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Politics, politics, politics

It will never be done. This will be the argument for a generation, at least. There is absolutely no hope of settling on any kind of end state while any of us still have hair, teeth and motility.

When we leave, if it's a disaster then we'll end up back in the EU quite quickly imo. Because people change their tune pretty fast when things go to sh1t.

If it all turns out fine, then great. We can move on to the domestic agenda.

Right now we are still in the "It will be great/it won't be too bad/it will be a disaster" limbo. At least this question will get answered after we leave, I am sick to phucking death of seeing the same arguments over and over. Everyone just seems to harden their position, at least after actually leaving then we will see what's what.
 
When we leave, if it's a disaster then we'll end up back in the EU quite quickly imo. Because people change their tune pretty fast when things go to sh1t.

If it all turns out fine, then great. We can move on to the domestic agenda.

Right now we are still in the "It will be great/it won't be too bad/it will be a disaster" limbo. At least this question will get answered after we leave, I am sick to phucking death of seeing the same arguments over and over. Everyone just seems to harden their position, at least after actually leaving then we will see what's what.

I won't be so clearly black and white. Leaving the EU will probably see a longer term decline, say over 10 years. And it won't be easy to switch back. A customs set up, new laws, new trade department etc takes so much time and cost to get in place, it would be grulling to revert it.

Apart from short term imports issues (meds and food) most things would take years to shake down - both positive oppotunities and losses to the economy. But we are already seeing a slow decline in the UKs stature. We have gone from the 5th to the 6th largest economy swapping with France. Prices have risen making all of us a little poorer, our currency is worth less, UK Exchequer revenue has dipped with our economy growing at 1-2% instead of 5-6%, and the housing market - the bedrock of the UK economy - looking shaky. Crucially investment into the UK has dropped off too.

In many ways it would be intersting to see a less affluent UK, one that is focused on closer social cooperation. But I can't see it. People are used to their quality of life and are not used to shareing and cooperating. Being poorer, but having access to more social infrastructures didn't ultimately work in communism. And while posters here like to say others should do more menial jobs - no one wants it themselves. It's ironic, especially when delivered from overseas.
 
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Richer now than in 2004 is I what meant and not importing a workforce to do the the jobs deemed below "us" comes across a bit masterace like. People should be working doing those kinds of jobs instead of signing on.
Constantly importing cheaper labour isn't gonna solve the problem (The same as the export of jobs to the east can't go on forever).
You should (I don't live in the UK anymore) be bringing back Grammar Schools, Technical Schools, Apprenticeships and getting away from the constant push for school results. Not everyone is academically minded, those not should be vocationally educated.

Why did you leave the UK out of interest? The government have been doing quite a bit, very successfully, with Apprenticeships to be fair. So long as people are being educated, it doesn't matter too much in what area. I agree vocational learning is highly effective.

If the cheap labour goes home after completing the work, is it a problem? Fruit pickers used to move out from London to Kent for the summer, and then return after the season. Now that's changed to moving back to Eastern Europe. If people are moving around to work like this, what is the problem that you think needs solving? It's nothing new that people move around for work as demand changes location.
 
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Haha, so all these things are 'not a big deal' eh? So why the hooh-ha then to leave the EU if the EU institutions are 'not a big deal' then? As anyone can see, if the EU was simply just a trading block, we'd still be in it. But being part of such comes with having to also have those other EU creations such as ECJ etc.

Why the hooh-ha? Because some public school rich folks and the Russian government would like to split the UK from its neighbours. The hooh-ha based around immigration and 'sovereignty' was created, choreographed and honed by the likes of Cambridge Analytica.

I'm sure in principle you wouldn't want psychopathic murderers only spending one month in prison even if you were not "directly affected" by them getting let straight out after one month (perhaps living in a very leafy crime-free area??)

Lost me on this one.

Similarly, I am against the direction of travel re the way the EU is developing on principle , as you very well know; at present i am not affected directly by EU laws per say, but i DO NOT believe in the principle of freedom of movement and believe freedom of trade DOES NOT have to equal freedom of movement; perhaps preferential treatment for EU citizens, yes, but NOT fullfat freedom of movement. It to me as a building block to erase national borders between the EU countries and i still believe that for national decisions like who comes into a country and how many and legal jurisdiction the buck should stop within a nation's borders.

