Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Brexit

Time for some positivity - great stuff about the EU

69 replies

nearlyhellokitty · 09/06/2016 08:46

Getting tired of the constant wrestling around in the mud. So here's some positives about the EU. Let it be stated that this is not just about economic security!

- Gruff Rhys I Love EU

vimeo.com/157411550 - What has the EU ever done for us?

weareeurope.org.uk/ - see the picture.

Time for some positivity - great stuff about the EU
OP posts:
nearlyhellokitty · 09/06/2016 11:53

ForHarry Grin I quite like the footage of him kissing people in weird ways, like on the bald head of the Belgian Prime Minister.

OP posts:
ForHarry · 09/06/2016 11:56

Tbh all his colleagues seem happy to see him!

ForHarry · 09/06/2016 11:57

There's a clip I just saw where he goes to swallow the big microphone the journal proffers..

A wasted talent.

Glamourgates · 09/06/2016 11:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

purits · 09/06/2016 12:26

Did our grandparents go for weekends in Vienna or Lisbon? Pop on the Eurostar to Paris for a few days? Send their kids on school trips in France? They did not.

My Dsis went on a school trip, pre EEC (as it was then).
You are comparing different times You might as well ask if the GP had internet. The question is: can non-EU people jump on a plane now? The answer is 'yes'. Because the EU is not the source of everything good ever.

Were our grandparents able to get a doctors appointment? Get their DC a place at school? Afford to buy a house?
They were.

So what's more important? - cheap holidays for 2 weeks of the year or how you live your life for the other 50 weeks?

Chalalala · 09/06/2016 12:33

On Erasmus: no I am not basing an entire Remain case on it, obviously. I thought this was a lighthearted thread to celebrate all the positive EU things, not another "should we stay or should we go" argument.

But if you do want to argue about it, then yes, it is an EU scheme, and it would not automatically be open to the UK in the event of Brexit. It would be part of the negotiations, and the EU would want something in return. When Switzerlans voted against free movement with the EU, its membership in the Erasmus scheme was immediately suspended, for instance.

nearlyhellokitty · 09/06/2016 12:49

purits well first you have to assume that you're right that doctor's appointments, school places and house buying have been negatively affected by being a member of the EU. For my part, I think that leaving the EU will have a very bad impact on e.g. the NHS and the general exchequer so that's not a logical conclusion.

But in any case I agree with chalala this thread was supposed to be about celebrating some of the positive aspects.

OP posts:
Figmentofmyimagination · 09/06/2016 13:05

Employment rights.

As Michael Ford has explained here - www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/Brexit%20Legal%20Opinion.pdf
without the EU, a future UK government would have 'pretty much unconstrained freedom of action' in relation to employment rights.

Anybody who has read some of the government's Employment Law Reform consultation papers on the need for 'flexibility' etc (i.e. greater freedom to sack people cheaply and cut their wages) will know that this government has been constrained by the EU from repealing employment laws it regards as 'burdens on business'.

Subject to any obligations linked to future trade deals, what a future government does to employment rights will depend entirely on its political make-up. And the conservative Brexiteers have been among those arguing for the severest deregulation.

The Working Time Directive, for example, has been fingered by 'Open Europe' (a body whose stats are quoted with approval by Michael Gove) as "costing the UK economy of £4.1 billion a year and the benefits are unknown".

Well, one of the benefits is your four weeks' holiday a year. Before the Working Time Directive, hundreds of British workers didn't get paid holiday. Hardly surprising, when you think about how an entire industry has since grown up around finding ways to avoid or limit rights such as paid holiday.

There is a myth that employment in the UK is heavily regulated. In fact, we are already one of the least regulated of all the developed economies(unless you are talking about industrial action rights, in which case, we are at the other end of the scale, and the government is falling over itself to introduce increasing amounts of red tape).

Chalalala · 09/06/2016 13:12

I'll carry on with my intentionally trivial line, and declare my love for the delicious Polish bread and sausages readily available in UK stores. Yum.

I mean, yes, there's also small stuff like peace and human rights, but who needs that when you can get kiełbasy in Tesco.

