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message 5801:
by
Marc
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Dec 28, 2017 11:51AM
Brexit could be a disaster for the EU if it conflates with other factors, such as The German banks tiring of bailing out Italy & Greece, or if Poland and or Hungary lurch even further to the Right, or Russia decides to & succeeds in stirring up real trouble in any of the Baltic States. Then there's Catalonia and potentially Northern Ireland too...
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It's already a disaster for the UK.
My passport has always been blue. *gloat*
The passport thing is just embarrassing; Brexit in a nutshell.I saw someone on Twitter compare Brexiters to a dog that finally managed to catch the car.
As an aside, I've realised that Elon Musk will have put a man on Mars before the UK manages to sign a trade deal with the EU.
Michael Cargill wrote: "It's already a disaster for the UK."again I beg to differ
We had the food banks and homeless shelter when we were loyal members of the EU
we're still members of the EU, inside the wonderful customs union everybody raves about, still paying in and still luxuriating in all the EU regulation
Any it's a disaster.
good job we are leaving then, wanders off singing 'things can only get better' :-)
Michael Cargill wrote: "The passport thing is just embarrassing; Brexit in a nutshell...."
It is, I've never met anybody wanting to leave who's shown the slightest interest in it but social media is full of remainers who are showing how positive they are and how determined they are to make things better by mocking it
Patti (baconater) wrote: "My passport has always been blue. *gloat*"so's mine when I can find it
I never had an EU passport, thanks to living under EU regulation and the CAP I've never needed to renew my passport
So how is Brexit going to make our lives better?
Michael Cargill wrote: "So how is Brexit going to make our lives better?"well it's irritated the hell out of a lot of people and has given them something to live for.
It's really boosted class solidarity, now if you reckon you're educated and especially if you live in the south east you can look down on the ignorant lumpen proletariat who should have been disenfranchised years ago
It's probably making Facebook and twitter a fortune in advertising revenue due to all the extra posting that's going on
surely we look up at the ignorant lumpenproletariat?
Marc wrote: "surely we look up at the ignorant lumpenproletariat?"Hey, if you want to, feel free. That's the joy of living in a democracy
Jim wrote: "Patti (baconater) wrote: "My passport has always been blue. *gloat*"so's mine when I can find it
I never had an EU passport, thanks to living under EU regulation and the CAP I've never needed to ..."
CAP?
Marc wrote: "surely we look up at the ignorant lumpenproletariat?"That sounds like a brand of musli.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "CAP."Common Agricultural Policy
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Marc wrote: "surely we look up at the ignorant lumpenproletariat?"That sounds like a brand of musli."
It is in London
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Marc wrote: "surely we look up at the ignorant lumpenproletariat?"That sounds like a brand of musli."
I thought it was this Bohemian dish.
The internal pressures on the EU are about to make the complex problem of Brexit fade into insignificance. Chances are that a deal will be cut quickly next year to allow the Commission to focus on the several crisis it is really facing.1) how to deal with the fact that two eastern states want to take the eye watering levels of EU money without following the Commission's drive to make their societies look like the Commission's model. The Commission wants to sanction Poland, but needs the approval of all 26 Member States - and Hungary will not play ball as they see themselves as the next target
2) What (as Marc says) to do when German banks decide to stop bankrolling the Greek bailout -which is not really a bailout, just forcing the mass sale of Greek State Assets to fund the interest payments on the loans from the German Banks
3) What to do when Italy's economy finally implodes, following Spain and Greece
4) what to do when Spain tears up any semblance of internal democracy and uses troops to stop Catalonia's drive for independance
5) What to do about the refugee crisis and the internal dissention about policy in that area, particularly the refusal of some countries to accept their quota of refugees
6) Macron's 'reforms' really mean tearing up the much vaunted Worker's Rights that represents the EU's smokescreen over it's hard right wing economic agenda. What threat to stability does that represent? (And we are better off out of that coming debacle)
7) The Euro - will it survive the collapse of another major economy (Italy) in the Eurozone, while Germany still refuses to accept the principle of Capital Transfers from richer countries to poorer countries?
