alex_b

It?s pretty widely known ?Falconer, who works in Liam Fox?s Department for International Trade, was previously New Zealand?s representative to the World Trade Organization. He worked with pro-Brexit thinktank the Legatum Institute before being brought into government.? (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/30/theresa-may-under-pressure-to-revamp-brexit-negotiating-team). I was not aware of Robbin?s history but I think there?s a qualitative difference between being a member of a club at Uni and being paid by foreign billionaires directly before joining government. I cannot believe that he?s still funded by them, but the appearance of conflict is still there. If you show me an equivalent conflict then of course I?ll criticise it. I?m a remainder so I think the WA is terrible and the political declaration is even worse. Brexit is a moronic idea that will always leave us worse of, so any Brexit deal will be unacceptable to me. However, given May?s red lines I?m at a loss to see how we would have reached a better outcome. Since you?re a leave me, why don?t you sketch out a WA and PD that you think would be better and also acceptable to both sides.

robbin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The EU does not need to have completed an adequacy > assessment of the UK's (obviously) GDPR compliant > position before any personal data can flow - > individual users of the data in question will need > to show they are GDPR compliant - which as you > will have seen over the last year or more has been > something of a national obsession and now > businesses are compliant (or should be by now). > They should be able to satisfy the GDPR issues by > amending their contracts, but that is a small > issue and can be very quickly taken care of. There > are EU compliant (accepted by the EU as compliant) > model contractual clauses which can be used for > that purpose (or so I understand). It looks like TechUK disagree with you too (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/31/no_deal_brexit_smes/) and they should be pretty expert in these matters. "Companies are not required to open existing contracts in order to add these clauses in ? and that the EU firms are using this as leverage to renegotiate other elements of the terms." and also "The legality of SCCs are also being challenged in the Court of Justice of the European Union, which poses a potential risk for firms planning to switch to them." Both of these were points I made in my first and follow up posts. The points about adequacy are also not in your favour, absent the presumption of compliance by being an EU member our domestic surveillance programme is likely to get significant scrutiny. Which is also addressed in this article.

robbin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yet, still TM is at the helm and still she is > using Oliver Robbins (a civil servant with no > trade negotiation experience who must have thought > the WA was a good idea) in preference to Crawford > Falconer, in 'negotiations'. Falconer is the head > of UK trade negotiations at the DIT and a very > experienced trade negotiator. The same Crawford Falconer was previously funded by the Legatum Institute, an opaque 'think thank' funded at least in part by foreign billionaires who expect to make significant money by the damage Brexit will do to the UK economy? At the very least he has an apparent conflict of interest that makes him unsuitable to be a UK negotiator.

jimlad48 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I know people doubt the 40% figure, but go to any > area pre and post CPZ and you'll find this to be > the case. Parking massively increases compared to > the previous situation. Yet despite regular > repeated evidence to support this, people still > doubt this. A shame. I don't doubt that there will be a reduction in cars parking in the CPZ, I'm sure there are enough commuters and cars/vans/taxis being stored to reduce the number of cars on the street. However the point singalto and others were trying to make, is that these particular CPZs come with a massive increase in double yellow lines and other on-street structures to reduce the total available parking spaces. On Adys road for instance, the numbers of cars would have to fall by 60+% to be able to achieve a 40% increase in parking spaces due to all of the loss of parking spaces that are proposed. Perhaps in your street they didn't implement pointless double yellow lines, parklets and cycle lockers so that you did see a 40% reduction. I think at best we'll come out about even from this CPZ, but more likely slightly down on the available parking.

Abe_froeman Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If you don't want it in ED it is probably a good > idea to object to it in the separate West Peckham > consultation too. The West Peckham consultation appears to have been extended until the 7th Feb.

Applespider Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The majority of low flying planes over our area > are to LCY rather than LHR. We are in the > unfortunate position of having both depending on > wind direction with few days of neither. As > someone who has gone from barely noticing the LHR > flights to having several thousand LCY going > directly overhead without any consultation, don?t > underestimate the impacting can have. Of course this is true (and I made this point in my response to the Heathrow consultation). However the 4:30am-6am planes, which I think cause the most disturbance are all early morning LHR arrivals from Asia. I could cope with the daytime noise if I didn't get woken up so regularly.

