Ed Wagner (6/27/2016)
ChrisM@Work (6/27/2016)
Beatrix Kiddo (6/27/2016)
GilaMonster (6/26/2016)
Hugo Kornelis (6/26/2016)
I like the sentiment, but I don't think there is any realistic chance of this having any effect. The votes have been counted; the results are in. Accept it and move on.The referendum wasn't legally binding, just an advisory, since the result was announced one side has come out and admitted that some of their promises were outright lies (not truth from a certain point of view, complete falsehood) and there's no actual hard plans on either side for how to exit the EU. I won't be surprised to see Article 50 not being triggered any time soon, if ever.
Exactly. It was never intended to be legally binding, and should not be treated as such, especially given that it will be extremely bad for the country (and possibly for other EU member states too).
I'm sure it's already been said but here it is again anyway. The EU and our nice little island needed a bloody good shake up, and a vote either way would probably have accomplished both. I voted remain but I can see positives in leaving too, and at least as far as the EU is concerned, many leaders are now, finally, conceding that major changes are indeed necessary.
Visibility of the effects of the EU to the little people like me is seemingly quite limited. We see bananas of the “correct curvature”, apples with no blemishes, strawberries of a minimum size (I like them smaller). This is wasteful nonsense and should be stopped now.
We see massive perks claimed by our representatives in the EU (Neil & Glenys Kinnock being an excellent and well-publicised example). These are the people deciding how big our strawberries should be and whether or not we can buy/sell fruit and veg by the pound instead of by the kilo. It’s too late now to do much about these two thieving b******s but surely we can debride the rot so we’re left with a core of folk with only *useful* work to do – and who have an appetite for it without claiming hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in “allowances”.
We've seen the set-aside system abused by British landowners claiming EU farming subsidies for unfarmable land - and contributing significantly to the devastating floods we've suffered these last five years or so as a consequence of the EU dictating what constitutes set-aside and what does not. This is completely bonkers, it’s not news and it should be fixed *now*.
We've seen enough dead fish thrown back into the sea to feed the whole of Europe for twenty years whilst stocks of some species have plummeted to crisis levels. This is changing, not because our politicians fought for common sense, but because a celebrity chef began an appeal for public support of his efforts to lobby the EU for a ban on the practice. Our representatives mostly didn’t bother turning up!
Just some of the visible stuff. None of it is financially that important and most of it is only visible because someone chose to do the research and write about it. Immigration? These last 25 years there have always been Kiwis, South Africans, a few Indians and a nod of Europeans working in IT (in the Thames Valley). Nothing much has changed during that time, despite claims that London hosts 2 million EU workers. On the home front, the town where I choose to live has been attractive to Eastern Europeans since the 1950’s and during the ten years I've been a resident, nothing much has changed there either. Healthcare is a bit squeaky but that's our choice, not the EU.
It’s now up to our representatives at home and in Europe to recognise what should be improved, to distinguish between the important stuff and things that can wait, and bloody get on with it, whether they back leave or remain.
Chris, I must tell you that I genuinely appreciate the comments here on the thread from people who are in the UK. I never know what to believe from the US reporting of it. They're reporting that a major issue is that the EU is dictating how many immigrants the UK has to accept and they're pouring in. Because they all have instantaneous access to health care, the UK citizens can't get in to see a doctor. They highlighted one case of a lady who had to wait 10 weeks to get a shot for her back pain. Kind-of defeats the purpose. Not being there, however, I don't know if it's true or not.
I must say that the US reporting I've seen of the who thing hasn't had the usual bias to it. It's actually more like real reporting than the "trying to shove our agenda down your throat" reporting that's become so common. I can speak for all reporting, only what I've seen.
I don't know if the UK is actually going to listen to the people and leave the EU or not. It sure did rattle a lot of cages around the world though, didn't it?
The issues raised about immigration have been some of the big arguments of the leave campaign, but, as was often the case, they were grossly over-simplified.
It is hard to argue that more people using it will not put pressure on the NHS. It's also the case that the NHS relies very heavily on nurses and other staff from the EU. Chronic under-investment in training programmes and constant pressure on working standards and pay mean fewer British trained medical staff are joining the NHS after they complete their training. The NHS has also suffered from years of under-funding, some horrendous PFI deals were made in the last decade or so* and there are increasing health issues caused by an aging and fattening population. This was all stripped away and the blame was placed squarely at the feet of immigrants.
I think a telling point is the map of which areas voted out. The areas that have lower levels of immigration, such as Cornwall and the North-East voted overwhelmingly out. These also are regions that receive the square root of nowt in terms of investment from central government. Of course, services there will be struggling, they're not being given any money. Areas with higher immigrant populations such as the big cities were much more behind the Remain vote. These areas, particularly those in the South East, get much higher levels of government funding thus much less pressure on services. This again was overlooked or shouted down and the EU was blamed.
They completely over-looked the fact that the freedom of movement worked both ways. British people are\were entitled to live and work in any of the 27 EU countries. There's 800000 ex-pats in Spain alone who could find themselves out on their ear. It's going to be like the Walking Dead at the airports soon. That could potentially be n million (largely) economically active, young people who to a greater or lesser extent were here to work, replaced with a similar number of retirees. And people think there's pressure on the NHS now.
It also appears that they're back-tracking on any statements to reduce immigration. The continued access to the single market that Boris is banging on about is contingent on continued free movement. That's not something that he mentioned in his campaigning.
I'm never going to criticise a leave voter who made an informed choice on their own. My friend said, 'all the BS cancels out. I looked at the five happiest countries in the world and four of those were in Europe. Three out of those four weren't in the EU. Happiness is more important than money.' I couldn't argue with that, it's the only completely solid reason anybody has given me for voting to leave. The people who really annoy me are the ones who voted out 'coz da imagrunts'. They responded to the dog whistles and now we're all f****d.
* An example of this is the school where my wife works. The building was built and is owned by a private company. The school must pay £1 million a year in rent, out of their budget, before anything else. This is supposedly more cost-effective than the council building the school themselves. Similar deals exist across the public sector in the UK
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