If we rejoin the EU then I'm going to pick my location on a map in the EU, move there, and demand welfare. I'm sick of the UK anyway. The only thing going for it is we speak English instead of some stupid language like le or la French.
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If we rejoin the EU then I'm going to pick my location on a map in the EU, move there, and demand welfare. I'm sick of the UK anyway. The only thing going for it is we speak English instead of some stupid language like le or la French.
Malta is in the EU right? That'd be nice. They even like the English there.
I used to work with a Bosnian who lived on Malta for a couple years before migrating to the US.
(There is a large Bosnian community in St Louis after the Bosnian genocide)
He said it's beautiful there. Not super wealthy, though, IIRC.
Maybe check what welfare they have before just showing up on a dinghy.
Your loss. If they made a show with those girls talking politics, I would watch that for 25 seasons.
I'm not sure if economic growth really is that good of an indicator for prosperity. Japan is notorious for having stagnant economic growth, and they seem to be doing just fine. Meanwhile the US is leaving everyone else in the dust when it comes to growth, but at the same time Biden just announced that they finally feel ready to tackle lead pipes and paint.
Malta seems very nice. My sister went a couple of years back. Looks like a really great country to just rent a bike and ride around for a week. Everything is super close together.
I think bicycle is a popular form of travel there.
The guy I talked about used to talk about riding a bike from one end of the island to the other being easy.
Hahaha.
Japan's growth is pretty erratic, but they've been going up over the long term. I don't think they'd be keen to lose a significant chunk of it every year by imposing economic sanctions on themselves.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NHeB2gutx-0/maxresdefault.jpg
At least they're going in the right direction. The UK seems to be going down in public health standards in a big way. Water companies are dumping raw sewage into our rivers and coastlines, and it takes 90 minutes to get an ambulance if you have a heart attack or stroke (closer to 18 hours if you "just" break a leg).
On top of that, the gov't refuses to pay public servants enough to live on, so half of them are on strike or about to go on strike.
Meanwhile taxes are highest since post-WWII era, and corruption is rife in the gov't. The Chairman of the Tory party just got sacked for cheating on his taxes, though it took a couple of weeks before it happened because the PM seemed like he wasn't sure if tax fraud was a sackable offense or not and had to order and enquiry.
Meanwhile in the US, the sitting president has been found with even more top secret documents in his home.
The only thing good about this is that he's volunteered up the documents when he found them and invited a search of his home to find more documents (which sounds lazy more than anything, really).
And me sitting here like... Should we maybe keep track of who has what Top Secret documents and where?
Just a thought.
I'm not concerned that people in power abuse the power. I mean.. I am, but that's not the big issue for me with this one.
My beef is the fact that apparently the US does not keep track of who has what Top Secret documents or where they have them.
That seems antithetical to the whole point of having Top Secret documents in the first place.
"Hey, this is a big secret. On your honor to keep it secret, OK?"
Doesn't strike me as a good national security plan.
Well it's reasonable to expect that documents classified as "top secret" would be carefully tracked and whatnot but that's probably not as practical as it first appears. I mean, that implies a central database, which itself compromises the concept of "top secret". Is it really a good idea to have a digital database with information of the whereabouts of every document labelled "top secret"? How practical and safe is it to punctually and discretely log any movement of a document onto a central database?
I mean, some secrets are hand written notes from one person to another person, and after it's read it will be destroyed. Do they need to be logged? Doesn't that mean it's less of a secret than it was before? More people are becoming aware of its existence.
You're basically arguing that someone should have knowledge of all the secrets. Think about the implications of that.
C'mon. That's conflating 2 totally different things.
Knowledge of a document number and its location is not knowledge of the contents of said documents.
Bookkeeping about this kind of thing makes perfect sense.
As to the problems with "what" is Top Secret, well, that's a separate conversation that is difficult to even find good information about. What we do know is that some stuff that's been declassified has been actual newspaper clippings that were published, public knowledge, so that makes no sense at all. Other things we are promised will be declassified, but then the date keeps never happening, 'cause it gets extended. Or stuff does get declassified, but it's redacted to the point of being a list of prepositions, so the information is still not actually declassified.
But, again, what is classified is not the same as how classified information is handled and tracked. The specific gripe I have with these revelations about Biden's and Trump's documents is the lack of tracking. If 2 high profile politicians have Top Secret stuff unprotected in their homes and garages and golf resorts, then prob. many others do, as well.