We already saw fractures in November when the EU had to send out the bill for who pays what into the budget, but this time without the UK contributing. (Because for the budget they cannot assume a UK contribution)That was one reason why there was the pressure for us to promise to pay up by October, and by letting that drag on, it's put pressure on the EU
Interesting EU perspective look at the situation from earlier this year
http://www.epc.eu/documents/uploads/p...
One thing that people haven't realised, the pressure is already on the EU budget
Because we pay in £, at an exchange rate fixed some time ago, the EU gets a damned sight less euros from us than it did. This is leaving a gap already.
Also the fall in the £ means that as measured for EU budget contributions our economy is now 'smaller' and our contribution should drop anyway
I'd also add an 8th point to Will's list
eight EU member states have at least double our youth unemployment rate of 11%
The EU is sacrificing a generation to a political project
From what I see and read Italy is in a very bad way. I also fear that a lot of factual news is being suppressed if its not favourable to the EU. Its subtle but increasing. The migrant situation is out of control and therefore any criticism is not allowed. On that issue alone the EU is fracturing.
The UK is already fractured, and we have a ruling Tory party that had to bribe some NI bigots in order to maintain control of the country.News about Brexit is either being suppressed or plain ignored, with the press attacking the judiciary and labeling elected politicians as traitors.
So why are there no calls to return to the historical kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, and Kent?
Jim wrote: NZ and Aus sell sheepmeat into the EU without having to go through half the crap we do as members ... it hides behind a tariff wall in a desperate attempt to protect french agriculture!The NZ and Aus sheep farmers aren't handed UK tax-payer dosh the way that UK sheep farmers are. The hoops of fire are just the agri-dole equivalent of the contortions welfare benefit claimants have to put up with, and allow the bureaucracy to take its cut. The details are all dreamed up by local UK bureaucrats, and there are going to many more of them post-Brexit.
French agriculture is protected no more, and no less, than UK agriculture; that is what the single market means. In France, and even Germany, there are many more people raking in dosh for basically having allotments than is the case in the UK, but serious agri-industrial farming businesses are no different to their counterparts in the UK.
To categorise the trade deficit as a balance of payments crisis, and to state that the pound has been over-valued, is to misunderstand how the pound value is arrived at. The UK was a place foreigners liked to send their capital. 'Buy-to-let', for instance. The failure to build houses, and 'housing benefit' going to private landlords, has made this a one-way bet. It's the capital flows that counterbalance the trade deficit that have propped up the pound. Post the vote, foreigners feel less welcome, and the pound has fallen, but sorting out housing and money laundering would be a better approach.
It seems to me, reading this thread, that Jim has been extremely defensive.
"The British Public has had enough of Experts." (Copyright 2016 Michael Gove, Current Supreme Leader of British Agriculture)
Far Eastern domestic appliance manufacturer James Dyson ...
Spitting into the wind ...
Not one single claimed Brexit benefit supported by evidence.
Sorry david, but you are entirely wrong in your view of how the overseas investors value the pound. many factors are taken into account, not least the strength of the underlying economy (we won't bother going into the machinations of people like Soros who will cause a run on a currency and cause chaos simply to make profit for themselves). Our economy used to be based upon manufacturing, until the mad Thatcher thought we could earn a living out of London's Financial Services sector. We couldn't, and hence Sterling has less value. The fall in the pound has been a long time coming, but was being predicted by economists for ages, with many pointing out that it is a good thing.To deny that the crippling trade deficit is not creating a Balance of Payments crisis is to deny reality. The government (incl both Blair and Brown) has been selling off everything they can to overseas investors to cover the deficit, and are running out of things to flog off. That is the Capital Flow you mention, and it is drying up because there is, literally, almost nothing left to sell!
David wrote: "It seems to me, reading this thread, that Jim has been extremely defensive...."
So now I'm being offensive, defensive or perhaps am just frankly bored of dealing with people who claim they've never heard anything positive about brexit and then when you point to somebody saying something positive about brexit, they write them off as a loon.
Your opinion is about as matterless as your opinion of agriculture. Spend a few decades working in the industry and actually dealing with the EU and UK governments first hand as part of a lobby group.
