The 'I told you so' EU referendum - Officially the Worst Thread Ever

[Chippy]

What do you mean "You Lot"?

Brexiters

Typical more assumptions from someone who has NOT A CLUE what I voted in the referendum.

Well, what did you vote?

[OneBardGooner]

That Chippy dear chap is between me and the ballot box (well it was made of metal actually) but you know what I mean.

As a side note; it never ceases to amaze me how free and un-guarded people are with their personal details & private information - especially those who do the whole facebook/twitter thing. It's as if they have to be noticed and the way they do that is about tweeting about what they had for lunch, or what their favourite thing of the day is or how they voted.

[olgitgooner]

Just goes to prove that it is how (and by whom and for what purpose) any statistical data is interpreted, applied and used.


The whinging and moaning of those who wished to remain in the EU is reminiscent of the ickle boy who used to say ' it's my ball and if we don't play by my rules I'm taking my ball home'

We've got another 40 years before we catch up on the whinging and moaning of the likes of Farage and you lot.

Excuse me Chippy. But the Brexiteers are not moaning very much. They are are as happy as the proverbial Larry. And are merely moaning about the incessant bleating from the remainers. And the prophets of doom.

[northbank123]

Hardly less United than ever when you're looking at constituent countries. Tories have returned 4 MPs in 5 elections in Scotland and they haven't won a third of the seats there since the 50s. Their electoral performance in Wales is similarly shocking. Yet these countries will have been living under Tory rule for 28 of the past 41 years by 2020.

You can interpret statistics however you want and just as lambasting old people for generally voting leave because this supposedly shows that they don't care about the country's future, you could equally interpret the correlation between a university education and voting remain as suggesting that this is because the EU benefits the better-off.

I'm just making a point and not saying I agree with that. Although I know a truckload of people my age who have spent six weeks interrailing around Europe or a year dossing around at university in Prague or whatever and let's just say that none of them came from humble backgrounds.

It is the north of England that I am focusing on and made some quite subjective comments. You can lambast people, it doesn't matter what age they are if they didn't make a measured informed decision on their vote. This comes up time and time again on this thread. People are getting too precious about it. The stats never lie in football just like they don't in politics.

If a stat suggests large swathes of the north, predominantly working classes and older people voted brexit. It is what it says on the tin. You can interpret it umpteen ways but it comes back to exactly the same thing.

Im not taking issue with the accuracy of the statistics. They are what they are. My point is that it is then a leap to speculate as to why a certain group voted predominantly in a certain way.

The voting statistics tell us that older people were more likely to vote leave. They don't tell us that they voted this way because they don't care about the future.

[Chippy]

Just goes to prove that it is how (and by whom and for what purpose) any statistical data is interpreted, applied and used.


The whinging and moaning of those who wished to remain in the EU is reminiscent of the ickle boy who used to say ' it's my ball and if we don't play by my rules I'm taking my ball home'

We've got another 40 years before we catch up on the whinging and moaning of the likes of Farage and you lot.

Excuse me Chippy. But the Brexiteers are not moaning very much. They are are as happy as the proverbial Larry. And are merely moaning about the incessant bleating from the remainers. And the prophets of doom.

I voted along with 2/3 of the country to stay in the EEC in 1975. We have had 40+ years of leaver moaning since and they only just squeaked a plurality. As Nigel Farage said "A 52-48 vote is unfinished business."

https://politicalscrapbook.net/2016/07/ ... t-spot-on/

[Chippy]

Any way it is all going spiffingly.

It is hard to exaggerate the scale of the disaster the British people have inflicted upon themselves with their decision to leave the European Union, taken in the referendum last June.

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/10/18 ... -business/

But of course, "nobody knows."

Especially those idiots at the FT.

https://www.ft.com/content/347bf20e-947 ... d69f323a8b

And nobody has thought about the consequences for Ireland. But most of you probably don't give a toss about the UK anyway.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... CMP=twt_gu

[Chippy]

That Chippy dear chap is between me and the ballot box (well it was made of metal actually) but you know what I mean.

As a side note; it never ceases to amaze me how free and un-guarded people are with their personal details & private information - especially those who do the whole facebook/twitter thing. It's as if they have to be noticed and the way they do that is about tweeting about what they had for lunch, or what their favourite thing of the day is or how they voted.

Can't for the life of me think why, especially as a bill is going through Parliament at the moment that will oblige ISPs to hold the records of all your internet activity for 12 months. Nothing to worry about there in our current lurch to nasty right wing politics.

[olgitgooner]

I have an idea.
Let's forget all about assumptions.
Let's forget about forecasts and opinions.
Let's present facts. From both sides of the argument.
I'll start. I'll number every fact. To make it easy for anyone to challenge. All my facts will be in support of leaving the EU.

1. There are FIVE presidents of the EU. Seven, if you include the two minor divisions.
2. There are TEN THOUSAND EU employees with salaries greater than the Prime Minister of the UK. Do any of these people have more responsibilities than the head of a nation?
3. There are about forty thousand other EU employees.
4. All EU employees pay substantially less income tax than people employed elsewhere. They have a "special" rate of taxation.
5. EU policy is decided by the European Council.
6. The European Council enacts it's policies regardless of the European Parliament. If parliament votes against policy they simply overrule the vote "having taken due note of opinion". This is as anti democratic as you can get.
7. The EU is an economic protection zone. Tarrifs are in place to protect EU zone businesses from international competition. It makes imports more expensive. And props up inefficient businesses.
8. The EU is THE only trading zone which has a shrinking share of the world economy. This is in spite of the many new countries which have joined the union recently.
9. The EU is notoriously slow at reaching international trade agreements. The long awaited deal with Canada has just been derailed by a junior political body in Belgium.
10. Switzerland lodged an application to join the EU over ten years ago. It was still under consideration until recently. The Swiss have now withdrawn the application.
11. The Euro currency has been an abject failure. Southern European nations are trapped in an overvalued currency (relative to them) which it can't escape from.
12. History teaches us that empires fall.

