I am European

[RedToothBrush]

Its 1:20pm in Brussels.

I AM EUROPEAN.

I wasnt talking to you

I am not upset about brexit or hysterical

I am fed up of all the posts saying that people who are unhappy with the result should leave the country

Or querying why people arent leaving the country

And im not european

As far as I can see, the problem with the Maastricht treaty is that it insists on "sound fiscal policy". That sounds good to do away with!

It then goes on about the 3 pillars, which is a bit nebulous, but seems to be mostly focused on setting up bodies to oversee harmonisation of trading principals. What so many Brexiters don't seem to comprehend (as well as so much else) is that even for WTO trading, we'll have to abide by the rules of a forrin body in order to trade.

The creation of the pillar system was the result of the desire by many member states to extend the European Economic Community to the areas of foreign policy, military, criminal justice, and judicial cooperation.

This I have the problem with. I don't want nobdies (and I mean nobdies) dictating to us what our foreign policies should be, how we run our criminal justice system and giving us quotas on everything.and anything.

rufus Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it
Mark Twain backs you

"The 10 richest countries in the world, in terms of GDP per head and excluding oil kingdoms, are:

Luxembourg 92,297 (GDP per capita, $ per annum)
Macau 61,638
Singapore 59,871
Norway 58,715
Bermuda 53,565
Australia 49,460
United States 46,569
Switzerland 45,397
Netherlands 42,594
Canada 42,591

The 10 richest countries in the world in terms of total wealth are:

United States 15,684,750 (total GDP $m per annum)
China 8,227,037
Japan 5,963,969
Germany 3,400,579
France 2,608,699
United Kingdom 2,440,505
Brazil 2,395,968
Russia 2,021,960
Italy 2,014,019
India 1,824.832

Notice that only the United States appears in both lists and 9 out of 10 of the countries with the highest income per head of population have little international influence. It is not necessary to live in a country that has international influence to be wealthy. The argument that we can only be wealthy in a large, influential country is simply untrue."

Cutie You have avoided my question

How can you not abhor the division of countries that resulted in millions of deaths, the economic exploitation, the torture and imprisonment, the restrictions on human rights, the destruction of cultural heritage? Whatever we abhor in terms of modern "British values" we surely have to abhor in our own past especially when people in other countries have long memories?

cutie

foreign policy, military, criminal justice, and judicial cooperation

where did you get the impression that we were being dictated to over our criminal justice system or, indeed foreign policy? Do you have examples?

The Iraq war managed to happen post-Maastricht. I can't think of anything criminal justice related which is connected to the EU, can you?

Unfortunately I am British, and ashamed to be so.

I really, really wish I could swap (burn) my British passport for an EU one.

Cutie

Have you ever studied economies? Clearly not.

Luxembourg is a place to park money, Macau is a place to gamble money (more than the rest of the world combined - mostly the proceeds of corruption, so taking hit under Xi's crackdowns), Singapore is a trading hub for the whole of Asia - and with the highest living costs in the world, Bermuda, another place to park money, Switzerland ditto. All ten are part of trading blocks and certainly do not offer a model for post Brexit Britain.

The parts of the british economy that earn us a living in the global economy are services (70%) particularly financial services, high tech engineering, science and technology, the knowledge economy and the creative industries. All of these will be particularly hard hit by the loss of the benefits of the EU - the cake we can't have and eat it too as Philip Hammond acknowledged today.

Please tell me what plan or model you can offer for how we rebuild our economy after the loss of these benefits. How else are we going to compete with economies like the US, China, Japan, Germany, France, Brazil India etc.

What people identify as was always more what the vote ended up being about rather than anything else. Being European is being an EU citizen in terms of 2017 which is precisely why young people voted differently to older ones.

Being "European" is no more about being physically located in Europe than being "British" is defined by being physically located in Britain.

The European citizenship that is being taken away from us confers certain rights - rights that we are set to lose.

I was a pre-2004 (pre full free movement) immigrant to the EU and it wasn't half as simple as lying brexiters would have you believe: in 1998 my British partner was refused an (obligatory) residence card in an EU country (he was not working, but was self-supporting).

If we're inventing new words, it would surely make sense to include Blocsplaining, Fearsplaining, Champagnesocialistsplaining, Ourexpertsarebetterthanyourssplaining, Youngpeopleknowbestsplaining and Weknowbetterthanstupidnorthernpoorpeoplewhatisbestforthemsplaining.

^ more leavesplaining

I am Scottish European. Spent most of my life wanting to be Scottish but went off in the wrong direction and became European. To my delight I found I like it. What I shall become next is not yet apparent.

I had always picturing becoming American and Scottish before I retired. The American is certainly within reach, but now it does not seem like such a good thing.

Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it

Ooh i like it hashi

Being European is being an EU citizen in terms of 2017 which is precisely why young people voted differently to older ones.

I don't think that's the case. The EU "citizenship" invented a couple of decades ago has never been synonymous with being European, particularly for those who do not wish to accept both labels.

Those of us who had EU "citizenship" thrust on us in the 90s didn't have the choice to opt out, or to renounce it without also renouncing our British citizenship. TBH it was bizarre to find ourselves "citizens" of something which was supposed to just be a "common market".

There was no good reason for the EU to blatantly award itself all the identifiers of a country. A flag, anthem, president, parliament, courts, passport, borders around itself but movement within, legal supremacy, army, tax system, motto, or to unnecessarily start calling everyone in member states its "citizens". Unless of course, the goal was that eventually, there would be only a small step left to take until total political unity, and no-one would notice until it was too late.

Many of the remainer under-25s still live at home or haven't experienced much time outside full-time education. As time goes by, and as people grow older, wiser and more pragmatic, it may well be easier to see that unfortunately the EU is far removed from the idealised, benevolent utopia they thought they knew.

more leavesplaining

Cutie,

You complain about the three pillars under the Maastricht Treaty, but you do realise, I assume, that that structure was abandoned when the Lisbon Treaty came in (2009)?

For the record, I am European. Never more so.

Itinery Greatoldmansplaining but I think you will find that the under 35s have a great deal more experience of the world than you give them credit for

Also as a northerner I would really love to hear some constructive suggestions for how we revitalise the economy, don't give a rats arse who they come from, best suggestions I have heard were from a Scientist from overseas, a transport infrastructure to link places like Hull and Barnsley into scientific business hubs centred on the knowledge economy in Leeds Manchester and Sheffield. Not going to happen is it in brave New "only old southern votes matter" Brexit Britain

If you want scientific business hubs, you were much more likely to get them in the EU, where we got more than our share of research funding. Brexit has been a disaster for UK academia and UK science.

If you want scientific business hubs, you were much more likely to get them in the EU, where we got more than our share of research funding. Brexit has been a disaster for UK academia and UK science.