Why are we concerned about the politicicans? THEY do not run the country. They are just front men (with a few women) who feed the public information about the new policies that the establishmenmt Civil Service and external Quangos have dreamt up to ensure that they and their friends keep getting tranches of taxpayer money.
Occasionally the politicians are changed – different ‘parties’ are elected. But the same policies seem to keep coming. it really is the case that the Politicians have lost control to the Activists – non-elected single-interest groups which were bought off from causing disturbance amongst the voters by taxpayer money, and are now so well installed that there is no way to shift them.
Almost ALL the comments on this blog, and all the proposals for change, are therefore redundant. They are addressing the wrong target. The Activists and Quangos put the politicians up there to be shot at while they avoid the flak and continue to consume money in ever-increasing amounts while ruining our lives….
Hallowed Be
I expect whatever the actual deal, the change of philosophy from Theresa to Boris, means it will be better than anything negotiated with the alternative approach. We’re independent as of xyz date and the default is we’ll make the rules that apply. You think we should adopt something ok, Mssr Barnier give us your pitch. Oh your pitch is we don’t have a choice? Hmm. Hold on bish bash bosh, Your maj, sign here. Ok sorry about that, as i look at the statute book, its say we do, so sorry for any misunderstanding about that but you were saying.
All Brexit means at the fin de la jour is that national interest is assumed to be deciding for yourself.
In contrast to the relucto-pseudo-leaver approach of assuming national interest is within EU and decide a few cosmetic things to placate the electorate.
John
Roué le Jour
November 14, 2020 at 10:16 am
I too am convinved Boris will take a dive on brexit in the last round. Some bollocks along the lines of “now is not the time” to blah blah blah, etc. etc. etc.
What Roue said x1,000
Gamecock
“A coward dies a thousand times.”
So Much For Subtlety
The Irish chose to be a backward looking quasi-theocracy rather than remain part of the UK.
Fair enough. Their gaff, their rules. I don’t know anyone who misses them.
But I doubt little Willie would be lecturing them on the need to stay
bloke in spain
Dodgy Geezer about sums it up.
Jimmers
Dodgy Geezer is correct, although up it appears that Carrie has a significant input as well.
Sadly, I think we’re screwed. Boris will royally fuck up Brexit and by extension the Tory party. We’ll be left with lefty Labour and not quite so lefty Conservatives.
itellyounothing
Better a massive public failure than a secret one.
Clears the decks for replacement.
Bloke on M4
“Global Britain is just another vacuous slogan”
Wrong. The point is that non-EU trade is now larger. We’re a global trading country, not an EU one. And that shift isn’t going to stop. African and South American countries are still growing about 2-3 times faster than France, Spain or Italy.
Even if someone flubbs this in the government this time, this is our destiny.
Bloke on M4
SMFS,
“The Irish chose to be a backward looking quasi-theocracy rather than remain part of the UK.”
I reckon Ireland will be next to leave the EU, but they don’t know it yet.
According to the World Bank, 56% of their trade is with Europe and Central Asia (and the Asia part is miniscule). But the UK is 11% of that. So, when we leave the EU, 45% of Ireland’s exports are to the EU. That percentage is also getting smaller every year.
Add in some stuff about Ireland losing tax advantages and having to take a lot more refugees. I give it less than a decade before there’s someone pushing for Irexit.
Jonathan
@ Bloke on the M4:
” I reckon Ireland will be next to leave the EU, but they don’t know it yet.”
They have an anti=Irish PM in Varadkar and their Establishment is just as pro EU and mass Third-World immigration as ours. They have a limited window of opportunity, maybe 5 years, in which to pull off Irexit.
AndrewZ
“Boris will take a dive on brexit”
What, and forego his moment of triumph? His ego and lust for glory would never allow it.
Gamecock
“45% of Ireland’s exports are to the EU”
Another wrinkle is that most of that is trans shipped thru the UK. Don’t know what’s going to happen to that.
DFDS do offer a direct freight route from Belfast, Dublin, Waterford and Cork to Rotterdam, but it takes 2 days and is container only, not Roll-on,Roll-off ferry, so it would require addition rail/road transport from Rotterdam.
