Surely the current problem for the government is not the interim orders of the European Court of Human Rights but the decision of the Court of Appeal. Unless and until the Supreme Court reverses that decision no one is going anywhere.
Whilst it is true that the CA decision was based fairly heavily upon the Convention it is not easy to conceive of a UK bill of rights that might be construed differently.
The Tories would be better advised to drop this idiocy and it’s architect.
The main problem is what the ECHR is rather than what it was envisaged to be. There should be no casewise appeal to the ECHR, although those same cases can and should be used in evidence to correct the paths of errant governments.
There has undoubtedly been mission creep on the part of the Court which has resulted in some fairly irrational decisions. It is also telling they have yet to rule on asylum seekers being handed over to Libyan pirates or coastguards to be enslaved by various EU countries.
But I remain of the view that this is so not worth it. To restart the process of defining the limits of our rights with a UK Bill of Rights would benefit no one other than HR lawyers.
To be fair, the EU countries are not handing over African asylum seekers to the Libyan Coastguard to enslave.
They are paying the Libyans to do all the work - the catching, the imprisonment, the lot.
And it is happening out with the jurisdiction of the court. By countries who are subject to it. So that’s alright.
Surely the current problem for the government is not the interim orders of the European Court of Human Rights but the decision of the Court of Appeal. Unless and until the Supreme Court reverses that decision no one is going anywhere.
Whilst it is true that the CA decision was based fairly heavily upon the Convention it is not easy to conceive of a UK bill of rights that might be construed differently.
The Tories would be better advised to drop this idiocy and it’s architect.
The main problem is what the ECHR is rather than what it was envisaged to be. There should be no casewise appeal to the ECHR, although those same cases can and should be used in evidence to correct the paths of errant governments.
There has undoubtedly been mission creep on the part of the Court which has resulted in some fairly irrational decisions. It is also telling they have yet to rule on asylum seekers being handed over to Libyan pirates or coastguards to be enslaved by various EU countries.
But I remain of the view that this is so not worth it. To restart the process of defining the limits of our rights with a UK Bill of Rights would benefit no one other than HR lawyers.
To be fair, the EU countries are not handing over African asylum seekers to the Libyan Coastguard to enslave.
They are paying the Libyans to do all the work - the catching, the imprisonment, the lot.
And it is happening out with the jurisdiction of the court. By countries who are subject to it. So that’s alright.
I’ve heard it stated that the entire system was designed to be outside legal review/process inside the EU and the participant countries themselves.
So, what you're saying is other countries find workarounds, but the Tories are too incompetent to do that...?
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
Er, only some Brits do. I can't possibly imagine why.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe.
We even share the same King and language and common law and Westminster style democracy heritage and watch many of the same TV programmes
I’m struggling to imagine what HYUFD culture looks like, but I’m pretty sure I don’t share it.
Sunak’s going to end up like Hague, someone whose politics naturally lean to the centre but who is persuaded to tack to the extreme because he is inexperienced and his party is desperate.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
Most of Latin America is mixed race, only really Argentina or Chile come close to white Spanish ancestry majority. The Philippines are not majority white Spanish ancestry either. No French ex colonies or current colonies are majority white French ancestry, indeed Quebec in Canada comes closest to that (and I exclude Quebec from the Anglosphere).
New Zealand, Australia and Canada however are majority of white British isles ancestry
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Hahahaha. You just keep believing that if it makes you feel better. You and I and everyone else on this board will be long dead before we renew ties with the EU.
Quite likely in your case as you are corpulent and prone to apoplexy. The rest of can be more hopeful perhaps.
I am extremly fit thankyou, indeed probably fitter than you. Certainly judging by your posts I am more content than you are. But still unlikely to be around in half a century which is the minimum I would expect before we would get anywhere near rejoining.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe.
We even share the same King and language and common law and Westminster style democracy heritage and watch many of the same TV programmes
I’m struggling to imagine what HYUFD culture looks like, but I’m pretty sure I don’t share it.
The first question surely is whether it actually exists?
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
The French probably do bang on about the Francophonie, we just don’t notice because they’re speaking in French.
In any case, French dreams of grandeur rest in part on notions of leadership of and in Europe. And there is no Cartesian split between France versus Europe as there is in the British mind.
I am somewhat sympathetic to the notion that Britain is essentially an Atlantic power and that both its geopolitical and cultural horizons thereby extend beyond Europe. But I was never stupid enough to think that precluded membership of the eminently useful single market, nor indeed much if not all of the overall European project.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe.
We even share the same King and language and common law and Westminster style democracy heritage and watch many of the same TV programmes
I’m struggling to imagine what HYUFD culture looks like, but I’m pretty sure I don’t share it.
Just thinking back to my trip to Oz, and the ANZACs I have known (quite a few in my family btw). The contents of the bookshops, films, etc. are very different. Ditto art. Much of the common stuff is just common Western stuff e.g. architecture.
What can this mysterious culture be? Other than a bit of UJ and making us pay for their formal head of state?
FDI figures (as opposed to business investment) are actually OK. Not great, not terrible. But they are massively distorted by M&A (foreign investors buying up UK businesses, which are cheap as chips because of the FX rate and the massive discount on listed equity values to the US). Strip that out and look at organic / greenfield investment and it’s not pretty.
But the good news on the Brexit front is we need not have another divisive in-out referendum, which as others have commented would no doubt start rubbing at those partially healed culture war sores of the late 2010s. We can make sensible, practical steps away from the Frost-Johnson playground Brexit which was more about saying yah boo to Brussels than anything wise, and towards a more constructive though doubtless always complex relationship like that enjoyed by Switzerland or the ESA countries.
We don’t have referenda every time the UK concludes a new FTA - which often contain quite significant curtailments of sovereignty, so we won’t need them for this kind of evolution either.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is not dead and those who try and ignore it are doomed to relive its lessons all over again.
It happened because a huge constituency of eurosceptic opinion in this country was ignored for far too long, by both the UK and the EU, with stultifying level of pomposity, arrogance and self-servedness that patronised them to boot.
Nah. It happened because a huge constituency of people have been fucked over for the past thirty years and were told that if they stuck it to Johnny Foreigner their lives would improve dramatically.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe.
We even share the same King and language and common law and Westminster style democracy heritage and watch many of the same TV programmes
So what?
Who's this "we"? As a Scot I certainly don't share the same legal system.
I agree that the UK and NZ (and Scotland and Australia) are all culturally quite similar but the Brexit loons are up to their usual tricks of thereby trying to imply that it must therefore be a stretch to conclude a trading arrangement with countries like Slovenia.
In reality, Brits have been trading with the Continent for millennia. Look at the Bordeaux wine trade.
The Scottish merchants in the Baltic ports. And so on.
The Amesbury Archer from 2300BC, buried near Glastonbury, grew up in the Western Alps.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
Most of Latin America is mixed race, only really Argentina or Chile come close to white Spanish ancestry majority. The Philippines are not majority white Spanish ancestry either. No French ex colonies or current colonies are majority white French ancestry, indeed Quebec in Canada comes closest to that (and I exclude Quebec from the Anglosphere).
New Zealand, Australia and Canada however are majority of white British isles ancestry
The "British" aren't mixed race? Revolutionary, often literally so in the form of the Irish.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
Most of Latin America is mixed race, only really Argentina or Chile come close to white Spanish ancestry majority. No French ex colonies or current colonies are majority white French ancestry, indeed Quebec in Canada comes closest to that (and I exclude Quebec from the Anglosphere).
New Zealand, Australia and Canada however are majority of white British isles ancestry
Actually 52% of Quebecois "can speak" English according to the 2021 Canadian Census.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Business investment of G7 countries relative to 2016. Which what you would expect given the UK has suddenly limited its market and increased the risk of doing business here. Investment is competitive. You place it where you get the best expected returns.
Business investment was already poor but Brexit has definitely made it worse.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is not dead and those who try and ignore it are doomed to relive its lessons all over again.
It happened because a huge constituency of eurosceptic opinion in this country was ignored for far too long, by both the UK and the EU, with stultifying level of pomposity, arrogance and self-servedness that patronised them to boot.
Nah. It happened because a huge constituency of people have been fucked over for the past thirty years and were told that if they stuck it to Johnny Foreigner their lives would improve dramatically.
Correct analysis. Of course it’s also true that there’s been a tenacious strain of Euroscepticism in Britain since the days of Jacque Delors. And yes, it was largely ignored. Given how thoroughly fuck-headed it’s turned out to be in practice, this was perhaps understandable if not completely forgivable.
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Business investment of G7 countries relative to 2016. Which what you would expect given the UK has suddenly limited its market and increased the risk of doing business here. Investment is competitive. You place it where you get the best expected returns.
Business investment was already poor but Brexit has definitely made it worse.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
Most of Latin America is mixed race, only really Argentina or Chile come close to white Spanish ancestry majority. The Philippines are not majority white Spanish ancestry either. No French ex colonies or current colonies are majority white French ancestry, indeed Quebec in Canada comes closest to that (and I exclude Quebec from the Anglosphere).
