Brexit shenanigans

[Dr Fear 1265]

Lots of resignations and chaos today. Some have suggested a no confidence vote, May is supposed to have a presser in 5 minutes and what she is going to say is anybody's guess.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-15/mays-brexit-plan-jeopardy-2-cabinet-ministers-resign-pound-tumbles

[Biff Tannen 45491]

Top 2 headlines on CNN right now:

Theresa May's future hangs in the balance

Trump is "pissed -- at damn near everyone"

 

Well done Russia.  Well done.

[Brisketexan 104537]

The spontaneous uproarious laughter when May announced the proposal to parliament was....awkward...and AWESOME.  When your leader says "here's a shit sandwich, and it's DELICIOUS," the ONLY right move is to laugh in her fucking face.

We should do more of that here.

[Dr Fear 1265]

She finally showed up, she is doubling down on her agreement.

[Biff Tannen 45491]

Can't they just say, lol jk, and re-do the vote?  Pretty sure most Brits would vote to remain after this shit show.

[relapse98 634]

3 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Can't they just say, lol jk, and re-do the vote?  Pretty sure most Brits would vote to remain after this shit show.

In theory, yes. It was not a legally binding referendum. But full steam ahead they go!

[hayden_horn 11360]

6 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Can't they just say, lol jk, and re-do the vote?  Pretty sure most Brits would vote to remain after this shit show.

they could, but british press would have a field day with the "are we sure?" referendum

[Biff Tannen 45491]

10 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

they could, but british press would have a field day with the "are we sure?" referendum

Oh, well fuck it then.  Best to just let the government go down in flames.

[hayden_horn 11360]

having just watched may's press conference, even as her government is on the verge of falling apart and her very position under attack, she took hard questions, rather affably, and gave answers without abusing the reporters asking. 

it's refreshing to see some courage under fire, even though she's made a mess of this whole thing.

[Ghost of LL 15469]

13 minutes ago, relapse98 said:

In theory, yes. It was not a legally binding referendum. But full steam ahead they go!

Your real problem is that the referendum is of questionable constitutionality to begin with.  There's really no place for a non-binding (or binding, for that matter) referendum in the Westminster System.  It flies in the face of the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy that has been the bedrock of the English Constitution since 1688.  So I don't understand their basis for treating the referendum as somehow sacrosanct, when it plainly is not.

[kevwun 15608]

She's going down the the ship.  A new PM will have a much easier time of backing off of Brexit.

[relapse98 634]

2 minutes ago, kevwun said:

She's going down the the ship.  A new PM will have a much easier time of backing off of Brexit.

#MakeBritainGreatAgain

[GopherRock 1765]

9 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

they could, but british press would have a field day with the "are we sure?" referendum

They're having one as it is, and that's before May faces an outright rebellion and a confidence motion in the Commons. 

[bolverk 29394]

I enjoy schadenfreude as much as anyone, especially when it involves the English, but I really hope they find a way of saving themselves. Whether it's through another referendum (it's probably too late for that now) or her stepping down and she's replaced by another PM that will stand up to the pro-Brexit camp and somehow nullify their planned exit in March. And I agree that most Brits would likely vote to remain at this point.

This situation is so mismanaged and convoluted with unpredictable (but bad) economic consequences that it would be asinine to go forward at this point. Anyone who doesn't think the potential implosion of the UK economy wouldn't affect that of the rest of Europe and the world is pretty short-sighted.

Y'all remember 20 years ago with there was the financial meltdown in Asia (starting in Singapore, I think) that caused oil prices to fall to $9 per barrel. Shit could get real if Battleship Britain goes down.

[DigglerontheHoof 21044]

55 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

having just watched may's press conference, even as her government is on the verge of falling apart and her very position under attack, she took hard questions, rather affably, and gave answers without abusing the reporters asking. 

it's refreshing to see some courage under fire, even though she's made a mess of this whole thing.

Having an adult as president would be nice. 

[Thetexashammer 1062]

10 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

Your real problem is that the referendum is of questionable constitutionality to begin with.  There's really no place for a non-binding (or binding, for that matter) referendum in the Westminster System.  It flies in the face of the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy that has been the bedrock of the English Constitution since 1688.  So I don't understand their basis for treating the referendum as somehow sacrosanct, when it plainly is not.

