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Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

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    #4892
    Igotadose
    Registered Users Posts: 13,015 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose


    Can data from the Bank of England be trusted these days? Let alone reporting on that data by the BBC? I think the British are misled to think the BBC's impartial, my British expat friends refuse to believe anything but that it's the best news service in the world and most honest, yet HMG seems to be putting sycophants in positions of power there.


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    #4893
    yagan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,620 ✭✭✭yagan


    Igotadose wrote: »
    Can data from the Bank of England be trusted these days? Let alone reporting on that data by the BBC? I think the British are misled to think the BBC's impartial, my British expat friends refuse to believe anything but that it's the best news service in the world and most honest, yet HMG seems to be putting sycophants in positions of power there.
    Since Carney left the bank of England it seems to have gone Brexity, I think they said a few weeks ago they'd take measures or something of that sort against British financials that set up alternative arrangements in the EU.

    Someone might have a link handy about that.


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    #4894
    BonnieSituation
    Registered Users Posts: 18,923 ✭✭✭✭BonnieSituation


    hotmail.com wrote: »
    Irish ministers going to Brussels constantly tell stories that they have to influence French and German decision makers.

    I realise there is technical rules that ensures each state is equal and has a veto but the reality is different.

    Smaller countries like our own just grateful to be included but we rarely kick up a fuss.

    Is this one of your fabled hot takes?

    Such nonsense.


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    #4895
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    hotmail.com wrote: »
    Irish ministers going to Brussels constantly tell stories that they have to influence French and German decision makers.

    I realise there is technical rules that ensures each state is equal and has a veto but the reality is different.

    Smaller countries like our own just grateful to be included but we rarely kick up a fuss.

    Evidence, please. Of these "stories" at least. Cos you're making big generalised swings off the back of zero evidence beyond what reads like your own presumption of the EU's power base. Put up or shut up, to use the vernacular.

    As for not kicking up a fuss, we literally had the Lisbon Treaty renegotiated because of our vote down of it - but I appreciate within this particular cognitive bias, that Treaty was seen as some as "vote again til we get the right result". We weren't the only ones who did shoot it down, but it being a referendum probably gave it more publicity.


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    #4896
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Pandiculation wrote: »
    Thatcher and the current Tories are two very different beasts.

    While I'm definitely not a fan of hers, I think she was what she was - a classic conservative politician, who believed in absolute market economics, a smaller state, low regulation and removal of all but the bare minimum of social welfare payments, but she was also very much an internationalist and in favour of the market economics and market philosophies of the emerging European Single Market.

    She was however, fairly deeply conservative in a few areas of social policy though, and quite regressive in areas like LGBT rights and quite heartless in how she approached many areas of policy and she could be quite literally warmongering and seemed to get off on militarism.

    However, compared to many of the current Tories she had a vision of a functioning country, even if many might not have agreed with her on how it would work.

    All the current lot seem seem to see is the next election win and how many headlines and clickbate stories they have. It's a philosophy of just power for the sake of power, cronyism and it's wrapped in a load of nationalism.

    It's shocking to see how far they've sunk and what they're pushing as political agendas.

    I would agree with that. I disagree with Thatcher on everything but at least she had principles. Boris Johnson can't have thought leaving the EU was a good idea. No, instead he knew that taking such a route would be advantageous to his career.


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    #4897
    timetogo1
    Registered Users Posts: 847 ✭✭✭timetogo1


    purplefields wrote: »
    So the Tories have won Hartlepool.

    I have been lurking on this thread for some time. To be honest, mainly as a type of 'doom tourism'. Waiting to see the catastrophic effects of Brexit.

    However, little seems to have materialised. So far I've heard that some fishermen was severely effected, some funds were moved out of the City of London and shops specialising in British goods in Europe now get there goods from Musgraves in Ireland.

    It that really it?

    I thought there was going to be utter chaos. With planes not able to fly, problems with nuclear medicine, and the general collapse of the economy.
    I hear now that the decline is going to be more gradual, but is it really?

