to agree with the positive Brexit plan below?!

[MenMust]

Having watched a documentary recently about the making of the London Olympics 2012 Opening Ceremony, I was reminded of the sheer skill, innovation and creativity possessed by this nation. This left no doubt in my mind that the UK is completely capable of making a huge success outside the EU.
The first thing the people of the UK need to do is to focus on positive outcomes and opportunities created by the historic decision to leave the EU. Everyone, including those who voted to remain, need to put aside all negativity and differences and anger. Whether you voted to exit or not, it is now going to happen and so all thoughts of doom and disaster are wasted energy and need to be put aside. Pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophesy and if you concentrate on what you think are the negative consequences of Brexit, you will drag the UK down.
Of course there is a risk to exiting the EU. However, there was always a risk to staying in the EU as it is a changing entity. A vote to remain was not a vote for the status quo. The UK will face challenges as it has always done and there will be those who lose out because of Brexit but there will also be those who gain. The EU however also faces an uncertain future. The Euro is in trouble and requires fiscal and budgetary union for any chance of survival. The EU’s economic performance has been poor and its share of world GDP is set to fall. It has failed to keep up with 21st Century globalisation and emerging markets. Further integration is not popular. The EU needs to change radically if it is to survive.
Now the UK has a new PM, Theresa May in place as well as a new Cabinet, the Government needs to appoint the best advisors and negotiators in the land who can help secure the UK the best deal with the EU. The Government should take its time to work out what the best outcome is for the UK before declaring article 50. The UK is in a good position to secure a favourable deal with the EU. We are the biggest importer within the EU and in fact import more from the EU than the USA. It is in the EU’s interest to work with us rather than against us.
The Government needs to ensure that our fishing industry regains rights of fishing areas that it has lost previously under the EU Common Fisheries Policy. EU laws that have had the effect of closing down fishing businesses and communities need to be reviewed.
It is important to remember that, although we have voted to leave the EU, we are still friends with our European neighbours and will continue to maintain a close relationship with them and support them in whatever way we can.
We should now open up to the rest of the world.
Our Government should secure and enhance friendships and relationships with other countries. They need to look at trading partnerships and free trade agreements (FTAs) with all countries we wish to trade with. Australia has already announced it wishes to look at trade deals with the UK. China and India are set to be the future trading powers so we need to start discussions with them. We could possibly forge a link with NAFTA (North American free trade bloc). We should look at our relationship with the Commonwealth and foster trade and agreements with our Commonwealth partners. The EU is the only trading bloc in the world that requires such stringent conditions on its members and this has stifled competition and productivity over a number of years rather than promoting it. We are the sixth largest economy in the world and so other countries will want to do business with us.
Our Government should ease its focus on achieving a balanced budget by 2020. Reducing our debt is still important but should now be done over a longer period and the Government should spend more money on capital projects to help counteract the slowing of growth. It should also look at reducing the tax burden further.
Our police and legal system should stamp down and eradicate racism and racist attacks on our fellow migrants as this is not acceptable. The UK is still a society that welcomes people of all ethnicities, cultures, religions and countries. Racism was not what Brexit was about.
The Government needs to ensure that all project funding commitments by the EU shall be stuck to until we have left the EU. Also, it should ensure that UK organisations and individuals are not discriminated by the EU leading up to our exit.
Once we leave the EU, the Government should commit to funding existing projects previously funded by the EU for at least another three years until it has a department or system in place to make decisions about continuing or ending project funding.
The amount that the UK paid towards the EU budget should be used for capital investment projects within the UK and also for improving and supporting the NHS. The capital projects to improve our infrastructure such as roads will help boost aggregate demand in the UK and help counteract any negative effects on GDP of leaving the EU. The Government should spend money to improve areas of our country that have been neglected or just need fixing.
UK exports will be cheaper due to the reduced value of Sterling. This is an opportunity to promote and increase what we sell to the rest of the world. We must take advantage of this.
UK imports will be more expensive due to the reduced value of Sterling and possible import tariffs. The Government could provide tax breaks to ease the burden on companies that import.
We should focus on buying British goods and supporting our businesses.
We have many of the greatest universities in the world and the Government should invest more via research grants to help boost our universities success even more.
The City of London has great financial institutions and London is one of the world’s top financial centres. It is renowned for its flexibility, resourcefulness, connections, highly skilled workforce, experience. The City with the support of the Government should ensure that it does everything so that it remains one of, if not the most attractive centre for finance in the world.
Finally, we, the UK need to stop underestimating what our country can achieve. Our history has shown what we can do. We still do and will continue to do. We were the pioneers of the industrial revolution. We invented the train, the telephone, the computer, the internet for example. We discovered penicillin, DNA, the laws of gravity. We have Shakepeare, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, The Beatles, Florence Nightingale, just to name a few! Football, rugby, cricket all came from our country. Our reach and influence is global. We are not a great empire anymore and we have no desire to be but our systems of politics, law, finance are duplicated around the world. So let’s not underestimate ourselves. I have great confidence in our younger generation to continue what previous generations have done. They are bright, intelligent, skilled, energetic, creative. They and older generations have the ability to make a success of our exit from the EU. We all just need to believe in ourselves and remain calm and confident.
We have been in the EU for 43 years, not really a long time in the scheme of things.
So let’s not be afraid and let us take this challenge on and show what we can do!

