On Tue 13 Aug at 5:50pm Mark wrote:
I've just realised while driving that it's not. Bojo is suddenly all about policing and crime control. Trump hates Sadiq Khan because Khan accused him of being a narcissistic buffoon. Trump blames Sadiq Khan for London knife crime. Boris was Mayor of London. Boris wants to be on that bandwagon. It's playground politics. These people like each other's ideas and company. The new trade deal will probably be a USA/North Korea/UK (minus Scotland and Northern Ireland) free trade area.
On Tue 13 Aug at 11:22pm Tom Pain wrote:
At least you won't have to wear shades.
On Wed 14 Aug at 8:57am Sensible wrote:
The people's decision to take back control of our immigration, our borders, the Pound, our culture, and our armed forces will be carried out 100%. That is what a government is for. The border slams shut on October 31st. Who would want to be found disagreeing with the people after that date, when it will no longer be possible to appeal to unelected and unwanted foreign powers?
On Wed 14 Aug at 11:01am Buzzard wrote:
The purpose of Brexit has always been to turn England (the UK will disintegrate, of course) into a US client state and tax haven,something like Puerto Rico. The quid pro quo of the 'Trade Dea'l will be that we accept US foreign policy, buy US food (chlorine, antibiotics, GM and all) and allow US corps to take over and run down the NHS and the rest of what remains of the Welfare State. All that stuff about taking back control is for useful idiots who haven't worked out who will be taking control.
On Wed 14 Aug at 11:30am thomasjeromenewton wrote:
“The border slams shut!”
Does that include in Ireland?
On Wed 14 Aug at 12:24pm Bert wrote:
As her Majesty says, politicians are what they used to be !! Probably because for the last 40 years ey haven't really been in control of our great country. Having passed decision making over to €urope.
On Wed 14 Aug at 3:27pm Green Sleeves wrote:
Why do we have a UK parliament if, as many Brexiters have peddled for years now, laws and decisions are passed by unelected EU bureaucrats?!
Also why aren't brexiters able to name any specific laws that really bother them that they blame the EU for legislating and forcing on our poor little country? (Beyond the laughable, inaccurate and trite banana/cucumber nonsense. 
On Wed 14 Aug at 4:59pm Bert wrote:
Maybe just the expense of having two parliaments ? So why not ditch the one we didn't elect ? And keep the cheaper one ? They just want our money, clear as day. When we have so many financial problems of our own !
On Wed 14 Aug at 6:19pm Green Sleeves wrote:
Our parliament has been making most of its own decisions independently for decades, hence why I get funny looks if I smoke weed in public here, but not in Portugal or Netherlands for example. So clearly laws aren't only made in Brussels/Strasbourg for the entire continent....which is why I asked which specific laws truly horrified brexiters that were made outside the UK, and don't tend to get any solid answers about it, only more anti EU propaganda.
As for the cost of EU membership, it's under 0.7% of our GDP. The net £4.3bn we contribute to the EU currently won't be unwelcome, but it's hardly going to enrich the country and is more likely to be used to offset a fraction of the damage of Boris's proposed tax cuts and the economic damage of leaving the EU and all the very favourable free trade arrangements we already have in place as part of the world's biggest trading bloc.
As for the EU not being "elected" and full of "Eurocrats", well the EU does have something like 45,000 civil servants, but thats covering over 500m people across the entire continent. Birmingham City council hires 34,000 to cover 1.1m, but let's just whine about the EU because I've been brainwashed into it by the Daily Mail and Nigel Farage, and cooperation smashing nationalism always ends so well.
On Wed 14 Aug at 6:44pm Hyena wrote:
Delighted I’ve got dual nationality.
On Wed 14 Aug at 7:30pm Mister_D wrote:
It's occured to me that this is all just another cyclic spasm called Romantisism. Brexit fanatics are romantics (probably a bit generous), but it comes around every so often, usually in response to a more complex or difficult world: as a reaction against industrialisation at the end of the 19thC, after WWI .. that urge to turn back the clock to some more simple time. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Johnson waffling on about Pericles and democracy (while in the next breath stating that the people have probably had enough of making decisions). Romantisism included believing in fairies - I rest my case.