    My opinion on this has really changed in the last couple of weeks. The people of the UK seem quite happy with the results, since they are turning more towards the Tories, even in what were staunch Labour constituencies. Even Scotland appears to be gradually deciding against Independence.

    Sterling hasn't collapsed and neither has the car industry.

    Have I been wrong about all of this? I am genuinely interested.


    I think there's a fair bit of "I'm alright Jack" from the Brexity types. There is no one catastrophe.

    Lots of jobs have left.
    Sterling devaluation after 2016.
    Lots of issues doing trade with the EU. Exports hugely dropped.
    Finance sector is having big issues (I work in the finance sector in Ireland and we've benefited quite a bit).
    Lots of fishermen are screwed.
    Northern Ireland protocol.
    And the loads of smaller issues (amount of days that people can visit Schengen, Brits, who own property in the EU or live in the EU, students travelling, musicians etc. etc.).

    But they don't affect many of the Brexiters (not in a way that is apparent to them anyway) so they don't really care.

    As well as all that, saying that Brexit wasn't a catastrophe shouldn't be the selling point.
    I didn't see that on the side of a bus. Where are all of the benefits? It's cost the UK billions so far and will keep on costing for years to come. It might be worthwhile to be able to say what the benefits were.

    Liz Truss has been busy announcing little deals all over the place. Some are big enough but compared to the EU deal they're tiny. Most are roll overs of the existing EU agreements, some are worse than what the UK had before. I remember the Brexiters saying they'd have new trade deals on day one. I didn't think, that is what they meant.


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    #4898
    purplefields
    Registered Users Posts: 238 ✭✭purplefields


    correct horse battery staple wrote: »
    Well we’ve been hit with Covid too (with even stringent lockdowns) but our exports haven’t collapsed like UKs nor is our economy second worst performer in Europe

    When Soviet Union collapsed it took 4 years for the worst events to occur and reach lowest point by every measure, that is the only wholesale reform of everything in an economy/society on same scale as Brexit in recent history I can think of, tho they had no choice by 91. And of course plenty of characters made wads of money while everything went to crap.

    Well for the collapse in Exports, I was expecting a massive, irrecoverable collapse.
    January wasn't much fun for UK exporters. Then I saw the graph in this article and was genuinely surprised:
    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56729631

    Yes, there is a significant reduction in January. However, it looks like exporters have largely got to grips with the new regulations as there was quite a rebound in February. Consider also that there was stockpiling going in in Dec 2020

    Regarding the breakup of USSR - I know nothing about the economics of that, so I can't comment. I did not realise that that wasn't a sudden collapse.


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    #4899
    ambro25
    Registered Users Posts: 5,994 ✭✭✭ambro25


    purplefields wrote: »
    So the Tories have won Hartlepool.

    I have been lurking on this thread for some time. To be honest, mainly as a type of 'doom tourism'. Waiting to see the catastrophic effects of Brexit.

    However, little seems to have materialised. So far I've heard that some fishermen was severely effected, some funds were moved out of the City of London and shops specialising in British goods in Europe now get there goods from Musgraves in Ireland.

    It that really it?

    I thought there was going to be utter chaos. With planes not able to fly, problems with nuclear medicine, and the general collapse of the economy.
    I hear now that the decline is going to be more gradual, but is it really?

    My opinion on this has really changed in the last couple of weeks. The people of the UK seem quite happy with the results, since they are turning more towards the Tories, even in what were staunch Labour constituencies. Even Scotland appears to be gradually deciding against Independence.

    Sterling hasn't collapsed and neither has the car industry.

    Have I been wrong about all of this? I am genuinely interested.
    No.

    Because you are describing the tree that you're seeing.

