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E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Discussion in 'Serious' started by TheBlackSwordsMan, 22 Feb 2016.

  1. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Collapse of power sharing agreement in 3, 2...
     
  2. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    Several of my customers who are in businesses affected by the channel border, including a lorry driver who has to actually try and get back and forth across it regularly and a foreign national who has to try to get home to Austria on occasion (with a passported pet, no less), have reported that it's a nightmare even getting through and out of France now. It's made worse by the short windows of opportunities afforded by COVID stamps, but even without that, it sounds like the French border is becoming a Berlin Wall sort of climate. The lorry driver related that many of his coworkers are electing to drop out of doing anything that necessitates going across the border because it's just too much faff, too much waiting and too unpleasant dealing with the French officials at the Calais side.

    Given how stand-offish and cool they were with us before Brexit was conceived of, I can well believe it. But it does make me wonder if the casual French holiday - a mainstay of the British working classes, for whom it's often the only affordable way to go anywhere abroad - will become a thing of the past.
     
  3. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Yes, the grace periods for introducing enforcement of post brexshite rules do indeed have expiry dates.

    Just tell them lorry drivers to behave like a proper leaver and yell "Project Fear" at the top of their lungs every time they encounter a check because will of the people bla bla brexit means brexit bla bla.
     
    Last edited: 15 May 2021
  4. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    :lol::lol::lol:
     
  5. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Oh yes, because Brits visiting France have just started to catch on to French rules for third country visitors. And let me tell you, they're fun:


     
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  6. mrlongbeard

    mrlongbeard Multimodder

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    So pretty much the same rules we followed and continue to follow when we preciously visited any other country outside of the EU before.
    Rocket surgery it ain't.

    Nope, that was the old normal for the rest of the globe, and we managed just fine thank you very much, any one struggling with the concept should maybe forfeit their passports.
     
  7. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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  8. mrlongbeard

    mrlongbeard Multimodder

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  9. VipersGratitude

    VipersGratitude Multimodder

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  10. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    One silver lining that I do genuinely take a little solace from is that it may eventually encourage more domestic production and business. If it's more cost and faff to import stuff, that opens a door to people making it here instead. This assumes the British people will discover a love of hard work, which is certainly speculative, but stranger things have happened.
     
  11. fix-the-spade

    fix-the-spade Multimodder

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    But goods manufactured in the EU were never part of the problem. Goods coming in from China are the problem and will be the problem worldwide until China devolves into it's next civil war (they're overdue), adding tarifs to EU goods does nothing about China. More pressingly our esteemed government signed a deal for tarif free trade of goods with the EU, so goods from the EU have VAT applied at the border (and most countries remove their VAT equivalanet on sale to the UK) but nothing else, which means goods from the EU are functionally no more expensive than they were before, just more of a faff.

    If anything it discourages UK manufacturing, if I were setting up a European factory to make anything I'd be setting it up inside the EU. Better to have one country that's a pain for logistics than 27.
     
  12. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    Fair points, I clearly hadn't sifted it enough in my brain. I do wish the whole China-import situation would ease up a bit, but I don't see how it can. There's a thousand little electronics bits that I need for my work that literally isn't made anywhere outside of Asia. And it's pedestrian stuff, too, the Germans and French used to make some of it. Now they just don't bother because they can't compete.
     
  13. mrlongbeard

    mrlongbeard Multimodder

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    Work wise it's been an absolute boon, I can't remember me being so busy.
     
  14. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    Same. Although an article in the Economist noted that we're currently experiencing a K-shaped recovery from Coronavirus, where some sectors are busier than ever and others are just trashed and flat on their backs. I think that'll be true of Brexit too; some industries better off due to shifting focus, others flat on their backs.

    It's a good time to be in IT, that's for sure. Especially if you sell refurbished tech. Prices have gone crazy across the board, a lot of the laptops I considered 'scrap' are suddenly worth money again.
     
  15. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Unfortunately I wouldn't expect that to last...
    The sudden spike in demand due to tons of people working / learning from home has depleted stock and inflated prices, but I suspect that will only be temporary.

    Because if people continued working from home then you could kiss all the Prets / Subway / Starbucks that make up half of the city centres good bye, so people will be herded back into their offices soon enough.
     
  16. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    I had a client insist on an in-office visit once. Ended up missing my train back 'cos the two company founders were too busy comparing feature packages on their £60,000 company cars to drive me to the station on time.

    The company went belly-up a few months later. I was unsurprised.

    EDIT:
    While I'm here, I see Our Glorious Leaders have decided sacrificing farming to get a post-Brexit trade deal is just fine and dandy. Then they'll use our money to retire the farmers who can't farm any more. Oh, sure, they say it's so that the old guard retire and new thinkers with more radical approaches and a greater commitment to environmentally-friendly farming take their place... but the timing's a little awkward, no?
     
    Last edited: 21 May 2021
  17. mrlongbeard

    mrlongbeard Multimodder

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    We have an obesity epidemic bubbling away, loosing the vast majority of franchised fast food places would be a good thing for the countries health, and s'long as the employees get a fair shake at retraining and reemployment I'd rate it as a win.

    Although granted my opinion is based in ignorance, I've never set foot in a pret or subway, they could be serving nectar from the gods for all I know, but I doubt it.
     
  18. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    So we'd be paying to speed up the ticking time bomb of farmers already being too old? And deepen our reliance on imports?
    That don't smell like Sunlit uplands:lol:

    While I agree that losing those places would be better for the health of the nation, look at how little would be left in cities without them.

    Female clothing store, phone shop, fast food, coffee shop, female clothing store, coffee shop, coffee shop, fast food, phone shop, fast food... thats about all there is left of the high street, so we do need to keep selling crap food to office workers for economic reasons.
     
  19. mrlongbeard

    mrlongbeard Multimodder

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    You can trace the demise of the high street back to 1976 with the introduction of the UK's first out of town shopping centre, between them, council parking, property rates etc etc. the high street didn't stand a chance.

    That it is now being propped up by fast food outlets selling crap by the bucketful will only slow the rot.
    A brand spanking new, fresh, scary, exciting outlook is need for our highstreets and if we can increase the health of the nation whilst we're about it then someone needs to pull the trigger.

    Close every 9 in 10 franchised fast food / drinks outlets, incentivise small / family food outlets selling proper food (who will probably also pay their taxes unlike the big guys), make it about the food, the quality, the locally / ethically sourced ingredients.
    Make people realise that good food costs more than a £1.99 happy meal, or a 7 quid footlong, encourage them to have them only once or twice a week.

    Bring back proper newsagents, real hardware stores, have clean, cheap, reliable public transport to get people into towns n cities.
    Embrace 'short term pain for long term gain'

    Hmmmm, it seems as though going without a McBurger for over a year has turned my into an anti-capitalist, mung bean eating, yogurt weaving hippy, I may have to go and give myself a proper good staring at in the mirror.

    The sad thing? I truly believe we could be 'great' again, the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train coming to fuse our flesh into the rails, it really is a bright new chapter that can be written however we want it, between Brexit & Covid we're looking at a new slate, but..... we don't have the leadership of any colour or leaning to take advantage of it.
     
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  20. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Should we try to do better? Yes.
    Could we do better? Yes.
    Will we do better? Hell to the naw.

    So sit back, watch the world burn and don't have kids who'll have to inherit the rubble.
     

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