EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

[Geezertronic]

Looks like she's giving them the Lionel Blair stare

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Paul. I want you to think very carefully about the statement you are trying to defend. Again, it can be distilled down to "British Muslims aren't committing acts of terrorism because they're abusing white girls instead."

This was categorically not the point that I ever sought to make and I would never ever subscribe to such a sweeping "Sun-style" florid and inflammatory newspaper banner headline as you feel my postings on the matter suggest nor do I ever intend to do in the future. I do not make sweeping generalisations of the "distilled type" that you state above. That is your own view and you were the one who made such a crass statement, being one that I totally refute in all its entirety.

I have brought the matter of post 1950 immigrants from the Indian sub continent to work in the northern textile mills and the very conservative rural area Imams who accompanied then to preach in the newly-established mosques in one of my more recent postings on this thread, noting that the more enlightened members of the Islamic communities of Britain have stated as being in urgent need for change, but that posting of mine has been conveniently overlooked by those who choose to twist my words into a scenario that does not exist in reality, which then leads to judgement then being passed on the warped view that has no truth in reality.

At the age of 71, I have seen far more of life than many website members and whilst I did suffer a stroke in 2012, my mental recall of past matters is still as fresh as ever. My back still remains as broad enough as ever to bear the barbed arrows of personal vilification that metaphorically are aimed at me.

I hope this makes my view on the matter as crystal clear as I can but I cannot be held responsible for the actions of those none so blind as will not see.

I will make no further posting on this matter, for the reasons stated in the paragraph above.

 

[AlterEgo]

This was categorically not the point that I ever sought to make and I would never ever subscribe to such a sweeping "Sun-style" florid and inflammatory newspaper banner headline as you feel my postings on the matter suggest nor do I ever intend to do in the future. I do not make sweeping generalisations of the "distilled type" that you state above. That is your own view and you were the one who made such a crass statement, being one that I totally refute in all its entirety.

I have brought the matter of post 1950 immigrants from the Indian sub continent to work in the northern textile mills and the very conservative rural area Imams who accompanied then to preach in the newly-established mosques in one of my more recent postings on this thread, noting that the more enlightened members of the Islamic communities of Britain have stated as being in urgent need for change, but that posting of mine has been conveniently overlooked by those who choose to twist my words into a scenario that does not exist in reality, which then leads to judgement then being passed on the warped view that has no truth in reality.

At the age of 71, I have seen far more of life than many website members and whilst I did suffer a stroke in 2012, my mental recall of past matters is still as fresh as ever. My back still remains as broad enough as ever to bear the barbed arrows of personal vilification that metaphorically are aimed at me.

I hope this makes my view on the matter as crystal clear as I can but I cannot be held responsible for the actions of those none so blind as will not see.

So you didn't say this then?

The vigilance of all our security services go a long way to achieving this, but as was proved in Nice, one ISIL sympathiser with a large goods vehicle can wreak utter carnage.

Perhaps their more criminal associated elements have satisfied themselves with the grooming and sexual abuse of young teenage white British girls....

If you did not mean this statement to mean "We don't get that many ISIL attacks because they've satisfied themselves with busy grooming white girls", then what does it mean?

It clearly does say this, and several posters have picked up on this.

If this is not what you meant to say, then I fall back to my comment of a few days ago that speaking in plain English is a skill which not everyone has.

I'm afraid that as it stands, you appear ignorant and unrepentant.

I am sure that is not the case, so we await the retraction of your comment.

 

[najaB]

If you did not mean this statement to mean "We don't get that many ISIL attacks because they've satisfied themselves with busy grooming white girls", then what does it mean?

It clearly does say this, and several posters have picked up on this.

It doubles down on the racist overtones since the majority of terrorist attackers in Europe either came from or their families were originally from north African countries such as Morocco or the Middle East (e.g. Syria, Iraq) and the majority of the perpetrators of the abuse rings referred to came from or have familial origins in Pakistan.

About the only thing they have in common is that they were 'brown'.

 

[VauxhallandI]

I got my annual tax summary the other day.

