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Author Topic: Brexit  (Read 292242 times)

Paulo Bizarro

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Brexit
« on: June 24, 2016, 09:45:52 am »

Seems to be the hot topic of the day, and the foreseeable future... also, seems a few euro-politicians were taken with their pants down, finding the result unexpected.

Living in Portugal, and being Portuguese, I still don't have enough information to make my judgment. From looking at the papers, seems like the usual panic - euphoria - surprise reactions are abundant. The UK has a very important role in Portugal's export markets, being one of the top regions where we export stuff to. I suppose uncertainty will impact in the short term, and affect companies and industries in that regard. For example, how about taxes, customs, etc, from now on?

How about favourable tax regimes for UK citizens that buy villas in Iberia? The list is endless... I think that for practical economic and trade relationships, things will be sorted out (after all, it can take up to 2 years for the exit process to be finished). Politically, it is a harsh setback, and socially too; the UK plays a huge symbolic role in Europe too, how will that change?

Hopefully, this will be the wake up call for the somewhat moronic and lethargic politicians that have turned a great ideal into a bureaucratic machine that lives detached from European citizens... and only pays attention to market and economic indicators. I suspect that after opening the EU to China's ambitions, the UK leaving will be the nail in the coffin.

Don't know enough to speculate about the UK itself, but for sure Scotland and N. Ireland (and Wales?) will have a word? In Scotland, the majority of the referendum was for staying...

Chairman Bill

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2016, 10:32:51 am »

The vote has to be seen in the context of a very right-wing press, that wouldn't know truth if it smacked them in the mouth with a lump-hammer. We've had a constant drip-drip-drip of lies & misinformation about the EU & immigration. And too many people believe it because "it's in the papers, so it must be right". We've had weapons grade idiocy of the kind, "We're about to be swamped with Polish Muslims taking all our plumbers' jobs, and next week Turkey is joining, and eleventy million Turks are going to move to Tunbridge Wells", and claims that the EU is planning to insist we drive on the right, only import straight bananas, and when Turkey join, they're going to make us wear slippers with curly toes. On top of that, there's a good number who simply wanted to give the Prime Minister a bloody nose & looked no further ahead than that. They will have a long time to rue their collective idiocy, whilst racists & xenophobes sit in the corner, grinning, drooling and pleasuring themselves, whilst claiming to have put the great back in Great Britain. I might emigrate before they implement Article 50 & it becomes too late to do so.  >:(

Rob C

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2016, 10:41:03 am »

Paulo,

It was an accident waiting to happen, and the reason it was that, is political correctness.

The reasons pushing forward the surge to quit were all hidden behind the smokescreen of jobs, and Europeans who had never contributed to the welfare system in Britain collecting unemployment benefits because they could.

A zillion Turks moving into Britain and bringing their "way of life" with them was the actual fear behind it, speeding the Islamification of the country, just as the French fear with their own land. (What the Germans fear is not hard to understand.) Insofar as Britain is concerned, it is already more than half a century too late: the disaster of 1947 with the splitting of greater India into three units consisting of India in the middle with West Pakistan to the north-west and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to the north-east was not a smooth one. In what was essentially a rel¡gious division, many thousands who couldn't get the hell out of the 'wrong' areas in time were murdered on both sides. So why does it affect Britain today? Because it handed out pasports to those who wanted them and the floodgates opened. Ditto with the Caribbean, and for those former Indians kicked out later from various African countries. The religious divides arrived then, in the forties; the EEC hardly makes any difference on that score.

So political correctness, how does it figure?

Because even today it has prevented the truth being debated, either fully in Europe or even slightly in the UK. Every politician who has dared to come within breathing distance of the subject has been branded racist, thisophobe or thatophobe; in our lands of 'freedom' only the indigenous people are prevented from expressing what they may actually feel. Look at many political rallies, and you see the same thing: dissenting native voices get banned but the other sides are allowed to carry on out of fear of the government or the police being branded racist if they stop them. It's called the race card; you simply could not make it up.

How this will impact on the expats from all the European countries living elsewhere in Europe is anyone's guess. I hope that some form of common sense will prevail and that medical services for those who live outwith their native European lands continue. For many here in Spain, we are on our last legs: we spend all our pensions and savings on the local economy and I trust the value won't go unrecognized. Whether that will be enough to allow health reciprocities to continue is a debatable point. I believe that those existed even prior to EEC membership if one was in receipt of a pension from elsewhere; but, in the stench of new developments, who knows how emotions may turn? Will the next cup of coffee one orders be put down on the table or poured over one's head?

What happens next to the property market is another pressure point building up. My own place has been on the market for over a year and not a single viewer, as for the vast majority of the rest of them whose owners I know. Building used to be a huge component of the Spanish economy; it fell badly in 2008 and is still dragging on the bottom. Brexit isn't going to help anyone in that particular position.