So, still silence on any actual defence of your thoughts, given some highlighting of reality? I was going to point up what would be required to meet the requirements of a GCSE mark scheme but then when I looked was reminded that it starts with a basic award of marks for knowledge and evidence, and only then do you get marks for developing an argument / plan / thoughts. I don't think it is intimidating to expect that at least...... After all GCSEs are easier then ever

Gosh, this is all very exciting. I'm on tenterhooks.

For me the decision to vote to remain or leave was very difficult to make. I did not take it lightly.

When I was young, the UK was in the EEC ,a trading bloc made up of a small number of more or less homogeneous countries, and it was not a problem. Often you would hear moaning in the news about butter mountains etc. However we all seemed happy to be a part of Europe in this way.

As the years went by, things changed. The EEC became the EC and then the EU. With it came the realisation that there was a more political ambition and project here and over time we have seen more political and legal integration and diluting of power of a country within the EU. We did not have a say on all these changes since the 1975 Referendum and over time, concern and nervousness has developed because of this.

The Single Market came into play, which was not a problem when there were a smaller amount of homogeneous countries involved. However, since then more countries have joined the EU most of which are at a different level of development from the older EU countries. This has resulted in a movement of economic migrants mainly in one direction ie towards Germany, France, UK because of much lower wages in the new countries and much higher wages in the old countries. This has caused concern and worry among nations. It has put a huge strain on infrastructure and public services and indigeneous workers are now having to compete for jobs with economic migrants who are settling for lower wages.

The EU appears to be a successful bloc. However, growth within the EU was good in the first twenty years but not as impressive since then. Global foreign direct investment share has almost halved in the 21st century as the rest is going to emerging markets. Even though it has internal free trade, it has trade restrictions with outside countries. It creates laws that are a restriction to business and a cost to business even if the business does not even trade with Europe and just operates domestically. It is bureaucratic in its decision making and over-regulates.

I struggled to make the right decision during the Referendum. I thought the debating that went on at the time was lacklustre on both sides. The TV debates were a waste of time. I think what would have been useful were public education programmes about the facts of the EU and proper information on all the relevant issues. I did my own research and ended up making a list of reasons for staying on three A4 pages and did the same for reasons for leaving. It was a difficult decision to make. In the end I thought about how I believed the EU was going to be in the future and also how the population of the UK was going to change. It frightened me to be honest. So in the end I voted to leave.