At that point I'll get round to discussing things with you, but you're just parroting what you can pick up from any Sunday newspaper
Jim wrote: ... as part of a lobby group ... Why on earth should making life easy for lobby groups be a good thing???
I've spent decades working for the EU and UK governments. My EU credits include a computer dating system for small and medium enterprises. Their bureaucracies are different, and they are the way they are. You just have to deal with them.
It is a mistake to believe that because the available figures make Italy look like a basket case that it is. The Northern bit anyway.
It is the German Tax Payers who are bankrolling the Greek bail-out. They are paying off the German banks, whilst attempting to dig pounds of flesh out of the Greeks.
The dodgy Euro is particularly beneficial to German car-manufacturers.
Much as I'd like to agree that mad Thatcher sowed the seeds of the UK's de-industrialisation, that malaise is of much longer standing. I'd plump for:
1) 'Not Invented Here'
2) A wide-spread belief amongst those in a position to put people in charge of things that they know nothing about, that you don't need to know anything about what it is that you are managing, to manage it.
3) Partly as a corollary of (1) and (2), investment and innovation are optional.
Since it is my taxes that pay for UK agriculture's subsidies, my opinion of it matters, whether you like it or not!
David wrote: "Why on earth should making life easy for lobby groups be a good thing???I've spent decades working for the EU and UK governments. My EU credits include a computer dating system for small and medium enterprises. Their bureaucracies are different, and they are the way they are. You just have to deal with them..."
you've answered your own question
Industry and similar lobby groups are the only way we have of getting people who actually know what is happening on the ground in touch with the people making the rules.
One example is that it's the lobby group which will sit down with the civil servants and try to explain to the civil servants why their
computer system isn't making any sort of sense in the real world.
The industry lobby groups are the ones with the experience. I know of one industry body where the various tax officials used to drop round to talk over, in absolute confidence, suggested tax changes.
According to the guy I knew in the group, the industry lobby group's normal response was, "You tried that previously, it didn't work then either."
Sometimes they suggested tweaks that might make things work, somethings they pointed out gaping loopholes. Sometimes their suggestions were acted upon. But both sides felt the process was valuable enough to do it for 20 years that I can swear to
As for your taxes paying for UK agricultural subsidies, so what? If there isn't enough money in it for me to support my family, you can eat any crap you can import for all I care.
The main purpose of the current subsidy system is to provide supermarkets with food at below the cost of production, and there's a nice tariff wall in place to ensure that their prices aren't undercut by imports.
Oh and as for 'not invented here', in Agriculture we use NZ, American and Australian technology because they're the leaders. However the EU is banning us from using the cutting edge stuff because 'it's not invented here.'
Italy, it seems to me, has a strong similarity to the Uk in this way: The UK economy is underpinned at present by the performance and wealth of London and the SE. Beyond the M25, there are regions of desperate poverty and an almost subsistence economic activity. (OK I know that's an over simplification, but bear with me).italy has a Northern Region that still has factories creating things: but the South has some terrible poverty. Should the ability of the North to hold up the South falter, or one of the big Italian Banks fail, then the house of cards could collapse with devastating shock waves across the Eurozone
There are many empty villages in rural Italy some being sold as a village for the price of a London house. The village in France where we have a house was entirely repopulated by Italians after the plague decimated the place in the 15th century.
My neighbours and quite a few other families came just after the war as there was no work in Calabria. It seems nothing has changed for several hundred years.
I'm shocked and disappointed with what's happening in Barry. They're throwing up what will be made apparent to be substandard housing on a floodplain. The buy to let scam is alive and doing well here.I'm gonna give it about five more years then swoop in.
I thought it's about time I took out my wooden spoon again. 11 Brexit promises the government has quietly dropped
I am only surprised that it is 11.Which ever way you voted, I suspect we can all agree that this has been the most shambolic negotiation we have ever seen for a UK Government
I don't see how the outcome could have been any different.
Will wrote: I am only surprised that it is 11It doesn't include anything on rights of UK and EU citizens post-Brexit; I am sure there are more there.
