British Indy: What Happens Now?

Me personally,

I didn't vote leave.

hate is a bit strong, but I don't like where the EU project is heading,

Macron:
He describes the EU as "not just an economic market" but a "project"

I can't really explain why I feel like this, but the general feeling I get is that the EU wants some sort of world domination

 

World domination? I think China and the US might have something to say about that.
You’re not in a James Bond film, you know.
But you might not like the cinema when your Leave wishes come true.

 

Would the EU have something to say about China or US world domination ?

I can't afford to go to the cinema.

 

I'll have to wait for it to be on TV anyway.
Cinema is too expensive now, after I wasted all my money on a new porche and holiday that I might not be able to fly to

 

Yes.
Imagine a divided Europe with no EU, no single market. What are you going to do in negotiations with your, say, 40m not overly wealthy Spaniards vs 1bn Chinese who make everything?
The Single Market is 700m comparatively very well-off consumers who are also well-educated. It’s a different prospect for the US or China to negotiate with. It also creates internal prosperity trading with itself.

But Brexit seeks to deny that reality by insisting that Britain has the clout, alone, to get better deals. WTF?

The UK is part of Europe. It shares a history and broadly the same political thinking (centrist, democratic). And guess what, it shares geography. It makes sense to bandy together to defend your interests. Problem is, the UK doesn’t seem to know where it’s best interests lie. With China? Ah, that might explain why you want them to build your power infrastructure. Doh!

 

But the UK doesn't want to rival China and the US militarily, economically and politically, which is why it wants to be out on its own. Still, the UK has a big stick - nuclear weapons - so by God, people better take it seriously!

Or does it want these aims by reviving the Empire and clubbing together with Australia, Canada, Nigeria and India et al and being top dog, like back in the old days?

It doesn't make a lot of sense from where I am sitting unless you think that China and the US are are load of philanthropists who only have our best interests at heart. Or you really do believe that some form of the British Empire (that'll be The Commonwealth, then) will rise again to provide the 4th bloc. You'd have to be delusional to think that, but then as we have already established, Brexiteers are largely delusional, or at the least very good at swallowing illusions.

 

At least you got your Porsche before they become at least 10% more expensive. That would be £££ down the drain!

 

(that'll be The Commonwealth, then) will rise again to provide the 4th bloc.
a wee factoid. on average, every seven days some country, somewhere celebrates its independence from the uk.
none have asked to return to the busom of the mother of govs.
just saying.

 

If only it had stayed as a trading block, there would be so much happiness around.

 

you need laws for a trading block.
if only there hadnt been austerity and finger pointing.

 

I've actually given this post a lot of thought over the last hour.

Brexiteers - not all but many - don't resent the immigration (hmm, we may have to agree to disagree about that) and they secretly accept that the economy is going to go tits up (it's beginning - bye bye car manufacturing) but they don't care. They don't care because their Brexit view is fuelled by some sort of indefinable malaise.

Why do Brexiteers tend to be older? Is it because they are wiser? Hmm. Certainly doesn't look like it.

No, I have my own indefinable feeling and it's this (bear with me):

I was born in 1960, a mere 15 years after the War. To put that in perspective, 9/11 happened 17 and a half years ago, and it still seems pretty recent. At primary school in the mid-60s, we were still pretending to be glorious Wellingtons, Lancasters and Spitfires bombing and shooting the evil Hun. We read those black and white comic books about commando raids. We watched films about the War. We watched Colditz. Our culture was steeped in the War. You still had atlases coloured largely in red. The school buildings in the 70s at my school were things that had been put up in the War. The school (just the local grammar) had a CCF where my fellow pupils would pretend to be soldiers with real guns.

This could have been formative for me, but it wasn't anything that didn't rub off as I got older. But imagine that I'd been born 10 years earlier and that I was 68 and not 58. How much stronger would those feelings be? I'd have grown up with a real sense of entitlement about Britain's place in the world and I might be tempted to see Merkel as a jackboot Chancellor, stomping over Europe, imposing her will. I might feel aggrieved that The Land Fit For Heroes To Live In (©Lloyd George - sorry, wrong war) was now just an "EU vassal state".

This indefinable feeling might be compounded by the simple fact that I had more fun when I was younger. I was better looking, had more nookie, life was more exciting with fewer responsibilities. I rode my Ducati far more and had far more adventures. Things were better before. There was more hope, more sense of what the future might bring. Everyone old pretty much feels that. Now we are fatter, we have odd ailments and diseases. Your other half... well, they're not exactly the person you married, are they?