New Zealand, Australia and Canada however are majority of white British isles ancestry
You appear to be arguing that people of different "races" can't or shouldn't mix. Is that really the line you wish to advance?
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
"Scotland Yard was braced for fresh scandal on Tuesday after it missed at least eight opportunities to remove a police officer who went on to rape two women."
Adam Provan.
"Judge Lucas said the “persistence and seriousness of Provan’s offending was clear when set out in the starkest terms”, adding that his actions have “brought disgrace on the police force”. The judge said he was troubled by how the Met handled the female officer’s initial complaints about Provan’s behaviour, in 2005. He told Provan: “While this cannot be laid at your door, I find it highly troubling that [the female officer’s] colleagues in the Metropolitan Police in 2004 and 2005 were more concerned about looking out for ‘one of their own’ than in taking her seriously and investigating her complaints about you.”
It's going to be exceedingly hard to judge this year's winner of the No Shit, Sherlock! Awards. Some really excellent contenders this year and, doubtless, more to come.
The current behavior of the Italian Government as posted on here yesterday (I apologise I forget who posted it) regarding Gay parents seems to me the perfect example of where the ECHR should be getting involved. I am sorry that they do not appear to have done so yet.
Needless to say we should not be leaving the ECHR. It am saddened that ony a minority (albeit by a couple of points) agree with me.
Ideally we should not leave the ECHR, but quite equally the ECHR is not fit for purpose.
Absolutely that is a prime case where the ECHR should be involved surely, but there's plenty of other cases where it should but did not.
Its worth remembering that prior to last year's latest invasion of Ukraine, that Russia were full members of the ECHR. I hardly feel like January 2022's Russia was a representative democracy with full, free and fair elections and a free press.
The ECHR is a good idea in theory, but in practice is about as much use as telling teens to 'pull out' to avoid pregnancy and STDs.
The problem with the advocates of leaving the ECHR is that they end up like the idiots in the US who want to defund the police. Reform is essential but it won't happen if you just shut the whole thing down without something equally powerful to replace it.
We could have what almost every other English speaking Common Law Parliamentary democracy in the world has, which is a domestic Supreme Court. Its good enough for Australia and Canada and New Zealand. There's nothing special about simply by an accident of geography happening to be in Europe which means we need to be in the ECHR in my view.
I'm ambivalent as to whether we stay or go, either are legitimate choices. Out of sheer inertia I'd probably say we should stay in it, but there's no philosophical reason why its better than a domestic Supreme Court.
The thing is it is not just the Court. It is the Convention as well. You cannot be a signatory to the Convention without accepting the jurisdiction of the court.
Which is why when people say it was created by Churchill it is false. What Churchill designed was a Convention that was signed multinationally but enforced domestically. There was no international overriding of Parliament in Churchill's day, the Court came later.
No reason why we couldn't revert IMHO to a modernised version of what Churchill had, which would be an equivalent Convention enforced in the UK Supreme Court.
I don't particularly think we should leave the Convention, but if we were to do so I wouldn't object either, so long as we had a domestic alternative put in its place. I'm agnostic over it.
That is simply not true. The Convention that Churchill designed with Mitterand and Adenauer and subsequently signed explicitly included the Court to oversee and adjudicate. The fact that it took a further 6 years to actually come into existence does not mean it was not part of the convention from the start nor that Churchill did not approve of it. It was a Briton, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, who devised the convention and Churchill signed the declaration bringing it into existence at the end of the 1948 Congress that created both the Convention and the Court.
"We desire a Charter of Human Rights guaranteeing liberty of thought, assembly and expression as well as right to form a political opposition. We desire a Court of Justice with adequate sanctions for the implementation of this Charter."
I stand corrected, I was wrong.
Still, no reason why IMHO we need an international Court on Justice instead of a domestic Supreme Court like other Parliamentary Common Law democracies.
As far as the ECtHR is concerned, it has failed to stand up to countries (like Russia) that remain signatories but disregard human rights.
Perhaps because the other Democracies you allude to have never sought to bind their neighbours to their own vision of democracy and law through a voluntary convention. We chose to devise a system to ensure that our neighbours adhered to a set of standards that we wished to promote. It seems perverse for us to now disown those standards and that system for petty party political advantage - which is all this is really about.
We chose to bind all sorts of other countries in the past to our visions, its imperialistic and we've largely turned our back on that.
We also have a domestic principle that no Parliament can bind its successors, so if any Parliament votes to change the decisions of the past, that is entirely democratic.
I don't find it at all perverse to disown standards if those standards no long suit our interests or the modern world. Our closest friends and allies that share our principles of Parliamentary democracy aren't even a part of the ECHR anyway, so there's no real reason other than basic inertia why we have to be.
They are our standards. They are the standards we still claim to hold to in our laws and society. Go and look at the Convention and find anything there which is not fundamentally part of what our country is supposed to stand for.
The only reason we are even having this debate is because the current political leadership of one party has decided that those basic standards are no longer politically expedient. Which is one reason why they will shortly no longer be in a position to do anything about it.
There is nothing in the Convention that is not fundamentally a part of what our country is supposed to stand for I completely 100% agree with that, just as there's nothing there that is fundamentally against what Canada, or Australia or New Zealand stand for either.
Which is why there would be no problem if the Convention were enforced by a UK Supreme Court, or if we broke up by an English Supreme Court, just as it could be enforced Australia or Canada or New Zealand's Supreme Court.
There is no fundamental reason why transnational courts are better than national ones.
Sunak’s going to end up like Hague, someone whose politics naturally lean to the centre but who is persuaded to tack to the extreme because he is inexperienced and his party is desperate.
I initially read that as "Sunak’s going to end up in The Hague" and got all excited for a moment.
Surely the current problem for the government is not the interim orders of the European Court of Human Rights but the decision of the Court of Appeal. Unless and until the Supreme Court reverses that decision no one is going anywhere.
Whilst it is true that the CA decision was based fairly heavily upon the Convention it is not easy to conceive of a UK bill of rights that might be construed differently.
The Tories would be better advised to drop this idiocy and it’s architect.
The main problem is what the ECHR is rather than what it was envisaged to be. There should be no casewise appeal to the ECHR, although those same cases can and should be used in evidence to correct the paths of errant governments.
There has undoubtedly been mission creep on the part of the Court which has resulted in some fairly irrational decisions. It is also telling they have yet to rule on asylum seekers being handed over to Libyan pirates or coastguards to be enslaved by various EU countries.
But I remain of the view that this is so not worth it. To restart the process of defining the limits of our rights with a UK Bill of Rights would benefit no one other than HR lawyers.
To be fair, the EU countries are not handing over African asylum seekers to the Libyan Coastguard to enslave.
They are paying the Libyans to do all the work - the catching, the imprisonment, the lot.
And it is happening out with the jurisdiction of the court. By countries who are subject to it. So that’s alright.
Surely the current problem for the government is not the interim orders of the European Court of Human Rights but the decision of the Court of Appeal. Unless and until the Supreme Court reverses that decision no one is going anywhere.
Whilst it is true that the CA decision was based fairly heavily upon the Convention it is not easy to conceive of a UK bill of rights that might be construed differently.
The Tories would be better advised to drop this idiocy and it’s architect.
The main problem is what the ECHR is rather than what it was envisaged to be. There should be no casewise appeal to the ECHR, although those same cases can and should be used in evidence to correct the paths of errant governments.
There has undoubtedly been mission creep on the part of the Court which has resulted in some fairly irrational decisions. It is also telling they have yet to rule on asylum seekers being handed over to Libyan pirates or coastguards to be enslaved by various EU countries.
But I remain of the view that this is so not worth it. To restart the process of defining the limits of our rights with a UK Bill of Rights would benefit no one other than HR lawyers.
To be fair, the EU countries are not handing over African asylum seekers to the Libyan Coastguard to enslave.
They are paying the Libyans to do all the work - the catching, the imprisonment, the lot.
And it is happening out with the jurisdiction of the court. By countries who are subject to it. So that’s alright.
I’ve heard it stated that the entire system was designed to be outside legal review/process inside the EU and the participant countries themselves.
So, what you're saying is other countries find workarounds, but the Tories are too incompetent to do that...?
You are aware of what those “workarounds” relate to?
Under Truss the Tories were heading for less than 50 seats, now the Tories are heading for about 150+
Cough *fewer* cough.
Nope.
Balls
The real definitions of 'less' and 'fewer' are well established, but some feeble minded grammarians have given up the fight and decided the less for fewer mistake is so common that it's now acceptable
It's like when people apostrophise singular nouns ending with -s without a following s
They write Balls' (which means belonging to the more than one Ball) rather than Balls's (belonging to Balls)
The AP style guide is the only one that accepts this grammatical abomination
What a load of old nonsense.
I'm all for rules in language, but where it does not affect the understanding then insisting on a rule is just ridiculous, saying something is 'wrong' even though its meaning was perfectly understood.