(yes I had to google the spelling)

dogchewedtoy1 · 09/06/2016 13:32

Chalala - this one's for you!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35648212

A Today programme clip about the story of the EU told through the British sausage..!!

Chalalala · 09/06/2016 14:19

thank you kindly! I am an equal opportunity EU sausage lover. Which is really not as dirty as it sounds.

dogchewedtoy1 · 09/06/2016 14:23

Personally I like a British sausage.....Grin...... our animal husbandry standards are in excess of the EUs (which is why our pig farmers do not get a fair deal from the EU when it comes to cheap imports to the UK from the EU. Their costs are higher because they look after their animals better)

Chalalala · 09/06/2016 14:30

yes, that was an interesting example. The UK did manage to bring up welfare standards significantly throughout the EU though (but not quite as high as domestic British standards, as you say), so presumably continental pigs all over Europe are highly grateful to the British/EU partnership.

nearlyhellokitty · 10/06/2016 10:04

Speaking of food, how about protecting the Cornish Pasty?
www.westbriton.co.uk/Cornish-pasty-makers-say-leaving-EU-jeopardise/story-29381525-detail/story.html

OP posts:
shitchef · 10/06/2016 11:35

MrsBlackthorn, I know of nobody who goes for weekends to Vienna or Lisbon - they cannot afford it, unlike people on here who have admitted that they earn enough money to warrant paying taxes high enough to pay the salary of several nurses. Hmm Your post typifies the priorities of some rich people in this debate.

When I was a kid (70's/80's) of course I went on school trips to France. In fact in those days you didn't need a full passport, you could apply for a day one, certainly didn't need a visa.

MrsBlackthorn · 10/06/2016 12:41

You literally don't know anyone who has gone on a £29.99 flight to Europe for a long weekend?

78% of Britons have gone on a weekend break in Europe in the last two years.

People on lower incomes are more likely to take a short break abroad than a longer one. I don't know where you get this idea that taking advantage of the many cheap flights on offer to all points in Europe is a preserve of the very wealthy.

shitchef · 10/06/2016 12:49

No I literally don't know anyone. Why is that so odd? In my circle people save up their money to go on one longer family holiday per year or in the case of a teacher couple that I know they save up and go on a long haul holiday every two years. Most people go on a camping Haven holiday.

shitchef · 10/06/2016 13:08

And it's not just £29.99 is it? How much is it for a family of four? Return? Plus accommodation and food? I honestly know nobody who could justify that expense for one weekend away let alone do it regularly.

MrsBlackthorn · 10/06/2016 13:14

It will be a hell of a lot more after Brexit, that's for sure.

When the pound tanks against the Euro fewer people will be able to go abroad. That's hardly great news.

shitchef · 10/06/2016 13:19

Fewer flights would probably be great for the environment however.

Chalalala · 10/06/2016 13:19

yet every year, Brits take almost 30 million holiday trips to the EU.

ForHarry · 10/06/2016 15:27

I find that 70 odd per cent over two years hard to believe tbh. Are they perhaps counting the likes of my Bil's multiple trips? He's forever on his computer picking up a deal. Other people I know never do this!

dogchewedtoy1 · 10/06/2016 15:36

Hi Chalala

Yes I think European pigs must be grateful for the British input into animal welfare standards. Shame there isn't exact parity - so EU producers still enjoy a competitive edge when they export to us, as their animals don't cost as much to look after, and our farmers' products are not competitive when we export to the EU.

Still I suppose it's OK because our farmers receive EU subsidies (well it's our money really that just makes a journey to Brussels and then comes back) to support them instead.

situatedknowledge · 10/06/2016 15:37

Can someone (in a friendly manner) clarify the human rights thing for me. I was sure that the European Court was an EU thing, and that we females/workers ought to be grateful for a lot that has improved legislation wise because of this. However on another thread I was told I was wrong, and we'd have those rights anyway. I'm now confused (and feeling particularly stupid).

kitkat1968 · 10/06/2016 15:42

78% of Britons have gone on a weekend break in Europe in the last two years.

There you have an example of a bollocks statistic made up on the spot!