Why, if you live in France, did you vote for Brexit?

Out of context. I was replying to someone else.

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Go on, Iā€™ll ask. What benefits have been ā€œbrought to the world by British scientists, engineers, and inventorsā€ brought to the world in the last 10 years?The EU was originally named the common market. It is a collective. First we buy an sell things to each other for ā€˜mates ratesā€™, then if say a Chinese manufacturer of left handed widgets wants to export to the EU the EU can negotiate a good price for those widgets. If the UK wants to buy widgets, we wonā€™t be buying as many so of course weā€™ll pay more. Plus once we are out, we wonā€™t be subject to the EU safety regulations. Iā€™m also thinking about food production. There are standards that EU food producers have to adhere to. Certain pesticides are banned for instance, certain food safety levels which wonā€™t be adhered to. Thereā€™s been much talk of having closer ties with America for example, and frankly, the meat production in Amerca leaves a lot to be desired, not just from a cruelty aspect, but factory farming on a large scale meaning growth hormones in meat, antibiotic residue in meat and meat which has had to be washed in chlorine bleach in order to kill off the bacteria which results from rearing the animals in filthy conditions.
I donā€™t see why we had to leave the EU. Why upset the apple cart? Life before we joined wasnā€™t all that great.

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OK. Iā€™ll give you a few examples from the period you specified.
2007: The RepRap Project, the first self-replicating 3D Printer.
2009: First baby genetically selected to be free of a breast cancer born at University College Hospital.
2012: Launch of the Raspberry Pi, a modern single-board computer for education.
2014: The ā€œMom incubatorā€, an Inflatable incubator for premature babies.
2016: Holographic TV device created by the BBC.
2016: British bio-tech company Oxitec, genetically engineers a ā€˜sudden deathā€™ mosquito which after mating successfully with a wild female, any offspring produced will not survive to adulthood and the lethal gene is passed on from the female to any male they mate with.

Seems to me that British innovation is reasonably alive and well.

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Regarding the other matters you raised. I donā€™t think that it is at all accurate to describe the EU as a purchasing collective. What it does is to create a free trade area without internal tariffs and duties between member states, and there are no cut price deals which is what I assume you mean by ā€˜mates ratesā€™. In regard to imports from outside the EU, rather than negotiating a lower price for those goods, what the EU very often does is to impose substantial ā€˜external bordersā€™ import tariffs which actually serve to both make those goods more expensive to the EU consumer, and act as a protectionist measure for EU commerce and industry. For instance, for some canned tropical fruit specialties from outside the EU the import tariff is 146%, and itā€™s 30% for processed cocoa products like chocolate bars or cocoa powder, and 60% for some other refined products containing cocoa. This does not exactly help to lower food prices for EU consumers.

I donā€™t think that there is any need to be concerned about matters of food safety, pesticides, or health and safety regs in general. The UK Govā€™t has already indicated intent to bring all the existing EU protection regulations into British law by means of the proposed Great Repeal Bill, so in the first instance nothing will change in those respects. Subsequently the individual layers of regulation can be examined and the UK will keep the good ones and ditch or amend those that are less applicable to the UK.
I agree with you that there are areas of genuine concern over certain American food products, but this will surely be a matter of negotiation for any future Anglo/American trade agreement. Also the customer always has the ultimate veto at the end of the day and can simply decline to buy.

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ā€œI donā€™t think that there is any need to be concerned about matters of food safety, pesticides, or health and safety regs in general.ā€

I do.

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An interesting theory but most British consumers worship the god of saving money so if dodgy American meat costs less it will be a winner.

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Iā€™m interested to see that this site is as ridden with venom and dispute as all the others. Iā€™ve just resigned from two and was interested to give this one a try but disappointment has not taken long to set in. I shall watch for a little longer.

As far as this topic is concerned surely those who enjoy their life in France and elsewhere should continue to do that and let those who support Little Britain row their own boat. The constant bickering is tedious.

In my opinion Europe will be a stronger model once the UK gets out and as far as the question posed by this thread is concerned there can only be two reasons, selfish patriotism or stupidity.

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You criticise others yet your third paragraph pulls no punches. Either you want to be part of a forum that allows people to express their fears and preferences or you donā€™t. As you have proved this topic is divisive others much less so.

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Intersting article, re attracting EU workers to pick the crops, which the local population has no interest in doing. (Sorry, itā€™s from that Commie rag, The Guardian) :slight_smile:

The interesting thing which I did not ā€˜computeā€™, is due to the fall in Sterling to Euro, it making it less attractive for EU workers to come to the UK. So, less money to send back to their home country.

Hereā€™s part of the article:

ā€œIf you wanted to be more dramatic, you might say that the 2016 European referendum in effect put a huge neon sign over Britain, saying, ā€œForeigners not welcomeā€. And to make matters worse, the value of sterling is making coming here even less attractive.ā€

Martin

How touching that you have faith in the UK government to do what is right for the people instead of looking to do what is right for investments and profits.Thereā€™s little point debating further as Iā€™m obviously more cynical based on facts and experience, and you choose to believe otherwise. Only time will tell of course. Than god my brother is safe in France, a cousin in Denmark and my son and his Italian wife can leave the UK too when things become unbearable. Iā€™m too ol to move now but luckily have a survivalist mentality and can heat my home and cook for nothing and produce my own food and beverages from what I grow, in order to manage.Presumably you are either living in the UK or will be doing so soon and therefore demonstrate your faith in Brexit and the government. I really do hope that the UK becomes a democracy instead of the plutocracy it currently is, I really do. In which case, I shall eat my words and apologise.However, I just canā€™t see it happening.

