Jump to content

What happens if Britain exits Europe


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 106
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I'm baffled by the implied suggestion that Britain should be throwing out people right, left and centre, but that British people living overseas should retain their right to do so. How does that work, then?

Incidentally, irrelevant though it may be, I am amused that 59%of the UK population profess to be "Christian", yet on average, only around 800,000 people in the whole of the UK attend church on an average Sunday. Seems plenty of people are prepared to get exercised about the UK being a "Christian" country, but they're not entirely committed to the idea...?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="nomoss"]WTF has the above got to do with Britain exiting Europe????
[/quote]

I have to put my hands up and say it was my fault.

What I was trying to say that particular newspapers make news out of something that is true but put out of context. I was attempting to explain there are migrants from Europe looking to work in the UK, there are refugees seeking asylum and there are people who immigrate to the UK. The number in the last two will NOT change should the UK leave the EU and they account for well over half the "immigrants" each year. When ONS numbers are mentioned it pays to go their website and look for yourself as they are often quoted out of context in the media.

I tried to show that these newspapers (and Ukip) make out that leaving the EU will stop immigration and it won't but then are their really that many of them. If you believe certain newspapers the typical (white, Christian) UK citizen is in the decline whilst the UK is being populated by millions of Muslims (like all 2.7M or 5% worth) where as nothing could be further from the truth. Therefore when it comes to the EU why should you believe the media as well which is why it pays to do your own research and be sceptical about what you read in newspapers. I am not saying they lie all the time but they can twist things to make a point which is the view of the political and social group they support.

Next thing you know somebody puts link to a YouTube video about a small group who are demonstrating about how a Muslim woman who possibly badly treated by the local police as an example of how all Muslims thought and acted in the UK and then suggested they all be sent ‘home’ when in fact many are second, third and even forth generation British Muslims so it would be a bit difficult to know where to send them. Likewise to say every Muslm held the same vies is wrong. The stupidity of the inflection is that it wouldn’t happen of course regardless of if the UK was in the EU or not. So again leaving the EU will make no difference to the bulk of immigrants entering the UK but only to the amount of EU migrants which is the smallest group. So if you based you vote just on that you could be making a big mistake.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]I'm baffled by the implied suggestion that Britain should be throwing out people right, left and centre, but that British people living overseas should retain their right to do so. How does that work, then?

Incidentally, irrelevant though it may be, I am amused that 59%of the UK population profess to be "Christian", yet on average, only around 800,000 people in the whole of the UK attend church on an average Sunday. Seems plenty of people are prepared to get exercised about the UK being a "Christian" country, but they're not entirely committed to the idea...?[/quote]

I thought that that was the worry about the 'english' bible when it came out, that people would be able to read it themselves, not need the priests and be able to worship where ever they wanted?

I know quite a few people who go to church, so I am assuming that they 'beleive'. I also know lots of people who believe in 'god' and never go to church other than for funerals, christenings and weddings; they happily believe in this entity and cannot accept that there is literally nothing. And that is an awful lot of the people I know. So that so many say that they are christian does not surprise me at all, in fact I would have imagined it would have been a higher figure. I won't ever go into a church for any sort of service anymore. I sit outside, and if say, it is a funeral, I pay my respects as the coffin goes in and out, but I am NEVER going in, to listen to the religious drivel ever again.  I will go in at other times though and look at the architecture, that which 'men' have made.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I repeat my earlier post as most people seem to have ignored it or misunderstood.

If Britain exits Europe the effects on British people living in France, as opposed to holiday home owners, can only be guessed at as far as such things as pensions and health care are concerned.

What is certain is that the internal politics and decisions of the French government will have a bigger impact on our lives than anything happening in the UK.  For 'example if Marine Le Pen is elected she has said that she wants to do away with double nationality, so it would no longer be possible to have a dual  British/French passport which is the route most of those who say they are 'taking French  nationality' 'actually choose

Perhaps at last we would see some interest in the current affairs of the country we live in...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="NormanH"]I repeat my earlier post as most people seem to have ignored it or misunderstood.
If Britain exits Europe the effects on British people living in France, as opposed to holiday home owners, can only be guessed at as far as such things as pensions and health care are concerned.

