Brexit - whats the difference.....

[pinnit2014]

Family friend has one and had a go in it; it's a great drive. Some decent brands out there: though Audi's E-Tron is well over priced at 80 odd k (most Audi's are; and the build quality gets worse with each model IMO)

The Polestar ones are meant to be pretty nifty, at about 30k less than the above.

Seen decent reviews of the E-Corsa as well

 

[mack341]

My Brother in law has a Telsa he bought a couple years ago. Rode in it this past summer, quite the car. He's a big bernie sanders guy.

He's done well that musk guy with the tesla, he's got vision and a 'can do' attitude. Yeah if you're going to go bernie, there is probably only one way, all in big

 

[Daavid63]

Found a video of one of the EU workers saying goodbye to the turkeys for the last time.
Heartbreaking.

No wonder he is crying if that's the only place he can get a gobble at.

 

[dunover]

Now I'm not even remotely suggesting this is a MAJOR BREXIT CALAMITY, but it's just a small personal story from our own family.

A few months ago our daughter had what she called 'a downsizing programme' where she donated hundreds of her various cuddly and soft toys to the local hospice shop (it took two runs in the car to get them all out there, in cash terms I daren't quite even think about the total spend they represented, but they were at least going to a good cause).

Anyway, since then she's been expressing regret about a very small number of the ones she let go, and we've had various efforts to either get the actual toy back, or an identical replacement. (The high point of this was where Mrs Chopley managed to get a shout out on the main local radio station here, which was heard by a lady who lived on the west of the island who'd bought one of the toys, she returned it to the shop and Jnr was subsequently reunited with it, to her absolute delight.)

In the last couple of days Jnr has been starting to get upset about another toy that she let go, (for the record, she's autistic, and when she gets fixated on something, she can really get fixated on it), and Mrs Chopley has once again set upon the quest to find an identical replacement, and she finally tracked down the company that makes and sells them - they're based in Denmark. (Again, for the record, Mrs Chopley has been amazing at this several times over now with the 'downsizing programme aftermath'.)

You know what's coming next, Mrs Chopley tried to order a single toy from this company in Denmark, there was no option to ship to UK addresses (IOM is treated as an extension of the UK for this purpose), so she emailed them and explained why we wanted to buy the toy. A lovely lady in Denmark replied to her and said she was really sorry but they simply can't ship to the UK anymore for single item orders, or indeed even any sort of order smaller than an entire pallet of product, because the red tape, costs, customs declarations, form filling, unknown 'extras' that are liable to be added on and general fuckery with doing business with the UK now makes it completely uneconomical for them to do so.

This time last year they'd have just popped the toy in a padded envelope and put it in the post.

Yes I know it's just one disabled child who can't get a toy she wants, it's a tiny little 'Brexit story', it's not even a blip on the radar, but it's the type of story that is being repeated all across the UK on an individual and business level thousands of times over every single day.

And once again I'm left wondering, where's the good stuff? What are the benefits we're reaping for this damage we've done to ourselves? I always thought 'getting back our fish' was a pretty crappy argument for the Leave campaign considering the tiny fraction of GDP that fishing represents, and we didn't even get the fucking fish back, and instead actually devastated swathes of our fishing industry because they now experience the same as what the toy company in Denmark found - namely UK<>EU business just got a lot harder, and more expensive, and more bureaucratic.

Current plan is one of Mrs Chopley's friends in France has offered to have the toy shipped to her in France, and she'll take on the hassle of getting it over to us here.

Yay Brexit.

View attachment 158858

Sure @ChopleyIOM you got the item name right?

Looks like the second one?

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Thanks dunover I'll forward those onto Mrs Chopley and make sure she hasn't got them mixed up!

 

[sufferinsilence]

 

[ChopleyIOM]

2016 - No downsides, sunny uplands, we hold all the cards.
2021 - People are fighting over petrol and we're begging EU drivers to return to the UK to stop entire supply chains from collapsing.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Sure @ChopleyIOM you got the item name right?

View attachment 158914

View attachment 158915


Looks like the second one?

Good spot @dunover - Mrs Chopley had got the name wrong, she's corrected it on Facebook and knows the correct name of the one she's looking for now, she'd got in her head at some point that the one pictured is a Rainbow Lorikeet, which it isn't!

Thanks again

 

[interlog]

2016 - No downsides, sunny uplands, we hold all the cards.
2021 - People are fighting over petrol and we're begging EU drivers to return to the UK to stop entire supply chains from collapsing.

