Really very sad with France!

[Friendsoftheearth]

I am quietly furious with France. We have been going to France between three and four times a year, every year for pretty much all of my adult life. We have spent most summer holidays, skiing and all the rest, choosing France as our destination over all over countries.

Every week I buy French cheeses, wine and truffle oils, and we are very big fans of France and French cuisine.

Even taking into account that Macron should hope and push for the best deal for their fishing industry, I still find it incredulous and insulting that they should be demanding ten years of fish, and are offering us a paltry percentage. Ten years.
They are in a total stand off regarding an even playing field, I understand the reasons for this, but honestly they are pushing all of us to a no deal outcome, that will see French fisherman with no catch whatsoever, and high tariffs slapped on all imports from France. Tourism will be destroyed as people will no longer wish to go there. It could poison relations for decades.

I am aware of the history between the UK and France, but rather naively thought we had moved on from that a very long time ago, I am in despair at the eleventh hour demands, and feel this is in very bad faith. It has really highlighted to me how little respect France have for us as a country.

I feel like I never want to go again, despite having a tentative booking for a holiday in the spring of next year.

Can we do a deal?
They send some wine, cheese and maybe Disneyland and we hand over some
Fish?

@Cam77, 'We left the EU so that a tiny percentage could make a heap from currency speculation, and so that a few big EU based British companies could continue their tax avoidance schemes, which the EU had vowed to clamp down on.'

I feel sad and soiled that you see the world through such a cynical perspective. I'm reasonably sure there are a few other parties who will benefit from Brexit and may well have been prime movers behind it, much more so than hedgies and the like.

Bozo's running off to Brussels tomorrow to get his instructions from Ursula von der Leyen, bet he tries to spin it as a great victory, and not the humiliation it will be.

I understand you obviously disagree with the OP's comments and that's fine but there really is no need for the nasty comments. It's just bullying.

Macron has many many problems that never get reported here. If he doesn’t make a (futile) stand for his fisherfolk he will find himself surrounded in the Elysee Palace by furious Bretons going beserk ‘twere ever this. But he knows that most of the EU don’t give a stuff about fish -why would Poland etc care? Posturing.

@jakeyboy1

Can we do a deal? They send some wine, cheese and maybe Disneyland and we hand over some Fish?

Im up for this...

We should have a referendum

I am very disappointed at PPs calling into question the OP's statement about the UK being a world leader concerning corruption. You should all be proud, bigly proud that London is the de facto international capital of tax management and saving. Do you not want the UK to be a world leader in anything? You'll be criticising arm's exports next. So unpatriotic.

nicky7654 what does your husband propose to do to legally buy back the fish quotas sold by UK fishermen? Because they were legally sold. Taking them back without paying would be theft.

Can we do a deal?
They send some wine, cheese and maybe Disneyland and we hand over some fish ?

I think this is how it works currently , without Disneyland , which they can keep, if they were willing to throw in some of those lovely furry giant donkey's, I would be more than happy with your suggestion.

Donkey's

Can't wait leave the EU. Hotbed of corruption. I don't care if I never set foot in Europe again.

Hahahahahaha.

You really haven’t been paying attention to all those UK PPE contracts, have you?

@GirlsBlouse17

I understand you obviously disagree with the OP's comments and that's fine but there really is no need for the nasty comments. It's just bullying.

Having been on the end of some the OP's insults in other threads, i feel sure she can give as good as gets, as we all can!

Anything that is nasty can be reported and that poster potentially banned.

@Bluebrian, it won't need spin. It will be a wiffwaff enormous victory. Like his victorious NI deal. Then like his victorious back-pedalling about NI. Then like today's re-backpedalling about NI. Victory after victory. Just like the triumphant English football team on the way to a World Cup win. probably.

@frumpety

Donkey's

Those are indeed large donkeys.

All we need now is a giant ass.