I am fewer educated than you - doesn't make sense, obviously, so the words are not interchangable in this instance.
The Tories are headed for less than 50 seats - makes perfect sense, everyone could see what was meant.
With these matters the question should be what is the purpose of the grammatical rule? What benefit is there to insisting the wording was incorrect, even though I'd bet not a single reader of English did not know what was meant?
Seriously, I don't understand the anger people have about less/fewer, when there is no ambiguity of meaning. Why does this 'rule' matter in that instance?
How many words have meanings which have evolved over time, is that ok? If yes why is that ok, but evolving grammar is not?
And that even ignores that languages change all the time, and no that doesn't mean that people can just make anything up and expect everyone else to go along with it - but if people do, in fact, go along with it on the whole, then insisting that some archaic thing is 'right' is just shouting at clouds level logic. How many words have meanings which have evolved over time, is that ok? If yes why is that ok, but evolving grammar is not? if no then you must be very furious a lot of the time.
If I think it looks ok I'll end a sentence with a preposition or split an infinitive as well, if I don't I won't.
Describing rules or definitions as 'real' in a sense that means they are fixed for all time is just weird, when we know for a fact that is not how languages work over time - we will have one particular change that we dislike and will resist, I'm sure I do too, and that resistance is fine, but neither is more real than the other, and if the changers win, that is now the 'real' rule too.
Edit: BTW, the context of your gag correction makes the point pretty well I think. All in good humour, but HYUFD made a point that everyone could see (and laugh at if they wanted), and the joke picks apart how he expressed it despite that clear understanding of his point, as if that was the problem.
Heading for a run, but really, grammar and language purists need to pick their battles, I'm not sure less/fewer is the hill to die on as the last bastion of 'real'ness.
How is any of it a "hill to die on"?
I don't correct anyone (except my Dad who used to correct me, and my nephew who needs my help given how bad my sister's grammar can be) (oh, and my Russian friend, because she wants me to, but never in front of anyone else)
But I'll argue all day for the upholding of linguistic and grammatical standards in our formal language
Less to mean fewer should have (informal) after it in the dictionary
Well, quite. I am a dreadful oik, wrong kind of school, never voted for the natural party of government, not part of the Anglican communion - hell, I'm not even English! I know, I shouldn't even be on here. I shouldn't even exist! So when I come here I do expect to see my betters setting an example, grammar-wise. I know we live in a world of declining standards, but is that too much to ask?
We all have a right to exist; we just need to know our place
I know mine: it's carrying your mail
You're spot on about the standard we should expect here
I do miss Leon's erudition
To be clear, I mean his linguistic erudition and how he uses our language so skilfully
Even if one disagrees with everything he writes, it's hard not to be at least a little impressed by the way he writes it
Sorta the reverse of the old adage, "If you can't convince 'em with your brilliance, baffle 'em with your bullshit"?
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
Most of Latin America is mixed race, only really Argentina or Chile come close to white Spanish ancestry majority. The Philippines are not majority white Spanish ancestry either. No French ex colonies or current colonies are majority white French ancestry, indeed Quebec in Canada comes closest to that (and I exclude Quebec from the Anglosphere).
New Zealand, Australia and Canada however are majority of white British isles ancestry
The "British" aren't mixed race? Revolutionary, often literally so in the form of the Irish.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe.
We even share the same King and language and common law and Westminster style democracy heritage and watch many of the same TV programmes
I’m struggling to imagine what HYUFD culture looks like, but I’m pretty sure I don’t share it.
Just thinking back to my trip to Oz, and the ANZACs I have known (quite a few in my family btw). The contents of the bookshops, films, etc. are very different. Ditto art. Much of the common stuff is just common Western stuff e.g. architecture.
What can this mysterious culture be? Other than a bit of UJ and making us pay for their formal head of state?
You were lucky to bump into much in the way of architecture there, not being mean, just honest.
Vanilla really excelling this evening. My last comment now appearing as if I’m quoting Carynx.
It read:
Identity is a complex topic full of biases and assumptions.
Until 2016 I blithely assumed most of my compatriots felt a European identity, even if they moaned about Brussels. The referendum and the debates I had with people beforehand put that illusion to bed. I remember vividly an evening drink in Chicago with a Brit client who gestured to the view and said “look around you, this feels so much more like home than some European city” and I thought “eh?” But I realised that was how many of my fellow Brits felt.
But I think a lot of brexiteers make equally blithe assumptions that their compatriots all feel more affinity with the Anglosphere than the continent. Many don’t, and not just those with continental European roots.
Both sides of the Scottish Indy debate appear to make the same error around British vs European identity.
Then there is a not insignificant portion of the population - people with Caribbean, African, Asian, Latin American heritage - many of whom probably feel little affinity with either the white Anglosphere or continental Europe.
Surely the current problem for the government is not the interim orders of the European Court of Human Rights but the decision of the Court of Appeal. Unless and until the Supreme Court reverses that decision no one is going anywhere.
Whilst it is true that the CA decision was based fairly heavily upon the Convention it is not easy to conceive of a UK bill of rights that might be construed differently.
The Tories would be better advised to drop this idiocy and it’s architect.
The main problem is what the ECHR is rather than what it was envisaged to be. There should be no casewise appeal to the ECHR, although those same cases can and should be used in evidence to correct the paths of errant governments.
There has undoubtedly been mission creep on the part of the Court which has resulted in some fairly irrational decisions. It is also telling they have yet to rule on asylum seekers being handed over to Libyan pirates or coastguards to be enslaved by various EU countries.
But I remain of the view that this is so not worth it. To restart the process of defining the limits of our rights with a UK Bill of Rights would benefit no one other than HR lawyers.
To be fair, the EU countries are not handing over African asylum seekers to the Libyan Coastguard to enslave.
They are paying the Libyans to do all the work - the catching, the imprisonment, the lot.
And it is happening out with the jurisdiction of the court. By countries who are subject to it. So that’s alright.
Surely the current problem for the government is not the interim orders of the European Court of Human Rights but the decision of the Court of Appeal. Unless and until the Supreme Court reverses that decision no one is going anywhere.
Whilst it is true that the CA decision was based fairly heavily upon the Convention it is not easy to conceive of a UK bill of rights that might be construed differently.
The Tories would be better advised to drop this idiocy and it’s architect.
The main problem is what the ECHR is rather than what it was envisaged to be. There should be no casewise appeal to the ECHR, although those same cases can and should be used in evidence to correct the paths of errant governments.
There has undoubtedly been mission creep on the part of the Court which has resulted in some fairly irrational decisions. It is also telling they have yet to rule on asylum seekers being handed over to Libyan pirates or coastguards to be enslaved by various EU countries.
But I remain of the view that this is so not worth it. To restart the process of defining the limits of our rights with a UK Bill of Rights would benefit no one other than HR lawyers.
To be fair, the EU countries are not handing over African asylum seekers to the Libyan Coastguard to enslave.
They are paying the Libyans to do all the work - the catching, the imprisonment, the lot.
And it is happening out with the jurisdiction of the court. By countries who are subject to it. So that’s alright.
I’ve heard it stated that the entire system was designed to be outside legal review/process inside the EU and the participant countries themselves.
So, what you're saying is other countries find workarounds, but the Tories are too incompetent to do that...?
You are aware of what those “workarounds” relate to?
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
Most of Latin America is mixed race, only really Argentina or Chile come close to white Spanish ancestry majority. The Philippines are not majority white Spanish ancestry either. No French ex colonies or current colonies are majority white French ancestry, indeed Quebec in Canada comes closest to that (and I exclude Quebec from the Anglosphere).
New Zealand, Australia and Canada however are majority of white British isles ancestry
You appear to be arguing that people of different "races" can't or shouldn't mix. Is that really the line you wish to advance?
No saying we are culturally closer to Australia and New Zealand than the rest of the world is not the same as wanting to introduce apartheid
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Business investment of G7 countries relative to 2016. Which what you would expect given the UK has suddenly limited its market and increased the risk of doing business here. Investment is competitive. You place it where you get the best expected returns.
Business investment was already poor but Brexit has definitely made it worse.
If you'd told me Italy topped the post-2016 investment charts, I would have been very surprised.
Bear in mind these are relative figures to a point in time in 2016. Italy, like Britain, has suffered from low levels of investment. It seems Italy has improved its situation since then, while the UK has become relatively even worse,
NY Daily News (via Seattle Times) - Mark Meadows says Trump left top secret Iran war plans on couch at Bedminster golf resort
Ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows reportedly wrote in a draft of his memoir that his old boss, former President Donald Trump, left a top secret Iran war plan on a couch at his New Jersey golf resort during an interview with a ghost writer.
Meadows told prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s team that he heard about the shocking incident by the writer and a publicist but soft-pedaled it in the final published version of his book because it could be “problematic” for Trump, ABC News reported. . . .
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
Most of Latin America is mixed race, only really Argentina or Chile come close to white Spanish ancestry majority. The Philippines are not majority white Spanish ancestry either. No French ex colonies or current colonies are majority white French ancestry, indeed Quebec in Canada comes closest to that (and I exclude Quebec from the Anglosphere).