View attachment 158916

Well if people didn't panic buy there wouldn't be an issue.

Typical let's blame somebody else rather than take responsibility for your own actions.

Our diesel delivery of 36,000 litres yesterday was late.... it arrived at 06:20 instead of 06:00 hrs. I will write an official complaint to our fuel supplier right now!

 

[interlog]

I spoke to our Trade Union representative yesterday about this shortage of fuel. We had an interesting discussion.

Some 10/15 years ago, fuel tanker drivers were the highest paid in the haulage industry. Over the years their wage and terms- and conditions have not been kept up with the industry. They are now at the bottom of the pile in terms of wage compared to their peers.

As I have said before, we are recruiting drivers ourselves. Going through the applications, we have quite a few drivers that applied that currently work for the likes of Hoyer, Turners etc. Same happened during our previous stint of recruitment where we took on 50 drivers. When interviewing the tanker drivers, their reason for leaving is that they are better off working for us delivering tins of beans at a decent increase of wage rather than being on the road with what effectively is a moving bomb.

Pay the wage and your drivers will not leave.

Fuck all to do with Brexit.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

In fairness I thought we'd reached a sort of understanding on the middle ground with this subject a few pages ago interlog, in that the 'fuck all to do with Brexit' and 'everything to do with Brexit' lines are both daft arguments to try and make in such a multi-faceted and complicated problem.

At the absolute base level, if it's fuck all to do with Brexit, why is the UK government currently scrabbling to reverse Brexit rules to get EU drivers back to the UK in an attempt to avert a bad situation escalating into a genuine crisis? Why are the army being mobilised to help? Why is the UK the only country in Europe currently experiencing these problems at such an acute level?

Panic buying is daft, sure, but it can feed into itself in a self-fulfilling prophecy. The workers with less than a quarter of a tank left who absolutely need their car for work, and the nurses, the doctors, the other key workers who can't be left stranded somewhere with no fuel, what are they going to do? Just hope it all fixes itself in the next couple of days, or decide 'Maybe I'll join the queue now, so at least I know I've got a full tank for the next week or so'.

I was watching the news yesterday and there were people in the queues who were caring for elderly parents, or other relatives, or had other personal circumstances that meant that being left without their car simply wasn't an option, what would you have them do? Just watch as the needle moves to EMPTY and the lifeline of their car ceases to function, or decide, with a resigned shrug, 'Fuck it, I'll get in the queues'.

I've already openly and repeatedly acknowledged, and indeed agreed with you, that the issues with LGV drivers in the UK (and indeed, on a wider level, across the EU and elsewhere in the world) are systemic, go back many years, and have multiple complex causes which successive governments have failed to address or made worse (and yes, I'm including the last Labour administration in that).

However, to simply make the blanket statement that it's fuck all to do with Brexit is IMO a denial of objective reality (we lost something in the region of 20,000 EU drivers post Brexit and Covid), although bringing back EU drivers is at best a short term sticking plater (and that's assuming they even want to come at all, and the early indications are that they don't), the changes required here are far more fundamental and wide-ranging.

We could have stayed in the EU and and improved pay and conditions in these sectors. We could have left the EU and improved pay and conditions in these sectors. But the government insisted we would 'have our cake and eat it' rather than acknowledge trade-offs and plan for them. This has precipitated a crisis which may mean the country ends up reliant on low-paid migrant workers after all - just different ones, who are even more vulnerable to exploitation. If there is any cake left, I don't know who's eating it.

Finally, as I understand it, (and you will be better informed than me on this interlog), from what I've read up on this the UK has some of the worst facilities in all of Europe for LGV drivers, making it an undesirable country to do work in, especially now we've thrown all the new Brexit red tape into the mix as well? Apparently France, for example, has extensive overnight facilities and suchlike to make life on the road far more pleasant?

Either way, there was nothing stopping the UK doing that sort of thing either in or outside the EU - but we didn't.

 

[bamberfishcake]

Breaking News - Government warn Public not to panic-buy petrol, Public panic-buys, Government blame Public for petrol shortage due to panic buying.

More Breaking News - Possible Turkey shortage, do not panic-buy!

 

[interlog]

In fairness I thought we'd reached a sort of understanding on the middle ground with this subject a few pages ago interlog, in that the 'fuck all to do with Brexit' and 'everything to do with Brexit' lines are both daft arguments to try and make in such a multi-faceted and complicated problem.

