On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
Please call me Horse. As I explained to somebody earlier, calling me Mr makes me feel very uncomfortable.
While you act like a sweary pig ignorant little 12 year old I will call you what I like to quote it back at you "don't tell me what to do"
Okay then you arsehole, behave as you wish. I said please as it was a suggestion, not an order.
To be called pig ignorant by a slob character, hilarious.
You know nothing about me Mr Battery , all you are doing is showing yourself up as a petulant child....grow up
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
Please call me Horse. As I explained to somebody earlier, calling me Mr makes me feel very uncomfortable.
While you act like a sweary pig ignorant little 12 year old I will call you what I like to quote it back at you "don't tell me what to do"
Okay then you arsehole, behave as you wish. I said please as it was a suggestion, not an order.
To be called pig ignorant by a slob character, hilarious.
You know nothing about me Mr Battery , all you are doing is showing yourself up as a petulant child....grow up
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
If you have a job and it's a job you enjoy, immigration isn't a problem.
If you don't have a job, or you dislike you job but cannot get a better one, or you know people who are looking for work but aren't finding any, immigration is a very useful tool to transfer blame for your problems on to.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
If you have a job and it's a job you enjoy, immigration isn't a problem.
If you don't have a job, or you dislike you job but cannot get a better one, or you know people who are looking for work but aren't finding any, immigration is a very useful tool to transfer blame for your problems on to.
I'm afraid to say I completely agree with this conclusion.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
The hostile attitude to the English from the SNP and sometimes in evidence here hung a 'no welcome' sign to Scotland tourist industry from many English tourists who do not need the hassle and have plenty of lovely places to spend a staycation in England and Wales
Odd, because the island where I live is awash with visitors and booked out and Cornwall where I am is the same.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
I have this strange view from time to time that we are past the peak rate of technological advance. That is to say, science and technology will continue to advance but at a slower rate than it did in the 250 or so years following the Enlightenment.
Consider the number of inventions, discoveries and new technologies which came about during the 100 years from, say 1850 to 1950, and compare with those that have emerged in the 70 years since 1950.
In the former period I could list hundreds but: powered flight, cars, commercial electricity, electronics, telephones, radio, radar, cinema, TV, nuclear energy, computing, antibiotics, evolution, plate tectonics, production lines, plastics, bessemer process, refrigeration and reinforced concrete make a sample top twenty.
Since 1950? Well, space travel, genetics, the internet and mobile computing I guess. And I am not sure we're going to make up the gap much in the remaining 30 years to 2050.
Happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Pervasive AI, virtual reality big time, and personalised genetics will be transformative. Not to mention nano, and energy innovations.
And what was the rate of technological innovation between 1250 and 1750?
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Do you know the NHS would have collapsed without immigration, especially EU immigration which has now fled the country, leading to a shortage.
If the issue is with jobs, why would you care about one homeless person from wherever they may be? They're not working, neither are you.
If you don't have a job, I am very sorry but it's not immigration's fault.
If we trade with the EU and we want to export our goods to our - currently - largest trading partner we are going to have to accept their standards, there really is no debate to be had about that.
If the EU wants to send its goods to us we they will need to accept our standards but in a fight about standards who is reasonably going to win, us a tiny island or a massive market. It's obviously the massive market.
Even if the EU didn't win, what an absolute ballache for any small company. Today you trade with the EU at no difficulty, tomorrow it's different standards for your goods to the UK and different standards to the EU. Unless we have the same standards in which case the whole exercise is pointless.
We will set different standards where it makes sense. EU standards are the result of lobbying and horse trading. Sometimes they are rational and sometimes they aren’t. Ours will be set in a similar way,
If we trade with the EU and we want to export our goods to our - currently - largest trading partner we are going to have to accept their standards, there really is no debate to be had about that.
If the EU wants to send its goods to us we they will need to accept our standards but in a fight about standards who is reasonably going to win, us a tiny island or a massive market. It's obviously the massive market.
Even if the EU didn't win, what an absolute ballache for any small company. Today you trade with the EU at no difficulty, tomorrow it's different standards for your goods to the UK and different standards to the EU. Unless we have the same standards in which case the whole exercise is pointless.
We will set different standards where it makes sense. EU standards are the result of lobbying and horse trading. Sometimes they are rational and sometimes they aren’t. Ours will be set in a similar way,
When we want to send a good to the EU, it will have to fulfil their standards. There's not really a way around that.
As by far our largest single trading partner, I think we would want to send goods to the EU but that's just me.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
The politics as developed countries transition from resisting immigrants to competing for them will be something to behold.
Who here has played Civilisation V? Interfering in elections is a standard game mechanic...
Civ3 is so much better. But it doesn’t work any more ☹️
I've recently played a lot of late night Civ 6.
(I'm about to win a large map on King level difficulty as Rome. The only question I have is whether to go for a cultural victory or use my massive fleet of jet bombers to get a quick, but not as satisfying, domination victory.)
I expect Putin was delighted at the result of the Brexit referendum because it has divided, paralysed and weakened the UK, and indirectly both the EU and NATO. How much they manipulated the debate via their troll farms we will not know for some time.
Ultimately though it was British voters that put crosses on the ballot paper. Democracy does not exclude the thick, or the manipulated. Whether or not we were manipulated, it is no ones fault but our own.
I imagine he's far more delighted at the enormous cheque the Germans are writing him for energy sales.
More MIGs for the dear old RAF to chase around the skies eh?
Indeed Russia is not that bothered by Brexit or anything like that in reality it is a sideshow. Russia cares about one thing and one thing alone above all else: Selling gas.
It is all that keeps the Russia state afloat. Germany and similar nations in Europe are reliant upon his gas and Putin is reliant upon their cash. It is them who have a symbiotic nature.
The UK is not Russia's friend with or without Brexit. We aren't using his gas and we are world leaders now at wind farms and other alternative energy to move our own energy production away from gas.
If you want to hurt Putin then support offshore wind and alternatives like maybe tidal lagoons etc - that is the real issue at stake for Putin.
Or we could, god forbid, frack our own gas reserves.
Putin really is the living embodiment of Dr Johnson's comment about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel.
I would have supported fracking a decade ago. It is unnecessary now. Technology has moved on.
A world without gas should be our geopolitical aim. Even forgetting environmental reasons, eliminating gas is geopolitically a great thing for us. It removes the cash cow that so many of our geopolitical enemies rely upon.
The one worry I have is that a lot of planning is based on the tacit assumption that somebody will have come up with a decent fusion reactor over the next decade.
Not sure that particular cavalry is on the horizon.
Right now virology is pushing ahead as a science, needs must and all that. Not sure we've ever had a working coronavirus vaccine created before ?
Mainly because we've never needed one. Not much money (or demand) for immunising against one of the four coronaviruses in the suite of 200+ viruses that make up the common cold.
Work on SARS and MERS vaccines was well under way when both viruses were brought into check without needing the vaccines (and the Oxford vaccine owes a lot to work done on MERS vaccination). Animal coronaviruses in the UK have needed vaccines, which have been promptly forthcoming.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Do you know the NHS would have collapsed without immigration, especially EU immigration which has now fled the country, leading to a shortage.
If the issue is with jobs, why would you care about one homeless person from wherever they may be? They're not working, neither are you.
If you don't have a job, I am very sorry but it's not immigration's fault.
Attitudes like yours are why liberals are hated across everywhere that isn't a city centre. It's completely ignorant of what is happening on the ground wrt wage growth and competition for housing, jobs and services in areas that have seen immigration. I'm on the side of immigration being a net good, but liberals like you who pretend that there aren't any downsides or that they are non-issues because it doesn't effect people like you (or me) are why despite being a natural ally of liberals I'm absolutely disgusted to be part of any movement.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Yes. Because the people voted for it and democracy is worth more than all the tin in Cornwall
And what was the rate of technological innovation between 1250 and 1750?
