Absolutely devastated that the other thread didn’t makes it to 5,000 pages.
Annoyingly, my principal new year’s resolution was to post in a tediously repetitive manner on that thread throughout 2021, until @Ric selishly torpedoed my good intentions.Take a look in the mirror sunshine there were plenty on here putting in the effort, repeating themselves over and over again daily so the landmark could be reached. The ultimate failure lies with apathetic dip in dip outers like yourself:-)
Oh and me but in fairness but I have a carpal tunnel syndrome, honest.
Shouldn't you adopt new resolutions occasionally instead of repeating the same one every year?Annoyingly, my principal new year’s resolution was to post in a tediously repetitive manner on that thread throughout 2021, until @Ric selishly torpedoed my good intentions.
I thought Brexit was supposed to stop that sort of thing.Annoyingly, my principal new year’s resolution was to post in a tediously repetitive manner on that thread throughout 2021, until @Ric selishly torpedoed my good intentions.
That was my new year’s resolution in 2017.Shouldn't you adopt new resolutions occasionally instead of repeating the same one every year?
I would say co-operate in a number of areas like security, intelligence & policing, research. Brexit is (to use a phrase of Churchill's) not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. It's not the end of our relationship with Europe but the beginning of a new one.
The truth is that the EU is a collection of vested interests, where the Germans controlled the finances, to the detriment of most other countries (particularly in Southern Europe). The French were happy to tag along because they had the sop of the wasteful Common Agricultural Policy. It's done nothing to halt increasing authoritarianism and de-liberalisation in Poland & Hungary.
The Common Market was an excellent economic idea but the French & Germans had delusions of grandeur and wanted a vanity project involving increasing political and monetary convergence.The Euro is a sticking plaster covering up all sorts of monetary and fiscal issues. Freedom of movement was another piece of economic illiteracy, which just allowed the redistribution of scarce labour market skills (and therefore potential tax revenues) from poorer countries to richer ones.
I'm not claiming that being out is all sweetness and light by any means but at least we'll be hopefully doing things for positive reasons rather than deciding that this or that latest EU requirement isn't for us. I've always said I'd rather we were out, with one foot in, than in, with one foot out.
I asked what does the UK want, what is our strategic vision, industrial policy, foreign policy, priorities in trade etc.
You have just listed what you don’t like about the EU, France, Germany, the Euro and freedom of movement. In 1973 the positives about the Common Market also focused on bringing European nations together, peace as well as benefits in trade, greater integration, and the removal of borders and barriers for goods and people. It was a political project as well as an economic one.
Obviously you reject this and want to return to barriers and borders for goods and people, so I want to know what positive vision do Brexiteers have for the UK now that we have put trade barriers and borders in place, including within our own sovereign territory.
@Rascal outlined his vision for a UK outside the European economic area. I may not agree with his vision, but at least it is a vision. I want to know what other people’s vision is, nor simply ‘the EU sucks‘.
We are where we are, nether a remainer or leaver be. Set our controls for the heart of the sunrise.
... And yes, I am still pissed ...
I don't make government policy so I don't know what the vision is (but I'm pretty sure it won't be Rascal's). It will be what we make it, for better or worse. But the thing is we're not tied to a hopelessly unrealistic vision of a federal Europe, with a single currency that suits only one country. We won't have the European Central Bank telling us how much tax we have to raise and how much money we can spend, who we can be friends with and who we can and can't trade with. That's why I voted the way I did, having been pro-Common Market but anti-EU, by which I mean the post Lisbon/Maastricht EU.I asked what does the UK want, what is our strategic vision, industrial policy, foreign policy, priorities in trade etc.
You have just listed what you don’t like about the EU, France, Germany, the Euro and freedom of movement. In 1973 the positives about the Common Market also focused on bringing European nations together, peace as well as benefits in trade, greater integration, and the removal of borders and barriers for goods and people. It was a political project as well as an economic one.
Obviously you reject this and want to return to barriers and borders for goods and people, so I want to know what positive vision do Brexiteers have for the UK now that we have put trade barriers and borders in place, including within our own sovereign territory.
@Rascal outlined his vision for a UK outside the European economic area. I may not agree with his vision, but at least it is a vision. I want to know what other people’s vision is, nor simply ‘the EU sucks‘.