EU blackmailing the UK

[houseinthesnow]

So it comes to pass. The EU have decided unless we agree to their unreasonable demands they will halt all travel, including air and road travel whilst still fishing in our waters apparently!

It is nothing short of piracy.

The true nature of the EU has been exposed for some time, hence our departure - but now no one can be any doubt just to the levels they will sink to.
The EU have no interest in trade relations, nor cooperation, they only seek control and power. The trading relations is and was always, window dressing to create a superstate - and it seems they are now not afraid to inflict as much damage as possible to stop a member leaving.
Even the most passionate remainer will now see how deeply disturbing this behaviour actually is.

One could argue it is an act of war in fact.

It should be treated as such.

I will happily eat beans to the end of my days than be blackmailed by the EU. We all knew it would get nasty at the end, but who they knew they were capable of this. I suppose we can't be that surprised given the past. The gloves are off now for sure - and that goes both ways we should remind them.

Hard hats on.

I remember they spoke French and ruthlessly imposed it on the poor Saxons, making them use French-esque words for meats and things. Terrible cultural oppression.

I'm surprised you care what some French nobles did to a bunch of Germans tbh.

@DGRossetti, and before any inappropriate parallels are drawn, sovereignty being more important than wealth and being willing to disentangle trading links with your closest trading partner 'come what may' would be completely different, nay completely foolish if there's a second Scottish referendum. No similarities at all.\

I feel the same about my local gym. I stopped my membership last month and when I turned up this morning for my usual classes they said I was not allowed in as I am no longer a member!! I am totally outraged by this

If a No Deal Brexit is such a good idea - so good that Johnson promises that the UK will proper mightily as soon as the country leaves the EU, why has he been fannying about for so long?

He's been PM for well over a year. The UK didn't leave last November. It officially left in March 2020, but still wanted the transition period until 31st December.

According to Johnson, Britain still holds all of the cards, so why did the UK not make the clean break in November 2019? Had it done so, presumably the UK would by now be a year closer to the promised prosperity and sunny uplands. Instead, the UK seems to be no further forward than in 2016 - and in terms of reputation and trust has gone many steps backwards - and the country has spaffed £200 billion (and counting) for no obvious benefit.

Or was it all just a stream of unconscious bullshit from Johnson - the undeliverable fantasy that has proved to be a fool's errand, with the biggest fool of all leading the dance?

@eleganz,

"I remember they spoke French and ruthlessly imposed it on the poor Saxons, making them use French-esque words for meats and things. Terrible cultural oppression.

I'm surprised you care what some French nobles did to a bunch of Germans tbh."

I care about everybody, including the pre-Celtic, pre-Beaker people who mysteriously disappeared, or didn't.

You're focusing too much on Bulgaria, which was just an example. The UK have millions of EU citizens come to work and live because the pay is often better, healthcare is good and the standard of living is good too. Bulgaria was just an example of many where they haven't had a vast amount (millions) of people go to. The point was, the UK is/was an asset to the EU, if it weren't then we wouldn't have had the influx of people over the past 15 years.

Once they see the UK hasn't died of the black death after leaving

I just think they will balk at the idea of eating beans for the rest of their days.

By the way that idea of repatriating Irish passport holders who are not contributing to the economy? Please don’t mention it to Boris /Carrie /Cummings or whoever is running the country. Where I come from that would do a much better job of solving the social care problem than letting Covid rip through them. By far the largest immigrant community in that age range where I come from. In my class at school in the 70s more than a third of us had Irish ancestry, about a third were Eastern European, with enough Jewish girls for a separate assembly, as a result of the Second World War wave of immigration, a few from Asia. I am sure there must have been some “indigenous” girls but then beyond having the choice of good community clubs to drink in, the vodka in the Polish club was especially cheap, we never thought about it. Bizarre that posters here are suddenly vilifying communities that have existed here for years.

Then statistically most of them have no experience of being part of an immigrant community, it is all stereotyping and perceptions gleaned from the media and leave campaign.

Like that there are millions of Bulgarians in the U.K. 🙄

Great Britain ceased to be the world's leading power on April 6th 1917. Since then, its international standing has steadily decreased to the point that in a few years, the country will fall out of the top 10 wealthiest countries and out of the top 10 most politically influential countries.

This is causing panic amongst the ruling elite, Johnson's friends and backers, who are accustomed to believing that they have been born to rule over their countrymen and as much of the rest of the world as possible, just as their forefathers did 150 years ago.

Since 1918 the country has been in hock to various other powers for money, trade and military support - i.e. sovereignty was lost over a century ago.

