Brexit #2

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 02:11 PM

The claim the accounts have never been signed off Is also disputed but it seems 2016 - before the poat - was free of material errors.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 03:59 PM

Nice link.
The main 'conclusion' given is:
Auditors say the accounts have been accurate since 2007. But they have historically recorded significant errors in how money is paid since their first audit in 1995. In the most recent year, they found a significant part of the EU’s spending was largely error-free for the first time.

How can 2016 be the first year to be largely error-free, if the accounts have been accurate since 2007?
My understanding of 'accurate' would include the accounts being 'error-free'. Clearly the EU auditors work to a different lexicon.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Stanron
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 04:20 PM

50 plus years of absent, erroneous, corrupt or disputed accounts might be seen as OK if we were a country which received EU money but as a country that paid in more than it got out it was a bad deal. It was our taxed money, despite opinions that say it was only a little bit. Once we are truly out it will be ZERO!


As to the post following mine, that showed little to me other than skills of misdirection and avoidance.

My first point, corruption, was answered with the words "Classic non sequitur." That is, itself, a classic non sequitur that has nothing to do with corruption.

Point two was incompetence. This was answered with a condemnation of David Cameron, a 'Little Englander' insult and bad language. Not my idea of an argument.

Point three was about EU dishonesty. This was answered with the accusation that the Leave campaign was dishonest, an irrelevance, and the fact that we have a veto. I'm not sure if that is another irrelevance or a non sequitur, but it is not a counter argument. A denial maybe.

Point four was about the EU being undemocratic. The answer to this was an animal reference and a denial that an unelected Commission could be undemocratic.

Point %, or 5 as it should have been, was not addressed.

Non sequiturs, insults, bad language, denials, avoidance and no arguments.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 05:11 PM

The link explains that accurate means it is a correct accounting of all income and expenditure but that errors relate to the authorisation of that expenditure. So you might use the link in support of your corruption charges, perhaps, but not that the audits were not signed off.

Of course, the authorisation issues do not necessarily it was actually unauthorised overall; sometimes it might be spent in a later quarter than it was approved for, for example. This is not to say the EU is corruption free - the UK isn't either - but you need to be careful you are not distorting the position.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 05:24 PM

Point 1. You work on the basis that we give money to the EU in return for nothing. That is nonsense.

Point 2. The government we currently have is incompetent. You need only look at the mismanagement of the NHS. How will leaving the EU make that better?

Point 3. What is your evidence of the EU being dishonest? Have 'they' ever been tried and convicted?

Point 4. The EU is not undemocratic. It is run by elected officials including ones from the UK who have considerably more power than the representatives of some other member states.

Point 5 (%). How are you measuring this "train wreck"? Compared to how many economies are being run now, including ours, the EU seems to be faring far better.

So, all your points are disputed but even if they were partially true the fact still remains that there is a mass of evidence confirming that we will be considerably worse off outside the EU. If your points did hold water, think how much better it would be if we stayed in and resolved all those issues!

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 05:48 PM

Oh, and I should have added that if the EU is all those things you say it is then the UK must shoulder a lot of the responsibility. It is not an "us and them" situation. We have been a major part of the EU since 1973 and if it was in anything like the state you suggest then we have helped to make the mess. Shitting on your partner's floor and then leaving others to clean up the mess is hardly the act of a decent country is it? But luckily, flawed as it is, it is nothing like the picture you paint. You have fallen for the EU smear campaign hook, line and sinker.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 06:19 PM

Goodbye, Galileo

I suppose some think the leavers voted for this, as well.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 06:37 PM

Of course any moves towards greater clearly democratic instructions in the EU would be seen as trying to turn it into a federal nation analogous to the US or India. The existing rather clunky system is a consequence of trying to avoid that while enabling communal harmony. It's a complicated business doing that, and there's room for improvements. It's work still to be done.

The "reforms" David Cameron failed to achieve weren't anthing to do with that, they were merely about getting further UK opt outs and exceptions.

As a citizen of another EU country I think I'd be pretty pleased to see the end of UK membership. Aside, that is, from the potential damage to Ireland arising from the special circumstances of the Northern Ireland involvement in the UK.

A Norway style deal makes a lot of sense, freeing the EU from the UK as members, and vice versa, but retaining a fair degree of harmonisation, and freedom of travel for both UK and EU citizens. And ending the troublesome fishery and agricultural policy links which underlay a fair chunk of the Leave vote.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 06:42 PM

(Damn spell checker that thinks it knows better...)

