EU Vote

[Wickerman]

To Wickerman

Are you saying we will be better off out the EU?

Cheers John

Better, all depends on how well Britain negotiates it's future with respective economies. There are two roads to follow, one within the EU, and one without. Britain has been down both roads and from what I recall both work well enough at the economic level.

It's what you make of it that matters, not what politicians say.
Once in power the elected politicians will make it work, regardless which road they are on.

[Fleetwood Mac]

To Wickerman

Are you saying we will be better off out the EU?

Cheers John

I think there is a point being missed here.

For a lot of people, ‘better off in the EU’, ‘exports and imports’, ‘the economy’ are simply vague notions that happen to other people.

Many of the people who voted leave have far more pressing concerns than that, such as their day to day lives. And, up here in the old industrial heartlands people don’t have that much to lose anyway.

Let me tell you something:

I grew up in a mining village in County Durham during the ‘80s. The sort of place where everyone knew everyone, where crime was virtually zero bar the odd drink driver, where doors were unlocked, were on New Year’s Eve people waltzed into other people’s homes for a drink uninvited and it was expected, where we had galas for the community on a regular basis. We didn’t have a pot to piss in but we were happy with our lot and respected our neighbours and our community.

So, what did our arsehole government do? They shipped in problem people from places such as Leeds and Nottingham into our community. People who couldn’t respect their own communities. I should add at this point that these people were white before someone screams: “RACIST!”

What happened in a short space of time? Burglaries started happening. Doors were locked when previously they had been unlocked. Trouble started happening on New Year’s Eve and a tradition of house-footing that had probably been going on for centuries died. Our community changed.

That was my Mam, my Dad, my Grandma, my Granddad: their day-to-day lives changed by people making in decisions in London with no consideration for us.

What is the point of this? The point being that many of us here are sick to the back teeth of these people making decisions that impact upon us with no regard for us. Cameron, Corbyn, Blair and associates wouldn’t live next door to problem people; nor would ‘the bankers’; nor would the middle class left-wing luvvies who wouldn’t know hard times if it smacked them on the back of their heeds.

This resentment has built up over time. We had to watch them making fraudulent expense claims paid for by the average man on the street when many up here are struggling to make ends meet. We’ve had to watch them force us to bail out the banks on the back of their own mismanagement. Places such as Middlesbrough, Rochdale and Oldham have had to watch them place asylum seekers on their doorsteps when these places were already struggling with high unemployment – Cameron and associates wouldn’t live next door to an asylum seeker – not in a million years – nor would the middle class left-wing luvvies who talk a good game but retire to middle class suburbia surrounded by white faces talking utter shite about ‘the economy’ and ‘race relations’. Definitely a case of what is good for the goose is not good for the gander.

So, forgive us if many people up here woke up on Friday with a feeling of smug satisfaction. Working class people don’t tend to vote in great numbers at the general election because Labour or Conservative won’t make much difference to us. But this? This was different. We had a chance to tell our political elites with their grand plans to go and get ****ed.

It wasn’t even a vote against the EU for many of us; it was a vote against our political elite, most of whom backed staying in the EU, and were complicit in making decisions that benefitted them at our expense.

I am a little bit nervous of what the future holds as in my heart I want this country to prosper, but I am so pleased and proud that after all of these years of being shafted by the people who run this country that when they got the chance they said: “have that, wankers”.

And, so what if a few people from JP Morgan or wherever lose their jobs. They’ve never considered us.

[Robert]

Worth bringing this up again :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTr8IVWBuPE

[Graham]

With reference to Fleetwood Mac's marathon post, why are those who claim to represent the honest and unstained British Working Class so naive? The simple fact is that the majority of those who voted to Leave did so because they want an end to uncontrolled immigration. Politics as Fleetwoood Mac seems to believe had sod all to do with it.

Graham

[Fleetwood Mac]

With reference to Fleetwood Mac's marathon post, why are those who claim to represent the honest and unstained British Working Class so naive? The simple fact is that the majority of those who voted to Leave did so because they want an end to uncontrolled immigration. Politics as Fleetwoood Mac seems to believe had sod all to do with it.

Graham

That may be your reality where you live, but believe me a lot of people up here took this as a chance to settle a few scores.

[Graham]

That may be your reality where you live, but believe me a lot of people up here took this as a chance to settle a few scores.

Then perhaps they should have put their money where their (big Northern) mouths are at the last General Election!!!

Why do you think there is such a vast social difference between where you live and where I live?

Graham

[Robert]

I see that the Liberal Establishment is pondering whether to ignore the result. And of the two major party leaders who accepted the result, Cameron is gone and Corbyn is about to be removed by pro-EU stooges.

[Graham]

I see that the Liberal Establishment is pondering whether to ignore the result. And of the two major party leaders who accepted the result, Cameron is gone and Corbyn is about to be removed by pro-EU stooges.