So there is an alternative to the UK landbridge route, but it’s far from ideal and has (presumably) limited capacity in comparison with the UK landbridge via Dún Laoghaire and Larne (UK NI)
Richard West Wales
I think we need the European Union. We need a strong united Europe that respects, human rights, liberty, freedom, and democracy.
History and the present shows what happens to weak divided geo-political regions. They become proxy battle grounds for empires and superpowers. Look at history, and look at the Middle East, Africa, South America and South East Asia.
Do you want that to happen to Europe? That is sadistic and cruel.
Eurosceptics want Europe and the UK to be in chaos. A chaos that will humiliate and wreck the European continent.
The EU / EEC have given Western and now Eastern Europe, decades of freedom, peace, stability, and human rights. Why give that up?
The Meissen Bison
Richard West Wales:
1) We need a strong united Europe that respects, human rights, liberty, freedom, and democracy.
Well, yes, possibly, but there’s no consensus around what those terms mean among the current EU 27.
2) The EU / EEC have given Western and now Eastern Europe, decades of freedom, peace, stability, and human rights.
You must know that that’s nonsense. At best it’s given Germany a cloak under which it could subsume its recent past and ultimately to no good effect as far as the former occupied countries are concerned.
So Much For Subtlety
Richard West Wales November 15, 2020 at 10:20 pm – “The EU / EEC have given Western and now Eastern Europe, decades of freedom, peace, stability, and human rights. Why give that up?”
This period has also been a time in which the length of women’s dresses has shortened considerably. Clearly the EU has given us Twiggy and the miniskirt. So it is important for us to remain in the EU otherwise women will be back in shapeless sacks like Mary Whitehouse.
Bongo
Because if we didn’t centralise the farmland owner subsidies to Brussels (and the migrant driving crony capitalist convergence policies), then the troops of Otto von Bismarck would be marching along the Seine again.
It’s a schit argument.
PF
Nuclear powers (pretty much by definition) don’t become “proxy battle grounds”.
PF
Top trolling by the way!
Gamecock
“The EU / EEC have given Western and now Eastern Europe, decades of freedom, peace, stability, and human rights.”
Uhh . . . ‘Merica did that. Yurop stiffed America for the Nato bill.
How long can they keep this dragging on?
Embrace it ?
We’re already drowning in it.
Why are we concerned about the politicicans? THEY do not run the country. They are just front men (with a few women) who feed the public information about the new policies that the establishmenmt Civil Service and external Quangos have dreamt up to ensure that they and their friends keep getting tranches of taxpayer money.
Occasionally the politicians are changed – different ‘parties’ are elected. But the same policies seem to keep coming. it really is the case that the Politicians have lost control to the Activists – non-elected single-interest groups which were bought off from causing disturbance amongst the voters by taxpayer money, and are now so well installed that there is no way to shift them.
Almost ALL the comments on this blog, and all the proposals for change, are therefore redundant. They are addressing the wrong target. The Activists and Quangos put the politicians up there to be shot at while they avoid the flak and continue to consume money in ever-increasing amounts while ruining our lives….
I expect whatever the actual deal, the change of philosophy from Theresa to Boris, means it will be better than anything negotiated with the alternative approach. We’re independent as of xyz date and the default is we’ll make the rules that apply. You think we should adopt something ok, Mssr Barnier give us your pitch. Oh your pitch is we don’t have a choice? Hmm. Hold on bish bash bosh, Your maj, sign here. Ok sorry about that, as i look at the statute book, its say we do, so sorry for any misunderstanding about that but you were saying.
All Brexit means at the fin de la jour is that national interest is assumed to be deciding for yourself.
In contrast to the relucto-pseudo-leaver approach of assuming national interest is within EU and decide a few cosmetic things to placate the electorate.
Roué le Jour
November 14, 2020 at 10:16 am
I too am convinved Boris will take a dive on brexit in the last round. Some bollocks along the lines of “now is not the time” to blah blah blah, etc. etc. etc.
What Roue said x1,000
“A coward dies a thousand times.”
The Irish chose to be a backward looking quasi-theocracy rather than remain part of the UK.
Fair enough. Their gaff, their rules. I don’t know anyone who misses them.
But I doubt little Willie would be lecturing them on the need to stay
Dodgy Geezer about sums it up.