At the absolute base level, if it's fuck all to do with Brexit, why is the UK government currently scrabbling to reverse Brexit rules to get EU drivers back to the UK in an attempt to avert a bad situation escalating into a genuine crisis? Why are the army being mobilised to help? Why is the UK the only country in Europe currently experiencing these problems at such an acute level?

Panic buying is daft, sure, but it can feed into itself in a self-fulfilling prophecy. The workers with less than a quarter of a tank left who absolutely need their car for work, and the nurses, the doctors, the other key workers who can't be left stranded somewhere with no fuel, what are they going to do? Just hope it all fixes itself in the next couple of days, or decide 'Maybe I'll join the queue now, so at least I know I've got a full tank for the next week or so'.

I was watching the news yesterday and there were people in the queues who were caring for elderly parents, or other relatives, or had other personal circumstances that meant that being left without their car simply wasn't an option, what would you have them do? Just watch as the needle moves to EMPTY and the lifeline of their car ceases to function, or decide, with a resigned shrug, 'Fuck it, I'll get in the queues'.

I've already openly and repeatedly acknowledged, and indeed agreed with you, that the issues with LGV drivers in the UK (and indeed, on a wider level, across the EU and elsewhere in the world) are systemic, go back many years, and have multiple complex causes which successive governments have failed to address or made worse (and yes, I'm including the last Labour administration in that).

However, to simply make the blanket statement that it's fuck all to do with Brexit is IMO a denial of objective reality (we lost something in the region of 20,000 EU drivers post Brexit and Covid), although bringing back EU drivers is at best a short term sticking plater (and that's assuming they even want to come at all, and the early indications are that they don't), the changes required here are far more fundamental and wide-ranging.

We could have stayed in the EU and and improved pay and conditions in these sectors. We could have left the EU and improved pay and conditions in these sectors. But the government insisted we would 'have our cake and eat it' rather than acknowledge trade-offs and plan for them. This has precipitated a crisis which may mean the country ends up reliant on low-paid migrant workers after all - just different ones, who are even more vulnerable to exploitation. If there is any cake left, I don't know who's eating it.

Finally, as I understand it, (and you will be better informed than me on this interlog), from what I've read up on this the UK has some of the worst facilities in all of Europe for LGV drivers, making it an undesirable country to do work in, especially now we've thrown all the new Brexit red tape into the mix as well? Apparently France, for example, has extensive overnight facilities and suchlike to make life on the road far more pleasant?

Either way, there was nothing stopping the UK doing that sort of thing either in or outside the EU - but we didn't.

I was specifically referring to the fuel shortage and the blame of this to do with Brexit. It has fuck all to do with Brexit that the fuel delivery Companies can't retain their drivers because over the years they have not paid attention to paying their drivers enough for the dangerous job that they do and hacking away at their terms and conditions of employment. Facilities in the UK, whilst piss poor for HGV drivers in comparison to Europe, has also fuck all to do with this because fuel delivery drivers don't do tramping (i.e. sleep in their vehicle for their daily rest), they return to base at the end of their shift and then make their way home.

 

[interlog]

To add to the above.

Let's compare a LGV tanker driver job against what we, a supermarket, offers in the same area.

LGV job here:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Salary of £40k. Ours is £47k
Average of 48 hrs per week, ours is the same
27 days holiday rising to 32 after 5 years service, ours 30 days rising to 33 after 5 years service
Full sick pay is max of 60 days fully paid, ours max of 26 weeks fully paid both depending on length of service

Which job would you take?

 

[ChopleyIOM]

To add to the above.

Let's compare a LGV tanker driver job against what we, a supermarket, offers in the same area.

LGV job here:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Salary of £40k. Ours is £47k
Average of 48 hrs per week, ours is the same
27 days holiday rising to 32 after 5 years service, ours 30 days rising to 33 after 5 years service
Full sick pay is max of 60 days fully paid, ours max of 26 weeks fully paid both depending on length of service

Which job would you take?

That's great interlog, and I mean that honestly and sincerely, that you're paying your people well, treating them with respect, and being able to both retain and attract new staff. Given my political leanings, do you think I'm going to be sad to see normal workers actually holding the whip hand for once?

Outside of that though, there are only so many LGV drivers to go around, we were already short before Brexit, and we lost ~20,000 as a result of Brexit. So as good as it is to see worker pay and conditions improving - using pretend numbers for the sake of simplicity, if we need 100 drivers but there are only 80 to go around, and those 80 drivers keep moving to where they can get the best pay and conditions, then the 20 worst jobs out of the pool of 100 are always going to be struggling for staff.

