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

[mistaram]

RA better go on a football site if you want to hear about the match You won't hear it on a political site like this

[mistaram]

Swales you are right about Irish border and the government knew from day one it has to be a priority but they kept kicking into the long grass If someone hadn't leaked the Attorney general's report to the Sunday Mail we wouldn't even be discussing it now

[ramAnag]

I py quite enough tax thanks, not that I begrudge paying it - though I am pissed off about the amount wasted on brexit!

The whole problem with Brexit and the flawed concept of the referendum is that these issues are complicated and to say that the Uk could simply leave the Irish border as it is and dare (?) the EU/Republic to do the same is quite frankly a demonstration of a) lack of knowledge and understanding and b) contradictory in that I thought one of the Leavers great desires was to CONTROL OUR BORDERS?

Ah...but you’re forgetting Swale...Andy isn’t a ‘Leaver’...well I don’t think he is, although he might be, depends what day, week, or possibly hour it is. He seems to be a kind of hybrid Remainer/no deal Brexiter who supports Mrs. May.
Hope he’s made his mind up which team to support on Monday.

[AdiSalisbury]

I had to Google, "Nebulous" Although, most mission statements are nebulous, people get paid far too much and spend far too much time to come up with a sentence to go under their logo, anyway... please forgive the brevity, my dinner's just going in the oven:

I'll play the game fair and put forward the negatives since the referendum...

Its raised a bitter side of people, that I never knew existed before. I've always known their are some horrible extreme right wing people who disgust me in many ways, but I was ignorant of how bitter and twisted the left wing could be. The only difference seems to be that it's legal to spread left wing hatred and vitriol.

In a world of supposed information, people are still blinded by propaganda, except rather than being adverts or newspapers, its taken many new forms. Most arguing over the matter, seems to be the same old soundbites being thrown either way, too many myths and I'm bored of it.

Satire is dead- it used to be light hearted jokes about politicians and leading figures, now its just anger filled rage, the louder they (TV personalities / comedians) shout and the redder the faces become, the more they get booked.

You might have to pay an additional £6.30 when you next spend a grand on your EU destined holiday.

How will we be better off? It's hard to not be nebulous because to quantify "better off" is subjective. I'm better off now because I'm in a better paid job than I was 12 months ago, leaving the EU hasn't impacted that. But here is what I voted for, I'm not an expert on predicting the future, I'm just Joe Public, but having a little life experience and some formal education in economics, I'd like to think that I'm not just some idiot who's scared of foreigners or takes much notice of what's written on a bus (unless I'm catching it of course!). I do feel a mountain has been made of a molehill, not helped by supposed neutral media outlets (sorry to pick up on an Andy point, but the BBC have let us down this last couple of years), but that's life...

Trade:

The EU operates on a similar basis to a "preferred suppliers list", it restricts free trade in measures that are often non-tariff based. There are advantages to this of course, depending where you are placed in particular services and your accessibility to import / export affordably and predictably. However, its also a constraint on your ability to exploit certain markets that would put you in direct competition with a particular EU state, meaning reduced opportunity to profit, reduced quality, reduced comparative advantage, and all the other advantages that come with competition. Leaving the EU doesn't remove access to the EU market (they rely on our trade to survive and are hardly going to refuse custom or opportunity into our market despite the spiteful propaganda spouted by EU politicians), it just removes the restriction, and I have faith in the skill of UK business to be able to exploit the new opportunities for our gain.

Politically:

It drives accountability of our own politicians home. If "we" vote in a government, regardless of my personal vote, I want them fully accountable for our policies, not hiding behind an EU decision, or only having a small say in EU policy which we are bound by. Nebulous maybe, but I expect them to work for us rather than blaming Brussells.

Immigration:

I don't think it's insensible to put restrictions of who walks, flies or sails into your country, and to not have it dictated to you by other EU states. There will always be an element that can't be controlled, any system can be defeated, by why invite it? Why have people travelling here to complete unskilled (I don't intend any disrespect as all work command respect) jobs, to send their pay "home" to another country, taking it out of our economy... or simply to come here and scrounge of our benefits system? There are other issues at home we need to deal with of course, but it doesn't mean that this should be ignored. "Dey tuk are jubs" or "nobody else would do the jobs" doesn't wash with me, certain UK people should be forced to complete undesirable work or simply lose their benefits... another argument of course.

