Brexit

[martinb]

Just read this thread with interest, especially the comments regarding Paris above.

After the fraudulent referendum, I turned to my good lady and said that we had better get our act together before Brexit happened.

We had always had intentions of retiring to France, specifically Normandie, when we turned 60. However, Brexit moved the timescale forward somewhat.
We looked at many houses, and finally made the move in Feb 2018. It has been the best thing we have ever done.
We run a gite, I have a gardening business and we breed the occaisional litter of dachshund puppies.

We are not well off, although we have saving from the UK we have bought over here, but, overall, we are happy.

France is not as cheap as it used to be, but the laid back way of life, the vast country of different facets, and a certain lack of borders between countries are benefits.

When I look at the news and see the utter shitshow that the UK Government are making of both Brexit and Covid, I honestly wonder what the f*** people were thinking when they voted in the blond bullshitter.

In 2015, Cameron said, Vote Tory or get chaos with Ed Milliband.

Well, I think I would have preferred chaos with Ed Milliband.

France isn't perfect, no country is. But when I go to Paris - 3 times this year and we've also been to Strasbourg and Perpignan this year, you go through poor places, but you also meet people who are genuine and friendly.

What France doesn't have are the landed gentry like Jacob Rees-Smug et al, who are only out to rip off Joe Public and bomb the economy and pound to make a quick buck.

Remember that France got rid of its monarchy a few centuries ago by inventive means.

The UK government by its definition is supposed to serve the people and do what is right for the country, this version of the Conservatives is turning the UK into a banana republic, awarding dodgy contracts to mates and supporters, promoting undeserving brexit supporters to the HoL, tanking the econmy and putting peoples health and wellbeing on the line.

What do ordinary people do? Feck all.

In France, there would be hundreds and thousands of protesters on the streets, riots etc. But the ordinary British mana and woman won't lift a finger until it directly affects them, when they can't get their pies, or Watneys red barrel.

Woe betide the Uk if there is no-deal, if Johnson makes a stand about the fishing (0.02% of UK GDP).
The moment the UK Navy stop a french fishing boat, ports will be blocked, trains stopped and ATC will stop planes, it'll make the last couple of days on Plague Island seem like a picnic.

Meanwhile, Happy Christmas, Joyeux Noel from Normandie, France!

 

[mikem]

Brits have always just done their own thing, whatever everyone else is doing - whether that be other governments or our own...

 

[Fulk]

Well, I voted ?remain? because I thought that to leave the EU would be a disaster . . . but not in my worst nightmares did I consider that it would turn out to be such a fucked-up abysmal unmitigated disaster as it?s shaping up to be under the blond buffoon and the buffoonettes.

 

[Fjell]

I realise the Guardian and others swim in a sea of misery, but it really isn?t reality. The virus is reality and a pretty good job has been done in various parts of the world to crash develop a vaccine in the nick of time, including in the UK. The Oxford vaccine will likely be the bedrock of the global response and the UK is giving it away for free. Huge numbers of lives will be saved.

People are drowning with their kids in the channel trying to get to England from France, and not the other way at all. A sense of perspective is required as to how terrible peoples lives are in England. It?s grotesque to assert it and it annoys me having lived and worked in many places where shit happens. We are extremely privileged in the main.

 

[tony from suffolk]

I do agree we've won the jackpot in the great lottery of life by being born in the UK, so all the more reason to rail against the terrible, disgraceful way it's being destroyed by the rich and powerful in their grovelling rush to line their own pockets.

It's only in the dominant Tory-controlled media that you get told how we're approaching the sunny uplands, a message that gets sucked up by those who can't be bothered to stretch their intellects to consider other news sources.

The Conservatives like to promote themselves as the party for business, but they're no such thing - they're the party of rich investors and the privileged. I do wonder how anyone can believe that the likes of Rees- Mogg, Johnson and the rest of their Eton crew can have the interests of us ordinary folk at heart, or any degree of empathy.

 

[mikem]

We may complain about how much MPs get paid, but this is what happens when it's not competitive with leading CEOs - only those rich enough not to care will take up top Tory places...

 

[Duck ditch]

Lol it is a pathway to a United States of Europe.  Sounds like project fear.

 

[oldfart]

The trouble with Europe Is that the beer is shite. Apart from Belgium, Germany, Checho....

 

[Fjell]

I do agree we've won the jackpot in the great lottery of life by being born in the UK, so all the more reason to rail against the terrible, disgraceful way it's being destroyed by the rich and powerful in their grovelling rush to line their own pockets.

It's only in the dominant Tory-controlled media that you get told how we're approaching the sunny uplands, a message that gets sucked up by those who can't be bothered to stretch their intellects to consider other news sources.

The Conservatives like to promote themselves as the party for business, but they're no such thing - they're the party of rich investors and the privileged. I do wonder how anyone can believe that the likes of Rees- Mogg, Johnson and the rest of their Eton crew can have the interests of us ordinary folk at heart, or any degree of empathy.