Yes you could get into an arms race where everyone keeps offering to pay more and more money, but even an old lefty like me knows that's not a sustainable solution, and what we need to achieve is a reasonable balance between supply and demand, with strong protections for both worker pay and conditions.

And remember, as I noted above, this could have been fixed years ago, yes freedom of movement meant anyone could come to work here from other EU countries, but it didn't stop the government (Tory or Labour) from fixing meaningful wages and guaranteeing certain conditions to make the job more attractive to UK workers, rather than sitting back and letting unscrupulous employers squeeze pay and conditions as hard as they could (for both UK and EU workers).

So absolutely, it's a very complex problem with a lot of moving parts, and it's going to take a lot of work to put it right, but right now Brexit is part of the problem (we're the only country in Europe that's got this shit going on at the moment), and problems can only be fixed once they're diagnosed. Brexit is done, we're out of the EU, I get it, but we threw the baby out with the bathwater by leaving the Single Market and that's where these pain points are really coming from now.

 

[Daavid63]

That's great interlog, and I mean that honestly and sincerely, that you're paying your people well, treating them with respect, and being able to both retain and attract new staff. Given my political leanings, do you think I'm going to be sad to see normal workers actually holding the whip hand for once?

Mr Chopley did I see you on TV at a fringe Labour party meeting chanting "Andy, Andy, Andy" wearing an old crusty Che Guevara t-shirt?

 

[mcgameboy]

Mr Chopley did I see you on TV at a fringe Labour party meeting chanting "Andy, Andy, Andy" wearing an old crusty Che Guevara t-shirt?

Nah mate, that was his celebrity doppleganger, Ben Elton.

PS @ChopleyIOM, I hasten to add that I am in NO WAY suggesting that you are a harbinger of bad luck.
Or some mythological ghostly or paranormal phenomem....phononemum....phenonenun.....oh for fu......will "remarkable thing" do?

FFS I can't EVER get that word right when I try to say it! Bastid!!

 

[pinnit2014]

Mr Chopley did I see you on TV at a fringe Labour party meeting chanting "Andy, Andy, Andy" wearing an old crusty Che Guevara t-shirt?

That was Owen Jones; they're frequently confused.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Mr Chopley did I see you on TV at a fringe Labour party meeting chanting "Andy, Andy, Andy" wearing an old crusty Che Guevara t-shirt?

Can neither confirm or deny

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Nah mate, that was his celebrity doppleganger, Ben Elton.

PS @ChopleyIOM, I hasten to add that I am in NO WAY suggesting that you are a harbinger of bad luck.
Or some mythological ghostly or paranormal phenomem....phononemum....phenonenun.....oh for fu......will "remarkable thing" do?

FFS I can't EVER get that word right when I try to say it! Bastid!!

Me and a couple of friends when to see Ben Elton when he played here live at the end of 2019, very good show! He's still on great form and it was all new material, he wasn't still going on about 'Thatch' and stuff

 

[dunover]

Me and a couple of friends when to see Ben Elton when he played here live at the end of 2019, very good show! He's still on great form and it was all new material, he wasn't still going on about 'Thatch' and stuff

View attachment 158972

Wot, no Bernard Manning or Chubby Brown? Philistine.

 

[dunover]

Ben Elton was a BBC luvvie back in the 1990's unsurprisingly. I watched him numerous times and managed a real laugh just the once, he seemed to be trying 'too hard' most of the time. IIRC it was a line about the student house share and extracting the rubbish bag from the pedal bin, something like 'pulling a zeppelin out of a cat's arse'...

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Because we have no 'skin in the game' as it were when it comes to Brexit - (unlike the Tories, for example, who simply have to keep lying about it, and Labour, who are scared of it because of all the (former) red wall votes for it) - and Brexit was just something that was done to us that we didn't even remotely want or ask for, our businesses and politicians can simply tell it straight.

The cost of postage on the IOM is going up by 8% (a not entirely trivial amount), and one of reasons openly cited? Yep, Brexit of course.

For the record, not the only reason, simply one of several that are cited, but definitely a contributing factor.

 

[mack341]

Just saying 'brexit' in these articles with no further explanation, as if none are needed, is really dumbsville. It doesn't even say who or which organisation has blamed brexit.