What is certain is that the internal politics and decisions of the French government will have a bigger impact on our lives than anything happening in the UK.  For 'example if Marine Le Pen is elected she has said that she wants to do away with double nationality, so it would no longer be possible to have a dual  British/French passport which is the route most of those who say they are 'taking French  nationality' 'actually choose
Perhaps at last we would see some interest in the current affairs of the country we live in...
[/quote]

Firstly what makes you think that people living here do not take an interest in what is going on around them at both local and national level? That's a very big assumption.

What makes you think Le Pen will ever be president, because your mates where you live vote FN? Anyway us 'white' immigrants are not the ones she is aiming at as more than one FN supporter I know has said, if they are to be believed. Mind you there is more chance or you finding a rocking horse shite mountain than her becoming president. Think you will find the one that has the most chance of being the next president is M. Bling Bling (love him or hate him) unless the 'get him' before hand on some corruption charge or another.

Back to the EU bit, there are some things you don't have to guess at because they are known. You will have to have a new passport for a start (look at the Norwegian one, no mention of being part of the EU) because we won't be part of the EU which is the big bit at the top of your passport. Of course they may be able to do some form of deal till yours runs out but in reality it says something that you are not i.e. Member of the European Union. Then there is the EU driving licence, the same thing also applies. Wonder who will pay for this? Many of the things we and business can claim back are based on the EU trading agreement which unless we join the EEA, which would take a couple of years to complete, would be out the window. The use of the EHIC card would go as it also negotiated as a block. Trading with some countries outside th EU would have to be re-negotiated as it was done as a block. We in France may, like in other EU countries, need to get a residency permit, but thats unknown. The reciplical healthcare agreement would cease as it is a block agreement. In short there are quite a few things which may go, need to be renegotiated or stay because they apply to EU citizens as opposed to individual countries and by not being a member. For those that have retired to France they are very big and important concerns and they need to know where they stand. For those of us that work and pay tax in France we may not be affected until we retire.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Quillan"]Back to the EU bit, there are some things you don't have to guess at because they are known.

[/quote]

Yes, but even the things that you and I might agree are "known" seem to be disputed in some quarters.

[quote user="Quillan"]In short there are quite a few things which may go, need to be renegotiated or stay because they apply to EU citizens as opposed to individual countries and by not being a member. For those that have retired to France they are very big and important concerns and they need to know where they stand.[/quote]

And therein lies the rub: I do not believe that by the time of the referendum it will be clear what leaving the EU will mean for the UK in any real level of detail. This affects not just those who have retired to France but those who are in the UK as well! And I suspect that making the position clear for those UK citizens who are living in the EU will not rank very highly in priorities of the in/out campaigns.

As with the Scottish neverendum, the choice was between an existing certainty with the possibility of some future evolutionary changes versus an utterly undefined future with no real clear information about whether that future would be within or outside EFTA, with lots of misinformation about the positions of Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, the US and Australia (along the lines of "we will just be like country X").

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well Pickles the EU is almost at completion with the US as to a free trade deal. The Americans are quite frightened of the EU and its power. I am not saying the EU is less or more powerful than the US but it does hold immense weight when it come to negotiations. I don't think the UK, being such a small country on it's own, would be able to get such a good deal. This is one of the advantage of conducting trade deal as a block. If you look at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2012/june/tradoc_149622.jpg you can see who the EU already has free trade deals with and there is a lot of them (some 91 countries) and are currently negotiating free trade deals with a further four excluding the US. Now because these agreements are with the EU the UK would cease to be part of that agreement. However there is as many anti EU people have said nothing to stop the UK from doing trade deals on its own although by the time only half of them have been agreed we will all be dead and probably our kids will be as well. In the meantime what happens to the businesses that currently benifit from these free trade deals, they would also cease to exist (probably gone bankrupt) by the time they are completed.

I also wonder how the UK would have got on if on its own it took the mobile phone companies, Microsoft, Google etc to court in Europe to stop some of their practices. Got a funny feeling we would have been given 'the finger'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Q wrote, "I also wonder how the UK would have got on if on its own it took the mobile phone companies, Microsoft, Google etc to court in Europe to stop some of their practices. Got a funny feeling we would have been given 'the finger'."

