OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[AdiSalisbury]

See the terrible twosome, Gove and Johnson are back in cahoots. Are this pair of back stabbers, who repeatedly put personal ambition and ego before the national interest, really what the Brexiteers had in mind as leaders or are they just the personification of all that is wrong with British politics?

Let me fix that for you:

"...are they just the personification of all that is wrong with politics?"

[roger_ramjet]

See the terrible twosome, Gove and Johnson are back in cahoots. Are this pair of back stabbers, who repeatedly put personal ambition and Lego before the national interest, really what the Brexiteers had in mind as leaders or are they just the personification of all that is wrong with British politics?

Well it is near Christmas so time to invest in Danish moulded plastic bricks.

Im not sure that they are any better than any other politician Ive known in my life so far. I fear your idealism is just that rA

[macstheman]

The day will never arrive when everything is right with politics. Politics is about who gets what and how they get it. The trouble is the 'who' and the 'they' is the politicians!!

[Romanis]

I wonder if a change of Prime Minister, will result in a change to Brexit, the UK can still at any time before March 2019, scrap Brexit.

[ramAnag]

Well it is near Christmas so time to invest in Danish moulded plastic bricks.

Im not sure that they are any better than any other politician Ive known in my life so far. I fear your idealism is just that rA

Nothing wrong with a bit of idealism Rog...but really...no ‘better’ - I presume you mean ‘worse’ - than any other politician? I know we all struggle to find a decent one but these two really do seem to have plumbed new depths in terms of honesty, morality and competence.

[Andy_Faber]

Nothing wrong with a bit of idealism Rog...but really...no ‘better’ - I presume you mean ‘worse’ - than any other politician? I know we all struggle to find a decent one but these two really do seem to have plumbed new depths in terms of honesty, morality and competence.

I think your current beef about Brexit blinds you to the past RA, and I'm not being party-political about it, as I believe the tail-end of the Major government were a massive order of magnitude more corrupt. The end of the Brown/Blair government were knocking on the door in terms of honesty and competence too, and the tag-end of the Callaghan govt's incompetence allowed the tail to wag the dog.

[ramAnag]

I think your current beef about Brexit blinds you to the past RA, and I'm not being party-political about it, as I believe the tail-end of the Major government were a massive order of magnitude more corrupt. The end of the Brown/Blair government were knocking on the door in terms of honesty and competence too, and the tag-end of the Callaghan govt's incompetence allowed the tail to wag the dog.

I hope I’m not being ‘blind’ to anything about all this Andy. You’re right, I do find myself diametrically opposed to virtually everything these two say, but I honestly can’t remember two senior politicians ever behaving with such blatant disregard for creating a public persona of a pair of duplicitous and disloyal egoists.

[Andy_Faber]

I hope I’m not being ‘blind’ to anything about all this Andy. You’re right, I do find myself diametrically opposed to virtually everything these two say, but I honestly can’t remember two senior politicians ever behaving with such blatant disregard for creating a public persona of a pair of duplicitous and disloyal egoists.

I may share your disgust, just saying they are a long way from being the only ones, then or now. IMO the biggest egotist of the recent past was David Cameron for taking a bet with UK as collateral

[MadAmster]

Speaking as someone who gains double nationality on December 15th I see the EU as something to be dismantled as it is an unwieldy, undemocratic and out of control monolith.

Revert to pre Maastricht and the EEG (Common Market) when it was a free trade area.

What irks me is that they lied for 50 years about a US of E not being the end game when exactly that was the idea of the French and Germans from day 1.

They pooh poohed reports from conspiracy theorists about the advent of a European army but that is now being created.

It is, IMO, yet another step towards putting ore and more wealth and power into the hands of fewer and fewer people. A New World Order if you will.

The whole business of globalisation needs reversing to keep the top 1% from "enslaving" the rest of us.

[Andy_Faber]

Speaking as someone who gains double nationality on December 15th I see the EU as something to be dismantled as it is an unwieldy, undemocratic and out of control monolith.

