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Should the UK remain a member of the EU


Anny Road
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317 members have voted

  1. 1. Should the UK remain a member of the EU

    • Yes
      259
    • No
      58


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People looking at their long term future. Hmmm.....

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36616088

 

Wiltshire and Swindon have voted to leave the European Union.

 

Swindon was one of the first areas in the country to declare a result, which saw 61,745 (54.7%) vote to leave.

Wiltshire 's countywide result was announced shortly before 05:00 BST, with 151,637 voting in favour of a Brexit against 137,258.

 

Pro-Brexit Swindon MP Justin Tomlinson, said it was a "surprisingly big margin" while Remain campaigner MP Robert Buckland said he was "disappointed".

 

Reaction and updates from the West

Mr Tomlinson said he had a "sneaking feeling" that the Leave campaign would win in his constituency.

"That's what it felt like when I talked to people - but not by this margin.

"Some people wanted to embrace the global economy, some people felt that what they had voted for in the 70s now wasn't what was there today.

"The country has an appetite for change."

'Bigger picture'

But Mr Buckland, Conservative MP Swindon, said the result was not "about personalities".

"I passionately believe that we should be a member of the EU and have felt that for many, many years and I've made no secret of that - but it's not about me," he said.

"Of course I'm disappointed, but I look at the bigger picture here and I look at what people are deciding and most people are looking at the long-term future ."

James Gray, Conservative MP for North Wiltshire, said the EU was a "failing organisation".

"I think it's been a terrible organisation - an economically disastrous organisation, so I'm very glad our nation is going to be independent from it."

'Must unite'

Conservative MP for Salisbury John Glen, who backed the Remain campaign, said the country "must unite".

"I'm conscious across my constituency and across Wiltshire there'll be people that will be very anxious this morning and there'll be people who are absolutely elated this morning - in virtually equal measures," he said.

Swindon was the eighth of 382 across the country to declare.

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Honda will apparently say that it’s nothing to do with Brexit. They’re going to announce that the Swindon plant makes diesels, and that they are switching to make 75% of their production electric cars, due to a shift and lessening in demand, and that their main factory has the spare capacity to make those cars. Announcement tomorrow.

 

I’m not saying this is right, by the way, simply that this is what they will apparently announce. I suppose we’ll see tomorrow.

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3 hours ago, SasaS said:

 

Cloggy raking it in.

 

"Amsterdam is winning so much business as Europe’s post-Brexit trading hub that the Netherlands is boosting the financial regulator’s budget by 10 percent to keep up with it all."

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-15/brexit-such-good-business-for-dutch-that-watchdog-needs-to-grow

Netherlands will lose a fair bit from trade in a no deal situation but the government are actually doing something to mitigate it and are far better prepared than the UK. There's also a website for business owners with various scenarios run through on how it may affect the business plus they've already hired loads of extra customs and admin staff. 

 

 

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13 hours ago, cloggypop said:

Netherlands will lose a fair bit from trade in a no deal situation but the government are actually doing something to mitigate it and are far better prepared than the UK. There's also a website for business owners with various scenarios run through on how it may affect the business plus they've already hired loads of extra customs and admin staff. 

 

 

True it will take a hit but the hit will be proportionally much smaller than the UK. The Netherlands is having to restructure it's trade with one country where as we'll be restructuring with the other 27 members and the 40+ countries we trade with on the existing EU negotiated arrangements. It does appear that Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands have far more advanced no-deal planning than the UK. We're all hoping for Chris Grayling to deliver...

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I'm personally really happy that a few percent of people who swung the vote have condemned us to our rat eating future. Seems awesome. Let's not have another referendum to fix this shit, because that would be bad. Let's not just fucking stop this nonsense now, we need to listen to the 1.7% of the country that it would take to swing the vote back to not fucking everything up.

 

 

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I propose another vote. Not on remaining but whether leave voters and Gnasher should cover these extra costs which they were warned about. I don't mind them reaping the benefits of leaving whenever they come but they should carry the extra burden of tax losses and price rises in the first place.

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16 minutes ago, skend04 said:

I propose another vote. Not on remaining but whether leave voters and Gnasher should cover these extra costs which they were warned about. I don't mind them reaping the benefits of leaving whenever they come but they should carry the extra burden of tax losses and price rises in the first place.

It would make them more patriotic, in my opinion.

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Spain is really pushing it's Gibraltar agenda.

 

Britons may need £52 visa to visit mainland Europe after Brexit

Visa-free travel plan derailed again by Spanish demands over status of Gibraltar

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/20/britons-may-need-52-visa-to-visit-mainland-europe-after-brexit

 

 

 

 

.....ofcourse under May's deal, Spain would have power of veto over whether or not we can exit the backstop. That will obviously end well for both Gibraltar and fishing rights......

 

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On 2/18/2019 at 1:02 PM, skend04 said:

Japan are/were on the verge of pulling bilateral trade talks by all accounts. This after Hammond had to cancel his trip to China.

 

Going well this Brexit lark. We might not even have cheap Chinese goods to buy at this rate. 

