When leaders don't

[Nick Jones]

3 hours ago, RogerH said:

squalid club that is the EU

The British DO NOT, ABSOLUTELY NOT have any right to call the EU squalid.  Just look at the  shenannigans within and surrounding our own "government".  It's worse than a swamp - more like a great stinking slurry pit.

3 hours ago, RogerH said:

we would not have the same rights and benefits that we had before leaving.

The only benefit would be the opening of the borders.  Big deal.

Tend to agree with you on the first in that I don't think we'd get our original terms (hard fought for by none-other than Margaret Thatcher for goodness sake), and neither would we deserve them, regrettably.  However, I think we'd do better than you suggest, and anyway, if you are one of the very many trying to do trade with the EU, open borders would be a very big deal.

[RogerH]

Hi Nick,

 I have every right to call them anything I like.

They have shown time and time again what a nasty fraudulent bunch they are.

I did not say that out bunch of toss pots are any better.

 

Roger

[PeterC]

Putrid is about to invade the EU's flanks and where's the EU Army ? It doesn't exist. The EU is a cobbled together talking shop that has left its defence strategy, and investment, on the back-burner for decades. If/when Ukraine falls the days of Brussels laissez faire will be replaced perforce by crippling expenditure on defense and energy infrastructure. Best the UK forge its own path.

[JohnD]

You may recall, Peter, that the EU originated in the European Iron & Steel Community, an admittedly idealistic project to join those industries in Germany and France.  The hope was that thereby war would become impossible between two nations who had already slaughtered each other, twice.

The EU is, basically, a pacifist organisation.  Continental armies were the last thing that it has ever considered.    National ones, that cooperate, of course. To suggest otherwise is to suffer a basic misunderstanding of the objectives and purposes of the EU.

Edited February 19, 2022 by JohnD

[Escadrille Ecosse]

9 minutes ago, JohnD said:

The EU is, basically, a pacifist organisation.  Continental armies were the last thing that it has ever considered.    National ones, that cooperate, of course. To suggest otherwise is to suffer a basic misunderstanding of the objectives and purposes of the EU.

This....

NATO is the organisation tasked with managing the combined armed forces of all member European states (a different quorum to the EU). 

Also since the EU is not directly threatened by the events unfolding on the Ukrainian border there would be little justification for military action by any putative EU army. Just as is the case with NATO.

One of the key reasons in fact why Ukrainian membership of NATO is still an aspiration after all these years.

And for some EU members, like Sweden, which are Neutral, an EU army would pose severe legal issues.

[PeterC]

Europe's reluctance to spend on its own defence - as identifed by Trump when he threatened to pull out of subsidising NATO - will have to change.  For decades the economic power house of EU, Germany, has spent a fraction of UK on a %GPD basis on defence. Putin, war or not, has revealed  vulnerability that must be of great concern to the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary and Romania. NATO has relied on nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, which doesn't work when faced with 120,000 troops, funded by ca 50% of Russia's GDP.  Countermanding that is going to cost european taxpayers deeply. 

[Escadrille Ecosse]

@PeterCyes to the above. However that wouldn't change the current position with respect to Ukraine. 

 

[Nick Jones]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/20/how-much-longer-do-we-have-to-pretend-that-brexit-might-work

[RogerH]

'Where do we go from here' quotes Mac.

We simply can;t go back.  It will not be the same  pre-2019.

We need to go back in a forward direction.

Before we left the EU I believe we should have put an ultimatum to ALL of Europes industry that supply £B's  to us

Persuade your gov't to allow us to stay under our new situation or we embargo your products.

Big Gamble

We don't have a lot to lose now so we need to do the above and allow us free movement of exports as we wanted

or cut you off - bloody big gamble

 

Just my simple thoughts

Roger

[JohnD]

6 hours ago, RogerH said:

'Where do we go from here' quotes Mac.

We simply can;t go back.  It will not be the same  pre-2019.

We need to go back in a forward direction.

Before we left the EU I believe we should have put an ultimatum to ALL of Europes industry that supply £B's  to us

Persuade your gov't to allow us to stay under our new situation or we embargo your products.

Big Gamble

We don't have a lot to lose now so we need to do the above and allow us free movement of exports as we wanted

or cut you off - bloody big gamble

 

Just my simple thoughts

Roger

And suicide for UK industry.

[2.5piman]

Nick,

if you rely on the Guardian for a balanced view you will be disappointed, while that is true  of most of the media the Guardian is particularly bad.

While Mr Johnson has been dreadful and it's difficult to understand how he became prime minister the prime reasons for leaving the E.U. are very clear. Now we need to make use of the lack of restrictions we previously 'enjoyed'.

 The first is to change the prime minister with one who has vision and knowledge of what needs doing. I admit there seems to be few in the current cabinet who qualify but it's essential that we move forward and use the freedom we have won. It will take some time for the benefits to become evident and that is dependent on good governance. From the comments of those opposed to Brexit they seem to expect an immediate change, that is never going to happen and will take some time.

