Brexit

gcthomas

gcthomas

New member
@DR, the EU referendum is fundamentally about world views, so little can be said to change someone's views, and intelligent people on either side can come to a rational view that supports either option. However, I wanted to offer an alternative interpretation for your concerns, and to correct a few inaccurate myths.

Desert Reign said:
1. Over the years, our prime ministers have voted 70+ times in the council of ministers of the EU on matters which potentially affect our country. In precisely none of these votes was our will obtained.
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There were indeed 70+ votes that went against us, but in that time we were on the winning size several thousands of times, so while your first comment is accurate, the second is wildly off.

Desert Reign said:
2. In the EU Court of Justice (the supreme court, the final arbiter from which there is no redress) over about a hundred or more actions, we have won no more than 30%.
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Since only the strongest cases get to that court, that figure sounds reasonable.

Desert Reign said:
3. On the basis of 1 and 2, it is clear that the British simply do not see eye to eye with the EU. Our thinking is completely different: it took us over 10 years to get rid of Abu Hamza, a proven hate-monger. Why, because we had to follow liberal humanitarian principles as determined by the ECHR. We are a pragmatic people, they are idealistic. I don't see the point in sharing a bed with them just for the sake of it. We get nothing out of it at all.
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Again, in the time that we had 50 criminals given permission to remain in the UK, the EU arrest warrant system allowed us to deport 6500 EU criminals. Seems a good deal.

Desert Reign said:
4. For all these negative points we have the privilege of being the second largest net contributor to the EU budget. We pay a net figure of about £10b for the honour of being never listened to, not represented at all and really being the one 'they saw coming a mile off', everybody's fool.
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Last year we had a bill for £13B, the £5B rebate along with £4.5B Eu spending in the UK takes our net contribution only £3.5 billion.
Still a lot, but not £10 billion.

Desert Reign said:
5. Half of our laws are determined for us by the EU Commission, not by parliament. This has led to a number of occasions where our parties have made promises they were unable to keep because the ECJ overruled it. We cannot abolish tampon tax, we cannot reduce VAT on home heating bills and myriad other issues. Worse is that this EU Commission that makes all the laws is unelected. It consists mostly of former government ministers from member states who have lost elections and who somehow manage to get a permanent job for their retirement. And they invent silly laws like the shape of vegetables that are allowed to be sold in shops. Which means that all the mis-shapes just get thrown away. But there is nothing whatsoever that anyone can do to challenge these laws or the people who make them.
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According to the House of Commons Library, the law figure is 13%. If you include the rules and regulations that are not of the status of laws, that could go to 60%, but that includes irrelevant things as Olive Growing regulations that only affect a handful of countries.

The tampon tax was a UK invention. What the EU does is stop member states from changing which products are tax-exempt. We are stuck with what we thought was good at the time we joined. Apparently, the UK, along with every other world nation and most US states, thought that tampons should be taxed as luxuries. In any case, the EU had a vote last month, at the UK's urging, and the vote went our way. We won the vote, and can now change the tax on tampons, although the UK govenment is a little tardy in changing the regulation now that it can. EU democracy in action.

And the silly vegetable shape law is a complete myth. Misshaped vegetable could not be sold as 'extra' standard, but they could be, and were, sold as Class I or Class II vegetables — they never had to be thrown away.

Desert Reign said:
6. The EU has made huge mistakes in the past such as creating butter mountains so that farmers can be given subsidies. Or by the fisheries policy which has totally ruined our own fishing industry, with its silly wasteful laws that if you bring in a catch more than your quota, you have to dump the excess into the sea. The main object of these subsidies is to protect EU industries at the expense of third world industries, especially agricultural ones.
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Fisheries policy needs reform, but the fish need protecting if the fisheries are not going to collapse like the Canadians did to theirs in the Grand Banks. At least our fishing industry still survives along with the fish.

Desert Reign said:
7. Not content with correcting their mistakes, they pursue them. Here is another mistake. Allowing many more countries into the union who were much poorer than the existing members. For example, freedom of movement of workers worked well when all the countries were economically equal. It means that if we have a surfeit of scientists, they can work happily in Holland, or vice versa. The principle worked well but the EU can’t see the difference between idealism and practice. The result is that all the poorest workers rush to the richest countries with their minimum wages and social benefits. Such mass movements were surely not intended when the idea was conceived, yet the EU can’t distinguish between idea and reality.
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First, most of the inward migration to the UK comes from outside the EU, and we still haven't been able to control it much — we need the EU to help us it seems.
Secondly, should we send Scots and Welsh home from England? Or Brummies back from London and prevent their economic migrations to where the jobs are? Most migration here in the SE is from other parts of the UK, so that over 95% of my coworkers come from a different county. EU migration has a minimal effect relative to internal population movements.

Feel free to vote out — that is a perfectly reasonable choice. But please don't pretend that the choice is based on unarguable facts, when we are all working from predetermined political opinions and instincts and few of the facts are accurate.
 
musterion

musterion

Well-known member
Prophetic in so many applications.


Eatanswill is on the map this morning
freemen's hopes are firmly fixed on us
Boxing Day's a handy day
for which to choose a candidate
and we shall do so with the maximum fuss!

