Brexit View

[Alan Medic]

And I thought this was going to make everything ok.......

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-trade-deals-uk-benefits-limited-philip-hammond-eu-warning-a7829951.html

[Jenny1]

It's been made clear to us that our economic future depends on the manufacture of 'innovative' jams and marmalade, also neck ties (which do not necessarily have to be innovative). Any other activity is unpatriotic.

[uncleglen]

just to redress the balance (the 'Independent' ha ha ha)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/03/28/farmers-across-europe-will-suffer-uk-drops-food-tariffs-report/

[malumbu]

Intresting article Uncle - pros and cons of leaving CAP to EU and domestic markets, including 'However, British farmers would also be hit by increased competition if the country dropped tariffs on food, with most relying on financial support from the Government', and 'Rabobank also warned that Britons were likely to pay more for fresh fruit, vegetables and olive oil after the country leaves the EU, even if it drops tariffs'. All sounds very risky to me, as some of the more progressive farming fraternity point out on the Archers (the best source of info on Brexit). Is it really worth the risk? Do we want to return to the 1930s where it was cheaper to import spuds, that left us in a perlious position when we had our second world war.

Whist the Indie and Torygraph generally have views from different extremes, both articles were interesting and informative. Hardly a tit for tat.

Having an interesting discussion last week that it would be better for the agricultural produce where Souther Euopean climates and soils to be produced there, rather than Southern Europeans coming over here to pick produce, letting us concentrate on what our climate is best at (interestingly a lot of soft fruit grows well in our climes). That doesn't mean that there would not still be a requirement for overseas labour, and interesting to see Eastern Europeans staffing our fishing boats - not sure if this was selective filming by the BBC but it amused me at the time if the indiginous residents of Hull and Grimbsby don't want to fish as well as work on the land.

What a mess, and it will get messier.

[teddyboy23]

Let's put things in prospective a shortest of butter for fcuksake.

[Alan Medic]

uncleglen Wrote:

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> just to redress the balance (the 'Independent' ha

> ha ha)

> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/03/28/far

> mers-across-europe-will-suffer-uk-drops-food-tarif

> fs-report/

"not all farmers will go out of business....". Must be comforting for that industry. What are you redressing UG? Did you read the article? Perhaps the headline was on the side of a bus.

[teddyboy23]

We are all toast minus the butter of course

[keano77]

If farmers need to rely on subsidies they're in the wrong business.

If the reason farmers are struggling is because supermarkets are cartels then let's support them

Many of you will be too young to remember solidarnosk (solidarity, the Polish Trade Union). The Polish Government hiked up the price of bread and the poles refused to buy it. Three days later (I think) the Polish Government backed down.

As consumers we are very powerful, if supermarkets pay milk suppliers, for example, pitiful prices don't buy milk until supermarkets pay more.

Simples

(Edited to add: more reason to leave the EU)

[red devil]

The sooner we get out of the EU, the sooner the price of Elf Adventures Activity Sets will come down and be affordable to the Great British worker.

Don't buy them, support your local elves!...

[malumbu]

keano77 Wrote:

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> If farmers need to rely on subsidies they're in

> the wrong business.

>

>

And I thought that I was naive. Farmers will have subsidies whether we are in or out of the EU. When we take away the subsidies then our food security is threatened.

Start listening to the Archers - the best source of info about Brexit.

[Jenny1]

teddyboy23 Wrote:

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> We are all toast minus the butter of course

But this is where the 'innovative' jams and marmalade come into their own teddyboy23. The all-seeing Dr Fox anticipated the butter shortage and so urged us to switch to 'novel' home-made preserves back in the Autumn (he was clear that most of these will be exported to France, but we can keep some for ourselves) I do hope you've come up with some original recipes.

[teddyboy23]

Sorry jenny I was joking look 😀

[teddyboy23]

.

[Jenny1]

teddyboy23 Wrote:

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> Sorry jenny I was joking look 😀

I know teddyboy23. And I greatly appreciated it!