In what specific way has brexit contributed to the stamp price rising, then when we know that we can determine if that is a one-off causing a cost rise, or could be resolved by efficiency measures further down the line.

What is the stamp price in the rest of europe for similar distances, we might have the best value post going, does anyone know? It could just be inevitable catch up.

There were rumours when Vince Cable privatised the RM it was something to do with the EU, they didn't like nationalised or national owned/dominated sectors, they wanted them opened up to business and private ownership. (side point)

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Well we've gone over this plenty of times now mack, dealing with the EU got more bureaucratic, more expensive, and more covered in red tape than at any time for decades thanks to Johnson's bungled Brexit, and that means higher costs. The IOM Post Office doesn't just send letters up and down the island, like all businesses that deals with the EU, it's seen its costs rise and they can only be absorbed so far before they start to get passed onto customers - and that's what's happening.

It's not me saying this, it's the organisation itself:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

But we know all this already mack, dealing with the EU is in a far worse place than it was at this time last year, and it's more expensive, so businesses that deal with the EU, or even businesses that deal with businesses that deal with the EU, are all now part of an increased chain of costs, and eventually that ends up with us the customers.

Let's enjoy this little Express montage.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

To see yourself how others see you.

Ouch.

(Taken from a German current affairs programme.)

 

[goatwack]

Not really sure about the Germans' sudden cheap potshots to stoke up populism, when much of Europe is toiling with e.g HGV driver shortages.

Germany's shortages are pegged just behind the UK's from understanding?

I'd say the petrol shortages are in no small part down to limp leadership, a malicious media revelling in causing the more 'feral' in society to exhibit their petrol-pilfering peacocking, long-running driver problems left unaddressed for decades, Covid, and a unique-yet-not-wholly-insignificant purging of some EU nationals from these fair shores, via the laugh-a-minute EU Settlement Scheme....

Yet looking at that clip you could be forgiven for thinking it's a skit, so steeped is it in Anglophobia that I'd be more concerned about how I look to the rest of Europe, never mind how the UK looks to them

 

[mack341]

even Joe Biden's a more convincing teleprompter user than this lady, she would have definitely been useful for 1980's east german tv!

 

[mack341]

Well we've gone over this plenty of times now mack, dealing with the EU got more bureaucratic, more expensive, and more covered in red tape than at any time for decades thanks to Johnson's bungled Brexit, and that means higher costs. The IOM Post Office doesn't just send letters up and down the island, like all businesses that deals with the EU, it's seen its costs rise and they can only be absorbed so far before they start to get passed onto customers - and that's what's happening.

It's not me saying this, it's the organisation itself:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

But we know all this already mack, dealing with the EU is in a far worse place than it was at this time last year, and it's more expensive, so businesses that deal with the EU, or even businesses that deal with businesses that deal with the EU, are all now part of an increased chain of costs, and eventually that ends up with us the customers.

Let's enjoy this little Express montage.

View attachment 159005

Fair enough the link shows it's the iom post office citing brexit, the bbc article didn't as far as I could see, but in that link it states:

The price of a standard local and UK letter will rise by 5p to 67p yet will remain highly competitive and represents excellent value for money when compared to the UK’s 85p first class letter price, and equivalent postal service providers throughout Europe.

--------
So I'm wondering how brexit would affect the uk internal mail price, I could understand a letter to the europe mainland might go up due to new red tape. Also it's been so long since I've sent a 1st class letter, I never knew the cost had risen that sharply [35p doesn't seem that long ago] so thankyou very much Vince cable, you cretinous libdem eu remainer.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Not really sure about the Germans' sudden cheap potshots to stoke up populism, when much of Europe is toiling with e.g HGV driver shortages.

Germany's shortages are pegged just behind the UK's from understanding?

I'd say the petrol shortages are in no small part down to limp leadership, a malicious media revelling in causing the more 'feral' in society to exhibit their petrol-pilfering peacocking, long-running driver problems left unaddressed for decades, Covid, and a unique-yet-not-wholly-insignificant purging of some EU nationals from these fair shores, via the laugh-a-minute EU Settlement Scheme....

Yet looking at that clip you could be forgiven for thinking it's a skit, so steeped is it in Anglophobia that I'd be more concerned about how I look to the rest of Europe, never mind how the UK looks to them

Welcome back @goatwack, it's like we haven't missed a day

I don't see Anglophobia so much as a rather curt presentation of the facts, it's hard to overstate how crackers the UK looks to the rest of Europe right now, with actual fistfights on petrol station forecourts over a few litres of fuel. Yes there are driver shortages all over the EU, but they have the Single Market, Customs Union, and free movement of labour to ensure that people can just drive into a petrol station and, y'know, buy petrol.