New Zealand, Australia and Canada however are majority of white British isles ancestry
The "British" aren't mixed race? Revolutionary, often literally so in the form of the Irish.
Most British are not mixed race.
Though I would say the average Englishman is closer to the average Australian or New Zealander than the average Scottish Nationalist
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Why on earth do you think a bulletin about FDI in 2021 demonstrates anything?
As always your myopia on this subject is positively Freudian.
Because it is the most up to date figures that we have. Except those in your imagination, of course.
Google has numerous links to analysis of UK FDI post Brexit, I suggest you take a look.
I did and gave you the figures. But you want to believe otherwise and prefer anecdotes that meet your prejudices.
In the first quarter of 2023, real business investment in the UK remained over 1% below its peak in third quarter 2016.
Lies, damned lies and statistics from you there. So there was a spike in investment into the UK following the EU Referendum?
If you want to be honest you need to look at the big picture trend not cherrypick data that suits your agenda, post-referendum 2016 as a baseline goes completely against the rest of the shape of the chart. Reindex with 2010 = 100 and you would get a completely different outcome "despite Brexit". From 2010 to date the UK has gone up from ~70 to ~98 which is approximately a 40% increase.
In the same period the Eurozone has gone from ~90 to ~115 which is approximately a 28% increase.
So over the full length of the chart, the UK has done much better at boosting investment. Over the medium term if a spike happens then to maintain at the level of the spike is a success, not a failure if its above where you would have been before it.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe.
We even share the same King and language and common law and Westminster style democracy heritage and watch many of the same TV programmes
I’m struggling to imagine what HYUFD culture looks like, but I’m pretty sure I don’t share it.
The first question surely is whether it actually exists?
Enigma Variation IX, footage of HMQ’s coffin lying in state on a loop, Guardia Civil truncheoning separatist grannies on YouTube. Perhaps a dry sherry with the Fray Bentos pie.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
Most of Latin America is mixed race, only really Argentina or Chile come close to white Spanish ancestry majority. The Philippines are not majority white Spanish ancestry either. No French ex colonies or current colonies are majority white French ancestry, indeed Quebec in Canada comes closest to that (and I exclude Quebec from the Anglosphere).
New Zealand, Australia and Canada however are majority of white British isles ancestry
You appear to be arguing that people of different "races" can't or shouldn't mix. Is that really the line you wish to advance?
No saying we are culturally closer to Australia and New Zealand than the rest of the world is not the same as wanting to introduce apartheid
You appear to be saying that being "culturally closer" is partly about whether you share the same skin colour. You are saying that Spain can't share the same cultural closeness to, say, Mexico as we do to Australia because Mexicans aren't as "white".
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is not dead and those who try and ignore it are doomed to relive its lessons all over again.
It happened because a huge constituency of eurosceptic opinion in this country was ignored for far too long, by both the UK and the EU, with stultifying level of pomposity, arrogance and self-servedness that patronised them to boot.
Nah. It happened because a huge constituency of people have been fucked over for the past thirty years and were told that if they stuck it to Johnny Foreigner their lives would improve dramatically.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Thailand is only so low on the list because @Leon keeps visiting. If he promised to stay away, then I'm sure more Brits would be keen to move there.
Seem to remember that great sage formerly known to PBers as (in latest guise) "Leon" telling us that United States was so terminally dysfunctional, that nobody from the West wished to move there?
BUT note USA ranks #2 on this list of where UKers are moving to - just behind AUS and ahead of CAN.
Under Truss the Tories were heading for less than 50 seats, now the Tories are heading for about 150+
Cough *fewer* cough.
Nope.
Balls
The real definitions of 'less' and 'fewer' are well established, but some feeble minded grammarians have given up the fight and decided the less for fewer mistake is so common that it's now acceptable
It's like when people apostrophise singular nouns ending with -s without a following s
They write Balls' (which means belonging to the more than one Ball) rather than Balls's (belonging to Balls)
The AP style guide is the only one that accepts this grammatical abomination
What a load of old nonsense.
I'm all for rules in language, but where it does not affect the understanding then insisting on a rule is just ridiculous, saying something is 'wrong' even though its meaning was perfectly understood.
I am fewer educated than you - doesn't make sense, obviously, so the words are not interchangable in this instance.
The Tories are headed for less than 50 seats - makes perfect sense, everyone could see what was meant.
With these matters the question should be what is the purpose of the grammatical rule? What benefit is there to insisting the wording was incorrect, even though I'd bet not a single reader of English did not know what was meant?
Seriously, I don't understand the anger people have about less/fewer, when there is no ambiguity of meaning. Why does this 'rule' matter in that instance?
How many words have meanings which have evolved over time, is that ok? If yes why is that ok, but evolving grammar is not?
And that even ignores that languages change all the time, and no that doesn't mean that people can just make anything up and expect everyone else to go along with it - but if people do, in fact, go along with it on the whole, then insisting that some archaic thing is 'right' is just shouting at clouds level logic. How many words have meanings which have evolved over time, is that ok? If yes why is that ok, but evolving grammar is not? if no then you must be very furious a lot of the time.
If I think it looks ok I'll end a sentence with a preposition or split an infinitive as well, if I don't I won't.
Describing rules or definitions as 'real' in a sense that means they are fixed for all time is just weird, when we know for a fact that is not how languages work over time - we will have one particular change that we dislike and will resist, I'm sure I do too, and that resistance is fine, but neither is more real than the other, and if the changers win, that is now the 'real' rule too.
Edit: BTW, the context of your gag correction makes the point pretty well I think. All in good humour, but HYUFD made a point that everyone could see (and laugh at if they wanted), and the joke picks apart how he expressed it despite that clear understanding of his point, as if that was the problem.
Heading for a run, but really, grammar and language purists need to pick their battles, I'm not sure less/fewer is the hill to die on as the last bastion of 'real'ness.
How is any of it a "hill to die on"?
I don't correct anyone (except my Dad who used to correct me, and my nephew who needs my help given how bad my sister's grammar can be) (oh, and my Russian friend, because she wants me to, but never in front of anyone else)
But I'll argue all day for the upholding of linguistic and grammatical standards in our formal language
Less to mean fewer should have (informal) after it in the dictionary
Well, quite. I am a dreadful oik, wrong kind of school, never voted for the natural party of government, not part of the Anglican communion - hell, I'm not even English! I know, I shouldn't even be on here. I shouldn't even exist! So when I come here I do expect to see my betters setting an example, grammar-wise. I know we live in a world of declining standards, but is that too much to ask?
We all have a right to exist; we just need to know our place
I know mine: it's carrying your mail
You're spot on about the standard we should expect here
I do miss Leon's erudition
There is however a case for using less where the quantity does not have a concrete existence. A continuous variable.
Less than a kilo of flour.
Fewer than 30 melons.
Edit: or indeed fewer dogs.
Well indeed!
I want fewer examples of less correct grammar
And yet you get less fewer examples of fewer less incorrect grammar. More or less. 😀
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Business investment of G7 countries relative to 2016. Which what you would expect given the UK has suddenly limited its market and increased the risk of doing business here. Investment is competitive. You place it where you get the best expected returns.
Business investment was already poor but Brexit has definitely made it worse.
If you'd told me Italy topped the post-2016 investment charts, I would have been very surprised.
Bear in mind these are relative figures to a point in time in 2016. Italy, like Britain, has suffered from low levels of investment. It seems Italy has improved its situation since then, while the UK has become relatively even worse,
Should add Italy had a technocratic government between I think 2012 and 2022. You wouldn't think it would make such a big difference, but when Berlusconi and his ilk take charge the Italian economy goes down the toilet, to be slightly resuscitated in the interregnums. The figures showing this are stark.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Why on earth do you think a bulletin about FDI in 2021 demonstrates anything?
As always your myopia on this subject is positively Freudian.
Because it is the most up to date figures that we have. Except those in your imagination, of course.
Google has numerous links to analysis of UK FDI post Brexit, I suggest you take a look.
I did and gave you the figures. But you want to believe otherwise and prefer anecdotes that meet your prejudices.
In the first quarter of 2023, real business investment in the UK remained over 1% below its peak in third quarter 2016.
Lies, damned lies and statistics from you there. So there was a spike in investment into the UK following the EU Referendum?
If you want to be honest you need to look at the big picture trend not cherrypick data that suits your agenda, post-referendum 2016 as a baseline goes completely against the rest of the shape of the chart. Reindex with 2010 = 100 and you would get a completely different outcome "despite Brexit". From 2010 to date the UK has gone up from ~70 to ~98 which is approximately a 40% increase.
In the same period the Eurozone has gone from ~90 to ~115 which is approximately a 28% increase.
So over the full length of the chart, the UK has done much better at boosting investment. Over the medium term if a spike happens then to maintain at the level of the spike is a success, not a failure if its above where you would have been before it.