Alec

[Nick Jones]

10 minutes ago, 2.5piman said:

if you rely on the Guardian for a balanced view you will be disappointed

Well, I can only hope you are not relying on the Telegraph...... or any of the Murdoch press.  Or even the BBC, most regrettably.

12 minutes ago, 2.5piman said:

reasons for leaving the E.U. are very clear.

Are they?  Other than the desire to avoid financial oversight that might hinder the the ability of a relatively few of the unreasonably rich to clean and conceal their not always honestly acquired loot (including, but not limited too a number of Tory party donors and sponsors), as far as I can see the "reasons" are actually to large extent, fabrications of the same right wing press and include journalists with similar standards of truth and accuracy as a certain Alexander Johnson.

 

18 minutes ago, 2.5piman said:

but it's essential that we move forward and use the freedom we have won

To do what exactly?  Brexiters have had coming up 6 years to do something constructive, or even think of something constructive.  We are still waiting.  Nothing on the horizon.  Not even much sensible damage limitation.  BTW, freedom as to regulatory standards is might be a race to the bottom within the country, eroding workers rights, food safety standards, environmental standards etc, but when it comes to trade outside the country, we will still need to meet European and other international standards in order for our goods to be accepted, just like before.  No benefit possible.

Name me one, just one, actual real benefit of Brexit please.

8 hours ago, RogerH said:

Persuade your gov't to allow us to stay under our new situation or we embargo your products.

Ok, so do you want to be the one who explains to all of the people employed by companies selling their wares over here, lets say the BMW dealership network or the VAG group dealership network that they are out of a job?  And that would only be the tip of the iceberg.

As I'm sure you are well aware, the European single market is basically a trade club, where members agree to abide by certain rules and pay to enjoy certain privileges.  We were members of that club, respected senior members, and we paid our dues and abided by the rules (even gold plated them quite often), and we enjoyed the benefits of frictionless trade, free movement of people etc.  "We" (or rather a small number of Tory politicians) have decided that we didn't want be members of the club any more.  So we aren't paying our dues and we aren't getting the benefits.  Trying to blackmail them isn't going to change that.

We could have left the EU without leaving the single market.  It would still have been  (in my opinion) a daft thing to do, but very much less daft and a little more understandable than what has actually happened.  Especially since most the supposed benefits of doing so are just more bullshit from a bunch of proven serial liars and don't stand up to even casual scrutiny.

As for hard brexit being the democratic choice of the people, that is patently not true because that sort of detail wasn't even mentioned at the outset.

Solid benefits of Brexit please.......?  I've been asking this for a number of years now......

[PeterC]

Solid benfefit:  the return of UK to a functioning democracy, free from Rule by Brussels' Commissionaires. MEPs are mere rubber-stamping puppets dancing to the tunes set by unelected officials. That to me is a fundamental right. Heath signed it away, brexit corrected it. 

[JohnD]

Yes, please, Alec.  Please list the "Brexit Opportunities" that Jacob Rees- Mogg has just been made Minister of.     And for which he has appealed to the readers of the Sun 'newspaper'.   Clearly he must be scratching his head to think of any for himself, so I'm sure he would be eternally grateful if you can think of some.

[mpbarrett]

it is a shame that the Brexit discussion is still continuing. However some of us, after 6 years are still waiting to hear what we have actually gained by leaving the EU. I accept the decision by the people of the UK, but so much was promised where the benefits? 

Please someone tell me what the advantages are by leaving the EU.

Mike

[Nick Jones]

36 minutes ago, PeterC said:

the return of UK to a functioning democracy

Oh dear.... that's not going that well is it?  FPTTP doesn't really count as democracy anyway IMO and the lack of a proper constitutional framework or mechanism for oversight (our Monarch has no "teeth", so to speak, and we have no president) we are, almost uniquely among "democracies", vulnerable to abuse by an unprincipled prime minister.

Anyway, we could have had that without leaving the single market.

[Escadrille Ecosse]

Jeez, we're back to 1066 and all that...

Although we have our own version circa 1298 and the Battle of Falkirk (0-1)

That was an Australian of course. Although the real Wallace was Brythonic (Welsh). And The Bruce, the man who did the job in 1314 was Norman English... oh the irony of it all.

And for Englandshire of course there has also along the way been Spanish, Scots, French (again), Dutch, Hanoverian.

And I forgot the Plantagenets (Welsh, again) in that lot. 

The point of course being...

Edited February 20, 2022 by Escadrille Ecosse

[GT6MK3]

“Solid benfefit:  the return of UK to a functioning democracy,”

Oh Lordy, how rose coloured your glasses must be.

You know how laughable it is when Trump claims to have won the election, and US citizens fall for it,  how laughable it is when Putin manipulates the system to stay in power, and his cronies all nod along, that’s exactly how laughable your statement there is, for those of us looking from the outside in.