I don?t get it either Texas, with the parklets, bike lockers and double yellows, Adys road is losing dozens of spaces. Even with the reduction in ?commuter? parking I still think the scheme will lead to a net loss in available spaces for residents.

jamesmcash Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I note TheArtfulDogger's point about the Spineway > consultation and can see how the approach there > might appear contradictory with that here. The key > differences are that the Spineway is a piece of > borough-wide infrastructure which affects a wider > body of people than just those living on the > affected streets, and also that it was in the > Southwark Labour manifesto and therefore has a > democratic mandate. The consultation in this case > was not to decide whether or not to implement a > Spineway but rather to work out the best way to do > so. By contrast, the proposed CPZ follows demands > from East Dulwich residents and is designed to > benefit primarily those in East Dulwich. So if it > does not win majority support it will not be > implemented. Thank for your response, it's far more than we ever get from the Rye Lane councillors. However, this part does not in any way ring true. The overwhelming objections to the quietway proposals were about the way the scheme was being implemented. Namely that the pointless/counterproductive double yellow lines would make the introduction of a CPZ inevitable and that much of the Bellenden end of the implementation made things more dangerous for cyclists. As per this consultation it was marred by shambolic public meetings where officers had no answers or explanations for most questions, were completely overwhelmed by the number of attendees and promised to take feedback on board and then didn't. That after the consultations the views of residents were completely disregarded is in no way compatible with a "democratic mandate". Also can you point me to where in your manifesto this was? The only commitment related to cycling is on page 10 ("We will make cycling accessible for all, increase cycle hangers where people want them, boost access to cycle hire, and double the proportion of journeys in Southwark done by bike." and there is no mention of the spine or quietway.

Galileo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Aren?t there better ways to achieve that than > allowing parking on the corners? I cross there > with a pram and three kids to take my kids to > nursery so I?m one of the ones who benefits from > better sight lines! Pushing a pram out from behind > a large vehicle on a parked up corner is horrid, > especially with two other kids in tow. > > (I do appreciate that problem tho, the roads are > small and the corners tight for large commercial > vehicles. I wonder if your local councillor could > assist in putting this issue before the Council?) I get your point, I also walk around the streets with a small child in tow so it's concern for me too. I am just unsure that the previous reduced corner visibility is really worse than the increased speed and corner cutting we've seen since the double yellows were installed. The proposed double yellows make no real difference to pedestrian visibility but will increase traffic speed and increase commercial traffic. Unfortunately the Bellenden councillors are completely disinterested in constituent issues, they have never answered a single email I've sent over all the years I've lived here other neighbours have had similar experiences. I guess it's a symptom of living in a Labour stronghold, there's no pressure to represent your constituents. Sally Eva Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It deals with the sort of holistic approach > that you are talking about. Speed humps may be > better than nothing to deter rat-running (you may > disagree about this) but we all recognise a truly > pleasant street to live on. Thanks for the links and I agree a holistic approach would be great. I just see no evidence that Southwark are taking that kind of approach, hence my objections to the current scheme. As for speed humps, my observation is they massively increase the noise and vibration impact of living on a rat-run while doing nothing to reduce traffic volume and little to reduce speeding (particularly for large vehicles). MarkT Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The plan reduces the number of parking > spaces throughout the CPZ but particularly in that > vicinity with extensive new lengths of double > yellow lines in Crystal Palace Road and Hindmans > road, removing about 25 spaces. My understanding is that while these are shown on the CPZ plan, they are in fact part of the quietway scheme. Residents' objections to this over two consultations have already been ignored and so these will occur with or without the CPZ. Of course that the additional parking pressure these create justifies the CPZ is purely coincidental!

Have you looked at Nimble Arts (http://www.nimblearts.co.uk/holiday-courses/).