I see little point in pulling punches given the tone of this thread. Other topics are less contentious of that I am sure and in those instances I shall respect the prevailing form. On this occasion I was simply giving my considered answer to the question.

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Iā€™ve forgotten the exact context here and canā€™t find the post now - but I donā€™t really understand how you can have maintained everything British about you if you live and work in France. Presumably you now depend on PUMA not the NHS for your healthcare, since as far as the UK is concerned living in France=living abroad=not eligible for the NHS. Presumably you earn in ā‚¬ not in Ā£ and presumably you do some of your shopping at least in France. So thatā€™s a few very significant differences I see for starters, in that problems in the UK economy and failures in the NHS will not affect you living in France as they will affect people living in the UK. And, I think the fact that you can return to the UK if you choose and conversely choose not return it if goes belly up, puts you in a somewhat different position from those who have no choice but to be there.

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I wouldnā€™t say that American meat is ā€˜dodgyā€™ from a health standpoint. I spent a year living in Maryland and never became sick from eating the meat or poultry. Mind you, I did wonder about how they get the eggs to all be brilliant white in colour and of exactly equal size. Different breed of chickens I suppose.

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Surely when you use such terms as ā€œLittle Britainā€, and ā€œselfish patriotism or stupidityā€ you are furthering the very ā€œvenom and disputeā€ of which you initially complain.

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I shall repeat once again that I was simply giving my answer to the question that had been posed. If others are at liberty to accuse the EU of being a self serving, unelected, non democratic autocracy I feel I should be able to describe Britain as ā€˜littleā€™. Patriotism is selfish by definition to my way of thinking as in its ultimate form it excludes the interests of all others. Voting for Brexit whilst living in France can justly be described as stupidity on two countsā€¦it is ill-considered and self defeating.

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Iā€™ve never seen anyone complain that it makes you sick in the short term. Itā€™s more a case of possible long-term consequences for adults, which havenā€™t been fully researched, and for kids itā€™s thought that eating meat with added hormones brings on puberty at an earlier age. But apart from that, to me itā€™s unacceptable in terms of animal welfare. Having grown up in an old-fashioned farming community where people respected animals and devoted their lives to breeding and rearing healthy animals, I have never had any qualms about eating meat, but if I could no longer afford organic or humanely-produced meat I think I would become veggie rather than support an industry that treats animals with so little respect, to me this is not a case where the ends justify the means.

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Yes, I agree with you that there are animal welfare issues in the US, as well as many other countries. I suspect that some of these problems are to do with being able to produce enough food to feed all the people at a reasonable price that they can afford. If we went back to the era of small independent food producers, then perhaps a lot of the problems would be resolved, but then we would all have to pay higher prices no doubt. Perhaps the basic problem is simply that we homo-sapiens have become too numerous for our own good.

Different breeds of chickens produce different coloured eggs which suit local taste (eg white eggs are very popular in Germany but not in France) BUT American eggs are washed before packing, which is why they have to be refrigerated, unlike European eggs which are sold as laid, and need no refrigeration (cold eggs are hopeless for cooking, eg mayonnaise etc wonā€™t work with a cold egg).

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Or perhaps the problem is that wealth is distributed so unevenly and ā€œvalueā€ has got out of kilter with ā€œprice-tagā€. Some people can afford more foie gras, caviar and champagne than they could ever eat, and can easily pay a grass roots producer a fair price for wholesome ethically-produced foods. Other people can no longer afford a decent cut of meat, or choose not to because they prefer to spend their limited funds on other things. Determining a ā€œreasonableā€ price that works for everyone, when values are so screwed up, is next to impossible, and if homo had been a bit more sapiens perhaps they wouldnā€™t have lost the difference between monetary value and true value.

I believe it also depends on what you feed them on - not the shell colour but the egg itself. I used to write for a farming journal and I recall an egg producer explaining that he had started feeding his chickens a diet designed to give the yolks a very rich yellow colour. He couldnā€™t say for certain if there was any difference in food value or flavour but what he could say for certain was that there was a perceived difference, and his sales had increased enormously since he introduced the special diet.
Working for the same journal I also discovered that different countries have different views on the value of free range eggs. In the UK free range eggs are considered premium. In the Netherlands people donā€™t want free range because they see them as dangerous - NL was badly hit in the first bird flu outbreak which came from wild birds, so they donā€™t want eggs from chickens that roam free and might have been contaminated by wild birds. In France consumers place great importance on egg freshness, so a big factor for producers is how fast they can get the eggs from chicken to shelf. Same product but peopleā€™s views are very strongly influenced by the factors that are presented to them as most important.

Sorry for the digression but I think it all goes to illustrate how important it is for a country to educate its consumers properly, and I do feel that with the current prevailing UK attitude that cheap food is good food, it wouldnā€™t be too hard for lower standards to be slid in without too much fuss.

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Dear Coralyn
Of course youā€™re not angry, why would you be? This remark was addressed to Simon, not you but trite is very far from any of my opinions about Brexit. As you have said in other posts you voted for your children and grandchildren. You bit the revolutionary bullet and sacrificed your own economic security and happiness for future generations. Very courageous but you must now apply that courage to supporting and explaining to those who were not prepared to overthrow the status quo and are left angry, humiliated and confused. After all, you have sacrificed our economic security and happiness as well. I hate what has happened to my country since last June and I am turning to people such as yourself to explain in the vague hope that I was wrong and that the vicious comments I have seen in newspapers are not a true representative of those driving Brexit.

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