** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

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PDQ Mobile
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by PDQ Mobile »

windmiller wrote:
PDQ Mobile wrote:Our National borders are not "wide open" in any sense.
There are people that have the right to cross them but they are subject to normal passport checks. And we share info across borders and countries.
Did you not know?
Do you never travel?

As for locking doors etc, if you can be bothered to look, the aspect of criminality has come up on here before.
The statistics show that EU citizens in the UK are less likely to be in prison than UK citizens in terms of percentage of the relative populations.

Yes our borders are not wide open, silly me.
I suppose they were closed to these fine fellows of humanity.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-englan ... e-mansions

That there have been criminal groups from other nations or ethnic groups is not in doubt.
There have been dreadful gang offenses in several major cities.
Most of which had nothing to do with our membership of the EU but more to do with our colonial past.
The perpetrators were by and large UK citizens.

The link you offer to show how our "wide open borders" causes more crime is from April 2012!!!
Wow.
Could you find nothing more recent?


You have not even attempted to answer "slowsters" simple question. Why not?

Therefore I must conclude on this evidence that you have no solid argument and are merely a member of that group that hates all things across the channel, no matter what evidence is provided that there are significant benefits to close union with those (by and large) fine and tolerant peoples.

Do you prefer Trump?
A man that really does not have much grip on anything, except the odd cat.
slowster
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by slowster »

windmiller wrote:By God Why didn't I think of those things. I'm sure if we never joined the EU back in the 70's nobody in the UK would have ever thought of them either.

Indeed the EU did not need to exist for it to be recognised that these were problems that needed to be addressed by legislation. However, many of these things involve cross border activity and trade. Individual countries cannot simply pass and enforce laws which govern and control activity in other countries. So the UK in isolation cannot prevent rip off mobile phone roaming charges being levied on British people using their phones outside the UK. Ditto things like flight delay refunds, which Ryanair et al. are unable to wriggle out of because it is blanket wide legislation covering all EU countries.

Even the legislation which has nothing directly to do with cross border activity would probably mostly not exist were it not for the EU, because it is likely to be resisted in individual countries by big business and other vested interests, who would argue that it imposes too much burden and cost on them and makes them uncompetitive. Having the same legislation across the EU removes that argument: everyone has to abide by similar standards of health and safety in the workplace and similar levels of environmental protection, so there is a level playing field in the Single Market.

Those advances could never have been achieved by individual countries negotiating amongst themselves. Similarly, if the UK is outside the EU, it will have no influence whatsoever in future such developments. Instead, the more access it wants or needs to the EEA or the Single Market, the more it will have to pass legislation to ensure its laws are consistant with the rest of the EU on these issues. The EU will not allow the UK to gain a competitive edge by being able to trade with the EU as if it were an EU member but without the costs of similar H&S and environmental protections etc.

Anyway, while we're still waiting for you to give us a good example of an EU law that should be repealed, it occurs to me that another very positive aspect of EU legislation and enforcement is the work it has done to break up cartels and stop price fixing*. This is another thing where legislating and enforcement at a multi-national level is probably essential when dealing with very large multi-national companies. Individual countries probably would hesitate to tackle this, especially if the companies are headquartered in the country and consequently likely to have a lot of political influence. That hesitancy in turn only makes it much more likely that such companies will engage in price fixing, because they know they will not be punished (similar to the way that BAE bribed foreign officials to win contracts, and the government stopped the SFO investigation because of the harm to British interests).

* I don't think that this work by the EU attracts much publicity, but judging by this link, they do look to be quite active. I think they can fine companies something like 10% of global turnover, and I suspect that helps to persuade companies to come clean, and even to dob themselves in, in order to get a much lower punishment.
Last edited by slowster on 10 Jun 2019, 12:15pm, edited 1 time in total.
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mjr
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by mjr »

Mick F wrote:I put my X on the Brexit party for the recent EU elections to lend support for leaving the EU as they were the only party 100% for leaving.

Not the only party because I'm pretty sure UKIP were still 100% for leaving, but it's difficult to say which is the furthest right because the BXP offered no manifesto.
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by mjr »

merseymouth wrote:Hello again, I'll cite one E.U. horror of a measure - The stupid catalytic converter rubbish! At a time when the British motor industry was making great strides with lean burn technology, use less fuel therefore less exhaust pollution, the E.U. fell for the Johnson Matthey con job. Create very expensive systems that use more fuel, use up large quantities of rare metals that JM held the rights to.

What regulation are you objecting to? Did the EU actually require catalytic converters to be adopted?

It looks to me that they set various regulations catalytic converters had to meet if they were used (like prohibiting certain dodgy things which are allowed in the US) and set regulations on air pollution emissions which could be met with catalytic converters while "lean burn" was still basically an incomplete technology, but I don't find them actually requiring catalytic converters - at worst, it was the equivalent of a put-up-or-shut-up deadline for lean burners and they ended up shutting up.

I agree with others, "lean burn" sounds a lot like the alternative measures for the British-Irish border, in that it's a lovely-sounding theoretical solution with no practical implementation at the time we need it.
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Mick F
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by Mick F »

Oldjohnw wrote:
Mick F wrote:
francovendee wrote:For the first time in this thread I agree with you.
Great! :D :D

I do have some redeeming features then eh?


I suspect that until the run-up to the 2016 referendum most people largely thought like Mick: preferred out but not that bothered. Or preferred in but not that bothered.