Seems pretty bad policy to not even KNOW where the Secret documents are, if your job is keeping those secrets secret.
BloJo saying Ukraine should join the EU...lol
https://twitter.com/MarinaPurkiss/st...10328188796929
The Brains Truss claiming she was brought down by all those woke lefties in the finance markets. You can't make this shit up.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FoJ06wyW...g&name=900x900
I wish I could criticize, but US politicians and ex-politicians are also a shitshow.
I've been following the chinese balloon drama very closely. Maga republicans went berserk, calling Biden Xi's puppet for not shooting it down. Trump went on record saying he would have shot it down very beautifully if he were still president. Then Biden has it shot down and it turns out it had crossed US airspace three times during Trump's term. This is precisely why satire is dead.
Speaking of balloons...I'd almost forgotten.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cp...21124.jpg.webp
One of the greatest.
Tbh I'm kind of looking forward to the 2024 rallies. The only Trump content we've got recently was a very low energy eulogy to the late Diamond of Diamond and Silk where he bizarrely claimed to have known Diamond very well but to never have heard of Silk. Then he complained that the service was taking too long. I can't wait until they have him back to his old self on Adderall and stuffy nose medicine.
I hope he continues to divide the Republican party like the Dems always do to themselves on their own, anyway.
The strength of the Republican party is often in the fact that they will all vote together on basically everything. Whereas the Dems rarely put their differences aside to come together on a party line.
Trump's shenanigans have brought in Rep politicians who are self-absorbed to the point of bucking the Republican party line. Look what happened when trying to elect a leader in the House. Like a dozen votes required. That's a Dem thing, not a Rep thing, IMO.
Idiot politicians in office isn't good in the long-term, but people who lack the savvy to conceal their party's corruption is good in the short term.
Political parties are corrupt because power corrupts. That can be workable, provided the politicians have to actually do enough not corrupt stuff to convince us they're not corrupt (when we know they are, but will let it slide). Failure to conceal the corruption is bad for that party... which I find to be more problematic than good on the whole.
I like some things about the Republican party line. I just think they're too focused on backing each other under all circumstances to be an effective voice of a complex constituency. A reinvented Republican party that has to go through a reckoning with it's goals and regain the trust of their constituents would probably be better for everyone in the long run.
When an entire police force turns itself in.
https://www.itv.com/news/granada/202...es-to-watchdog
I have to say I'm baffled as how they've handled this case.
The woman goes missing walking her dog. Dog is found running around out of its harness, but woman is nowhere to be seen. Cops first say she must have fell in the river, which immediately begs the question of how you fall into a two foot deep edge of the river and drown. They search the river and can't find her.
Boyfriend says "wtf are you searching the river for?", which seems like a good question. Few days later, cops say she is "vulnerable." Which is so vague as to be basically meaningless, and thus completely unhelpful. Then just the other day the cops say she's an alcoholic and going through menopause. Ok, but why are you giving the public these embarrassing details about her? Do you want us to look for her in the pubs and medical clinics? It just doesn't make sense.
I reckon either she fucked off and doesn't want to be found, or more likely, someone snatched her. I guess there's an outside chance she jumped into the freezing river to drown herself, but seems like a weird way to go, especially when her dog is found out of it's harness. You'd think she'd tie it up first not just cut it loose to run around.
At first I presumed she drowned and was simply downstream waiting to be found, but obviously they find her by now if that's the case.-
This is a really strange case. Nothing seems likely. If she was snatched you'd think someone would have seen the struggle, she had after all been seen walking her dog multiple times. If she wandered off you'd think the dog would follow her.
It's possible she has left with another man (or woman) and prefers to disappear than tell her family. Cold as fuck but these things can happen. And you'd also think by now the guilt would be too much for her, unless she's not even reading the news.
Usually, the longer a person stays missing for, the more likely it is they're dead, but I kinda feel the opposite is true here. I feel like they'd have found her by now if she's dead. It does kinda feel like she disappeared by choice and is either dead by suicide somewhere else, living off grid, or just sociopathic as fuck with her new lover.
I don't think it's likely she was snatched given there's no evidence of struggle, the dog didn't follow, and nobody saw anything. Possible, but the snatcher got very lucky if this is what happened.