The referendum was conducted at the behest of Parliament, which authorized it in the European Union Referendum Act 2015. So rather than flying in the face of parliamentary supremacy, the referendum was an expression of parliamentary will.

Nobody says the issue is "sacrosanct". The reason people are rightly uncomfortable setting the Brexit vote aside is that it was an expression of the people's preference. As such, to set it aside is to overturn democracy, which is, generally speaking, a universally approved of system for governing.

Who am I kidding, obviously the European elites don't believe in democracy, that's why they created the EU, which is a power designed to be unresponsive to the people, with unelected leaders. Just this week, Macron discussed the creation of a paneuropean army. The UK chose to retain its sovereignty and leave. It may or may not be best, but it's what they chose.

[Brisketexan 104537]

The referendum was conducted at the behest of Parliament, which authorized it in the European Union Referendum Act 2015. So rather than flying in the face of parliamentary supremacy, the referendum was an expression of parliamentary will.
Nobody says the issue is "sacrosanct". The reason people are rightly uncomfortable setting the Brexit vote aside is that it was an expression of the people's preference. As such, to set it aside is to overturn democracy, which is, generally speaking, a universally approved of system for governing.
Who am I kidding, obviously the European elites don't believe in democracy, that's why they created the EU, which is a power designed to be unresponsive to the people, with unelected leaders. Just this week, Macron discussed the creation of a paneuropean army. The UK chose to retain its sovereignty and leave. It may or may not be best, but it's what they chose.

No, they chose the idea. Now, they’re presented with the reality. They should decide if they truly want that reality.

Kinda like me saying “Austin traffic sucks, I vote to move!” I tell my agent to find me an option that I can afford, with no traffic issues.

Then, after months of searching, my option is...move to a trailer in Fairbanks.

If I were to vote on that reality - do you want to move to a trailer I’m Fairbanks? - I’d vote “no.” The idea was very interesting. The reality was...not.

[David Dennison 18646]

7 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

The referendum was conducted at the behest of Parliament, which authorized it in the European Union Referendum Act 2015. So rather than flying in the face of parliamentary supremacy, the referendum was an expression of parliamentary will.

Nobody says the issue is "sacrosanct". The reason people are rightly uncomfortable setting the Brexit vote aside is that it was an expression of the people's preference. As such, to set it aside is to overturn democracy, which is, generally speaking, a universally approved of system for governing.

Who am I kidding, obviously the European elites don't believe in democracy, that's why they created the EU, which is a power designed to be unresponsive to the people, with unelected leaders. Just this week, Macron discussed the creation of a paneuropean army. The UK chose to retain its sovereignty and leave. It may or may not be best, but it's what they chose.

Nor do American elites. 

[Thetexashammer 1062]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

No, they chose the idea. Now, they’re presented with the reality. They should decide if they truly want that reality.

Kinda like me saying “Austin traffic sucks, I vote to move!” I tell my agent to find me an option that I can afford, with no traffic issues.

Then, after months of searching, my option is...move to a trailer in Fairbanks.

If I were to vote on that reality - do you want to move to a trailer I’m Fairbanks? - I’d vote “no.” The idea was very interesting. The reality was...not.

Actually the British experience thus far has been far more positive than expected at the time of the vote. Some predicted war, they predicted the financial business would leave, they predicted businesses would be harmed but the economy was the fastest growing in Europe. Most all the bad things predicted never happened, or the opposite happened. 

 

[Thetexashammer 1062]

1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

Nor do American elites. 

Are you having a brief moment of lucidity?

[workswithseed 2033]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The European project was set up to stop German domination, what we saw today from Angela Merkel was a naked takeover bid. Brexit can&#39;t come soon enough! <a href="https://t.co/BULoGSwC42">pic.twitter.com/BULoGSwC42</a></p>&mdash; Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) <a href="https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1062371147126358018?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

never posted a tweet. it seems that the EU wants to make its own military.

[Brisketexan 104537]

Actually the British experience thus far has been far more positive than expected at the time of the vote. Some predicted war, they predicted the financial business would leave, they predicted businesses would be harmed but the economy was the fastest growing in Europe. Most all the bad things predicted never happened, or the opposite happened. 
 

Because brexit hasn’t actually happened yet.