I think if you had taken an individual from 1250 and put them in 1750 they would have been mesmerised by the progress made. We look from 2020 and don't think it's so much but it was at the time and life expectancy and life quality for most was immeasurably better in 1750 than it had been 500 years earlier.
To imagine the world of 2520 would be incredibly difficult for us. I recall the comics and magazines of the 60s and 70s portraying life in 2000 and, let's just say, they got a few things right and most things wrong especially the bit about the lunar and Martian colonies.
If we tried to conceive of life in 2520 I suspect we'd get most of it wrong - it's fun to speculate. I'll offer genetic manipulation leading to considerably prolonged human life span and, pace Blackadder, a device to automatically clean shoes. One of those is pure fantasy - guess which one, you may be surprised.
On standards, I have to say I don't understand the point of setting a UK standard. It's just unnecessary red tape for local companies if it's different from CE.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
Yes, you are right. In the relatively recent past, there was a nightmare of lots of different national standards, which of course acted as a barrier to trade. The EU swept all of that away in Europe, to everyone's benefit; in practice, nowadays manufacturers only have to consider the US and EU standards to cover most of the world.
Quite why we'd want to be the only country in the world going backwards to the old fragmented system is anyone's guess, but what is clear is that the rest of the world is unlikely to bother with a UK-only standard. Any UK exporter is going to have to conform to EU and/or US rules; if they also have to conform to UK-specific rules for their home market, they'll be at a competitive disadvantage. And if we don't want accept EU standards, we'll have to pay more for the extra cost and hassle for the manufacturer - if they bother at all.
That's a lot of words to say nothing.
He's broadly right that we're not going to diverge from EU and ISO product standards, mind. Look at Canada's product standards, and if you spot a difference to US ones, let me know.
They use different plugs I think? It’s been a while since I bought a plug in Toronto and then realised it didn’t work in California
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Do you know the NHS would have collapsed without immigration, especially EU immigration which has now fled the country, leading to a shortage.
If the issue is with jobs, why would you care about one homeless person from wherever they may be? They're not working, neither are you.
If you don't have a job, I am very sorry but it's not immigration's fault.
Attitudes like yours are why liberals are hated across everywhere that isn't a city centre. It's completely ignorant of what is happening on the ground wrt wage growth and competition for housing, jobs and services in areas that have seen immigration. I'm on the side of immigration being a net good, but liberals like you who pretend that there aren't any downsides or that they are non-issues because it doesn't effect people like you (or me) are why despite being a natural ally of liberals I'm absolutely disgusted to be part of any movement.
I'm not saying there aren't issues, I am saying that Brexit isn't going to resolve them.
I don't often agree with you on your crusade against Scottish and Welsh nationalism, but I think the Mandy Rice- Davies defence certainly works here with Eck!
And what was the rate of technological innovation between 1250 and 1750?
I think if you had taken an individual from 1250 and put them in 1750 they would have been mesmerised by the progress made. We look from 2020 and don't think it's so much but it was at the time and life expectancy and life quality for most was immeasurably better in 1750 than it had been 500 years earlier.
The printing press alone was a pretty seismic technological innovation. At least comparable to the creation of the personal computer.
Firearms made quite a difference to warfare as well.
There's a lot more the Government can and should do for native people, I completely agree about that. But my problem is that Brexit is not going to make these issues go away. It just isn't.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
Yes, you are right. In the relatively recent past, there was a nightmare of lots of different national standards, which of course acted as a barrier to trade. The EU swept all of that away in Europe, to everyone's benefit; in practice, nowadays manufacturers only have to consider the US and EU standards to cover most of the world.
Quite why we'd want to be the only country in the world going backwards to the old fragmented system is anyone's guess, but what is clear is that the rest of the world is unlikely to bother with a UK-only standard. Any UK exporter is going to have to conform to EU and/or US rules; if they also have to conform to UK-specific rules for their home market, they'll be at a competitive disadvantage. And if we don't want accept EU standards, we'll have to pay more for the extra cost and hassle for the manufacturer - if they bother at all.
Actually being outside but next door to the uniform standards puts us at a competitive advantage. Just like being outside but next door to the single currency.
It means that our exporters know what they have to deal with. They can export to the whole of the EU based on one spec and don't need to mess around with different specs per nation. They can export to almost the whole of the EU with one currency.
But we retain the right to change standards where it is in our own interest. We retain the right to change our currency, our interest rates, have our own QE etc where it is in our interests.
Best of both worlds.
TBH I find the issue of standards pretty meaningless. The UK can choose to align with the EU where necessary and I expect that still to happen in 99% of cases, or even in 100% initially while things settle down.
This by contrast is what would worry me, if we had not managed to get off those tramlines leading to every closer union:
"The Commission will have powers to raise large funds on the capital markets for the first time and to direct how the spending is allocated, turning this strange hybrid creature into an even more extraordinary institution. Where else in the world does a single unelected body have the ‘right of initiative’ on legislation, and the executive powers of a proto-government, and the spending prerogatives of a parliament, all wrapped in one? It is Caesaropapist, bordering on totalitarian in constitutional terms, mostly unchecked by meaningful parliamentary oversight."
This is a classic example of something that would never have happened while we were there, as we would have blocked it.
Now we've gone the biggest voice against further integration has gone, and it's probable that (a) the core countries will integrate more, while (b) the non-core will find themselves sidelined.
I think this probably increases the survivability of the EU/Eurozone, but makes it increasingly likely that it will be a smaller group of countries.
Which is healthy.
Now are you going to make me a market in Michelle Obama for VP?
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Yes. Because the people voted for it and democracy is worth more than all the tin in Cornwall
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
It's not that clear cut, immigration has led to a large fall in the GDP per capita growth rate. It is part of the productivity problem the UK has had for better part of 15 years.
Just noting the latest Rasmussen number on Trump's approval which shows a further improvement to 48% with 51% disapproving so a net -3 which is interesting.
One or two have commented on the Trafalgar poll showing Trump up 50-43 in Georgia. That would be very similar to 2016 if correct so a worry of sorts for Biden and his team.
It's a Trafalgar Poll and they tend to be better for the Republicans - now, what we don't know is whether Trafalgar have got it right or wrong in terms of sampling. There's no point harping on about how good or bad a pollster was in 2016 - that was the last election, this is the one that counts.
On standards, I have to say I don't understand the point of setting a UK standard. It's just unnecessary red tape for local companies if it's different from CE.
The politics of EU withdrawal are now entirely about delivery, how we got here is done and dusted. Whilst Brexiteers may be happy about that, and Remainers annoyed, the track record of this government suggests Brexiteer happiness wont last more than a couple of years at best.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
It's not that clear cut, immigration has led to a large fall in the GDP per capita growth rate. It is part of the productivity problem the UK has had for better part of 15 years.
Productivity issues could largely be resolved by a Government that invests in the economy as opposed to cutting everything.
Our productivity has stagnated since 2010 not because of immigration but because of austerity.
Being more serious @rcs1000 looking at that Smarties packaging it reveals a very serious product standard difference between the USA and Canada. Packaging in general is Canada is subject to Canadian law that it must be dual-languaged in both English and French. Hence on that picture "new package!" becomes "neuveau emballage!" on that packaging too.
A minor difference sure, but as far as I understand everything across the entire country is subject to that whereas that obviously isn't the case in the USA. If Americans want to export their products for sale on Canadian shops they have to comply with that law as far as I understand.
Smarties are not product standards! There is no standard of Smarties defined by ISO code. It is simply a trademark issue.
Smarties is a registered trademark in Canada of an American firm which is owned by the parents of a friend of my daughter!
There's a lot more the Government can and should do for native people, I completely agree about that. But my problem is that Brexit is not going to make these issues go away. It just isn't.
