im British. i can change the British Govt. i cant change anything in that dictatorship called the EU. you just dont get it. why did you leave France ? ...

edit.
i was born British by the grace of God English. i have never been or shall ever be European.

after that reply i have no doubt another ban is going to happen ...

Oh FFS, the EU has its faults, yes but calling it a dictatorship is patently ridiculous.
You can directly elect your MEP and the bits that aren't directly elected are normally appointed by the democratically elected governments of the member states. In terms of un-elected bureaucrats and civil servants our own government dwarfs the entire EU (by a factor of ~10:1).
Added to the fact that the UK government has voted in favour of or accepted pretty much everything the EU has enacted. No, we don't get our way all the time but hey, that's democracy for you. Something incidentally you are expecting at least 48% of the population to accept.

One of the problems we have with the EU is that we have always played a pretty tight game with it. For example, there are facilities available within the EU that would have made the recent steel industry problems less than they were. Our government elected not to take advantage of those, instead working on the notion that “the market” will do the job. I’ll warrant that in other EU states, they would have been all over that support & funding like a rash.

Right now, we have a tonne of problems - the big one being that our current government is clearly fixated on Brexit and very little else. Right now, we’re looking at a crisis within the NHS like we’ve never seen before. Further down the line will be transport, education and, no doubt, policing. I’m not exactly sure why the government is so blind to these problems, beyond the notion that Brexit will make it just that easier to flop it off to American interests. But then the Tories really don”t like the idea of public ownership of anything, and Brexit is a damn good distraction from other issues. Just wave Boris infant of a camera when you need to distract, mutter “will of the people” and the resulting noise will disguise any shenanigans behind the scenes.

The latest wheeze is the impact on Brexit on EUATOM - the mechanism that ensures that we don’t radiate ourselves, or anywhere else, by building/running dodgy nuclear reactors, or selling off plutonium to some of the more unpleasant nations on the planet. This illustrates the problems we have detaching ourselves from 40 years of being part of the EU - and we have to ask ourselves - what other similar mechanism exist that will need to be negotiated out of, replaces and agreed internationally to ensure that things keep going afterwards.

i believe that in any democracy the majority vote is the one that is used regardless of the size of that majority in accordance with their electoral system.
not so the case within the EU.

to put it in prospective at the last election 11 Million voted for the Conservatives and 8 Million Voted for Labour -- 17.4 Million voted for Brexit.


just as an aside.
we will get a massive majority Govt. at the next GE. not one i will vote for or agree with but that will be the case regardless of my views. thats how it works ...

But, according to your argument, all EU citizens who now live in the UK are there legally and after A50 is invoked, they will fall into your "good faith" bucket. That just leaves the non-EU illegals. They are illegal today and they will be illegal after A50... You don't need A50 to get rid of them.

That is why you vote for British representatives in Brussels...


I was born English, but I prefer a world without borders. I have met interesting people from different cultures and I could choose to live somewhere where I felt comfortable. The EU is a start, but it has a long way to go. It has its problems, but I prefer it to a parochial world, where everybody is scared of everything beyond their borders.

I would prefer a world without any borders, where you could travel everywhere freely, no countries fighting each other. It ain't going to happen, at least not in our lifetime, but it would be nice.

Having travelled a lot and having friends all over the EU, it always baffled me, that the UK complained about how bad the EU was and they never got anything out of it, but there are subsidies for farmers, that go unclaimed, there is funding for research, which often goes unclaimed, urban regeneration, road and network building... There are hundreds of areas where subsidies can be applied for, to make things better.

In most countries, people apply for the subsidies, but the UK government has always tried to down play what is available, moaning that the EU doesn't give us anything, but sneaking the annual refund on their dues back into the Treasury to try and balance their books. It makes the EU look bad and covers up part of the mismanagement of the UK government.

Here, in Germany, local authorities, small businesses and individuals are allowed to apply for any subsidies that they are entitled to, but, on the other hand, the German government has put a block on spending on credit by the local authorities. They are supposed to work themselves back into the black, without any additional handouts from the Treasury. It has worked in many places. Around here, nearly all of the local authorities are debt free and, whilst the road network in the towns has suffered and some projects were put on hold, they are starting to roll out new projects again, now that they have a surplus.


And the EU has kept the UK government in check in many other areas over the years. RIPA was pushed back for re-wroking on several occasions, as it is illegal, under EU law and EU human rights convention and constitution.

As soon as the Brexit vote went through, they pushed RIPA through again and ignored the EUs warning that it is still illegal. This could come back to bite the UK, once it leaves the EU.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/0 ... cy_shield/

Once Article 50 is triggered and the UK leaves the EU, they will need to apply for a version of the Privacy Shield agreement that the US has (which is also on shaky ground, for the same reasons as the UK). If the RIPA is still law, then there is no way that the UK companies will be able to store any personal information originating in Europe.

There was that whole Phorm debacle where our (UK) internet activities would be logged and monitored by a private company to serve targeted advertising. There was a whole mess of problems, but our government stood by and let it go on. It was the EU that forced that one to end (not before BT ran undisclosed live trials and ended up in hot water over that).

The EU has intervened on behalf of the people of the UK where rights, privileges and just tings like freedom of choice were being stifled by our government or large multinationals. We’ll be in a situation soon where we may not have the ability to take such action. Some companies have deeper pockets and better lawyers than we have.

You were born English / British by random chance, why should that afford you special privilege you would deny to others?

Also, you are European by definition, you were born in geographic Europe.

So apparently - reporting is a bit muddled, but then it generally is - Chancellor Hammond is planning to put £60bn of public money aside to pay for the negotiations of the Brexit deal and to fulfil our remaining international obligations under treaties etc. I suspect the number will in fact be different from that in the end (possibly more or less, but almost never equal to) but sufficed to say the chancellor thinks we're going to spend a whole mountain full of money getting out of the EU & the single market etc.

That's a mountain full of money that isn't going to the NHS, schools, libraries, caring for the elderly, roads... Makes the side of the bus quote seem like chicken feed, rather.

I'm still waiting for someone to give me one - *ONE* - concrete financial benefit Brexit will bring us that someone can sit down right now and say with certainty will happen. We're apparently going to spend 60 billion pounds to put our selves in a situation where all wise opinion says we'll be worse off. Brilliant.

Personally I voted against leaving BUT the £60 Billon is a bit of a red herring – it’s the amount that we might have to pay for commitment to projects we have already signed up to

http://theconversation.com/fact-check-will-the-brexit-divorce-bill-cost-the-uk-60-billion-72902

seems to have a good explanation

Thanks for digging that up .

Apparently there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the usually sedate world of Countryfile at the weekend. The show did a piece about what percentage of our food supply is grown domestically vs overseas, and what effect the likely changes in trade regimes after Brexit will have. Their conclusion seemed to be roughly "well, stuff that's out of season here will get more expensive, but there'll probably be more demand for domestically produced stuff in compensation so it might be an opportunity".

Apparently this was 'anti-brexit left wing propaganda' and John Craven an is now an Enemy of the People .