For the Brits: When will BREXIT referendum happen ?

[peejaye]

Brexit?

I'd stay off this section if I were you Vex ; for your own sanity, that other cunt is close to coming under lock & key by the Sanity Police. Maybe then we could all have a bit of light hearted fun without it turning in to War & fucking Peace! Nice to see you back too.

[Stavros]

The alternative position, and the most sane position for you to take, Peejaye, is to inform yourself on the most important decision this country has made since declaring war on Nazi Germany in September 1939.

And ask questions like: will the UK economy, and its society be better off outside the EU? How? In what way?

You can take an interest in compelling issues such as the rights of EU/British citizens in the EU and UK after Brexit; you can try to unravel the issue of Northern Ireland and the Customs Union, and you can ask if the UK should be looking west after Brexit to negotiate a trade deal with the USA, or look east to the prospects of trade with India, China and Japan.

And in case you are not aware of it, the conflict over these issues in Cabinet and the wider ranks of the Conservative Party could result in Theresa May losing her position as Prime Minister, or the Government losing a key vote in the Commons -or both- forcing a General Election which I believe you want to deal with domestic rather than 'foreign' issues which you -and others like myself- identify as being of critical importance for the well-being of citizens -housing being but one obvious issue.

Can you really just wish it all away as if it were not important? I trust you will bring your life-experience and acumen to bear upon the matter of most importance to us all.

[peejaye]

To be quite honest with you; I haven't got a clue? If I'd got a degree in Politics & Economics I would probably try & help you as you've asked me a few times. I know you enjoy discussing it but even if I had a clue I don't suppose it would solve anything as the people elected to sort it don't listen to anyone anyway, not even the so-called experts. Very depressing isn't it?

[Stavros]

Peejaye, when David Cameron decided to honour the pledge made in the 2015 Election Manifesto do hold a referendum on the UK's membership of the UK, the 'establishment' as you would call them, did not expect to lose the vote.

What is 'depressing' to some, but no surprise to many is the realization that even the militants arguing for the UK's exit from the EU did not think through the details, or they had a different agenda anyway. Farage, Fox, Gove and Hannan took the view that exit means exit, and during the referendum debate wished away all the post-Exit details as merely something an independent UK would deal with at the time, just as Farage said he wasn't bothered by tariffs because they would not be high and the UK would be able to afford them. This is before his buddy in the US threatened to impose tariffs on UK products that could increase unemployment here.

Now they are holding a gun to Mrs May's head (Jacob Rees-Mogg denies this and says his European Research Group proposals are 'Duelling Pistols' -!! I think you know what they are, something to do with the 17th century...) over the Customs Union because none of the people involved on either side of the argument stopped to think through the implications of the exit on something like the Customs Union, or as I say just waved their hands and said 'we will deal with that when it happens' -and it is about to happen, and they can't deal with it.

I am not an expert in EU affairs, but at the time of the Referendum debate even I could see that Hannan's argument -also used by Liam Fox- that outside the EU the UK would be able to freely negotiate trade deals with 150 countries (I forget the precise figure which is higher) was rubbish not least because it includes micro-states with populations smaller than Birmingham -so how can such deals with micro-states compensate for any losses in revenue from trade with our most important partner the EU?

And, it now emerges that India may not be as keen to trade with us as people like Hannan think, or worse for the militants obsessing over immigrants and migrants, that if it does want a trade deal it must give Indian citizens better access to jobs in the UK. If all this sounds suspiciously like 'free movement' in all but name, welcome to the wold of international trade where trade includes the movement of people as well as things. And none of this is a mystery, it has been part of trade deals for decades.

I suggest that the Brexiteers actually want to destroy the EU as it exists and that the UK's exit is one blow to undermine it. The Nationalist agenda of Hungary is threatening to smash the EU from the other side, while Americans who helped to elect a tax cheat and daft-dodging coward as President did so because he is also opposed to the EU and indeed, the North America Free Trade Agreement and every other form of international trading bloc.

Because in reality what these 'free marketeers' want is an end to globalization as the co-ordinated production, distribution and sale of goods. They believe that 'too many' states are using trade deals within trading blocs like the EU to get a 'free ride' to the market on somebody else's ticket and thus relying on the USA and the UK for their capital and their benefits from trade when they raise little capital of their own and produce even less, yet insert themselves into the system to obtain grants to fund employment schemes that would otherwise not be viable, or fund food production that rests on rigged pricing systems that by definition buck the market.

Convinced they would be the winners in a truly 'free market' these people are prepared to destroy what we have, flawed though it is but working, for something which in reality they do not know will work at all. Just as Milton Friedman described 'Thatcherism' as an 'economic experiment' in which the UK was the laboratory 'guinea pigs' so these prophets of a new economic order are using the world as their lab.

