ruffrecords
Well-known member
There is a lot of history to this and many older people who lived through it voted for Brexit. The UK first applied to join the Common Market, as it was called then, in 1961. But Charles De Gaulle, still very bitter by how he had been treated by the UK government during WWII, blocked it. It was not until de Gaulle died in 1970 the the UK applied again and was soon accepted. You have to remember that at this time the British Commonwealth was an important factor in the UK economy. Much of our lamb and butter came from New Zealand, most of our wheat came from Canada, sugar from Jamaica and so on. Trade terms were favourable and these items were cheap. When we joined the Common Market, it seemed we turned our back on the Commonwealth for which they have probably not forgiven us. The result was immediate price rises in basic goods like bread and butter. Not many years later, due to the stupidity of the Common Agricultural Policy, Europe ended up with huge surpluses of butter and wine, called a wine lake and butter mountain at the time much of which was sold off below cost or given away. People were beginning to dislike being in Europe..In the following years, the European powers, now known to be residing in Brussels, began to bring a raft of measures that did not go down well in the UK They seemed to be nibbling away at everything that is British. We now have to weigh everything in metric. It is illegal to use scales calibrated in pounds weight. Our sausages were deemed not to be sausages. There were similar attacks on our cheeses. There were many more examples. Not one was important on its own but. More and more rules and regulations came down from Brussels. In the meantime many of our fishermen lost the rights to their traditional fishing grounds and they had to share them with other European fisherman resulting in the decline of the fishing industry. Then there is immigration. When we joined the Common Market the Treaty Of Rome stated anyone could go to work in any other European country provided they had been recruited to work there. Over the years this was morphed into anyone cane live anywhere in Europe whether they have a job or not. And then there is the whole question of how the Common Market has been gradually changed into the European Union and how its ultimate goal is a federal European government.SIXTYNINER said:
There are plenty more examples like this. The point is a lot of people my age (over 60) feel that joining the Common Market has been nothing but bad news . In the last 40 years they feel Britain has prospered despite the EU not because of it. Brits have always valued their sovereignty and many feel it has been eroded too far. We don't take kindly to people trying to curb our freedoms.
Cheers
ian
. It seems a robot weapon targeting system should be superior to a human's. Why design robot soldiers who can't hit obvious targets (perhaps for entertainment value, campy but unrealistic)?