No amount of tub-thumping and gun-boat bravado is going to change this. Either the UK discovers that cooperation and compromise make everyone richer and safer than conflict and exceptionalism ever will, or the country will condemn itself and its population to ever increasing problems and ever deeper division and poverty.

Zilla1

Thank you for enlivening what has otherwise been a shit day. I work quite a lot on satire and am enjoying this immensely.

Brexit: from the "Easiest Deal In History of Sunlit Uplands with No Downsides" to "Surviving the Black Death by Subsisting On Beans" 😂

Once they see the UK hasn't died of the black death after leaving
The historical analogies are interesting.
We've shifted from sunlit uplands where we held all the cards to "it's not quite as bad as the bubonic plague or WW2." Don't remember that on the side of a London omnibus...

@zilla1

You are a scamp.

2016 : Sunlit Uplands
2017 : Easiest deal in history
2018 : they need us more than we need them
2019 : do or die in a ditch
2020 : not die of the black death

Brexit : it gets better every year

We CANT house everyone in Europe, it is just not physically possible, and without controls how on earth do we ever manage it? Answer that, anyone.

1. We don't have to. Believe it or not, not everyone is desperate to live in the uk.
2. We know that overall EU citizens in the UK contribute more than they take out so not having them will mean fewer resources for the UK not more.

Boris needs to get HM involved. She sorted out African dictators, I’m sure she can sort out Barnier (not that I’ve been binge watching The Crown all day instead of doing Important Stuff).

The UK have millions of EU citizens come to work and live because the pay is often better, healthcare is good and the standard of living is good too.

Three million including those who are here because they were born here and chose to take up their right to an EU passport. We have been moving between the EU and the U.K. for centuries, pulled and pushed by economic and political factors. Actual net migration of EU citizens in the last ten or twenty years does not get you anywhere near a figure that justifies the term “millions”. We were attractive to those who came because we did not have enough “indigenous” people of working age to fill all the jobs that needed doing, so there was a pull. Brexit transformed that to a push that will turn into a tsunami. We are about to find out what that means for our economy and health and social care sectors.....

So tell me with your Brexit goggles on, how many do you are coming over the channel in boats? Millions? Thousands? Clue, you need to go lower.....

@AuldAlliance, Thank you. I'd like to see your work. I'd like to be funny but I'm focusing at the moment on helping reunite the UK so we can all bask in the sunny uplands together. One day, I think I'll study humour so I can be like the DJ who liked polka music in Good Morning Vietnam.

The UK won't suddenly become less attractive because we aren't in the EU. People risk their lives and often die whilst jumping through several EU countries to reach the UK.
The UK is not a bad place, that's the point. I doubt only hundreds will want to still live and work here. The UK is a good place to be.

@ListeningQuietly

2016 : Sunlit Uplands 2017 : Easiest deal in history 2018 : they need us more than we need them 2019 : do or die in a ditch 2020 : not die of the black death

Brexit : it gets better every year

2021 is going to be a blast then.

There are 103000 Bulgarians in the U.K. the vast majority of working age and in work, paying taxes.

The Times - April 2020;

Tens of thousands more EU migrants than are officially in the UK have applied to settle after Brexit, figures suggest.

The latest Home Office statistics show that 3.25 million EU nationals have applied for settled status in the UK after Brexit out of an estimated 3.4 million here in the year to June 2019. But migrants from several states in the bloc have applied in bigger numbers than the totals estimated to be here.

By the end of last month 171,000 Bulgarian citizens and 564,000 Romanians had sought settled or pre-settled status, which allows migrants to stay and work in the UK, compared with an estimated 109,000 Bulgarians and 457,000 Romanians who were officially resident in the year to June 2019.

The rest of the article is behind a paywall for me;

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/more-eu-migrants-apply-to-stay-than-are-officially-here-w0dq20zff

In fact every perception you have about the scale of immigration in the U.K., you should probably divide by at least ten....

Put it this way with 66 million people in the U.K. and 3m of EU origins, if you were in a pub with 100 people and 5 of them were either from the EU or had the ancestry to claim an EU passport would you feel overrun? Would you be blaming them for the pub being crowded or there not being enough chairs, especially bearing in mind some are behind the bar serving the beer.....

@cherrycherries Are you talking about refugees (who can't work) or immigrants who are going to be working and paying tax? Surely it's the latter who are going to be less likely to come?

@Zilla1
You're right, of course.

To everything there is a time.
And the time for laughter will be after.

After, when the waterlogged Farage Garage comes into its own as a luxury wharf for tax exiles in their yachts en route to Singapore-on-Thames, farting is a luxury for only the richest of UK windbags due to bean shortages and everyone is merrily quaffing scrumpy on the sunlit uplands to celebrate the fact that they have no buboes (yet).