@sabrinathwaite, steady on, you'll be saying next that overpaying by £10bn for PPE is a bad thing instead of a good thing. Expensive PPE must be good PPE (except for the faulty PPE and the ones with comedy stickers over the long-ago-expired original dates that wasn't effective and caused breathing difficulties for those troublesome HCPs). The best PPE for the world's best HCPs.

The French government have been more than generous towards immigrants from the UK.
They are working incredibly hard to smooth the path for Brits wanting to stay.
Your anger, OP , should be directed at the Tories and brexiteers.

@GirlsBlouse17

I don't know where his 8% comes from. He was just talking on the radio and this is what he said. I trust he understands his business better than any of us.

Wouldn't bet on it.

Fucking fishing. If Brexit isn't bad enough, we're heading for a hard Brexit because of an occupation that contributes a tiny percentage of GDP. That is incredibly environmentally damaging. With fishery interests having spent decades directing policy away from the science and towards short term profit.

We need less fishing. Not more. The problem with fishing is not the EU, it's the result of decades of unsustainable and damaging practice.

How foolish those other countries must feel if they didn't spend an extra £10bn on PPE. Are they not taking COVID seriously? Or do they just not have a health system even half as good as the good old NHS?

Thanks girlsblouse the thread has reached a new low to be fair. Any minute now it will reach its maximum and another brexit thread will hit the out tray into oblivion - thankfully the threads are decreasing all the time, and soon it will be nothing but a distant memory.

Children of the future when they ask what on earth was the point of two world wars killing millions and millions of people for independence if we were so willing to give up so freely just a few decades later. We can say we did our bit to preserve and protect our independence, democracy, accountability and transparency.
That we believed in the EU union when it was based on friendship, mutual respect and trading, but when inevitably the institution started to erode at our freedoms, strip us of our power and accountability - millions of us did the right thing and were/are ready to sacrifice almost anything and everything to prevent the UK joining and eventually being lost to the EU superstate.

We will tell our children that just like the Germans at the time, we had many many people here - remainers - that did not care to protect our independence or democracy, and they fought a cold war of lies and deceit because they could not tell the truth. It will seem crazy to our future children, as it does to us now when we look at the gas lighting of the German nation, because people genuinely believe they are right, just like they did before. They will accept no alternative.

It seems that not enough lessons were learnt from the past, so we have to go through it again. And again. History on repeat.

It is mighty depressing, but I for one feel proud that the UK can see what is happening, that we did something to change it, we stood up for what is right.

I am sure I will be called every thing under the sun for stating such a thing on this thread, but we can not forget the past or we make the same mistakes in the future.

I for one could not care less any longer which way it goes. I have always loved France, and my holidays and trips there, but I can not see it the same way any longer. Even if Macron is all bluster and bluff, I see it as the true extent of their feelings towards us, and for me it is a step too far.

Oh my. It's like Brexit bingo.

I agree OP.

Thanks girlsblouse the thread has reached a new low to be fair

How the actual fuck you have the audacity to say the this i do not know

The thread was low when you did your OP

Children of the future when they ask what on earth was the point of two world wars killing millions and millions of people for independence if we were so willing to give up so freely just a few decades later

Do you know why the french and Germans set up a trading association after WW2, in Steel and coal? the two commodities needed for conflict, to avoid a 3rd european war.

Do you also know what happened to that association? the one that grew into the EEC and the one the british very much wanted to be part off.

The strangest thing is that even now most remainers can not for the life of them see that we see 'Europe' and the 'EU' as two entirely separate entities. We love Europe, the Europeans and our shared values, culture and all the rest.

We detest the EU for everything it stands for, everything it takes away. The hidden voting of key decision makers, the corruption, the loss of millions of euros every year, the vile bureaucracy that is accountable to no one. The encroachment on nation states. It is the EU rather than Europe that we are finished with. It is an important distinction, and you would imagine after four years plus remainers would understand it, but they don't.

Stop wetting yourself fresh and perhaps learn to listen and debate.