    Try and broaden your focus to the forest behind it.

    some fishermen was severely effected: who do you think pays benefits and retraining for them, their employees, employees of UK processing and trade channels depending on their catch, <etc.>?

    some funds were moved out of the City of London: that would have been who pays those benefits and retraining (in part), but since the funds and their UK managing entities moved out of the UK, that tax-take isn't there going forward anymore, and there is no replacement economic activity lined up.

    shops specialising in British goods in Europe now get there goods from Musgraves in Ireland: so what happens to the UK manufacturers and suppliers of those British goods? <see fishermen point above>

    These are just your examples, but ultimately every facet of the UK socio-economic balance is interrelated and interconnected with other(s), on the principle of communicating vessels.

    That is why, for anyone observing Brexit strictly from an economic point of view, with a healthy dose of pragmatism and objectivity thrown in, Brexit was never going to be an instant apocalypse, but a death of a 1000 cuts, the celerity of which dependent on the form of Brexit achieved.

    Johnson's government chose a fairly hard Brexit in the end, and so there's been a few immediate cuts so far, out of that 1000. It's the metaphorical 1% of the iceberg above the surface. What will be interesting to observe in the months and years to come, is not so much how big the iceberg really is (see 'Project Fear' for that), but whether Johnson's government continues to ride populist nationalism to hide the scale of the economic vandalism of Brexit, or if that government (or another) devises and implements national economic policies to start mitigating -heck, turn around- that vandalism.


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    #4900
    purplefields
    Registered Users Posts: 238 ✭✭purplefields


    timetogo1 wrote: »
    I think there's a fair bit of "I'm alright Jack" from the Brexity types. There is no one catastrophe.

    Lots of jobs have left.
    Sterling devaluation after 2016.
    Lots of issues doing trade with the EU. Exports hugely dropped.
    Finance sector is having big issues (I work in the finance sector in Ireland and we've benefited quite a bit).
    Lots of fishermen are screwed.
    Northern Ireland protocol.
    And the loads of smaller issues (amount of days that people can visit Schengen, Brits, who own property in the EU or live in the EU, students travelling, musicians etc. etc.).

    That's the point really though, isn't it? Lots of little 'fiddly' things.
    I was expecting some massive calamity.

    Even with sterling, as of now £1 = €1.1520
    Where's the collapse there? - I would be expecting this be be below €1 by now.

    As I mentioned earlier, much of it has not happened, like the collapse of Just In Time manufacturing.

    I have not considered any benefits from Brexit, but surely not having to have all of EU regulation must have some benefit?


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    #4901
    Igotadose
    Registered Users Posts: 13,015 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose


    Wait till vacation season reopens (with vaccinates pushing the virus back.) Then when the UK holiday makers find out that the non-EU citizen lines at Schilpol are a disaster, you'll hear about it.

    Remember that you're not hearing much about the badness because the UK media suppress the information.

    As the weather warms, Brexit impacts will heat up.

    The Virus has given the Brexit impacts a pass; the economies are running on life support so JIT hasn't fallen apart *yet* because the demand's not there.


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    #4902
    purplefields
    Registered Users Posts: 238 ✭✭purplefields


    ambro25 wrote: »
    That is why, for anyone observing Brexit strictly from an economic point of view, with a healthy dose of pragmatism and objectivity thrown in, Brexit was never going to be an instant apocalypse, but a death of a 1000 cuts, the celerity of which dependent on the form of Brexit achieved.

    Is this what you personally believed this time last year? - that Brexit was not going to be an instant apocalypse?

    If that is the case, then I does indeed appear that I have got this wrong. We will see over the next few years I guess.


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    #4903
    ambro25
    Registered Users Posts: 5,994 ✭✭✭ambro25


    purplefields wrote: »
    That's the point really though, isn't it? Lots of little 'fiddly' things.
    I was expecting some massive calamity.
    You expected wrong. But don't worry: you won't be disappointed in the end. Just be a little more patient :)

    There were many an explainer of those 'fiddly' things before the referendum 2016, but Vote Leave masterfully PR-packaged it all as 'Project Fear', and such is human nature that the simple 'Project Fear' answer to very complex questions arising out of leaving the EU after 40 years, found much more fertile ground with the electorate than those dry, lengthy, boring explainers laden with long words.
    purplefields wrote: »
    I have not considered any benefits from Brexit, but surely not having to have all of EU regulation must have some benefit?
    I dunno about benefits for UK entities.