Isn't the whole point that loads of people who have week crushing wage growth for the better part of 15-20 years have tried everything else? They tried Labour and got shat on, they tried the coalition and got shat on, they remember that things weren't great under Major either.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
The politics of EU withdrawal are now entirely about delivery, how we got here is done and dusted. Whilst Brexiteers may be happy about that, and Remainers annoyed, the track record of this government suggests Brexiteer happiness wont last more than a couple of years at best.
This is what Johnson and co are trying to do though, trying to convince people Brexit is still an issue to be debated when it isn't. It's done, we left months ago.
The future trading relationship is to be debated and should be but the concept of leaving is over. At some point that is going to come to a head, good or bad.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Yes. Because the people voted for it and democracy is worth more than all the tin in Cornwall
If only we lived in a proper one
Impossible. There aren’t any left. We used up all the tin in th...
I expect Putin was delighted at the result of the Brexit referendum because it has divided, paralysed and weakened the UK, and indirectly both the EU and NATO. How much they manipulated the debate via their troll farms we will not know for some time.
Ultimately though it was British voters that put crosses on the ballot paper. Democracy does not exclude the thick, or the manipulated. Whether or not we were manipulated, it is no ones fault but our own.
I imagine he's far more delighted at the enormous cheque the Germans are writing him for energy sales.
More MIGs for the dear old RAF to chase around the skies eh?
Indeed Russia is not that bothered by Brexit or anything like that in reality it is a sideshow. Russia cares about one thing and one thing alone above all else: Selling gas.
It is all that keeps the Russia state afloat. Germany and similar nations in Europe are reliant upon his gas and Putin is reliant upon their cash. It is them who have a symbiotic nature.
The UK is not Russia's friend with or without Brexit. We aren't using his gas and we are world leaders now at wind farms and other alternative energy to move our own energy production away from gas.
If you want to hurt Putin then support offshore wind and alternatives like maybe tidal lagoons etc - that is the real issue at stake for Putin.
Or we could, god forbid, frack our own gas reserves.
Putin really is the living embodiment of Dr Johnson's comment about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel.
I would have supported fracking a decade ago. It is unnecessary now. Technology has moved on.
A world without gas should be our geopolitical aim. Even forgetting environmental reasons, eliminating gas is geopolitically a great thing for us. It removes the cash cow that so many of our geopolitical enemies rely upon.
The one worry I have is that a lot of planning is based on the tacit assumption that somebody will have come up with a decent fusion reactor over the next decade.
Not sure that particular cavalry is on the horizon.
Right now virology is pushing ahead as a science, needs must and all that. Not sure we've ever had a working coronavirus vaccine created before ?
Mainly because we've never needed one. Not much money (or demand) for immunising against one of the four coronaviruses in the suite of 200+ viruses that make up the common cold.
Work on SARS and MERS vaccines was well under way when both viruses were brought into check without needing the vaccines (and the Oxford vaccine owes a lot to work done on MERS vaccination). Animal coronaviruses in the UK have needed vaccines, which have been promptly forthcoming.
Vet coronavirus vaccines are a bit shit though
Right now ‘a bit shit’ will be enough if it turns COVID into unpleasant but not generally fatal.
Being more serious @rcs1000 looking at that Smarties packaging it reveals a very serious product standard difference between the USA and Canada. Packaging in general is Canada is subject to Canadian law that it must be dual-languaged in both English and French. Hence on that picture "new package!" becomes "neuveau emballage!" on that packaging too.
A minor difference sure, but as far as I understand everything across the entire country is subject to that whereas that obviously isn't the case in the USA. If Americans want to export their products for sale on Canadian shops they have to comply with that law as far as I understand.
Smarties are not product standards! There is no standard of Smarties defined by ISO code. It is simply a trademark issue.
Smarties is a registered trademark in Canada of an American firm which is owned by the parents of a friend of my daughter!
Mars Inc...
Mars don’t own Smarties they are Nestle. Also Mars would not stand for any trade mark infringement as in the picture and would have sent the lawyers in.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
The average immigrant makes a net contribution, that is the point. There are bad ones, fine, send them home as we can do.
If you want quality immigration then I agree with you - but we don't need to leave the EU to have that.
I hope you have a lovely evening, all the very best.
I don't often agree with you on your crusade against Scottish and Welsh nationalism, but I think the Mandy Rice- Davies defence certainly works here with Eck!
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
Yes, you are right. In the relatively recent past, there was a nightmare of lots of different national standards, which of course acted as a barrier to trade. The EU swept all of that away in Europe, to everyone's benefit; in practice, nowadays manufacturers only have to consider the US and EU standards to cover most of the world.
Quite why we'd want to be the only country in the world going backwards to the old fragmented system is anyone's guess, but what is clear is that the rest of the world is unlikely to bother with a UK-only standard. Any UK exporter is going to have to conform to EU and/or US rules; if they also have to conform to UK-specific rules for their home market, they'll be at a competitive disadvantage. And if we don't want accept EU standards, we'll have to pay more for the extra cost and hassle for the manufacturer - if they bother at all.
Actually being outside but next door to the uniform standards puts us at a competitive advantage. Just like being outside but next door to the single currency.
It means that our exporters know what they have to deal with. They can export to the whole of the EU based on one spec and don't need to mess around with different specs per nation. They can export to almost the whole of the EU with one currency.
But we retain the right to change standards where it is in our own interest. We retain the right to change our currency, our interest rates, have our own QE etc where it is in our interests.
Best of both worlds.
TBH I find the issue of standards pretty meaningless. The UK can choose to align with the EU where necessary and I expect that still to happen in 99% of cases, or even in 100% initially while things settle down.
This by contrast is what would worry me, if we had not managed to get off those tramlines leading to every closer union:
"The Commission will have powers to raise large funds on the capital markets for the first time and to direct how the spending is allocated, turning this strange hybrid creature into an even more extraordinary institution. Where else in the world does a single unelected body have the ‘right of initiative’ on legislation, and the executive powers of a proto-government, and the spending prerogatives of a parliament, all wrapped in one? It is Caesaropapist, bordering on totalitarian in constitutional terms, mostly unchecked by meaningful parliamentary oversight."
As a further aside, the "recovery fund" was agreed unanimously by the governments of the (remaining) EU countries. So, while you might say "we wouldn't have gone for it", it's hard to say why 27 countries agreeing to raise funds at the EU level is undemocratic.
As I already replied to Wulfrun Phil, it's not a done deal yet. The whole thing - in its entirety - is subject to the approval of the directly elected European Parliament. Calling that "undemocratic", "totalitarian" or "ceasaropapist" is utterly risible.
There’s a difference between the initial set up and future usage. Will they have a blank cheque once established?
The printing press alone was a pretty seismic technological innovation. At least comparable to the creation of the personal computer.
Firearms made quite a difference to warfare as well.
Yes, not quite sure what the literacy rate was in 1750 compared with 1250 but I'd like to think somewhat higher. As you say, the printing press was a significant development and by 1750 the first advances of the Industrial Revolution were taking root.
We had also found more inventive ways to kill each other - the evolution of small arms replacing the bow and arrow as well as improvements in artillery.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
It's not that clear cut, immigration has led to a large fall in the GDP per capita growth rate. It is part of the productivity problem the UK has had for better part of 15 years.
Productivity issues could largely be resolved by a Government that invests in the economy as opposed to cutting everything.
Our productivity has stagnated since 2010 not because of immigration but because of austerity.
Productivity has been stagnating at the bottom of the economy for much longer than that, the financial crisis just brought it to light.
Also, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy works. The government has opened up an unlimited cheap labour pool subsided by tax credits and housing benefits, businesses will always choose the path of lowest resistance which for 20 years or so has been to throw cheap labour at the problem, not investing in technology.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU is a supra-national body dedicated to an ever closer union among member states. It's there in the first paragraph of their constitution.
