Macron's behaviour is despicable

[Snowymountainsalways]

I am a moderate remainer, I say that because I do feel we should respect the vote. I am not a remainer who think a second ref will help. A second ref won't help regardless of the outcome, because the other side will simply demand another one, and another and so it would go on indefinitely and it is utterly futile and pointless.

I had come to the conclusion that a good deal would be the best outcome in the end. However I am just appalled at the behaviour and language coming out of the EU, and particularly Macron.

I am now even thinking what is the point? What is the point in continuing with any 'deal'? They are clearly not remotely interested.

May (for all her faults, and she has many) should gather her dignity and call it a day. We were there in good faith, the chequers plan is not perfect but it was a starting point. I had hoped it would work. It would have offered a solution of sorts.

I have cancelled our holiday next year to France. I don't want to go anywhere so openly hostile, despite the fact we have been holidaying there for my entire living life. I can't support Macron's comments that were both needlessly humiliating and rude to our prime minister.

Thoughts?

@Vicky1990

What? According to you all the EU members EU were freed by the English? You need to go back to school then.

We also had to rebuild Germany

So why did they have to pay all that money back to the USA then?

We don't have to accept this shit , get out and protest www.independent.co.uk/final-say/brexit-march-final-say-the-independent-where-when-how-to-sign-up-a8522701.html

Blair should have built more Council Houses, he should have made the case better for progressive taxation, he ran scared of the Daily Mail. Again, nothing to do with the EU.

He wasn’t running scared of the Daily Mail. The boom years of the Blair economy were an illusion created by both people and the state running up debt.

Artificially inflating house prices was the keystone of the New Labour economy as people borrowing against their inflated house prices to spend boosted the economy. Of course he didn’t build any council houses. People were loaned money, often inappropriately, buy to let and owning more than one property was made easier, banks deregulated, more and more people were brought in but little new housing built. Why would developers build thousands of houses and sell them for peanuts when they could build a dozen and sell them for a killing as demand outstripped supply. It was a deliberate policy to help create an illusory boom based on debt.

Don’t kid yourself that you can blame everything on the Daily Mail. It was a cynical and deliberate policy on Brown and Blair’s part.

As I understood the Marshall Plan, Germany didn't repay it following the poor result of punitive repayments in the 1920s. However, the UK did recently repay its LendLease debt to the USA for the clapped out ships we purchased to bolster the fleet in 1941. Last year... 2017.

The Independent is an online newspaper owned by a non dom Russian who is funded by his Oligarch tax dodging father

just pointing out that even the pro EU newspapers have dodgy owners

Don’t kid yourself that you can blame everything on the Daily Mail. It was a cynical and deliberate policy on Brown and Blair’s part.

And nothing to do with the EU.

I agree that bad decisions from UK Governments contributed to the Brexit vote. But that's precisely why leaving the EU can't solve any of these problems. It will make them worse.

So why did they have to pay all that money back to the USA then?

They didn’t pay a lot of it back. Half of it was written off by the US, UK, Greece, France and even Pakistan why agreed to write off debts Germany owed and ease the terms under which they were paid back . This led to the ‘economic miracle’ of West Germany’s revival.

Shame Germany wouldn’t return the favour to Greece really isn’t it?

jubileedebt.org.uk/report/europe-cancelled-germanys-debt-1953

The UK on the other hand paid back every red cent on the initial terms. Weakening Britain and its thus also its grip on its Empire suited US purposes as they sought to replace the UK as the dominant global power.

@XingMing

From wikipedia:

n the case of Germany, there also were 16 billion marks of debts from the 1920s which had defaulted in the 1930s, but which Germany decided to repay to restore its reputation. This money was owed to government and private banks in the US, France, and Britain. Another 16 billion marks represented postwar loans by the US. Under the London Debts Agreement of 1953, the repayable amount was reduced by 50% to about 15 billion marks and stretched out over 30 years, and compared to the fast-growing German economy were of minor impact

Ta1Kinpeace are you telling me that the rate of taxation in France and Belgium is 80% because that is double the rate that my family pays. If you are then I don’t believe you. The French do not pay higher taxes than UK citizens.

Ps two members of my family pay 45% tax

Laurie, the descion to flood the British Labour Market with cheap eu Labour. Under cutting millions of small businesses, one man bands etc.

How can you not know this.

They don't know it because it's not true. It's another brexit myth which has been completely debunked by research carried out by the London School of Economics.

So if Britain with others took the decision to write off Germany’s debts my comment re rebuilding Germany is true. Or is that too simplistic

So fucking what? You want a 70 year old grudge to dictate modern policy?

The French tax regime is different. I think it is something like 25% up to a certain earnings but there is no minimum allowance like the £11,000 or whatever it is in the UK. House and occupant taxes are different too (similar to council tax).

@mookatron it could be part of the reason the older generation voted to leave.......

Because making a country pay off war debt is soooooo successful.

Versailles anyone?

Ffs Germany started not one, but two World Wars. You may want to forget but I and many friends do not. It’s hardly a 70 year old grudge when they caused the death of millions of people worldwide. So no I won’t be forgetting the war and what my family went through and the family members, three of whom were aged 2, 3 and 9 plus a 15 year old who perished in the war.

And without their sacrifice you wouldn’t be around to spout your offensive comments about grudges and old people.

We all have families who were in the war, please don't assume I haven't. My grandmother worked in the Rover factory making weapons under the threat of being bombed. She lived to see a German company take it over. And she still supported Europe because she wanted peace in the future not bitterness about the past. Most older people who voted brexit have spent most of their lives enjoying EU membership's benefits.

Read the Schuman Declaration!
The original development of the EU was based on the reinforcement of democracy and no more wars! So you can bang on about Germany starting two wars, but the purpose of the EU’s development was to reduce conflict and integrate Europe, which had had a long history of civil wars and ‘Balkanisation’ for centuries.

And think of the potentially disastrous situations and unrest that could have occurred once the Berlin wall came down had not the EU extended accession to Eastern European countries and attempted to level the playing field, especially in the light of Putin's recent actions in the Ukraine.

I find it sad that the only lives likely to be lost are in northern Ireland. Yet you're all sweating blood to win on the French issue. Meanwhile no one's fixed the border problem.

More people who lived through and fought in ww2 will have voted in the referendum to enter the EEC than voted to leave the EU.

"More people who lived through and fought in ww2 will have voted in the referendum to enter the EEC than voted to leave the EU."

The EEC and the EU being two completely different things.