    But for EU27 entities, like Musgrove in the case of EU British shops, and like the bucaneers that are no doubt sending any old cheap rubbish through to the UK market currently (no UK checks on EU imports), the benefits are clear.


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    #4904
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,401 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    purplefields wrote: »
    That's the point really though, isn't it? Lots of little 'fiddly' things.
    I was expecting some massive calamity.

    Even with sterling, as of now £1 = €1.1520
    Where's the collapse there? - I would be expecting this be be below €1 by now.

    As I mentioned earlier, much of it has not happened, like the collapse of Just In Time manufacturing.

    I have not considered any benefits from Brexit, but surely not having to have all of EU regulation must have some benefit?

    Just have a look at the https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/the-davis-downside-dossier/ which lists all the Brexit downsides (147 currently) and the Brexit upsides (11 currently).

    If you had converted GB£10,000 into DM in 1961 or so, then currently that would be worth €50,000. I think that might indicate how the UK has done economically, compared with Germany, over the last 60 years.


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    #4905
    ambro25
    Registered Users Posts: 5,994 ✭✭✭ambro25


    purplefields wrote: »
    Is this what you personally believed this time last year? - that Brexit was not going to be an instant apocalypse?
    It is certainly what I personally believed 3 years ago:
    The UK economy was never going to fall off a cliff in June 2016, no more than it will fall off a cliff come April 2019 come-what-may (and that includes an accidental hard Brexit).

    But the U.K. economy began to suffer the proverbial death of a thousand cuts on June 2016.

    Decisions to shelve investment, withdrawn projects, delocalised R&D, slowed recruitment, restriction of tenders, erosion of personal/commercial goodwill overseas...it’s a long, long list of pernicious and mostly indirect variables, all with their own little weight within the whole that comprises the UK’s socio-economic drive/momentum.

    Their cumulative effect will not be felt at street level for a good year or two yet, but kid yourself not, they are all under way, have been awhile now.

    And that effect will still be felt, even if the U.K. was to somehow reverse Brexit before this time next year. Again, it’s an issue of momentum, gathered from lost opportunities over a non-trivial period of time.
    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=106805704&postcount=7295

    (since Article 50 was triggered in 2017, actually, because that was the point-of-no-return in terms of risk planning. I can't be ar5ed to search for an earlier post)


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    #4906
    yagan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,620 ✭✭✭yagan


    purplefields wrote: »
    Is this what you personally believed this time last year? - that Brexit was not going to be an instant apocalypse?

    If that is the case, then I does indeed appear that I have got this wrong. We will see over the next few years I guess.
    Brexit is an economic decoupling event signposted since May instigated Article 50.

    So for many businesses it simply didn't just happen January 1st, so those businesses who could made preparations.

    The real test of Brexit is delivery of better things for what was lost.


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    #4907
    BlitzKrieg
    Registered Users Posts: 14,685 ✭✭✭✭BlitzKrieg


    purplefields wrote: »
    Is this what you personally believed this time last year? - that Brexit was not going to be an instant apocalypse?

    If that is the case, then I does indeed appear that I have got this wrong. We will see over the next few years I guess.

    Pretty much, I'm fairly sure I can find posts by most of the regular posters here as far back as the earliest brexit thread saying it'll be more a death by thousand cuts then an apocalypse.

    I know its always been my stance, that brexit was not going to cause Armageddon but would be more a massive unnecessary weight on the UK for years to come.

    What probably surprised me is how that weight which I originally thought was going to be primarily economic has turned into a social and political weight dragging behind the UK on so many fronts.


    I'll do a search after work to see if I can find any examples of either doom and gloom predictions or death by thousand cuts predictions


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    #4908
    The Raging Bile Duct
    Registered Users Posts: 2,083 ✭✭✭The Raging Bile Duct


    correct horse battery staple wrote: »
    Hell UKs gdp per person has flatlined in last 15 years altogether
    https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=IE-GB

    Your man above is raving on about "projections" in a government propaganda outlet, while the reality when you look at UKs performance is kinda ****ty

    Is Ireland a good comparison? Our GDP is fairly vastly inflated by multinationals.