[Thetexashammer 1062]

17 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Because brexit hasn’t actually happened yet.

Europe is a failed experiment. The idea of "europe" is a fascist dictatorship (I simply mean that the EU isn't a democracy, they don't have real elections). They are failing demographically (Italy and Greece are the worst offenders with a replacement rate around 1.2 versus required of 2.1). They are going bankrupt (total debt is double what it was in 2008). 

But most devastating, they are deindustrializing. France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, and Greece all have lower GDP now than they had in 2008. Greece, obviously, is a disaster, and still has debt to GDP of nearly 200%. But Italy GDP has declined 20% from 2008. France is down from $2.9T to $2.6T. Germany, the "powerhouse" of the EU, basically has the same GDP as 2008.

The EU is a mutual suicide pact and the people of europe mostly know it. Which isn't to say those people have any really good ideas to fix it. My expectation is that the past is prologue. Europe has always been the epicenter of world wars, I see no reason it won't change its role. Europe ends badly and it starts with these withdrawals (Brexit, Italeave, Departugal), and then they go bankrupt, and then the real fireworks start to go off.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Thetexashammer

[bolverk 29394]

Here's a nice, non-ideological, fact-based summary of what Brexit is and how Britain got here:

Brexit for the Non-Brit: What Is It, and Why Can’t They Get It Done?

LONDON — After delays, stumbles and intermittent negotiations, Prime Minister Theresa May this week finally presented a draft plan for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union — and it has been roundly and loudly panned. Her government may be verging on collapse.

Supporters of Brexit had promised that leaving the European bloc would be quick and simple. It has turned out to be the opposite. To understand why, it helps to understand the origins, and how that history is playing out today.

What Is Brexit?
Britain joined the forerunner of the European Union in 1973, but British politicians have always been ambivalent about the bloc. The issue has long divided both of the country’s major parties, the Conservatives and Labour, and it became especially divisive among the Conservatives. In June 2016, Prime Minister David Cameron decided to settle the question with a yes-or-no national referendum.

Mr. Cameron bet that the country would not risk leaving the European Union. He was wrong. Britons voted 52 percent to 48 percent to leave.

They then faced a predicament: The campaign to quit the bloc had promised to “take back control” from Europe but never explained how. Embittered Remainers who lost the vote accused the Leavers of lies and xenophobia.

Mrs. May replaced Mr. Cameron and was charged with negotiating a Brexit deal with the European Union. Her biggest challenge was building support at home. One pro-Brexit faction has championed a clean break, so Britain would regain sovereignty over trade and immigration, while breaking free of the European Union’s institutions, including its Court of Justice, a particular concern for them.

Others preferred to maintain close economic ties with the bloc, even if that meant sharing some control with the European Union.

With Britain scheduled to leave on March 29, Mrs. May has been trying to broker a compromise to avoid a chaotic “cliff edge” withdrawal that could leave ports blocked, airlines grounded, and food and drugs running short. That was the draft she presented on Wednesday.

Why Is a Compromise So Elusive?
The Achilles’ heel of a Brexit deal is the border between Ireland, a member of the European Union, and Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. For years, this border was militarized because of sectarian violence that left more than 3,500 people dead. But with the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, free trade was allowed.

This was possible because Ireland and the United Kingdom were members of the European Union. But when Britain voted to leave, the Irish border again became an issue. Reintroducing customs controls would pose many problems.

Mrs. May’s draft agreement proposes keeping Northern Ireland, and the rest of the United Kingdom, in a European customs union until a trade plan that does not require checks at Ireland’s border is ready — so perhaps indefinitely. But this means Britain would also still be subject to some of the bloc’s trading rules and regulations.

In short, while paying a $50 billion divorce bill, Britain would remain bound by many European Union rules without any say in the making of them. This infuriates the hard-line Brexit crowd, who say it would leave Britain as a “vassal state.”

They aren’t the only ones offended. The Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, which provides a crucial 10 seats to Mrs. May’s minority government, is also furious, partly because the plan would impose more European rules on Northern Ireland than on the rest of the United Kingdom.

And don’t forget Scotland, which wants to remain in the European Union and is wondering why it cannot have the same deal as Northern Ireland.