There was no doubt the referendum result had a chilling effect on investment and sentiment. I saw it first hand. It was the uncertainty, particularly over no deal. Once that had gone we unfortunately had little time to see how the new semi-certainty would affect investment, because Covid came along. But we’re in a new reality now. I don’t think we’ll see as harsh a difference with the EU as we did in 2016-2019.
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Why on earth do you think a bulletin about FDI in 2021 demonstrates anything?
As always your myopia on this subject is positively Freudian.
Because it is the most up to date figures that we have. Except those in your imagination, of course.
Google has numerous links to analysis of UK FDI post Brexit, I suggest you take a look.
I did and gave you the figures. But you want to believe otherwise and prefer anecdotes that meet your prejudices.
In the first quarter of 2023, real business investment in the UK remained over 1% below its peak in third quarter 2016.
Lies, damned lies and statistics from you there. So there was a spike in investment into the UK following the EU Referendum?
If you want to be honest you need to look at the big picture trend not cherrypick data that suits your agenda, post-referendum 2016 as a baseline goes completely against the rest of the shape of the chart. Reindex with 2010 = 100 and you would get a completely different outcome "despite Brexit". From 2010 to date the UK has gone up from ~70 to ~98 which is approximately a 40% increase.
In the same period the Eurozone has gone from ~90 to ~115 which is approximately a 28% increase.
So over the full length of the chart, the UK has done much better at boosting investment. Over the medium term if a spike happens then to maintain at the level of the spike is a success, not a failure if its above where you would have been before it.
Yes, but we are talking about the effect of Brexit, which happened in 2016.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
Odd. Brits think they have far more in common with Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians than they do with the French, Czechs and Slovenians and they vote with their feet accordingly.
The British position has been the same for centuries: we are a maritime trading nation that trades both globally and continentally and has a strong interest in a maintaining a balance of power in Europe and secure global sea routes in order to prosper.
Geography is key but not all in one direction like you think it is.
And yet, despite all of that (which isn't false but I do think it is more complicated than that), Brexit is unpopular and increasingly so.
It's really not my job to work out why, or what to do about that. Which is probably for the best, because I haven't got a clue where to begin.
(I suspect the answer is that there's nothing to be done about it. The mental map for those who grew up after about 1973 is just different to that of those who grew up post war but pre-EEC membership. And changing people's mental maps is damn difficult.)
It isn't that much, most of even under 40s would be fine with EFTA membership at most, they don't have a desperate desire to be part of the Eurozone and an EU superstate which is where the EU is heading.
Over 65 upper middle class LD voters are much keener on rejoining the full EU than most under 40s would be if EFTA was an option too (and plenty of the former on PB)
But even that- some variant of what Norway or Switzerland do- is a much closer arrangement than we have right now. In an annexe with a separate front door, but still in the same building. Which is not what eurosceptics are talking about this evening.
One final thought before I wander off to water the corguettes. (Half of me wants them to die so I don't have to keep harvesting them, but that wouldn't be on.) Some of the chat this evening has been about how the UK can't be fully European, because of the Anglosphere. Spaniards don't bang on about the Hispanidad in the same way, or France about the Francophonie. They just get on with having multiple overlapping identities. Why do Brits find that so difficult?
Most of Latin America is mixed race, only really Argentina or Chile come close to white Spanish ancestry majority. The Philippines are not majority white Spanish ancestry either. No French ex colonies or current colonies are majority white French ancestry, indeed Quebec in Canada comes closest to that (and I exclude Quebec from the Anglosphere).
New Zealand, Australia and Canada however are majority of white British isles ancestry
The "British" aren't mixed race? Revolutionary, often literally so in the form of the Irish.
Most British are not mixed race.
Though I would say the average Englishman is closer to the average Australian or New Zealander than the average Scottish Nationalist
Ah, I see you are denying even the "Our Island Story" approved story.
Given the history fo emigration to Australia and NZ, that would considerably surprise many people thjere.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Why on earth do you think a bulletin about FDI in 2021 demonstrates anything?
As always your myopia on this subject is positively Freudian.
Because it is the most up to date figures that we have. Except those in your imagination, of course.
Google has numerous links to analysis of UK FDI post Brexit, I suggest you take a look.
I did and gave you the figures. But you want to believe otherwise and prefer anecdotes that meet your prejudices.
In the first quarter of 2023, real business investment in the UK remained over 1% below its peak in third quarter 2016.
Lies, damned lies and statistics from you there. So there was a spike in investment into the UK following the EU Referendum?
If you want to be honest you need to look at the big picture trend not cherrypick data that suits your agenda, post-referendum 2016 as a baseline goes completely against the rest of the shape of the chart. Reindex with 2010 = 100 and you would get a completely different outcome "despite Brexit". From 2010 to date the UK has gone up from ~70 to ~98 which is approximately a 40% increase.
In the same period the Eurozone has gone from ~90 to ~115 which is approximately a 28% increase.
So over the full length of the chart, the UK has done much better at boosting investment. Over the medium term if a spike happens then to maintain at the level of the spike is a success, not a failure if its above where you would have been before it.
There was no doubt the referendum result had a chilling effect on investment and sentiment. I saw it first hand. It was the uncertainty, particularly over no deal. Once that had gone we unfortunately had little time to see how the new semi-certainty would affect investment, because Covid came along. But we’re in a new reality now. I don’t think we’ll see as harsh a difference with the EU as we did in 2016-2019.
I do think that a change of government, even if Keir changes very little, will have a positive effect on business sentiment.
The current government is deeply distrusted by serious people, and indeed, rightly or wrongly, by foreign investors.
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Why on earth do you think a bulletin about FDI in 2021 demonstrates anything?
As always your myopia on this subject is positively Freudian.
Because it is the most up to date figures that we have. Except those in your imagination, of course.
Google has numerous links to analysis of UK FDI post Brexit, I suggest you take a look.
I did and gave you the figures. But you want to believe otherwise and prefer anecdotes that meet your prejudices.
In the first quarter of 2023, real business investment in the UK remained over 1% below its peak in third quarter 2016.
Lies, damned lies and statistics from you there. So there was a spike in investment into the UK following the EU Referendum?
If you want to be honest you need to look at the big picture trend not cherrypick data that suits your agenda, post-referendum 2016 as a baseline goes completely against the rest of the shape of the chart. Reindex with 2010 = 100 and you would get a completely different outcome "despite Brexit". From 2010 to date the UK has gone up from ~70 to ~98 which is approximately a 40% increase.
In the same period the Eurozone has gone from ~90 to ~115 which is approximately a 28% increase.
So over the full length of the chart, the UK has done much better at boosting investment. Over the medium term if a spike happens then to maintain at the level of the spike is a success, not a failure if its above where you would have been before it.
Yes, but we are talking about the effect of Brexit, which happened in 2016.
Do try to keep up.
Yes, and there was no effect.
Do an average of the 6 years before the referendum for each country, and compare to the average for the 6 years after the referendum for each country.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Australia is European anyway. Not just because they’re in the song contest. An implanted European colonial population on another continent. Minogue being an Irish surname of course.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
We are not European? I'm sorry, that is one of the most absurd statements I've ever heard, even on here, and that is saying something.
"Scotland Yard was braced for fresh scandal on Tuesday after it missed at least eight opportunities to remove a police officer who went on to rape two women."
Adam Provan.
"Judge Lucas said the “persistence and seriousness of Provan’s offending was clear when set out in the starkest terms”, adding that his actions have “brought disgrace on the police force”. The judge said he was troubled by how the Met handled the female officer’s initial complaints about Provan’s behaviour, in 2005. He told Provan: “While this cannot be laid at your door, I find it highly troubling that [the female officer’s] colleagues in the Metropolitan Police in 2004 and 2005 were more concerned about looking out for ‘one of their own’ than in taking her seriously and investigating her complaints about you.”
It's going to be exceedingly hard to judge this year's winner of the No Shit, Sherlock! Awards. Some really excellent contenders this year and, doubtless, more to come.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Are Brits more likely to eat spaghetti bolognese or poutine? Paella or lamingtons?
Are Brits more likely to holiday in Ibiza or Vancouver Island?
Are Brits more likely to watch "The Bridge" or "The Brokenwood"?
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe.
We even share the same King and language and common law and Westminster style democracy heritage and watch many of the same TV programmes
I’m struggling to imagine what HYUFD culture looks like, but I’m pretty sure I don’t share it.
Just thinking back to my trip to Oz, and the ANZACs I have known (quite a few in my family btw). The contents of the bookshops, films, etc. are very different. Ditto art. Much of the common stuff is just common Western stuff e.g. architecture.
What can this mysterious culture be? Other than a bit of UJ and making us pay for their formal head of state?
You were lucky to bump into much in the way of architecture there, not being mean, just honest.
Mr Saarinen of Opera House fame is not conspicuously known for being "British". I rather suspect "European" or "Finnish" would fit. Indeed, my hostess's house was more like Mediterranean domestic architecture, very sensibly, and in the way of local culture we also visited a C19 German-Australian vineyard and two unarguably 100% Australian buildings, in the form of the local people's meeting places.