Of course any moves towards greater clearly democratic institutions in the EU would be seen as trying to turn it into a federal nation analogous to the US or India. The existing rather clunky system is a consequence of trying to avoid that while enabling communal harmony. It's a complicated business doing that, and there's room for improvements. It's work still to be done.

The "reforms" David Cameron failed to achieve weren't anthing to do with that, they were merely about getting further UK opt outs and exceptions.

As a citizen of another EU country I think I'd be pretty pleased to see the end of UK membership. Aside, that is, from the potential damage to Ireland arising from the special circumstances of the Northern Ireland involvement in the UK.

A Norway style deal makes a lot of sense, freeing the EU from the UK as members, and vice versa, but retaining a fair degree of harmonisation, and freedom of travel for both UK and EU citizens. And ending the troublesome fishery and agricultural policy links which underlay a fair chunk of the Leave vote.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 07:18 PM

I see I was right about the fiercely pro-May cleric on Newsnight being a lady - but wrong about her being a vicar. In fact she's a pastor in a very strange "Seeds for Wealth" church - "give us your money and we guarantee God will make you very wealthy" - and is also professional who's had parts in a Star Trek film and in Eastenders among other performances. The BBC has denied hiring her for Newsnight to liven up the discussion.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 02:10 AM

I don't think the leavers actually voted for opting out of any scientific cooperation or for damaging the economy, DMcG. I do think that many did not realise that the impact of their vote would have any such consequences because they were told that leaving would be easy and have no downsides. The remain campaign's warnings were, and still are, called "project fear". It is a testament to the duplicity of Farage, Johnson, Gove and co. that they managed to con so many and shame on the remainers for not going far enough to dispel such errant nonsense.

For that reason and many others the terms of the deal should be put to the country either in another referendum or a general election.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 02:24 AM

BTW, I still believe that the referendum was a massive mistake and that Cameron's government abdicated their responsibility. I have always said that referendums are wrong and argued against any more but I cannot see any other way out of this mess. Except maybe a coalition government deciding to do the right thing for the country and cancelling the whole sorry affair.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 03:07 AM

The whole sorry mess is the result of the Tories trying to go it alone, instead of creating a cross-party 'Brexit Team'. Of course, they didn't want a cross-party team, because they might not have got their own way and achieved what they're really after, which is a crash-out 'Hard-Brexit' in order to enable the immensely-wealthy cadre who give the party its instructions to avoid EU anti-tax-avoidance regulations which come into effect in 2019.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 04:25 AM

I don't think the leavers actually voted for opting out of any scientific cooperation or for damaging the economy, DMcG.

Nor do I. But there are those who will claim that, even though the precise consequences were not known, the risks were known and were included as part of their decision.

If you wanted my entirely speculative guess on what most leavers voted for, it was for everything to carry on exactly as it was, but with the additional rights to make new trade deals, to change any laws we wanted without referring to anyone else, including immigration and to pay less to the EU.   In the line of a song that I knew as a child but is so often apposite "Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die."


Our private Galileo will cost £92million just to work out what to do, and then we can expect to overall costs to be a big multiple of the 1.4 billion euro which was our share of the project if we end up having to build a new one.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: mayomick
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 09:41 AM

The amendment proposed by Hilary Benn to Ms May's Dec 11 motion specifically rules out a no- deal .The amendment is winning support from a cross -party group of pro-remain MPs ;it would if passed be a "staging post to a new referendum" according to Jack Straw . If Theresa May’s motion fails and Benn’s amendment is carried , “parliament essentially takes over from the executive" according to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg.Reading between the lines of an article in the UK’s Independent during the week, Benn’s parliamentary move may have been initiated the other end of Pall Mall :ihttps://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-deal-vote-no-theresa-may-jeremy-corbyn-queen-remain-mps-new-coalition-government-a8

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: KarenH
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 10:02 AM

I note the Daily Mail has a 'scare' headline relating to some new EU rule supposedly requiring a good mobile signal for banking deals to be processed with a threat this might harm Xmas shopping:


"Warning over new EU banking rules that means online shoppers need to have a mobile phone and good signal for their purchases to go through"


Some clown in the comments is moaning about being made to buy energy saving light bulbs by the EU. I bought a lot of these some time back and cannot remember the last time I bought a light bulb!

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 10:10 AM

I find it mildly disconcerting that some of these bulbs have a longer life expectancy than I do...