And lovely little Ms Sturgeon could scupper the whole sorry mess - and I hope she does.

Graham

[Mayerling]

The point I bring up Fleetwood is, how that midland industrial worker majority is going to follow it up. They will have to vote to change the state of the leadership of at least Labour, and more than likely the Tory and Liberal (is it that now) parties to mirror themselves to reverse these trends. And I suspect it won't work.

Problem is voting results are based on sets of different groups who coalesce on an issue or a political race for a wide variety of reasons. In short the votes on any election are coalition votes, and are subject to not lasting forever. Because the next major vote may actually benefit some of these same groups (with others that lost in this particular election) against other groups voting in the majority here, with others who were in the minority here. It turns like that everytime!

Economic demands by one set will be disliked by another set - and they both may be in the same economic class. Take a vote on a government sponsored program of road and rail repairs and modernization, which bypasses some regions in favour of the others. Or a concentration (given the possible renewed threat from Scotland for independence) of placating Scottish nationalism by greater expenditure of revenue from the same North Sea Oil money that is at the root of the planned nation-state rebuilding. But that would take large sums away from projects in the midlands or in Wales. It's easy to see how this would work out.

Yes, the leaders of the nation and the parties are hypocritical b*st**ds, but it has always been so - and not only in Britain. Whatever Frau Merkel's views on helping immigrants in Germany, few will reside in her residential area. Right now I am watching a crooked, stock jobber and self-proclaimed business genius (who boasts of being worth billions, which he is not) facing a woman who has been considered having questionable business dealings in the past with her husband, and whose husband loves to give "pep talk" speeches at two to five million dollars (or yen or sen or euro) a pop! It's actually no better in Putin's Russia, where the government is hardening into an unreasonable facsimile of what it was when "Uncle Joe" was in charge, except Vlad does like the strains of supercapitalism flowing in, and feathering the nests of himself and his acolytes. Same thing in the former Communist China too! So Fleetwood we are all within the same boat.

At times I am tempted to yell "workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!" Then I realize that today, Karl Marx would probably be on the large scale lecture circuit, be a talking head for Murdoch's Fox network and other stations around the globe, and would have a great income with his series of sequels to the original unfinished "Das Kapital".

Jeff

[Svensson]

So, there was no substance behind your point. That's fine.

As for Germany:

Germany will be the dominant partner in Europe whether they want that role or not. It is inevitable that the country with the strongest economy in Europe will play the lead role. This isn't an anti-German thing, in fact you'll find that of all the countries in Europe Germany is the one that garners the most respect in this country.

It is simply inevitable that such a country will take the lead role, and we have seen this in relation to Greece.

Germany is a basket case when it comes to exercising power. They are damned if they don't and they are damned if they do as well have seen with Greece a couple of years ago. Likewise, local Ukranian beer with Putin and Merkel portrayed as Nazis (because they had both conspired to destroy the Ukraine, one by doing a lot, the other by doing nothing) that Germany can not escape it's immediate past and is therefore have their hands tied in many such situations. An EU under German rule will be politically weak.

From a German point of view, they needed the UK to be an active and positive participant in the EU to counter-balance the more socialist and protectionist French and Italian governments. The tragedy here is that the UK was never willing/able to take on that role but chose to be a disruptive influence most of the time. Even now, the UK does not seem to be interested to start working an a new relationship with the EU and therefore bring clarity to the situation as soon as possible (which will limit the economic damage to Thursday's result).

But we know why this is, don't we? It's because the leave campaign had no plan whatsoever.

We don't want that. It could be Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany or whomever else; it's simply not for us. It's not healthy to have a highly centralised state governing over millions of people from disparate nations. In fact, it is a recipe for trouble.

We simply do not see it like you. Europeans tend to think such a centralised government is some gateway to world peace. We think the opposite.

At School I had learned about France and Britain being highly centralised countries with Paris and London whereas the Holy Roman Empire was a loose collection of 1500+ governments who chose to co-operate in an area of common culture and economic interests. Everyone seemed to be happy at the time with the way things worked in this quirky and unique way. This of course all changed after the seven years war when Britain was propelled to the eminent world power and Prussia ended up as the new continental boss.

[Svensson]

I think there is a point being missed here.

For a lot of people, ‘better off in the EU’, ‘exports and imports’, ‘the economy’ are simply vague notions that happen to other people.

Many of the people who voted leave have far more pressing concerns than that, such as their day to day lives. And, up here in the old industrial heartlands people don’t have that much to lose anyway.

Let me tell you something:

I grew up in a mining village in County Durham during the ‘80s. The sort of place where everyone knew everyone, where crime was virtually zero bar the odd drink driver, where doors were unlocked, were on New Year’s Eve people waltzed into other people’s homes for a drink uninvited and it was expected, where we had galas for the community on a regular basis. We didn’t have a pot to piss in but we were happy with our lot and respected our neighbours and our community.