More guessing Q, and if the UK wasn't in the EU, it wouldn't have taken those companies to the European courts.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="NickP"]Q wrote, "I also wonder how the UK would have got on if on its own it took the mobile phone companies, Microsoft, Google etc to court in Europe to stop some of their practices. Got a funny feeling we would have been given 'the finger'." More guessing Q, and if the UK wasn't in the EU, it wouldn't have taken those companies to the European courts.[/quote]

Your absolutly right, it might of been tried through the US courts (which I doubt) or the UK courts and even won or lost nothing would have changed because Microsoft would have, as I said, shown the finger. However because we are members of the EU and the EU took them to court we benefit from the result and thats not a guess, it's a fact.

(Just in case people don't know what I am talking about it is the removal, in Microsofts case, of Internet Explorer from the operating system making it a stand alone product allowing people to chose their own browser and to remove IE.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Firstly what makes you think that people living here do not take an

interest in what is going on around them at both local and national

level? That's a very big assumption.

1) The lack of knowledge about and  response on this Forum to such issues is one clue

2) The British immigrant community in the town where I have my résidence secondaire is comprised  in large majority of people who don't speak (or worse understand) French and depend UK TV  and the gutter press for their knowledge of events.

Their basic errors of comprehension are only equalled by the confidence with which they express their ignorance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="NormanH"]Firstly what makes you think that people living here do not take an interest in what is going on around them at both local and national level? That's a very big assumption.

1) The lack of knowledge about and  response on this Forum to such issues is one clue
2) The British immigrant community in the town where I have my résidence secondaire is comprised  in large majority of people who don't speak (or worse understand) French and depend UK TV  and the gutter press for their knowledge of events.

Their basic errors of comprehension are only equalled by the confidence with which they express their ignorance.
[/quote]

Well fortunatly I don't live in your town. I am not and never have been a member or want to be member of any English/British community/group in France. Likewise I personally do speak some French, enough for an understanding and to hold my own and I watch both UK and French TV depending whats on and what interests me. I also find the comments in the English press about France and events here often quite different from how things really are. The absolute classic was when the British press said France had banned Muslim women in France from covering their faces and failing to mention that that nobody was allowed to cover their faces. I am as likely to believe the French press as I am the British as both have been very wrong at times. I further doubt that I am not the only one who acts and thinks this way. I don't concider my self an expert on France and I have yet to meet an expat who is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Quillan"]

Back to the EU bit, there are some things you don't have to guess at because they are known. You will have to have a new passport for a start (look at the Norwegian one, no mention of being part of the EU) because we won't be part of the EU which is the big bit at the top of your passport. Of course they may be able to do some form of deal till yours runs out but in reality it says something that you are not i.e. Member of the European Union. Then there is the EU driving licence, the same thing also applies. Wonder who will pay for this? Many of the things we and business can claim back are based on the EU trading agreement which unless we join the EEA, which would take a couple of years to complete, would be out the window. The use of the EHIC card would go as it also negotiated as a block. Trading with some countries outside th EU would have to be re-negotiated as it was done as a block. We in France may, like in other EU countries, need to get a residency permit, but thats unknown. The reciplical healthcare agreement would cease as it is a block agreement. In short there are quite a few things which may go, need to be renegotiated or stay because they apply to EU citizens as opposed to individual countries and by not being a member. For those that have retired to France they are very big and important concerns and they need to know where they stand. For those of us that work and pay tax in France we may not be affected until we retire.

[/quote]

Details [:)]

You're very busy on here. Your boarding house can't be too busy these days. [:)]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="nomoss"][quote user="Quillan"]

Back to the EU bit, there are some things you don't have to guess at because they are known. You will have to have a new passport for a start (look at the Norwegian one, no mention of being part of the EU) because we won't be part of the EU which is the big bit at the top of your passport. Of course they may be able to do some form of deal till yours runs out but in reality it says something that you are not i.e. Member of the European Union. Then there is the EU driving licence, the same thing also applies. Wonder who will pay for this? Many of the things we and business can claim back are based on the EU trading agreement which unless we join the EEA, which would take a couple of years to complete, would be out the window. The use of the EHIC card would go as it also negotiated as a block. Trading with some countries outside th EU would have to be re-negotiated as it was done as a block. We in France may, like in other EU countries, need to get a residency permit, but thats unknown. The reciplical healthcare agreement would cease as it is a block agreement. In short there are quite a few things which may go, need to be renegotiated or stay because they apply to EU citizens as opposed to individual countries and by not being a member. For those that have retired to France they are very big and important concerns and they need to know where they stand. For those of us that work and pay tax in France we may not be affected until we retire.