I need to cut it here as my chips smell burnt, and I'm going to have to pretend I'm not hungry. But I will quickly state that I'm not anti-EU, I don't demonise it, our membership has been a positive for us historically, certainly in terms of our employment protections to the point where we are now far more attractive as employers than the rest of the EU. However, I think the tide has changed, the principles it was set out to achieve were achieved, and now it's become something else heading in the wrong direction. There's enough unrest in other EU states, and I expect that a few are wanting to see how our exit pans out before they take the same journey.

PS. I don't really care about the NI / Irish border, I live in the South of England and I am more interested in a decent diversion around Stonehenge so i can get to cricket quicker, the politicians can sort out a system / arrangement for our close neighbours.

Perhaps you'd return the courtesy and state, without being nebulous (I'm enjoying this addition to my vocabulary!), why you feel we are better to remain in the EU? We'll disagree of course, but I fully respect your position.

[ramAnag]

I had to Google, "Nebulous" Although, most mission statements are nebulous, people get paid far too much and spend far too much time to come up with a sentence to go under their logo, anyway... please forgive the brevity, my dinner's just going in the oven:

I'll play the game fair and put forward the negatives since the referendum...

Its raised a bitter side of people, that I never knew existed before. I've always known their are some horrible extreme right wing people who disgust me in many ways, but I was ignorant of how bitter and twisted the left wing could be. The only difference seems to be that it's legal to spread left wing hatred and vitriol.

In a world of supposed information, people are still blinded by propaganda, except rather than being adverts or newspapers, its taken many new forms. Most arguing over the matter, seems to be the same old soundbites being thrown either way, too many myths and I'm bored of it.

Satire is dead- it used to be light hearted jokes about politicians and leading figures, now its just anger filled rage, the louder they (TV personalities / comedians) shout and the redder the faces become, the more they get booked.

You might have to pay an additional £6.30 when you next spend a grand on your EU destined holiday.

How will we be better off? It's hard to not be nebulous because to quantify "better off" is subjective. I'm better off now because I'm in a better paid job than I was 12 months ago, leaving the EU hasn't impacted that. But here is what I voted for, I'm not an expert on predicting the future, I'm just Joe Public, but having a little life experience and some formal education in economics, I'd like to think that I'm not just some idiot who's scared of foreigners or takes much notice of what's written on a bus (unless I'm catching it of course!). I do feel a mountain has been made of a molehill, not helped by supposed neutral media outlets (sorry to pick up on an Andy point, but the BBC have let us down this last couple of years), but that's life...

Trade:

The EU operates on a similar basis to a "preferred suppliers list", it restricts free trade in measures that are often non-tariff based. There are advantages to this of course, depending where you are placed in particular services and your accessibility to import / export affordably and predictably. However, its also a constraint on your ability to exploit certain markets that would put you in direct competition with a particular EU state, meaning reduced opportunity to profit, reduced quality, reduced comparative advantage, and all the other advantages that come with competition. Leaving the EU doesn't remove access to the EU market (they rely on our trade to survive and are hardly going to refuse custom or opportunity into our market despite the spiteful propaganda spouted by EU politicians), it just removes the restriction, and I have faith in the skill of UK business to be able to exploit the new opportunities for our gain.

Politically:

It drives accountability of our own politicians home. If "we" vote in a government, regardless of my personal vote, I want them fully accountable for our policies, not hiding behind an EU decision, or only having a small say in EU policy which we are bound by. Nebulous maybe, but I expect them to work for us rather than blaming Brussells.