The rest of the Grand European Adventure? I see two possibilities: it will simply fall apart à la domino: the place will wake up and do what those pesky Brits had wanted all along - get its act together and stop playing at international patsy. A little of the iron fist may yet save it. There has never been another way.

A victory for the closed eyes, the refusal to see what is real, and the politically correct.

P.S.

And as the Chairman says - we can thank our media owners (the biggest of whom isn't even British). If nothing more, from this fiasco we could perhaps learn the folly of allowing the press and 'popular' television to fall into foreign hands.

P.P.S.

Apparently, about 25% - 30% didn't even bother to vote. Not exercising your birthright should be a criminal act. Whichever way they might have voted.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2016, 10:58:05 am by Rob C »
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muntanela

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #3 on: June 24, 2016, 11:20:13 am »

I don't know the british politics but Mr Cameron really seems to be a grosteque political figure (cynical and stupid).
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Paulo Bizarro

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #4 on: June 24, 2016, 12:09:40 pm »

"European Union" was a concept that was founded on a common social, political, and economical goal, on the aftermath of WWII. Try and avoid similar disasters in the future. The shift from those vectors to only one - economy (just looking at "market pressures" and dictations) - has been a disaster. Social aspects, political aspects, are all subjugated to the financial spread sheets and results.

In 2004, with the rushing in into the Euro fold of many eastern Europe countries, who were not ready to do so, the writing was on the wall. One can not have a common currency, without sharing basic social and political values. In 2007, the treaty of Lisbon (including the now famous article 50) was a response to that, providing an exit point for countries.

The successive wars in the middle East and North Africa, with the enormous refugee crisis, was the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. The issue was immediately polarized (them against us), with no real will or strong leadership to handle it as it should be, an humanitarian crisis.

How can it be a financial or economical problem for richer Europe to receive refugees? In 1974 and 1975, after the revolution in Portugal, we received half a million people from former African colonies, and we survived. We were poor then, slightly less poor now:)

As for Mr. Cameron, he made a promise about the referendum just to win the last election. At least he now had the good sense of leaving the scene...

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #5 on: June 24, 2016, 12:34:55 pm »

Brexit‬ - a lesson in (un)reliability of polls and pundits.

People react differently (more PC) when expressing their opinion publicly or being polled. Then they vote in privacy.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #6 on: June 24, 2016, 12:43:07 pm »

An incurable cynic would say that a destruction of Europe will be Obama's greatest legacy ;)

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2016, 12:48:09 pm »

... How this will impact on the expats from all the European countries living elsewhere in Europe is anyone's guess...

Rob, when Yugoslavia disintegrated, my father, living in Serbia, was receiving his pension from a Croatian (an archenemy, if you will) company. After an initial hickup, while the war was going on, the pension resumed, with all retroactive debt paid. If two Balkan(ized) countries can achieve that, you should be ok.

On another note, I was getting free medical care just by a virtue of renting an apartment in Barcelona, so you should be good for that too.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #8 on: June 24, 2016, 12:50:19 pm »

The vote has to be seen in the context of a very right-wing press...

Every civilized country has both wings represented in the press, and most press is left-wing anyway. So not sure it makes sense to blame just one side.

Chairman Bill

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #9 on: June 24, 2016, 01:08:48 pm »

Every civilized country has both wings represented in the press, and most press is left-wing anyway. So not sure it makes sense to blame just one side.

Most of our press (the vast majority of it) is right-wing. Upleasantly so. Even then, it is possible to offer a right-wing editoral perspective, without resorting to the lies & misinformation that we get from our media. Instead of holding the executive to account & speaking truth to power, it largely chooses to indulge the prejudices of its (often foreign) proprietors, and make stuff up. Lying isn't a matter of left or right wing political viewpoints, it relates to matters of fact, and on that score, too much of our press is a stranger to truth.

Alan Klein

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #10 on: June 24, 2016, 01:42:14 pm »

Europe existed and traded before the EU.  America, a non-member, trades with Britain and the rest of Europe.  So Britain will have to operate like America, and Japan, and most countries in the world who aren't part of the EU.  Life will go on. 

I also agree with Bizarro.  His arguments are mine.  You can't make diverse countries into one just because you want it.  You have different languages, different customs, different people.  Nationalism effects us all even if we like to think we're people of the world.  It's in our DNA.  The Roman Empire (and I suppose the former British Empire)  was able to create international trade hegemony with the force of the sword.  It doesn't work among free peoples.    Who wants to be told what to do by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels?   

RSL

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #11 on: June 24, 2016, 01:47:51 pm »

. . .in the context of a very right-wing press. . .

Eh Bill? Surely you're not talking about the United States or Britain.

I don't really want to get involved in this discussion --  one that's going to go on heatedly for days until the management shuts it down. But it's been demonstrated that. . .