[/quote]

Details [:)]

You're very busy on here. Your boarding house can't be too busy these days. [:)]

[/quote]

I don't have one. [:P]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="NickP"]Here we ago again, round and round. The world according to Norman, "if you don't agree with me then your of low intellect" . It must be a burden Norman being the only linguist and intellectual in the village.[/quote]

I am not surprised at NH comments, this board felt very much like that when I joined, and I was told, by those who  firmly believed that they knew best, that I knew nothing of France! And in some ways those that made those comments were right, as my life felt like it was in a completely different country or was that on a different planet.

It isn't about being intellectual at all. It is about the mentality of people who make the move. And some never expect to have to change much about their lives when they make the move.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="idun"]
It isn't about being intellectual at all. It is about the mentality of people who make the move. And some never expect to have to change much about their lives when they make the move.
[/quote]

When I read that I immediately though of those Brits who say things like "You wouldn't do that in the UK", "their not like us at all" (love that one) and "If I knew then what I know now I wouldn't have moved". I read years ago, possible in the LF Magazine, that 2 out of 3 Brits go back to the UK because of the weather (down where I live, it rains a lot and there is no 300 days of sunshine a year), family ties i.e. grand children etc or that they just can't cope with the language or France even.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So Idun your assuming that everybody on this forum is a newcomer to France. Looks to me like you've joined Normans " I'm more integrated than you club". I'd love to see the agenda for the next meeting, I would imagine the first item would be the self congratulation proposal, followed by a discussion on how to to impress others with your Frenchness.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So much nonsense. I thought someone had treated Norman like a late returning homing pigeon.

He is an old bloke who doesnt get around much who happens to be short tempered n grumpy and have a deep interest in, almost a passion for France, as well as not being too keen on certain types of expats. Which means he occasionally makes silly comments.

He does have a small point though.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So much nonsense keeps this forum going, and if he wasn't a grumpy old git other members would have a lot less to comment on. So Norman keep it going, we know you like the challenge. Also idun's sometimes off the wall view of life, although not always understood makes for interesting reading, and sometimes is deeply thought provoking, in a bizarre way.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="NickP"]So Idun your assuming that everybody on this forum is a newcomer to France. Looks to me like you've joined Normans " I'm more integrated than you club". I'd love to see the agenda for the next meeting, I would imagine the first item would be the self congratulation proposal, followed by a discussion on how to to impress others with your Frenchness.[/quote]

Ah NickP, you have made me smile. I have no idea why you are so grumpy at the moment, but actually your little tirades, because that is what they seem to be to me, at least,  do amuse me. I understand that you don't agree with other people, I often don't, I have my own views and when I decide to, don't hesitate to post my views. But really, you seem to be taking far too much, far too personally, and life is short, it isn't worth getting het up, and as we get older, that risk of blood pressure etc.

I had been in France for nearly 20 years, well if I work it out, 19 years, when I found this board. So then, the majority of posters who had made the move, were newcomers to France. And yes, by then, I was fully integrated in french life. I moved to France, if I had moved to Cornwall, I would have done the same, what sort of person would live that long anywhere and not got stuck into 'life'? I know I'm odd, but I'm not that bloody 'odd'.

And I think that I have a lot to be proud of, and why shouldn't I! What with no internet, no phone for the first few years and yet I had children. Only french tv for the first 15 years too. And rented and lived in a city, then we had a house built and got on with life in a village especially chosen as there were no other british people. BECAUSE, as I only knew five words of french when I made the move, I knew that IF I had chosen those little enclaves I knew of, I would never have learnt french or next to none. I have no talent for languages, y compris 'english'!!!! And the paperwork was far worse than it is now in France, some things have really changed. And getting information, well, has it ever been easier than it is now.

Incidentally, Quillan.............in France, I have used that expression 'in England, we do XYand Z'. And do you know that I do the very same in England now. Because both countries have good things and when something is being done badly and there is a good alternative, I do not hesitate to mention it!

edit, PS I am not in an expat club, I have no agenda, just my own point of view. And I shall never be french, ever, although more than I ever imagined has rubbed off, didn't realise how much until I moved back to England. I'm sort of stuck mid channel these days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...