The Silence is Deafening

[Crankley]

For the last however long, I have read threads and posts by Remainers stating confidently that the Prime Minister wanted a No Deal, would get a No Deal. Here are just a few quotes. Some Remainers may recognise their own predictions:

'He is going to give us No Deal and then fuck off into the sunset with millons in bungs from his crooked mates,'

'I'm pretty certain on no deal...'

'I fully expect a No Deal Brexit.'

'Bojo will 'deliver' no deal and then F off into the sunset'

'Boris Johnson and your disingenuous divs - How dare you try and spin a NoDeal'

'He was elected to not get a deal and to make his supporters feel good about the fact the had stuck it to the man (or something).'

There are lots more if you want them.

Now he has obtained a deal, where are all the threads by remainers? Do any have the the guts to hold up their hand up and say 'I was wrong'?

@ListeningQuietly

Freedom to study, live, love in another country, no, those things are of no value or use to me whatsoever. From a Citizen of the country that sent people out to explore and then conquer and then liberate the whole world I find that insularity very, very sad.

You might find it very, very sad. Nonetheless, it is true for me. If I'm paying a membership fee I'd like benefits I actually want to have please.

You might find it very, very sad. Nonetheless, it is true for me. If I'm paying a membership fee I'd like benefits I actually want to have please.

And what about the benefits that other people want? Or is it all about you?

@TatianaBis

You might find it very, very sad. Nonetheless, it is true for me. If I'm paying a membership fee I'd like benefits I actually want to have please.

And what about the benefits that other people want? Or is it all about you?

Again "if I'm paying the membership fee...." we aren't members anymore anyhow so it's all a bit academic now.

"Or is it all about you?" Very definitely not! It hasn't been about me for even one day of my near 40 years to date. My "wants" such as they are, start being considered from next Friday.

Louise
You might find it very, very sad. Nonetheless, it is true for me. If I'm paying a membership fee I'd like benefits I actually want to have please.
Do you have Children?
Do you not hope that they might want to explore the world?

I pay taxes for services from which I do not personally benefit.
Its called living in a civilised society.

My Gym has badminton courts. I do not play racquets but accept that they add to the membership service.
I swim every day, my friends who never swim do not resent that there is a pool they do not use but pay for.

Its about looking beyond ones own narrow self interest.

If everybody only got out what they paid in
State funded schooling
the NHS
Roads
clean water
clean air
would not exist (as only 5% of people pay enough personal tax to cover the services they use)

be careful what you wish for

Very definitely not! It hasn't been about me for even one day of my near 40 years to date. My "wants" such as they are, start being considered from next Friday.

So Friday is the day you start to fulfil selfish ‘wants’ that have been denied you in the rest of your life, at the expense of many other people’s.
Interesting. And fairly fucked up.

@LouiseCollins28 what benefits are you personally going to have from 1st January?

@ListeningQuietly

Louise You might find it very, very sad. Nonetheless, it is true for me. If I'm paying a membership fee I'd like benefits I actually want to have please. Do you have Children? Do you not hope that they might want to explore the world?

I pay taxes for services from which I do not personally benefit.
Its called living in a civilised society.

My Gym has badminton courts. I do not play racquets but accept that they add to the membership service.
I swim every day, my friends who never swim do not resent that there is a pool they do not use but pay for.

Its about looking beyond ones own narrow self interest.

If everybody only got out what they paid in
State funded schooling
the NHS
Roads
clean water
clean air
would not exist (as only 5% of people pay enough personal tax to cover the services they use)

be careful what you wish for

I don't have children. I absolutely hope the youngest members of my extended family will be able to explore the world (just to note the individual in question is only just 1, so she wansn't around in 2016!)

I very willingly pay taxes by the bucketload for services I don't benefit from. I'd be absolutely amazed if the level of benefit i draw from actual public services exceeds in £ the total of the taxes I pay. I have no problem with paying taxes to our government whatsoever.

Louise
I have no problem with paying taxes to our government whatsoever.
Even when they squander them on shite ?

I did not realise you did not have kids
interesting

mine are currently wittering at each other while doing a jigsaw
of the cladistic analysis of living species
and I will ALWAYS be furious with those who have curtailed their opportunities

I’m sorry Louise but the idea of representatives that ‘make the laws that govern me’ is no less a pipe dream whether in or out of the EU. The EU never controlled our electoral system, our reliance on two parties in an oppositional system, the FPTP, electoral ward boundaries, the people that stand, the people that are elected, or the lies they spew... I could go on. If such things are genuinely of interest to you then you would have been much better off talking to these people for instance www.electoral-reform.org.uk/

Can someone explain the benefits to Financial Services

Cue @Clavinova posting about the Japan-UK trade deal.

That wasn’t the question being asked -
since financial passporting has been excluded in the EU deal.

Which leads back to my own question about why services (which the UK has enjoyed a trade surplus with the EU) has been ignored in Johnson’s Brave New Deal?

[quote MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes]I’m sorry Louise but the idea of representatives that ‘make the laws that govern me’ is no less a pipe dream whether in or out of the EU. The EU never controlled our electoral system, our reliance on two parties in an oppositional system, the FPTP, electoral ward boundaries, the people that stand, the people that are elected, or the lies they spew... I could go on. If such things are genuinely of interest to you then you would have been much better off talking to these people for instance www.electoral-reform.org.uk/[/quote]
The EU did indeed never control our electoral system. I'm sorry, you seem to doubt that this is of genuine interest to me? That's disgusting frankly. What the EU does have is elected officials I couldn't vote to remove, and plenty of unelected ones to boot.

And that is not the case in the UK??

