Any Leavers here?

[HoyPolloy]

Been reading all these threads on here about Brexit and just wondered if anyone voted Leave?
Fwiw, I did.
If you voted Leave what do you anticipate will happen before 29/03?

Dont be shy, I can't be the only Leaver on here!

Singapore is not a democracy.

has anyone defined 'successful' democracy?
EU has 28/81 of the world's high income economies as defined by world bank but keep in mind that that list includes places like Oman, Hong Kong & Brunei (neither full democracy nor fully autonomous). EU has 25/36 of OECD members (OECD members have to be higher income countries & democracies, hence why Mexico is a member & Singapore is not).

Probably speaking to the wind since many folk only like their own existing opinions & not objective evidence.

Singapore IS a democracy. It is not what you would envisage one to be, but it is.

They have one very dominant party and a couple of other, new growing parties that are becoming more popular. The one party has dominated politics for a reason. It has been very, very successful. Very, very low crime, low taxes, great schools and education system, massive help with housing and a government run pension scheme that is excellent. Where else in the world would you find government housing blocks with playgrounds, swimming pools, landscape gardening and BBQ pits? That's why one party dominates. It appears to be a benevolent dictatorship but it is actually a democracy. They get to vote and they do get a choice but to not vote in the main party and lose those benefits would be a bit idiotic and the Singaporeans know which side of their bread is buttered.

I wonder if tiny Singapore is exactly like the UK? No, wait, it's nothing like it.

Why Singapore is not democractic enough to be a member of OECD.

What good can come of Brexit?

I ask because I'm still confused with what leavers thought would happen and what they thought they were voting for??

All I see is negatives in leaving, especially with a no deal. So if someone could list the good things that can come of this it may make more sense to me. Tia

The struggle for democracy in Singapore.

Same party in power since 1959.

www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/30s9sz/why_do_people_say_singapore_does_not_have_freedom/

I love it when people start posting negatives links about Singapore. I lived and worked there for 12 years.

Britain's democracy is a choice between one shite party or another. Singapore's choice is one party who do an amazing job or a very small party who have no experience in power. They choose the status quo. This brings criticism but believe me they don't care what we think. The only thing the Singaporean government cares about is its citizens.

Criticising them really is a case of why do you look at the splinter in my eye when you have a plank in your own.

But this is the UK, not Singapore. Any idea that we are potentially the same economically or politically is just fantasy.

Thinking we can be like Singapore because it’s perceived to be better than Britain is the same flawed logic that got us into the EEC/EC/EU. The constant self loathing that can only be conquered by slavishly copying others. Actually this is a brilliant country and can solve its problems with unique British solutions.

If we No Deal it's going to take more than good old British ingenuity to make it better.

Plumbing is predicted to be a major shortage profession soon (from a pro-Brexit mouthpiece). Plumbing has been on the occupational shortage list for Australia in recent yrs.

The constant self loathing that can only be conquered by slavishly copying others. Actually this is a brilliant country and can solve its problems with unique British solutions

Don't disagree with any of that.
The UK is a great country, where we would disagree is that i look at UK pre EEC and see a broken country, despite being 30 years since WW2 and having had the lions share of US money and subsequent North Sea Oil,
yet it is whilst being in the EU/EEC and due to a v close trading relationship that has seen the UK grow to the 5th richest country in the world (albeit based on property prices) the world's 9th largest exporter of manufactured goods, 3rd if services included, fantastic science, Uni, pharma, tech and engineering sectors.

Triumph M/c's makes 50,000 bikes per year exports 40k, (has factories in Brazil and Asia) recently won a contract to supply racing engines for a world wide race series from Honda... all this is now at stake because of brexit, the EU makes our industries more competitive NOT less!

The issue with the UK is the money goes to so few and the same people will be in charge post brexit and there will be nothing you or i can do about it, as the voting system (and media) makes it impossible for a new party to gain support and MPs e.g ukip.

The issue with the UK is the money goes to so few

UK North Sea oil revenues were ploughed into tax cuts for the wealthy.