So What Happens Now?
No one really knows. If all goes well for Mrs. May over the next few weeks — far from assured — then European Union leaders will complete the deal at a summit meeting. It would then need the approval of the British and European Parliaments. The route to that outcome is treacherous.

Mrs. May is fighting for her political life amid a big Brexit backlash in Parliament and calls within her Conservative Party for a no-confidence vote. Few experts think the British Parliament will approve her plan.

The opposition Labour Party has made clear its lawmakers will vote against, hoping to secure a general election. The Scottish National Party and the centrist Liberal Democrats are likely to do the same.

On Thursday it became clear that even Conservatives who campaigned to remain in the European Union were planning to vote against the draft agreement, hoping that the resulting crisis could mean a softer Brexit, or no Brexit.

If the plan were rejected, Parliament could ask the prime minister — or her successor, if she should step down — to negotiate another deal, although the European Union is highly unlikely to agree. And time is running out before the March 29 deadline.

There could be a general election, or Britain could face the cliff edge departure so feared by business.

There is even talk that the oft-heard pleas for a second referendum on Brexit might finally gain traction.

[bolverk 29394]

10 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

Actually the British experience thus far has been far more positive than expected at the time of the vote. Some predicted war, they predicted the financial business would leave, they predicted businesses would be harmed but the economy was the fastest growing in Europe. Most all the bad things predicted never happened, or the opposite happened. 

 

I don't think you really know what you're talking about. Just look at any of the GDP charts of the nations in the EU at this link. You'll see a clear trend. Until 2015, the EU economy (and its constituent countries) had largely recovered from the "Great Recession" but by no means was it going gangbusters.

In 2015-2016, Europe underwent a mini-recession and most of the countries have recovered. But in 2017, the EU began to recover from it. Overall, the GDP was up. Germany, France, Italy, and Spain saw positive GDP growth last year. Do you want to know which country still had a falling GDP in 2017? That's right - the UK. I wonder why that was...

Oh, and, many financial service firms have already off-shored much of their operations to Ireland or the Continent.

Go here and click on the country. Once on the country page, click MAX to see the full historical timeline for a country's GDP.

https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/gdp

[Thetexashammer 1062]

All of my numbers came from Google, which cited  the World Bank.

For example, France GDP.

I don't know what any of what you said means.

[bolverk 29394]

2 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

All of my numbers came from Google, which cited  the World Bank.

For example, France GDP.

I don't know what any of what you said means.

Or you could just do the same with others which shows they're recovering including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Ireland while the UK is still declining.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

I lived over there when the EU thing was happening, and I come at this from a different perspective than most of us here. My ex's family are working class Brits from a shithole town north of Manchester. They got nothing from the EU. It was weird how there were carve-outs for the UK for seeing to it that they did not get any of the benefits the French and Germans enjoyed, like extra vacation time, etc. They were just expected to keep on working like they always had. All of them are pro-Brexit to the bone. 

And then waves and waves of immigrants arrived. Not brown and black -- they'd already been there -- but mostly Polish. (So it's not about racism -- it's about jobs.) And they were taking all the semi-skilled jobs, and not not because they were better at plumbing, or hanging wallpaper, or roofing, but because they were cheaper. Which was just what was intended by the bankers down in fucking London. They wanted it both ways -- cheaper labor while giving fuck all to their own people. That's not the way shit works, Sir Toff-o, so fuck all the way off. 

And now we have this debacle....

[Fudge Nuggets 19144]

3 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

I don't know what any of what you said means.

It means you should sit this one out, Chief.

[Fudge Nuggets 19144]

5 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

And they were taking all the semi-skilled jobs, and not not because they were better at plumbing, or hanging wallpaper, or roofing, but because they were cheaper. Which was just what was intended by the bankers down in fucking London. 

But free markets and stuff. 

[bolverk 29394]

4 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

I lived over there when the EU thing was happening, and I come at this from a different perspective than most of us here. My ex's family are working class Brits from a shithole town north of Manchester. They got nothing from the EU. It was weird how there were carve-outs for the UK for seeing to it that they did not get any of the benefits the French and Germans enjoyed, like extra vacation time, etc. They were just expected to keep on working like they always had. All of them are pro-Brexit to the bone. 

