For the Brits: When will BREXIT referendum happen ?

[Jericho]

That's correct Jericho, I haven't been to N.I. but have been to Eire. Just making a point to the Politician it's not my job to find a solution. I was given a vote & used it.
My priorities are to find a job so I can put food on the table! The politicians can find a solution & I hope they loose shitloads of sleep over it! Though I doubt that very much.

This is the thing that fucks me up, dawg.
I'm not stavros (tho I gree with him), I don't know the deep history of shit.
What do you want, that you don't have now?
What will bringing us out of Europe get you, that you don't have now?
Don't give me rhetoric, explain it to me!
Tell me what you want?
(And not the bullshit that was written on the side of a bus)

[peejaye]

I'll be blunt; I want the £161m, not the £350m on the side of the bus, per week we will not be sending there to be spent on rebuilding the public services which are on the brink of collapse due to 30 year of neglect & under funding! I also wanted Cameron out. I hope that's clear enough for anyone losing sleep over the result!
I just wish you people would accept it! I'm no longer debating it, 52% of people felt the same way.
You, I assume, are not a Politician so I expect you to respect my opinion like I respect yours?
I'm intrigued to know what you people are so petrified of? So far, all I have heard is speculation?

[peejaye]

PS; I'd do away with the lot of it, the Union? I've already said that only to be told "it works"? Very informative. If it WAS done away with, what would you want to be part of?

[Ts RedVeX]

The problem would not have even emerged had government kept out of economy.

[Stavros]

PS; I'd do away with the lot of it, the Union? I've already said that only to be told "it works"? Very informative. If it WAS done away with, what would you want to be part of?

Look at it this way, Peejaye. When has the UK stood alone in the world? We could get into complex issues, for example the Honourable East India Company was formed in 1600 before the UK came into existence as we know it today, and was formed to take advantage of the opportunities to trade that were opening up in the East, just as the 'discovery' -by Europeans -of the Americas would re-orient so much British trade across the Atlantic, between 1815 and 1914 the most lucrative source of trade, regardless of the Revolution and the 'hiccup' of the Civil War. But one could argue that for much of the period from 1600 to 1973, the British had their own version of the European Union, and it was called the British Empire.

Some of the mechanisms which the EU have adopted over the years were mechanisms that kept the Empire going. For example, free movement of people was enshrined in the Nationality Act of 1948 which gave every British Empire citizen (approx. 500-800 million) the right to enter the UK, which is how most of the Caribbean workers who came after that year entered the country -and you may have read recently that at least two who have lived here for 50 years have now been told they are illegal immigrants! One woman was even arrested and held in a detention centre from which she has since been released.
But there was free movement, and 'tariff free' trade with the Empire.

And when the British Empire was in the process of being dismantled in the 1960s, the UK became (in 1960) a founder member of the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) a small common market style 'Union' which was economically beneficial to the UK at a time when the country was losing its cheap food and raw materials, and heavy industry entering a phase of decline.

So the UK's entry into the European Economic Community in 1973 was an extension of EFTA which was an extension of Empire -and economically beneficial.
So now tell me how leaving that Union can benefit the UK when it literally means walking out of a market of 500 million with all the economic advantages membership has, when the alternative is an 'independence' the UK has not known in reality since 1600. And that is before you question the existence of that other Union, namely between England and Scotland.

We are better off together -remember that?

[Ts RedVeX]

Leaving the EU means the UK will (most likely) be ran by local communists rather than external ones. In that sense, leaving the EU is good. The only question is what sort of communists are we going to have to put up with. Will it be communists like Stavros, who promotes more regulation to make our lives more difficult, more bureaucracy, more officials who do not actually produce anything and only constrain free trade and competition and do not contribute to technological advancement? Will it be communists like peejaye, who say that trade unions are good because they artificially sustain companies that would have normally gone bankrupt providing their employees with an unjustified economically minimal wage? I am really looking forward to see if coming to the UK was a good idea. It seemed like a good one shortly after "brexit", but now, seeing that UK's prime minister plans to charge taxpayers over 600 quid per capita (or more if you have kids) for voting "leave" I am not so sure.