Knew that was coming. I thought about adding it to my post but nah I thought i'd let somebody else make that point. Yes we have such people in the UK, first things first though, hey!

Britain is not a democracy. It qualifies as what is called a minimal democracy. Most other European countries are rather more so and more ruled by pragmatism and information than charisma and sound bites. You have no more control over who says what on your behalf or any greater say on our laws than you had before. These particular people in power will slap injunctions on media, spin anything the way they want it, manipulate statistics and stories, destroy any public institution that stands in any way for any kind of abstract conception of reality. The y will do what they want to suit them, and people like you will cheer them on in the belief that they’re doing what you asked them, when in fact they have told you what to ask for, when.

I am glad a deal is done and even more glad Teresa May was not in charge, because we would not have got a good deal with her and Ollie negotiating. Let's hope we can get rid of Covid and rebuild our economy.

Waiting for all the BeLeavers to turn their attention to abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate.
And then our first past the post electoral system which basically disenfranchises thousands.
Go on, use your immense powers of persuasion for that. I might even think something positive about you.
#BringUsTogether

@LouiseCollins28 Thank you for making an attempt to answer and putting forward some sort of an argument. However it mostly attacked the Guardian media group and didn't really answer any of the points I made about the drop in standard of living, jobs we will lose or loss in GDP.

You talk about feeling elation from being free from the EU structures and charting our own course. What structures held you or us back before? We've always been free to set our own laws, our parliament has always been sovereign. What EU law or directive held you back from living a better life? We contributed to a vast majority of mechanisms within the EU, did you not notice that we elected British MEP's and held Vetos on things we didn't agree with?

I value my personal freedom hugely, freedom to vote for reprentatives to make the laws that govern me for one.

You have always been able to do that. How did the EU stop you doing that?

Freedom to study, live, love in another country, no, those things are of no value or use to me whatsoever.

I assume you don't have friends, family, perhaps your own children who godforbid might fall in love with another European country one day and might want to study, work or just go on an extended holiday there. Well done for taking that right away just because it was something that is no use to you and your jingoism doesn't allow you to see past that.

You said you valued your personal freedom, how does taking away that freedom give you more freedom? You now have less rights in Britain than a EU passport holder who has duel nationality or residency here.

Bojo says he is disappointed with the Financial Services deal.... err BJ...there isn't one.

You mean we don't have an Australian style deal? Oh wait, that's No Deal.

@Clavinova I answered this yesterday - Facebook and Google US entities use tech/media/advertising agencies in the US. Facebook and Google's European finance entities are based in Ireland, just because they are building a new campus in London it doesn't help when it comes to services, we still invoice their Ireland address - they don't want to pay tariffs on top of any services. London based agencies that deal with them can't compete now because of those tariffs.

sally067 you asked somebody from a Leave POV to react to the artcle. What did you expect me to say? "OMG they're right, what a horrible mistake?"

What the EU does have is elected officials I couldn't vote to remove, and plenty of unelected ones to boot.

We don’t elect PMs

We don’t even vote for a PM or even a cabinet, and I’m not sure how we could under FPTP. If you are a conservative voter living in a Labour safe seat or vice versa your vote is largely irrelevant anyway. It’s possible in the UK for a party to lose the popular vote but still get the most seats (and thus be the party that decides who the PM is).

Perhaps we should move to a more presidental system of directly electing our leader. But it’s not what we have now. I have no idea why you’d want to pretend otherwise.

What did you expect me to say? "OMG they're right, what a horrible mistake?"

Why not? Politics isn't a game of football, you don't pick a side and then that's your team. I have forgiven many people who voted Brexit in 2016. It was a horrible time - 6 years of right wing austerity and 25+ years of underinvestment in many parts of the country through centre-right governments had disenfranchised many. Not to mention the lies of the leave campaign.

I can 100% understand someone who voted to leave. What I can't understand is those who are sticking by it and can't actually come up with any pro's now the deal has been done and we can actually see what it means for us all. I find it even harder to engage with those that put across mean-spirited points of view such as yours regarding free movement.

Thank you @LouiseCollins28 for answering some of the questions in a polite way. I much prefer proper discussions to bunfights! How do you feel about the 4% reduction in GDP in the medium term? Do you worry it will affect the UK's future?

I don't feel that being in the EU robbed us of our sovereignty, we still had our own laws. It's interesting to see it is a big point for leave voters.

Out of interest, did you feel like we should leave the EU before the UKIP campaign? It didn't seem to be a big deal before then, then it became something very divisive.

The intelligent Leave voters I know (and I don’t know many) have all conceded that it was indeed a horrible mistake.

@sally067

What did you expect me to say? "OMG they're right, what a horrible mistake?"

Why not? Politics isn't a game of football, you don't pick a side and then that's your team. I have forgiven many people who voted Brexit in 2016. It was a horrible time - 6 years of right wing austerity and 25+ years of underinvestment in many parts of the country through centre-right governments had disenfranchised many. Not to mention the lies of the leave campaign.

I can 100% understand someone who voted to leave. What I can't understand is those who are sticking by it and can't actually come up with any pro's now the deal has been done and we can actually see what it means for us all. I find it even harder to engage with those that put across mean-spirited points of view such as yours regarding free movement.

Why not? because I have, as I think I said on this thread or possibly another on this same board, lived under the auspices of the EEC, EU for very nearly 40 years. Leaving the EU has been "my team" as you put it, for as long as I've had a political conscience. I've gone back and forth in my level of investment a bit, as a supporter sometimes does, but I've rarely been in serious doubt that leaving was the outcome I wanted to see. You seem to want a very different society from the one you've experienced over the last 10 years or so. I want a different one from the one i've known for the last 25.