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    #4909
    Quin_Dub
    Moderators, Politics Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 15,049 Mod ✭✭✭✭Quin_Dub


    BlitzKrieg wrote: »
    Pretty much, I'm fairly sure I can find posts by most of the regular posters here as far back as the earliest brexit thread saying it'll be more a death by thousand cuts then an apocalypse.

    I know its always been my stance, that brexit was not going to cause Armageddon but would be more a massive unnecessary weight on the UK for years to come.

    What probably surprised me is how that weight which I originally thought was going to be primarily economic has turned into a social and political weight dragging behind the UK on so many fronts.


    I'll do a search after work to see if I can find any examples of either doom and gloom predictions or death by thousand cuts predictions

    It also can't be understated how much the Pandemic has slowed down the impact of Brexit at all levels.

    All Economies have been treading water effectively for the last 12+ Months so the impact to British business hasn't been tested at full capacity or anything close to it just yet.

    The impacts that have been seen thus far are for a Global economy running at 50/60% capacity.

    Over the next 3-6 months Economies around the world are going to be accelerating everything they can to get back to where they were 18 months ago.

    Whilst the UK will grow quickly on a percentage basis (probably even record % quarterly growth fairly soon) , however rather than getting all excited about 15% YoY GDP growth or whatever , look to see which economies get back to the levels (or beyond) of trade and turn-over they were at in 2018/2019 the quickest.

    It might be the UK , but I really really doubt it - The "Rucksack full of rocks" that is the impact of Brexit will see to that.


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    #4910
    timetogo1
    Registered Users Posts: 847 ✭✭✭timetogo1


    purplefields wrote: »
    That's the point really though, isn't it? Lots of little 'fiddly' things.
    I was expecting some massive calamity.

    Even with sterling, as of now £1 = €1.1520
    Where's the collapse there? - I would be expecting this be be below €1 by now.

    As I mentioned earlier, much of it has not happened, like the collapse of Just In Time manufacturing.

    I have not considered any benefits from Brexit, but surely not having to have all of EU regulation must have some benefit?

    Well it depends on what you call massive. There could have been massive issues but that would have required the negotiations to totally fail. We mostly assumed that wouldn't happen.

    1000's of people losing jobs is not massive in the grand scheme of things. It is if you're one of the 1000s.
    A proportion of financial services moving to the EU is not massive.
    The UKs GDP will / or has dropped a few percentage points.
    The border in the Irish sea isn't massive to the UK or us but it is to some.
    Sterling devaluing and the resulting increase of goods / services to British citizens isn't massive either.
    I remember reading about the UK going to lose to the EU GPS system and having to spend billions on a duplicate system. I'm not sure what happened with that. Probably one of Boris's chums got that contract.

    All of these can be overcome. Like you say. Lots and lots of fiddly issues (that'll cost billions)

    In my opinion we're seeing that the EU regulation facilitated a lot of trade and got rid of a lot of red tape for the UK. Business will overcome this, it just increases the cost of doing business. Some businesses will go under. To the UK this isn't massive, by itself.
    And when you say EU regulation, presumably you are aware that the UK had a hand in creating these regulations and voted for them. If getting rid of the regulations is a benefit surely somebody (5 years after the vote) could point to some regulations and say why getting rid of them is a benefit.


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    #4911
    yagan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,620 ✭✭✭yagan


    Quin_Dub wrote: »
    It might be the UK , but I really really doubt it - The "Rucksack full of rocks" that is the impact of Brexit will see to that.
    You know they'll message the numbers to look good and we'll new accounts popping up here constantly telling us how the sky didn't fall down etc.. project fear etc....