We are gradually reaching the point where the political dividends of pivoting wholeheartedly back towards the EU, at the very least getting back inside the SM and restoring our FoM, will become impossible to ignore.
You can't transfer polling about a hypothetical policy in isolation to polling about a concrete proposal attached to a party platform.
There are similar polling numbers in support of the death penalty for child killers, but it's highly doubtful that a party would get a political dividend from saying they want to bring it back. It might even have the opposite effect.
It is though a very handy set of polling results to give air cover for EFTA/EEA or other shuffles back closer to the old band. Not quite Robbie joining the take that reunion tour but at least doing a one off on Jools Holland.
I think it's a mistake to assume that the main issue for a Labour government in moving towards the EEA or similar would be managing public opinion rather than actually being able to negotiate conditions that they find acceptable. Starmer is on a journey and may be more Brexity in office than Remainers would like.
I’m pretty sure he’ll be more Brexity in office than remainers would like. What’s unclear far is whether that’s tactical, or an actual ideological journey. If it’s the latter he deserves congratulations for travelling in the opposite direction to most of his voters.
It’ll be easier for him to manage expectations on negotiations. Unless he promises to rejoin, or to negotiate a very specific outcome he can’t deliver, he can basically achieve a fair bit without much fanfare, and choose to announce the good bits once they’re done.
There's the potential for the EU to ask for too much in return in the mistaken belief that Starmer will just roll over.
The EU is likely to hugely overplay its hand.
It would be far better off treating Starmer as another British Prime Minister who will negotiate in Britain's national interest, but it probably won't.
I don't think he'd negotiate in our interests. And Sunak certainly doesn't, so there'd be no change there.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
We are not European? I'm sorry, that is one of the most absurd statements I've ever heard, even on here, and that is saying something.
In what specific ways are we "European" apart from geographically, in a meaningful cultural sense that does not apply to other nations like Australia, New Zealand or Canada?
Unless you think they're European too, to which a case could be made, but I think its more politically accurate to say "western" nowadays (even though Australia and NZ are in the East).
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Would Brits rather listen to Georgios Panayiotou and Dua Lipa or Justin Bieber and Drake?
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Why on earth do you think a bulletin about FDI in 2021 demonstrates anything?
As always your myopia on this subject is positively Freudian.
Because it is the most up to date figures that we have. Except those in your imagination, of course.
Google has numerous links to analysis of UK FDI post Brexit, I suggest you take a look.
I did and gave you the figures. But you want to believe otherwise and prefer anecdotes that meet your prejudices.
In the first quarter of 2023, real business investment in the UK remained over 1% below its peak in third quarter 2016.
Lies, damned lies and statistics from you there. So there was a spike in investment into the UK following the EU Referendum?
If you want to be honest you need to look at the big picture trend not cherrypick data that suits your agenda, post-referendum 2016 as a baseline goes completely against the rest of the shape of the chart. Reindex with 2010 = 100 and you would get a completely different outcome "despite Brexit". From 2010 to date the UK has gone up from ~70 to ~98 which is approximately a 40% increase.
In the same period the Eurozone has gone from ~90 to ~115 which is approximately a 28% increase.
So over the full length of the chart, the UK has done much better at boosting investment. Over the medium term if a spike happens then to maintain at the level of the spike is a success, not a failure if its above where you would have been before it.
Yes, but we are talking about the effect of Brexit, which happened in 2016.
Do try to keep up.
Yes, and there was no effect.
Do an average of the 6 years before the referendum for each country, and compare to the average for the 6 years after the referendum for each country.
I see you are in one of your “black is literally white” moods.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
I should warn you that my 15 year old daughter is obsessed by the Moldovan entry into last year's Eurovision:
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Are Brits more likely to eat spaghetti bolognese or poutine? Paella or lamingtons?
Are Brits more likely to holiday in Ibiza or Vancouver Island?
Are Brits more likely to watch "The Bridge" or "The Brokenwood"?
We could do this all day.
Are Brits more likely to emigrate to Australia or Austria?
Even with free movement, Brits who chose to move abroad overwhelmingly chose to go across the world to our more culturally similar cousin nations, than to our neighbours (excluding Ireland, which is sui generis and we still have free movement with).
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Are Brits more likely to eat spaghetti bolognese or poutine? Paella or lamingtons?
Are Brits more likely to holiday in Ibiza or Vancouver Island?
Are Brits more likely to watch "The Bridge" or "The Brokenwood"?
We could do this all day.
Are Brits more likely to emigrate to Australia or Austria?
Even with free movement, Brits who chose to move abroad overwhelmingly chose to go across the world to our more culturally similar cousin nations, than to our neighbours (excluding Ireland, which is sui generis and we still have free movement with).
Spain is more popular than Ireland, despite it speaking a different language.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Why on earth do you think a bulletin about FDI in 2021 demonstrates anything?
As always your myopia on this subject is positively Freudian.
Because it is the most up to date figures that we have. Except those in your imagination, of course.
Google has numerous links to analysis of UK FDI post Brexit, I suggest you take a look.
I did and gave you the figures. But you want to believe otherwise and prefer anecdotes that meet your prejudices.
In the first quarter of 2023, real business investment in the UK remained over 1% below its peak in third quarter 2016.
Lies, damned lies and statistics from you there. So there was a spike in investment into the UK following the EU Referendum?
If you want to be honest you need to look at the big picture trend not cherrypick data that suits your agenda, post-referendum 2016 as a baseline goes completely against the rest of the shape of the chart. Reindex with 2010 = 100 and you would get a completely different outcome "despite Brexit". From 2010 to date the UK has gone up from ~70 to ~98 which is approximately a 40% increase.
In the same period the Eurozone has gone from ~90 to ~115 which is approximately a 28% increase.
So over the full length of the chart, the UK has done much better at boosting investment. Over the medium term if a spike happens then to maintain at the level of the spike is a success, not a failure if its above where you would have been before it.
Yes, but we are talking about the effect of Brexit, which happened in 2016.
Do try to keep up.
Yes, and there was no effect.
Do an average of the 6 years before the referendum for each country, and compare to the average for the 6 years after the referendum for each country.
I see you are in one of your “black is literally white” moods.
No, I'm not, I can just read a chart unlike you it seems.
Looking at the average pre-2016, and the average post-2016, there is no way you can argue the UK was "harmed" by 2016.
Anyone who takes a solitary data point without looking at the trend or averages deserves to fail any statistical analysis and that's exactly what you're doing by setting a baseline at a solitary point while disregarding the massive boost that had occurred before then.
Or are you totally ignorant of the concept of regression towards the mean? After a big jump in investment a reversion afterwards is entirely to be expected, what is not to be expected is the big jump to continue indefinitely like your dodgy dotted line on the chart.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
I should warn you that my 15 year old daughter is obsessed by the Moldovan entry into last year's Eurovision:
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Are Brits more likely to eat spaghetti bolognese or poutine? Paella or lamingtons?
Are Brits more likely to holiday in Ibiza or Vancouver Island?
Are Brits more likely to watch "The Bridge" or "The Brokenwood"?
Brits couldn’t give a Castlemain XXXX for Prosecco.
The market is waiting for closer relations, and business leaders/foreign investors would very much welcome a speech from Keir once he is PM declaring a close to the destructive policies of the last 7 years, and the opening of a new phase.
Like the Windsor Accords?
No. That is generally understood as an expedient fix to a glaring oversight.
Business has no confidence in the current government, as is clear from business surveys and foreign investment levels.
See Figure 1. As usual, when you look at the actual figures, there is no evidence that Brexit has made either a positive or negative effect on UK attractiveness. The trends, with some flattening during Covid, continue as before.
Why on earth do you think a bulletin about FDI in 2021 demonstrates anything?
As always your myopia on this subject is positively Freudian.
Because it is the most up to date figures that we have. Except those in your imagination, of course.
Google has numerous links to analysis of UK FDI post Brexit, I suggest you take a look.
I did and gave you the figures. But you want to believe otherwise and prefer anecdotes that meet your prejudices.
In the first quarter of 2023, real business investment in the UK remained over 1% below its peak in third quarter 2016.
Lies, damned lies and statistics from you there. So there was a spike in investment into the UK following the EU Referendum?
If you want to be honest you need to look at the big picture trend not cherrypick data that suits your agenda, post-referendum 2016 as a baseline goes completely against the rest of the shape of the chart. Reindex with 2010 = 100 and you would get a completely different outcome "despite Brexit". From 2010 to date the UK has gone up from ~70 to ~98 which is approximately a 40% increase.
In the same period the Eurozone has gone from ~90 to ~115 which is approximately a 28% increase.
So over the full length of the chart, the UK has done much better at boosting investment. Over the medium term if a spike happens then to maintain at the level of the spike is a success, not a failure if its above where you would have been before it.