When we did our loft we had to rearrange a couple of rooms for access. The key considerations were positioning doors and windows so both rooms had good light and sensible access. The actual construction was pretty simple, knocking down one stud wall, installing another stud wall, installing some doors, plastering and then decorating. I don?t know what?s needed in terms of building control. One thing I wish I?d thought of was radiator positioning the radiator wound up behind one of the new doors which causes problems for heat circulation.

robbin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Then your understanding is in certain respects > wrong. Well the Brexit Select Committee and their witnesses seem to disagree with you (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/28/data_flows_in_a_nodeal_brexit_are_significant_concern_say_mps/). Nor do you seem to have read or refuted what I said. > They should be able to satisfy the GDPR issues by > amending their contracts, but that is a small > issue and can be very quickly taken care of. There > are EU compliant (accepted by the EU as compliant) > model contractual clauses which can be used for > that purpose (or so I understand). I specifically said that (save a finding of adequacy which can only occur after the UK is a third country) "[o]f course this may be able to be resolved in the majority of cases by rewriting every contract with new GDPR compliant clauses". However, this is not cost free and may not be logistically or legally possible in the timeframe, for instance if you're a UK bank with customers in Germany are you able to enforce a contractual change on them substituting EU data processing for third country data processing based on model clauses. It may be possible but it's not the simple blinding certainty you suggest. Even if it were legally and logistically possible I have a number of customers and colleagues in Europe who will not countenance data processing outside of the EU for reputational and commercial reasons. This is especially true after the Safe Harbour ruling and the ongoing Privacy Shield lawsuit. If the European counterparty wouldn't agree to a change to model clauses that stage you'd need to look at the individual contract to see if the UK party could enforce such a change or whether the UK party would be in breach post Brexit. > Also, yet again, I note that the concentration on > 'problems' arising from this issue is all one way > (on EDF -not everywhere). Do you not think the EU > as a responsible body looking out for their > members' businesses would not want to ensure two > way movement of data? Yes that is why the EU have proposed a withdrawal agreement that covers this. It's our side of the negotiation that's threatening to walk away. > I appreciate that (in > keeping with the UK's amateurish negotiating > stance) the UK has said we are going to accept > data flows from the EU to the UK come what may, > but things could change on that if the EU is > intent upon some sort of a weird scorched earth > policy. I can't see any reason why we should just > surrender reciprocity and unilaterally agree > something without a similar sort of level of grown > up cooperation on the same issue from the other > side to the negotiation (but then the UK has > adopted a shambolic approach to the whole Brexit > event, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised). There's this little thing called the rule of law. The EU could enter into a treaty (let's call it a withdrawal agreement) to cover this or failing that they could treat the UK as any other third country post-Brexit and make an adequacy determination in line with existing EU law. Doing anything else (like unilaterally determining adequacy outside of the legal process) would break WTO rules (which requires outside of trade agreements for countries to treat each other equally) and likely EU law. It might be the case that at the 11th hour a bunch of treaties will be agreed somehow to paper over these gaps but it seems like a very high risk game to play. > I keep asking myself when it became ok in a > negotiation, (i) to tell the other side you are > really scared of certain possible outcomes in > advance of a deal or (ii) to hand over concessions > with nothing in return. Does anyone in the real > world ever conduct commercial negotiations like > that? Not in my experience they don't. Quite why > all these commercially inexperienced civil > servants/politicians seem to think that those are > competent approaches to a negotiation fails me. I've never been in a commercial negotiation where my aim was to make both sides poorer and where my company has no clear idea of the deal I want to come away with. I do often however raise my biggest concerns early on and give away areas that aren't terribly important to me (or where the other side are obviously correct) to build goodwill. I think the difference is that I tend to look for long term sustainable deals where both sides feel they're better off, whereas most of the politicians see negotiation as a zero some game where if one person's happy the other person is a victim. Look at the way that CETA or the EU-Japan deal were conducted, both sides took their time, had a clear objectives and now both (on the whole) feel they're better off. That our politicians decided to box themselves into a corner and threaten our partners rather than try to build trust is entirely down to them.

Sally Eva Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > What do you want to happen Alex? and why? I want measures to stop Adys Rd being used as a rat run, particularly by commercial vehicles. This ranks far higher for me personally than the parking pressure. I appreciate that other neighbours may feel differently. Personally I think a point closure at the Bellenden/Maxted junction would be sensible. For residents we can still get to points North via Nutbrook St/Nigel Road but it would remove at a stroke the through traffic. Failing that at least a width restriction at Bellenden/Maxted or somewhere along the rat run to stop through traffic of large goods vehicles. I (along with some neighbours) discussed this with the council staff at both of the quietway consultations/workshops and they said they'd look at it, but then of course didn't take it further. I'm not particularly against the CPZ itself, I just don't see how increasing sight lines without also putting in measures to reduce the use of the road as a rat run will do anything to improve the health of the street. And before someone says the heavy vehicles on Adys are all servicing local residential roads, I get woken by trucks banging over the speed bumps in the middle of the night at least a couple of times week.