 

[goatwack]

I'll concede that the behaviour of our forecourt entertainers must be the envy of Europe, the sort of loutish buffoonery that only we exhibit.

Who can forget the iconic shank-wielding thug who was constantly pulling his oversized trousers up?

Who remembers the pioneering lady who walked away from the petrol pumps clutching a plastic bag hastily filled with diesel? (iconic)

And the bald-patterned display of flailing arms and windmilling between two gladiators, merely yesterday??

So yes, these morons' actions are highly embarrassing, but not just to the rest of Europe, but to ordinary, decent folk that are subjected to these antics. Whipped up into a delirious state of panic over fuel shortages by our media, causing this effect. Would there be as bad a fuel shortage if not for the greedy few 'panicking'? Boris underplaying the situation hasn't helped matters, his leadership inadequacies being exposed further...

As for Olaf Scholtz's Brexit swipe at the UK, it's not relevant and inappropriate if anything, given that the current HGV predicament is near enough worldwide, with Brexit playing a negligible part in it. It's Shadenfreude without merit, which makes it look like 1980s propaganda

 

[dunover]

To see yourself how others see you.

Ouch.

(Taken from a German current affairs programme.)

This from a country already suffering driver shortages, which can't elect a proper government now shaky has quit and is a few of your French millimetres away from being f*cked hard up the arse by the Russians for their gas.

 

[geordiecolin]

Not really sure about the Germans' sudden cheap potshots to stoke up populism, when much of Europe is toiling with e.g HGV driver shortages.

Germany's shortages are pegged just behind the UK's from understanding?

I'd say the petrol shortages are in no small part down to limp leadership, a malicious media revelling in causing the more 'feral' in society to exhibit their petrol-pilfering peacocking, long-running driver problems left unaddressed for decades, Covid, and a unique-yet-not-wholly-insignificant purging of some EU nationals from these fair shores, via the laugh-a-minute EU Settlement Scheme....

Yet looking at that clip you could be forgiven for thinking it's a skit, so steeped is it in Anglophobia that I'd be more concerned about how I look to the rest of Europe, never mind how the UK looks to them

Welcome back Goatie
I was rather hoping that you would be refused your citizenship. But that was for a selfish reason because I was wishing you to become a long distance lorry driver to buck the trend

 

[goatwack]

I resent that notion, I think you'll find I got my citizenship fair and square, and that the authorities have been nothing but kind

 

[geordiecolin]

I resent that notion, I think you'll find I got my citizenship fair and square, and that the authorities have been nothing but kind

Meh. I love the introverted Toon strip that your wearing

 

[goatwack]

Meh. I love the introverted Toon strip that your wearing

It's like Philipe Albert & Warren Barton running away from defending a set-piece

 

[geordiecolin]

It's like Philipe Albert & Warren Barton running away from defending a set-piece

FFS your back.
I was inhaling a smoke when I began reading that and the resulting coughing fit wasn't good

 

[geordiecolin]

The thing is geordie, I can't overstate how little of a fan I am of the EU in many regards, I found this post post I made on some videogame forums back in 2012 (this isn't the whole thing but an excerpt from it).

It seems to me that the banking elite is making a real play for total societal domination in Europe at the moment, what was in the past achieved with soldiers and bombs, is now achieved through crushing financial repression and 'austerity measures'. Greece is no longer a democratic nation in the true sense of the word, it'll be interesting to see if there's some sort of attempt to derail/postpone the upcoming elections, as the political parties that have signed up to what is effectively a hostile EU invasion are sure to be wiped out at the polls.

And beyond that, even in this thread I've not exactly been banging the drum for how great the EU is an organisation, my point has always been that like it or not, it's a major economic and political force in the world, and it's better to be a big 'top table player' in that organisation with some real clout, than sitting on the sidelines moaning about stuff. (Which is the status the UK has relegated itself to.)

It's like, if you're a member of a local golf club and there are elements of the club that you really like and enjoy, and you can see the benefits of, but also stuff you think is crap and want to change, what's the best way to effect that change?