I am wondering why you two don't establish a company: Stavros would take care of all the "handy" regulations that is in power, as well as advertising via the means of propaganda, and Peejaye you get your fellow union members to chip-in, get some land and build a coal mine. Sounds like a gold mine of a plan to me! xd

[Stavros]

The news this lunchtime is that there has been a 'breakthrough' in the Brexit (or is it 'Brexit'?) Negotiations, and that the two parties have agreed a solution to the problem of a 'hard border' between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The term being used is 'Continued Regulatory Alignment' -CRA- which appears to mean that in order to retain an open border and thus comply with the Good Friday Agreement, and the demand by Ireland that Brexit not adversely affect the conduit of trade between the UK and the Republic Northern Ireland will remain in the Customs Union, possibly the Single Market -thus

“in the absence of agreed solutions the UK will ensure that there continues to be continued regulatory alignment” with the internal market and customs union.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...n-brexit-talks

In other words, the whole of the UK will not be leaving the EU, only part of it. It is possible, as the article above argues, that if the UK reaches a trade agreement with the EU, the Irish border issue will thus become absorbed into the new agreement, but that is hypothetical, because on its own CRA is a bombshell waiting to go off and it will be interesting to see what happens next.

Will the DUP and the Brexit Buccaneers accept it? Early signs that Theresa May's harshest critics might can only be true because they don't want to see her government collapse and a new election take place as Labour is ahead in the polls. I can imagine Nicola Sturgeon now insisting that as Scotland voted to Remain in the EU, so Scotland should have what Northern Ireland has got, ditto Wales and, of course, ditto Gibraltar, though the Spanish might veto another form of CRA or not, as the case may be. Spain may even support it knowing it undermines the position of the UK government that claims it is leaving the EU.

That this arrangement may have made it easier for the UK to move on to the all-important trade talks suggests it might even be just a trick, as the comment from Downing Street really just makes this whole CRA thing look like another part of the snakes and ladders game the Brexit negotiations are turning into:

At the regular morning No 10 lobby briefing Theresa May’s official spokesman insisted there would be no difference in the Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

“The PM has been clear that the UK is leaving the EU as a whole, and the territorial and economic integrity of the UK will be protected,” he said, refusing to elaborate further on what that meant.

[Stavros]

Since writing the above, the leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster forced Theresa May out of her meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker, and it looks like the CRA has bitten the dust. Another day, another douleur.

Mrs May is understood to have broken off from talks with European Commission President Jean Claude Junker to speak to Arlene Foster, after the DUP leader had held a press conference saying her party "will not accept any form of regulatory divergence" that separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

"During the call it was made plain to the PM that the DUP, whose support is vital to the government being able to pass their Brexit legislation, had significant concerns about the deal being discussed that gave concessions to the Dublin government," the BBC's political editor said.

"I understand Foster told Theresa May that she would not be able to support such a deal. It's been suggested too that there are 20 or so Conservative MPs who had serious misgivings about the compromises that were understood to be on the table."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42217735

[peejaye]

Ha ha ha! Don't you just have to laugh your little cock off at this fucking lot! Even a billion pounds can't buy those corrupt cunts, the DUP! Now we've got a dozen or so MP's holding the country to ransom again! What next.....another fucking billion? It's only money eh!
& I bet my bollocks you thought it was a good idea at the time? Anything to keep Jeremy out of office eh Stavros!

[peejaye]

Leaving the EU means the UK will (most likely) be ran by local communists rather than external ones. In that sense, leaving the EU is good. The only question is what sort of communists are we going to have to put up with. Will it be communists like Stavros, who promotes more regulation to make our lives more difficult, more bureaucracy, more officials who do not actually produce anything and only constrain free trade and competition and do not contribute to technological advancement? Will it be communists like peejaye, who say that trade unions are good because they artificially sustain companies that would have normally gone bankrupt providing their employees with an unjustified economically minimal wage? I am really looking forward to see if coming to the UK was a good idea. It seemed like a good one shortly after "brexit", but now, seeing that UK's prime minister plans to charge taxpayers over 600 quid per capita (or more if you have kids) for voting "leave" I am not so sure.

I am wondering why you two don't establish a company: Stavros would take care of all the "handy" regulations that is in power, as well as advertising via the means of propaganda, and Peejaye you get your fellow union members to chip-in, get some land and build a coal mine. Sounds like a gold mine of a plan to me! xd

I like you RedVex & I liked you even more when we met at Kalins' place a while back but I don't really know where you're going when you appear to call everyone a communist? One thing Stavros & I can agree on; He is NOT a communist! Me, well I'm a centre road socialist, I don't like extremism be it left or right wing. Although Liberals & Tories will call me a left wing lunatic...no doubt?
& yes, despite losing my job I am still a member of a trade union.