So what a shame it was that we couldn't secure some kind of opt out from all that leaving us in an advantageous cake situation.
We tried. Remember Cameron’s Bloomberg speech? That would have been a decent outcome (although he was too lazy to work on it)
And what was the rate of technological innovation between 1250 and 1750?
I think if you had taken an individual from 1250 and put them in 1750 they would have been mesmerised by the progress made. We look from 2020 and don't think it's so much but it was at the time and life expectancy and life quality for most was immeasurably better in 1750 than it had been 500 years earlier.
The printing press alone was a pretty seismic technological innovation. At least comparable to the creation of the personal computer.
Firearms made quite a difference to warfare as well.
Genuinely fascinating to compare rates of fire and damage resulting from fully trained longbow men cf soldiers with muskets. Muskets arguably less accurate, slower (2 to 3 shots a minute vs 10+), but men can be trained in an afternoon. Dimly recall wellington (?) wanting a company of longbow men, but could be making that up...
And what was the rate of technological innovation between 1250 and 1750?
I think if you had taken an individual from 1250 and put them in 1750 they would have been mesmerised by the progress made. We look from 2020 and don't think it's so much but it was at the time and life expectancy and life quality for most was immeasurably better in 1750 than it had been 500 years earlier.
The printing press alone was a pretty seismic technological innovation. At least comparable to the creation of the personal computer.
Firearms made quite a difference to warfare as well.
Being more serious @rcs1000 looking at that Smarties packaging it reveals a very serious product standard difference between the USA and Canada. Packaging in general is Canada is subject to Canadian law that it must be dual-languaged in both English and French. Hence on that picture "new package!" becomes "neuveau emballage!" on that packaging too.
A minor difference sure, but as far as I understand everything across the entire country is subject to that whereas that obviously isn't the case in the USA. If Americans want to export their products for sale on Canadian shops they have to comply with that law as far as I understand.
Smarties are not product standards! There is no standard of Smarties defined by ISO code. It is simply a trademark issue.
Smarties is a registered trademark in Canada of an American firm which is owned by the parents of a friend of my daughter!
Mars Inc...
Mars don’t own Smarties they are Nestle. Also Mars would not stand for any trade mark infringement as in the picture and would have sent the lawyers in.
I remember when Smarties were made by Rowntree. But I remember Terrys of York too, and when Crunchie was made by Frys. George Lazenby was Big Fry on TV when spotted to become 007
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
It's not that clear cut, immigration has led to a large fall in the GDP per capita growth rate. It is part of the productivity problem the UK has had for better part of 15 years.
Productivity issues could largely be resolved by a Government that invests in the economy as opposed to cutting everything.
Our productivity has stagnated since 2010 not because of immigration but because of austerity.
Productivity has been stagnating at the bottom of the economy for much longer than that, the financial crisis just brought it to light.
Also, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy works. The government has opened up an unlimited cheap labour pool subsided by tax credits and housing benefits, businesses will always choose the path of lowest resistance which for 20 years or so has been to throw cheap labour at the problem, not investing in technology.
Have we really not invested in technology?
Gross Fixed Capital Formation (i.e. investment) has trundled around in the 16-18% of GDP range for a quarter century, but that's a consequence of our consumption heavy economy, not immigration.
Now, we haven't invested in manufacturing much in the UK, compared to our neighbours in the EU, but it's hard to conclude that that has been an unmitigated success for them.
So we are all big on Russia now are we? Strange that, I used to get called a war monger for mentioning that they needed to be forcefully put back in their box at every opportunity. Same when i rattled on about Trump and his links before he got elected
Soon as Brexit happened, suddenly remainers want to bring this up as part of the conspiracy of why people voted for exiting the EU. There was no conspiracy. Of those who voted, the majority voted to leave because they wanted to leave. Get the fuck over it.
Easily a year or more ago I pointed out that whilst there had been Russian attempts to stir up stuff around the Brexit vote, it wasn't by any stretch decisive. The intelligence agencies knew there was attempts to run interference (and contrary to some incorrect headlines I've seen online, they did look into it afterwards) they couldn't conclude that it had been material in effect.
Remarkably enough this report doesn't really say any different.
Here is one reasserting fact. Russia is a paper tiger, you shove back and tell him to stop acting the dick, he will retreat. He has a very keen sense of not over-reaching
Here is the less re-assuring aspect. Western governments allowed Putin's regime to get on as if it is some ubiquitous outfit. Leading in this I give you the Obama administration and Germany. Successive UK governments haven't been great (and Johnson has in the past been a joke on this issue) but nothing compared to those two mentioned.
We shy away in this country and others of taking on dictatorships who threaten our values and position. We shouldn't. Liberal democracy and its values is not weedy but our political class in much of Europe, here included, are weedy and this is where it gets you.
And what was the rate of technological innovation between 1250 and 1750?
I think if you had taken an individual from 1250 and put them in 1750 they would have been mesmerised by the progress made. We look from 2020 and don't think it's so much but it was at the time and life expectancy and life quality for most was immeasurably better in 1750 than it had been 500 years earlier.
The printing press alone was a pretty seismic technological innovation. At least comparable to the creation of the personal computer.
Firearms made quite a difference to warfare as well.
Genuinely fascinating to compare rates of fire and damage resulting from fully trained longbow men cf soldiers with muskets. Muskets arguably less accurate, slower (2 to 3 shots a minute vs 10+), but men can be trained in an afternoon. Dimly recall wellington (?) wanting a company of longbow men, but could be making that up...
I think you'll find in Civ6 that musketmen rank more highly than longbow men.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
It's not that clear cut, immigration has led to a large fall in the GDP per capita growth rate. It is part of the productivity problem the UK has had for better part of 15 years.
Productivity issues could largely be resolved by a Government that invests in the economy as opposed to cutting everything.
Our productivity has stagnated since 2010 not because of immigration but because of austerity.
Productivity has been stagnating at the bottom of the economy for much longer than that, the financial crisis just brought it to light.
Also, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy works. The government has opened up an unlimited cheap labour pool subsided by tax credits and housing benefits, businesses will always choose the path of lowest resistance which for 20 years or so has been to throw cheap labour at the problem, not investing in technology.
Have we really not invested in technology?
Gross Fixed Capital Formation (i.e. investment) has trundled around in the 16-18% of GDP range for a quarter century, but that's a consequence of our consumption heavy economy, not immigration.
Now, we haven't invested in manufacturing much in the UK, compared to our neighbours in the EU, but it's hard to conclude that that has been an unmitigated success for them.
It's more that building sites would rather hire 5 Romanian labourers than a digger and qualified digger operator because the latter is more expensive. Car washes are the other classic example where one machine has been replaced by 5 (usually illegal) labourers.
And what was the rate of technological innovation between 1250 and 1750?
I think if you had taken an individual from 1250 and put them in 1750 they would have been mesmerised by the progress made. We look from 2020 and don't think it's so much but it was at the time and life expectancy and life quality for most was immeasurably better in 1750 than it had been 500 years earlier.
The printing press alone was a pretty seismic technological innovation. At least comparable to the creation of the personal computer.
Firearms made quite a difference to warfare as well.
Genuinely fascinating to compare rates of fire and damage resulting from fully trained longbow men cf soldiers with muskets. Muskets arguably less accurate, slower (2 to 3 shots a minute vs 10+), but men can be trained in an afternoon. Dimly recall wellington (?) wanting a company of longbow men, but could be making that up...
I think you'll find in Civ6 that musketmen rank more highly than longbow men.
The printing press alone was a pretty seismic technological innovation. At least comparable to the creation of the personal computer.
Firearms made quite a difference to warfare as well.
Yes, not quite sure what the literacy rate was in 1750 compared with 1250 but I'd like to think somewhat higher. As you say, the printing press was a significant development and by 1750 the first advances of the Industrial Revolution were taking root.