Dodgy Geezer is correct, although up it appears that Carrie has a significant input as well.
Sadly, I think we’re screwed. Boris will royally fuck up Brexit and by extension the Tory party. We’ll be left with lefty Labour and not quite so lefty Conservatives.
Better a massive public failure than a secret one.
Clears the decks for replacement.
“Global Britain is just another vacuous slogan”
Wrong. The point is that non-EU trade is now larger. We’re a global trading country, not an EU one. And that shift isn’t going to stop. African and South American countries are still growing about 2-3 times faster than France, Spain or Italy.
Even if someone flubbs this in the government this time, this is our destiny.
SMFS,
“The Irish chose to be a backward looking quasi-theocracy rather than remain part of the UK.”
I reckon Ireland will be next to leave the EU, but they don’t know it yet.
According to the World Bank, 56% of their trade is with Europe and Central Asia (and the Asia part is miniscule). But the UK is 11% of that. So, when we leave the EU, 45% of Ireland’s exports are to the EU. That percentage is also getting smaller every year.
Add in some stuff about Ireland losing tax advantages and having to take a lot more refugees. I give it less than a decade before there’s someone pushing for Irexit.
@ Bloke on the M4:
” I reckon Ireland will be next to leave the EU, but they don’t know it yet.”
They have an anti=Irish PM in Varadkar and their Establishment is just as pro EU and mass Third-World immigration as ours. They have a limited window of opportunity, maybe 5 years, in which to pull off Irexit.
“Boris will take a dive on brexit”
What, and forego his moment of triumph? His ego and lust for glory would never allow it.
“45% of Ireland’s exports are to the EU”
Another wrinkle is that most of that is trans shipped thru the UK. Don’t know what’s going to happen to that.
DFDS do offer a direct freight route from Belfast, Dublin, Waterford and Cork to Rotterdam, but it takes 2 days and is container only, not Roll-on,Roll-off ferry, so it would require addition rail/road transport from Rotterdam.
https://www.dfds.com/en-gb/freight-shipping/routes-and-schedules/continental-europe-ireland
So there is an alternative to the UK landbridge route, but it’s far from ideal and has (presumably) limited capacity in comparison with the UK landbridge via Dún Laoghaire and Larne (UK NI)
I think we need the European Union. We need a strong united Europe that respects, human rights, liberty, freedom, and democracy.
History and the present shows what happens to weak divided geo-political regions. They become proxy battle grounds for empires and superpowers. Look at history, and look at the Middle East, Africa, South America and South East Asia.
Do you want that to happen to Europe? That is sadistic and cruel.
Eurosceptics want Europe and the UK to be in chaos. A chaos that will humiliate and wreck the European continent.
The EU / EEC have given Western and now Eastern Europe, decades of freedom, peace, stability, and human rights. Why give that up?
Richard West Wales:
1) We need a strong united Europe that respects, human rights, liberty, freedom, and democracy.
Well, yes, possibly, but there’s no consensus around what those terms mean among the current EU 27.
2) The EU / EEC have given Western and now Eastern Europe, decades of freedom, peace, stability, and human rights.
You must know that that’s nonsense. At best it’s given Germany a cloak under which it could subsume its recent past and ultimately to no good effect as far as the former occupied countries are concerned.
Richard West Wales November 15, 2020 at 10:20 pm – “The EU / EEC have given Western and now Eastern Europe, decades of freedom, peace, stability, and human rights. Why give that up?”
This period has also been a time in which the length of women’s dresses has shortened considerably. Clearly the EU has given us Twiggy and the miniskirt. So it is important for us to remain in the EU otherwise women will be back in shapeless sacks like Mary Whitehouse.
Because if we didn’t centralise the farmland owner subsidies to Brussels (and the migrant driving crony capitalist convergence policies), then the troops of Otto von Bismarck would be marching along the Seine again.
It’s a schit argument.
Nuclear powers (pretty much by definition) don’t become “proxy battle grounds”.
Top trolling by the way!
“The EU / EEC have given Western and now Eastern Europe, decades of freedom, peace, stability, and human rights.”
Uhh . . . ‘Merica did that. Yurop stiffed America for the Nato bill.
“and now Eastern Europe”
That was Ronald Reagan.
EU has given us decades of revisionist history.