A Brexiters chat with a German on a Portuguese beach.

[themueslicamel]

Just got back from Portugal and when there was on s beach where I left my shoes on s rock, s nice German chap brought them over and asked me where I was from (London) and how I voted in the referendum.

I was honest and told him I backed leave and we had an interesting conversation.

I told him my reasons for doings so, pro Europe, anti EU and confirmed I was for immigration, just having controls over who we let in and in what number.

I said we should and will take our share of refugees however I did not like the way the EU was going with the EU army on the horizon and feels we should look to trading freely with the rest of the world too.

He said many Germans feel let down as they need us as an economic powerhouse to pay in and we should close the borders with Africa and send all of the migrants back.

Some of his views seemed to be along the lines of what is often thrown against brexiters, and I appreciate it was a lone view but closing borders and sending people back seemed at least to him to be the way forward.

Not sure where I am going with this, just thought it may be of interest on this forum and provide an alternate (albeit limited) prospective.

Also not forgetting:

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/09/bumper-year-english-wine-figures-show-now-130m-industry/amp/

Bumper year for British wines - haven't had a glass though so can't vouch for it personally!

I'd try a British wine definitely. And I have - it's jolly nice. I've visited British vineyards too. I'm obvs a crap Remainer, because we all hate Britain and want it fail don't we? God I'm so confused

Funny, after 128 comments, common ground at last!

Booze 🍷

Maybe it's the thing to reunite us all, fuck it, let's get pissed and it'll all be fine in the morning.....

Cheers!

Ah booze, but we have to all go to bed now, before we go too far and it all gets nasty.

Is there a way to bring remainers and leavers back together? I cna't speak to my mother about it at all, as she voted brexit. Don't get me wrong, I see her all the time, but we just can't talk about brexit.

I know I'm right though - she was for the Iraq war, and I was against. Same thing there - we just don't talk about it. I was right about the Iraq War (we shouldn't have gone in) and I'm right about Brexit (we shouldn't).

Sorry to disturb the booze party but I just wanted to leave this here.
www.desmog.uk/2017/08/07/oil-company-boss-and-major-tory-brexit-donor-named-director-climate-science-denying-gwpf?amp

For those in any doubt - I was being facetious above ^^

Anyway, I'll give way to more serious debate now... I can't be arsed anymore.

Over to you Valentine (

Quick update for anyone interested, on the downside you can't get any in Sainsbury's or Tesco's (online anyway) but Waitrose do a good selection. I will try a bottle at the weekend and report back with my in depth analysis

Shoes - we are halfway there, I was against the Iraq war but we will have to agree to disagree on the other issue.

Cheers Time4choc. I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised by Brit wine. We'll always have Iraq in common....

You can't beat a really good French Sancerre though...

(I really will stop now).

Is there a way to bring remainers and leavers back together?

Probably not. One thing the referendum has been very successful at is exposing a huge amount of ugliness in this country.

The government, too, has played a massive part in fomenting division, as has the mainstream media.

Valentine - well blow me down, I didn't realise Nigel Lawson was a climate change denier.I wonder if Nigella shares his view? Every day really is a school day!

First thing I was told when I arrived at work the day after the brexit elections (lighthearedly of course because someone's entire family life and career are such a light subject):

• When are you getting deported then?

*lightheartedly

Fuck gonnabreak That is shit.

Every time I think "ohh, how can leavers and remainers be brought back together" - someone tells that sort of story. And I just think fuck it, fuck Leavers.

Sorry. I can never be reconciled to "that" sort of Leaver

It is like a cult of rather dangerous tendencies. I was looking at the map of Britain in 2100 if the sea levels keep rising. It is scary to the point of being a horror movie. We basically won't be there anymore except for Scotland. Imagine having to take a boat to get to Bedfordshire from St Albans. And we won't have either Cambridge or London too apparently. That's all within the life time of my DCs.
We need as big a talk on this as on Brexit.

Ffs, climate change denying should be a criminal offence.

Fuck arguing about brexit, I stand shoulder to shoulder with you on this one.

Did you see the Co-op are doing English meat now, not sure if 100%, but I do use them a bit, as small shop near the house.
I was also pleased to see Courgettes were not bought for an early crop this year as the prices were just too high.
Maybe we will have to get used to only eating things in season, or paying high prices for luxury goods.

i don't think the split will be healed for 20 + years. Because of the demographic differences in voting patterns, I expect that eventually there will be a natural 'healing', with a common enemy, possibly in the form of the institution formerly known as the Conservative party, and perhaps 'the older generation' who 'thought they knew best'.

In my view the only thing that would 'heal' a rupture as severe as this any sooner would be a huge external threat such as a war.

I try pretty hard to eat seasonally and eating things in season means a long winter of cabbage, carrots, leeks and cauliflower. No fruit from Febuary to May.

Great, looking forward to that then.

Good luck finding people to pick all this British fruit and veg in the brave new world of Brexit.

Wonder how the JAM's are getting on with the higher food prices? Remember Brexit was all about helping the left behinds and struggling communities.

Picking whether your 28% figure for manufacturing is correct or not the fact is that as Valentine has highlighted the UK is a service based economy and services account for 70%. Margaret Thatcher made a deliberate choice seeing the emerging competitive threat to our manufacturing base from developing economies to focus on those sectors of the economy that would derive a competitive advantage from the skills emerging from our universities, where value could be added. I know this only too well having grown up in a Northern city where the economy was focused on the textile industry, what is left now focuses on producing the very highest quality textiles for the couture designers.

I don't dispute we have a thriving SME sector engaged in manufacturing and it has laboured hard to spread economic activity across the regions in the way that others, like Science and Financial Services (though people underestimate the scale of economic activity that Financial Services and especially the back office activities have spread out across the regions, activity that is very vulnerable to the effects of Brexit) have failed to. I would agree that with the sort of investment in infrastructure that the MD of Jaguar proposed the sector could achieve so much more but it ain't going to happen is it?

However it is a hard competitive world out there and with the exception of marketing to niches like the one above anything we can do other economies are working hard on doing better. China is even working on its branding so that it can target the luxury brands end of markets where U.K. Companies have been able to achieve exponential growth rates, now stalling. Are you seriously arguing that the manufacturing sector can compensate by trading globally outside the EU for the damage done to Science, our knowledge economy and the services industries by Brexit? If so I would really like to see some viable marketing plans to back that up because I work on the Asian marketing plans of businesses and in almost every case they are focused on competitive advantages that arise from our capabilities in Science, Tech, Engineering, the knowledge economy and creative and financial services that are underpinned by the benefits of being in the EU. All of the plans for that global trading in sectors which account for most of our trade with the rest of the world will be undermined not facilitated by Brexit.

As to why the Brexit select committees did indeed talk to Trade Unionists (as well as business leaders) details here www.tuc.org.uk/international-issues/europe/eu-referendum/we-need-clear-plan-brexit-gets-best-britain

Op finds a German racist and is surprised. So makes a thread about it to support their view that Brexit is the right thing.

Wow.

The confirmation bias here is staggering.

I spent the last week in Germany, they all think we are mad, especially those in industry.