Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[Cheetah]

Triggering Article 50 and spending two years of Brits finding out just how complex and problematic it is to suddenly pack up and leave.

Then afterwards a few more years of the UK getting into proper trade deals with other countries again, and possibly losing Scotland and/or Northern Ireland.

And later we can also talk about how things are going well in the UK again.

...

But yes, I suppose this thread has played out its role for now. Let's make a new thread for any further developments.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, this is a discussion forum. In the absence of other threads, this is the general "we're doomed!" thread.

 

[really]

It's a bit of a phoney war at the moment.
Nothing is happening.

 

[aelf]

No of course not. Just that all you need to know about people over 60 (in order to discount their opinions) is that they're over 60, and therefore haven't been "educated" enough to hold the correct opinion (i.e., yours). But it isn't technically narcissistic because you hold just as high an opinion of your peers who hold the same opinions as you do yourself. Would you prefer "fascist" to "narcissist" then? I'm flexible on the exact label I apply to it, but it doesn't stop it being an awful way to think/feel/behave.

Reading this post, it sounds like you're saying that as long as I disagree with someone's opinion and think it's wrong and stupid, I'm either narcissistic or fascistic. Well, that would be stupid.

As I suggested, there's been a paucity of good arguments from one side of the divide in this thread, and you're unsurprisingly contributing yet again to the trend. Among the anti-EU camp, there's inno, whom I disagree with somewhat but whom I do not think is stupid. He's wrong in some respects, but he's not stupid. He's been consistent in his stance and has a history of making coherent arguments to support it. That's much more than can be said of his fellow anti-EU posters, including you.

The generational divide is a pretty common phenomenon anyway. It's nothing new and I believe it's well-documented. In many societies, especially relatively conservative ones, the older demographics are a strong bastion of illiberalism. Old, irrational prejudices that can't be defended logically have been set in stone, and this can be explained to a large extent by the difference in how those generations grew up and learned about the world. Obviously, you're not automatically susceptible to this if you're old, but when one has demonstrated again and again that one is impervious to reason in a matter that is fraught with the generational divide, then it's very probable that one's age is a huge factor.

 

[Verbose]

The EU is not Europe…

Outside the EU it's bits'n'bobs, aside from the three big boys, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, effectively. Now that's a list of happy places...

 

[bathsheba666]

It's a bit of a phoney war at the moment.
Nothing is happening.

Well, if you jump off a cliff, and it's a long way down (say 2-3 years to reach bottom) you can look at each other and say, 'well it's fine so far' also 'nothing is happening'.

If you examine the situation from another frame, say world boardrooms, or top of the cliff, you might get a different perspective.

As this is political, I suspect people suspending their investments in the UK, or moving them elsewhere, are probably not going to shout about it, as the conmen are now pushing the narrative of 'it's all fine, negativity is the only potential problem, so shut up and ignore the forward looking data'.

So I suggest the "60 year old"s amongst you join in with the furious clicking of red heels together and invocations of Kansas or sovereignty, or scream belief in fairies, or whatever can enable the persistence of your delusional states.

As a 62 year old, I have somehow bypassed this pitiable condition.

 

[Arakhor]

Ah, yes: Brexit. That overflowing well of positivity allegedly waiting to improve our lives. We have dismissed that claim.

 

[Takhisis]

Outside the EU it's bits'n'bobs, aside from the three big boys, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, effectively. Now that's a list of happy places...

Turkey dubious status a ‘European’ notwithstanding, those few countries add up to 200-300 million inhabitants. That's where we get the difference in population between ‘Europe’ and ‘EU’.

 

[Lohrenswald]

It's a bit of a phoney war at the moment.
Nothing is happening.

Yea, I'm pretty dissapointed the leavers haven't taken action

he's not stupid. He's been consistent in his stance and has a history of making coherent arguments to support it. That's much more than can be said of his fellow anti-EU posters, including you.

that's true

 

[FriendlyFire]

500Mil year operating lose per year, no company would stay but shouldnt the cheap pound make exports cheaper rather then more expensive ?

Ford to consider closing UK factories in Leave towns after Brexit

Ford has said it will consider closing its two remaining UK automobile factories, both of which are in towns where the majority of people voted to leave the EU, to cover costs of $1 billion over the next two years.

Ford stopped making passenger cars in the UK in 2002. But it still makes engines at plants in Dagenham and Bridgend that are exported to the EU where the cars are assembled.

Many cars are then shipped back to the UK to be sold.

The two UK plants employ around 3,800 people in towns where the majority of people voted to Leave the EU.

In Dagenham, 62 per cent of people voted to leave while in Bridgend 55 per cent said they wanted out.

Ford has already slashed some 5,700 EU jobs in the last five years after closing two of its UK plants and one in Belgium.

The price of Ford cars in the UK will also rise, according to Bob Shanks, chief financial officer, who blamed the changes on the tanking value of the pound against the dollar since the referendum. That has made Ford, a US brand, more expensive in the UK.

Shanks said that Brexit had already cost Ford about $60 million in the second quarter with the cost for the year to run to $200 million. Each year until Britain leaves the EU would cost it $400 million to $500 million, the company said.

Almost a third of Ford's European sales are in the UK.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...ies-in-leave-towns-after-brexit-a7162561.html

 

[Verbose]

Turkey dubious status a ‘European’ notwithstanding, those few countries add up to 200-300 million inhabitants. That's where we get the difference in population between ‘Europe’ and ‘EU’.

Sure. It's just that variety and opportunity doesn't seem all that well catered to with these alternatives, if alternatives is what they are supposed to provide? They're all high-risk ventures of some kind at least.

 

[really]

500Mil year operating lose per year, no company would stay but shouldnt the cheap pound make exports cheaper rather then more expensive ?

If the value is being added in EUR and then exported back to the UK it would cost more in GBP.

The part of the article you quoted doesn't make it clear what is causing the losses - it could be a decline in demand, rises in the cost of financing or inputs etc.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

The European car industry is so intricate, you never know how movements in exchange rate, never mind Brexit, is going to affect things.
I do know that many a company is going to blame problems/cock ups/change of direction on Brexit.
This week, Lloyds bank announced many bank closures and job losses and mentioned Brexit as one of the factors. Once the CE was quizzed properly, he admitted all the decisions had been made prior to Brexit.

Still, despite this sort of thing, there is still reason to be optimistic:
The FTSE100 is way up, the FTSE 250 (more representative of British companies) has more than recovered any post-Brexit losses (and, at 17200 is way above the 15,200 it was at in February). A report the other day said there were more Directors buying shares of their own companies post-Brexit than for a long, long time.

The IMF ‘slashed our growth’ by 0.9% for 2017 but we (2.2%) still manage to remain above Germany (1.7) and France (1.5).
And our unemployment has just fallen below the ‘significant’ 5%.

According to the Telegraph, our exports to non-EU countries is gathering pace, and far exceeds exports to the EU.
It is clear there is a whole world out there, and not everything should revolve around the EU and its Euro problems.
The UK’s exports have grown at a world-beating pace for the first time in nearly a decade, according to official figures, as businesses rapidly increased the share of goods they sold outside of the European Union.

The success of British firms in repositioning to markets further afield has helped boost overall export growth above the global rate of expansion for the first time since 2006, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...utstrip-global-rivals-for-first-time-since-2/

And it would appear that Scotland might not be going anywhere just at the moment. Perhaps they are just remembering that the free and open market to E, W & NI far, far exceeds that of the non-free EU market.

Let’s hope it is true because we desperately need a proper opposition (SNP) at Westminster instead of that rabble that calls itself the Labour party.

A SURGE in support for independence in the aftermath of the Brexit vote has reversed in the weeks following the UK's decision to quit the EU, a new opinion poll has suggested.

The YouGov survey, carried out four weeks after Scotland was put on course to be taken out of the bloc against the wishes of a majority of its voters, found 47 per cent would back Yes and 53 per cent No if an independence vote was held tomorrow.

It also found that 55 per cent would rather remain in a UK which is not in the EU, compared to 45 per cent who would prefer to live in an independent Scotland that retained membership, when undecided respondents are excluded.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...sted_the_cause_of_Scottish_independence__39_/

 

[dutchfire]

Still, despite this sort of thing, there is still reason to be optimistic:
The FTSE100 is way up, the FTSE 250 (more representative of British companies) has more than recovered any post-Brexit losses (and, at 17200 is way above the 15,200 it was at in February).

Nice comparison. It was at 17400 in January.

 

[Takhisis]

And it would appear that Scotland might not be going anywhere just at the moment. Perhaps they are just remembering that the free and open market to E, W & NI far, far exceeds that of the non-free EU market.

Let’s hope it is true because we desperately need a proper opposition (SNP) at Westminster instead of that rabble that calls itself the Labour party.

Except that if the UK leaves the EU but then buys into the market again, the UK will, in effect, have lost its vote on EU matters while still paying in, still allowing free movement of people and labour (never mind that ‘dem mooslem terrorists’ come from outside the EU and no Muslim country is in the EU) and… oh wait, there's no chaos to be had from losing currency as the UK didn't even have that. It might just be better for Scotland to remain in the EU (or re-enter it) and actually have a vote.

And, speaking of having votes, the SNP in Parliament can do squat, thanks to the fact that all you need is a sufficiently large majority of seats from England and Wales and you can override any opposition in the Commons whatsoever.

 

[innonimatu]

500Mil year operating lose per year, no company would stay but shouldnt the cheap pound make exports cheaper rather then more expensive ?

It does. Ford's problem is that (as the piece actually sates) they do not manufacture the cars in the UK, they import them to sell in the UK. A cheap pound makes imports more expensive for british consumers.
Ford does have the alternative of producing more of the cars in the UK, and even assembling them there; that would keep costs lower as the pound got cheaper. If they drop out of the market some other brand will take over their share and probably go for this strategy. don't worry.

This was something the UK was in need of, btw: its trade deficit was getting huge. It's nice to have a huge trade deficit, of course: others are giving you actual goods and services in exchange for paper (or database entries). The problems are that:
1. it can't go on forever;
2. your population gets unemployed and unskilled, kind of like those countries with a "dutch disease" and some day when the lending ceases your country suddenly turns dirty poor overnight as foreigners cease selling you stuff and no one locally knows how to produce anymore.

 

[Old Hippy]

A SURGE in support for independence in the aftermath of the Brexit vote has reversed in the weeks following the UK's decision to quit the EU, a new opinion poll has suggested.

The YouGov survey, carried out four weeks after Scotland was put on course to be taken out of the bloc against the wishes of a majority of its voters, found 47 per cent would back Yes and 53 per cent No if an independence vote was held tomorrow.

It also found that 55 per cent would rather remain in a UK which is not in the EU, compared to 45 per cent who would prefer to live in an independent Scotland that retained membership, when undecided respondents are excluded.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...sted_the_cause_of_Scottish_independence__39_/

cause the YouGov survey was so accurate the week before the referendum on Brexit

 

[Arakhor]

Maybe they're counting on the 'shy Tory' effect this time.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

The generational divide is a pretty common phenomenon anyway. It's nothing new and I believe it's well-documented. In many societies, especially relatively conservative ones, the older demographics are a strong bastion of illiberalism. Old, irrational prejudices that can't be defended logically have been set in stone, and this can be explained to a large extent by the difference in how those generations grew up and learned about the world. Obviously, you're not automatically susceptible to this if you're old, but when one has demonstrated again and again that one is impervious to reason in a matter that is fraught with the generational divide, then it's very probable that one's age is a huge factor.

Let's look back at the actual exchange that led to you making that comment (in wonderful paraphrase-o-vision):

Traitorfish: I bet the letters UVF don't even mean anything to you.

Edward: Actually yes they do. I'm 60 years old so am well aware of what they mean.

Arakhor: What's your age got to do with anything? Are you saying your age gives you the monopoly on talking about such issues?

Edward: No and I never said it did.

aelf: Pff. 60 years old? Well that's all we need to know. Hopefully modern education, which is much better than the education you received, will erase your kind of ignorance in the future.


So where in this exchange was he demonstrating ignorance? He's had someone CLAIM he's ignorant of something of which he then states he isn't. Someone else then misreads that statement to mean something he never said, so he just had to repeat it more clearly, then you chime in and just dismiss him entirely due to his age and nothing but his age.

You can witter on all you like about generation gaps, but it doesn't excuse that pitiful exchange of comments or you rolling in at the end and bulldozering it with a sweeping generalisation that had nothing to do with anything that was actually being talked aboutl, but was rather just something you could use to "justify" not even bothering to address anything that was said at all.

 

[aelf]

Where was he demonstrating ignorance? How about the entire thread? Which part of my explanation above is directed at the specifics of one exchange about Northern Ireland anyway?

Incidentally, by way of demonstrating what I said, this has been your method for the entire thread: No coherent arguments about Brexit and its merits. Just endlessly complaining about what other people say about Brexit and Brexiters. Of course, you're free to do that, but you're essentially doing nothing but contributing to the empty noise that has characterised almost every single pro-Brexit voice in this thread. Congratulations on your contribution to making Brexit look more like the stupider choice.