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As the clock ticks down...are you for or against Brexit ?


alittlebitfrench
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He also said he'd die in a ditch if the UK didn't leave the EU on 31 Dec.

Looking at the state of readiness now, one year on, and the disruption that is projected to happen in January, what on earth would have happened if Johnson had been allowed to crash the UK out last December? They hadn't even started building lorry parks in Kent - hadn't even realised they needed any; they didn't have a smart freight system anywhere near ready; they hadn't issued any guidelines for businesses as far as I'm aware. They didn't have even a glimmer of a plan. So was it all an ego-saving charade by Johnson, pretending that he'd been forced by Parliament against his will to ask for an extension, or was he really prepared to inflict that damage on the UK?
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ET said....'Isn't it a government's job to look after its own population? I think the UK population deserves better than being treated like this by its own government'

I think the French population deserves better than being treated the way they are by Mr Macron and his failing government.

Not only do people riot in France every weekend about his policies but the police are against his policies too.

We are at a dead end in France.

So this 'anti' UK stuff by folks living in France on French forums is quite bizarre.

They quite clearly don't know what is happening around them !
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[quote user="NormanH"]
"NH, I wish you had not said that about people being misled about their

vote. It would be like saying that in 'general' that if people do not

vote as we agree with, that someone or other has led them down the

garden path."

I am not criticising the voters, and not even suggesting that they should have voted in the way that I think (although I would have liked it if they did)

By the word 'mislead' I was thinking of many of the claims of the leave campaign: a few links:

If you bought a car on the basis of false information I wouldn't say that you were a fool to buy it just because I hadn't done the same thing.

I would say that the people who sold it to you had 'mislead' you...

[/quote]

I have read part of the shoutout link. And some of it is not imo correct, what with Hungary on it's very right wing path, and Poland's judiciary becoming state run and new abortion laws, it feels like democracy has too quietly been nudged into touch. I know that in Poland there are manifs, but really, since when should we be at this point in democratic EU. that a governments take these paths? Beyond me.

edit: I did not read any information at all about brexit prior to voting, I just went by my knowledge of living in both the EU and the UK.  And it seemed simple to me, that becoming independent was just that.

Over the years, I would return to England on holiday and be told XYandZ that had to happen as these were EU rules and yet, not a whisper in France and I was met with gallic shrugs if I asked.

Since I have returned to the UK I was talking to an  old school friend who was working in France, a joint venture between the UK, France and Germany. My friend said at the first meeting they had organised that certain things had to be introduced into the project. Mefiance from the germans and french. The germans said, well, yes, eventually this will be introduced, but we don't need to do this now, and the french inferred that it would not be a problem as it might eventually be french law, but who knew when.   My friend had to run this project, under these conditions, but there you go. They complained bitterly about this uneven playing field. Uniformed EU with it's laws for all, not really.

I ended up believing that the only country that adhered to EU rules was the UK, EU laws were fast tracked and put into law pretty much immediately, even if they were 'stupid'.

Re security information, who will be losing out? We have GHQ and

that shares information, or at least we have been told that it did and they are rather good at getting said information.......... have we been mislead about that?

Not sharing security information is what I would consider wickedness beyond belief.

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‘However, I think the behaviour of the EU negotiating team has been deplorable as they have, IMHO, negotiated in bad faith. ‘

Rubbish. You are a long way right of centre in your political beliefs and will have far more sympathy for the ERG than for the beliefs of the Guardian reading posters. There has been bad faith on the U.K. side both towards the negotiations where they have already taken steps to disregard parts of the Withdrawal Agreement and to their electorate who they have promised, time and time again, a future that cannot be realised. The EU has always been clear about where it has to draw the line to avoid a country now outside the block having better trading conditions than it had when it was a member. Why do you find that so hard to understand? Britain recently completed a trade agreement with Japan. To achieve that (which more or less mirrors what they already had as a member of the EU) they had to erode some of their Sovereignty, that’s what happens when making a deal between two parties, why then are they refusing to accept that they will have to do the same to have a tariff free deal with Europe. This shortsightedness is the one thing that is going to cost Britain dearly long term. The EU too would prefer tariff free trade but they will be able to negate the long term damage by moving away from trade with Britain. Something that the road haulage companies have already started to do.
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There are several different sorts of EU "rules"

To show just two of them: 

Regulations

Regulations are legal acts that apply automatically and uniformly to

all EU countries as soon as they enter into force, without needing to be

transposed into national law. They are binding in their entirety on all

EU countries.

Directives

Directives require EU countries to achieve a certain result, but

leave them free to choose how to do so. EU countries must adopt measures

to incorporate them into national law (transpose) in order to achieve

the objectives set by the directive. National authorities must

communicate these measures to the European Commission.

Transposition into national law must take place by the deadline set

when the directive is adopted (generally within 2 years). When a country

does not transpose a directive, the C
ommission may initiate infringement proceedings.

That can explain why it seems that different countries are applying the rules differently and it also shows that each country  has quite a bit of freedom...

Of course Boris Johnson when he was working in Brussels was responsible for inventing untrue but 'amusing' anti EU stories

"His articles, like those in several

other Eurosceptic newspapers, contained many of the claims widely

described as “Euromyths”, including plans to introduce same-size

“eurocoffins”, establish a “banana police force” to regulate the shape

of the curved yellow fruit, and ban prawn cocktail crisps.

When questioned about them in parliament, he denied suggestions they were a figment of his imagination."