Let's also assume you're a powerful member of that golf club, you're on the executive committee, you help pay towards its costs but you also reap rewards from it in other ways, and if you're pissed off about something the club does, your voice gets listened to and sometimes the entire golf club has to bend to do what you want. (Which is absolutely what the EU used to do all the bloody time for the UK.)

So in that scenario is it best to stay a member of the club and use the power and influence you have to steer the club in the direction you want it to go, or just cancel the whole lot and write the entire thing off as a bad deal? And the kicker is of course, with the latter choice, you realise you actually still want to play golf at the club and your business interests at the club are no longer considered because you're no longer a member and you gave up your spot on the committee.

The EU is deeply flawed in many ways, and yes, it's over-reached what it should be in some regards too, but the UK did at least have a seat at the top table of one of the most powerful economic and political forces in the world, what we said mattered, and even countries like Germany and France couldn't ignore what we said.

We gave it up for flags and fish, we didn't get the fish and our new blue passports are made in Poland.

Sorry for the late reply Chops mate. I just looked at the post and presumed it was just the beginning of your answer to The Blah Story
Did you answer my question? Are you still checking back to see if anyone has responded yet to your post in that forum to this day?

 

[ChopleyIOM]

If you mean the 'Do you really think that the EU has a future Chops? If so then why do you think it has?' then sorry I didn't answer that directly in my earlier reply.

The answer to that is yes I do, I'm sure member states will continue to be disgruntled with aspects of how it's run (which is fine), I'm sure the citizens of member states will continue to be unhappy with elements of what being a member entails, and anti-EU parties will continue to gain some degree of traction or another in national elections (which is also fine).

However, do I think any other member states will leave the EU, or if the organisation will collapse completely, then no I do not.

Brexit is probably the best advertisement for EU membership that could possibly be imagined, support for EU membership across the populations of the EU is up since Brexit, as it becomes blatantly obvious that whatever problems the EU has, they are more than made up for by the benefits that membership confers.

If you saw that current affairs report I linked a few posts back from Germany, well, that's being repeated all across the EU, how many average folks across the EU do you think are looking at where the UK has ended up in just nine months and are thinking, 'Yeah, I'll have some of that please, fighting over fuel on a petrol forecourt looks cool, and I just love the way I could make huge sections of business in my country completely non-viable overnight'.

And it hasn't even stopped the dinghies coming across the channel (not that it ever was), I read the other day that channel crossings by migrants are double in 2020 alone already than they were in all of 2021. (And because we left all the EU agreements on how we can arbitrate on these things, it's actually harder to 'send them back' than it was before.)

Brexit has objectively been a disaster on many levels (well documented in this thread), and the UK has in many ways done the EU a favour, because it's crystallised the opinion that it's better off to be in it and try to effect change from within, than flounce out and moan from the sidelines about how mean the EU is because things have got shit.

 

[interlog]

And it hasn't even stopped the dinghies coming across the channel (not that it ever was), I read the other day that channel crossings by migrants are double in 2020 alone already than they were in all of 2021. (And because we left all the EU agreements on how we can arbitrate on these things, it's actually harder to 'send them back' than it was before.)

And why would they want to move to a shit hole that is England that is in crisis with no food to be had in the shops and workers not being able to get to work because there is no fuel to be had on the island.

Surely it would be better for them to stay in the utopia that is Europe?

 

[ChopleyIOM]

And why would they want to move to a shit hole that is England that is in crisis with no food to be had in the shops and workers not being able to get to work because there is no fuel to be had on the island.

Surely it would be better for them to stay in the utopia that is Europe?

Well I'm guessing that a peaceful nation where you're not likely to be killed in your sleep is probably still a considerable step up from where you came from, even if the local supermarkets don't have the full range of bottled waters that they usually do.

Last time I saw the stats the UK ranked 16th in Europe for asylum applications as a proportion of population.

Refugees often don't decide which country they end up in, with that being dictated by the smugglers. France is a notoriously harsh country for asylum seekers - (a status it maintains whilst being a full EU member, almost as if sovereign states are still sovereign whilst also being in the EU, funny that) - so refugees who end up in France may well choose to try to make the final hop to the UK. On top of that, the second language a refugee is most likely to speak is English, and they may well have family connections in the UK that they don't have in France - both of which may make the UK a desirable final destination.

Also, don't forget this little 'Brexit dividend':

As the X-Files always used to say, the truth is out there, you just didn't get told any of it by the Leave campaign.

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[ChopleyIOM]

Who says there isn't such a thing as cosmic justice.