Yeah, any way you slice it, it doesn't add up. If she was going to meet someone to run off with, why take her dog and leave it there? And she has kids too, is she happy to just never see them again?
But like you say, there's no signs of a struggle, and no sign she just wandered off. Really weird.
I still think it's most likely she got snatched, just because that's what usually happens to missing women unfortunately. But definitely not a clear case.
The only explanation is the whole thing is staged to look like she didn't intend to disappear. This is obviously nothing but speculation and I'm not saying this kind of stuff on Twitter because it's disrespectful, more so if it's wrong. But that's the best theory I can come up with. Alternatively she may have committed suicide elsewhere and staged the disappearance in a misguided attempt to spare her family the trauma, even though the mess left behind is worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by poop
I realise most women who disappear have been snatched, but this feels different. Usually the police would say if this is what they think happened. It's not just the dog walkers who didn't hear signs of a struggle, the forensic teams presumably must also have found no evidence. idk why the police felt the need to tell us she's an alcoholic, though it does kinda suggest to me that they think her mental health is an important factor, rather than third party involvement.
Yeah it could be staged, but seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to, and draws a lot of attention if her goal was just to run off and not be found.
If you look at the timeline there was 20 minutes between when she was last seen and when her phone and dog were found. Presumably she got to that bench on her own steam. After that... poof.
https://images.ctfassets.net/pjshm78...830&h=569&q=80
That's a pretty cruel thing to do.
People who go on social media (not including FTR, as obviously only six people are ever going to see our convo), and speculate about stuff like this really need a slap imo.
Someone could have taken her away on a boat?
True. I'm not convinced this particular police force is altogether competent though...
Or they're not telling us the whole story. Who knows. Wasn't she supposed to be on a Teams work call on her phone too?
In my more paranoid moments, I suspect they were under a lot of pressure to explain why they were searching the river (she couldn't really have fell in, she would have had to have jumped), and now it's like "well look, she was fucked in the head so she probably offed herself, so not our fault we can't find her, must have floated out to sea..."
At least they're searching for her. I watched that new Dahmer series. Evan Peters is fantastic in it, but otherwise it's very sleazy and exploitative. Almost turns into a romantic comedy half way through. Questionably stuff... anyways, what really stood out to me was that this guy murdered at a staggering rate within the gay scene of 80's Milwaukee. Which should really narrow it down. And all of the victims were last seen with Dahmer. If those black men were white girls, there would have been a nationwide search and 24h news coverage.
What I'm saying is: if you're going to get lost, it's a great idea to be a white woman.
The way this has been hijacked by moral crusaders is horrible. A bunch of transgender people went to a vigil and shouted "fuck Keir Starmer" because he wasn't kneejerking into blaming gender critical people for her death.
The trans activists are actually fucking mental. They do more damage than good for trans people. And most of them aren't even trans. Like middle class white liberals waving BLM banners about, accusing everyone who disagrees with their worldview of being racist, doing more damage than good for racial progress.
It's like these people were eagerly waiting for something like this to happen, and are now spewing their hate at everyone they can find on social media who has any kind of GC views.
The world has well and truly gone to shit.
Cruel to a rational person.Quote:
Originally Posted by poop
Sociopathy isn't a choice, it's an illness, a personality disorder. I'm not saying this missing woman is a sociopath, but she might be, and if she is, she's capable of doing things that would seem unjustifiable to someone who isn't a sociopath.
Plausible. Time will tell, if they're botched this case heads will roll.Quote:
In my more paranoid moments, I suspect they were under a lot of pressure to explain why they were searching the river (she couldn't really have fell in, she would have had to have jumped), and now it's like "well look, she was fucked in the head so she probably offed herself, so not our fault we can't find her, must have floated out to sea..."
I think if she was a sociopath her boyfriend, family and friends wouldn't be making such a big fuss over her going missing.
Also, staging your own disappearance is a weird way to disappear. But who knows, maybe she's watching the news and rubbing one out over all the trouble she's caused lol....yeah seems unlikely.
Well, searching the river only really makes sense if they think she went in on purpose. And publicising her mental health issues only makes sense as a way of justifying spending all that time searching the river. Then when they didn't find her it made them look like dopes, so they said that to take the heat off. Kinda backfired though, 'cause now they just look like dicks.
What? That's a horrible way to talk about our next PM (assuming Boris, Liz, or the lettuce don't come back).