Norwegian North Sea oil revenues were ploughed into a Sovereign wealth fund for all.

I don’t know anything about Singapore. How does it afford to look after its citizens so well if it’s a v low tax economy?

No deal, by which you mean WTO rules is how most self-governing normal countries trade. Studying the works of David Ricardo, you’d realise that in order to have resources efficiently used and protect the environment every country should be on WTO terms or preferably no tariffs at all.

Not trying to wave an expert at us @SingleDadReally, are you?. They are , by default, discredited.
Surely this wizard scheme only works if everyone flushes themselves economically down the toilet by trading solely on WTO.
I think you'll find that boring old free trade agreements are not without their massive social political and economic advantages.

No deal, by which you mean WTO rules is how most self-governing normal countries trade.

WTO rules form the basis of trade between the WTO members, but even for countries that don’t have FTAs there are a myriad of bilateral agreements to ease the trade of goods and services, eg there are over 100 agreements between the EU and the US.

It doesn’t matter how much “good old British ingenuity” we have. Or how much self confidence.
We are going to be totally on the back foot with every country we try and negotiate a deal with, and they will know it! It’s utterly shit trying to negotiate a deal for a client when the other side know they are desperate. There will be no chance of Britain coming up top in desperate negotiations. To think otherwise is equivalent to hoping that if we jump off a cliff top we will grow wings.

Singapore also has a problem with slavery. Are we saying we want that too?

can solve its problems with unique British solutions.

We should put this statement into the context of brexiters being completely unable to come up with a workable "technological" solution to a post-brexit Irish border, and the revelation that when brexiters talked about Britain's innovative jams they actually meant pretend traffic jams at a disused airfield.

No deal Brexit would certainly be a "unique British solution" though. I think we can all agree with that. Unique because no one else would be so fucking stupid.

@Buteo

Do you have a link or list of the 100 eu us deals?

{No deal, by which you mean WTO rules is how most self-governing normal countries trade.}
The WTO sets out a schedule of RULES (like you would in a game of tennis) There are base levels of tariffs set which are bad for anyone actually using them. Maybe say that your tennis game starts with 3 points each. However once you are a member, which the UK is in it's own right it may then negotiate better terms with countries it would like to trade with. Currently the UK is riding on the back of the tariffs that the EU has negotiated with IIRC about 70 countries that are NOT in the EU, and that all countries in the EU trade among themselves tariff free.Thus the UK is on a level playing field with the EU27 and has access to the other 70 markets.
When the UK leaves it rips up all these agreements and reverts to the 'base rates' and will have to renegotiate with EVERYBODY else.
What makes this a bit more 'fun' is that all countries trading with a particular product, say lamb, ALL have a say in what new negotiated tariffs will be, even if they are not selling/buying to you directly. So for lamb, UK selling to France would have New Zealand, Australia, Argentina/whoever at the table and they can all chip in to the discussion, and van effectively veto or block trade. This has to be repeated for every item or component part of anything we want to trade. So a vacuum cleaner could have different tariffs for the cable, the motor, the main body and the dust bag. Modern manufacturing sources parts globally, so every country which trades with these parts gets a seat at the table. So saying 'just use WTO rules' is rather more complicated and is why trade deals take up to 10 years. The UK can't change from 'base rate' tariffs until new ones have been negotiated.

Actually this is a brilliant country and can solve its problems with unique British solutions.

We have seen the current government in action and I am not seeing any brilliance just total incompetence - years of austerity, more homeless people on the streets, housing crisis, mental health crisis, Universal Credit, cuts to education and policing. They failed us all miserably by calling a referendum that was not for the benefit of the country but about party politics and personal political ambitions then failed to negotiate and come up with a plan to deliver the result without trashing the economy.

What makes you think that given their track record they will suddenly rise to the occasion and deliver a unique British solution?

We are a brilliant country. But feeling that isn't enough. It certainly won't magic stuff into supermarkets in the short term.

Here you go @KennDodd

ec.europa.eu/world/agreements/searchByCountryAndContinent.do?countryId=6063&countryName=United%20States%20of%20America&countryFlag=treaties