On Wed 14 Aug at 10:17pm Basil wrote:
This is what's happening. Most posts on here about the EU reek of it:
'For Britain’s pro-European middle classes, Brexit is akin to a psychological trauma which has left many unable to behave rationally, according to two leading experts. Far from being hyper-rational observers concerned only with what is economically sensible, many have morphed into the "Remainiacs" of Brexiteer disdain.
'To an extent unparalleled in British political history, Brexit has ripped away the veneer of security that the managerial and professional classes enjoyed, throwing — in their mind at least — almost everything into question, from the U.K.’s place in the world to the future prosperity of their children. It is a threat that many find hard to cope with psychologically.
'It is also something many of them feel can be blamed on those over whom Britain’s educated professionals usually have day-to-day political, economic and social control — the working-class, provincial, poor and elderly who were over-represented among Leave voters.'
Check it out here »
On Wed 14 Aug at 10:58pm Mister_D wrote:
Shame, Basil, that you couldn't manage to form your own opinions. Cut-and-paste is a poor substitute.
On Thu 15 Aug at 8:40am Hyena wrote:
Ask another couple of psychologists and they would have another view so your post is pointless.
On Thu 15 Aug at 11:23am Nevillman wrote:
Basil. Rather than dwelling on the psychological problems of remainders, why not try answering some of the questions put to you and explain a few of the specific benefits we're going to get from leaving. Which laws are you looking forward to seeing repealed? What will this new sovereignty give us etc? There is little doubt that we are going to get poorer and our rights in the EU will diminish and I really would like to know why.
On Thu 15 Aug at 12:50pm Sam wrote:
Here we go again! Sensible, Bert and Basil feeding us their endless “will of the people” stance whilst ignoring questions that need answering. Like all the EU rules that have adversely affected their lives, what are they, name them?? The perilous position of the people of N Ireland, the fact that WTO rules aren’t understood, these are deals that can take decades to make, we will be the only country in the world not to be part of another trade pact, walking away from the biggest trading block in the world, losing Scotland from the Union is heart breaking. What about all the amazing projects and infrastructures the EU has given this country, do you really think a Tory government would have done the same? What about taking away the freedoms of our young to live and work with our nearest neighbours. Is all of this a price worth laying for what exactly Sensible, Bert and Basil, for what exactly???
On Thu 15 Aug at 12:52pm Sam wrote:
“Paying”
On Thu 15 Aug at 5:56pm Bert wrote:
Just staying isn't a reason for not leaving !! THEY ONLY WANT OUR MONEY. What part of that's not clear ?
On Thu 15 Aug at 6:19pm Green Sleeves wrote:
@bert, and we want their money, and the best way of doing that is cooperating and trading as closely as possible with our neighbours. Hundreds of treaties, and the most free trade agreements of any bloc or country, down the swanny just because of self indulgent and narcissistic, rampant nationalism, which ironically is leading to national self-harm. It's pathetic. Keep telling yourself you are a tiger as you gaze in the mirror.
On Thu 15 Aug at 6:31pm Nevillman wrote:
Bert. We pay to belong to an organisation that confers economic and political benefits. When we have left, our economy is in severe recession and most people worse off, many people may well think it was a price worth paying.
On Thu 15 Aug at 8:41pm Mister_D wrote:
Is Bert real? I'd assumed 'he' was a bored 15 year old on school summer holidays. God help us.
On Thu 15 Aug at 8:48pm Sam wrote:
There you go! It would have been far more productive for me to bash my head against a brick wall than to try and get answers to any sensible questions from Bert et al and that’s what we’re dealing with here so let’s just give up. Let them have their hard Brexit. We will all suffer, our kids will suffer but it’s looking like this is the only way people will learn how crazy this is. We will survive this and we will rid this country of the dinosaur uncompromising element in the process and maybe we will come out the other side kinder and more generous souls, you never know.