Your current government are a laughable bunch who do and say anything to hang onto power, so that they can abuse it.  

“UK… functioning democracy” is just tooo funny, and rather sad.

[JohnD]

Please take care, Craig!     However rose coloured are other's glasses, there may be a problem with one's own eyes.   Rather than list newspaper and historical sites, the Wiki has many  pages entitled "Political scandal/controversies in  X[nation]" that include Australia.     Politics is a game that attracts chancers!

Would that we could just laugh at our present UK  Government, but even circus clowns pall after a while.

[RogerH]

13 hours ago, Nick Jones said:

 

 

Ok, so do you want to be the one who explains to all of the people employed by companies selling their wares over here, lets say the BMW dealership network or the VAG group dealership network that they are out of a job?  And that would only be the tip of the iceberg.

 

I did state it would be a 'bloody big gamble.'  and that is what politicians do.

Sadly we have no politicians that would be able to carry it off.

 

Roger

 

[Escadrille Ecosse]

I spent my last 20 years working in the oil and gas industry. The last half of that as the Asset Engineer responsible for the LPG facilities at Grangemouth, the pressurised spheres, refrigerated storage tanks, refrigeration plant, LPG ship berth, and the pipelines connectine the plants. With tens of thousands of tons of LPG it was and still is the largest non-nuclear risk in Scotland with a huge domino potential. It would make the Bruntsfield disaster look like a bad Guy Fawkes night.

As part of keeping that plant safe we were continuously doing risk analysis of the plant, systems and inspection and maintenance procedures. Assessing the probablitity and consequences of doing or not doing anything. Probablility multiplied by consequence being the risk. In the case of my job of keeping the LPG in the tanks the worst case consequences were truly huge and without shutting down the plant and doing without LPG (and the natural gas from the North Sea) unavoidable so the only way forward was to reduce the probability to as low as practicable.

I was talking about this with my companions over dinner while we were in Spain the other week and one made an excellent point about risk analysis in engineering. If you do the analysis and a potential consequnce of some course of action is unacceptably high, eg it blows up, kills people and almost puts your company out of business (BP and the Gulf of Mexico say) you don't go ahead unless you can demonstrate that the probability of that is vanisingly small.

And EVEN THEN you don't proceed unless

• there has been a rigorous and peer reviewed analysis of the potential prize to be gained
• a detailed plan of how you will proceed to ensure it all goes properly
• a procedure to accurately assess how things are going against plan and how to raise the alarm if they drift off
• a contingency plan on how to get back to where you started if things start going pear shaped.

And the regulator, in this case the HSE, will come along from time to time and make sure you are doing all this or someone is going to end up in court, and possibly jail.

If Brexit was being managed by a business it would never have gone ahead. Nothing to do with the potential prize or the political benefits but simply because there was zero rigour applied beforehand, no planning and no risk assessment. You certainly wouldn't have got a few grand loan from the bank.

Post facto is not by definition a plan.

The above is not a political statement, it's a safety management comment. I would suggest that when we're looking at something that affects 65 million people now and into the distant then some rigour is warranted.

 

[Nick Jones]

1 hour ago, RogerH said:

Sadly we have no politicians that would be able to carry it off.

We can definitely agree on that!

[GT6MK3]

2 hours ago, JohnD said:

Please take care, Craig!     However rose coloured are other's glasses, there may be a problem with one's own eyes.   Rather than list newspaper and historical sites, the Wiki has many  pages entitled "Political scandal/controversies in  X[nation]" that include Australia.     Politics is a game that attracts chancers!

Would that we could just laugh at our present UK  Government, but even circus clowns pall after a while.

John I’m well aware of the foibles of the current rat pile in charge here.  If you catch me doing something as risible as holding them up as as examples of good governance please contact my relatives and have me checked for class A substances.

Doesn’t matter who you vote for, you end up getting a politician.  The ones you have at present are particularly newsworthy for their willingness ignore consequences in the pursuit of self interest.

[JohnD]

Off-subject, but when did that ever stop me/you-all?

Thank you, Colin for that on risk analysis.  So often, people think the 'risk is the probability of an event, without considering the results.   "Probability multiplied by consequence being the risk" - good one!

JOhn

[PeterC]

6 hours ago, GT6MK3 said:

“

Solid benfefit:  the return of UK to a functioning democracy,”

Oh Lordy, how rose coloured your glasses must be.

You know how laughable it is when Trump claims to have won the election, and US citizens fall for it,  how laughable it is when Putin manipulates the system to stay in power, and his cronies all nod along, that’s exactly how laughable your statement there is, for those of us looking from the outside in.

Your current government are a laughable bunch who do and say anything to hang onto power, so that they can abuse it.  

“UK… functioning democracy” is just tooo funny, and rather sad.

How ungrateful. Without brexit there'd be no AUKUS and Oz would be even more vulnerable to China's ambitions than at present.