Of course, now you drink fine wines, you eat out more in better restaurants, you go on frequent exotic holidays and weekends away. You've got a nice motor, a comfortable house. Great kids - grown up now. But life just isn't as fun, really, is it?

And then some people come along and tell you it could all be like it was. A proud, strong, independent Britain, sticking it to those that would defy it. We won't be passengers heading to our inevitable decline, Brexit will re-energise the nation. It will re-energise me. The country will magically depopulate and there will be more space and your doctor will come to visit you in your sickbed when you have the flu, like they did in the 60s and early 70s. There won't be any traffic jams because the roads will declutter. Your kids will be able to buy a house just like you could. They won't have to be unpaid interns at some crappy company; they'll waltz into jobs like you did in 1970.

That is the hope of Brexit - a renaissance for the country which will bring about your personal renaissance. That is why the old are so keen on it. The young don't want it. They didn't know the War, didn't see Colditz and are a too busy exchanging Instagram photos with someone in the Czech Republic. They aren't looking back because there is nothing to look at in their short lives. They are looking forward to more cheap travel and weekends away. The chimera of Brexit doesn't work for them. They've never had a doctor visit them, they can't see that it is likely they will suddenly get a house, or waltz into a job. None of these things are realities for them. They are just as likely to vote for the return of the horse-drawn carriage to get them about.

Now, if you're youngish and you've been educated at Eton and Oxbridge, constantly surrounded by centuries of history and old stone, and you spend your holidays in your country pile with Nanny to help bring you up or bring your kids up, like Rees Mogg or Boris, well, you might believe that the EU and the march of progress might threaten this existence. You might think that your experience is in some way typical of what everyone can expect. But you'd be wrong. That is because most of the country is living on a bleak housing estate with no prospects. The word "estate" is the only thing that these two experiences have in common, even if the world doesn't mean the same to both sets of dwellers.

I could write more, but I won't. I'm sure you get the idea about my "indefinable feeling". Brexit is a mirage, being pursued by people with different agendas, but it's a mirage for all that and a thirsty country is gagging for it.

 

Not entirely. True, as a non Shengen country we had a right to block anyone from the eu and there was no right of automatic entry however, the deal blair made in regards to the 10 new countries coming into the eu and their people's movement gave us Schengen but not in name.

Some may remember this as when he was asked how many did he think would come over from europe after these changes he guessed around 8-16 thousand. To date there are 3.8 million eu citizens in the U.K.

Now, I don't blame them as many came from ex soviet countries who were on their knee's.

On this I would also add as has been recognised by many in the eu parliaments that the U.K. was seen as a steadfast country of openness but also willing to stand up and say no to the big boys of France and Germany. When we did though in regards to the Migration sunami, we were called racists and xenophobes, scare mongers etc etc and yet now we have proven to be right and the eu is paying turkey to build walls and keep people out, some eu countries have taken the option to amend their own responsibility within shengen from putting up fences, guards and borders again

Now Glid, you seem to have swallowed the remaniac how to book. Sure you could find someone on camera shouting stop the immigrants but if you believe that small minority is the majority of brexiteers then you do so for self serving convenience.

The vast majority of brexiteers did NOT want immigration stopped but simply asked for controlled immigration. A system that regulary reviews our shortfall in skills and then selects those best suited to enhance the uk. Something many eu countries are now looking at and many countries outside of the eu already apply.

 

Such sillyness. The U.K. has been saying almost every month, if you are already here, please stay, you're valued. The same cannot be said for the other 27 of the eu

 

The government may well be saying that. But that isn't how many of the migrants concerned feel. Their interviews are legion. That is not how they are being treated in their everyday lives. Well, there's got to be some reason why fewer Europeans are coming here now or going home.

 

have you picked up a book of sillyness this morning?

One part was the ability to control our own finances as the eu was and is moving towards a central budgetary control for the 28, from brussels
One part was the wish to have controlled migration as it was clear things were getting out of control and whilst called racist and xenphobes for saying such a thing, we have been proved very right throughout europe
We don't hate the eu, it's simply going down a federalisr route that would see nations resembling local councils, we said that was a direction we don't want to go down, wished them well on their project but we wish to leave the eu project whilst still remaining a friend to europe

Put down the remainers handbook glid, as entertaining as it is to listen to, jackanory has more oomph