Galileo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It?s rather ironic that you have chosen that > consultation to highlight the Council not > listening to the responses to consultations. > Rather than just go on the figures alone I have > read the decision notice and recommendation that > accompanied it ... the reason the Council decided > to continue with the proposed changes despite the > objections was that the objections were because > the proposal was to remove parking spaces by the > introduction of double yellow lines to improve > sight lines and hopefully reduce road deaths. Why > were people objecting? Parking pressure!!! Actually that was the council's spin on the reason for many of us objecting. I objected to the additional double yellows on Adys Rd opposite Nutbrook and Amott as they will better allow HGVs and coaches to navigate those corners and increase the use of the road as a rat run for commercial vehicles. My anecdotal evidence is that since the double yellows at the corners were introduced we have had an increase in speeding and an increased number of collisions with the bollard at the corner of Nutbrook/Adys. My (and many of my neighbours) were clear that our priority was stopping the use of Adys and surrounding streets as a rat run and that the proposed quietway looked likely to make the problem worse and not better.

robbin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Alex_b wrote: "This is leaving aside no-deal where > the loss of GDPR equivalence will make working > with European customers essentially impossible > overnight." > > Just interested - why do you think we will lose > GDPR equivalence? What about the Data Protection > Act 2018 and the EU Withdrawal Act? > > Also, what would be so difficult for an > organisation to incorporate some standard EU > approved GDPR compliant clauses (regarding the > handling of confidential data)into their > contracts? It's not rocket science, particularly > for a financial services company with access to > lawyers. My understanding is that as an EU member state we are automatically deemed compliant. When we become a third country we will need to be assessed by the European Commission as compliant, but crucially this cannot take place until we are a third country. I believe in the current draft withdrawal agreement has clauses to cover this, but clearly in the case of no-deal there would be a gap from the 29th March until such time as the Commission has made it's assessment. Just because we've maintained our standards doesn't mean that either the Commission will declare conformance on the 30th March without the proper review they would do with other third countries (that would probably be unlawful under EU and WTO rules) or that they'd necessarily find conformance (e.g. our domestic surveillance legislation may be an issue without EUCJ supervision). Of course this may be able to be resolved in the majority of cases by rewriting every contract with new GDPR compliant clauses, but this isn't necessarily possible in the next two months and in any case may not be agreed by counterparts in other EU states (who would bear a lot of the risk if the clauses weren't sufficient). As with most of these no-deal problems it isn't that other countries haven't found ways of resolving these issues without being part of the EU, but that those solutions have been built over time, on lower volumes of trade, with less tightly linked systems and their alternatives are more cumbersome and more expensive than the current relationship we enjoy. It would over time be possible to minimise the pain of this divergence, but in a no-deal scenario we would lose many of the legal agreements we depend on and would need to replace them with different agreements as a Third Country. In the interim there is no legal basis for a lot of cross border activities.

edcam Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Bottom line is that Brexit is a ruinous idea. If > it goes through we are in serious trouble. The > only people who could possibly think it worthwhile > are bankers or racists. The majority of bankers think it?s a terrible idea. The current proposal from May leaves our services industries (including banking) with none of the trade benefits we currently enjoy.

I just saw this article https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/26/european-medicines-agency-closes-london-office-with-loss-of-900-jobs-brexit. It makes me so sad to see so much talent and expertise be burned on the pyre of nationalism. Of course the 900 direct job losses will trigger additional losses for suppliers, contractors etc. Hardly the great Brexit dividend we were promised. TheCat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > That said, I do think > that if some portions of the remain campaign/lobby > had tried early-on after the vote to engage with > 'reasonable' leavers, instead of dismissing > everyone who voted Leave as 'ignorant leavers', > then we may actualy be in a better position today > than we find ourselves. I agree with most of the rest of what you say, but I think this is exactly opposite of what happened in reality. Every attempt by remainers to propose a compromise Brexit that reflected the 52/48 split has shifted the mid point to a more extreme position. Even pointing out the closeness of the vote prompted a "you lost, we won" response. Hence 'soft Brexit' used to refer to EEA and 'hard Brexit' meant Canada. Now a 'soft Brexit' is seen as Canada and a 'hard Brexit' is no-deal! This hasn't been helped by May (who is fundamentally anti-immigrant and has interpreted Brexit as a Nationalist project) drawing her red lines very early and emboldening the more extreme Brexiteers with the "no deal is better than a bad deal" line. I can't imagine what remainers could have done in the aftermath of the vote to achieve an EEA type deal. And of course what was promised by the various leave factions was unreconcilable and undeliverable, so no compromise was probably ever possible.