We had also found more inventive ways to kill each other - the evolution of small arms replacing the bow and arrow as well as improvements in artillery.
In Europe it varied considerably according to country. In strongly Protestant countries literacy rates tended to be high, as the religious leaders believed people should be able to read their Bibles. So for example, from 1731 you have the ‘circulating schools’ phenomenon in Wales, which made it a highly literate society. In Scotland, every Kirk had a school attached. A similar pattern was observed in Sweden. In Spain and Poland, by contrast, literacy actually declined in the seventeenth century.
At the same time, England - typically - was muddled between a church with in practice a Catholic outlook and a Protestant government. I don’t know the figures for 1750 but in 1837 male literacy was estimated at 66% (based, rather crudely, on what percentage could write their names in the marriage register) and female literacy at less than half of that.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
If this poster repeats this sort of behaviour, a ban is a good idea. CorrectHorseBattery is usually civil, whereas Mr Pagan also decided to garland me with the accolade of 'arse' or something similar last week in one of his unprovoked rants, which I didn't particularly think worth responding to.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Perception of immigration was ruthlessly exploited by Farage in particular and the Leave campaign in general. They all knew they were appealing to base instincts and they didn't care. It is why I have always maintained that if you were able to get into the mind of the majority of Leavers you would see that they are essentially racist.
I don't think a majority (a significant minority though) are racist, just ignorant I'm afraid.
People here really don't like me pointing that out but by education level, the disparity is pretty clear.
Then they say this is why Labour will never win, which is when I tell them I'm not a Labour adviser nor a representative for the party. I suggest they don't do anything I say, because it's not how you win. I leave that to much more intelligent people than me.
You need to look at education controlled for age - it’s not nearly so stark.
In the 60s (ie people born in the 40s to 65-70 at the time of the referendum) probably 10-15% of people went to uni. Today 50% do.
So if you just look at education levels you are really capturing a lot of age
Corbyn was a diddy, but the way he was pilloried for being a Marxist and being (in some undefined way) in the payment of the SU by supporters of a party that employs ex revolutionary communists and has taken at the last count (Nov 2019) £3.5m from Russians is quite a thing.
Just noting the latest Rasmussen number on Trump's approval which shows a further improvement to 48% with 51% disapproving so a net -3 which is interesting.
One or two have commented on the Trafalgar poll showing Trump up 50-43 in Georgia. That would be very similar to 2016 if correct so a worry of sorts for Biden and his team.
It's a Trafalgar Poll and they tend to be better for the Republicans - now, what we don't know is whether Trafalgar have got it right or wrong in terms of sampling. There's no point harping on about how good or bad a pollster was in 2016 - that was the last election, this is the one that counts.
Of course if Rasmussen were correct and 48% approved of Trump and they all voted for him and Biden got the 48% Hillary got in 2016 we would be literally neck and neck, though presumably Biden will aim to get to 51% based on those who disapprove of the President
We shy away in this country and others of taking on dictatorships who threaten our values and position. We shouldn't. Liberal democracy and its values is not weedy but our political class in much of Europe, here included, are weedy and this is where it gets you.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
If this poster repeats this sort of behaviour, a ban is a good idea. CorrectHorseBattery is usually civil, whereas Mr Pagan also decided to garland me with the accolade of 'arse' or similar last week in one of his unprovoked rants, which I didn't particularly think worth responding to.
Nah no need for a ban, it had some quality insults in there so is to be celebrated.
Who here has played Civilisation V? Interfering in elections is a standard game mechanic...
Civ3 is so much better. But it doesn’t work any more ☹️
I've recently played a lot of late night Civ 6.
(I'm about to win a large map on King level difficulty as Rome. The only question I have is whether to go for a cultural victory or use my massive fleet of jet bombers to get a quick, but not as satisfying, domination victory.)
And what was the rate of technological innovation between 1250 and 1750?
I think if you had taken an individual from 1250 and put them in 1750 they would have been mesmerised by the progress made. We look from 2020 and don't think it's so much but it was at the time and life expectancy and life quality for most was immeasurably better in 1750 than it had been 500 years earlier.
The printing press alone was a pretty seismic technological innovation. At least comparable to the creation of the personal computer.
Firearms made quite a difference to warfare as well.
Genuinely fascinating to compare rates of fire and damage resulting from fully trained longbow men cf soldiers with muskets. Muskets arguably less accurate, slower (2 to 3 shots a minute vs 10+), but men can be trained in an afternoon. Dimly recall wellington (?) wanting a company of longbow men, but could be making that up...
That’s easy. As @Morris_Dancer will be along to explain shortly, no people are killed by fire from longbows.
Longbows however were a fad, a brief passing fashion in England that briefly made them masters of medieval warfare. When the fashion passed - and it actually passed before guns were widely available or reliable - they sank back again.
I forget which general it was - it might perhaps have been Franklin (who wasn’t a general) who said that had the English kept up the longbow tradition, the American War of Independence would have been lost. An exaggeration, but truthfully it wasn’t until the invention of the repeating rifle that firearms clearly exceeded longbows in every particular.
Corbyn was a diddy, but the way he was pilloried for being a Marxist and (in some undefined way) in the payment of the SU by supporters of a party that employs ex revolutionary communists and has taken at the last count (Nov 2019) £3.5m from Russians is quite a thing.
Here is the less re-assuring aspect. Western governments allowed Putin's regime to get on as if it is some ubiquitous outfit. Leading in this I give you the Obama administration and Germany. Successive UK governments haven't been great (and Johnson has in the past been a joke on this issue) but nothing compared to those two mentioned.
We shy away in this country and others of taking on dictatorships who threaten our values and position. We shouldn't. Liberal democracy and its values is not weedy but our political class in much of Europe, here included, are weedy and this is where it gets you.
Apologies for snipping some of this, my friend. As always, a thought provoking contribution.
For nearly 50 years the USSR was "the threat" which could justify anything and everything. I grew up watching Threads and The Day After and hoped against hope the horror of the consequence of their use would be the ultimate deterrence to nuclear warfare.
In 1989, Russia was pushed back several hundred miles out of Europe and NATO surged into the gap. The problem is "the threat" is easy when it's a hundred fully equipped armoured divisions two hours drive from the Rhine - it's not so easy when it's so distant.
Is it "worth" the collapse of civilisation to secure Riga or Tallinn or Vilnius? It's not so easy now.
We also see the long-predicted shift of global power to the Pacific - China, India, the Korean Peninsula, the flash-points in the South China Sea. Even Russia looks to China now.
The world is round but we are on the wrong side - perhaps in some small way our detachment from the EU is an explicit recognition that Europe is a backwater and the future of the world has shifted to the Pacific.
Corbyn was a diddy, but the way he was pilloried for being a Marxist and being (in some undefined way) in the payment of the SU by supporters of a party that employs ex revolutionary communists and has taken at the last count (Nov 2019) £3.5m from Russians is quite a thing.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
If this poster repeats this sort of behaviour, a ban is a good idea. CorrectHorseBattery is usually civil, whereas Mr Pagan also decided to garland me with the accolade of 'arse' or something similar last week in one of his unprovoked rants, which I didn't particularly think worth responding to.
Ah I see two posts in a whole week when mr Battery has been sweary on this thread all day and my first post you complain about was using the word arse? It couldn't be Mr battery is on the same side of the political spectrum as you could it? Oh why yes it is. Lets not take into account Mr battery called me a racist to provoke that response
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
If this poster repeats this sort of behaviour, a ban is a good idea. CorrectHorseBattery is usually civil, whereas Mr Pagan also decided to garland me with the accolade of 'arse' or something similar last week in one of his unprovoked rants, which I didn't particularly think worth responding to.
