EU is horrible. Discuss

[OliviaD68]

3 questions

1. In what way does the EU adversely affect your life at the moment?

1. Which EU laws are you most looking forward to not having to follow post-Brexit?

1. Can you name any tangible difference that Brexit is likely make that the average person will see as a benefit?

@CardinalSin

We really have to do better than that, don't we? There must be something else. I have no offshore investments so I'm not going to win there.

I'm in the mortgage business so might as well sharpen up servicing skills - foreclosures up ?

What hell are we headed into? Led by casual salesman David Davis ...?

Love this by the way. Had to share.

www.channel4.com/news/leave-voting-grimsby-accused-of-double-standards

What the UK needs(needed) was GOOD negotiators whether in the EU or out, I wait to be convinced we have those of sufficient calibre to really do the UK proud. Sadly the 'soundbite' and tabloid headline brigade are masking the real work.

Indeed, and had May when she took over from Cameron said that the result was close and that she would explore the various options available to us which Cameron had dismally failed to do, she might have had the chance to be seen as a great PM. As it stands, unless some miracle happens for her, she is likely to be seen as a complete failure, only interested in appeasing her right wing, who won't be appeased.

We (the UK) are in a unique and dreadful position where the overwhelming minority voted remain.
And in which the admin have to pretend to adhere to the underwhelming majority vote, and push through the worst idea in recent history.
I don't believe for a minute that May or any of the soundbiters she sends out believe we have a hope in hell of making Brexit work.

Outabout, I wouldn't be too sure about the Welsh being the first into these islands. The UK or Britain.

Irish is from a Q-Celtic branch of the Celtic languages family. Some linguists think this a more archaic form than the P-Celtic branch to which Welsh belongs. So, it split off and separated earlier before more newfangled elements arrived in the Celtic language.. This would tie in with them being cut off because they arrived in their little old island and islands, Scottish ones included. Maybe even western Scotland. There is some written Roman references to the 'Scotti' in Western Scotland. Scotti was the Roman term for Gael or Gaelic speaker and did not apply to the Angles or lowland Scot who it came to mean later.

A little bit about the P's and Q's.

www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/39/messages/1103.html

Gaels and Britons
The Celts who arrived in Britain during this period were known to the Romans as Britons. They drove the Gaelic speakers west and north. While Gaels predominated in Ireland, some British tribes seem to have arrived there as well.

www.culturenorthernireland.org/features/heritage/development-irish-language-1

Thanks Cailleach, I was only told the 'Welsh were here first' and I am not a historian. The only relevance to the topic is that most of the British Isles occupants are 'mongrels' to some degree so a political claim to get back to somewhere (reclaim sovereignty or whatever) is ridiculous.
Most of my friends in Europe, if Brexit is mentioned roll their eyes and ask 'what the hell were you thinking'?

@outabout

Re immigration... a few points

1. the BOE has indicated it is mostly responsible for our growth since 2000. Interesting no?

2. half is non EU which we might have control over but choose not to?

3. not sure if true but we have certain EU related immigration control levers that the UK GOVERNMENT has chosen not to use. Anyone know whether this is correct?

My favourite is when people now get their ancestry done. So one out of 24,000 one is more associated with x, y, x populations. But one gene and people will say I'm that.

Stuff like this is a particular bugbear for me because I don't have any daughters. My mitochondrial dna won't be passed to another generation as it only goes from mother to child. Yet I would be as much an ancestor as any maternal grandmother.

Oh gosh yes. We are all probably a fine mix. Even the peoples who gravitated here in the beginning were a mixture of others and probably all the peoples they met on the way and ones they have met since.

Apparently people in the UK are most pleased when they discover they have Viking ancestry. I read this in one of the papers last week.
I tend to think that England is still a country of three parts - the North, Danish influenced part, the south-east, of anglo-saxons, and the west, with I suppose original celts.

Re immigration
2) half is non EU which we might have control over but choose not to?

I believe that more than half is non-EU, which Theresa May whilst at the Home Office was unable to keep control of. This does in a way square with those Leavers in the general population who want to send the Muslims back, because I think most of the non-EU population are from ex-Commonwealth countries, which probably have more Muslim residents than EU countries. No, I don't have any links to back this up right now, although I have read it in the press.

@Peregrina

I don’t get the obsession with Muslims. Just don’t get it.

There are a few extremists- you can find them in many groups (Brexshit for example) - but vast majority are gentle nice people.

I think you’re right that May could not come up with a policy to control non EU immigration.

But most immigrants recently have been EU. Lots of student too. In the last 15 years and probably in terms of numbers you are correct: most are non EU.

With regards to who was here first - science is showing that we've all basically been here for the same amount of time. There is very little norman/ viking/ roman dna left in Britain, and even in the most anglo saxon of areas, saxon only makes up between 10-40% of the dna and the rest is 'Celtic' or earlier. And the so called 'Celts' are a genetically diverse group and always have been. It was never saxons en masse and Celts en masse, it was lots of little groups of entirely different people, some of whom bred with the saxons. It seems that the old 'invade and replace' model that people thought was true just isn't. It was bits of immigration, leading to multiculturalism - but the dna stayed more or less the same. History is a set of lies we have all agreed upon - but science is actual facts, and it is changing the way we understand the past.
www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530134-300-ancient-invaders-transformed-britain-but-not-its-dna/

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31905764

Also don't forget all the subsequent immigration. Romans, and with them people from all over the roman empire, the Lombards, the Huguenots, the flemish, all of whom brought new skills and new ideas into the country.

Bendy / straight bananas. Blue passports. Sovereignty that we haven't lost.

Bananas give me indigestion and I can't afford a passport. Can I get a brexit refund?

We could have navy blue passports now. We could not have ones of the old size, with the little windows in the front cover because they do not meet ICAO standards. Should we be looking to bring back exchange controls as well, where there was a limit as to how much money you could take out of the country?

Does anyone remember the brown one year ec passport? You could get it from the post office on the spot. It was just a folded piece of brown card and they stapled your photo to it. You couldn't imagine it now but that was only in the nineties.

I remember when the Maybot went to India after announcing Article 50 to show what wonderful trade deals we could make, and got sent home after being told that any deal would require much more migration from India!

Yes, I remember the brown 'British Visitors Passports. DH (a hoarder) still has his old ones in the drawer. We also got them for the children when they were small, and didn't want the expense of full passports for a short visit to Belgium.

I remember the Maybot going to India with enormous fanfare, and quietly returning.

I remember the Maybot going to India with enormous fanfare, and quietly returning.

How quickly her (absolutely apposite) nickname has taken hold in the national consciousness. She must really hate John Crace!