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    #4912
    CelticRambler
    Registered Users Posts: 6,711 ✭✭✭CelticRambler


    timetogo1 wrote: »
    And when you say EU regulation, presumably you are aware that the UK had a hand in creating these regulations and voted for them. If getting rid of the regulations is a benefit surely somebody (5 years after the vote) could point to some regulations and say why getting rid of them is a benefit.

    And to re-state a point I made a couple of days ago, all that EU regulation was transposed into British law prior to the end of the Transition Period. It should be very easy for those who say these regulations were strangling British enterprise to provide multiple examples of the current "take-back-control" Brexit administration substituting those EU regulations with less suffocating conditions, not just re-writing them in red-white-and-blue ink.


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    #4913
    Enzokk
    Registered Users Posts: 5,575 ✭✭✭Enzokk


    Labour's problem is that the Conservatives are the Leave Party and areas that voted Leave are trending to the Tories. The areas where Remain is strong is where Labour will do well, but they are sharing that vote with the Libdem's and Green Party. The vote may be about 50/50, but there are more Leave constituencies and Remain is concentrated in the Cities. They are a party that still hasn't chosen a stance on Brexit since the referendum, but have managed to convince the Leavers that they are for Remain and the Remainers that they are Leavers.

    On Hartlepool, Labour won the seat with 37% vote in 2019. The Tories had 28% and The Brexit Party 25%. No more Brexit Party, so essentially Labour were always going to struggle. Add in Covid and the vaccine bounce, well this is the result.

    Added to this that a lot of the Brexit effects have been clouded by Covid, it means Johnson once again lucks out in regards to timing. But once Covid becomes a minor inconvenience the true effect of Brexit will become known.

    As for the UK having the best bounce of all economies this year, when you had the biggest fall you should have the biggest reverse as well. The UK economy fell by e.g. 12% an bounces back 8% the next year. Ireland had a 6% dip and then grew by 4% the next, which one do you want? Lies, damned lies and statistics...


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    #4914
    schmoo2k
    Registered Users Posts: 1,379 ✭✭✭schmoo2k


    The old school lesson we got on this was:

    100EUR - 50% = 50EUR
    50EUR + 50% = 75EUR

    (Would have been in punts now that I read it)


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    #4915
    Akrasia
    Registered Users Posts: 22,242 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Pandiculation wrote: »
    I'd also add there's a very irrational cultural hatred of the French in aspects of England. It gets rather tiresome when you immediately get references to Napoleon and wars from centuries ago, or some ridiculous stereotype thrown when anything comes up about anything to do with France.

    It isn't normal. It's actually Francophobia or Gallophobia and it seems to come from centuries of a hostile relationship with France, but also probably having absorbed a lot of anti-republican messaging in the 1700s and outrage at the French revolution and French anti-Monarchism etc and before that an anti-Catholicism in England in the 1600s and so on. However, I have no idea what it has to do with 21st century Anglo-French relations.

    They also imagine that French newspapers and commentators spend huge amounts of time producing similar stuff about the English, when in reality this level of hostility is not reciprocated and is often not even understood. There's a lot of head scratching about why there's so much nastiness directed across the channel and I think in general, looking at French media coverage of the Jersey issue yesterday, it was more of a boring story about angry fishermen and total befuddlement as to why people were making statements about 'wars' in British media.

    Even look at British comedy, there are endless examples of anti-French sentiment that just comes out of nowhere in particular. I don't mean the likes of Allo Allo, which wasn't anti-French and actually developed quite complex and interesting characters, but sketches stand out all over the place, and you'll get smug comments from the likes of the Top Gear guy and so on and just endless stereotyping.

    England can be fantastic and open minded, but there's a thread of xenophobia and quite literally Little Englandism that runs through politics. For decades it had been in the margins, even if perhaps not so much in the margins in certain tabloids, but it has been moved to front and centre by Brexit and it is utterly toxic.

    That story of rallying against the French yesterday was a big morale boot for those who absorb that kind of messaging.

    The Express was literally referring to the Gendarmerie Maritime (the French Coastguard) that had been sent in to monitor and police the protest and basically ensure safety, as "war ships" and used the term "war" so many times it was bizarre and you'd people online trying to claim that because the Gendarmerie Nationale is linked to the French defence forces that they were absolutely war ships.