That's my lot for now

[Chippy]

I might come back to oldgits post on Friday but for now, the fucking yanks are moaning too. Ungrateful bastards.

The largest U.S. business lobbying group has warned the British government that it must maintain full “unfettered” access to the European market in Brexit negotiations if it is to retain almost $600 billion that U.S. companies have invested in the U.K.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce dismissed as “nonsense” claims by some Brexit supporters that the relatively low tariffs the European Union charges on imports wouldn’t discourage investment in Britain.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/artic ... investment

[olgitgooner]

http://www.boeing.co.uk/news-media-room ... ative.page

[GoonerMuzz]

I have an idea.
Let's forget all about assumptions.
Let's forget about forecasts and opinions.
Let's present facts. From both sides of the argument.
I'll start. I'll number every fact. To make it easy for anyone to challenge. All my facts will be in support of leaving the EU.

1. There are FIVE presidents of the EU. Seven, if you include the two minor divisions.
2. There are TEN THOUSAND EU employees with salaries greater than the Prime Minister of the UK. Do any of these people have more responsibilities than the head of a nation?
3. There are about forty thousand other EU employees.
4. All EU employees pay substantially less income tax than people employed elsewhere. They have a "special" rate of taxation.
5. EU policy is decided by the European Council.
6. The European Council enacts it's policies regardless of the European Parliament. If parliament votes against policy they simply overrule the vote "having taken due note of opinion". This is as anti democratic as you can get.
7. The EU is an economic protection zone. Tarrifs are in place to protect EU zone businesses from international competition. It makes imports more expensive. And props up inefficient businesses.
8. The EU is THE only trading zone which has a shrinking share of the world economy. This is in spite of the many new countries which have joined the union recently.
9. The EU is notoriously slow at reaching international trade agreements. The long awaited deal with Canada has just been derailed by a junior political body in Belgium.
10. Switzerland lodged an application to join the EU over ten years ago. It was still under consideration until recently. The Swiss have now withdrawn the application.
11. The Euro currency has been an abject failure. Southern European nations are trapped in an overvalued currency (relative to them) which it can't escape from.
12. History teaches us that empires fall.

That's my lot for now

I'd like to pick up on this one point OGG has made, i read a really damning article in various places on something Otmar Issing (for those who don't know he was one of the founders/architects of the Euro/ECB) backing Jaques Delors recent words on the state of the Euro currency and its future recently and although i am an out voter i find this article alarming for what it could mean for all the other European states and its people:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/ ... mar-Issing

The one thing i found really interesting was the fact that the Euro (currency) appears to not been designed to integrate the number of nations it currently does, now either that was really short sighted by the architects or the EU's acceptance of an increasing number of nations being accepted into the currency without further adaptation and development is really poor management by the ECB

In an article on the same subject in the Independent it is pointed out that for the Euro to be correctly strengthened it would require constitutional changes in Germany as they are the largest financial backers and the indication seems to be that the German people wouldn't be to happy with it because it would be extremely dangerous for their economy and banking system.

I think possibly there is more to the economical problems of the EU than we are being told which even as a leave voter i find worrying because no matter whether we are in or out we are semi-reliant on trading with a strong single market one way or another

[olgitgooner]

I also found it interesting that the driving force behind the Euro has now condemned it.

The concept was flawed. It didn't take various factors into account. One of them being a rabid federal minded anti democratic bunch of self serving beaurocrats.

Seriously, the old currency exchange system worked ok. For example, Italy could devalue its currency when it needed to, and then continue to trade globally. Fridges, Fiats and washing machines still got sold. Now they can't borrow enough money to invest in their industry. They are buggered.

[Allgunsblazin]

I also found it interesting that the driving force behind the Euro has now condemned it.

The concept was flawed. It didn't take various factors into account. One of them being a rabid federal minded anti democratic bunch of self serving beaurocrats.

Seriously, the old currency exchange system worked ok. For example, Italy could devalue its currency when it needed to, and then continue to trade globally. Fridges, Fiats and washing machines still got sold. Now they can't borrow enough money to invest in their industry. They are buggered.

Remember the series North and South, that may still be the case for the Euro, higher in the North and lower in the South...

[Gunner Rob]

I see Theresa May will shortly be arriving in Brussels, can't see that going well

What confuses me about Brexit is that instead of freeing us up it will actually give us LESS POWER.
We will actually have to do as the EU wants now. Instead of being a major power in the organisation dictating what we will and wont do, we are now just this little pathetic island that nobody really gives a shit about. The thing is we have to act nice to them in order to secure trade deals, as the EU are our biggest trade partner. Crazy stuff.

[flash gunner]

I see Theresa May will shortly be arriving in Brussels, can't see that going well

What confuses me about Brexit is that instead of freeing us up it will actually give us LESS POWER.
We will actually have to do as the EU wants now. Instead of being a major power in the organisation dictating what we will and wont do, we are now just this little pathetic island that nobody really gives a shit about. The thing is we have to act nice to them in order to secure trade deals, as the EU are our biggest trade partner. Crazy stuff.