There was no doubt the referendum result had a chilling effect on investment and sentiment. I saw it first hand. It was the uncertainty, particularly over no deal. Once that had gone we unfortunately had little time to see how the new semi-certainty would affect investment, because Covid came along. But we’re in a new reality now. I don’t think we’ll see as harsh a difference with the EU as we did in 2016-2019.
I think Brexit will continue to have a negative effect as investment reflects the new market reality where the UK is now outside the main regional market. Businesses will continue to think they need to be present in the larger, lower risk market, but can optionally export from there to the UK.
Of course we don't need to exacerbate the effect. A vote to leave the European Union was a vote to be poorer. I don't think there's any point pretending otherwise. But we can try to limit the damage.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
No we have culturally much more in common with Australia and New Zealand than continental Europe
That's what used to be said, before Gallipoli, Tobruk and Singapore.
Just ask the Australians.
Yes they voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 and Australia remains the main emigration destination for Brits.
So the ties that bound us together to defeat the Nazis and Japanese in WW2 remain
And lots of UK people emigrate to Spain and Thailand, but I don't see you proclaiming the ties that bind the UK to them.
Fewer UK people emigrate to Spain than Australia, despite Spain being far closer.
Spain and France feature remarkably highly, given they speak different languages to us.
Interesting.
Given France is our closest neighbour only 7th is not high at all
Ireland (5th) are our closest neighbour.
Dover is closer to Calais than GB to the Republic of Ireland
Republic has a land border with the UK.
GB Sunil, not UK
But @HYUFD is a Unionist so I assume he meant UK. But then he'd be wrong so that can't be the explanation. Perhaps he just wanted to win the point and swallowed his Unionist instincts for the greater good?
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
We are not European? I'm sorry, that is one of the most absurd statements I've ever heard, even on here, and that is saying something.
I’m glad I came to PB to learn that the UK is not in Europe and our cars cannot drive at 20mph. I would have thought the opposite otherwise.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
We are not European? I'm sorry, that is one of the most absurd statements I've ever heard, even on here, and that is saying something.
In what specific ways are we "European" apart from geographically, in a meaningful cultural sense that does not apply to other nations like Australia, New Zealand or Canada?
Unless you think they're European too, to which a case could be made, but I think its more politically accurate to say "western" nowadays (even though Australia and NZ are in the East).
We are European in the sense that we are in Europe, we speak a European language, the majority of our population has European ancestry, we have a European culture, we fight in European wars... I mean, we are European in every sense of the term. As a major European power, and like other major European powers like France and Spain, we established colonies in the modern period, and many Europeans travelled to settle in those colonies. Unsurprisingly, we have a lot in common with these European settlers who came from this country and speak our language, but that does not stop us being European any more than it stops the French being European because they have more in common with Quebecois than with Bulgarians. Christ, I can't believe I'm even having to say this. No wonder this country is circling the drain.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
We are not European? I'm sorry, that is one of the most absurd statements I've ever heard, even on here, and that is saying something.
In what specific ways are we "European" apart from geographically, in a meaningful cultural sense that does not apply to other nations like Australia, New Zealand or Canada?
Unless you think they're European too, to which a case could be made, but I think its more politically accurate to say "western" nowadays (even though Australia and NZ are in the East).
Let’s be honest, there are parts of culture where we’re more similar - not surprisingly - to our old settler colonies, including some sports (generally the posh ones), pop music and cinema, some aspects of business etiquette and culture, and the language with its literature. Though in all cases I would say British culture is more similar to Irish than to Canadian, Aus, US etc.
There are other parts of culture where we live, act and consume more like continental Europeans than the Anglosphere. Football being a huge one, transportation especially public transport, how we do our shopping, what our cities look like, farming and fishing lifestyles and so on.
We’re not unique in this mixed identity. I’m pretty sure the French and Québécois share some cultural features the Germans or Dutch don’t have, and likewise the Portuguese and Lusophone countries.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Are Brits more likely to eat spaghetti bolognese or poutine? Paella or lamingtons?
Are Brits more likely to holiday in Ibiza or Vancouver Island?
Are Brits more likely to watch "The Bridge" or "The Brokenwood"?
We could do this all day.
Are Brits more likely to emigrate to Australia or Austria?
Even with free movement, Brits who chose to move abroad overwhelmingly chose to go across the world to our more culturally similar cousin nations, than to our neighbours (excluding Ireland, which is sui generis and we still have free movement with).
Spain is more popular than Ireland, despite it speaking a different language.
Interesting.
It's the weather not the language. I should know. I've been in Ireland all of August. I have an open log fire burning at the moment.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Are Brits more likely to eat spaghetti bolognese or poutine? Paella or lamingtons?
Are Brits more likely to holiday in Ibiza or Vancouver Island?
Are Brits more likely to watch "The Bridge" or "The Brokenwood"?
Brits couldn’t give a Castlemain XXXX for Prosecco.
"They don't spell Australian beer with four Xs out of ignorance - they mean what they say. And light beer is an invention of the Prince of Darkness."
Morse to Lewis in the somewhat amazing, somewhat dubious Australian episode.
"Scotland Yard was braced for fresh scandal on Tuesday after it missed at least eight opportunities to remove a police officer who went on to rape two women."
Adam Provan.
"Judge Lucas said the “persistence and seriousness of Provan’s offending was clear when set out in the starkest terms”, adding that his actions have “brought disgrace on the police force”. The judge said he was troubled by how the Met handled the female officer’s initial complaints about Provan’s behaviour, in 2005. He told Provan: “While this cannot be laid at your door, I find it highly troubling that [the female officer’s] colleagues in the Metropolitan Police in 2004 and 2005 were more concerned about looking out for ‘one of their own’ than in taking her seriously and investigating her complaints about you.”
It's going to be exceedingly hard to judge this year's winner of the No Shit, Sherlock! Awards. Some really excellent contenders this year and, doubtless, more to come.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
We are not European? I'm sorry, that is one of the most absurd statements I've ever heard, even on here, and that is saying something.
In what specific ways are we "European" apart from geographically, in a meaningful cultural sense that does not apply to other nations like Australia, New Zealand or Canada?
Unless you think they're European too, to which a case could be made, but I think its more politically accurate to say "western" nowadays (even though Australia and NZ are in the East).
We are European in the sense that we are in Europe, we speak a European language, the majority of our population has European ancestry, we have a European culture, we fight in European wars... I mean, we are European in every sense of the term. As a major European power, and like other major European powers like France and Spain, we established colonies in the modern period, and many Europeans travelled to settle in those colonies. Unsurprisingly, we have a lot in common with these European settlers who came from this country and speak our language, but that does not stop us being European any more than it stops the French being European because they have more in common with Quebecois than with Bulgarians. Christ, I can't believe I'm even having to say this. No wonder this country is circling the drain.
I say apart from geography, you lead with geography. OK lets take your points and lets see which do not apply to other nations like Australia, New Zealand or UK. And these are your points you chose remember ...
"we speak a European language". Alternatively, we speak English and they speak English, so we're more like them than Europe. Score one for CANZUK.
The majority of our population has European ancestry. Again, so do theirs. And their ancestry is disproportionately from here too, so we have more common ancestors with them than our neighbours. Score another one for CANZUK.
We fight in European wars - As do they. ANZAC troops literally fought in European wars too, in Gallipoli etc they were embedded with and led by our troops, on our side, rather than against us. Score another one for CANZUK.
Colonisation - Yes we colonised other nations. Including literally the other nations we're talking about, so we're closer to them as we colonised them, the Netherlands never colonised us or vice-versa. Score another one for CANZUK.
So in 4/4 of your chosen points we're closer to them than to our neighbours.
And on every single one of the ways you defined us as European, they too are European, besides geography.
Brexit is dead. We just haven’t figured out how to dispose of the body yet.
For the moment, we have to put up with this grotesque “Weekend at Bernie’s” style politics where people pretend it makes any sense whatsoever.
Brexit is done.
Being a part of history now, it is neither living nor dead, its simply a part of the past.
As a philosophy it’s dead. The majority now see what we’ve lost and want to get most of it back. A journey that will end up with us becoming politically what we always have been cultural and geographically - European - rather than this insane nostalgia for a brief period of attachment to countries literally on the other side of the globe we have nothing in common with.
We are as European as Canadians are American.
And you should know full well the UK has much in common with New Zealand and other nations, the idea we have nothing in common with New Zealand is just preposterous.
Canadians are, literally, American, yes. As for Aotearoa, we play a certain number of sports in common and speak English. That is it. We don't even have the same legal system anymore given they've largely abandoned common law. Aotearoa is a Polynesian culture. We are a European one. We are nothing but a rebellious province of a European whole. We have culturally far more in common with the rest of Europe than Aotearoa or Australia and we have been part of unions with European nations far longer than our brief dalliance with them.
Canadians are on the continent of America, but tell them they are American and you're liable to get punched.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Are Brits more likely to eat spaghetti bolognese or poutine? Paella or lamingtons?
Are Brits more likely to holiday in Ibiza or Vancouver Island?