David wrote: "I thought it's about time I took out my wooden spoon again. 11 Brexit promises the government has quietly dropped"Have any of them been dropped, after all there's no agreement, we're merely in a transition period.
And there probably will be no agreement whilst the Spanish have a veto over Gibraltar so we'll just leave anyway
Those that aren't "It'll be easy, we hold all the cards, they can go whistle" are mostly accompanied by samples of the draft treaty in green, i.e. agreed, so they really are dropped,
a treaty that has not yet been negotiated isn't a treaty
Whilst "nothing is agreed until it is all agreed", the published draft treaty (which the two sides appear to be working on together) has the bits that the EU and UK have agreed up to this point highlighted in green. Since time is short, I doubt whether any of that will change between now and October, when it is supposed to be ready for approval by both sides.
yes but the EU has set itself up never to approve it
The EU27 will approve the deal, because they will have negotiated a Brexit Dividend for themselves, using the opportunity presented by being a trade block of 400 million negotiating with a trade block of 65 million.
David wrote: "The EU27 will approve the deal, because they will have negotiated a Brexit Dividend for themselves, using the opportunity presented by being a trade block of 400 million negotiating with a trade bl..."the EU27?
With Germany barely having a government, but one that is massively against funding the debts of others, Italy without a government but run by anti-EU parties, Spain going down the tubes over Catalonia but given a veto over Gibraltar.
There is no real pressure on the EU over Brexit as time is on its side.Yet it's vastly more prepared and organised than we are.
The UK government is barely holding itself together and is having to rely on the DUP loonies.
Will wrote: the EU27?Yes, the EU27. Unlike the collection of morons calling the shots on our side of the table, the EU side understand how trade negotiations work. The Italians, the Germans and the Spanish can happily contemplate their navels, confident that the arithmetic, the time pressure, and the people to whom they have delegated the negotiations, will get them a good deal. They've already got the UK paying them for 2 more years beyond Brexit with no rebate and no say in Brussels any more. Sir Ivan Rogers, former UK EU ambassador, reckons the negotiations will take 10 years, so the EU27 are probably contemplating 6 more years of the UK as a vassal state thereafter.
And paying less than what we would have been payingIn ten years time the EU won't exist as it is now.
And that is the EU's intention, not my claim
Why do you talk about the EU as if it's an entity in its own right?If it's different in 10 years, it's because the member states want it to be different.
Probably, Michael, because the EU acts as if it is an entity in its own right, with its own beaurocracy, Presidents and agenda. The member states act effectively as the financial base and vassals, told what do do, when to do it and to keep quiet.
That doesn't make any sense.If you remove the 27 member states from the EU, there is no EU.
So who is telling the member states what to do?
Michael Cargill wrote: "Why do you talk about the EU as if it's an entity in its own right?If it's different in 10 years, it's because the member states want it to be different."
simple, the intention is to become an entity in its own right
to quote the wiki
In November 1981, the German and Italian Governments submitted to the Member States a draft European Act designed to further European integration. In accordance with the mandate given by the European Council of 26 and 27 November 1981 the Foreign Ministers reported to the Stuttgart European Council on their work on this draft Act.
The Heads of State or Government of the Member States of the European Communities meeting within the European Council resolved to continue the work begun on the basis of the Treaties of Paris and Rome and to create a united Europe, which is more than ever necessary in order to meet the dangers of the world situation, capable of assuming the responsibilities incumbent on it by virtue of its political role, its economic potential and its manifold links with other peoples, ...
The Heads of State or Government, on the basis of an awareness of a common destiny and the wish to affirm the European identity, confirm their commitment to progress towards an ever closer union among the peoples and Member States of the European Community.
The declaration was one of the milestones leading to the formation of the European Single Market in 1993.
Michael Cargill wrote: "That doesn't make any sense.If you remove the 27 member states from the EU, there is no EU.
So who is telling the member states what to do?"
in an ever closer union eventually there are no member states. That's what union means
You still aren't making any sense.The EU is made up of its member states; take away the member states and there is no EU.
So who is driving the move to rendering the member states redundant, if not the member states themselves?
which part of 'ever closer union' are you having trouble with?
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