Don't think the trans activists have a monopoly on being batshit. Some of them are, but that's true of all activists. Some are just sticking up for what they think are right, and some go way over the top.
You'd be surprised how long someone can battle with a personality disorder for without those closest to them knowing.Quote:
Originally Posted by poop
Sociopaths don't enjoy the carnage they create, they just don't feel the same level of guilt and empathy that normal people have. That's the disorder.Quote:
Also, staging your own disappearance is a weird way to disappear. But who knows, maybe she's watching the news and rubbing one out over all the trouble she's caused lol....yeah seems unlikely.
They certainly don't, and yes lots of activists are nuts, whether trans, animal rights, climate alarmists, many of them have a screw loose. Nearly all of them are motivated by their sense of good, it's just they're fucking deluded and have a very twisted idea of what "good" means.Quote:
Don't think the trans activists have a monopoly on being batshit.
But trans activists are basically at war with feminists. 20 years ago feminists were seen as progressive, now they're seen as "radical" which is fucking hilarious because radical means to oppose the status quo, which better describes the trans lobby.
Feminism isn't the natural enemy of transgenderism. Transphobia is. Feminism is not by its nature transphobic, unless you define transphobia to mean "recognises biological reality".
IDK about these generalizations y'all are making, but labels can be helpful or hurtful, and just because one person uses a label and does dumb things doesn't mean that other people who use that label endorse those dumb things.
To the extent that people are proactively trying to spread a greater understanding and compassion for fellow humans, it's great.
To the extent they're just looking for a boogeyman to blame their own problems on, it's shit.
There's a lot of both on all sides.
The thing is mojo, your view is that of a reasonable intelligent person. Well above the average.
What the crazy trans activists do might not represent all trans people, in fact it's probably a tiny minority, but they're the ones who get the social media attention, and so the masses, the less reasonable and intelligent, they think this is what transgenderism is. And most people don't like it. It's a disaster for social relations. This minority are responsible for a grossly disproportionate amount of damage. They are hurting trans people. They are making it harder for trans people to be socially accepted, because most dumb people, the masses, they wrongly associate the trans community with hard left political activism, "God hates faggots" style hijacking of vigils, and the erosion of common decency and privacy values. They associate it with men, rapists, who are facing a lengthy spell in jail, so suddenly decide to identify as a woman so they can serve their sentence in a women's prison. They associate it with perverts, sociopaths and narcissists. Because these are the kind of people making the noise and controlling the narrative.
And the worst thing is, most of the activists are so deluded they genuinely think they are a force for good. Even the God hates faggots folk think they're on the right side of history. Delusion is incredibly powerful, only amplified by religious or moral righteousness.
The vast majority of us simply want a world where everyone can live in good health and happiness. And none of us will live to see such a world.
They've just announced they've found a body a mile downstream from where she went missing.Quote:
Originally Posted by ong
How incompetent are the police if it takes them this long to find her?
I mean, if I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was fully underwater, trapped underneath the bank, where visibility was near zero. Maybe they were starting to think that she had actually staged it and disappeared.
That's literally the best light I can cast on the cops. That seems really generous and it's much more likely they just fucked this right up, and a kayaker would probably have found her in a day.
Meet the anti-Greta...
https://twitter.com/ChildrensHD/stat...50833706905600
Wait, so you want to be safe, but not if it means cameras, so we're good then?
You'd rather be unsafe than have cameras?
You'll walk home w/o the cameras and no one has to drive anywhere, then?
And this is what you want?
OK, you drive a hard bargain, 12 year old, but we will not put up cameras and you can walk home in the dark.
Speaking of whacko activists...
https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/20...-minute-cities
Down with urban planning! Boo!
It makes sense to have facilities and services close to people, so travel times are reduced.
It doesn't make sense to fine people for choosing to use a service that is not closest to them.
It would make sense to ask them why they chose the further away one and see if there's a problem with the closer one that is turning people off. But fining someone over it seems aggressive. Freedom of movement is important to feeling happy.
What's up with all the strikes over there?
Y'all gonna even have a country left by May?
Asking 'cause considering purchasing and wondering how far the price will tank before making an official offer.
Half the country is on strike or going on strike: nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, railworkers, teachers, uni lecturers, and probably a few more I can't think of right now. But strikes work different here than in N. America - you don't just walk out until a deal is made, you take a day here, a couple days there, and it can go on and on.
