To absolutely not want closer ties to Europe

[Viviennemary]

What is the matter with Stammer toadying up to the EU. We voted Out. Has he forgotten. I switched the TV off when I heard the word contribution and free movement. Here we go again. Shafted and ripped off at every turn and following their dumb rules. It's groundhog day. I'm furious.

@Viviennemary

Not unreasonable OP, but probably not the place to say so!

@DiscoBeat do you mean like hosting them all for a conference here and then discussing what to do with Russia.

I'm not infantising them.

I'm sharing an opinion on this thread. And suggesting that it has come with an atmosphere of insult and unkindness.

Which I should like to suggest you have backed up.

Sorry if I think that discussion about such subjects should be handled gently, but thanks for informing me that after the age of 18, we should expect our opinions to be subjected to responses that suggest and probably genuinely believe that anyone who disagreed with us thinks we are awful people

Which laws are you annoyed about?

Are you as angry about trade deals made with other countries? Or is it just the Brexit idea that has your goat.

I can understand where you're coming from OP. EU officials are not elected by the majority simply 'placed' in post. Whilst UK used to have elections for MEPs, no such voting mechanism exists for those governing the EU e.g., president and the layers of burocracy are staggering. It cost the British taxpayer a fortune and still does. Fifty percent of judges within ECHR have no experience within a judicial setting and the decision making mechanisms for trade agreements with countries outside the EU is too complex to be practical e.g., CETA agreement took 8 years to negotiate. Whatever you think of Starmer, trade agreements are much quicker to negotiate from outside of EU as demonstrated by the recent agreement with EU, whatever you think of the content. Most decisions made or not made by UK governments have been blamed on EU or ECHR which is a convenience for the present government and the last when the people want something they have no intention ofdelivering, for example their election manifesto! There is unrest in the EU and a resurgence of some far right ideology in several countries due to the pressures associated with uncontrolled immigration. Attempts to squash the surge in right wing support by proscribing the opposition party(Germany, yesterday) is unlikely to head off a return to more right wing politics, in fact, it may encourage more support for the right. Speculation on the demise of the Bloc due to remotness of governance and democratic process is still ongoing. In 2019, The Guardian reported that most Europeans asked expected the Bloc to fall apart within 20 years. Then there's the trade wars that may happen, Putin parked on its doorstep and Xi not far behind, infighting between and within countries over policy and stagnating economic policies. I know our country looks bad at the moment but who wants to re enter EU to take on all of that as well? On the plus note I liked freedom of movement for me and my dog, cheap mobile calls and the fact that I could stay in other countries for longer and not worry about laws and restrictions was rather nice 👍

Yes, congrats. You've managed to come up with a single occasion of the UK losing a vote in the Council. And such a terrible defeat was it that one single element of CRD IV has been repealed since Brexit. That entirely disproves the UK's influence over EU legislation, especially if you ignore the UK single handedly fending off the same cap also being introduced in UCITS V despite being effectively under-represented in the Parliament thanks to UKIP.

If that fails you can always post that outlier poll for the umpteenth time where staying out is still scoring lower than rejoining.

This was one law only possible because of Brexit, although unfortunately I don't think it applies to Northern Ireland;

farmed animals can no longer be exported from Great Britain for slaughter or fattening

https://www.ciwf.org.uk/news/a-huge-win-historic-moment-marked-for-uk-farmed-animals-after-50-year-campaign-to-ban-live-exports/

Also -
How Brexit is boosting Britain’s Puffin population
This government, along with the previous Conservatives who started it, have managed to fend off EU attempts to plunder sand eel shoals...
Brexit gave UK governments the chance to protect these vital seabird food stocks...
a remarkable example of how Brexit in practice can allow the UK government to go against EU big agribusiness when it comes to protecting the environment.

https://www.channel4.com/news/how-brexit-is-boosting-britains-puffin-population

OP, I suggest you educate yourself as to the noble roots of what became the European Union, consider what European laws you are still benefiting from and then assess carefully the outcome of all the promises that were made during the leave campaign. Next, let’s have a look at what laws ‘they’ trampled all over and do a bit of a cost/benefit analysis. Then perhaps do an opinion piece in something other than the Daily Fail.

some did, plenty didn’t and if we had another vote tomorrow I’m sure it would be reversed. What good has it done us being out of Europe?

Yeah, it's worked out so well 'taking back control', eh?

I mean, you can absolutely disagree with me, on this.

But I do genuinely believe being outside of the EU gave us freedom to deploy a faster vaccine program during COVID, as we had freedom to prioritise the UK population.

Yes, congrats. You've managed to come up with a single occasion of the UK losing a vote in the Council.

Some more here:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2015/nov/02/is-uk-winner-or-loser-european-council

I'd be against cruelty to animals full stop. And I wouldn't want chlorinated chicken from the US (or anything else....one of my brothers lived there for years and was scathing about the quality of their food)

@theworldsacrazycrazymess the main reason (as we lived in Denmark at the time ) was that they wouldn’t use Astra Zeneca - they waited till Pfizer authorised- and strangely the UK dropped using the AZ one fairly quickly too when the others came on tap - AZ appeared to be the one too that had more issues.

I think astrazenica is a whole other issue.

But my point was it gave us freedom to make whatever decision we wanted regarding vaccines.

And no-one could have known the problems with AZ at the time

FlyMeSomewhere
Many people will not want American produce because it's dirty chemical filled stuff! They have outbreaks of Ecoli, listeria, salmonella almost weekly

Do you get alerts for Poland as well? Always seems to be something going on over there with food safety and poor livestock conditions.

This, in bagfulls.

Donald isn’t going to be here forever.
But these next 1340 days seem like forever.
Not all of us support him.
He hates people who don’t slavishly lay on the compliments - like me.

I don't think you've read your own link or possibly you've not understood it. There aren't any more examples there - just some stats. Your article also has a list of caveats at the end which you may also not have bothered actually reading. In any case I don't need to see some link you've just Googled - I was literally there.

I saw Gordon Brown pick up the phone to the Spanish Presidency and get a vote that the UK was about to lose postponed because the UK was about to lose it.

I saw the Irish Presidency agree to not even hold discussion over the Money Market Fund Regulation because the UK didn't like it.

I saw George Osborne stop AIFMD when the UK was about to lose 26-1 and get a 27 unanimous vote agreeing with his position.

Of course the UK "lost" more QMV votes than other countries in the period after 2008 because the period after 2008 was essentially about clearing up the mess of the financial crisis. We were the only apologists for the old financial services practices that were being reformed. And in any case just looking at the final vote entirely ignores all the concessions the UK managed to get along the way.

And again - if we hadn't effectively lost half our influence in the Parliament by continually electing UKIP MEPs who just sat there drawing a salary and doing nothing for UK interests we also would have been forced into far fewer adversarial votes.

Do you have concerns about specific votes or do you just have a bank of links you like to send?

The UK was the first country in the world to use the Pfizer jab as well;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55227325

So a future Government can overturn decisions democratically arrived at through a Referendum because the result doesn't suit them?

And how well did that work for us? Whilst most countries in the world closed their borders we left ours wide open, vaccines are useless against stupidity.
I was in Hong Kong when covid hit and stayed there for the first year, it was one of the safest places on earth, if we had 6 cases in a day it was a disaster, then I came back to the U.K., chaos ! Maybe if we’d still been in Europe they’d have insisted we stopped free travel much sooner and saved countless life’s!

All I want to know is what colour passports will we have?

Probably so - but that’s certainly a reason that we were not being jabbed quite as quick in Denmark

This⬆️