Re: know anyone leaving?
 

It's intentional. We've been calling it the bored for a loooooong time.

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

x 2

and oh look another brexit debate woohoo! :rofl:

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

Yeah I know. I was looking at the Brexit Negotiations thread from October and almost exactly the same stuff was said. :lol:

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

Got to admit, whatever your views on the current political landscape - it's been fascinating.

When I was doing A-level politics, I'd much rather have studied Brexit or the most recent US elections!

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

Very good point and it's also positive to see / read / hear so many people taking interest in the topics too.

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

Oh, absolutely. The policy geek in me loves every minute of it. It's so rare to have a situation where the country/people/government are renegotiating the social contract and their relationship with the rest of the world as well as the concept of what the state should be in the 21st century. No wonder why it's such a passionate issue for it is a revolution of sorts. Thankfully one that doesn't involve guns and armoured tanks.

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

Barrel 12 will be in trouble, for sure.

Anyway, I had a very nice evening with a bored member last night who gave me on of the best pro-Brexit arguments I've ever heard, from an angle I hadn't really thought about. It certainly made me think. Didn't change my mind, but made me think.

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

Don't listen to TheShed when he's had a beer. :eek::eek::eek:

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

I'd had a few as well, to be fair. :lol:

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

So what was this non-magical argument for Brexit that impressed you so?

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

To start (get my excuses in), I'd had a few glasses of red wine by then so probably don't remember it that well. In a nutshell it was about the chance it could bring to reset the British economy into a manufacturing-based, competitive economy and stopping the welfare culture trap that has been around since the 1980s, i.e. training up a new efficient, British workforce. It would take time, of course. It was a fresh angle on it which made me think, like I said, not just the usual "you lost, get over it, leave at any cost, spitfires over the Channel, jam and spam and let them eat cake!" nonsense.

I've always maintained there are some good progressive/left-wing reasons for leaving the EU. Problem for me is that some of the people in charge (Bojo and JRM) of it aren't doing it for those reasons. Quite the opposite. They want to make the UK even more neo-liberal and sell everything that hasn't been privatised off to Donald Trump, if they get their way. And they're fighting against other Tories who want a softer Brexit, and we're still not really clear what the plan is. I wonder what the hell Corbyn et al are up to. Is he playing a long game and counting on picking up the pieces when the Tories mess it up?

As for Bojo's speech yesterday. Same old, same old. Roll out the biggest charlatan of all to try and unite people, talking about betrayal. Yeah, right.

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

No such thing as a 'hard' or 'soft' Brexit...

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

Someone needs to tell May, Hammond, Boris, Davies and all the rest then. From here, 600 days after the referendum, it looks like they can't decide what they want.

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

Nearly half of benefit spending is on the elderly and pensions so unless leaving the EU allows us to implement some kind of strategy based on Logan's Run I'm not sure where this would be a benefit. :)

Re: know anyone leaving?
 

Good point. Some people don't see pensions as benefits, but there's no getting away from it being a large chunk of money...and it's only getting bigger. Not advocating Logan's Run, mind...(great film).

https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/y...17bc1n#ukgs302

Pensions, Health and Welfare add up to 52%. Don't see EU spending on there, but I've seen other charts where it's a very small sliver.