There'll be a hell of an election
in the air the smell of an election
it'll be a difficult selection
for you to choose
we'll have a difficult decision
we'll have to make a decision
for if we make the make the wrong decision
for the man we choose
in the long run
we're the ones who lose.
 
rocketman

rocketman

Resident Rocket Surgeon
Hall of Fame
Totton Linnet said:
I am not a conservative, half the free world is not conservative...I believe in helping others along and I like my taxes to be spent that way, if a majority agree with me then we get a different government, that's democracy.
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Democracy? that is just mob rule, a nanny state, it is obvious what you dislike is liberty. You say half the free world is not conservative, and it is no wonder why it is so screwed up now that liberals have had it their way.
 
Desert Reign

Desert Reign

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
gcthomas said:
Feel free to vote out — that is a perfectly reasonable choice. But please don't pretend that the choice is based on unarguable facts, when we are all working from predetermined political opinions and instincts and few of the facts are accurate.
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I wasn't pretending, I got the details from reputable news sources. However, if they are wrong then I am more than happy to admit it, however, I am pretty ill now and haven't the energy to go checking it out.
 
alwight

alwight

New member
Desert Reign said:
I wasn't pretending, I got the details from reputable news sources. However, if they are wrong then I am more than happy to admit it, however, I am pretty ill now and haven't the energy to go checking it out.
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I recently found out that I am very ill myself with perhaps only months left. I was immediately put on antidepressants. The first one drained my strength and although I found the second one to be worse I chose to stick with it since I was led to believe I would eventually see a benefit, but it didn't happen.
I was tired and lethargic and didn't care a rat's for the EU, in or out.

Nearly a week ago I stopped taking any antidepressants and began taking steroids.
Today was the first time for a while that my head was reasonably clear to think properly and some physical fitness has returned to me along with a desire to eat.
With my now regained faculties I concluded that despite everything the UK has been a better place after being in the EU and that most of our nuttier politicians want us to vote leave.

Today I enjoyed the strength to walk to the polling station and cast my vote to remain in, and now I intend to have a beer.

You don't need to respond to this DR, but best wishes for your own situation. :e4e:
 
drbrumley

drbrumley

Well-known member
I have no idea how this vote will turn out, but I suspect that the opportunity for Britons to leave the Union will lose, and probably by a large margin. What nation wallows in “tradition” more than this one? This is the land of “Downton Abbey,” a country where bowing and scraping at the feet of established authority may have worked its way into the DNA of most of its population. The Brits never fully recovered from the 18th century American colonials’ separation from the Empire; a parting of the ways that was fueled by the liberating ideas of Tom Paine and the Jeffersonian-drafted Declaration of Independence. I have neither heard nor read of any equally inspiring words underlying the Brexit effort. Is there a modern Sam Adams at work in this land of Tories?

The anti-Brexit forces have warned that a break with the EU would be economically disastrous for Great Britain. You know, much as the colonials choosing to depart the Empire destroyed America’s likelihood of ever being creative and productive, right? Right? I sincerely hope I am wrong on my prognosis, and do find it encouraging that, in this land in which the sun never sets on the status quo, a significant number of serfs are at least considering the possibility of living outside politically-structured cages.


The Brexit Vote

Butler Shaffer
 
musterion

musterion

Well-known member
Still way, way too early but it's 266k OUT vs 259k IN. But like leftist enclaves in this country, London will cancel out a whole lot of Leave votes.
 
kmoney

kmoney

New member
Hall of Fame
drbrumley said:
I have no idea how this vote will turn out, but I suspect that the opportunity for Britons to leave the Union will lose, and probably by a large margin. What nation wallows in “tradition” more than this one? This is the land of “Downton Abbey,” a country where bowing and scraping at the feet of established authority may have worked its way into the DNA of most of its population. The Brits never fully recovered from the 18th century American colonials’ separation from the Empire; a parting of the ways that was fueled by the liberating ideas of Tom Paine and the Jeffersonian-drafted Declaration of Independence. I have neither heard nor read of any equally inspiring words underlying the Brexit effort. Is there a modern Sam Adams at work in this land of Tories?

The anti-Brexit forces have warned that a break with the EU would be economically disastrous for Great Britain. You know, much as the colonials choosing to depart the Empire destroyed America’s likelihood of ever being creative and productive, right? Right? I sincerely hope I am wrong on my prognosis, and do find it encouraging that, in this land in which the sun never sets on the status quo, a significant number of serfs are at least considering the possibility of living outside politically-structured cages.


The Brexit Vote

Butler Shaffer
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I haven't read enough to have an educated opinion on In/Out but I do tend to think the economic concerns are overblown. As long as the rest of Europe doesn't attempt to retaliate in some way. :idunno:

Using the Britain/America vs Britain/EU comparison, Britain even has a better chance since they are an already developed nation.
 
ok doser

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
kmoney said:
I haven't read enough to have an educated opinion on In/Out but I do tend to think the economic concerns are overblown. As long as the rest of Europe doesn't attempt to retaliate in some way. :idunno:

Using the Britain/America vs Britain/EU comparison, Britain even has a better chance since they are an already developed nation.
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when did Britain become a developed nation? :freak:



or is this kinda like bammy "organizing" the community of Chicago?
 
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