Are Brits more likely to watch "The Bridge" or "The Brokenwood"?
We could do this all day.
Are Brits more likely to emigrate to Australia or Austria?
Even with free movement, Brits who chose to move abroad overwhelmingly chose to go across the world to our more culturally similar cousin nations, than to our neighbours (excluding Ireland, which is sui generis and we still have free movement with).
Spain is more popular than Ireland, despite it speaking a different language.
Interesting.
It's the weather not the language. I should know. I've been in Ireland all of August. I have an open log fire burning at the moment.
Our very pleasant August trip Co. Waterford also featured an outing for the log burner. Now back in London I’m sitting out on the patio on shorts and t-shirt.
Comments
Interesting.
New Zealand, Australia and Canada however are majority of white British isles ancestry
In any case, French dreams of grandeur rest in part on notions of leadership of and in Europe. And there is no Cartesian split between France versus Europe as there is in the British mind.
I am somewhat sympathetic to the notion that Britain is essentially an Atlantic power and that both its geopolitical and cultural horizons thereby extend beyond Europe. But I was never stupid enough to think that precluded membership of the eminently useful single market, nor indeed much if not all of the overall European project.
What can this mysterious culture be? Other than a bit of UJ and making us pay for their formal head of state?
But the good news on the Brexit front is we need not have another divisive in-out referendum, which as others have commented would no doubt start rubbing at those partially healed culture war sores of the late 2010s. We can make sensible, practical steps away from the Frost-Johnson playground Brexit which was more about saying yah boo to Brussels than anything wise, and towards a more constructive though doubtless always complex relationship like that enjoyed by Switzerland or the ESA countries.
We don’t have referenda every time the UK concludes a new FTA - which often contain quite significant curtailments of sovereignty, so we won’t need them for this kind of evolution either.
Of course it’s also true that there’s been a tenacious strain of Euroscepticism in Britain since the days of Jacque Delors. And yes, it was largely ignored.
Given how thoroughly fuck-headed it’s turned out to be in practice, this was perhaps understandable if not completely forgivable.
"Scotland Yard was braced for fresh scandal on Tuesday after it missed at least eight opportunities to remove a police officer who went on to rape two women."
Adam Provan.
"Judge Lucas said the “persistence and seriousness of Provan’s offending was clear when set out in the starkest terms”, adding that his actions have “brought disgrace on the police force”. The judge said he was troubled by how the Met handled the female officer’s initial complaints about Provan’s behaviour, in 2005. He told Provan: “While this cannot be laid at your door, I find it highly troubling that [the female officer’s] colleagues in the Metropolitan Police in 2004 and 2005 were more concerned about looking out for ‘one of their own’ than in taking her seriously and investigating her complaints about you.”
It's going to be exceedingly hard to judge this year's winner of the No Shit, Sherlock! Awards. Some really excellent contenders this year and, doubtless, more to come.
I'm co-opting @ydoethur onto the judging panel.
Which is why there would be no problem if the Convention were enforced by a UK Supreme Court, or if we broke up by an English Supreme Court, just as it could be enforced Australia or Canada or New Zealand's Supreme Court.
There is no fundamental reason why transnational courts are better than national ones.
It read:
Identity is a complex topic full of biases and assumptions.
Until 2016 I blithely assumed most of my compatriots felt a European identity, even if they moaned about Brussels. The referendum and the debates I had with people beforehand put that illusion to bed. I remember vividly an evening drink in Chicago with a Brit client who gestured to the view and said “look around you, this feels so much more like home than some European city” and I thought “eh?” But I realised that was how many of my fellow Brits felt.
But I think a lot of brexiteers make equally blithe assumptions that their compatriots all feel more affinity with the Anglosphere than the continent. Many don’t, and not just those with continental European roots.
Both sides of the Scottish Indy debate appear to make the same error around British vs European identity.
Then there is a not insignificant portion of the population - people with Caribbean, African, Asian, Latin American heritage - many of whom probably feel little affinity with either the white Anglosphere or continental Europe.
Northern not so Superchargers 43-7 (58)
Harry Brook 105* (42)
Extras 10 (3 lb, 7 w)
Ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows reportedly wrote in a draft of his memoir that his old boss, former President Donald Trump, left a top secret Iran war plan on a couch at his New Jersey golf resort during an interview with a ghost writer.
Meadows told prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s team that he heard about the shocking incident by the writer and a publicist but soft-pedaled it in the final published version of his book because it could be “problematic” for Trump, ABC News reported. . . .
Though I would say the average Englishman is closer to the average Australian or New Zealander than the average Scottish Nationalist
If you want to be honest you need to look at the big picture trend not cherrypick data that suits your agenda, post-referendum 2016 as a baseline goes completely against the rest of the shape of the chart. Reindex with 2010 = 100 and you would get a completely different outcome "despite Brexit". From 2010 to date the UK has gone up from ~70 to ~98 which is approximately a 40% increase.
In the same period the Eurozone has gone from ~90 to ~115 which is approximately a 28% increase.
So over the full length of the chart, the UK has done much better at boosting investment. Over the medium term if a spike happens then to maintain at the level of the spike is a success, not a failure if its above where you would have been before it.
So what?
SKS has obviously done a lot to improve his favourability.
BUT note USA ranks #2 on this list of where UKers are moving to - just behind AUS and ahead of CAN.
Yet another example for the Leonadamus Files?
Do try to keep up.
Or a scowl at the very least, because Canadians unlike Americans are generally too polite to go around punching people for saying something stupid.
We are a neither rebellious nor European except in a geographic sense, we have far more culturally in common with Canada or Australia or New Zealand than we do with Germany or Bulgaria or Romania.
Who do you think more Brits would rather listen to: Kylie Minogue or Elena Gheorghe?
Which do you think more Brits are more likely to read: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or Olga Tokarczuk's Empuzjon?
Given the history fo emigration to Australia and NZ, that would considerably surprise many people thjere.
The current government is deeply distrusted by serious people, and indeed, rightly or wrongly, by foreign investors.
A Labour win alone changes the narrative.
Do an average of the 6 years before the referendum for each country, and compare to the average for the 6 years after the referendum for each country.
It sounds way more deliberate than that.
Are Brits more likely to holiday in Ibiza or Vancouver Island?
Are Brits more likely to watch "The Bridge" or "The Brokenwood"?
Unless you think they're European too, to which a case could be made, but I think its more politically accurate to say "western" nowadays (even though Australia and NZ are in the East).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9RJQPZsj8E
Are Brits more likely to emigrate to Australia or Austria?
Even with free movement, Brits who chose to move abroad overwhelmingly chose to go across the world to our more culturally similar cousin nations, than to our neighbours (excluding Ireland, which is sui generis and we still have free movement with).
Interesting.
Looking at the average pre-2016, and the average post-2016, there is no way you can argue the UK was "harmed" by 2016.
Anyone who takes a solitary data point without looking at the trend or averages deserves to fail any statistical analysis and that's exactly what you're doing by setting a baseline at a solitary point while disregarding the massive boost that had occurred before then.
Or are you totally ignorant of the concept of regression towards the mean? After a big jump in investment a reversion afterwards is entirely to be expected, what is not to be expected is the big jump to continue indefinitely like your dodgy dotted line on the chart.
Will this be a regular feature alongside Radiohead ?
Of course we don't need to exacerbate the effect. A vote to leave the European Union was a vote to be poorer. I don't think there's any point pretending otherwise. But we can try to limit the damage.
People who only speak English looking to work in another country favour those where they speak ENGLISH.
Totally mind-blowing.
Pensioners can get away with moving to Spain, as they can stay in their immigrant ghettos, reading the Daily Mail and drinking Watney's Red Barrel.
Christ, I can't believe I'm even having to say this. No wonder this country is circling the drain.
There are other parts of culture where we live, act and consume more like continental Europeans than the Anglosphere. Football being a huge one, transportation especially public transport, how we do our shopping, what our cities look like, farming and fishing lifestyles and so on.
We’re not unique in this mixed identity. I’m pretty sure the French and Québécois share some cultural features the Germans or Dutch don’t have, and likewise the Portuguese and Lusophone countries.
Morse to Lewis in the somewhat amazing, somewhat dubious Australian episode.
"we speak a European language". Alternatively, we speak English and they speak English, so we're more like them than Europe. Score one for CANZUK.
The majority of our population has European ancestry. Again, so do theirs. And their ancestry is disproportionately from here too, so we have more common ancestors with them than our neighbours. Score another one for CANZUK.
We fight in European wars - As do they. ANZAC troops literally fought in European wars too, in Gallipoli etc they were embedded with and led by our troops, on our side, rather than against us. Score another one for CANZUK.
Colonisation - Yes we colonised other nations. Including literally the other nations we're talking about, so we're closer to them as we colonised them, the Netherlands never colonised us or vice-versa. Score another one for CANZUK.
So in 4/4 of your chosen points we're closer to them than to our neighbours.
And on every single one of the ways you defined us as European, they too are European, besides geography.