Brexit?

[Svengoolie 3]

Whatever happened with brexit?  I don't want to hear the American media filtered version I'd lime to hear from. A real life Britt if there are any here.

[RCMerchant]

What's Brexit?

[ER]

In New Jersey nightclubs it's the way men leave clubs and it comes from "Bro" and "Exit" so "Brexit."

[Pacman000]

Great Britain voted to leave the European Union, hence Brexit. (Britain + Exit)

[Alex]

It's currently being handled very badly as we have a wishy washy Prime Minister who is politically in a very weak position and is very much at the mercy of her party who keep threatening to kick her out if she doesn't do what they say. She doesn't have the strength of personality (like Maggie Thatcher did) to force her own way through and has to balance the demands of both the pro leave and pro remain sides of her party, something she has not done very well.

Every time she tries to do something it seems to end up a disaster, from the stage falling apart as she gave a keynote speech, the snap election that she called when she was riding high in the popularity polls, only for her ratings to plunge and her barely hold onto power. She tried reorganising her Ministers only for them to refuse to take the new posts. I heard two guys talking about how someone had messed something up and they described it by saying "Wow, he really Teresa May'd that one up." There are many, many more disasters that she has been front and centre of.

All in all, we are lurching from mini crisis to mini crisis and not looking very clever right now. The only reason I am not looking at applying for American citizenship via my wife is that we are not sure Trump is any better.

I hear Canada is nice this time of year though. On the plus side, we have managed to get the talks onto the stage where people are now talking about trade deals, although to do this we had to promise to hand over many billions (which admittedly were to fulfill treaties we had signed up to and therefore we should live up to our obligations on).

Britain was not in a good place before we joined the EU and our standard of living has improved since we did (Germany and France were way ahead of us pre joining) and I have some real fears that we'll go back to how we were back then as I don't believe that any political party in the UK is competant enough to get us a good deal.

[RCMerchant]

So I take it that leaving the EU is a bad thing? I'm ashamed to say I know very little of European politics pre- 1945. 

[zombie no.one]

the 'brexit' vote was a referendum. referendum results are not legally binding, therefore the government can ignore the result if they want.

 or alternatively they can turn the whole issue into a massive media flurry of total confusion lasting a couple of years, then proceed to do exactly what they were going to do anyway, with the added bonus of making the british public feel like their opinion/vote was actually considered and listened to. lol

[Alex]

That RC depends on your point of view. It would be like one of the states deciding to leave the union I guess. The UK has liked being in the EU, but hasn't really liked all the federal powers bit. The leave campaign basically ran on a platform of if we leave we can cut down immigration to the UK and control our borders (which we won't be able to. For a start we need to import people to do all the jobs we have in the UK, especially the ones that native people do not want to do themselves). They also think because we are not paying huge amounts of money into the EU we will have more money to spend in the UK. This is sort of true, but because imports will be more expensive, we will not be able to get as much for our money.

A lot of the issues that were voted on to be honest people aren't well educated enough to have made an informed choice on. The go / stay vote was very close something like 51/49 and demogogues like that rubber faced goon Nigel Farage played on that, so now we are leaving.

As you may have guessed I view it as being a bad thing (although I knew before the vote was counted that it would go in favour of leaving and had Kristi transfer all our savings into dollars so I made a bit of money there when the pound crashed). I could be wrong and maybe Britain will do fantastically as a free agent. I just have my doubts.

I am keeping my options open at have been reading up on how to claim asylum in far off lands.

Just as a point of interest, Scotland itself voted pretty overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, something like 64% if I recall correctly, but since England has 10 times the population we do, we get dragged along with their decision.

[ER]

I can say the EU has been an extremely mixed "blessing" for Ireland, but while I hear people complaining about it, a similar vote to break from the EU would not come close to gaining majority support. One side effect has been to create Little Warsaws in the cities, where Polish people, who flooded in during the boom, have come and set up residence. Lacking any sense of national guilt the Irish have no issue with calling Poles nasty names and using Celtic coercion to keep them in their neighborhoods, somehow missing the irony that so many Irish songs are about just such things happening to them. I look for tensions to explode. Again.

[Rev. Powell]

That RC depends on your point of view. It would be like one of the states deciding to leave the union I guess.

Not quite, because there were agreements in place that allowed countries to leave the EU. But the economic and administrative chaos would be similar.