On Thu 15 Aug at 9:51pm Mister_D wrote:
It's a kind of brutal thing to say, but the only way many of these problems will get fixed - the environmental damage, the irony-free fall towards fascism, the romantic/spiritualist rejection of facts and experts and embracing of unicorns - will be when the sixties generataion die off. They had their time, did some good stuff but for reasons you can only assume have to do with the fact that they lived under the real threat of nuclear obliteration have ever since been the most selfish bunch of as*holes, we'd be better off without.
On Thu 15 Aug at 11:03pm Basil wrote:
Mister_D wrote: 'Shame, Basil, that you couldn't manage to form your own opinions.'
Mister D, I'm not going to bother with someone who has difficulty spelling the word romanticism. You undermine your pomposity with your illiteracy.
On Fri 16 Aug at 7:16am Mister_D wrote:
Weak, Basil. Is that all you've got?
On Fri 16 Aug at 8:19am Nevillman wrote:
Basil. Please answer the questions. What laws are you looking forward to seeing repealed? What will your new sovereignty give us that we do not already have?
On Fri 16 Aug at 1:38pm Hyena wrote:
N , I think capital punishment, public flogging and conscription may well appear.
On Fri 16 Aug at 2:03pm Mark wrote:
. .. along with an end to all environmental legislation and empowerment rights and trading standards
On Fri 16 Aug at 4:33pm Peacenik wrote:
Strangely after WW2 the West German state outlawed the use of referenda and other "one-off" votes for decision-making. Perhaps we should do the same; after all in the late 20th Century it was well known that a majority would have voted to restore the death penalty.
I voted in 1974 and in 2016. I worked within the EU in the late 1970's and early-mid 1980's. I find it sad to think that door will be shut if we leave, and we can forget now any help from our Commonwealth brethren; they have found new markets, in particular Australia and NZ. All we have left is for Boris (NY born) to turn us into the 51st state...
On Fri 16 Aug at 7:48pm Tom Pain wrote:
According to Thomson Reuters in march2017- 52741 laws have been introduced in the UK as a result of EU legislation since 1990. Google is a little shy of information before that but I think that's enough to be going on with for the moment. On a personal note, I'm always suspicious of people who rely on insulting anyone who has a different opinion. I can't help but think that they haven't got anything useful to say and just want to intimidate those who threaten their image of themselves. Who the cap fits, eh?
On Fri 16 Aug at 7:55pm Green Sleeves wrote:
@tom p, great...I'll cautiously accept your claim of 52k laws being introduced by the EU, now perhaps you can explain which laws are so troubling that you can't wait to repeal once we leave the evil empire. No other brexiter seems to be able to come up with any.
As for using ad hominem attacks on those that disagree, yea, it's undeniably not cool (and I've been subjected to plenty of abuse by brexiters which I have at times taken the bait and retorted), but sometimes you just can't reason with stupidity or the willfully ignorant 
On Fri 16 Aug at 10:57pm all-too-clear wrote:
oh dear
people like buzzard still have not realised how much they have been lied to.
On Sat 17 Aug at 8:14pm Green Sleeves wrote:
Well I posed the question originally (at least within this thread, I've asked countless times before over the last few years) on Wednesday, and myself and others have repeated it since, and no brexiters have come back with any specific laws they are appalled by that stem from the EU. Tom Pain tells us there have been over 50,000 of them introduced/forced since 1990, and while i would like to see evidence of that, if true there surely must be plenty of laws that brexiters can reel off without any issue, right?
I guess brexiters don't feel they need to win the argument and convince remainers, they won so we should just "get over it". The 17.4m will of the people know what's best, even if they are utterly incapable of articulating it to the other side. Or they are too embarrassed to admit they don't actually know what they voted for. It really is as face palmingly awkward and frustrating as hearing anonymous bozos on BBC Question Time (or equivalent public debates) bleating on about bendy bananas....if there was ever a situation that fit the expression "throwing the baby out with the bathwater", brexit anti-eu excuses are it. Jesus wept.