Gov't is trying to play hardball with all the public servants, not offering them any raises or just piddly raises well below inflation, while taxes are the highest in 70 years. I guess when you spend all your money on dodgy contracts for your rich mates, then elect a leader who blows a huge hole in the economy, there isn't much left over. Pretty much all of these people are making less in real terms than 13 years ago (when the current party came into power), some of them a lot less. I know I am.
This case has been so strange from the outset and there's still so many unanswered questions, most of which are none of my business. It's just so sad to think of her going in those circumstances and the circus that followed.
It seems the only thing Lancashire Police got right was the statement at the end. How the body turned up only one mile up the river after all that time is shocking. Then the personal details released, presumably to try and make themselves look better, was awful. Just say she's vulnerable and high risk and leave it at that. As for the Internet sleuths descending on the area, they can all fk off as well.
We need a law for all the things that aren't against the law but should be. Call it the Egregious Wanker Karma law or something. You'd need a complaint form that any citizen could fill in, then a panel would decide which to take to trial, and a jury would decide guilt.
I don't mean minor everyday shit like queue jumping or not holding the door for someone. But for people who go to a crime scene to make a tiktok about their own stupidass theory of the crime, or people who bully someone half their size, the law would be for them. Depending on how wanky they were, they'd get different amounts of community service, but it would always involve really shitty work that no-one wants to do, like scrubbing puke off an A&E floor or wiping asses in a seniors' rest home.
I would really feel good if we had a law like that.
I mean if the argument is that this is just one of many steps along the way to a dystopian future, then I can totally understand why a child capable of critical thinking would prefer freedom of safety.
If I could keep you alive forever by keeping you in a special life box, where you can see and hear nothing, only experience your existence forever, would you take it?
What if I said you can live for 1000 years in the same box, rather than forever, but I'll give you ten minutes of fresh air every day?
What if I gave you a 1% chance of death before 18, 100% chance of dying before 100, but you can have total freedom and not live in a box?
Now the question is, is it reasonable to compare a dystopian world with living in a dark box?
Memories of when Raoul Moat went on a shooting spree and got cornered in the woods, so his old buddy Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne turned up with fried chicken and a fishing rod, offering his services.Quote:
Originally Posted by bean
You had my vote, until I thought about the prospect of being elderly and having my ass wiped by somebody that doesn't want to there, whi isn't getting paid and not worried about doing a good job.
I'd forgotten about that. Who knows, it may have worked!
Sovereignty ftw!
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/aldi-asda...ther-shortage/
While LBC do bang the anti-Brexit drum, it seems reasonable to assume Brexit hasn't helped. If supplies are limited, why send what you have to the country that requires more effort to trade with?
I've noticed a number of people still saying Brexit was a great idea, but the execution is the problem. That's one of the most important reasons why I voted to remain - we were never going to get the same or better deal, let alone within a reasonable time frame.
At least I don't have to endure the logic fails of JRM as often as I used to on TV.
They do, but their voices are getting quieter and fewer imo. Mostly it's just hard-right nutjobs like Farage and the swivel-eyed loons in the ERG saying that. The penny is starting to drop for a lot of ordinary working people who were duped into voting Brexit and now are realising it's made their lives demonstrably worse. I reckon at some point in Labour's second term we'll be starting to seriously discuss rejoining at least the single market if the not the EU.
Yeah and the Time did a poll asking people if they want digital ID and 84% said yes.
If we do rejoin, it won't be over. What'll happen next is an independent England movement, which will be a lot dirtier than the EU debate. That's assuming Scotland even remain in the UK to prop up the EU support. And I doubt very much there's an English majority in favour of rejoining.
We left. We made our bed, now we lie in it. What has changed since Brexit? Covid, that's what. Everyone is worse off. Yet still we're a rich country. We're still buying German cars and holidaying in the Maldives. We're still eating more than enough to sustain a productive lifestyle. We're still just about able to warm our houses in winter. This is despite covid absolutely hammering the economy.
The doom merchants tried to warn us that Brexit would fuck us up. Yet here we are, not in the EU, recovering from a pandemic, and helping to fund a nation's defence against invaders, and we're doing ok. Not great. We're doing ok.
I'll be very surprised if there's any serious movement towards rejoining this decade.