So, what did our arsehole government do? They shipped in problem people from places such as Leeds and Nottingham into our community. People who couldn’t respect their own communities. I should add at this point that these people were white before someone screams: “RACIST!”

What happened in a short space of time? Burglaries started happening. Doors were locked when previously they had been unlocked. Trouble started happening on New Year’s Eve and a tradition of house-footing that had probably been going on for centuries died. Our community changed.

That was my Mam, my Dad, my Grandma, my Granddad: their day-to-day lives changed by people making in decisions in London with no consideration for us.

What is the point of this? The point being that many of us here are sick to the back teeth of these people making decisions that impact upon us with no regard for us. Cameron, Corbyn, Blair and associates wouldn’t live next door to problem people; nor would ‘the bankers’; nor would the middle class left-wing luvvies who wouldn’t know hard times if it smacked them on the back of their heeds.

This resentment has built up over time. We had to watch them making fraudulent expense claims paid for by the average man on the street when many up here are struggling to make ends meet. We’ve had to watch them force us to bail out the banks on the back of their own mismanagement. Places such as Middlesbrough, Rochdale and Oldham have had to watch them place asylum seekers on their doorsteps when these places were already struggling with high unemployment – Cameron and associates wouldn’t live next door to an asylum seeker – not in a million years – nor would the middle class left-wing luvvies who talk a good game but retire to middle class suburbia surrounded by white faces talking utter shite about ‘the economy’ and ‘race relations’. Definitely a case of what is good for the goose is not good for the gander.

So, forgive us if many people up here woke up on Friday with a feeling of smug satisfaction. Working class people don’t tend to vote in great numbers at the general election because Labour or Conservative won’t make much difference to us. But this? This was different. We had a chance to tell our political elites with their grand plans to go and get ****ed.

It wasn’t even a vote against the EU for many of us; it was a vote against our political elite, most of whom backed staying in the EU, and were complicit in making decisions that benefitted them at our expense.

I am a little bit nervous of what the future holds as in my heart I want this country to prosper, but I am so pleased and proud that after all of these years of being shafted by the people who run this country that when they got the chance they said: “have that, wankers”.

And, so what if a few people from JP Morgan or wherever lose their jobs. They’ve never considered us.

OK, I get what you mean. At least, I think you do. On the one hand, I can not relate to it because I have not experienced it myself, on the other hand, I had a similar discussion after the Cricket at Edgbaston last Friday with some locals.

Then again, I find it troubling that the world has ended up in a place where some people don't necessarily vote on the actual subject.

[Svensson]

OK, membership of the EU has been swings and roundabouts: good, bad and plain bloody silly sometimes, but I do ask myself what real, lasting benefit we got out of it.

Graham

the following is an incomplete list but contains some of the highlights.

- providing 57% UK trade;
- structural funding to areas hit by industrial decline;
- cleaner beaches and rivers;
- cleaner air;
- lead free petrol;
- restrictions on landfill dumping;
- a recycling culture;
- cheaper mobile charges;
- cheaper air travel;
- improved consumer protection and food labelling;
- a ban on growth hormones and other harmful food additives;
- better product safety;
- single market competition bringing quality improvements and better industrial performance;
- break up of monopolies;
- Europe-wide patent and copyright protection;
- price transparency and removal of commission on currency exchanges across the eurozone;
- funded opportunities for young people to undertake study or work placements abroad;
- smoke-free workplaces;
- equal pay legislation;
- holiday entitlement;
- strongest wildlife protection in the world;
- improved animal welfare in food production;
- EU-funded research and industrial collaboration;
- EU diplomatic efforts to uphold the nuclear non-proliferation treaty;
- European arrest warrant;
- European civil and military co-operation in post-conflict zones in Europe and Africa;
- support for democracy and human rights across Europe and beyond;


Now, there may be a number of people who will say "what? is that all?". In that case, I would say yes. Hardly stuff that is detrimental on a countrie's fundamental sovereignty anyways...

This and of course he fact that the EU is the largest economy in the world bar none with consistently high minimum living standards across its 500 million inhabitants. China and India are driving their economies based on their sheer population numbers and total disregard for employee/human-rights and not really looking after the elderly or others on the edge of society. South America have wave after wave of populist strong-men who are promising the socialist rapture, Africa are stuggling with their resource-curse and never managed to escape their post colonisation issues (for one way or another and that's all I CAN really say about that). So all in all, life in the EU isn't bad at all.

[Robert]

Unless you're Greek.

[Svensson]

The EU does not protect you from self-harm. The Greek crisis was a sovereign debt crisis caused by the Greek recession of 2009, structural weaknesses in the Greek economy, and revelations that previous data on government debt levels and deficits had been undercounted by the Greek government. They were borrowing like there was no tomorrow and then couldn't pay the bills when the banking crisis hit.

[Robert]

In fact, the Greeks should never have been allowed to join the euro, and it was serious negligence on the part of the EU that they were allowed to join.