If a Labour government had done what has been done in the last year or two they would have been labelled as reckless loony Trots. The government has the worlds fleet of Chinooks and is shovelling crisp notes out of the back doors onto the population. And it was doing this before the virus came to be honest. Boris is not a hair shirt kind of guy. We are up to nearly a trillion in QE. My cousin at the BoE wrote the theory on QE and I discern significant shiftiness when you mention ?printing money?.

Ao yes, this government may well be storing up trouble, but in a whole new way that involves jam now rather than later.

 

[ChrisJC]

Lol it is a pathway to a United States of Europe.  Sounds like project fear.

Is this project fear?
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7230/

Or just some inconvenient truth?

Chris.

 

[crickleymal]

Lol it is a pathway to a United States of Europe.  Sounds like project fear.

Is this project fear?
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7230/

Or just some inconvenient truth?

Chris.

Well Cameron got us an exemption from it so if you object to that then you've got no worries. Personally I don't have a problem with it. But then I like Star Trek with its Federation.

 

[Fjell]

I voted Remain because I have always believed in the Pitt maxim that we need to be in Europe in order to ruin it as a concept. There is a reason we are la perfide Albion. It?s all true.

So at the moment there is complete confusion in France as to whether Brexit is an act of madness or an insanely Machiavellian plot to undermine France?s manifest destiny.

Hence all this ?level playing field? BS. It?s driven by enormous suspicion as to what the cunning plan really is. I tend to the Great Cock Up Theory myself, but such things have a habit of generating unintended consequences.

 

[Ed]

a Union Jack hater

To be fair, there are better flags. Personally I prefer the Northumbrian one.

Been saying the same for years --- about time to bring back the Old Country......

 

[Mrs Trellis]

I think the last two attempts at a united Europe led by Germany turned out badly for the continent.

 

[aricooperdavis]

I think the last two attempts at a united Europe led by Germany turned out badly for the continent.

Reductio ad Hitlerum?

 

[Mark Wright]

2. It is the most bureaucratic burdensome cancer of an organisation that is bleeding the economies dry. It needs scaling back, and a good kick in the balls like Brexit is what it needs. If you were a one-man band trying to bring a product to market, you would understand what a disincentive to business the EU is.

Chris.

I don?t recognise any of the above.

Over the past 10 years I?ve developed a ?one-man band? business, selling goods and services almost exclusively on the EU mainland and have found the bureaucracy to be pretty much non existent. The only paperwork I have to fill in is an EU Sales list every 3 months. It takes about 2 minutes. It?s well worth the small amount of effort as it saves me having to pay 20% Vat on my EU imports. Having to pay it in January could easily cripple many small company cash flows who won?t be able to reclaim it for at least 3 months.

I also export some goods and services outside of the EU. Now that is a ?bureaucratic burdensome cancer? that is a real disincentive to doing business with the rest of the world, particularly on WTO terms. It will also likely put the price of our caving gear up by about 10%, and that?s before the ? probably crashes by 10% in 8 days time.

Maybe your negative experience of the bureaucracy of doing business as a member of the EU was trying to bring the wrong product to market?

Being fully out of the Brexit transition period without a free trade deal will have only negative effects on my business which won?t be realised by the treasury until December 21 when no Corporation Tax will be due. For businesses who have made significant losses over the past year. The treasury will also likely be significantly hit until at least the end of 2023.

Mark

 

[pwhole]

Well Cameron got us an exemption from it so if you object to that then you've got no worries. Personally I don't have a problem with it. But then I like Star Trek with its Federation.

Me too. It's got to be better than Vulgaria and it's bloody 'sovereignty'. Though be be fair, most seem to be in uniform in the Federation. Though to be fair again, most are pretty buff - in the future at least.

Maybe that's the problem...?  :halo:

Also, with reference to Mark's post above - what happens with CE marks after Brexit? Will PPE require a BS kite-mark?

 

[Brains]

We have no choice over geography.
Politically, outside we have NO voice. Inside we have one.
Sovereignty was always a myth to rally the gullible - we had it already, it never went away.
Wanting to sell sub standard sweat shop goods into a bloc that puts workers rights, citizens rights, high on the agenda is not an option. Quality costs, hence the level playing field trope.
The USE? Sounds like a far right skeleton being jangled in the closet, whats next, Turkey to join the EU? ?350m for the NHS?
The ADVISORY referendum was one by cheating, and at judicial review it was stated that had it been binding, it would need to be set aside.
Oven ready deal, considerable upside, sunlit uplands? Bollocks from the corrupt paying BILLIONS to their mates on bad deals and setting up disaster capitalists to mint a fortune. Need some money laundering at a low cost? Use London!
Utter shit show, rescind it at once / rejoin ASAP

 

[Mrs Trellis]

Does anyone think that if Remain had won we'd still be discussing Brexit? The truth is that Remain ignored the country at large and believed what the Westminster bubble told them. Anyway you have to credit the remainiacs - they may last longer than Trump and his supporters , one or two of whom have accepted he lost however grudgingly.

 

[Fjell]

We will never rejoin, the hurdles are huge. The first one will be anyone believing we won?t do it it again, and that means the Tories promising not to do it again, whether they are in power or not at the time. Good luck with that.

We will make out like the Swiss, because is there any alternative?. Who knows where that ends up.