You mean if the UK rejoins the EU then England will leave the UK just so they can leave the EU all over again? Seems a bit fantastic.
Sure, and if you drive your car into a tree, you should just sit there and bleed to death rather than call an ambulance. Though tbf, you'll probably bleed to death before the ambulance gets to you, so maybe you're right.
We're the only advanced country whose GDP has not recovered to pre-Covid levels. We're about to drop below Slovenia in standard of living. A better question to ask is what has changed here that hasn't changed everywhere else?
They did try, and they are being proven right.
The gov't is 30 points behind in the polls, taxes are higher than for 70 years yet public services are broken, there's food shortages, and half the country is on strike. Those are not signs of a country that's "doing ok."
We'll see. I think there will be; how much progress it will be possible to make towards rejoining after the shitshow the Tories have made of things is another question. But Starmer will definitely start to re-align us with the EU from Day 1.
Meanwhile unemployment is at a 50 year low.
Of course the vast majority of low earners need government support, and struggle to stay above the poverty line, but also the vast majority of people make at least one expensive poor lifestyle choice, such as smoking or drinking alcohol.
Have you any idea how much better off people in this country would be if we banned alcohol? I don't think we should ban alcohol since it's way too authoritarian for my liking, but if we did, it would result in an absurd rise in the standard of living for a lot of people.
We as a nation are entitled, lazy, and we smoke and drink too much. That does a lot more damage to our economy than not being in the EU. Leaving the EU has drawbacks and benefits. If we don't take advantage of these benefits, that's on the government. I don't expect Labour to make any effort to do just that, and I don't trust the Tories to either. So I'm not expecting a miraculous economic recovery any time soon.
But I think people are more stubborn than you realise. I didn't leave the EU because I thought we'd be better off. I thought we'd be a little worse off to begin with, but have the potential to be much better off, with the right government. I still believe that. What I don't believe is we'll ever have the right government. That doesn't mean I'm waving the white flag and handing economic control back to the EU though, because I don't have any faith in their integrity and competence either.
It's not prosperity causing that, it's labour shortages due to ending freedom of movement with the EU.
Did this only arise since 2021? We're talking about the effects of Brexit and you're claiming it's down to people being lazy.
How do you envision us being better off while making it harder to trade with our biggest trading partners? Is it suddenly going to become cheaper to transport goods to Australia than to France? And is Australia suddenly going to go from 20m to 350m people? This is the geographical reality that seems to elude Brexiters.
Presumably the plan is to float our island across the Atlantic and park ourselves next to the USA once we get a good trade deal with them. Or float over next to China after we join the TPP. Or devise a way to teleport our products halfway around the world.
I'd kind of like to think this is true, since it would be excellent evidence of one of the benefits of leaving the EU, but seeing as two of my colleagues are Polish, it's kinda hard to believe there are any prohibitive barriers to European workers in the UK.Quote:
Originally Posted by poop
No, I'm suggesting our culture is a bigger economic problem than membership of a union. You're worried about the impact of leaving the EU while ignoring the bigger problem of poor lifestyle choices. Even the French think the British drink too much.Quote:
Did this only arise since 2021? We're talking about the effects of Brexit and you're claiming it's down to people being lazy.
By making it easier to trade with other partners, who could in time become our biggest trading partners. USA alone is comparable to the EU, and within easy shipping range without having to go through geopolitical chokepoints. India and China make up nearly a third of the entire planet's population.Quote:
How do you envision us being better off while making it harder to trade with our biggest trading partners?
We can, in theory, negotiate better terms with these trading partners than the EU.
We can also continue to partner with the EU when it comes to trade, just without the political integration. There are ways for the EU and the UK to work together for their mutual benefit. There just has to be the political will on both sides. Good will is kinda low between the two sides right now, but relations will heal because we're natural allies with similar values.
No, but it might be economically viable. And if we're exporting more, then getting less profit per unit isn't really a problem.Quote:
Is it suddenly going to become cheaper to transport goods to Australia than to France?
There's a limit to how much we can export to France, because we're bound to quotas to ensure all member states can also export the same goods. An agreement with Australia is bilateral, nobody else can set terms. So we can ship whatever they want to buy off us. That means we can undercut the EU.
I mean, I'm no economist, and I can smoke a spliff and dream up ways to take advantage of our newfound economic freedom. Imagine what an economist in government could do if he could be bothered.