Immigration:

I don't think it's insensible to put restrictions of who walks, flies or sails into your country, and to not have it dictated to you by other EU states. There will always be an element that can't be controlled, any system can be defeated, by why invite it? Why have people travelling here to complete unskilled (I don't intend any disrespect as all work command respect) jobs, to send their pay "home" to another country, taking it out of our economy... or simply to come here and scrounge of our benefits system? There are other issues at home we need to deal with of course, but it doesn't mean that this should be ignored. "Dey tuk are jubs" or "nobody else would do the jobs" doesn't wash with me, certain UK people should be forced to complete undesirable work or simply lose their benefits... another argument of course.

I need to cut it here as my chips smell burnt, and I'm going to have to pretend I'm not hungry. But I will quickly state that I'm not anti-EU, I don't demonise it, our membership has been a positive for us historically, certainly in terms of our employment protections to the point where we are now far more attractive as employers than the rest of the EU. However, I think the tide has changed, the principles it was set out to achieve were achieved, and now it's become something else heading in the wrong direction. There's enough unrest in other EU states, and I expect that a few are wanting to see how our exit pans out before they take the same journey.

PS. I don't really care about the NI / Irish border, I live in the South of England and I am more interested in a decent diversion around Stonehenge so i can get to cricket quicker, the politicians can sort out a system / arrangement for our close neighbours.

Perhaps you'd return the courtesy and state, without being nebulous (I'm enjoying this addition to my vocabulary!), why you feel we are better to remain in the EU? We'll disagree of course, but I fully respect your position.

Wow...congratulations Adi...on one of the best contributions to this debate and by far the most articulate defence of Brexit I think I’ve heard.
You’re right of course, we’ll disagree but I too respect both you and your position.

In answer to your points, I genuinely don’t recognise your portrayal of ‘left wing anger and vitriol’. There is anger I accept...politics, like football, will always generate such emotion but I honestly haven’t seen anything from the left which compares with the hatred that was displayed towards ‘foreigners’ in the immediate post Referendum atmosphere or that is likely to be found at any event involving Tommy Robinson or his like.

I agree with your comments about satire, the subtlety is largely gone and all too often now the ‘comedy’ of political observation has come to resemble being hit repeatedly over the head with a blunt instrument. The BBC issue you raise however is interesting. The Right, even the reasonable Right - if that is not a paradox - are constantly carping about BBC bias and yet earlier today I was speaking to someone who makes me look very much right of centre and who made exactly the same claim...that the BBC is biased against the Left and Corbyn in particular. Maybe if the more extreme aspects of both Left and Right are complaining about the bias of the BBC they might have just about got a very difficult task right.

I don’t disagree entirely about immigration restrictions and I take your point.
I do disagree however about ‘foreigners’ taking ‘our’ jobs.
We’ve seen this before in relation to corner shops and taxi drivers. Here we have two areas of ‘industry’ which are very much dominated by Asians...in Derby at least. Why has that happened? Because the more ‘home grown’, for want of a much better expression, population didn’t want such employment...had no interest in the anti-social hours. I suspect that much the same is true as far as Polish plumbers are concerned and it’s not just the ‘unskilled’ jobs you refer to...my dentist, even in the comparatively ‘leafy’ Derbyshire Dales, is Romanian and a month or so ago when I underwent a minor operation only two of the six people in the operating theatre were English...the others comprising three Europeans and one Asian. These are examples of where our society really has benefited from immigration.

On Ireland I think you’re being naive. Not sure how old you are but the problem of Irish terrorism was something that impacted upon my life from the early seventies through to the late nineties. I certainly don’t want to encourage any situation that might see that scenario raise it’s particularly ugly head again.

Finally, you say, of the EU...’it has been a positive for us historically’. I can only agree...so why leave?
I accept that the EU is far from perfect and is not as accountable as it should be. I also agree that it has changed immeasurably from what it originally set out to achieve but overall, as even you appear to accept, it has done us far more good than harm. So why the rush to leave? We are self evidently wanted so why not stay and use our undoubted influence to change from within rather than leave and risk all sorts of unnecessary isolation?

I doubt you’ll agree but at least we’ve been civilised in our argument and can doubtless unite in our shared love of cricket and desire to defeat Forest on Monday.