Cat - Thanks for the reply. A few quick thoughts: I can't go into detail about staff movements, but in the banks I know very well the European regulators are insisting on a significant management and staff presence post-Brexit, they're not accepting simply brass plating into Paris or Dublin. Perhaps your part of the business is less exposed to the loss of passporting? This is leaving aside no-deal where the loss of GDPR equivalence will make working with European customers essentially impossible overnight. I appreciate that your arguments for leaving are not identical to others particularly with respect to immigration. In fact that's my biggest problem with the whole process. You voted for a Brexit outcome that is incompatible with other people's Brexit outcomes; those of us who voted for the status quo by definition were all voting for the same immediate outcome. How do I reconcile your "pro-immigration brexit" with the far right's "repatriation brexit"? This is precisely the reason for being dismissive of voting against something because one doesn't like it, without a coherent alternative, it is simply a vote for chaos as we're now finding out. I'd perhaps go even further and suggest that since "reasonable leavers" won their desired outcome on the back of others making arguments diametrically opposed to their supposed views (e.g. racism and xenophobia), they bear special responsibility to explain coherently how to square that circle and provide a Brexit that fulfils all of the incompatible promises they and their fellow travellers made. Your point about personal risk tolerance is interesting. My view is that it is immoral for very well off people (like most MPs, particularly Rees-Mogg) who are much more able to absorb this downside risk to impose this on the rest of the country. This is particularly as Brexit was sold by most mainstream leave campaigners as a risk free bet ("the easiest deal in the world"). You might say "more fool them" but this is what is leading directly to the "brexit betrayal" narrative and it won't lead anywhere good.