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: mayomick
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 10:37 AM

I say bring back the electric fires without plugs the Brussels bureaucrats forced us to do away with. Anyone else remember the fun it used to be buying an electric fire and having to buy a plug and put it on yourself ? Watch you connect the right wires or you have to start all over again! (if you're lucky)That was before the busy-body EU dictators ruled that such harmless fun was "potentially dangerous".

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 10:38 AM

It doesn't really surprise me Karen. This has been going on for at least a quarter of a century. I have posted similar before but it is always worth repeating

Euromyths A-Z index

Beware - it is a long read! This has been the 'us and them' scenario since we joined the EU and sadly the campaign to discredit the EU took a massive upsurge in the few years leading to the referendum. It fooled a lot of people, including some on here, into believing the EU was some sort of evil monster foisting its petty rules on us against our will.

The question that people should be asking is if the likes of Farage, Johnson and Gove are so anti EU, what is in it for the? It is sure as hell not for the benefit of you and I.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 10:39 AM

Mayomick - :-D

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: mayomick
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 10:46 AM

Matt Kelly, editor of The New European, revealed last week on Twitter that someone who knows Johnson very well said he now wishes he had "sent the other letter".
The source said: “He knows he’s fucked up massively. Now he’s working out how to get himself out of the mess.”
I guess that the person who knows Johnson very well but is also clearly a Remainer would be Boris' brother , Jo , who is one of the MPs backing the Benn ammendment I mentioned earlier today .

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 12:11 PM

Telling, though, that he's only concerned about his fuck-up in terms of self-extrication. Presumably, the fact that he's fucked it all up for the rest of the 65 million people in the U.K. doesn't disturb the self-centred, self-serving twunt one little bit.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 12:21 PM

I believe I said somewhere further up the thread that it was no longer about getting a good deal but exercise in how to save face while remaining in the EU. Which is the best possible deal.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 12:42 PM

Fingers crossed, Dave!

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 02:19 PM

Which is the best possible deal.

Almost. Marginally better would be if those who got us here *did* lose face - or at least acknowledge their role. But I would let them escape with glory if that was the price of getting out of this mess.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 02:28 PM

Agreed, DMcG. Good point

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: KarenH
Date: 02 Dec 18 - 07:37 AM

DavetheG

The euromyths lists are staggering.

I liked the 'myth' that kilts must be listed as women's wear on official lists, especially since the mistake seems to have originated in the UK, not the EU.

Boris's curved bananas nonsense dates from the 1990s apparently.

Moreover some of these regulations are sensible, including one limiting where householders can do electrical work on their own houses, which was not a EU idea in any case, just falsely stated to be such. Daily Mail again.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: KarenH
Date: 02 Dec 18 - 07:49 AM

The family income is threatened by Brexit since we supply goods and services to other members of the EU, and at present can do so without worrying about EU tariffs. These are specific EU customers, and we can't be waiting around for years while some WTO deal is struck with the country in question. A big worry. Lots of businesses must be in this sort of limbo.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Dec 18 - 08:36 AM

Hard Brexit might end up going soft

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: KarenH
Date: 02 Dec 18 - 09:45 AM

Ha ha ha

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Dec 18 - 01:58 PM

Due to hit the fan this week, according to the news headlines
MORE SECRETS - MORE LIES
How worse can this get ?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Dec 18 - 02:13 PM

ITN News piece from Robert Peston regarding this coming week's machinations....tick, tock, tick, tock....

https://www.itv.com/news/2018-12-02/theresa-may-has-nine-days-to-save-her-world/

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Dec 18 - 07:41 PM

I wonder what odds I'd get on the possibility that, having lost the vote next week, Theresa May will opt for a fresh referendum? Given that she's being charging around calling for people to speak out in support of her deal, and to try to get their MPs to back it, going for a "people's vote" on it when the MPs defy what she'd claim the people had called for them to do would make sense. It could give her more chance of getting the deal accepted and of surviving as PM than anything else in sight.

In fact it would make sense for her not to wait, but to come out with it in her debate with Jeremy after Strictly Come Dancing on Sunday. It would put him on the back foot if it came out of the blue.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 05:52 AM

So, if we do have another vote, what should the question be?

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 06:34 AM

Very difficult question, Steve. If Parliament thinks no-deal is unacceptable it makes sense to leave it off the question paper. But without a shadow of doubt, that would cause massive anger amongst those who voted to leave. However, if it is on the ballot and people vote for remain - or even May's deal - I am not convinced their anger will be much less. Also, if Parliament has decisively rejected May's deal, it would be odd to put that as an option.