[titch juicy]

The FT hitting a few nails on a few heads.

I wonder which of the three humiliating outcomes the last few brexiteers would prefer?

https://www.ft.com/content/d992b7c0-62fc-11e7-91a7-502f7ee26895

[red devil]

Can't read it...

[JohnL]

Anyway this morning May invited Corbyn et al to give there contributions to Brexit (OK almost certainly a trap). Now she's being attacked by her own side for doing so.

and what on earth is this one up to (if she loses the whip they're down another seat) ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/10/tory-mp-describes-leaving-eu-without-deal-real-nr-woodpile/

[titch juicy]

red devil Wrote:

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> Can't read it...

Ah, the paywall.

Here's the text from it.

Brexit and the prospect of national humiliation

The UK faces a range of uncomfortable outcomes from negotiation with the EU

Britain's national pride has made it a tricky customer from a Brussels perspective ? Getty

4 HOURS AGO by: Gideon Rachman

Things are going badly wrong in Brexit-land. The UK government is weak and divided. The EU is confident and uncompromising. The negotiation clock is ticking and only the wilfully deluded now believe that a ?cake-and-eat-it? Brexit is on offer. Instead, Britain appears to face a choice between three different types of humiliation.

The first humiliating outcome is that Britain becomes so desperate for a trade deal that it is forced to accept the EU?s terms, more or less in their entirety. That will mean that Britain agrees to pay a bill of up to ?100bn in gross terms, merely to get trade negotiations going. To then secure access to the single market, Britain would have to make further humbling concessions ? accepting free movement of people and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

An alternative humiliating outcome would involve Britain refusing to make an agreement on these terms and crashing out of the EU without a deal in March 2019. British goods and lorries would then stack up at the Channel ports, as they hit new trade and customs barriers ? amid general sniggering on the other side of the channel. Job losses would mount in manufacturing and a range of service industries, from finance to pharma. And as investment was diverted to continental Europe, the economy would take a permanent hit.

Each of these results will cause dismay and anger in Britain. But there is an argument that a dose of national humiliation can be good for a country

A weakened Britain would then turn to Donald Trump?s America, in the hope that the US president would make good on his promise of a ?very, very big? trade deal. But the dream of a proud, prosperous, ?global Britain? would look like a sick joke.

The third humiliating outcome involves Britain realising that there is no good Brexit on offer and abandoning the whole idea and returning meekly to the EU fold. Even to secure agreement to this outcome from the EU27, Britain might have to give up its cherished budget rebate.

Each of these results will cause dismay and anger in Britain. But there is an argument that a dose of national humiliation can be good for a country. The writer Ian Buruma argued recently that British and American politics have become vulnerable to nationalist self-harm because, after the second world war, ?generation after generation grew up with . . . the feeling of being special?.

All of the other big nations in Europe experienced occupation, defeat, humiliation or the collapse of democracy during the 20th century. By contrast, Britain takes a frank and understandable pride in never succumbing, in its modern history, to political extremism or military defeat. However Britain?s national pride, viewed from the Brussels perspective, has made the UK an awkward customer that has never accepted the concessions of sovereignty that are necessary to make the EU work. The Eurocrats murmur that if Britain is humbled by Brexit, that might have a positive effect in the long run, persuading the UK eventually to return to the EU with a more realistic assessment of its own power, and of the benefits of the European project.

But is humiliation really good for a country? It is arguable that Britain?s much-prized record of political moderation is connected to the fact that the country has never really been humbled.

Angry and confused countries often take refuge in political extremism or aggressive nationalism. The Chinese government has made avenging the country?s ?century of humiliation? (which began in 1839) the centre of a nationalist ideology that its neighbours find increasingly threatening. Vladimir Putin?s sense of humiliation at the collapse of the Soviet Union has driven Russian revanchism in Ukraine and Georgia. Going further back, German humiliation, following defeat in the first world war and the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles, contributed mightily to the rise of Hitler.