TheCat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Blimey. And they reckon leavers like to bang on > about the same thing over and over again. I've > ackowledged and explained to you that at the time > of the vote I didn't have a clear, detailed map in > my mind, and ive also outlined the reasons why I > thougt that was okay AT THE TIME. I've said that > if you feel I should have had a more detailed map, > then that's fine, but I disagree, and posted again > suggesting why I felt it was not practical at the > time. So, once again, at the time of he vote, I > DID NOT have a clear, detailed plan. That's the > answer to your question, you might not like it. > You can keep asking it. The answer doesn't > change. Ok, that's fine. I think it's criminally negligent to embark on a potentially economically catastrophic exercise without having an end point in mind, but if that's what you think is responsible governance then well done. This is one of the parts of the referendum that makes me most angry as (unlike in Ireland) one side of the referendum were free to present multiple, mutually incompatible (and often unachievable) outcomes to maximise their vote and now are claiming that this somehow binds the country to whichever outcome they personally prefer now. You also claim that the future was unknowable at the time. This is categorically untrue. There are many models we could follow: Norway (EFTA), Switzerland (single market), Turkey (customs union), Canada (overarching free trade agreement) or the US (50+ bilateral trade agreements). You could have chosen to envisage that type of relationship and consider the tradeoffs but instead you gave a big list of things you didn't like about the EU and imperilled tens of thousands of jobs based on those feelings with no destination in mind. If I decided to move to California, before I sold all of my worldly possessions you might think I'd have an idea of what I'd want to do over there (and how I'd achieve that), rather than just a vague feeling that I didn't like the weather here and that Arnie did ok when he moved to LA. You voted for promises of being both a movie star and a Silicon Valley billionaire (at the same time). The realty now looks like we're going to be homeless in the Tenderloin district but apparently we've made the decision now and have to get on the plane. > Im also mildly bemused that you demand I give you > a detailed plan of what I wanted. But yet, you > complain that my earlier post is 'far too long' > and you cite arguements that have been 'done to > death', without actualy making any arguements > yourself. You don't want to talk aabout democratic > process?, fine there's at least 5-6 points I made > rhat have nothing to do with 'democracy'....you > could even choose to ackowledge that one or two > points might be reasonable, or that might be > asking too much. Ok fine. I can't imagine this will change anything but here goes: 1. The economy: The claims by economists can now be judged against the preparation industry are making in advance of leaving the EU. Most investment banks are cutting their UK workforce by 25%+ especially at the management level as EU regulators insist that management are based in an EU country. One financial services firm I know has moved ?750m a year of contracts to another European country to avoid the regulatory risk. This isn't just a short term loss, the increased friction in goods and services will reduce our trade into Europe for the long term. This cannot be rectified by even a doubling of trade with our much smaller and more distant trading partners. 2. Immigration: We already have the ability to control EU immigration (3 months to find a job or be financially self supporting), we could be far more controlling on benefits too if we moved to a mandatory contribution model. The fact that successive governments have chosen to enrich landlords and house builders rather than resolving our housing and infrastructure crisis is nothing to do with the EU or EU migrants. In fact as EU migrants are net contributors to the tax base, reducing EU migration is likely to worsen the problems you identify. 3. EU bureaucracy: The EU institutions are more democratic than UK institutions, we only get to elect the commons and the vast majority of seats in the commons are "safe". I've never voted in a constituency where the result wasn't a foregone conclusion. The other institutions are appointed by our government (and other governments) and have democratic legitimacy that way. As for constraints on nationalisation, why do all other EU countries have nationalised rail? In any case the UK was the leading force in instigating the state aid rules and similar rules are enshrined in many trading agreements (e.g. CETA). 4. One size does not fit all: I might agree with you if the debate was about the Euro, but it isn't. In any case if the UK is at the Germany end of the spectrum surely this should work to our favour (like it has for them)? We could argue whether this is fair to Greece, but I don't see why blowing up our economy by leaving the EU helps Greece. On the flip side, our membership of the EU makes us much bigger in negotiating with non-EU states. Who is likely to reach a more favourable trade agreement with China and the US us on our own or the EU as a whole? 5. Sovereignty: Even if true (which I don't think it is as we have a vote on any bail out measures and are not in the Euro), I think that it is in our self interest to maintain stability in our neighbours and trading partners. Simply put, we are not giving up our sovereignty for no gain, we're accepting constraints on our actions in order to gain something we want. This is no different in principal to accepting arbitration clauses or other restrictions in any other trade agreement we have. 6. Shutting the UK off from the world: You make the usual argument that Australia trades just fine with the EU and aren't part of the club. UK trade is 2% of Australia's total exports (we're their biggest EU trading partner), Pacific nations are almost 60% of their exports. This is why they already have a tightly integrated trading partnership with New Zealand (including free movement) and are trying to get a comprehensive Pacific agreement (TPP). The UK is the only country in the world asking for less free trade with our partners. Being outside of the club will make us rule takers and will necessarily limit our ability to trade. If there were no advantage to being in the EU why would anyone join? If the leave campaign had been intellectually honest enough to campaign on a single detailed model of future trade we could have examined the costs and benefits but unfortunately we only got a shallow "why I don't like the EU" argument and a bunch of contradictory promises. 7: Losing workers? rights: I do not trust governments to resist either populism or acting in the self-interest of their funders. The fundamental rights of the EU act as a brake on either of these instincts. The EU protections still fall short (look at Poland at the moment) but are still much better than the UK parliament where the executive (usually) have absolute legislative power as no parliament can bind its successor. 8: It's not about individuals: Actually I think to an extent it is. Look at who enthusiastically supports Brexit, white nationalists like Farage and Tommy Robinson, and libertarian ultra capitalists like Rees-Mogg and Johnson. Look who opposes Brexit, business leaders, academics, centrist liberals. It's not always the case that you can judge an argument by its supporters, but in this case I think if you're siding with outright racists you might want to think if that's the company you want to keep. > I've contributed plenty to this thread on my > views. You seem like a sensible person, but you've > largely just poked holes in other people's ideas > or questioned their motives. Time for some > positive contributions alex_b You did ask me if I could be sure of the future in 30-50 years. You're correct I cannot. However, remaining in the EU gives us (via our MEPs and our government) a say in every decision over that period. In most cases we would have a veto and in some cases a referendum would be likely. The key difference though would we would be considering a specific change to the staus quo (e.g. joining the Euro, Turkey joining the EU, an EU defence force) rather than a vague vote saying "not here". As someone who voted remain my positive contribution is that we shouldn't leave the EU. I see no reason to appease (in the main) a bunch of nationalists who are blaming the EU for all our ills and who will never be happy with the outcome because leaving the EU will not make us richer, will not bring more jobs to this country, will not reduce the number of black people in our communities and will not bring back buying potatoes by the pound. If we must leave the EU I'd like to be a member of EFTA with an opt in to the customs union. I think it would be a pointless exercise and don't see the benefit vs where we are now but it would at least minimise the damage while fulfilling the mandate of leaving the EU.