And then waves and waves of immigrants arrived. Not brown and black -- they'd already been there -- but mostly Polish. (So it's not about racism -- it's about jobs.) And they were taking all the semi-skilled jobs, and not not because they were better at plumbing, or hanging wallpaper, or roofing, but because they were cheaper. Which was just what was intended by the bankers down in fucking London. They wanted it both ways -- cheaper labor while giving fuck all to their own people. That's not the way shit works, Sir Toff-o, so fuck all the way off. 

And now we have this debacle....

From a labor market perspective, I can understand and sympathize with the pain that semi- and lower-skilled workers in Western Europe have suffered by an influx of others from the East who they are competing with for their jobs. And, a strong argument could be made that the EU let in former Warsaw Pact nations at too fast a rate. That said, the UK's reaction has been different than other traditional Western European powers such as France and Germany.

The UK is not unique in the influx of cheap labor from the East, but its freak out certainly has been. They essentially put a gun to their head out of pure xenophobia. 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

3 minutes ago, bolverk said:

From a labor market perspective, I can understand and sympathize with the pain that semi- and lower-skilled workers in Western Europe have suffered by an influx of others from the East who they are competing with for their jobs. And, a strong argument could be made that the EU let in former Warsaw Pact nations at too fast a rate. That said, the UK's reaction has been different than other traditional Western European powers such as France and Germany.

The UK is not unique in the influx of cheap labor from the East, but its freak out certainly has been. They essentially put a gun to their head out of pure xenophobia. 

Hence the Brits should have gotten some benefits out of the whole deal...Instead they just had this crammed down their throats. 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

All of this shit makes me Surly and not in a small way. It's like how the big money boys in Texas have handed over almost all of the blue-collar jobs in Texas to Mexicans and Central Americans, and here it's even better for THEM than it would be in the UK. These guys have a hard time suing if they get hurt on the job. They deflate wages (and prices, so that's good for the rest of us) but having what amounts to a slave class is always terrible to a society that purports to be free.

Texas has had a slave class for about about four of five decades. First, we had actual slaves. Then we figured out a way to keep them as virtual slaves for another 100 years...And then there was a scant few years where blue-collar work was done by people who were paid equitably and had access to the courts. All that came to a screeching halt in the '90s with unlimited immigration and tort reform. What he we have now is a disenfranchised, easily deportable working class. That's not good. 

There is not a poster on this site who loves Mexican and Central American culture than I do, and I absolutely DO NOT BLAME THEM for coming up here to better their lives. And they better the life of America too, by just being here and making things, well, better. But they need to get their shit together on the labor front and in finding ways to citizenship and then voting for their own interets. 

[bolverk 29394]

7 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Hence the Brits should have gotten some benefits out of the whole deal...Instead they just had this crammed down their throats. 

I'm not following the second part of your statement. Which are you talking about getting crammed down their throats: the EU or Brexit? One can make a clear argument that, on a whole, the UK benefits greatly from being in the EU simply by showing their exit will be catastrophic to their economy. Competition for labor at the lower end of the skills level occurs in all nations. Hell, just look at Ohio and West Virginia. The US also has a large labor market with great discrepancies in labor costs, based largely on geography. What's happening in the EU in that regard is no different than what's been happening on the same scale in the US.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I'm not following the second part of your statement. Which are you talking about getting crammed down their throats: the EU or Brexit? One can make a clear argument that, on a whole, the UK benefits greatly from being in the EU simply by showing their exit will be catastrophic to their economy. Competition for labor at the lower end of the skills level occurs in all nations. Hell, just look at Ohio and West Virginia. The US also has a large labor market with great discrepancies in labor costs, based largely on geography. What's happening in the EU in that regard is no different than what's been happening on the same scale in the US.

The EU, as the UK was brought in. There were carve-outs to bitch them out. The English working class has been sold down the river for hundreds and hundreds of years and it happened again, and they knew it. You can only whip a burro so long before it kicks you in the teeth. 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

England, minus Scotland, and Wales is the size of Alabama, and was already overcrowded, and then was expected to take in all these huddled masses from behind the Iron Curtain. And I have nothing against Poles, but having lived as a working-class Brit for three years, I see how it would be maddening. 

 

Today, after English and Welsh, Polish is the most widely spoken language, far ahead of what you might think: maybe Urdu or Hindi. 