Part of me thought well its not going to make any difference as the Remain campaign was going to win. I could not sleep that night and stayed up for most of it watching the results come in. When it was clear that the Leave campaign was going to win, I was shocked and also frightened and I thought, sh*t, what have we done! It was a sobering moment and I did have a few tears. Since then, I read a book called "The Trouble With Europe" by Roger Bootle. Reading this book has calmed my mind and made me feel that I made the right decision for the long term. I know that only time will tell if the right decision was made or not and if it was the wrong one, it will be on my conscience and I will be sorry. I am sorry if my original post rubbed Remainers up the wrong way. I naively wanted to create some positive thought about this and come up with a few points on what needs to be done, although not a comprehensive list.

I hope to God that the right decision was made and, although the road ahead is going to be rocky, we will come out the other end a better country for it.

" It has put a huge strain on infrastructure and public services and indigeneous workers are now having to compete for jobs with economic migrants who are settling for lower wages."

Immigration does not cause unemployment amongst the domestic population, nor does it cause wages to lower for all. In fact it you need a significant increase of 10% in your area to see wages for the lowest 10% of workers to fall by 1.2%. Also this 10% increase needs to be in the thousands to have this effect.

The people coming to "richer" nations as you put it do not increase pressure on public services, in fact immigration causes lower waiting times at A and E and lower waiting times for elective treatments on the NHS ( Oxford University) and a decrease in immigration wouldn't cause the pressure on public services to fall, it would cause them to recieve lower funding without a subsequent fall in demand, both UCL and LSE found that in their research.

Your points regarding bureaucracy and rule making are simply repetition of jargon. For example did you know that about a quarter of the "costs" claimed by the leave campaign are those associated with Basel III and the Paris agreements on climate change. Another significant proportion are those that effect employment, others effect quality of goods. If it was so restrictive to business and not an advantage, why did the CBI, BCC and the IOD all back remaining, along with the banking industry, car industry, aerospace industry, pharma and many others?

Your point regarding global investment into the EU forgets that the EU is a major source of Global investment and the highest source of FDI in the UK. If only looking at the 21st century you have to also take into account that global investment has fallen sharply since 2008 across the globe, and apart from the BRICS countries has remained low. The BRICS countries for all their economic power btw, only make up 5% of all of our exports combined!

For all the rumbling coming out of Downing Street and the FO I see us coming out of Europe and out of the common market. The "bespoke" deal which has been discussed will not allow us to have our cake and eat it. If we don't want to pay in, don't want to enact EU regulation etc we can kiss goodbye to a good slice of our GDP and to siginificant parts of industries, causing ourselves long term damage.

You can hope for a better country in the long term, but I think that we have done ourselves long term harm, both economically and by siding with a xenophobic and backward looking part of the electorate.

menmust you've made 2 lengthy posts that yet again have no substance and fail to address the questions asked of you.

Unless you can give specific examples of immigrants 'putting a strain on infrastructure and public services' or EU 'over-regulation' then you are just regurgitating propaganda.

Surely if you had that many arguments for Leave you countered 3 pages of A4 full of reasons to stay in the EU you can share at least some examples using more than just rhetoric and platitudes or do you just have really big writing

MenMust Thanks for posting your thoughts. It was a similar process to the one DH went through although he voted reluctantly to remain in the end. I agree that the public debates were a waste of time, and the pity of it is, that the debate we are having now, is the one which should have been held a year ago. For this the blame must initially rest on Cameron's shoulders, by not forcing Leave to make a robust case.

Immigration became the key issue in the Campaign, and curbing it is now the Tory parties main aim. We can gloss over the fact that despite the obstacles put in the way of non-EU citizens, there were still more non-EU immigrants that EU ones. Since immigrants are needed to shore up our economy, how likely do you think it is that their influx will be curbed? Do you think the racists and xenophobes, are going to be happy with a greater influx of black and brown skinned immigrants, even if they happen to be from Commonwealth countries?