[RCMerchant]

"-we leave we can cut down immigration to the UK and control our borders (which we won't be able to. For a start we need to import people to do all the jobs we have in the UK, especially the ones that native people do not want to do themselves."

THIS is exactly the reason the U.S. needs Mexicans. Some folks think that the locals would pick up those jobs- I live in an area where the majority of agricultural work is done by migrant Mexicans. And I can tell you this- white folks around here won't do it. Even the P.W.T. won't-they prefer welfare and food stamps. The Mexicans will have entire families working from dusk till dawn picking pickles or working in canneries.
I was an exception. I never finished High School-so good jobs weren't an option. So I busted my ass first in the fields and then in the canneries. When I had my heart surgery and quit Honee Bear I had been there 30 years. I was making $11.75 an hour.

[lester1/2jr]

It's a a double edged sword: If they follow through with it they will have economic disadvantages, if they don't, then the EU and the elite class become an overt despot who can never again claim to have any connection to the population at large.

what they should have done was negotiate it quickly, let the Brexiters stew in their juices and if it didn't work out have another vote.

[Svengoolie 3]

It's currently being handled very badly as we have a wishy washy Prime Minister who is politically in a very weak position and is very much at the mercy of her party who keep threatening to kick her out if she doesn't do what they say. She doesn't have the strength of personality (like Maggie Thatcher did) to force her own way through and has to balance the demands of both the pro leave and pro remain sides of her party, something she has not done very well.

Every time she tries to do something it seems to end up a disaster, from the stage falling apart as she gave a keynote speech, the snap election that she called when she was riding high in the popularity polls, only for her ratings to plunge and her barely hold onto power. She tried reorganising her Ministers only for them to refuse to take the new posts. I heard two guys talking about how someone had messed something up and they described it by saying "Wow, he really Teresa May'd that one up." There are many, many more disasters that she has been front and centre of.

All in all, we are lurching from mini crisis to mini crisis and not looking very clever right now. The only reason I am not looking at applying for American citizenship via my wife is that we are not sure Trump is any better.

I hear Canada is nice this time of year though. On the plus side, we have managed to get the talks onto the stage where people are now talking about trade deals, although to do this we had to promise to hand over many billions (which admittedly were to fulfill treaties we had signed up to and therefore we should live up to our obligations on).

Britain was not in a good place before we joined the EU and our standard of living has improved since we did (Germany and France were way ahead of us pre joining) and I have some real fears that we'll go back to how we were back then as I don't believe that any political party in the UK is competant enough to get us a good deal.

Ok thanks for answering.  As to a point you raised,  I can tell you your government can't be as horrible as what we have in  'murca right now so for ghawd's sake stay over there.  If you have to emigrate move to France.  I'd probably move there if I could. I couldn't move to England because that hereditary monarch thing is just not for me.

I wonder what the big drive for brexit was?  In 'murca we've been told it was because England didn't want more Muslim immigrants.  Is that true?

Oh,  could I ask you something?  You mentioned Thatcher.  I heard a rumor that when the undertakers were digging her grave they were surprised to meet a gang of demons digging their way up from hell to recieve her.  Any truth to that? 

[ER]

One caveat, if you're Jewish, DON'T go to France right now.

[Alex]

I can promise where ever I was to settle it would not be France.

Damn cheese eating surrender monkeys.

Muslim immigration was a part of the vote, although they are no where near as big a think as is made out (claims were made by the leave side that muslims made up 40% of the UK population, I think the truth is closer to 5%. However in general immigration was a big part of it and the whole freedom of movement within the EU. I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but any EU citizen can just move to any other EU country and settle there. Me, I think thats a wonderful thing if you like to travel and take part in new countries. But it brings back the whole stealing jobs thing, even though in many cases they are doing jobs other people won't touch). The biggest area of immigration we have seen is from Poland. Most towns and cities now have specialist Polish shops in them selling food with names I couldn't even begin to pronounce.

I don't have a problem with it for myself. If someone want's to come here and work hard for a living I am good with it. It's the lazy buggers who can spend their entire lives without getting a job and just living on benefits that p**ses me off. Hell in a couple of months I am going to have to pay over £2000 (close on $3000) for the next visa for my American wife to stay in the country. I am all for free movement right now lol.