"Johnson did not invent Euroscepticism but he took it to new levels. A

brilliant caricaturist, he made his name by mocking, lampooning and

ridiculing the EU. He wrote stories headlined “Brussels recruits

sniffers to ensure that Euro-manure smells the same”, “Threat to British

pink sausages” and “Snails are fish, says EU”. He wrote about plans to

standardise condom sizes and ban prawn cocktail flavour crisps. He set

up Jacques Delors, who was then the European Commission president, as a

bogeyman and claimed credit for persuading Denmark to reject the

Maastricht Treaty in 1992 with a Sunday Telegraph splash – “Delors plan to rule Europe” – that was seized on by the Nej campaign.

To Johnson, it was all a bit of a jape. “[I] was sort of chucking these

rocks over the garden wall and I listened to this amazing crash from

the greenhouse next door over in England as everything I wrote from

Brussels was having this amazing, explosive ­effect on the Tory party –

and it really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of power,” he

told the BBC years later.

That many of Johnson’s stories bore scant relation to the truth did not matter. They were colourful and fun. The Telegraph

and right-wing Tories loved them. So did other Fleet Street editors,

who found the standard Brussels fare tedious and began to press their

own correspondents to follow suit. I know this because I became the

Brussels correspondent of the Times in 1999 and suffered the consequences.

Soon, a Europe of scheming bureaucrats plotting to rob Britain of its

ancient liberties, or British prime ministers fighting gallant rearguard

actions against an increasingly powerful superstate, or absurd

directives on banana shapes, became the only narratives that many papers

were interested in. They were narratives that exploited our innate

nationalism, distrust of foreigners and sense of superiority.
They were

narratives so strong that our political leaders mostly chose to play

along with them.

The EU is arrogant, bureaucratic, wasteful and meddlesome. It

desperately needs reforming. But post-Boris, its great achievements –

cementing peace, uniting the continent, creating the world’s largest

single market, enabling its citizens to travel and live anywhere they

choose, busting mono­polies, improving the environment – have gone

largely unreported. Similarly ignored is that Britain has many natural

allies in Europe and has enjoyed some significant successes: competition

policy, free trade, eastward enlargement. The French now regard the EU

as a plot to impose Anglo-Saxon economics on the continent. True, we

lost the argument on the euro and the Schengen Agreement, but we won

opt-outs."

That is the equivalent of the car salesman charming you into buying a fake..."misleading" you

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Please, BiB, do not condemn our clever, friendly and stimulating posters to having their views formed by the Guardian. It is like forcing someone to wear a wooden leg or carry a 60lb pack throughout their intellectual life.

As to the rest, poor; you could do better, perhaps after opening another bottle.
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In due course, we will see. However, the only 'rogue state' (excepting, arguably, Hungary & Poland) involved in any way is the UK*, since it is the only one breaking international law (also breaking/circumventing UK law).

*Many examples, but the most egregious is yesterday's re-introduction of the illegal clauses in the IMB (which the UK Gov is 'prepared' to withdraw if they get all the cake with some extra cherries on top, but I don't think they are prepared to withdraw the clauses that stuff SCO, NI & WAL).

The best analogy I have seen is that the EU is like a medieval walled city. The UK has said that it does not like the conditions in the city and has moved out because living outside is 'better'.

The city has many rules and advantages for those who live inside. They do not apply to those outside. Now the UK Gov is complaining that it can't ('like Canada'!) have those advantages (but not the rules).

The UK has made its bed and must lie in it. I hope that my elder son and his family will be OK - they live in the part of the UK which will probably be the last to depart, leaving the lights on (assuming some agreement for use of the interconnectors to the EU energy market) for the rump English nationalists.

I see only the usual idiots in and around our commune (we have a couple of extreme right-wingers - the French equivalent of UK ERG - 12.8%RN, 2.84% Debout la France & 0.47% Les Patriotes) who continue to speak of Frexit (or Frexeuro).
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I've always seen it very much like a disaffected teenager who's sick and tired of Mum and Dad wittering on about keeping his room tidy, not playing his music too loud, not rolling home drunk at 3am etc. He can't wait to move out and be able to do all those things and not have to obey Mum and Dad's rules any more - but he expects them to keep his room for him so he can pop back home whenever he wants, and have his mum do his washing and feed him etc.

The difference is that mums tend to do those things even though dad may say, let the lad fend for himself, he wanted to leave and stand on his own two feet so leave him to get on with it.
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No ET...

I see the EU like a pool league.

If anyone plays pool (or used to play pool) they would know what I am talking about.

Even in France. Pool governing bodies are exactly the same as the UK.

The EU is a great idea. It is a no brainer.

Just need someone to run it well.

And of course folks not syphoning off the cash.

Maybe France and the UK could set up their own EU. I bet all the other countries would join.

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Well, ALBF, I have never played pool so I don't know what you mean.

Weegie, there is a word in that article that I would disagree with. Robert Peston says "Boris Johnson cannot name a single EU level-playing-field standard he currently wishes to weaken" but I think it is a case of "will not" rather than "cannot". I would bet that workers rights and environmental standards and targets are two of the areas that will be watered down very quickly.
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EuroTr@sh wrote the following post at 08 Dec 2020 17:50:

Well, ALBF, I have never played pool so I don't know what you mean.

Weegie, there is a word in that article that I would disagree with. Robert Peston says "Boris Johnson cannot name a single EU level-playing-field standard he currently wishes to weaken" but I think it is a case of "will not" rather than "cannot". I would bet that workers rights and environmental standards and targets are two of the areas that will be watered down very quickly.

Can only agree with your analysis .. I do worry about how life will pan out in the UK for the average Brit who, perhaps, has no idea of what difficulties will hit the fan over the next year.
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