On the reverse they now split your tax and NI total into where it was spent over 15 categories.

Interesting to see at the top it was £5,391 towards Welfare, £4,291 towards Health, £2,769 towards State Pensions and £2,588 towards Education.

If we skip to the bottom contribution we have £237 for the UK contribution to the EU budget.

Talk about being mugged off by politicians masquerading as the people's champions for their own personal gain and power.

Why aren't we making protests about where our Health contributions are going?

Let's see what I get for my £237 pound saving in a couple of years? Rembering ive already lost more than that in exchange rates now.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Your comment could be summarised as: "British Muslim men aren't committing terrorism because they're busy grooming white girls."

If you can't see what's wrong with that then I really don't know what to say.

I'm not sure that this is really helpful. Your last sentence basically communicates that you feel some disgust at Paul's comments, but without explaining why (Your first sentence helps a bit by paraphrasing Paul's comments, but still doesn't directly explain what's objectionable about them). I realise that to you, it probably seems blindingly obvious what the objection is, but clearly Paul quite genuinely didn't see a problem with his comments - because otherwise he wouldn't have made them. So what seems obvious to you is not obvious to him. In that situation, simply expressing disapproval without an explanation isn't going to be very enlightening. Compare that with (part of) my response, in which I tried to respectfully explain exactly what I thought the issue was:

Is rather suggestive of racial stereotyping of Asians/Muslims - I would suggest that racial stereotying is just as bad and just as dangerous, no matter who is stereotying whom. The fact that a few people who happen to be from one racial group/one religious group do something awful is not a justification for tarring large numbers of other people who happen to be from the same ethnic group/have the same religion with those kinds of actions.

The reason I'm pointing this out is that, in my view, expressing this kind of disgust/disapproval without an explanation is exactly the thing that often drives so many people into the arms of UKIP (in the UK) or Donald Trump (in the USA) - because it's what gives people the impression that liberals/left-wingers don't respect their views/just sneer at them/don't listen/etc. Far better, surely, to remember that the person you're replying to almost certainly genuinely believes in what they have written, so if you want to convince them otherwise, you do actually need to respect that that is what that person believes, and rationally explain why you think they are mistaken.

And I'm not particularly trying to get at you btw - I'm sure, after all, that we both would be in agreement about the need not to stereotype people - it's just that your post seemed to me to be such a perfect example of a something that I see so many people doing so many times - and which I think only ever increases support for the kind of right-wing groups that I'm sure neither of us wants - so I thought I ought to flag it up.

 

[najaB]

I'm not sure that this is really helpful. Your last sentence basically communicates that you feel some disgust at Paul's comments, but without explaining why...

I don't disagree with the sentiment of your post, but that was actually the second comment I had passed on the statement. The first was in post #5101, which I thought did make it clear exactly what I found objectionable.

Since Paul chose not to reply I thought I would paraphrase his post to make it a little clearer how it was coming across.

 

[EM2]

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...r-on-low-skilled-eu-migrants-says-david-davis

The UK is not about to “suddenly shut the door” on low-skilled EU migrants, Brexit secretary David Davis has reiterated.

Davis said in a press conference in Riga, Latvia, that Britain wanted control over immigration but that it would only restrict free movement of people when it was in the “national interest”.

He said that it was not plausible that British citizens would immediately take jobs in the agriculture, social care and hospitality industry once the UK had left the EU and repeated comments made in Estonia on Monday that immigration restrictions would be phased in.

He said: “It will be a gradual process. That will take some time; yesterday I said it will take years

“Don’t expect just because we’re changing who makes the decision on the policy, the door will suddenly shut: it won’t,” Bloomberg quoted Mr Davis as saying in the Estonian capital of Tallinn on Monday.

Davis said migrants had helped make the UK a strong economy. “We’re a successful economy, largely or partly at least because we have clever people, talented people come to Britain,” he said. “Even on the wider area, where we’ve got less well-paid people who have come to live and work in Britain, that will take time.”


The remarks look likely to provoke questions from some hardline leave supporters after the prime minister, Theresa May, insisted that taking back control of immigration would be a key change after Brexit.