But if post-1918 Germany offers a warning about the dangers of national humiliation, post-1945 Germany demonstrates that being humbled can sometimes be good for the soul. Out of the moral and physical ruins of Nazism, the next generation of Germans built a country that is now rich, stable and widely admired.

Fortunately, however badly Brexit goes, it will never be a humiliation to rank alongside responsibility for the Holocaust or occupation by a foreign power. Nonetheless, any of the three possible Brexit humiliations will be a profound blow to national confidence.

The resulting public anger is likely to cause a further polarisation in domestic politics. The nationalist right is likely to blame Europeans for allegedly ganging up on Britain and the liberal establishment in the UK for ?selling out the country?. The Corbynite left would also stoke anti-establishment anger, and would use the general chaos to push for a massive expansion in the state ? and a radical realignment in British foreign and defence policy. That, in turn, would provoke a counter-radicalisation by the right.

But it also possible to imagine more cheerful scenarios. A country that has made the self-mocking ditty ?Always Look on the Bright Side of Life? an alternative national anthem, might have the ability to shrug off a Brexit humiliation. Stereotypes about Britain?s ?national character? tend to emphasise pragmatism, a sense of humour and an ability to cope with adversity. The Brits may need all of those qualities to cope with the fallout from Brexit.

[fatcats]

I'd be interested to hear people's opinions about the below article and the arguments put forward? Purely from an educational point of view. It has lingered in my mind since the referendum but it may be just a book flogging exercise:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/20/brexit-best-answer-to-dying-eurozone-eu-undemocratic-elite

[keano77]

titch juicy Wrote:

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> The FT hitting a few nails on a few heads.

>

> I wonder which of the three humiliating outcomes

> the last few brexiteers would prefer?

>

> https://www.ft.com/content/d992b7c0-62fc-11e7-91a7

> -502f7ee26895

With all due respect titch, the only way we'll end up with humiliating outcomes is if the remoaners bugger it up.

There's talk of cross-party involvement in Brexit talks, God help us. They say a camel is a horse designed by a committee. I dread to think what any Brexit deal will result in if every Tom, Dick and Harriet gets involved. We really will be a laughing stock of Europe and the world then.

As for "... the last few Brexiteers ... " I think you'll find if Remoaners stitch up the democratic will of the people the Jarrow March* will look like a fitness club in Dulwich Park

(* you might be too young to know what that was)

[Jenny1]

keano77 Wrote:

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> the Jarrow March*

Gosh! You must have been very young at the time Keano77. But do you have vivid memories of it?

[keano77]

Aye lad

[red devil]

With all due respect, the Brexiteers will fook it up all very well by themselves.

And what about the democratic will of the people to change their mind now that the economic and social reality of such an ill thought through vanity project is starting to bite?

Unless someone is in their late 80's no one on here will actually remember the Jarrow march, so not sure what your point is in saying that. Although I suspect titch does know about it because he was taught or read about it.

As for a march by Brexiteers to dwarf the Jarrow march in scale, do me a favour, we heard a similar pronouncement by Farage, that 100k would descend on the Supreme Court, instead all we got was a motley crew of nutjobs. Shall I put you down for the next one?...

[rendelharris]

Not quite sure the Jarrow march is a good example to use anyway, it comprised 200 marchers and the final rally in Hyde Park attracted between 3,000 and 50,000, depending whether one believes the police or the organisers (plus ca change). So by modern standards, pretty small, fewer than a crowd for a big football game. And what if the much vaunted "democratic will of the people" changes, as polls show it now has?

[Loz]

keano77 Wrote:

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> As for "... the last few Brexiteers ... " I think you'll find if Remoaners stitch up the democratic

> will of the people the Jarrow March* will look like a fitness club in Dulwich Park

The Jarrow march was 200 people in 1936. The population was then about 45m. Today the population is about 60m, so an equivalent march would therefore comprise approximately 267 people. As a comparison, the last Dulwich Park Parkrun had 231 people.

So, chuck in a crudely painted banner or two and you are probably not far off.