Of course free trade doesn't have to come with freedom of movement but it does with the EU. That is how they are setup. I think in the future the EU collective of nations will develop FoM to allow some more controls for nations. There are issues with it from Germany to Hungry and a desire for nations to have more control. But put it all in perspective, less that half the UKs immigration has been from the EU in recent years. You said yourself you're not affected by EU laws in a bad way. Maybe you've benifited from them - using your phone in Europe, the reduced air and sea pollution in Europe for example, or just the more prosperous UK economy since the 1970s.
 
Richer now than in 2004 is I what meant and not importing a workforce to do the the jobs deemed below "us" comes across a bit masterace like. People should be working doing those kinds of jobs instead of signing on.
Constantly importing cheaper labour isn't gonna solve the problem (The same as the export of jobs to the east can't go on forever).
You should (I don't live in the UK anymore) be bringing back Grammar Schools, Technical Schools, Apprenticeships and getting away from the constant push for school results. Not everyone is academically minded, those not should be vocationally educated.

I blame Blair for much of it, under him it was more profitable for huge parts of the community to not work.

Where they might have done menial work, they didnt need to any more.


As to apprenticeships and vocational education - Im all for it. School is a complete and utter waste of time for many, not everyone is academically minded. Identify those kids, give them a chance to focus on something else, and allow the more academic kids to go on their way without distraction. Win-win. Id have loved the opportunity to drop out of school at 14 and learn a trade.
 
So, at 15:30 the Speaker makes his formal pronouncement of "Stop! Hammond time!" and we get a fairly meaningless budget. Apparently a 50p coin will be struck to reflect the new value of the pound on the stroke of Brexit, with a slogan "friendship with all nations" that is part of a quotation that ends "but entangling alliances with none", so basically a full-throated isolationist war cry. Which won't go down too well in NATO. tacos.
 
I had a politics conversation with a Brazilian I work with a few weeks ago. He explained how completely discredited the Workers' Party had become due to corruption scandals. Huge scale rackets have been endemic under their rule. One particular device they used to bleed public finances dry was awarding infrastructure contracts to their mates for less than costs, then authorising overspend (which didn't need any scrutiny) for factors of 2 or 3 times the original award.

So he wasn't excusing that they were about to elect a quasi-fascist, but explaining that - far worse than Hilary Clinton - there just wasn't any credible opposition this time.
 
I had a politics conversation with a Brazilian I work with a few weeks ago. He explained how completely discredited the Workers' Party had become due to corruption scandals. Huge scale rackets have been endemic under their rule. One particular device they used to bleed public finances dry was awarding infrastructure contracts to their mates for less than costs, then authorising overspend (which didn't need any scrutiny) for factors of 2 or 3 times the original award.

So he wasn't excusing that they were about to elect a quasi-fascist, but explaining that - far worse than Hilary Clinton - there just wasn't any credible opposition this time.
I don't pay too much attention to Brazilian politics and I'm too lazy to look it up. Was that reflected in a low turnout as one might expect in the situation?
 
I hate corrupt, run of the mill pretend left-wing politicians (for example, Hilary Clinton). But, ten times out of ten, I'd vote for one of them if the alternative is a fascist. The corrupt douche-bags need to be gone, but fascism isn't the answer, never has been and never will be.

One thing I don't get is how a fascist can gain traction in a predominantly non-white country (with universal suffrage, as opposed to 1970/80s South Africa). South America has obviously had a lot of US-backed right-wing authoritarians, but this seems a bit different
 
I'd say that your friend's opinion isn't represented by the masses then. If people were voting on the basis that there wasn't an alternative, I'd expect a significant dip in turnout.

He's a highly skilled immigrant and been out of the country for 20 odd years, so not a salt of the earth Brazilian as such.

There's obviously mass popular support for the Bolsonaro, but his point was the rise has only happened because of the catastrophic failings in government of the Workers' Party. It's a bit like if major corruption scandals with Labour governments resulted in it losing its entire vote to a Tommy Robinson-led UKIP.
 
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