There'll always be an England!
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Justinr

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #12 on: June 24, 2016, 02:14:10 pm »

Don't worry folks, there will be a quiet shuffling of the deckchairs, some form of words will be found that demonstrates the UK has left the EU which is backed up by Britain ignoring the mumblings from Brussels and not much else will change. That's what the Germans want and like most things in the EU that's what the Germans will get, for fear of something worse -

It (the German finance ministry) recommends that the EU enters into negotiations aimed at making the UK an "associated partner country" for the remaining 27 nations. 

http://news.sky.com/story/1717150/germany-warns-of-brexit-domino-effect
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Justinr

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #13 on: June 24, 2016, 02:18:29 pm »

Every civilized country has both wings represented in the press, and most press is left-wing anyway. So not sure it makes sense to blame just one side.

Not over here I'm afraid Slobodan, yer man Rupe sees to that and as for the Irish press it is so blatantly pro establishment that it has lost any idea of what left or right actually means in politics.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Justinr

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #15 on: June 24, 2016, 02:35:23 pm »

Which Merkel started.

She's a worried lady alright, perhaps realising that she got carried away by her ambitions for Germany.
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #16 on: June 24, 2016, 02:36:09 pm »

The vote has to be seen in the context of a very right-wing press, that wouldn't know truth if it smacked them in the mouth with a lump-hammer.

Hmm.

The Sun: lowbrow, right-wing, pro-Brexit.
The Times: establishment, not particularly right- or left-wing, pro-Remain.
The Mirror: highly left-wing, pro-Remain.
The Express: highly right-wing, pro-Brexit (I think).
The Guardian: liberal left, achingly politically correct, pro-Remain.
The Independent: The Guardian, in spades.
The Financial Times: business paper, right-wing, pro-Remain, small circulation.
The Telegraph: right-wing, pro-Brexit.
The Star: breasts.

There are Sundays as well, but they tend to mirror their weekday equivalents.

I don't see much of a right-wing bias, really.

The result was a surprise but the effects will be muted, in the medium term. Trade is based on pragmatism, as is intelligence-sharing. We'll muddle through.

Jeremy
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #17 on: June 24, 2016, 02:38:12 pm »

Not over here I'm afraid Slobodan, yer man Rupe sees to that and as for the Irish press it is so blatantly pro establishment that it has lost any idea of what left or right actually means in politics.

Blaming the press seems awfully patronizing to the people, don't you think? As in: people are sheep that don't get it, hence the need to be led by the elite (the establishment - which just happens to be oh, so PC). And yet, people ultimately do get it, so much better than the establishment, elite, pundits and pollsters.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2016, 02:01:24 pm by Slobodan Blagojevic »
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Justinr

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #18 on: June 24, 2016, 02:51:21 pm »

Blaming the press seems awfully patronizing to the people, don't you think? As in: people are sheep that doesn't get it, hence the need to be lead by the elite (the establishment - which just happens to be oh, so PC). And yet, people ultiamtely do get it, so much better than the establishment, elite, pundits and pollsters.

Certainly here in Ireland there is plenty of discussion as to just what the role of the traditional press is. We are all very well aware that they will tell us what they want us to hear and that is whatever line the 'establishment' wants to be broadcast. Social media has played its part in this but I don't think its the complete answer. Ireland is a small place and people get to know what's really going on via the bush telegraph, many have experienced events and situations that simply go unreported and the total bias shown by the media over the water charge  protests has alienated far too many for the press to regain  any sort of credibility. Basically the press has torpedoed itself over the last few years and its influence is much reduced.
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Justinr

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Re: Brexit
« Reply #19 on: June 24, 2016, 02:59:09 pm »

Hmm.

The Sun: lowbrow, right-wing, pro-Brexit.
The Times: establishment, not particularly right- or left-wing, pro-Remain.
The Mirror: highly left-wing, pro-Remain.
The Express: highly right-wing, pro-Brexit (I think).
The Guardian: liberal left, achingly politically correct, pro-Remain.
The Independent: The Guardian, in spades.
The Financial Times: business paper, right-wing, pro-Remain, small circulation.
The Telegraph: right-wing, pro-Brexit.
The Star: breasts.

There are Sundays as well, but they tend to mirror their weekday equivalents.

I don't see much of a right-wing bias, really.

The result was a surprise but the effects will be muted, in the medium term. Trade is based on pragmatism, as is intelligence-sharing. We'll muddle through.

Jeremy

Mmmm.. indeed.

I certainly don't recognise the Guardian from that description, nor indeed the Mirror, but then the definition of what is right and left has shifted considerably over the last 25 years as politics has generally moved to the right. As for the Times I'm sure it would be well pleased with your appraisal but we all know its old Tory at heart. But then I'm just a commie b'stard, so it's what I would be saying.
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