply and demand) so higher wages are needed to pay for housing, but immigration holds down wages......crude social engineering, but that is why most wanted out of EU IMHO.

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As you probably know, there is a similar housing crisis in France, but the cause is very different. Rents have increased dramatically in big cities (where is most of the employment) because of foreign investors and expats (positively discriminated immigrants?) having the rent paid by their company/organization.
The level of unoccupied housing is incredibly high; 8% in France, 15% in Paris, 25% in the touristic center of Paris (the Air BnB factor).
Most of poor immigrants live in housings no bona fide citizen would consider adequate.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the average family size is getting smaller and smaller, thus requiring more housing for a given population.
I don't know how different is UK vs. France.

There are 25,000,000 homes in the UK and 216,000 are unoccupied,  the percentage is  very small....Britain is full!

0.864%

That is the problem in a nutshell, completely different from France, which is why me and a million others live in your fair country!

DaveP

DaveP said:

There are 25,000,000 homes in the UK and 216,000 are unoccupied,  the percentage is  very small....Britain is full!

0.864%

That is the problem in a nutshell, completely different from France, which is why me and a million others live in your fair country!

DaveP

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I had to refresh my memory. 252,000km² vs. 550,000, same population, 26M homes vs. 35M.

DaveP said:

  We were poor and free when we applied to join the EU  back in the 70's as I remember.

DaveP

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I am trying to remain a fly on the wall and learn something as this history is made before our eyes, but UK and EU are not, and were not poor, otherwise their wouldn't be millions trying to migrate there.

I now return you to the previous discussion.

JR

Here's the transcript of a recent speech made by the UK's former representative to the EU.  Someone who's eminently more qualified to talk on this subject than basically everyone else.

https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2018/12/13/full-speech-sir-ivan-rogers-on-brexit/

It's long, but well worth the effort, but it makes difficult reading for the many people trotting out all the lines about reclaiming sovereignty, protecting borders, freeing ourselves from the 'restrictive' EU to be able to trade on our own terms etc etc.

Thank you for that link. 
He certainly hit one nail squarely on the head with "free movement is not at all the same business as external migration."

Yes, very informative +1

You know when after you wash your car...it rains?

And you wait at the lights with the clutch in, then when you give up and put it in neutral and apply the handbrake...the lights change?

This is the insurance lesson.....all the time you pay for it, nothing will happen, but as soon as you cancel, you will have a fire or a break-in.

Well, when I have finally got my carte de sejour and my French driving licence.....the UK will vote to remain.

Sod's Law never sleeps. ???

DaveP

Thanks for the link. Not entirely unbiased but a refreshing read.

Also not entirely free of sarcasm, as is good ol' British tradition, but not too overboarding.

Script said:

Thanks for the link. Not entirely unbiased but a refreshing read.

Also not entirely free of sarcasm, as is good ol' British tradition, but not too overboarding.

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Written by a career civil servant who read history at Oxford.  He might just as well be an EU bureaucrat

Cheers

Ian

The news here just now is full of a story about the eviction of family in Co.Roscommon .

It appears the Bank in question hired what looked like 8  former paramilitaries ,of the Unionist persuasion who traveled down from Northern Ireland  and removed by force the occupents of the house ,many neighbours came to their assistance and things got nasty , a few nights later 40 men in balaclava's show up and burn the security mens transport ,and send several to hospital . There was a Day-glo jacket protest today at the banks HQ in Dublin , looks like the place was smashed up , A video of the incident appeared on you tube ,cut with a scene from Movie 'The Feild'  , even though this isnt a Brexit story per say ,the actions of the bank in particular have fueled a kind of Republican back lash  , I think the vast majority of us here had hoped that the bad old days were behind us ,but circumstances surrounding Brexit are having a very marked impact on tension on the ground. especially so in border areas. There are hundreds of unsecured crossing points  along the border between Ireland north and south ,the Irish Army are examining the logistics of locking these down has already begun with drones surveying  for likely smuggling points . Many farms have access from both sides of the fence . If it is decided to lock down the 300 or so killometers its going to be a return to checkpoints and road blocks and men with guns like the old days . It seems like the Northern Ireland assembly and the good Friday agreement are almost voided by Brexit , darkest days Ive seen here in years to be honest . One possible outcome that might work would be a  Northern Ireland referendum on Brexit and allow the majority of people on the ground there have a say in what transpires post Brexit , in any case the DUP would fight any attempt to put the Brexit question to the people of Northern Ireland again , it was a clear majority in favour of remain the last time ,its all fairly undemocratic if you ask me .Voters on the British mainland had no concept of what hard border could mean to people in Ireland , when Brexit was sold to the public the complexities of Northern Ireland didnt even figure in the discussion .

Take note ,old tensions and rifts between both Irish and English culture are getting played up here , as our two cultures are so closely connected, if we try to hurt the otherside we end up hurting ourselves in the process , and it becomes a downward spiral all over again.

Just for reference  ,I said Id post the video ,
Just so you can see how its being  played out here on social media ,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxRehZr-0eE