TheCat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > i agree with many parts of this comment. > Particualrly after stating that i voted Leave on > this thread, then was the subject of relatively > aggressive (but polite for the most part) > questioning,accusations and some ridicule from > various posters (with a few balanced exceptions) > then finaly i post 2000 words above with a > relatively detailed explanation of my > rationale....and apart from maybe 1 or two > comments which dont really specifically reference > anything i've said, no one has had any meaningful > pushback or disagreement with the specific points > i've raised. Now this could be that 2000 words was > a bit too long of a read, or it could be that > everyone is tired of arguing, or (and i want to be > clear, im not in anyway saying im 'right' or have > all the answers) could it be that perhaps I made a > little bit of sense (even if people dont agree > with the conclusion) and its much more difficult > to mock reasoned thought, than to mock strawman > arguements about the bigoted, brexiteer bogeyman > hiding under the bed? I didn't reply for a few reasons: 1. It was far too long 2. It didn't in any way answer my question which wasn't "why don't you like the EU" but "what specific form of arrangement with the EU and other countries do you think we could get that would be better". 3. The arguments over those points have been done to death. I think they're mostly untrue, misleading or irrelevant but nobody's going to change their mind on these now. If you want to suggest what your preferred outcome is (and what you thought it might be) I'm happy to discuss it, but I'm not going to bother arguing over which is more democratic the UK or the EU.

They came by ours last night too, I think they come through once every 3-4 months. They usually claim to be a scheme for ex-offenders and can get quite aggressive when you say no to them. I don't think that they're casing the place, but they are certainly not a legitimate organisation.

So essentially you had no view of where you wanted to get to, the vote was simply a negative vote about not liking the status quo (or the direction the status quo was heading)? That's fine (if in my opinion incorrect), but it's hardly surprising that Brexit is such a mess when the vote was purely about "not being here" rather than "being over there". The fundamental problem with everything I've read by all of the leavers I've seen is that they cannot state what they actually want and certainly can't paint a vision that would be remotely acceptable to our trading partners. At least in a general election that manifesto has a series of policy proposals that will form a future government's legislative agenda, they won't all occur or be 100% honest but at least you are voting for a destination.

TheCat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > But most reasonable remain voters > who I have spoken to would acknowledge there are > at least a couple of rational and reasonable > reasons to Leave the EU, even if on balance they > are strongly against it overall. And frankly, I > refuse to believe that you cant see even one good > reason, unless you really just would prefer not > to. I can certainly see that there are costs to being a member, from my perspective those are massively outweighed by the benefits but sure for the sake of argument I?ll agree others might not reach the same conclusion. However I?ve never heard a single leaver make an honest case (in my view) of the trade offs of costs and benefits. Nor have I seen any realistic proposal for an end state that removes the costs and achieves meaningful benefits. I?ve asked you on a few occasions on what end state model you favour, what you expect the benefits to be and what the costs of that are likely to be. Can you answer that please or are you just anti EU without having a destination in mind?

I?ve still never heard a coherent explanation of the outcome that leave voters wanted to achieve other than some mythical situation where we have all of the benefits and none of the costs. Perhaps someone could explain this to me? Not general ?future gravity outside of Europe? or ?ambitious future relationship? nonsense but specifics about the trade offs they expected to make in any future deal, and the costs that they expected we?d incur for those.

TheCat Wrote: > as you cant have three > nationalities as I understand. You can (my son does).