[AdiSalisbury]

I do disagree however about ‘foreigners’ taking ‘our’ jobs.
We’ve seen this before in relation to corner shops and taxi drivers. Here we have two areas of ‘industry’ which are very much dominated by Asians...in Derby at least. Why has that happened? Because the more ‘home grown’, for want of a much better expression, population didn’t want such employment...had no interest in the anti-social hours. I suspect that much the same is true as far as Polish plumbers are concerned and it’s not just the ‘unskilled’ jobs you refer to...my dentist, even in the comparatively ‘leafy’ Derbyshire Dales, is Romanian and a month or so ago when I underwent a minor operation only two of the six people in the operating theatre were English...the others comprising three Europeans and one Asian. These are examples of where our society really has benefited from immigration.

I agree with that totally, my tongue in cheek musing probably doesn't come across well in text!

On Ireland I think you’re being naive. Not sure how old you are but the problem of Irish terrorism was something that impacted upon my life from the early seventies through to the late nineties. I certainly don’t want to encourage any situation that might see that scenario raise it’s particularly ugly head again.

I remember PIRA - but point accepted.

I doubt you’ll agree but at least we’ve been civilised in our argument and can doubtless unite in our shared love of cricket and desire to defeat Forest on Monday.

Absolutely!

[Andy_Faber]

Bottom line...can you, or Adi, now please explain exactly how we are all going to be better off after any form of Brexit than we were before the Referendum? I’d genuinely love to know.

Nothing nebulous about me RA

I've never said we are going to be better off economically. I think we as a country may NOT be better off economically, although 'better off' isn't just about economics, some folk will feel better off if they can stand in a queue at the supermarket and have a better chance of turning to the person behind and have a natter in English, or see their waiting time for attention at A&E drop a little (I'm not endorsing these feelings, but I am aware of them)

However, in terms of raw economics, businesses (PROPER businesses, not the public sector, or the media), whether their guiding influencers agree or disagree with Brexit, have been planning and accounting for as many eventualities as they can think of since June 2016. They would be negligent not to do so as the servants of their shareholders and the paymasters of their employees. Derby's biggest employer has expressed strong opposition for Brexit but I'm aware through mates 'in the trade' of significant effort expended in planning and budgetting for a number of Brexit scenarios, including working closely with their massive, global, supply chain. When the time comes they, and a hundred thousand other businesses around the country, will be ready for the impact of whatever route we go. I'm not saying they will survive, I'm saying they will be ready. I'll even point to my usual nemesis Swale, who clearly has done some forecasting of how preBrexit uncertainty will impact his specialism, and taken steps to exploit that - he certainly hasn't thrown his head up in the air and shouted 'woe is me' (in fact 'woe is them' has been his mantra, he may or may not be proved right).

[Andy_Faber]

I had to Google, "Nebulous" Although, most mission statements are nebulous, people get paid far too much and spend far too much time to come up with a sentence to go under their logo, anyway... please forgive the brevity, my dinner's just going in the oven:

I'll play the game fair and put forward the negatives since the referendum...

Its raised a bitter side of people, that I never knew existed before. I've always known their are some horrible extreme right wing people who disgust me in many ways, but I was ignorant of how bitter and twisted the left wing could be. The only difference seems to be that it's legal to spread left wing hatred and vitriol.

In a world of supposed information, people are still blinded by propaganda, except rather than being adverts or newspapers, its taken many new forms. Most arguing over the matter, seems to be the same old soundbites being thrown either way, too many myths and I'm bored of it.

Satire is dead- it used to be light hearted jokes about politicians and leading figures, now its just anger filled rage, the louder they (TV personalities / comedians) shout and the redder the faces become, the more they get booked.

You might have to pay an additional £6.30 when you next spend a grand on your EU destined holiday.

How will we be better off? It's hard to not be nebulous because to quantify "better off" is subjective. I'm better off now because I'm in a better paid job than I was 12 months ago, leaving the EU hasn't impacted that. But here is what I voted for, I'm not an expert on predicting the future, I'm just Joe Public, but having a little life experience and some formal education in economics, I'd like to think that I'm not just some idiot who's scared of foreigners or takes much notice of what's written on a bus (unless I'm catching it of course!). I do feel a mountain has been made of a molehill, not helped by supposed neutral media outlets (sorry to pick up on an Andy point, but the BBC have let us down this last couple of years), but that's life...

