Cycling UK Forum

I think it'd be a nice touch if on the 29th Mrs May introduced a passport exchange scheme so that people could trade them in and get new ones without the EU name on them.

blackbike wrote:I think it'd be a nice touch if on the 29th Mrs May introduced a passport exchange scheme so that people could trade them in and get new ones without the EU name on them.

Why?

blackbike wrote:

pete75 wrote:
The meaning of quite a few words depends on the context in which they're used. Pedants often fail to understand this.

PDQ Mobile tells us he'll no longer be 'officially European' after Brexit, yet he'll be as European as he ever was and as European as any Leave voter or Norwegian.

A few people dreaming up some pseudo-official meaning of a word for themselves does not make the rest of us pedants for using it in its correct sense.

It's bad enough with teenagers dreaming up new meanings for words every five minutes without pro-EU people doing it too.

As I said pedants often fail to understand the meaning of a word changes with the context. Thank you for proving my point.

I shall write a letter of shame and apology to my children and grandchildren for having been part of a generation that turned the clock back to the bigotry and racism that was rife in my youth.

djnotts wrote:I shall write a letter of shame and apology to my children and grandchildren for having been part of a generation that turned the clock back to the bigotry and racism that was rife in my youth.

maybe in hindsight your kids will understand what causes racial tension - neglect and a carefully planned excuse for it.

it's not your place to apologise, but if it were for anything it would be failing to grow as a species, failing to progress and resorting to repetition, left or right.

sadly that's a collective effort, and i'm probably doing more harm than you are.... all i do is watch star trek.

ChrisOntLancs wrote:

djnotts wrote:I shall write a letter of shame and apology to my children and grandchildren for having been part of a generation that turned the clock back to the bigotry and racism that was rife in my youth.

maybe in hindsight your kids will understand what causes racial tension - neglect and a carefully planned excuse for it.

it's not your place to apologise, but if it were for anything it would be failing to grow as a species, failing to progress and resorting to repetition, left or right.

sadly that's a collective effort, and i'm probably doing more harm than you are.... all i do is watch star trek.

I'm going to write a letter of thanks to the SNP for giving the megalomaniac, monomaniacal May a boot up her self satisfied Unionist jackxsi.

A well deserved one too.

Monomaniacal: (no longer in technical use) a psychosis characterized by thoughts confined to one idea or group of ideas.

"it's not your place to apologise"

Yes. It. Is. All it takes is for good people to do nothing. I was always an unpaid local TU officer and I did what I could to fight the fight for equality and fairness (which did my career no favours) but with hindsight that was not enough.

pwa wrote: After March 29th there will still be a Europe to which we belong, a Europe that includes the EU along with non-EU nations such as Switzerland.

Switzerland.
Much vaunted example used by the Brexit campaign as a model for a UK outside the EU.
Indeed the suspicion remains from what Chancellor Hammond had said about "new business models" that some kind of tax haven for big business might be implemented here, as a threat.
It would suit some of the very rich people behind Brexit all too well I am sure.
But it's s lousy model for International goodwill.
And for ordinary working folks.

However, I digress;
Switzerland's very dubious banking sector is now much cleaned up. Thank goodness.

While it is not a full member of the EU, Switzerland, unlike the UK, IS a signatory to the Schengen Agreement. This means anyone (from the EU) has the right to live and work there.
And they do of course.
Just as with the UK immigration is a bone of contention and many Swiss would like to see a way to reduce it.
All that new labour has meant( among other things) a continued boom of the Swiiss economy. They have built a great many new dwellings to satisfy demand and that has in its turn led to loads of construction and infrastructure work. ((In contrast to here! The last austerity filled years))
As a downside it has led to a massive urbanization of the country too.
The freedom to travel works both ways though and a great many Swiss (around20%) live abroad mostly in other EU countries (France is favourite).
While there is much internal debate, Switzerland would never significantly leave its current position with the EU. It is far too valuable to the country's economy, for one.
It has taken 40 years of discussion to reach the present state of affairs -a complex set of many agreements and accords (and we expect to do it in 2! No chance.))

And that very freedom of movement is very precious to them. To shop over the border and own property in adjacent countries are all benefits they now enjoy. (But we are about to throw away.)
They will negotiate and negotiate but they will never leave the present accords completely. It would be an act of economic suicide for an EU locked country.

Sometimes I think they are a more sensible folk than we are!! Or our Govt. at least!

djnotts wrote:I was always an unpaid local TU officer and I did what I could to fight the fight for equality and fairness (which did my career no favours) but with hindsight that was not enough.

nowhere near enough, but it's not exactly 'doing nothing'.

and it confirms the suspicions in my conclusion

i don't know why i singled you out but you prove my point (whatever my point is, i'm not sure)

Funny how some view leaving the EU as being an end to bureaucracy, officialdom and authority. That remainers and pro EU types are fans of petty bureaucracy because they're pro EU. With checklists and clipboards no doubt.

Well I'll be very surprised if the bureaucracy decreases post Brexit. The petty bureaucracy comes from UK as much as EU. That'll never change. Things won't get better just because of Brexit.

On the 29th I'll welcome the beginning of the end of my EU citizenship, something we were never told we were going to get in 1973, something I never wanted and something we were never given the chance to reject until Mr Farage gave us our referendum.

It's clearly just a silly insubstantial wind-up post unless you would care to expand upon why you feel it to be in some way disadvantagous to youself?

You are fully at liberty to not use any of it's advantages of course.
So why worry?

The reverse, for those of us that have enjoyed life to the full and embraced our fellow men (and women!!) ,cannot be said!!?

pwa wrote:

meic wrote:But we will not be officially European, that has a different meaning.
Just as the Irish, despite being in the British Isles, are not officially British.

European still, but not EU. I could probably be EU if I wanted, having an Irish father, but I don't want it. European includes British. European History, as I was taught it at school, included the UK. Our culture has developed in a European context. We are and will remain Europeans.

And that's one of the ironies on this whole sorry tale: plenty of those voting to trap us in the UK of Chairwoman May (except for brief visits or bureaucracy-infested permitted work) won't be trapped themselves because they're the children or grandchildren of Europeans that the UK allowed to settle here and so can leave if turns out they've really wrecked our country. I'm sure there's some fitting punishment for Irish Brits who voted Leave, but I can't think what it is right now...

blackbike wrote:On the 29th I'll welcome the beginning of the end of my EU citizenship, something we were never told we were going to get in 1973, something I never wanted and something we were never given the chance to reject until Mr Farage gave us our referendum.

A self proclaimed very wise person said "Referendums are only advisory,"

mjr wrote:

pwa wrote:

meic wrote:But we will not be officially European, that has a different meaning.
Just as the Irish, despite being in the British Isles, are not officially British.

European still, but not EU. I could probably be EU if I wanted, having an Irish father, but I don't want it. European includes British. European History, as I was taught it at school, included the UK. Our culture has developed in a European context. We are and will remain Europeans.

And that's one of the ironies on this whole sorry tale: plenty of those voting to trap us in the UK of Chairwoman May (except for brief visits or bureaucracy-infested permitted work) won't be trapped themselves because they're the children or grandchildren of Europeans that the UK allowed to settle here and so can leave if turns out they've really wrecked our country. I'm sure there's some fitting punishment for Irish Brits who voted Leave, but I can't think what it is right now...

I'm here to stay. I won't be bailing out. I'm very comfortable identifying myself as British with some Irish ancestry. My Irish ancestors, in turn, have Welsh ancestors, so a good mix in there. And the British Isles have been very much a part of Europe since the dawn of civilisation, so I will remain European. What will change is the system of governance, not my cultural inheritance.