Ah I see two posts in a whole week when mr Battery has been sweary on this thread all day and my first post you complain about was using the word arse? It couldn't be Mr battery is on the same side of the political spectrum as you could it? Oh why yes it is. Lets not take into account Mr battery called me a racist to provoke that response
I don't care what side of the political divide you're on, last week your response to my civil post was a mouthful of abuse. Shape up or ship out.
The world is round but we are on the wrong side - perhaps in some small way our detachment from the EU is an explicit recognition that Europe is a backwater and the future of the world has shifted to the Pacific.
How does leaving the EU change our geographic position?
The world is round but we are on the wrong side - perhaps in some small way our detachment from the EU is an explicit recognition that Europe is a backwater and the future of the world has shifted to the Pacific.
How does leaving the EU change our geographic position?
It means Northern Ireland is no longer fully part of the U.K.
If we trade with the EU and we want to export our goods to our - currently - largest trading partner we are going to have to accept their standards, there really is no debate to be had about that.
If the EU wants to send its goods to us we they will need to accept our standards but in a fight about standards who is reasonably going to win, us a tiny island or a massive market. It's obviously the massive market.
Even if the EU didn't win, what an absolute ballache for any small company. Today you trade with the EU at no difficulty, tomorrow it's different standards for your goods to the UK and different standards to the EU. Unless we have the same standards in which case the whole exercise is pointless.
We will set different standards where it makes sense. EU standards are the result of lobbying and horse trading. Sometimes they are rational and sometimes they aren’t. Ours will be set in a similar way,
When we want to send a good to the EU, it will have to fulfil their standards. There's not really a way around that.
As by far our largest single trading partner, I think we would want to send goods to the EU but that's just me.
Of course. But that’s not the same thing at all.
The classic example is a U.K. widget manufacturer. They are currently set up to manufacture to EU standards but can dominate the U.K. market if standards are different. So they may lobby for a change - keeping their existing factory for the EU and putting in a new one for the Uk
It's more that building sites would rather hire 5 Romanian labourers than a digger and qualified digger operator because the latter is more expensive. Car washes are the other classic example where one machine has been replaced by 5 (usually illegal) labourers.
Although I do use Car washing as an example of automation that has gone backwards, it's also an example where people prefer human beings to do the work rather than a machine.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
If this poster repeats this sort of behaviour, a ban is a good idea. CorrectHorseBattery is usually civil, whereas Mr Pagan also decided to garland me with the accolade of 'arse' or something similar last week in one of his unprovoked rants, which I didn't particularly think worth responding to.
Ah I see two posts in a whole week when mr Battery has been sweary on this thread all day and my first post you complain about was using the word arse? It couldn't be Mr battery is on the same side of the political spectrum as you could it? Oh why yes it is. Lets not take into account Mr battery called me a racist to provoke that response
I don't care what side of the political divide you're on, last week your response to my civil post was a mouthful of abuse. Shape up or ship out.
Yet you havent called out any of mr Battery's posts today responding to perfectly civil response. Curious
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
If this poster repeats this sort of behaviour, a ban is a good idea. CorrectHorseBattery is usually civil, whereas Mr Pagan also decided to garland me with the accolade of 'arse' or something similar last week in one of his unprovoked rants, which I didn't particularly think worth responding to.
Ah I see two posts in a whole week when mr Battery has been sweary on this thread all day and my first post you complain about was using the word arse? It couldn't be Mr battery is on the same side of the political spectrum as you could it? Oh why yes it is. Lets not take into account Mr battery called me a racist to provoke that response
You made a racist post. You’re just upset I called you out.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
If this poster repeats this sort of behaviour, a ban is a good idea. CorrectHorseBattery is usually civil, whereas Mr Pagan also decided to garland me with the accolade of 'arse' or something similar last week in one of his unprovoked rants, which I didn't particularly think worth responding to.
Ah I see two posts in a whole week when mr Battery has been sweary on this thread all day and my first post you complain about was using the word arse? It couldn't be Mr battery is on the same side of the political spectrum as you could it? Oh why yes it is. Lets not take into account Mr battery called me a racist to provoke that response
I don't care what side of the political divide you're on, last week your response to my civil post was a mouthful of abuse. Shape up or ship out.
Yet you havent called out any of mr Battery's posts today responding to perfectly civil response. Curious
I haven't seen the whole of your discussion together, but I have seen acting you similarly when not provoked ; so you can't be described if I put the two together. If you don't attack other posters unprompted, your position won't be called into question.
And what was the rate of technological innovation between 1250 and 1750?
I think if you had taken an individual from 1250 and put them in 1750 they would have been mesmerised by the progress made. We look from 2020 and don't think it's so much but it was at the time and life expectancy and life quality for most was immeasurably better in 1750 than it had been 500 years earlier.
To imagine the world of 2520 would be incredibly difficult for us. I recall the comics and magazines of the 60s and 70s portraying life in 2000 and, let's just say, they got a few things right and most things wrong especially the bit about the lunar and Martian colonies.
If we tried to conceive of life in 2520 I suspect we'd get most of it wrong - it's fun to speculate. I'll offer genetic manipulation leading to considerably prolonged human life span and, pace Blackadder, a device to automatically clean shoes. One of those is pure fantasy - guess which one, you may be surprised.
I plucked the dates at random but there was relatively little GDP growth an innovation over a very long period before the industrial revolution
The rate of change since 1850 to today far outstrips anything.
"Do you know the NHS would have collapsed without immigration, especially EU immigration which has now fled the country, leading to a shortage."
The majority of NHS staff in England are British – EU countries contribute 5.5% Of every 1000 NHS staff working in England: 862 are British 55 are from the EU 52 are Asian 22 are African 9 are from somewhere else Source House of Commons Library - dated June 2020
If we trade with the EU and we want to export our goods to our - currently - largest trading partner we are going to have to accept their standards, there really is no debate to be had about that.
If the EU wants to send its goods to us we they will need to accept our standards but in a fight about standards who is reasonably going to win, us a tiny island or a massive market. It's obviously the massive market.
Even if the EU didn't win, what an absolute ballache for any small company. Today you trade with the EU at no difficulty, tomorrow it's different standards for your goods to the UK and different standards to the EU. Unless we have the same standards in which case the whole exercise is pointless.
We will set different standards where it makes sense. EU standards are the result of lobbying and horse trading. Sometimes they are rational and sometimes they aren’t. Ours will be set in a similar way,
When we want to send a good to the EU, it will have to fulfil their standards. There's not really a way around that.
As by far our largest single trading partner, I think we would want to send goods to the EU but that's just me.
Of course. But that’s not the same thing at all.
The classic example is a U.K. widget manufacturer. They are currently set up to manufacture to EU standards but can dominate the U.K. market if standards are different. So they may lobby for a change - keeping their existing factory for the EU and putting in a new one for the Uk
So we're going to get rich with non-tariff barriers that create inefficiencies? No doubt government subsidies figure somewhere in this plan.
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
If this poster repeats this sort of behaviour, a ban is a good idea. CorrectHorseBattery is usually civil, whereas Mr Pagan also decided to garland me with the accolade of 'arse' or something similar last week in one of his unprovoked rants, which I didn't particularly think worth responding to.
Ah I see two posts in a whole week when mr Battery has been sweary on this thread all day and my first post you complain about was using the word arse? It couldn't be Mr battery is on the same side of the political spectrum as you could it? Oh why yes it is. Lets not take into account Mr battery called me a racist to provoke that response
I don't care what side of the political divide you're on, last week your response to my civil post was a mouthful of abuse. Shape up or ship out.
Yet you havent called out any of mr Battery's posts today responding to perfectly civil response. Curious
I haven't seen the whole of your discussion together, but I have seen acting you similarly when not provoked ; so you can't be described if I put the two together. If you don't attack other posters unprompted, your position won't be called into question.