The government says reducing net migration to below 100,000 a year remains its target. Referring to Davis’s comments, Iain Duncan Smith told the Times: “My sense is that it is going to happen quicker than that.”

May has made it clear that transitional arrangements could need to be imposed on certain parts of the economy after Britain formally withdraws from the EU.

 

[najaB]

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...r-on-low-skilled-eu-migrants-says-david-davis

Davis said in a press conference in Riga, Latvia, that Britain wanted control over immigration but that it would only restrict free movement of people when it was in the “national interest”.

Which is going back on one of the key pledges of the Leave campaign to end free movement of people.

 

[Senex]

Since Paul chose not to reply I thought I would paraphrase his post to make it a little clearer how it was coming across.

"How it was coming across" to you. Things inevitably come across differently to different readers in the light of each person's views, expectations, experience, and all the rest of it. In this instance, for example, what Paul wrote did not come across to me the way it clearly did to you.

 

[AM9]

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...r-on-low-skilled-eu-migrants-says-david-davis

Before some right-wing brexiter starts trivialising the Guardian report referred to, similar comments are addressed at the issue in the Times today. Somehow the Daily Mail didn't hear about this obscure piece of news in by today's deadline. I wonder how the DM will/would twist the embarrassing facts of the matter to further their nationalist crusade.

It's heartening to see that the claimed core reason for many of the leavers' votes is slowly being exposed as counterproductive in both economic and practical terms. Another step away from May's dogmatic brexit line. This makes mildly entertaining viewing.

 

[najaB]

In this instance, for example, what Paul wrote did not come across to me the way it clearly did to you.

Nor, I suspected, the way he intended it to.

 

[furnessvale]

Which is going back on one of the key pledges of the Leave campaign to end free movement of people.

The Leave Campaign was not the Government which, in fact, was actually pro remain.

None of the pro leave promises can be attributed to the Government. Even our current PM was pro remain.

 

[NSEFAN]

The Leave Campaign was not the Government which, in fact, was actually pro remain.

None of the pro leave promises can be attributed to the Government. Even our current PM was pro remain.

Well exactly, the promise of the end of freedom of movement was from the leave campaign. At least some people will have voted to leave the EU based upon that, even though it may end up being unworkable in practice.

 

[najaB]

The Leave Campaign was not the Government which, in fact, was actually pro remain.

None of the pro leave promises can be attributed to the Government. Even our current PM was pro remain.

I know. But it demonstrates again that what the Leave campaign was promising was never actually going to be delivered.

 

[Howardh]

Before some right-wing brexiter starts trivialising the Guardian report referred to, similar comments are addressed at the issue in the Times today. Somehow the Daily Mail didn't hear about this obscure piece of news in by today's deadline. I wonder how the DM will/would twist the embarrassing facts of the matter to further their nationalist crusade.

It's heartening to see that the claimed core reason for many of the leavers' votes is slowly being exposed as counterproductive in both economic and practical terms. Another step away from May's dogmatic brexit line. This makes mildly entertaining viewing.

It makes me wonder at what point even the most hard-line Brexiter will realise that they will get no tangible or noticable gain through Brexit, but like the rest of us who have been "remoaning" for nearly nine months, find there's an awful lot we've lost.

NHS? Not a penny.
Immigration? Same as before...maybe even more required.
Power back from Brussels? We had power anyway - did we join the Euro? Join Schengen?? Do we still have an unelected and virtually unaccountable Second Chamber?

Please, Brexiters, give me one last straw to clutch to that Brexit's gonna be a good thing.

 

[EM2]

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...b08ddc9a5e2762#block-58ad7301e4b08ddc9a5e2762

Ivan Rogers' evidence to the Commons Brexit committee - Summary

Here are the key points from Sir Ivan Rogers’ evidence to the Brexit committee.