Theresa May has admitted on the Andrew Marr show this morning that Brexit may bring difficult times: "I think we must be prepared for the fact that there may be some difficult times ahead. But what I am is optimistic." So at last we have had some truth from the PM. Do you think that 'Difficult times' were what people voted for? As to being optimistic, "People also want to see the job opportunities, to see the economic opportunities, and so getting a good deal in trading goods and services is also obviously important for us." This drifts into the land of wishful thinking, IMO. She is another one who needs a history lesson, about why Britain was wealthy in the 19th Century. I am just not convinced myself that the wonderful opportunities are there for Britain now that the country can no longer 'punch above it's weight', but that terms will be dictated to us by countries like China.

its weight - sorry for the rogue apostrophe.

MenMust, thank you for your thoughtful reply.

It is striking to me that your reasons for voting to leave were based not on any negative effects that you had experienced yourself, but on the fear of negative effects in the future or on others. That is not to say that this invalidates those reasons, but it is helpful to see that acknowledged, as we can then move forward to look at the likelihood of those effects actually occurring.

Smallfox has covered the issue of immigration being of net benefit to the uk. Of course these benefits have not been shared equally throughout the country, which is why Gordon Brown introduced a £50 million fund in 2009 to help communities experiencing rapid growth in immigration. This was quietly abandoned when the tories took office in 2010 www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/aug/06/fund-impact-immigration-scrapped

As far as business and investment goes, one of the biggest concerns is what happens to inward investment. Most foreign investment into the UK depends to a great degree on our membership of the single market. (Some information on this here cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit03.pdf)

If, as is looking increasingly likely, we lose this, we could be facing very difficult times indeed.

Thank you for taking the time to post in more detail but I think your views lack two important perspectives, firstly that of young people and secondly of the rest of the world.

As I asked before how are you going to prevent the best and the brightest from leaving the country? They voted Remain because they value the EU and the opportunities it gives them and now the country has voted to leave all that, they see their opportunities overseas.

Secondly as you quite rightly highlight investment has been heading elsewhere to emerging economies and wealth has been heading there too but that was not because of something the UK/EU did or didn't do. It is what happened in those economies, especially in Asia. A lot of people working very hard to improve their standard of living under stable governments and in regional alliances. Andrea Leadham liked to highlight the example of South Korea as an example of an economy that post Brexit Britain could emulate, that was when I knew that she had no more knowledge of global economics than a facilities manager and must have spent her time in banking in a stationary cupboard. Quite apart from the fact that the South Korean economy is half the size of the UKs it does much more than half of it's trade with it's neighbours. The rest of the world is in de facto or actual geographical trading blocs. Australia is only interested in a UK trading relationship to diversify it's own reliance on trade with it's Asian neighbours. Out of the EU we have to compete as one country with these geographical relationships and a much more complicated global trading environment that may well have some opportunities but also a lot of threats and risks. In the EU we enjoyed a lot of competitive advantages like our preeminence in science and tech and the financial passport that are now at risk, as the Japanese highlighted today.

Also you really did lose me as soon as you referred to "indigenous" workers. As far as I am concerned "indigenous" is an offensive non term. I gather that my DNA is not just the 20% Irish which I knew from my ancestors but also 2% South Sea Islander. Plenty of the people I work with, indeed my Mayor, share being born in this country but having ancestors that came from elsewhere. Quite apart from the benefits of migration that have already been highlighted the UK is a nation of migrants, it has ever been thus.

Some pertinent news on Brexit and inward investment here:

news.sky.com/story/japans-unprecedented-warning-to-uk-over-brexit-10564585

We're not exactly being welcomed at the G20 summit with open arms are we?

The Beeb's story on the G20 and the UK's less than hearty welcome.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37269916

And the paragraphs from it on the official Japanese government briefing referred to by Kaija above
"But an official Japanese government briefing has warned of the repercussions for the thousands of people employed by Japanese car, finance and hi-tech firms in the UK and has sought assurances over access to the single market and other trade privileges.

"It is of great importance that the UK and the EU maintain market integrity and remain attractive destinations for businesses where free trade, unfettered investment and smooth financial transactions are ensured," the document said.