 

[goatwack]

Priti Patel's desperation is what's sad about the whole affair, so out of her depth is she that she took to deploying armoured jet skis to.......I'm not even sure what.

They look ace of course, but a brief glimpse into their effectiveness was revealed in real- time, as those in boats opted to simply jump off in to the sea, a variable I don't think Border Force were quite anticipating.

So effectively useless then, even if they make for excellent French-detoured escort patrol services.

Though given her stellar handling of the Insulate Britain eco-zealots' hand-glueing escapades, giving Cressida Dick a two-year extension for keeping us safe, and of course handing France £54 million to stop three in four migrants crossing into UK waters as agreed upon, I'm just surprised she wasn't shuffled into a post of her abilities, like, say, Minister For Tough-Talking And Missing Gs At The End Of Sentences ?

 

[dunover]

Priti Patel's desperation is what's sad about the whole affair, so out of her depth is she that she took to deploying armoured jet skis to.......I'm not even sure what.

They look ace of course, but a brief glimpse into their effectiveness was revealed in real- time, as those in boats opted to simply jump off in to the sea, a variable I don't think Border Force were quite anticipating.

So effectively useless then, even if they make for excellent French-detoured escort patrol services.

Though given her stellar handling of the Insulate Britain eco-zealots' hand-glueing escapades, giving Cressida Dick a two-year extension for keeping us safe, and of course handing France £54 million to stop three in four migrants crossing into UK waters as agreed upon, I'm just surprised she wasn't shuffled into a post of her abilities, like, say, Minister For Tough-Talking And Missing Gs At The End Of Sentences ?

Her other idea was better, don't let them in and send them to a remote island for processing, like the Aussies did which stopped these chancers arriving on their shores overnight. I don't mean those in France by the way as Australia would be a hell of a voyage in a dinghy, I mean from Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China etc.

 

[goatwack]

Her other idea was better, don't let them in and send them to a remote island for processing, like the Aussies did which stopped these chancers arriving on their shores overnight. I don't mean those in France by the way as Australia would be a hell of a voyage in a dinghy, I mean from Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China etc.

That's the problem, she's full of ideas but can't implement any of them effectively. How she survived the Cabinet culling is anyone's guess, but some suggest he's keeping her around as a fall guy to deflect from his own inadequacies

 

[cncas2123]

Her other idea was better, don't let them in and send them to a remote island for processing, like the Aussies did which stopped these chancers arriving on their shores overnight. I don't mean those in France by the way as Australia would be a hell of a voyage in a dinghy, I mean from Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China etc.

I’d agree with sending them to a remote island , Isle of Man would be perfect…

 

[Mr_Slot5]

We advertised for another 15 drivers. Advert went up a week ago. 98 applicants so far, none of which reside outside of the UK.

You can get drivers but if you're not prepared to pay a decent wage that goes with the job, you will have drivers leaving for other Companies.

I have been with my current Company for some 17 years. Other than drivers passing away, being sacked or retiring, not one person has left to go and work elsewhere.

This is it, employers don’t want to pay the wages. We’re now seeing companies starting to increase wages by not insignificant amounts. The low wage tap has been turned off and some businesses are fighting tooth and nail to turn it back on again.

Me? I say tough titties, they’ve had it too good for too long. Time to improve working conditions and pay.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Time to improve working conditions and pay.

There was literally nothing at all stopping that from happening when we were an EU member, we didn't need to blow up our trading relationship with our closest neighbours and biggest economic bloc in the world to achieve it.

France has some of the strongest worker and pay protections in the world, along with a powerful unionised labour force - and they manage that whilst being a full EU member and not fighting over fuel on petrol station forecourts.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

UK Fishing Industry shows £300m+ loss as a result of Brexit as opposed to the £148m boost that Brexit was sold on the back of.

Still, at least the fish are 'happier' now, according to Rees-Mogg.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

IDS apparently forgetting that the NIP was:

1) Part of the oven-ready deal that 'got Brexit done'
2) He voted for it
3) He actually said in the Commons that there was no point wasting time debating the deal because everyone knew everything about it already and they were all bored of it (i.e. 'Get Brexit Done' with no understanding of what they were actually doing.)
4) He doesn't even explain what triggering Article 16 would achieve
5) Nearly every sentence of the article is blatantly untrue or a deliberate misinterpretation of the facts

It's almost as if, and I don't mean to be cruel here, but perhaps he just doesn't have a fucking clue what he's blithering on about, and he never has.