Rogers said he did not think EU countries would agree a trade deal with special terms for specific sectors of the economy. This is significant because Theresa May has said she does hope to get a deal that would allow some sectors of the economy, like the car industry, to effectively remain in the customs union. Asked if Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, would back sectoral deals, or whether she would put the unity of the single market and the customs union first, Roger said Merkel and others would prioritise maintaining the integrity of the single market and the customs union. In response to the question, he said
Well, with Merkel, if she’s still there, the unity, the unity of the 27, will win out and I think she and others will agree that there will be no sectoral deals in either the single market or the customs union, and I expect that to appear in either the guidelines or the negotiating mandate.

Rogers said that it would be “insane” for the UK just to leave the EU without a trade deal, because legal agreements would not be in place to allow the UK to trade with the EU. Both the UK and the EU would suffer. That meant both sides would have a strong incentive not to allow this to happen, he said. But the fact that it might be disastrous did not mean it could not happen. He told the MPs.
If you had an abrupt cliff edge with real world consequences, you’ve seen what Mark Carney [governor of the Bank of England] has said about the financial stability risks to the eurozone of an abrupt cliff edge. There are other consequences in other sectors which would make it an insane thing to do. All I was pointing out was that this is a very legalistic body that we are dealing with and they will say you have transformed yourselves overnight from having been a member of this body to a third country outside the body and in the absence of a new legal agreement everything falls away. We all know that that’s nuts in the real world, because why would you want to stop UK planes flying into European airports on day [one]. We know that this is insanity, but that doesn’t mean - we know that stopping carcasses and consignments and saying ‘your slaughterhouses are no longer approved’, we may know that that is a nonsense in the real world. Sadly, that does not stop it necessarily happening.

He said no major economy traded with the EU solely on World Trade Organisation terms.
No other major player trades with the EU on pure WTO-only terms. It is not true that the Americans do, or the Australians or the Canadians or the Israelis or the Swiss. They strike preferential trade deals where they can. But they also strike more minor equivalence agreements, financial services equivalence agreements, veterinary equivalence agreements, mutual conformity of assessment agreements. The EU has mutual conformity of assessment agreements with the US, with Canada, with Israel, with Switzerland, with Australia, with New Zealand, and more I think.

He said having a free trade deal with the EU would not be as good as being in the single market.
Maybe I could give you some examples of what’s the difference between being in a single market and a free trade area. Because there are some. It is not true you get everything you want from an FTA [free trade agreemeent] and it’s just the same as the single market. This is the crucial difference between access to the market and membership of it.

So, for example, on planes, access to the single market means planes can land in EU airports and return from EU airports. Membership of the single market means you get slots and gate and land allocation on the same terms as local airlines, ie not 3am slots a mile away from the terminal. And airlines can fly within the EU, not just to and from the EU.

Access means that your banks can only lend via a local subsidiary. Membership means there is no need for your banks to be separately supervised, regulated, managed and capitalised [by a] subsidiary in other countries, that one can operate through branches, and that home state rules and supervision suffice.

Access means that Scotch can be sold into France or Germany or whatever. Membership of the single market means that all taxes and duties for comparable products for Scotch must be the same as for Scotch. And if they are not, we can take them to the ECJ and say why are they not. We won’t be able to take them to the ECJ ... when we’ve only got access.

He said other EU countries did not understand why the UK counted EU migration as migration.
If I think back to our renegotiation last February, nomenclature was a huge issue for people. They genuinely don’t understand the UK debate in which the two are conflated at all. They don’t understand why a government would have a migration target covering both migration within the European Union - which for other people is not migration, they don’t call it migration, they don’t call it immigration, they call it free movement. The amount of time I spent with my opposite numbers over many years trying to explain why our nomenclature and why our whole debate was different, and why we called both these things essentially the same - for all my other colleagues, they say, ‘But one’s migration, which is external from the European Union, the other is free movement of people, which is not at all the same thing.’

He said he expected the Brexit talks to lead to a “gory” row about money. He told the MPs:
From all the [EU27 [countries], albeit in different ways, depending on whether they are net recipients or net contributors, the budgetary issue now comes to the fore.

And I think we can expect a number of them to think - well, if the British want a future trade deal, and they want some form of transitional arrangement before a future trade deal, all big ifs, then this will come together at some gory European council in the autumn of 2018 and it will come together with the money equation.