On Sat 17 Aug at 8:31pm Green Sleeves wrote:
And soz for the double post but thought this was interesting from "fullfact.org" relating to EU laws....
"EU facts behind the claims: UK influence
Published: 25th Apr 2016
Official EU voting records show that the British government has voted ‘No’ to laws passed at EU level on 56 occasions, abstained 70 times, and voted ‘Yes’ 2,466 times since 1999, according to UK in a Changing Europe Fellows Sara Hagemann and Simon Hix.
In other words, UK ministers were on the “winning side” 95% of the time, abstained 3% of the time, and were on the losing side 2%."
Damn those Brussels bureaucrats being so unreasonable with us. I wonder if something about cucumbers or bananas were one of the 56 laws the UK government opposed
On Sat 17 Aug at 10:45pm Tom Pain wrote:
It's not really about specific laws, it's more about laws coming from somewhere else. Suppose we suddenly came under Mongolian law, it might be better than what we've got but people just don't like being under the jurisdiction of some distant power. Better the devil you know than the one you don't. It's more a visceral thing than intellectual. Actually, it's more an intuitive mistrust of laws altogether. The less,the better. It's an instinctive reaction to being more entangled in obfuscation than we are already.
On Sun 18 Aug at 9:21am Green Sleeves wrote:
@tp, I am ever so slightly disappointed with your response. I was almost expecting something at least partially compelling....I should have known better.
Mongolia would indeed be a "distant power", but given that Brussels is closer to Lewes than many other parts of the UK, and that we have elected lawmakers in Brussels helping shape and vote for those laws, your Mongolia analogy is another fine example of false equivalence by a brexiter. If we hard brexit, we may well result in being dictated to by distant powers such as China and the USA when forming trade deals, given that we don't have the buying/selling power of the world's biggest trading bloc in the European Union that we currently enjoy. Someone should notify brexiters that the British empire peaked in the early 20th century.
Brexit really is based on little more than rose tinted nationalism from a bygone era that was never that was never that pretty anyway. (If brexiters want to claim the EU is some sort of malignant empire, perhaps they should read up on the British empire).
On Sun 18 Aug at 10:46am Tom Pain wrote:
I'm fairly well read on the unsavoury aspects of the British empire and those of every empire I've heard about and I doubt that a European empire would be any different. I'm well aware of the faults of nationalism but it seems the least worse option in the world as it exists today. I'm also familiar with the drawbacks of democracy but, again it's seems the least worse option. The EU doesn't advertise itself as an empire I know,but neither does the USA but it has all the qualifications. The whole sorry Brexit question hinges on one thing- do you accept the results of living in a democratic state,flawed as it is, or do you want another system of government? I'm sorry there's no rose tint,but I see no alternative.
On Sun 18 Aug at 5:55pm Sensible wrote:
Regarding the border between Ulster and the Republic of Ireland, we say that because the country to the south is part of the discredited, corrupt and inferior Common Market, the fullest possible administrative and security checking of goods and people approaching the border to enter Ulster will contribute to the safety and strength of the United Kingdom. It will halt unsafe and poorly-made European-specification products before they arrive in the Kingdom; it will block infected food (we ALWAYS suffered diseases when travelling to the Continent); and it will keep residents safe from violence, and within their old boundaries. Why do people fear making foreigners foreign? My wife spoke to me this afternoon to give me today's very good news that a Minister of the Crown in the government has today, by secondary legislation, permanently halted freedom of movement into Britain for non-British people from Europe as of November 1st. It is logical, because natural law and tradition makes it clear they do not belong here. They will wait until proper visas and full background checks have been carried out, if we decide we have room for them. The will of the British people is to be implemented without diversion: the only permitted outcome. All questions regarding detail are irrelevant now. Today's news pleases me very greatly.