[bolverk 29394]

4 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

All of this shit makes me Surly and not in a small way. It's like how the big money boys in Texas have handed over almost all of the blue-collar jobs in Texas to Mexicans and Central Americans, and here it's even better for THEM than it would be in the UK. These guys have a hard time suing if they get hurt on the job. They deflate wages (and prices, so that's good for the rest of us) but having what amounts to a slave class is always terrible to a society that purports to be free.

Texas has had a slave class for about about four of five decades. First, we had actual slaves. Then we figured out a way to keep them as virtual slaves for another 100 years...And then there was a scant few years where blue-collar work was done by people who were paid equitably and had access to the courts. All that came to a screeching halt in the '90s with unlimited immigration and tort reform. What he we have now is a disenfranchised, easily deportable working class. That's not good. 

There is not a poster on this site who loves Mexican and Central American culture than I do, and I absolutely DO NOT BLAME THEM for coming up here to better their lives. And they better the life of America too, by just being here and making things, well, better. But they need to get their shit together on the labor front and in finding ways to citizenship and then voting for their own interets. 

I understand your complaints, but I'll simply argue that cheap Polish labor working in the UK has much greater protections than cheap Mexican labor working in the US. To me, the EU model has been much more effective at raising the boats of all participants than our NAFTA one due to strong labor protections.

Again, the UK isn't unique and Germany and France haven't been immune to the same wave of Eastern European migrants working at cheaper rates. But most importantly, they are unique in that they have turned their backs on a decades-long project to integrate various interests for the common good.

The UK's Brexit temper tantrum (if they go through with actually leaving) is going to do much greater harm for the common man than remaining and adapting to the EU. It's going to be a complete catastrophe for Britain's citizens.

[bolverk 29394]

17 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

England, minus Scotland, and Wales is the size of Alabama, and was already overcrowded, and then was expected to take in all these huddled masses from behind the Iron Curtain. And I have nothing against Poles, but having lived as a working-class Brit for three years, I see how it would be maddening. 

 

Today, after English and Welsh, Polish is the most widely spoken language, far ahead of what you might think: maybe Urdu or Hindi. 

The excuse of small geography doesn't hold a lot of water. Just look at the map. The Rhineland extending from Stuttgart to Essen is similar to London to Liverpool. Hell, the entirety of Germany is about the size of New Mexico or Montana.

Yeah, there's some backlash in Germany. That's clear. But, again, they didn't collectively decide to commit mass economic suicide due to competition. And, that, my friend, is what England chose to do with their Brexit election. I certainly hope the best for them and wish they wouldn't leave, because I'd hate to see a former Great Power to get dumped into the dustbin of history.

Edited November 17, 2018 by bolverk

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

4 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

I lived over there when the EU thing was happening, and I come at this from a different perspective than most of us here. My ex's family are working class Brits from a shithole town north of Manchester. They got nothing from the EU. It was weird how there were carve-outs for the UK for seeing to it that they did not get any of the benefits the French and Germans enjoyed, like extra vacation time, etc. They were just expected to keep on working like they always had. All of them are pro-Brexit to the bone. 

And then waves and waves of immigrants arrived. Not brown and black -- they'd already been there -- but mostly Polish. (So it's not about racism -- it's about jobs.) And they were taking all the semi-skilled jobs, and not not because they were better at plumbing, or hanging wallpaper, or roofing, but because they were cheaper. Which was just what was intended by the bankers down in fucking London. They wanted it both ways -- cheaper labor while giving fuck all to their own people. That's not the way shit works, Sir Toff-o, so fuck all the way off. 

And now we have this debacle....

The Eu fucked over the small mom and pop industry of all the Euro states. The EU was and is geared to protect the big corporations. NPR did a few pieces that interviewed smaller companies that were not succeeding because the costs to do business per EU rules was killing their companies.

The EU is a to be failed experiment. Geography is a factor in the economy that is overlooked and or ignored.

[workswithseed 2033]

Theresa May is doing a good job keeping Britain remaining in the EU any way possible.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19092]

From a labor market perspective, I can understand and sympathize with the pain that semi- and lower-skilled workers in Western Europe have suffered by an influx of others from the East who they are competing with for their jobs. And, a strong argument could be made that the EU let in former Warsaw Pact nations at too fast a rate. That said, the UK's reaction has been different than other traditional Western European powers such as France and Germany.
The UK is not unique in the influx of cheap labor from the East, but its freak out certainly has been. They essentially put a gun to their head out of pure xenophobia. 