There will be some who will want to play hardball and say, ‘well, absent British money over a transitional period, why the hell should we give them any trade deal?’

I’m not saying that’s a majority view, I wouldn’t be in a position from my discussions before Christmas to know exactly where people will come out on that, it was very early days there, pre-Christmas.

All I was conscious of from all of the discussions I was having with opposite numbers was there was a hell of a lot of work going on in the undergrowth to examine the implications of a UK exit on the budget.

He said there was a risk of Britain being “screwed” if it did not get its trade deal with the EU right. Britain has a trade deficit in goods, but a surplus in services, he said, and so there was a risk that the EU would push for a minimalist trade deal focusing on goods. That would be bad for Britain, he said.
We have an enormously valuable and competitive services sector with a huge surplus where we risk being screwed if we don’t get this right.

It was particularly important to ensure financial services were covered, he said.

This is a very serious problem unless we get a bespoke financial services deal with equivalence which really works for us. This would be something the EU 27 has not done for any other member state and what it hasn’t been prepared to do for any other partner.

He said EU leaders do not think it will be possible for the UK to conclude a trade deal with the EU within two years. May claims this is possible. But Rogers said “the key players, the key officials, the key technocrats, the key theologians” in the EU think a new relationship may not be agreed until 2022 even if negotiations proceed “unprecedentedly fast”.
He said Britain was “up against a class act in the European commission when it comes to negotiating”. The commission was not good at everything, he said, but it was “one of the top two trade negotiating authorities in the world”.
He said what would make negotiating a free trade deal with the EU difficult would be non-tariff barriers, not tariffs. Negotiating a tariff-free deal would be straightforward, he said. But non-tariff barriers would be difficult because EU countries think the UK is leaving the EU so it can abandon EU regulations. He said this was not an issue in most trade deals because they involve countries trying to converge their regulatory regimes, not trying to separate them.
He said the article 50 process structurally favoured the 27 countries staying in the EU, not the one country leaving.

 

[miami]

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...b08ddc9a5e2762#block-58ad7301e4b08ddc9a5e2762

(snip remoaning left wing drivel)

£350m!
Take back control!
Remoaners!
Project Fear!

 

[Steveman]

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3844/Latest-on-public-attitudes-to-Brexit.aspx

Eight months after the Referendum, the research, carried out with online British adults aged 18-75, finds only 4% of those who voted in the referendum would change their vote, and there was no difference in this between Remainers and Leavers. So, no change to date.

Ipsos MORI poll finds people would vote exactly the same again if a new referendum was held.
Shows that all the people saying they "know" that a huge number of Leavers have changed their mind proves that they actually don't "know" anything at all.

 

[AM9]

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3844/Latest-on-public-attitudes-to-Brexit.aspx



Ipsos MORI poll finds people would vote exactly the same again if a new referendum was held.
Shows that all the people saying they "know" that a huge number of Leavers have changed their mind proves that they actually don't "know" anything at all.

That's because there hasn't been any real impact on the man in the street yet. When prices really do start rising because of the collapsing pound and we can't get imported materials at prices that enable our claimed low value economy will bring, blue collar and retail jobs will also shrink with the economy.
The government, for all it's naïve optimism about how much the rest of the EU nations will greet us, are still pressing on with austerity measures because the economy will suffer, despite that strategy being associated with Osborne, - that champion of Cameron's remain camp.

 

[miami]

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3844/Latest-on-public-attitudes-to-Brexit.aspx



Ipsos MORI poll finds people would vote exactly the same again if a new referendum was held.
Shows that all the people saying they "know" that a huge number of Leavers have changed their mind proves that they actually don't "know" anything at all.

So taking those figures

June 24th: Leave: 17,410,742 (51.9%), Remain 16,141,241 (48.1%)

92% remain would vote the same way, 90% of leave

Leave: 15,669,668, Remain 14,849,942

4% of both would change

Leave: 16,315,318 (51.2%), Remain 15,546,372 (48.8%)

But they only surveyed people who are still alive, nor did they say what the 2% of people who were too young to vote then would vote now, nor did they say what people who didn't vote would vote this time. It does however tell us more Leave voters are regretting it (fewer would vote the same way).