Revert to pre Maastricht and the EEG (Common Market) when it was a free trade area.

What irks me is that they lied for 50 years about a US of E not being the end game when exactly that was the idea of the French and Germans from day 1.

They pooh poohed reports from conspiracy theorists about the advent of a European army but that is now being created.

It is, IMO, yet another step towards putting ore and more wealth and power into the hands of fewer and fewer people. A New World Order if you will.

The whole business of globalisation needs reversing to keep the top 1% from "enslaving" the rest of us.

Which one? I've opted for Irish, purely for ease of travel.

[MadAmster]

Which one? I've opted for Irish, purely for ease of travel.

Dutch Andy. Lived here for 33 years, married to a Dutch lady and have 2 kids born here. That ticks all the boxes. All I had to do was fill in a form and pay €182. As my UK passport is valid for another 5 years I won't be looking at a new one until March 2019 at the earliest. I will probably end up holding two passports for ease of travel.

[Andy_Faber]

Sorry to pop this one back to the top but I've just been putting a few ill-informed peeps right here in the 'real' world using the power of numbers, particularly regarding the 'Brexit exit bill'. I think.

There's been a 'bit of disagreement' about how much we 'pay' the EU at present - £350m a week quoted by the Leavers, £156m by the Remainers and £252m by BBC Reality Check, who I would usually trust as they have no political slant.

£350m is clearly a load of cobblers, only three people in the country accept that number, so lets ignore. For the sake of argument lets take the true number as something between the other two numbers, £200m seems reasonable. So that's 200m a week, which is £10,400m, or £10.4bn a year. Lets call it £10bn, whats £400m between friends?

The Brexit bill 'might' be £50bn

So on the basis of the above numbers, if we keep paying into the EU for 50/10=5 years, we're done.

Last night Kamal Woe Is Me Ahmed 'stated' that UK would be paying our weekly obligation 'beyond our lifetimes'.

Either:

1. I'm right and KA really is a prophet of doom
2. I'm missing something, or
3. Ramjet is already responding to explain how my maths is wrong, an ampersand or bracket in the wrong place maybe.

Massive simplfication applies as usual on my part.

Not making any point for or against, just grinding the numbers

[roger_ramjet]

You cant expect anyone from Rotherham to make sense. I cant argue with your numbers Andy save to say that I was reckoning around 40 billion as exit cost.

However it may be that we can negotiate "easy terms" and stretch the payment period over more than 5 years?? Hence he may be dead before the final instalment gets paid off.

My concern is more whether they honour the corrolary trade deals as I cant see that they can be made binding on EU members if it starts to fragment itself with Catalexit, Swexit or whatever. You can never trust johnny foreigner

[MadAmster]

How much a week? Interesting question. It is a gross £350M a week. That is correct but that is only a part of the story. We get some back in the form of grants and subsidies back from the EU so we have to subtract those from the £350M a week. We also get the annual £1Bn rebate Maggie negotiated. The actual cost is about half of what we originally pay in so, around £175M a week.

However, we should bill them for our WW1 and WW2 efforts for a start. That should deal with most of what they think we owe them.

Then you get the idiot that is Barnier accusing the UK of running away from ISIS when the EU needs to show solidarity. He forgets that the UK puts more in cash terms and in manpower into NATO than any other EU country. The man also thinks we will leave Interpol and probably the joint secret service conglomerate without a name that sees EU countries share intel. Why would we lave those two entities or NATO for that matter. Those organisations have been going longer than the EU. No reason for us to leave any of them..... apart from the EU.

Barnier's comments this week show what a joke it is.

Juncker's comment when asked why, when other countries have been fined for exceeding the 3% GDP overspend, France, despite doing it year after year, haven't been fined, answered "Because they are the French" shows what a farce the whole thing is.

[swaledale]

I suspect the economic loss to this country caused by Brexit will put any figure we pay or have paid to the EU in the small change category and I'm just glad i wont be the one explaining to those who voted leave because they thought they had bad deal in life, when they find their lives have not improved one iota.