Why are you talking about Australia like it's the only part of the world not in the EU?Quote:
And is Australia suddenly going to go from 20m to 350m people?
Obviously nobody left the EU so we could buddy up to just Australia.
All we really need to do is produce something people want to buy. That's what it really boils down to. The more we can make, the more we can sell, the better.Quote:
Presumably the plan is to float our island across the Atlantic and park ourselves next to the USA once we get a good trade deal with them.
That's why Qatar is rich. Not because of trade blocs. Because oil. They have something other countries want. We don't have much oil, certainly not enough to be a petronation (I might have just made that word up), but we do have a large labour force and first world infrastructure, with world class education facilities. We most certainly have the potential to be an economic powerhouse. That doesn't depend on us being in the EU. It depends on the political will and competence of the governing party, and the cultural will of the people. The government have to provide the environment, and the people have to be arsed to take advantage of their opportunities.
Surely you understand there's a gradient between freedom of movement and completely banning immigration entirely. But if you don't, let me explain it to you.
Currently there is complete freedom of movement for residents to move from one part of the UK to another. That's 100% free movement of labour. So a farmer in Somerset can move to London and work in a pub. He doesn't need anyone's permission.
The freedom of movement when we were in the EU meant that anyone from there who wanted to live and work here had to meet certain minimum conditions, like demonstrating they had a bit of money and a place to live. I don't know the exact rules but they're out there on google somewhere. That's like 90% freedom of movement.
The current situation is people who want to immigrate here from the EU have to pass over much greater hurdles. They are treated the same now as someone from, say, Brazil. There's no special dispensation for being from the EU, but there is restricted immigration. That's like 20% freedom of movement.
Note that leaving the EU doesn't disqualify the people who immigrated here from the EU before Brexit happened. If they have permission to work here, or indefinite leave to remain, that doesn't go away because of Brexit. That is why there are still Europeans working in the UK.
But, what Brexit did was make it harder for NEW immigrants to come from the EU and work here. These include a lot of seasonal workers (the kind who pick fruit, remember those shortages we were talking about before?). It also means that if I start a business and want to employ a lot of unskilled labour, I can no longer just put an ad in the paper in Romania or Poland or wherever and get a bunch of them to come over to work for cheap, because it's a lot harder for them to do that now. And it's a lot harder for me as well because there's more red tape for me and more hoops I have to jump through to sponsor them.
At the other end of the scale would 0% freedom of movement. I don't think there's any country where we won't let any of them in at all, but there are probably some that are close. The EU isn't in that category either, it's just in a harder category than it was before.
It's completely orthogonal to what we're talking about here.
You mean the chokepoint that we created for ourselves in the EU? Thanks, you're really making my point for me.
Also, Europe is a lot closer to us than the US. It's always cheaper to ship something a shorter distance. If you don't believe me, try mailing two equal-sized parcels, one to another address in your town, another to Japan. See which one costs you more. It's the same with shipping goods. They don't just get there by magic, you have to pay to transport them, and the further they have to go, the more you have to pay.
Being in or out of the EU never stopped us trading with them. In fact, it gave us more leverage to secure better deals with them because we were part of a huge trading bloc with a lot of economic clout.
We may have more flexibility to make separate deals now, but without the economic gravitas to back it up, it hardly matters. See above about the benefit of being in a large trading bloc.
We could, but it won't happen as long as we have a Tory gov't.
None of which would make up for the lost trade with the EU.
Your ideas don't work though. And the economists who actually are bothered know they don't work and that's why they don't recommend them.
Because it's a country we made a trade deal with that the Tories hailed as a great victory due to Brexit. And it's not even a good deal.
It's not just about making things people want to buy, it's about making it easy to get them from here to where we can sell them for the most profit. And that's almost always going to be the place that is closest to us.
We used to have access to a larger labour force, and we just made it a lot smaller. So your argument that we need to use our labour force to become a trading superpower sounds a bit silly here.
We're not in the 1800s mate. We're not going to be a bigger economy than the USA, China, India, or the EU. It doesn't matter how hard we try, and it's not just about getting people off their asses like Brexit is supposed to inspire them to work harder or something.
A labour shortage is definitely not a good thing for an economy, Ong.
A geopolitical chokepoint in the context of shipping is a region ships have to go through that can easily be blockaded, for example the Suez Canal. Nothing to do with whatever point you think you just made.Quote:
Originally Posted by poop
I've got to go to work.