 

[najaB]

Shows that all the people saying they "know" that a huge number of Leavers have changed their mind proves that they actually don't "know" anything at all.

That's because nothing has really happened yet. It would be like surveying the UK public in November 1939 to find out what they thought about the war.

 

[Steveman]

But they only surveyed people who are still alive, nor did they say what the 2% of people who were too young to vote then would vote now, nor did they say what people who didn't vote would vote this time. It does however tell us more Leave voters are regretting it (fewer would vote the same way).

You have surpassed yourself with your barrel scraping.
If this poll had shown even the slightest indication that the referendum had swung in reverse you would be crowing with delight at how accurate it was and so must be taken seriously.

Because it doesn't agree with the bitter Remoaners view that all the racist idiot Leavers must have changed their mind it's to be ignored as fake news.

"They only surveyed people who are still alive" is surely one of the most ridiculous and inane things ever posted on here.

 

[meridian2]

Please, Brexiters, give me one last straw to clutch to that Brexit's gonna be a good thing.

National sovereignty. The right not to sabre rattle with Russia over Ukraine. Not to be involved in an eastward expansion of a concept of Europe without historical precedence, and the one way labour market that inevitably follows. I could go on.

The idea of a quasi-sovereign, trans national Europe had its origins in the German trenches of WW1. It took WW2 to implement the idea and it has insinuated itself on the back of a common market. I'm with the late Tony Benn, when the EU unravels as it almost certainly will, the net contributors will unhitch the hitherto supported nations who won't even have a currency to call their own. It's not difficult to envisage another Balkans, but on a much larger scale. Who wants to be around when that happens?

I'm in no doubt things will cost more for at least a decade, and I consider that a small price to pay for returning to a domestically producing, global trading nation without late C19th/early C20th Franco-German philosophical models steering our "progress".

 

[EM2]

^^^
Except...what evidence is there that any of that will happen, and that what is outlined in the first two sentences of your second paragraph was ever going to come to pass?

 

[furnessvale]

"They only surveyed people who are still alive" is surely one of the most ridiculous and inane things ever posted on here.

We have constantly been informed that older people, in general, voted to leave. As a percentage of those older people have died and are no longer being counted, surely this should have tilted any poll towards remain, even if only slightly.

 

[Steveman]

^^^
Except...what evidence is there that any of that will happen, and that what is outlined in the first two sentences of your second paragraph was ever going to come to pass?

You're asking for evidence that the EU is going nowhere but you cannot provide any evidence that leaving it will be the disaster you constantly predict.

 

[najaB]

National sovereignty. The right not to sabre rattle with Russia over Ukraine.

Funny how someone who places such an importance on national sovereignty seems to also be fine with giving Russia a 'pass' on fomenting a civil war in and annexing part of another country.

 

[meridian2]

^^^
Except...what evidence is there that any of that will happen, and that what is outlined in the first two sentences of your second paragraph was ever going to come to pass?

The only way we can know anything is by precedent. The EU is based on a notion that the nation state has passed its sell by date, except as a voting entity. I think that's premature, and the ambitions of the main EU protagonists are not countered by the doubt and opposition that defines national government in the UK. What is this thing Europe anyway? What is its philosophical premise and values? I have no idea, and I'm a regular traveller to European countries.

The only competition for the soul of the EU is Turkey, whose population has risen from 27m when its membership was first mooted, to 90m today. Will Turkey become "European"? I have no idea. I like Turkey and it's people but it isn't Europe by any stretch of the definition, and neither is much of the former Ottoman empire that is in the EU's sights. I'm certain the EU's expansionist agenda will see it biting off more than it can chew.

 

[meridian2]

Funny how someone who places such an importance on national sovereignty seems to also be fine with giving Russia a 'pass' on fomenting a civil war in and annexing part of another country.

Russia's relationship with Ukraine is a long and complex one. The more the EU entices nations in the east to its big tent, the more Russia will feel under threat. Leave Russia alone and it will leave us alone.