Trade:

The EU operates on a similar basis to a "preferred suppliers list", it restricts free trade in measures that are often non-tariff based. There are advantages to this of course, depending where you are placed in particular services and your accessibility to import / export affordably and predictably. However, its also a constraint on your ability to exploit certain markets that would put you in direct competition with a particular EU state, meaning reduced opportunity to profit, reduced quality, reduced comparative advantage, and all the other advantages that come with competition. Leaving the EU doesn't remove access to the EU market (they rely on our trade to survive and are hardly going to refuse custom or opportunity into our market despite the spiteful propaganda spouted by EU politicians), it just removes the restriction, and I have faith in the skill of UK business to be able to exploit the new opportunities for our gain.

Politically:

It drives accountability of our own politicians home. If "we" vote in a government, regardless of my personal vote, I want them fully accountable for our policies, not hiding behind an EU decision, or only having a small say in EU policy which we are bound by. Nebulous maybe, but I expect them to work for us rather than blaming Brussells.

Immigration:

I don't think it's insensible to put restrictions of who walks, flies or sails into your country, and to not have it dictated to you by other EU states. There will always be an element that can't be controlled, any system can be defeated, by why invite it? Why have people travelling here to complete unskilled (I don't intend any disrespect as all work command respect) jobs, to send their pay "home" to another country, taking it out of our economy... or simply to come here and scrounge of our benefits system? There are other issues at home we need to deal with of course, but it doesn't mean that this should be ignored. "Dey tuk are jubs" or "nobody else would do the jobs" doesn't wash with me, certain UK people should be forced to complete undesirable work or simply lose their benefits... another argument of course.

I need to cut it here as my chips smell burnt, and I'm going to have to pretend I'm not hungry. But I will quickly state that I'm not anti-EU, I don't demonise it, our membership has been a positive for us historically, certainly in terms of our employment protections to the point where we are now far more attractive as employers than the rest of the EU. However, I think the tide has changed, the principles it was set out to achieve were achieved, and now it's become something else heading in the wrong direction. There's enough unrest in other EU states, and I expect that a few are wanting to see how our exit pans out before they take the same journey.

PS. I don't really care about the NI / Irish border, I live in the South of England and I am more interested in a decent diversion around Stonehenge so i can get to cricket quicker, the politicians can sort out a system / arrangement for our close neighbours.

Perhaps you'd return the courtesy and state, without being nebulous (I'm enjoying this addition to my vocabulary!), why you feel we are better to remain in the EU? We'll disagree of course, but I fully respect your position.

Adi pretty much nails it here, and note that he echoes my admittedly badly worded opinion that folk 'couldn't give a toss' about the Irish border.

[ramAnag]

Nothing nebulous about me RA

I've never said we are going to be better off economically. I think we as a country may NOT be better off economically, although 'better off' isn't just about economics, some folk will feel better off if they can stand in a queue at the supermarket and have a better chance of turning to the person behind and have a natter in English, or see their waiting time for attention at A&E drop a little (I'm not endorsing these feelings, but I am aware of them)

However, in terms of raw economics, businesses (PROPER businesses, not the public sector, or the media), whether their guiding influencers agree or disagree with Brexit, have been planning and accounting for as many eventualities as they can think of since June 2016. They would be negligent not to do so as the servants of their shareholders and the paymasters of their employees. Derby's biggest employer has expressed strong opposition for Brexit but I'm aware through mates 'in the trade' of significant effort expended in planning and budgetting for a number of Brexit scenarios, including working closely with their massive, global, supply chain. When the time comes they, and a hundred thousand other businesses around the country, will be ready for the impact of whatever route we go. I'm not saying they will survive, I'm saying they will be ready. I'll even point to my usual nemesis Swale, who clearly has done some forecasting of how preBrexit uncertainty will impact his specialism, and taken steps to exploit that - he certainly hasn't thrown his head up in the air and shouted 'woe is me' (in fact 'woe is them' has been his mantra, he may or may not be proved right).