Brexit was a good idea if your intention was to leave the EU at any cost. Saying "hey look the economy isn't as great" is not going to make the slightest bit of difference to people like me who both anticipated it and were willing to accept it as a price worth paying for the long term benefit of the country. Now all we need to do is get our own ship in order.
It'll be interesting really because if Starmer gets into power, he's faced with a difficult decision. Work hard to improve the economy, securing a second term in power, but at the cost of proving we can succeed outside of the bloc, or keep the economy stagnated in the hope it swings public opinion back towards rejoining, rather than putting the Tories back in power.
So the Tories are fucking it up. That doesn't mean Brexit was a bad idea. That means the Tories are a bad idea.Quote:
Because it's a country we made a trade deal with that the Tories hailed as a great victory due to Brexit. And it's not even a good deal.
I'm unconvinced Labour are a better idea, but right now it does indeed look as though we will find out. How does he steer us back to the EU? By screwing us over for another five years with inertia?
I hope they come in and perform economic miracles. I'll tip my cap to Labour if they can be the ones to show that the UK can be an economic powerhouse outside of the EU.
Yeah, my sense is Labour is playing a clever strategy here of not letting Brexit become an issue the Tories can rally the conservative part of the population around at the next GE. There's also no point in making it an issue really, since we couldn't go back to being in the EU in Labour's first term even if we wanted to. Europe isn't going to let us just come and go into the EU every time we get a new government; it's a huge hassle for them and causes instability. The Tories are going have to be on board with the idea of rejoining too for the EU to take us seriously, and the chances of that happening in the next few years are somewhere between slim and none; they've got too much invested in it.
Unfortunately, I think the idea that Labour is going to work a miracle and make us an economic powerhouse is unlikely too. We're just not big enough to make that happen going it alone. More likely the economy will continue to suck until eventually the public clamour becomes so loud that even the Tories have to admit Brexit was a mistake. I don't think that's going to happen probably for at least 10-15 years though, once the current generation of Brexiters are out of office. Meanwhile we're just going to have to suffer.
Damn, and I was really looking forward to that bacon, leek, and turnip sandwich. Now it's going to be just bacon and leeks.
All those perfectly good parsnips and no one knows what to do with them.
What is this a licorice flavored carrot? Who wants this?
Ok, just a bacon sandwich then. Or bacon and parsnips maybe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q6NqaftB7s
Quote of the day:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FqDBFIwW...jpg&name=small
So it's a great advantage to be both in the UK and the single market, huh? Like we were before Brexit, huh? Thanks Fishi, that really clears things up.
lol
You can interpret that however you want. Maybe there are benefits to being in the UK now because it's outside the EU.
If NI can somehow maintain privileged access to the EU market while not technically being a member state, that's a huge win for them, a status I would be delighted with if it applied to all of the UK. Economics without the politics. Sovereignty and trade. NI is politically under the control of London, so the idea NI is sovereign is laughable, but it seems to me the point he's making is NI can make the most of being both in and out of the EU.
Not sure it'll pan out like that but we'll see.
fyp.
The advantage is obviously that NI has membership in two separate markets. They can import/export freely with the EU, and the same with England, Wales, and Scotland. No other place anywhere has that arrangement. They should be excited.
Moreover, no-one can get around the rules by exporting something between GB and the EU using NI as a transit point; the agreement specifically rules that out.
It's like a Venn diagram where one circle covers the EU, the other covers GB, and they overlap in NI. As far as trade goes, NI is the best place in Europe to be. Also as far as trade goes, GB is the worst place in Europe to be.
This doesn't really make sense. If the UK was the worst place to be, then NI wouldn't be the best place to be. Not least because NI is part of the UK and therefore is part of the same economy as GB, but also if businesses want to locate in NI that implies there's a benefit to not being in the EU.Quote:
Originally Posted by poop
You seem to be missing something here. If a business is thriving in NI, that's good for the British economy. So if NI is a good place to be, than the UK, as in a non member state of the EU, is a good place to be.
I already explained it. The benefit for NI is that they ARE in the EU as far as trade is concerned, and they are also in the UK as far as trade is concerned.
2% of the UK GDP is in NI, the other 98% is in GB. If 2% of the economy gets a boost, and the other 98% takes a hit, well, do the math.