Originally Posted by Miss Ann Thrope (Post 12439992)

For someone who rather self-righteously claims to value logic and facts over opinion and belief, there is rather a lot of magical thinking and wish-fulfillment expectation in the above.

Originally Posted by Miss Ann Thrope (Post 12439992)

For someone who rather self-righteously claims to value logic and facts over opinion and belief, there is an awful lot of magical thinking and wish-fulfillment expectation in the above. Not to mention a worryingly Trumpesque view that the media should be doing "PR".

The instability is not because of the media, most of whom are the brainless lying tribunes of Brexit anyway; it's because the UK government hasn't a clue what it's doing and is spouting inconsistent nonsense. Business, investors and the public have no idea what Brexit will ultimately entail so of course there is instability. The instability is actually tempered by the view that it will have to be a soft Brexit because anything else is nonsense. If we get a hard Brexit with the UK crashing out of the EU with no deal, then you ain't seen nothing yet instability-wise.

Brexit is a purely ideologically driven project based on deluded nineteenth century nationalism. There is no economic case for Brexit whatsoever. NONE. Brexit will make the UK poorer than it would otherwise have been; about this, there is no doubt. That is not to say that Britain can't make it's own way in the world: clearly it can, but with (potentially significantly) diminished stature and wealth. The Brexit "argument" that the UK will somehow be better off alone is the equivalent of saying that it will do us good to cut off our right hand because that will force us to make better use of our left hand.

And as regards a free trade bloc of the Anglophone countries, well that is the ultimate wishful thinking - though even using the term "thinking" is giving this notion far too much credit. For a start, English is already the language of international business so there is no innate basis for such a group having any specific cohesion. Meanwhile the UK has squandered the significant advantage that this fact already gave it's economy, institutions and working citizens within the EU. There is one specific feature that defines all of the major trading blocs in the world: the EU (which is by far the most successful one and remains the model for all others), NAFTA, EFTA, ASEAN, Mercosur, SAARC, Comesa, CIS, GCC, Ecowas, Caricom etc etc. While these are of varying levels of maturity and success, they all have one common feature: have you spotted it??? They are made up of physical NEIGHBOURS!

If a country has a defined advantage in the production of any item or the provision of any service then it doesn't need a trading bloc or preferential relationship to be successful. It is for the myriad of other goods and services that these trading blocs provide advantage and physical logistics plays a critically important role in this. What exactly is the UK going to be able to sell to Australia that it currently sells to the EU? Australia and NZ will be more than happy to offload their agricultural surpluses into the UK but maybe that's just as well as there will be nobody available to work on UK farms anyway. And culturally, Australia, Canada and NZ would all make very good fits with the EU (like Ireland). Meanwhile I'm not sure that the NHS would be such a good cultural fit with the remaining member of the "Angloshpere", Trumpistan...

But the biggest fallacy in this mystical notion of a new trading bloc is that these countries will somehow jeopardize their extremely valuable trading relationships with the EU to rush and offer the UK some preference. In every single situation the UK will be massively weaker in all of these negotiations and will have to settle for whatever crumbs fall from the table.

That's not media PR or "remoaning". That's cold hard obvious f**king logic.

Originally Posted by littlejimmy (Post 12439999)

Cameron wanted to appease and silence a few headbangers from his own party and neutralise the UKIP threat

Originally Posted by Arnold S (Post 12440007)

This is the line that's continually played out but I now wonder as he realised he was coming to the end of his shelf life anyway he sought to cash in with the brokers. The UKIP threat was only ever based on over-representation in the media and I'd hope that Tory party policy was based on something a bit more solid than that.

Originally Posted by littlejimmy (Post 12440012)

Possibly. Never had him down as so astute. I always got the impression it was a complete shock to him.

Originally Posted by Arnold S (Post 12440026)

True, I don't think he was clever enough to engineer the whole thing but I'm sure his personal and extended family's wealth was covered for such an eventuality.

Originally Posted by DXBtoDOH (Post 12440034)

Let me say this again, the majority, as 52% is still defined as the winning majority, voted to leave.

Originally Posted by DXBtoDOH (Post 12440034)

It must be a dirty shock to you that the majority of the people, not a few headbangers, voted to leave the EU.

Let me say this again, the majority, as 52% is still defined as the winning majority, voted to leave.

Tell me again about these few headbangers you were talking about. All 17 million of them.

Oh, of course, it was all due to lies, wasn't it. And nothing to do with the EU itself.

Originally Posted by littlejimmy (Post 12440048)

You're twisting things. The headbangers are the neo-liberal anti-EU people in government who are taking their opportunity from this mess to swerve the incoming tax avoidance laws, deregulate everything, sell off the NHS and turn the UK into USA-lite.

The everyday voters aren't the headbangers (well some are). If you look at how important the EU was to people only 4 or 5 years ago it barely registered. Look it up, it's a fact. It was always a minority concern, but the Tories were leaching votes to UKIP and wanted power for themselves above all else after having to share with the LDs.

So the referendum got called and the 30 or so headbangers woke up from their slumber. Their friends, the non-dom/foreign press barons also woke up and started pushing the EU to the forefront of the public's mind. Bojo (the man sacked for making shit up about the EU as a journalist) saw a chance to get into No 10.

And here we are. May is being held hostage and has no choice but to take us the way we're going...no deal, full-on Brexit, ignore the 48%, call it the Will of the People when it was more like whim. It's going to be a shit-show, and they know it. But power is all that matters. Corbyn isn't much better...playing the long game, waiting for it all to go to hell and picking up the pieces.

Funniest thing is, we could even end up rejoining in a few years to a decade but losing all our "special sausage" as the Germans call it, and going full-on EU with Schengen and the Euro.

Originally Posted by DXBtoDOH (Post 12440057)

You're still conveniently ignoring that 52% or 17+ million people voted to leave. That strongly implies people felt strongly enough to do something as radical as to leave the EU. How do you explain that? Oh, it wasn't important in the past? Maybe it wasn't important enough when the full ramifications of FOM hadn't been felt but after 5 years of hundreds of thousands of EU migrants arriving to the UK annually can change things drastically.

Someone once observed that the real radicals weren't the voters leaving the EU, but the close-minded group of neoliberal federalists who kept signing Britain up to closer and closer integration with the EU without the express wishes or approvals of the country's population. We know, for example, had the FOM "right" been subject to a vote of approval, it'd have been clobbered even before getting out of the starting gate. So who held Britain hostage? People like Blair and Brown who signed the UK up to closer integration and allowed early FOM without even consulting the population? Blair promised a referendum but refused to deliver it because he knew he'd lose it. Hmm... I know who the radicals were and it's not UKIP.

I'll agree the future is uncertain as the future always is and we shall have to see what happens. If today is a mess it's a mess because for too long our political masters ignored the express wishes of the voters for so long in tying Britain closer and closer to the EU when it should never have been allowed to be anything more than just the common market we originally signed up for.

Originally Posted by DXBtoDOH (Post 12440034)

It must be a dirty shock to you that the majority of the people, not a few headbangers, voted to leave the EU.

Let me say this again, the majority, as 52% is still defined as the winning majority, voted to leave.

Tell me again about these few headbangers you were talking about. All 17 million of them.

Oh, of course, it was all due to lies, wasn't it. And nothing to do with the EU itself.

Originally Posted by littlejimmy (Post 12440066)

Anyway, can't believe this thread's turned into another Brexit debate. I guess it had the word "leaving" in the title...:lol: