Are they though? The Tories biggest point over Labour has been that Labour planned to borrow more as part of their manifesto - yet Boris' plan talks about borrowing. He's put the £350m sum back in the headlines, no longer simply tying it to the Vote Leave campaign but now the Tories themselves. I mean one of the 10 points in Boris' plan to make Brexit a success is "Brexit will be a success".
Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I am not saying they're original, just that I agree with one point which Labour have been making for years. I also think non-residents should not be allowed to buy properties in the UK, especially in over-populated regions and I have a bit of an idea of what I'm talking about here.
The rest are mostly rubbish but that's about my expectation of the Johnson, so unless he offers to start a war, it's hard for him to disappoint me
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The rest are mostly rubbish but that's about my expectation of the Johnson, so unless he offers to start a war, it's hard for him to disappoint me
.I don't understand Boris. Why resurrecting something that even the most extremist of brexiteers admit to be a lie?
Snake gonna Snake.
he is trying to put distance between himself and what may will say next week - ultimately so that a couple of weeks after that he can use the conservative party conference to see of there is a viable opportunity for him to still be leader... sadly most of the audience he is really pitching to only believe things if they are written in the daily mail
Another thing is people already know his game.
He's a busted flush.
Poland is largely Catholic, remember the unexpected election of a Polish Pope around the time of Lech Walensa. This was building momentum for Poland to exit the Soviet Union and less than thirty years later they are being told to accept 'third' world immigrants with a different religious culture possibly violent to other religions ( the jury is out on this one it is not black and white IMO).
I do accept the Polish immigrants would need some thought though surely Germany, France and others would soak up some of that excess labour especially if they take business from the City of London.
I agree the richer countries do pose the bigger risk unless Britain reaches out to the likes of Poland behind back doors to force their hand for what @PedroMendez eloquently poses above as the possible move towards a second tier 'flexible union'.
Re Italy I don't think they have been facing the immigrant crisis for years and years, I think that has been Greece yet I do agree they have that problem in the last couple of years and that larger nations should have been lending a hand. I think the problem was there was a political mindset to allow this immigration into the EU. Cheap labour or other less obvious and possibly sinister motives, I'm not sure. On the surface what seemed strange was that a lot of the asylum seekers all had modern phones showing them the route to take. For me it suggested certain NGO's were encouraging this and dishing out phones with instructions. Italy is primarily a target because the West decided to take out Gadhafi and Libya is close to Italy.
The West has never wanted Africa to be successful and EU loans to Africa had strict conditions and coincidentally Gadhafi was hoarding gold with the intention of setting up a Pan-National African Bank.
I don't think the Brexit immigration factor was just about Eastern European immigration I think it was just against large scale immigration from everywhere yet any debates about this turned towards the ECHR as telling us we could not stop it, so in people's minds the EU was seen as the barrier to preventing all types of immigration and not just from the EU. I don't think most people are against foreigners it just seems too much has happened too quickly.
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I actually met a Brexiteer on a who articulated his reasonsing fairly well, although I disagreed with him. His reason was largely due to low skilled EU labour driving down wages for British workers. He said a few other things that I don't remember. The guy was fully behind Brexit and thinks it will do us good long term. The guy had a good job in Saudi Arabia and was in his late 20s.
He did also throw in a few "I'm not racist, but..." though he did make me realise the bubble I live in again.
He did also throw in a few "I'm not racist, but..." though he did make me realise the bubble I live in again.
The UK did pick&chose to some extend and I agree that this is became a problem. Other countries - especially in eastern Europe and the Baltic's - are perfectly happy with the single market and free movement. In fact some of these countries (e.g Baltic's) are the biggest defenders of the lawful and agreed legal status. They just don't want further political integration, if it goes against their interests.
Why should eastern Europe take migrants from Germany, when Merkel unilaterally ended the Dublin agreement?
Why should any other country be forced to join the euro against their wishes; especially when the existing problems are not solved?
Why should the Baltic's agree to subsidize richer countries "to save them"?
It's all nice and dandy that Macedonia wants to join the union, but without being disrespectful: they are politically and economically tiny compared to Europe. The UK alone was as big as the smallest 15-20 EU members. The big southern European countries struggle to carry themselves. They can't stabilise the EU. If the small and medium sized net-payers would contemplate to leave it would be the end of the EU. It's still a long way but there is huge dissatisfaction and the UK leaving (many of them saw the UK as the powerful nation that stand up for shared values/ideas) will only strengthen these voices.
Forcing deeper integration now against their interests is a ticking bomb.
Why should eastern Europe take migrants from Germany, when Merkel unilaterally ended the Dublin agreement?
Why should any other country be forced to join the euro against their wishes; especially when the existing problems are not solved?
Why should the Baltic's agree to subsidize richer countries "to save them"?
It's all nice and dandy that Macedonia wants to join the union, but without being disrespectful: they are politically and economically tiny compared to Europe. The UK alone was as big as the smallest 15-20 EU members. The big southern European countries struggle to carry themselves. They can't stabilise the EU. If the small and medium sized net-payers would contemplate to leave it would be the end of the EU. It's still a long way but there is huge dissatisfaction and the UK leaving (many of them saw the UK as the powerful nation that stand up for shared values/ideas) will only strengthen these voices.
Forcing deeper integration now against their interests is a ticking bomb.
On the Euro part because that was the deal before they submit their entry application, they haven't been caught by surprise, if they didn't want the common currency they shouldn't have applied in the first place. If they don't like the EU, then they shouldn't try to be members.
There's plenty of points here. So please don't mind me putting them in bullet points
a-Poland had benefited great with EU membership. FOM meant millions of immigrants could leave their country and seek jobs elsewhere. Meanwhile Unrestricted access to the Single market had made Poland quite appealing to many industries who move factories there while still retaining access to the single market. For that to be a success, Poland had to invest heavily on its infrastructure something the EU had also helped about by injecting millions of foreign taxpayer's money into Poland.
b- As you said Poland is a largely Catholic country. I visited the place twice and Pope John Paul II is a hero there. As a person whose history in Catholicism is far older then Poland's I happen to know quite a lot of this pope. I assure you the man must be turning in the grave knowing that his country is refusing to lend a hand to these immigrants especially after how much help Poland had found from the very countries whose now asking Poland to help them themselves.
c- So lets put focus on the nitty gritty shall we? The EU is asking Poland to take less then 10k immigrants or pay a fine. By the looks of it the most definite way to avoid that is for Poland to article 50. There's currently 2m Polish in Germany alone so from a purely immigration number balance perspective then we're better off without Poland's mandatory burden sharing and out of the EU
d- I don't know what the UK can ever offer to Poland that may be as appealing to EU membership especially considering that the centre piece of Brexit was to take control over immigration + stop giving contributions into the EU budget. These are 2 of the main reasons why Poland had prospered in the past few years. Maybe the UK might finance Poland itself and allow FOM to its people in the UK? I doubt it will happen though.
e- The UK immigration rates shot up when Eastern Europe entered the EU. Prior to that it was mostly about immigrants moving to one country to another to earn new experiences or because of the lifestyle. That kept numbers relatively low because the majority of people tend to prefer living closer to family and enjoy the lifestyle then were born in the first place then move abroad. Its only after Eastern Europe were given EU membership that the floodgates opened and I am the first to admit that this caused an issue. Which makes me wonder. Considering Poland's reliance on FOM and solidarity + the fact that this FOM is currently under attack. Is it worth for Poland to put further strains on that regard? After all if Poland does gain control over its borders then others will seek that as well. And why stop on immigrants from Africa especially considering that for most countries the biggest influx of immigrants doesn't come from the South but from the East?
e- In 2016 alone Italy saved 181.4k immigrants from sea as opposed to Greece 174.4k. I concede that the EU had been very slow in conceding that unrestricted irregular immigration is indeed a problem. However unless we start allowing people to die at sea or we close borders with Italy and let them handle all the problem by themselves (the latter is known as Dublin III regulation and which exactly what the UK and Poland want) then this is a European problem and can never be solved by individual states. Luckily we're finally waking up to this issue and coming up with solutions. Turkey's deal has reduced the immigration to Greece quite significantly and a makeshift deal with Libya has helped at the other end.
It's important to clearly say that Spain, France, Italy, Malta and Greece are the only countries that actually care about external border control, the other countries don't care because they aren't on the first line. And you are right when you say that this problem can't be solved by individual states but you also know what a "Union" solution would mean, it would mean that members don't have control of their borders. We would be very close from the feared European super state.
Well immigrant traffickers are now toying with the black sea route which will affect Romania too. Not to forget that if the Ukrainian crisis descend into chaos then Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia might end up at the very front line. I don't think that having a common immigration policy can ever be considered as a European super state. After all we already have something of that kind in place (Dublin III). The only difference is that the latter heavily staked against the Southern European countries while mandatory burden sharing is fairer.
It's a legal thing, an actuak common immigration policy lead by an actual common border control administration means that the members recognize a common territory, common borders, common citizens and the EU(Schengen area) already shares a substantial part of the sovereignty, I just kind of gave you the attributes of a state in constitutional Law. And we don't have an actual common immigration policy at the moment anyone can do what he wants these are still multilateral agreements which is highly inefficient for obvious reasons like lack of financial means and lack of willingness.
I agree with the first part though, people need to keep in mind that immigrant traffickers makes millions and it's near impossible to have airtight borders, at some point they will just invest in better material in order to increase their efficiency and they will do it in the Bosphorus and in Mediterranean sea.
Similarly when Trump visited questioning why NATO countries were not spending at least 2% of GDP on defence it turned out only three were, UK, Poland and Greece. Poland probably because of historic Russian fear and Greece probably because of historical enmity with Turkey. The UK we know is case alone.
So Greece get's hit twice.
@devilish interesting to get your take on the new proposed route through the Black Sea and this kind of relates to a snapshot of a current affair program I caught about Bulgaria. Bulgaria was experiencing most young people leaving remote areas to move to cities and other countries yet the people questioned got quite upset when it was suggested they could help to take in the refugees from Africa and Middle East insisting they had their own particular culture and religion.
The 10k immigrant to Poland sounds very small and as a number should not really cause problems unless the debate is polarised over there. The alternative take is that 80% of migrants are single men and that they have been sexually harassing German and Swedish women and worse. It claims the media and authorities try very hard not to link this to migrants and refugees. Now whether this is true, it is the perception that is probably important.
That is not a NATO or even a military problem, it's a home office problem. Also the 2% rule doesn't mean much, what matters is your actual military capacities.
Pedro,
I assume you meant 'poorer' rather than richer.
Interesting to hear your take about UK picking and choosing as believe the UK only used the veto once in 2011. Did you have other examples in mind?
I kind of think the UK is playing a game of dare with the EU, the veto was used to protect the City interest (banking, insurance etc) and now the financial questions with the EU appear to remain over tariff free access to the EU for this financial interest. If we don't get that the UK political parties face potential political suicide if they cannot control immigration which suggests to me hard Brexit is most likely.
I guess if this does happen the knock-on effect, with Italy being the third largest European economy and facing Greek type scenario. Unless Italy can turn things around it would only leave France and Germany to hold the Union together and both those countries have growing 'right wing' political movements.
I liked your idea of a flexible union yet for this to work a subscription would need to be paid and paid in effect for EU enlargement with countries like Macedonia and continued support for poorer countries.
I echo your, 'Forcing deeper integration now against their interests is a ticking bomb.'
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In the real world I agree, and possibly the detail in this 2% meant buying US weapons. I say that as the UK Column have been saying that in not renewing military contracts with BAE and Rolls Royce we are not only at risk of losing our independent military capability we are also at risk of getting dead ducks like the F-35 US fighter plane.
Europe is a rich continent and because of it its constantly under risk of unsustainable irregular immigration. The Western and Northern European countries might think it wont affect them but it will. Borders can't be constantly monitored 24/7, countries may refuse to play to the rules of the incredibly biased Dublin regulation (Greece had done that) and countries might even opt to give full citizenship/temporary visas to immigrants. Currently Malta is overrun by immigrants coming from Italy and we're supposed to have better controls on that as we do not share borders with anyone. Im pretty sure France, Austria and co suffer from that too.
Not to forget that no one knows were tragedy will strike next. A war in Ukraine might lead to millions of refugees spilling in Poland. Would the Poles be happy if the rest of Europe ends up throwing the Dublin regulation book at them and basically told them to sod off and take one for the team? I much doubt it. What about Putin deciding to go deeper in European territory until he finds some real resistance? Sure Nato is supposed to defend them but what if Trump decides he wont? Can we force them? We all know the answer
A stronger european is in better condtions to set up deals with neighbouring countries + might be in better position to defend one another in case of a Russian invasion. That benefits everyone from Norway to Poland, from Italy to Greece, from France to Malta.
Don't worry guys, they've got the real brains on the case.
Well for "Brexit will be a success" to work then it does need to happen!
Boris Clownson delivers again. And to think people call the man 'one of the most effective communicators in the UK'. Boggles the mind. Much like most of the Leave campaign people, he's a fraud through and through.
I think you'll find more people call him a cnut.
He's detestable and it's shameful that he holds such a significant position in government.
Well, that's what I'd call him if I chose to but I've seen Tories call him that and it just boggles the mind. He visited my workplace a few years ago and I was just rolling my eyes through his lame speech but people loved him because he's... funny? I really don't understand humanity sometimes.
Tbf he does communicate the fact that he's a cnut very effectively.
Lool at the guy who says we should go even if it's a bad deal.
He's bang on in the first paragraph. The second is a bit poor though, Boris never said they could/would spent all of it on the NHS, he said "It would be a fine thing, as many of us have pointed out, if a lot of that money went on the NHS."
This whole £350mil argument is frustrating, because it's in no way a big point in the whole issue yet comes up all the time. If we go with the actual figure of around £270m, it's about £14bil a year, when tax revenues are £700bil it's a drop in an ocean, and at the rate that the NHS swallows money shown below, would make a difference for a few years before more money would need to be found anyway based on the NHS budget needing to keep increasing at the same rate it has historically.
On the flip side, huge numbers of people have seen the ridiculousness of the UK's manner of dealing with Brexit and wanted no part in anything similar. Brexit's main achievement so far has been to increase the popularity of the EU across Europe, not decrease it. As for forcing deeper integration, it's all going to depend on what form that integration takes and what you mean by 'forced'. An EU combined army has been a long time coming, and with the rising threats from the east and increasingly unreliable support from the US seems like an inevitability now. Any more sabre rattling from Putin, and the pressure to form a concrete defence will be hard to resist. As for other forms of integration, we'll just have to see what is actually proposed. Some ideas will be good, others potentially bad.
Now there's a surprise, an articulate brexiteer, my goodness what is the world coming too?
I've met a few too, seem to know what they are talking about, I was very impressed, makes you believe it can actually work, very uplifting I thought!
Think they might do when Germany gets fed up with footing the bill for the EU 'gravy train' on its own and Trump says "Heh you guys in Europe, pay up for your own defence, or take a hike"
Hmm, so talk is that the government is going to offer £30bn as a divorce fee. A step forward, but probably only an opening gambit. Plenty of haggling to come no doubt.
In the euro-area countries with lower GDP per capita had to pay money to countries with higher GDP per capita.
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Stuff like the British discount on the budget is "pick&chose". Everyone should pay it's fair share based on the same principles/rules.
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The knock on effect of the UK leaving is that the balance of power in the EU shifted dramatically. All the decision making processes were designed around two different blocks being able to stop decisions against their interests (that's why the axis Germany-france was so important to overcome this balance). The UK leaving means, that one side lost its strongest country (considering that Germany usually ended up supporting a a middle ground solution).
The next EU reform will represent this change of power, especially when the German government continues to act like it does. The southern European countries and France will try to shift the institutions according to their interests and they'll succeed (only a question of how far they are able to push it). This is going to make various medium sized countries (who are all doing economically fairly well) pretty unhappy.
The visegrad+ countries are already pissed, but Denmark is probably the country we should look at as yardstick for this development.
It is understandable that people keep referring to Brexit as though it is a divorce, with a settlement required between two parties, but the EU is in fact 28 parties! We cannot divorce 27 other countries, its the wrong analogy. To me its more a parting of the ways, the 27 other countries want to go one way, we want to go another, we simply shake hands at the cross roads and go our own ways, we will keep in touch through trade negotiations as these affect everyone. Cheerio, Cheerio Cheerio!