Then you missed the fact that several people have been sworn at today by Mr Battery and the fact that even in my post I quoted his own words back at him. In around 800 odd posts I have been rude twice. Mr battery has done 5 or 6 times that today and with words worse than arse. Yet its me you call out. Nods
"Do you know the NHS would have collapsed without immigration, especially EU immigration which has now fled the country, leading to a shortage."
The majority of NHS staff in England are British – EU countries contribute 5.5% Of every 1000 NHS staff working in England: 862 are British 55 are from the EU 52 are Asian 22 are African 9 are from somewhere else Source House of Commons Library - dated June 2020
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Yes. Because the people voted for it and democracy is worth more than all the tin in Cornwall
If only we lived in a proper one
Impossible. There aren’t any left. We used up all the tin in th...
On standards, if we want to trade with the EU won't we have to follow their standards anyway and hence our goods will have to be CE compliant.
This is why I've found this idea of setting our own standards and our own requirements very odd since day one, as anyone we trade with will be deciding that.
You can't seriously tell me the EU are going to accept our standards, we're a tiny island.
No that is wrong. That is not how trade works.
If we want to trade with the EU then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with the USA then exports will have to follow their standards. If we want to trade with Japan then exports will have to follow their standards.
If any of them want to trade with us then their exports will have to follow our standards.
Exports don't have to follow domestic standards of the nation that produces them, they need to follow the standards of the nation they are being exported to. Changes of spec are entirely possible.
It doesn't matter if the EU accepts our standards or not. Our "tiny island" can set whatever standards that suit us and all imports must follow our standards. If we have reason to diverge from CE then fine that suits us.
As an example have a look at left-hand-drive versus right-hand-drive vehicles. In the UK our cars are different and always have been different to "standard" European cars. No reason that can't be true in other industries too.
Well said. If you look at literature from the 20th century, they are full of references to various standards of products including 'export' products. It's not especially complex and is managed all the time elsewhere, just not here for a short time.
Once again I think we are failing to use the relatively recent past as a reference point.
The point is it's an extra layer of red tape. For what?
I think my point must have been lost in translation.
If we are sending goods to the EU, they will need to comply with EU standards. If we harmonise our standards the whole exercise is pointless, if we don't it's red tape for small businesses who today don't have these problems.
For what reason?
So we can have standards that suit us not them.
We're not going to have meaningfully different product standards to the EU, or - for that matter - the US or Canada or Australia. Most product standards are set at the ISO level and then implemented into law by various national and multinational bodies.
Where we might have very different regulations is around labour and environmental standards, or around agriculture.
Indeed. Occasionally we may have differing standards on certain things - like for instance our using plugs that aren't used on the continent (though are in Ireland and Malta and outside of the EU much of the Caribbean, Middle East and South East Asia), or using Right Hand Drive vehicles.
Not much will differ but if it doesn't differ its moot. If it does differ, its because we've chosen so.
And is it really, really worth it to leave the club which we wanted to join so much and which has provided so much benefit so that if we decide in future (clue: we won't) to institute a UK standard for four-pin plugs we will be able to?
Is it all really worth it?
Many of the benefits come not just from being on the outside but also from not being on the inside. The EU will continue to develop in a way which would be counter to our interests were we to have remained a member.
The EU and the UK are best apart.
The UK is no longer part of a project it has never had any real - a few posters on here apart - enthusiasm for.
And the EU no longer has a member that doesn't want to be there.
General De Gaulle was right, we were never the right fit for the community.
Can't put it better than that.
Many in the UK did have enthusiasm for the EU or more accurately the benefit it brought .
Not many.seemed genuinely enthusiastic to me. Some dispassionately thought it was worth having economically but little genuine enthusiasm.
I must have imagined this, I guess:
Was that after the vote? Too late then to get passionate.
Sometimes you only realise how much you love something when you lose it.
Anyway, your claims of utilitarian remainers versus idealistic brexiters certainly don't correlate with my own experience. Most of those I know who voted for brexit did so for specific, concrete reasons: fewer foreigners, higher wages, more money for the NHS, etc. Sovereignty didn't figure very highly at all.
Exactly what I said.
My view is some of the Brexit side have completely reinvented history and made Brexit to have been voted for, for all of these complicated reasons.
I think it's very simple: NHS, immigration.
Except if you look where the Brexit majority was won, there are not that many immigrants. A better explanation might be austerity. Cameron's European policy was shot in the foot by Osborne's economic policy. Ask Dominic Cummings.
Perception of immigration was what I meant. I know on a factual level those areas most likely to vote to Leave had low immigration but the answer there is obvious: fear of the unknown.
London voted to remain because most people there - except the nutters I see commenting about Sadiq Khan at every stage, who I'm fairly sure don't even live in London - are exposed to immigration every day and they do not see it as a problem.
Immigration is not and will never be the cause of any of our problems.
Which is of course why places like Slough which are 36% white british voted well over 50% to leave mr Battery
I don't agree with CBH often, but there was a fairly strong mathematical correlation between areas with lots of immigration and the Remain vote.
In many areas yes but not in all was the point I was making. I certainly voted leave and one of the reasons was immigration however my concerns over immigration were to do with quality more than quantity
What are your problems with the "quality" of immigration?
People would rather have doctors and nurses in their area than big issue sellers. It's not really controversial.
Precisely the point, we have a strong polish cohort here and while I have no problem with polish people I know one woman personally who is running a cafe and getting friends over employing them for 16 hours each and they are then all claiming tax credits and give her a small cut....apparently its quite a common thing according to my polish friends. Not sure I see how that benefits Britain exactly. Those poles I know doing better quality jobs such as plumber and electrician are just as fed up with it as we all should be.
Ah the old "I'm not racist because I know some Polish people".
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
No you little cumstained oik, some immigrants make a positive contribution to society and our economy some dont. The fact that on the average immigrants make a slightly positive contribution is neither here or there. If we only took 300k quality immigrants it would be much better than taking 300k of which 150k are hugely positive and 150k are net takers.
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
If this poster repeats this sort of behaviour, a ban is a good idea. CorrectHorseBattery is usually civil, whereas Mr Pagan also decided to garland me with the accolade of 'arse' or something similar last week in one of his unprovoked rants, which I didn't particularly think worth responding to.
Ah I see two posts in a whole week when mr Battery has been sweary on this thread all day and my first post you complain about was using the word arse? It couldn't be Mr battery is on the same side of the political spectrum as you could it? Oh why yes it is. Lets not take into account Mr battery called me a racist to provoke that response
I don't care what side of the political divide you're on, last week your response to my civil post was a mouthful of abuse. Shape up or ship out.
Yet you havent called out any of mr Battery's posts today responding to perfectly civil response. Curious
I haven't seen the whole of your discussion together, but I have seen acting you similarly when not provoked ; so you can't be described if I put the two together. If you don't attack other posters unprompted, your position won't be called into question.
Then you missed the fact that several people have been sworn at today by Mr Battery and the fact that even in my post I quoted his own words back at him. In around 800 odd posts I have been rude twice. Mr battery has done 5 or 6 times that today and with words worse than arse. Yet its me you call out. Nods
Sworn at for posting baiting nonsense and then being told to sod (f) off.
It wasn't unprovoked, perhaps it was over the top but it didn't just come out of nowhere. I simply have no time for nonsense from people on this site. If that makes me unpopular then so be it.
To be honest I have no problem with the post you made to me, so whilst it's nice to have "backup" it's really not necessary. Keep on swearing.
"Do you know the NHS would have collapsed without immigration, especially EU immigration which has now fled the country, leading to a shortage."
The majority of NHS staff in England are British – EU countries contribute 5.5% Of every 1000 NHS staff working in England: 862 are British 55 are from the EU 52 are Asian 22 are African 9 are from somewhere else Source House of Commons Library - dated June 2020
Welcome.
Those statistics, of course, don’t tell the whole story. I am reminded of Richie Benaud: ‘Captaincy is 90% luck and 10% skill. Just don’t try it without that 10%.’