All the questions I can think of have problems but I find Soubry's idea of ranking May's deal, no-deal and remain in order the best.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 06:45 AM

I think Labour also needs to drop this "constructive ambiguity" and have a much clearer stance for the planned tv debate. Going in saying they want a general election but are not clear what they will do if elected is probably about the worst thing they can do.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Raggytash
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 06:59 AM

Given the population should now have a much clearer picture of the implications of the UK leaving the EU should the question on a second referendum vote be the same as on the first.

"Should be United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union"

That way there can be no ambiguity.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 07:31 AM

Unfortunately that would keep a winning Leave vote as unclear as ever whether it means May's deal or no-deal.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: KarenH
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 07:35 AM

Raggytash

With respect:

If only it were that simple. For me, one thing that has emerged is that there isn't really a shared definition of what being in and coming out means. Some Brexiters appear to be insisting that we do not enter into any sort of deal with the EU that resembles the arrangements we had as members on the basis that it isn't really what the people wanted eg customs deals, eg free trade. 'Out means out', or does it?

And the problem of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and the border between the two: would this be decided or solved by such wording?

It's a horrible mess, and not likely to get better any time soon as far I can see.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Raggytash
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 07:49 AM

Sadly you are correct Karen. As Steve has pointed out on many occasions we elected politicians to act on our behalf. They negated that responsibility when the referendum was called and left us with the mess that we now have.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 07:58 AM

A further referendum repeats that dodging of responsibility and puts decisions about the Northern Ireland border and much else onto we ordinary citizens, some of whom will care deeply and others who are totally uninterested.

I do think it the duty of Parliament to sort this out without a referendum. But I admit I can't see how they can.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 09:16 AM

I said many months ago, and have repeated it often, that our politicians of all shades should be banging their own heads together, across the party lines that are ready highly irrelevant when it comes to brexit in any case, and declare that they will act in the country's best interests. It's as plain as the noses on the faces of all but the blind and the bigots by now that that means ditching brexit, reminding the nation that the referendum was after all only advisory, and that we know a lot more now than we did then. It'll cause trouble. But so will everything else. Anyone who thinks that another referendum will put this to bed is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 09:17 AM

"Already." Sorry.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 09:40 AM

Just skimming the 52 page "Legal Position on the Withdrawal Agreement". I would be astonished if this satisfies those demanding the full legal advice. Expect a call for contempt by the end of the day.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 09:59 AM

I said in the 'closed original' Brexit thread that I had a sneaky suspicion that May was seeking a means of aborting the village-idiocy of Brexit, and trying to manipulate a process of achieving the abandonment which would give her a get-out from shouldering the blame that the Brexit village-idiots would undoubtedly try to heap on her.

I've seen little to change my opinion on that, in fact as her government rumbles inexorably towards a bloody good kick in the balls in the 'meaningful vote', it seems more and more likely to happen.

Fingers crossed!

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Iains
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 10:08 AM

If you wish to highlight the fact the referendum was merely advisory how on earth can you justify the call for a second one if it is merely advisory? It is clearly a waste of both time and resources.
Even the squeaker admits a second is not on.
Courtesy of guido(of course!)

https://order-order.com/2018/12/03/bercow-second-referendum-fundamentally-undemocratic/

Cue the usual denialist remainiacs!

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 10:14 AM

Mention village idiots, and.....

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 10:40 AM

No, the speaker did not say that. He said, one week after the 2016 vote, that it would be undemocratic to rerun it because you did not like the result. He said nothing whatsoever about rerunning once you knew the proposed deal, or in the light of two more years' information.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Iains
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 10:41 AM

Brexiteers cannot possibly be idiots, village or otherwise. Idiots are defined as those having poor motor skills, very limited communication and very little response to stimuli. Under the 1918 Representation of the People Act, you cannot register as an elector if you are an idiot.

It is unclear what degree of retardation remainiacs suffer.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Iains
Date: 03 Dec 18 - 10:47 AM

"There is nothing advisory when a vote is held before which the nation's PM promises, verbally and in writing, that the government will obey the result and carry out the wishes of the majority. That forms a binding contract with the electorate. Much as many with personal disappointment issues would like to rewrite the terms under which people voted after the event because they don't like the result, it would be fundamentally undemocratic to allow them to do so. Parliament is only sovereign because the people allow it to be so. That sovereignty is not owned by parliament but simply held in trust. Were it otherwise we wouldn't need to hold regular elections."

Don't claim to be the author but certainly agree with the opinion.