    The whole thing is just ... I don't even know what it is. Comical is one word for it, but I think we are long past comedy.
    I think there is bit of an inferiority complex behind the hatred of the French, Deep down, they don't like them because they think the french 'Think they're better than us' and they kind of agree, that in many ways, the french have it better than the British (better weather, shorter working week, better food, better art and culture, less poverty etc) so they over compensate and create a straw man image of the french that they can then project so that they can overcome their feelings of inadequacy


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    #4916
    BlitzKrieg
    Registered Users Posts: 14,685 ✭✭✭✭BlitzKrieg


    Sometimes you forget how much of a loop these brexit discussions are, I'm seeing posts all the way back in discussion thread 2 with official statements from Spain that they wouldnt oppose Scotland joining the EU and I still see posts in the last week or two saying Spain would oppose Scotland joining the EU (https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=105047882&postcount=5320)


    *sigh*

    search function is being a pain


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    #4917
    schmoo2k
    Registered Users Posts: 1,379 ✭✭✭schmoo2k


    BlitzKrieg wrote: »
    Sometimes you forget how much of a loop these brexit discussions are, I'm seeing posts all the way back in discussion thread 2 with official statements from Spain that they wouldnt oppose Scotland joining the EU and I still see posts in the last week or two saying Spain would oppose Scotland joining the EU (https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=105047882&postcount=5320)


    *sigh*

    search function is being a pain

    While the UK bashing is understandable, we should really be discussing how the EU will work without the UK influence, especially in areas like the English Language, Common Law v Civil Law and what areas were the UK holding the EU back?


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    #4918
    yagan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,620 ✭✭✭yagan


    Akrasia wrote: »
    I think there is bit of an inferiority complex behind the hatred of the French, Deep down, they don't like them because they think the french 'Think they're better than us' and they kind of agree, that in many ways, the french have it better than the British (better weather, shorter working week, better food, better art and culture, less poverty etc) so they over compensate and create a straw man image of the french that they can then project so that they can overcome their feelings of inadequacy
    The difference is the French like us Irish are citizens, whereas in Britain they're subjects.

    Yes I know they changed the title from subject to citizen on UK passports, but by their own archaic conventions it's the government ruling on the monarchs behalf that's sovereign, not the people.


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    #4919
    Christy42
    Registered Users Posts: 7,868 ✭✭✭Christy42


    schmoo2k wrote: »
    While the UK bashing is understandable, we should really be discussing how the EU will work without the UK influence, especially in areas like the English Language, Common Law v Civil Law and what areas were the UK holding the EU back?

    Why would the English language be an issue. It will still be the easiest way for people from Sweden and France communicate (individuals will vary but English will still be a handy "common"language between countries that don't naturally share a language.


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    #4920
    rock22
    Registered Users Posts: 1,547 ✭✭✭rock22


    BlitzKrieg wrote: »
    Sometimes you forget how much of a loop these brexit discussions are, I'm seeing posts all the way back in discussion thread 2 with official statements from Spain that they wouldnt oppose Scotland joining the EU and I still see posts in the last week or two saying Spain would oppose Scotland joining the EU (https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=105047882&postcount=5320)


    *sigh*

    search function is being a pain

    It is interesting that you are posting about the thread being in a loop and then you drag up a post from 2017.

    As i understand it, Spain would not oppose an Independent Scotland joining the EU if the independence was achieved legally and with the consent of the UK government. It is clear that they would oppose any unilateral declaration of independence because of the obvious example it would be to Catalonia.


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    #4921
    yagan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,620 ✭✭✭yagan


    Christy42 wrote: »
    Why would the English language be an issue. It will still be the easiest way for people from Sweden and France communicate (individuals will vary but English will still be a handy "common"language between countries that don't naturally share a language.
    And the German industrialist said to his Polish counterpart "at least using English we are equally disadvantaged."


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