Similarly, 5.5% of staff in an organisation that is chronically understaffed is a significant number.
Comments
If you don't have a job, or you dislike you job but cannot get a better one, or you know people who are looking for work but aren't finding any, immigration is a very useful tool to transfer blame for your problems on to.
If the issue is with jobs, why would you care about one homeless person from wherever they may be? They're not working, neither are you.
If you don't have a job, I am very sorry but it's not immigration's fault.
As by far our largest single trading partner, I think we would want to send goods to the EU but that's just me.
To imagine the world of 2520 would be incredibly difficult for us. I recall the comics and magazines of the 60s and 70s portraying life in 2000 and, let's just say, they got a few things right and most things wrong especially the bit about the lunar and Martian colonies.
If we tried to conceive of life in 2520 I suspect we'd get most of it wrong - it's fun to speculate. I'll offer genetic manipulation leading to considerably prolonged human life span and, pace Blackadder, a device to automatically clean shoes. One of those is pure fantasy - guess which one, you may be surprised.
And how many British people sit around all day and do sod all?
Immigrants make a NET contribution, there are always bad apples and as a country we can send them home after three months under EU law yet we never bothered to use this power.
What my problem with the immigration debate is that you can pick out bad people and then apply that to all immigrants yet I never see the same treatment happen to all the British people who sit and claim benefits.
The reality is, we need immigration and it's been a net benefit to our country. The care sector is in an utter state right now because the EU immigrants feel so unwelcome they left the country and went home.
Firearms made quite a difference to warfare as well.
Now are you going to make me a market in Michelle Obama for VP?
Just noting the latest Rasmussen number on Trump's approval which shows a further improvement to 48% with 51% disapproving so a net -3 which is interesting.
One or two have commented on the Trafalgar poll showing Trump up 50-43 in Georgia. That would be very similar to 2016 if correct so a worry of sorts for Biden and his team.
It's a Trafalgar Poll and they tend to be better for the Republicans - now, what we don't know is whether Trafalgar have got it right or wrong in terms of sampling. There's no point harping on about how good or bad a pollster was in 2016 - that was the last election, this is the one that counts.
Our productivity has stagnated since 2010 not because of immigration but because of austerity.
So what do you propose?
Which is my whole point about quality of immigration not quantity being the issue . I don't care what race, gender or creed anyone is I just don't see why we benefit from net takers from society you dipshit and yet you consider that racist just marks you out as the fuckwit you are. Now in your words fuck off you prick
The future trading relationship is to be debated and should be but the concept of leaving is over. At some point that is going to come to a head, good or bad.
Hang on - you did mean tin mines, didn’t you?
If you want quality immigration then I agree with you - but we don't need to leave the EU to have that.
I hope you have a lovely evening, all the very best.
https://twitter.com/PI3GUB/status/1285625364161732608?s=20
We had also found more inventive ways to kill each other - the evolution of small arms replacing the bow and arrow as well as improvements in artillery.
Also, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy works. The government has opened up an unlimited cheap labour pool subsided by tax credits and housing benefits, businesses will always choose the path of lowest resistance which for 20 years or so has been to throw cheap labour at the problem, not investing in technology.
https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/34/6/1435/707557
Includes free engraving of Innocent XI’s kidney stones.
Gross Fixed Capital Formation (i.e. investment) has trundled around in the 16-18% of GDP range for a quarter century, but that's a consequence of our consumption heavy economy, not immigration.
Now, we haven't invested in manufacturing much in the UK, compared to our neighbours in the EU, but it's hard to conclude that that has been an unmitigated success for them.
Soon as Brexit happened, suddenly remainers want to bring this up as part of the conspiracy of why people voted for exiting the EU. There was no conspiracy. Of those who voted, the majority voted to leave because they wanted to leave. Get the fuck over it.
Easily a year or more ago I pointed out that whilst there had been Russian attempts to stir up stuff around the Brexit vote, it wasn't by any stretch decisive. The intelligence agencies knew there was attempts to run interference (and contrary to some incorrect headlines I've seen online, they did look into it afterwards) they couldn't conclude that it had been material in effect.
Remarkably enough this report doesn't really say any different.
Here is one reasserting fact. Russia is a paper tiger, you shove back and tell him to stop acting the dick, he will retreat. He has a very keen sense of not over-reaching
Here is the less re-assuring aspect. Western governments allowed Putin's regime to get on as if it is some ubiquitous outfit. Leading in this I give you the Obama administration and Germany. Successive UK governments haven't been great (and Johnson has in the past been a joke on this issue) but nothing compared to those two mentioned.
We shy away in this country and others of taking on dictatorships who threaten our values and position. We shouldn't. Liberal democracy and its values is not weedy but our political class in much of Europe, here included, are weedy and this is where it gets you.
At the same time, England - typically - was muddled between a church with in practice a Catholic outlook and a Protestant government. I don’t know the figures for 1750 but in 1837 male literacy was estimated at 66% (based, rather crudely, on what percentage could write their names in the marriage register) and female literacy at less than half of that.
In the 60s (ie people born in the 40s to
65-70 at the time of the referendum) probably 10-15% of people went to uni. Today 50% do.
So if you just look at education levels you are really capturing a lot of age
https://twitter.com/PI3GUB/status/1285625364161732608?s=20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2koyUc-4MQ0
I give as good as I get, well done that user.
Hint: try Vikings....
Longbows however were a fad, a brief passing fashion in England that briefly made them masters of medieval warfare. When the fashion passed - and it actually passed before guns were widely available or reliable - they sank back again.
I forget which general it was - it might perhaps have been Franklin (who wasn’t a general) who said that had the English kept up the longbow tradition, the American War of Independence would have been lost. An exaggeration, but truthfully it wasn’t until the invention of the repeating rifle that firearms clearly exceeded longbows in every particular.
https://twitter.com/FerretScot/status/1285560384980746240?s=20
For nearly 50 years the USSR was "the threat" which could justify anything and everything. I grew up watching Threads and The Day After and hoped against hope the horror of the consequence of their use would be the ultimate deterrence to nuclear warfare.
In 1989, Russia was pushed back several hundred miles out of Europe and NATO surged into the gap. The problem is "the threat" is easy when it's a hundred fully equipped armoured divisions two hours drive from the Rhine - it's not so easy when it's so distant.
Is it "worth" the collapse of civilisation to secure Riga or Tallinn or Vilnius? It's not so easy now.
We also see the long-predicted shift of global power to the Pacific - China, India, the Korean Peninsula, the flash-points in the South China Sea. Even Russia looks to China now.
The world is round but we are on the wrong side - perhaps in some small way our detachment from the EU is an explicit recognition that Europe is a backwater and the future of the world has shifted to the Pacific.
But I’m surprised you’re comfortable with Steam harvesting all your data
The classic example is a U.K. widget manufacturer. They are currently set up to manufacture to EU standards but can dominate the U.K. market if standards are different. So they may lobby for a change - keeping their existing factory for the EU and putting in a new one for the Uk
Great insults though!
The rate of change since 1850 to today far outstrips anything.
The majority of NHS staff in England are British – EU countries contribute 5.5%
Of every 1000 NHS staff working in England:
862 are British
55 are from the EU
52 are Asian
22 are African
9 are from somewhere else
Source House of Commons Library - dated June 2020
It wasn't unprovoked, perhaps it was over the top but it didn't just come out of nowhere. I simply have no time for nonsense from people on this site. If that makes me unpopular then so be it.
To be honest I have no problem with the post you made to me, so whilst it's nice to have "backup" it's really not necessary. Keep on swearing.
Those statistics, of course, don’t tell the whole story. I am reminded of Richie Benaud:
‘Captaincy is 90% luck and 10% skill. Just don’t try it without that 10%.’
Similarly, 5.5% of staff in an organisation that is chronically understaffed is a significant number.