Who do you want in control of the lab -a scientist or a prophet?

[peejaye]

I don't know who you are in real life; or what "cloak & dagger" outfit you may represent but it's one of the biggest mysteries in life to me why you & one or two others(Gina Miller & Cancer Blair) seem absolutely devastated over Brexit & petrified beyond belief what the future holds?
I am truly lost for words! We've got through two World wars for fucks sake!
They tell me fishing is a relaxing hobby.... or golf maybe? For me it's a 5% cask IPA full of American Citra & Mosaic hops.

[Stavros]

I don't know who you are in real life; or what "cloak & dagger" outfit you may represent but it's one of the biggest mysteries in life to me why you & one or two others(Gina Miller & Cancer Blair) seem absolutely devastated over Brexit & petrified beyond belief what the future holds?
I am truly lost for words! We've got through two World wars for fucks sake!
They tell me fishing is a relaxing hobby.... or golf maybe? For me it's a 5% cask IPA full of American Citra & Mosaic hops.

You might want to put that comment about two wars into context. Both left the UK bankrupt -in 1932 Neville Chamberlain introduced the War Loan Bonds in order to raise funds to re-finance the debts run up during the First World War. The last payment on the debt, £1.9 billion was paid off by Chancellor George Osborne in 2015. However, the UK borrowed heavily from the USA during the War and owed around $4.4 billion when Chamberlain's domestic War Bond Loans were up and running. There is some dispute as to whether or not the UK has ever paid the US back or if the US has asked for it back, with interest and adjusted to contemporary prices, the current debt is around $40 billion.
Ps, Don't tell the Americans.

As for World War II, again the UK could not have fought the War without American money, debts run up during the War and Lend-Lease to help Britain revive after it were around $586 million with a line of credit worth $3.7 billion. The last payment on loans from the USA was paid off by Chancellor Gordon Brown in 2006.

In both cases, Britain could rely on its extensive Empire for raw materials under the 'Imperial Preference' schemes, and it could rely on men and women across the Empire to put on a uniform and fight for the Empire, though it seems that sacrifice is not worth much today if the soldiers in question were from the Caribbean or the Indian sub-continent. Just as Britain had Imperial Preference and helped to form the European Free Trade Area in 1960, so it benefited from being in the European Economic Community when it joined in 1973.

Thus, the Militant Brexiteers who announce the imminent freedom of the UK in a global free market that does not exist, would do well to acknowledge that the UK has not had to compete on its own on terms dictated by the market since the formation of the Honourable East India Company in 1600. But don't worry, we will be independent, and we will succeed, and we will all be rich.

And if that doesn't work, we can always ask the Americans to bail us out. What else is the Special Relationship for?

And I haven't even started on why Europe is embedded in the history and culture of this country and why we would be insane to detach ourselves from it in this manner.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30306579
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...t#World_War_II
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/...isode_77.shtml

[peejaye]

I don't read links, ESPECIALLY BBC links. Don't worry, we won't starve to death, Nigel will make sure. Go & buy yourself a nice fishing rod or some golf clubs.

[Stavros]

I don't read links, ESPECIALLY BBC links. Don't worry, we won't starve to death, Nigel will make sure. Go & buy yourself a nice fishing rod or some golf clubs.

This has to be sarcasm as even you must know what a useless turd Farage is, a man who could not control his own party with its history of resignations, suspensions, sackings and defections; a law suit that has all but bankrupted the party, and other than the 2014 elections to the European Parliament a long list of election failures, not least the 7 failed attempts he made to get into Parliament, followed by a resignation, a return to leadership and another resignation describing UKIP with contempt as a party with 'low grade people' which under its new leader Gerard Batten is simply a rump of the clapped out English Neo-Nazi/Fascist movement obsessed with Muslims and the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation. Wherever he goes Farage leaves a trail of dubious political and financial connections, some of them Russian, some connected to extremists in the USA, and all amounting to nothing.

If you insist on avoiding the BBC, which sounds like you avoid reading anything, let alone articles you don't agree with, this one in today's Independent considers the UK's trade options outside the EU, and it doesn't look good. You may want to invest in a fishing rod yourself, as the weenies in the Ouse may be the cheapest source of nutrition you can find in years to come.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a8332411.html

[peejaye]

Other views are available other than "Extreme Liberalism"

[peejaye]

If you insist on avoiding the BBC, which sounds like you avoid reading anything, let alone articles you don't agree with, this one in today's Independent considers the UK's trade options outside the EU, and it doesn't look good. You may want to invest in a fishing rod yourself, as the weenies in the Ouse may be the cheapest source of nutrition you can find in years to come.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a8332411.html

Don't worry about me brother.... I'm laughing all way to the bank