"In light of the fact that a number of Japanese businesses, invited by the government in some cases, have invested actively to the UK, which was seen to be a gateway to Europe... we strongly request that the UK will consider this fact seriously and respond in a responsible manner to minimise any harmful effects on these businesses.""

Cue responses from Brexiteers: " Who cares what the Japanese think/want, look at their economy blah, blah."

It'll be a different matter if Nissan, Toyota and Honda stop investing and move production.

Menmust: "In the end I thought about how I believed the EU was going to be in the future and also how the population of the UK was going to change"

How do you feel the EU is going to be in the future?

I was reading comments on an itv news report on the marches yesterday - many Brexit supporters saying they are worried about an EU army and that the EU will take total sovereignty in 10 to 15 years. They seemed very frightened and lashing out at remain supporters, calling them thick, undemocratic etc etc.

So if there was an EU army, what would happen to NATO? I imagine that would collapse. Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing being of questionable relevance these days.

If Trump gets in NATO might go anyway.

...also we have troops in Eastern Europe due to Russian threat, I understand.

And of course we used to have a considerable military presence in Germany. The last troops left last year, after 70 years.

Anyway, back to the Japanese - more from the Beeb, this time analysis by the business correspondent.

"Usually these missives from one government to another are behind closed doors. This note from Japan couldn't be clearer: we want Britain to retain single market privileges.

It implies that many Japanese firms are in Britain purely to have tariff-free access to the EU (and passporting rights).

If that can't be maintained or there's no transparency about what the UK wants to achieve from Brexit, i.e. "a clear idea of the post-Brexit landscape", some Japanese firms could move.

These portentous comments from Japan will be watched closely in Britain's car plants where tens of thousands of people are employed by Toyota, Nissan, Honda and others.

Should the UK quit the EU without a full free trade deal, WTO trade rules would apply. That means a 10% tariff on cars and car parts would be applied on vehicles imported from Britain. The existing profit margin for mass market cars is considerably less than 10%.

The economics of that would trouble any major exporting nation."

The Japanese story has really brought out the xenophobes and the racists on Twitter and BTL - the kind of comments that make you doubt that the average IQ really is 100.

This hasn't had much attention but is a worthwhile read (I know the link looks dodgy, if you don't want to click it's acessible from the open europe website too):

2ihmoy1d3v7630ar9h2rsglp.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Giving_meaning_to_Brexit_Andrew_Tyrie.pdf

It's by the chair the Treasury committee Andrew Tyrie, a one nation Tory that I might vote for if he were in the government . I don't agree with all of what he writes by any stretch, but he must be the first member of the Tory party to clearly identify the issues and to make rational proposals for how to deal with them.

Andrew tyrie was the mp who brought boris Johnson down to size (much good did it do us) when he appeared before his select committee before the ref vote. Johnson was left looking like a superficial fool.

I agree that nothing the Japanese say will swing it (certainly not for brigade who post pictures of Spitfires on Twitter). But what the Japanese do might have a different impact.

Faisal Islam's film www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/09/post-brexit-sunderland-if-this-money-doesnt-go-to-the-nhs-i-will-go-mad interviewed Nissan workers who said, “That Nissan plant is never, ever going to leave Sunderland. They’ll never, ever get a workforce like they’ve got in Sunderland, never ever.” - well, they can and they can.

And also, "Before the vote, David Cameron had told me directly that Brexit could cause job losses at Nissan and that it would be a “self-inflicted wound”. Thoroughgood says such warnings were ignored: “If you’ve got nothing at all, and you are offered to stay where we are because we don’t know what is around the corner, people with nothing will go around the corner every time. What have they got to lose? I think there are lot of people in this area like that.”" Actually losing your job is different from having nothing at all.

It doesn't matter really whether the voters in Sunderland are convinced because neither an early General Election nor 2nd Referendum are in the offing. It does matter that those in Government listen.