Okay...so we’re not going to be better off, in fact we might be worse off, but there might be more ‘English’ voices in the shops and shorter A&E queues, not that you’re ‘endorsing’ that view, although you do appear to be ignoring our reliance on migrant labour to staff our hospitals.
Beyond that, the largest employer in Derby - is that RR, Bombardier or Toyota, I’m not sure...but I’d guess they know a bit about import and export - is wholly opposed to Brexit, but what do they know (?) and anyway your mates ‘in the trade’, the ones you’re ‘not saying will survive’, have told you they’re prepared for all eventualities...so that’s alright then.
No Andy, nothing remotely nebulous there at all.

[Andy_Faber]

Okay...so we’re not going to be better off, in fact we might be worse off, but there might be more ‘English’ voices in the shops and shorter A&E queues, not that you’re ‘endorsing’ that view, although you do appear to be ignoring our reliance on migrant labour to staff our hospitals.
Beyond that, the largest employer in Derby - is that RR, Bombardier or Toyota, I’m not sure...but I’d guess they know a bit about import and export - is wholly opposed to Brexit, but what do they know (?) and anyway your mates ‘in the trade’, the ones you’re ‘not saying will survive’, have told you they’re prepared for all eventualities...so that’s alright then.
No Andy, nothing remotely nebulous there at all.

At last we agree

[swaledale]

The DUP will not go along with NI having different rules to the rest of the UK. They have already said that, on many occasions.

Of course they wont, unless it concerns gay marriage, abortion, political representation, funding from Uk government when it seems its absolutely fine!

[swaledale]

Adi pretty much nails it here, and note that he echoes my admittedly badly worded opinion that folk 'couldn't give a toss' about the Irish border.

I think you may find that its a fact that immigrants actually pay more into the UK economy than they take out and that eu immigration has supported our economic growth. Its also immigrants that keep the NHS and other services and industries operating. Few if any "scrounge" off the benefits system, despite what the daily mail would ahve you believe.

Of course if your looking for people who take significant amounts of dosh out of the UK economy, then you need look no further than the Rees-Moggs and Banks of this world.

Given that at 4.5% unemployment we are at what is recognised as virtually full employment I'm rather puzzled as to where the replacement workers are going to come from within the UK? By the way for many years the benefits system has forced people to take jobs, not that anyone in their right mind would call living on benefits "living" but hey ho its an easy proposition and sounds good - after all the Tory's did inflict austerity on the poor when they didn't cause the crash!

As for the tide changing, yes its inevitable - when people enjoy a peaceful and economically prosperous life they soon forget what things used to be like - not sure the rise of right wing nationalism is something to be welcomed, but no doubt there are those who will welcome it, until its their lives that are affected!

[swaledale]

You're such a humble person, thanks for that

At least I don't have an imaginary friend!

The point is much time and money is being wasted by Business on Brexit preparations that would be better spent elsewhere! Economic activity is down 17% over the past two years due to Brexit - at the moment, we are shooitng ourselves in the foot economically and yes life will go on - its just a lot of people will be poorer, services and businesses will be affected or surprise to surprise IF we do leave it will look much the same as before but we will have less of a say in the EU!

[Andy_Faber]

At least I don't have an imaginary friend!

Nor any real ones?

[Andy_Faber]

The point is much time and money is being wasted by Business on Brexit preparations that would be better spent elsewhere! Economic activity is down 17% over the past two years due to Brexit - at the moment, we are shooitng ourselves in the foot economically and yes life will go on - its just a lot of people will be poorer, services and businesses will be affected or surprise to surprise IF we do leave it will look much the same as before but we will have less of a say in the EU!

I've had a word with my imaginary friend who appears to be feeding you imaginary stats, but despite that, can you explain to RA that, whatever your view on Brexit, you have prepared yourself and your business as well as you can for whatever may happen.