But a number among the Tories still longed for Empire and pounds and ounces and the £ and got increasingly agitated, resorting to extreme views, hyperbole and even lies as they fought out their battles.

Then what was once private grief started to be a public battle and Cameron made the rest history. Well done, Tories. You took your private arguments and bitterly divided a country which previously had largely just got on with their lives.

And wherever will it end?
Spot on.
Mick F. Cornwall
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mjr
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by mjr »

While you've been bickering, Liam Fox has agreed to continue the EU's migration and trade rules for South Korea until such time as a new UK-SK FTA can be negotiated. Taking back control by promising to follow the EU rules... why has no-one thought of that before? Oh wait, they did, it was called Remaining in the EU!
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by reohn2 »

mjr wrote:While you've been bickering, Liam Fox has agreed to continue the EU's migration and trade rules for South Korea until such time as a new UK-SK FTA can be negotiated. Taking back control by promising to follow the EU rules... why has no-one thought of that before? Oh wait, they did, it was called Remaining in the EU!

:lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by kwackers »

windmiller wrote:Do I prefer Trump to who? Do you mean Obama who threatened to put us at the back of the queue, hell yes, it's a no brainer isn't it, but only if you have brains.

We are at the back of the queue, Trumps word is meaningless.

Worse thanks to him you can't rely on anything the yanks promise or even sign.
Trump is pretty keen on breaking promises - "got you over a barrel" is the subtext of his bargaining mechanism.

That's the problem with brains, they allow you to look at problems from all angles and not just the one that suits.
If you want to ignore Trumps record or perhaps lack the capacity to analyse it then knock yourself out.
I can't find anyone who actually knows how trade deals work that thinks we'll be walking into one anytime soon - let alone one that offers us anything better than we've got now.
slowster
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by slowster »

Restricting freedom of movement between EU countries for criminals convicted of serious crimes seems reasonable to me. However, I do suspect that the devil is inevitably in the detail.

Presumably windmiller is talking about those who are convicted of a crime, either in their home country or another EU country, as opposed to suggesting that somehow admission to the UK by any and every Romanian would be restricted in some way beyond whatever simplified visa system is being proposed for UK-EU travel in future.

The problem then would be the sharing of information between countries about convicted criminals, their criminal records, their passport numbers etc. As it stands I believe the US ESTA visa waiver system effectively relies on visitors self declaring any criminal convictions, and is probably not hugely reliable, because the US authorities do not have access to any EU country's databases of convicted criminals, and there is no way that the EU would tolerate the US having such access.

However, I imagine the EU might well agree to its members sharing with each other such databases, and for members to use that data to stop convicted criminals at their borders. I don't think that David Cameron pushed for anything like that when he was seeking his new deal with the EU, but maybe it's something he should have done and which would have been an easy win, as well as being something that would go down well with the British electorate.

However, if the UK is not a member of the EU, then like the USA it would have no access to any EU databases of convicted criminals, and would similarly be reliant on the criminals self-declaring.
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by PDQ Mobile »

^^
A well reasoned post again from slowster.
The only omission being that EU citizens are LESS likely to be convicted of crime in the UK than UK citizens.
And considering how far many of them are down the wages ladder it's kind of heartening.
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georgew
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by georgew »

Mick F wrote:
merseymouth wrote:Hi Georgew, So yet again the "Independent Scotland" cry goes up! But think on the next possibility, Independence for Orkney and Shetland?
I seem to recall that they were not members of the "Nicola Sturgeon Fan Club"!
When we were living in Scotland in the 70s, there was a Scottish referendum about independence or something. We didn't take much notice TBH.

What I do remember, that the majority of Shetlanders refused to vote, as they didn't consider themselves Scottish. The place is supposedly "owned" by Scotland, but it isn't Scottish.

In fact, Shetland still belongs to Denmark as the Scottish king never paid for it. Something to do with a dowry and the Danish king gave them Shetland requiring the debt to be paid, but it never was. I have been told in detail about this by a historian we know, but I've forgotten the details.


Thanks for that......but why you suppose that I'm not familiar with the history of these islands escapes me.
They do have a history as Liberal strongholds, but quite why this should be, escapes me. These were the only two regions within Scotland in the EU election that voted Liberal.....all others voted SNP, and both the Tories and Labour were wiped out completely.
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Mick F
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by Mick F »

georgew wrote:Thanks for that......but why you suppose that I'm not familiar with the history of these islands escapes me.
I wasn't lecturing, I was informing the forum as a whole. Many of the readers have never lived in Scotland, let alone ever been there.

Hopefully, I'll be seeing my historian mate later this week, and I'll get chapter and verse about Shetland and how the Scottish debt was never repaid.

Just reading Wiki about it, but it's unclear about this subject.
Maybe it's that history is written by the winners and not the real facts, and also not from other perspectives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Shetland
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by thirdcrank »

If people haven't much to say about Scotland, it may be that they aren't all that bothered.
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Mick F
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by Mick F »

Maybe very true TC. Especially for the southern English.

We spent many years living there, and both our daughters were born there. We have a connection with Scotland, not that we ever want to live there again, and neither do our daughters I'm sure.

I take an interest in the country, but it's only that- an interest.
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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

Post by Oldjohnw »

Living on the border what happens in Scotland matters to me. Tax rates are complicated. Post codes are confusing. People come over the border on booze runs to stock up. Zero drink and drive tolerance. Confused education and health services. If we ever should get a hard border.....
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