They let them in way too fast.

But there are a lot of other problems with the EU that really need to be acknowledged.

I also think the common currency needs to go the way of the dodo. Giving up your ability to control your own monetary policy is not a good thing.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19092]

Also, you want to see a massive fuckup by the EU, look at their ag subsidy policy. French farmers are getting completely fucked.

[bolverk 29394]

1 minute ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

They let them in way too fast.
AGREED
But there are a lot of other problems with the EU that really need to be acknowledged.
SUCH AS?
I also think the common currency needs to go the way of the dodo. Giving up your ability to control your own monetary policy is not a good thing.

WITHOUT A COMMON FISCAL POLICY, I WOULD ALSO AGREE.

 

All that said, at this point, Great Britain is doing much more harm to itself than good. If their economy does implode, I honestly think it could be the tipping point for a global (if not just regional) recession. Just think back to the late 90s and the harm the Asian financial crisis caused on the Texas economy when oil prices dropped to $9 per barrel.

[Biff Tannen 45491]

2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

All that said, at this point, Great Britain is doing much more harm to itself than good. If their economy does implode, I honestly think it could be the tipping point for a global (if not just regional) recession. Just think back to the late 90s and the harm the Asian financial crisis caused on the Texas economy when oil prices dropped to $9 per barrel.

Thanks Limeys.

[Asithappens 974]

Even within the political realm, the self-delusion and incompetence of PM May is breathtaking.

Serves the Brits right (at least the leavers) if the NHS implodes.

[FondrenRoad 4378]

1 hour ago, bolverk said:

All that said, at this point, Great Britain is doing much more harm to itself than good. If their economy does implode, I honestly think it could be the tipping point for a global (if not just regional) recession. Just think back to the late 90s and the harm the Asian financial crisis caused on the Texas economy when oil prices dropped to $9 per barrel.

Britain is absolutely screwing itself with Brexit. Especially since its nearly impossible to do a complete Brexit, and the UK will find itself having to follow the EU regulatory regime while having 0 input into regulatory decisions.

They did integrate Eastern Europe way too soon. But they had little choice. It was not an economic decision. It was a geopolitical one designed to push Western Europe's sphere further Eastward toward Russia. And sure enough, given Russia's current hostility, there is little doubt that Russia would have regained a foothold in most of Eastern Europe had the EU not acted quickly. 

Even within Germany alone, they were too quick to integrate the East. 

I'm also not sure why UK racists would complain of Polish migration. The US has had a century of it and the Polish language rarely lasted beyond the 2nd generation. In fact, we likely have plenty of ethnonationalists here who have Polish ancestry walking hand in hand with Cletus from Alabama who is probably mostly English but doesn't really know.

Part of it is that, like us, small town poor folks in the UK want the jobs brought to them. They can't or don't want to move to job centers. Immigrants have no problem moving to a job center.  But even in a world of complete trade isolation, the days of the factory town are over. Factories have better access to labor when closer to cities.  Urbanization is what killed it rather than global trade. 

Edited November 17, 2018 by FondrenRoad

[bolverk 29394]

It's very much like Brisket's "anywheres" versus "somewheres" theory that he's been bandying about lately.

[Asithappens 974]

8 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

They got nothing from the EU. 

Is that really true? 

No benefits of any kind accrued to the rank-and-file Brit?

I kind of doubt that.

[Brisketexan 104537]

It's very much like Brisket's "anywheres" versus "somewheres" theory that he's been bandying about lately.

In this context, it’s reminiscent of the old Kinison rant: “we have deserts in America...we just don’t live in them! Go where the food is!”

Sorry your town is dying. Leave, and go where the jobs are. W. Va coal miners, I found your jobs. They are now construction and oil jobs in Texas. Go there.

And politicians lying to these people, and telling them that stay put, I have a plan to bring the jobs to you, is hurting us all. A lot.

There’s a living to be made in the new EU and UK...it ain’t in a dying town in the middle of nowhere.

[Asithappens 974]

I guess ol' Sam passed away before the whole Las Vegas thing became a reality.