I thought Japan had done that some time ago and wanted us to have an agreement with this new trading block over there?

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11 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

I thought Japan had done that some time ago and wanted us to have an agreement with this new trading block over there?

I only saw it mentioned over the weekend. I know Fox was mumbling something about Japan being receptive to joining a trade pact over that side of the world but how viable that is I'm not sure.

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28 minutes ago, SasaS said:

With big moves from both May and Corbyn, it's a shame this thread has not been updated in almost a week.

Hasn't May's move today actually made no-deal a more likely outcome in June? MP's can now vote her deal down on March 12th without the threat of an immediate cliff edge. It now appears that the EU are willing to offer an extension till June 30th as the new EU parliament sits at the beginning of July. Unless anyone really thinks that the UK parliament will significantly change it's position during those three months?

 

I don't see what further negotiation with the EU could occur on May's deal after another defeat or that May can go back and seek another extension without a major proposal e.g. permanent customs union, another referendum etc?

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Quote

 

May's Article 50 extension is a trick to take us to the real cliff edge
    
By Ian Dunt


Tuesday, 26 February 2019 3:30 PM

The prime minister was as misleading and cynical as ever, even in retreat. She just cannot help it. It is part of the programming.

 

She came to the Commons to perform what was billed as her latest major U-turn. After all her repeated insistences that we would leave the EU on March 29th no matter what, she was finally conceding that an extension might be necessary.

 

There's been a consensus among officials in Whitehall and Brussels on this for months. Everyone knew she had to extend, even if she got her deal through. It's an unquestionable technical reality. But she is the first bona-fide post-truth prime minister. She will deny that which she knows to be the case and then later flip on it as if it was never said in the first place. And she does it with such a dull sense of repetition that your brain switches off and goes to sleep and you are barely aware it is happening at all. It is like some terrible drug. She'd denied over and over again that Article 50 would ever be extended and today she came to the Commons and ate her words. But it was as if she'd been saying them since the dawn of time.

 

In truth, she had no other choice. Her moderate ministers were threatening to rebel and back the Cooper-Boles amendment seeking an extension mechanism. So she gave way just enough to discourage them. Her plan, she said, was to bring her deal back for a meaningful vote on or before March 12th. If it was defeated, she'd be back the next day with a motion on no-deal. And if that was defeated, she'd be back the day after that with a motion on a "short" extension of Article 50. If it passed, the government would go and petition the EU for it.


No-one mentioned, incidentally, the nightmare scenario: If MPs voted against no-deal and Article 50 extension. They are perfectly stupid and cowardly enough to do so. That terrible potentiality just sort of hung in the air, unspoken.

 

The May proposition was functionally very similar to the Cooper-Boles amendments, except in two respects. Firstly, Cooper-Boles put the power of extension in MPs' hands by statute, passed against the government's wishes. It did not rely on trust of the word of a prime minister who had lied countless times to avoid Commons defeats and whose government had been found in contempt of parliament. Secondly, it left the timing of the extension in the hands of the government, rather than MPs.

 

May clearly plans to use this timing to her advantage. She knows there is a complication in Article 50 extensions. That complication is the European parliament election in May. If Britain takes part, even in a strictly formal way, it can keep on extending Article 50 after July. But if it does not take part, July 1st becomes an absolute unextendable cliff edge.

 

I wrote about this in detail last week. It has now been confirmed by the prime minister in the Commons. She said:

 

"An extension beyond the end of June would mean the UK taking part in the European parliament elections. What kind of message would that send to the more than 17 million people who voted to leave the EU nearly three years ago now? And the House should be clear that a short extension – not beyond the end of June – would almost certainly have to be a one-off.  If we had not taken part in the European parliament elections, it would be extremely difficult to extend again, so it would create a much sharper cliff edge in a few months’ time."

 

The prime minister never speaks clearly. It is not in her nature. But the implicit message was perfectly decipherable. It is there in the warning about Brexit voters being confused by UK participation in the elections. And it is there in the statement that the extension would "almost certainly" have to be a one-off. She is going to ask for a short extension - probably a couple of months - then refuse to take part in the European elections. July 1st then becomes the cliff-edge-which-cannot-be-moved.

 

Brexit committee chair Hilary Benn asked the prime minister what exactly she planned to do with the extension. After all, two months is not enough time for anything - not to plan for no-deal, not for a referendum, not for a renegotiation and not for an election. She blustered as usual. But the answer was quite clear. She would just keep on trying to get her deal through.

 

There is no change in strategy. As ever - indeed since the very beginning of this process two years ago - she understands that the only positive quality her deal contains is the fact it is better than no-deal. Once we go past May without holding elections, the cliff edge becomes immovable. And then, finally, with all options exhausted, MPs will have to fall in line with her deal or else topple into the abyss. That is how she checkmates her opponents. That's the plan.

 

It is perfectly visible now. Anyone can see it. But no-one is stopping her. There is only one way to do so: Insist that Britain takes part in the European elections. That means passing the legislation to do so at the point of extending Article 50. Anything else leaves us at her mercy.

 

 

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