Brexit - here's a good read from a French insider's perspective!

Mandy, Thank you for posting this. I shall look into it. I wish I had my old CdeS but I only have photocopies of the two I had. When I went to renew in 2008, I was told it was no longer necessary! How times change.

None of the above. I was a British citizen who had bought a house here in 1982 and was hassled on several occasions by the local gendarmes. Once I learned that they didn’t have the right of entry, I kept them outside the gate when they came to hassle one of my sons. I remember asking them for their book of Law and showing them where it said in the law that my son could reside here - this was after Maastricht. The other incident was earlier. You can see why I worry about being illegal here after Brexit.

Yes, indeed… very worrying… just as well to know your rights. :relaxed:

Did you think any more about applying for French Nationality … I believe you were in the throes of getting the documents together…a couple of years ago… :thinking:

Yes, I have done so. My dossier has been accepted. Now, it just the long wait.

It has just occurred to me that as Brexit is a disaster for all involved, perhaps the French government should declare all those who have admitted voting Leave as personna non grata and all Remainers should receive the L’egion d’Honneur!!

“my vote was for the welfare and benefit of Britain in the future. For the next and subsequent generations.” I read this with interest and fascination…please enlighten me how you think leaving over 700 treaties, free trade agreements with 27 x 60 other countries, free movement to work and live in those countries, would benefit Britain in the future? Also I’m right in thinking you live and possibly work in France?

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When people have faith like that they’re not interested in irrelevant little details like facts.

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Well I’m not a Brexiteer but I have read what they have to say, and I guess the answers would be: firstly, “it’s not about the money”. Secondly, ending freedom of movement will be a massive benefit for Britain because it’ll keep those pesky hard-working East Europeans out, who are selfishly taking the jobs that Brits don’t want to do, and allegedly claiming benefits as well.

My initial view, as one who like Sandy didn’t feel I was in a position to decide what was best for the UK, was that since the UK clearly wasn’t happy in the EU, perhaps it would be better off out. I thought it might knit itself together as a society to face the challenge as a nation. How wrong can you be.

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@Donna_Mickleburgh

Questions might be bettered directed at folk who voted blindly, following party lines… etc etc… or did not “bother” to vote…

UK is a free country and folk are entitled to vote as they think fit…

In my opinion, if anyone is to be questioned… it is the NOT-Thinking lot that deserve to be asked to Think about the results of their actions … whatever…

As I said previously, I am baffled.
It was however a free vote and information
was definitely biased by msm. I do however wonder how many journalists, as they type their hideous twaddle, have a qualm, however small, about the divisive nature of their missives.

I was listening to a discussion on World Service last night on Identity Politics and Lionel Shriver made what I thought to be the most apposite remark when she said" feelings should be respected but not at the expense of truth".

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Feelings and beliefs (about the truth) are inextricably related. How do you recognise what you believe about truth? By the feeling of rightness, by the feeling of the absence of conflict, by the feeling of being reconciled to what is true, that the meaning you construct matches the meaning you’ve constructed from other experiences of the same or similar kind.

That’s also how you feel about what’s untrue: a feeling of being conflicted, by an awkward feeling that you can’t reconcile what you experience through your various senses with what meaning you have constructed from the same or simiIar experiences in your past.

The fact-value distinction has been around for yonks, but the evolution of science especially physics has demonstrated that is flawed. And that Lionel Shriver (whom I admire) is on shaky ground in her dogmatic assertion.

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To accept that a fact is true, David, you have to make a judgement about its reliability, drawing on all your experiences that support that judgement, and in which you have confidence, which some would characterise as faith.

Is your confidence in fact not the same as faith in your judgement? If not, what is the basis of your judgement of the truth of fact? Please don’t go round in circles by saying a fact is a fact!

And haven’t we all, armed with all the facts, concluded that, somehow, we got our facts wrong? :dizzy_face::smile:

There is much that the EU could be criticized for - it is a technocratic organisation run by a liberal political elite which many would argue is out of touch with the peoples of Europe, it is bureaucratic, inflexible (unless bending its own rules to allow new member states to join), expansionist, costly and fiscally inefficient (including the ludicrous periodic movement of the whole parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg) and the CAP. Despite originally being a grouping of nations of similar economies it has grown to be skewed with a much richer northern core of nations largely running the show (with Germany at the helm) and a poorer south and East - it has not always acted in the interests of those nations, ask Greece for instance which is only just now re-emerging from one of the longest periods of austerity and depression that any country has ever had to endure. Its institutions are slow to change and inflexible in the face of recent problems (migration, the rise of popularism and the far right)

There are other criticisms - including the organisation of Schengen (especially in the face of migration from north Africa as noted above) and the Euro which is a millstone around the necks of poorer countries.

But there is much that is positive. The UK has done well economically out of membership, the fact that both the UK and Ireland were member states facliltated the GFA and the EU was able to provide much needed stability for the ex Iron-Curtain countries following the fall of communism (even though this might be at the root of some of today’s problems).

More pertinantly leaving will deliver a body blow to the UK economy - trade won’t stop but modern multi-national organisations are heavily dependant on today’s low friction supply lines. Put delays in them and you might as well cut them.

In 50 years time the UK might be better off than it would have been had it stayed in the EU but I don’t have 50 years to wait (I would be well over 100 so not impossible but extremely unlikely) and I’m pretty sure that we will be worse off for a minimum of 10-20 years.

I voted Remain because I believe in the EU project, I believe that the UK should have a place at the centre of the EU and I believed that, in 2016, the Brexiters were selling snake oil.

A planned withdrawal would have had an effect on the economy but not as severe, however we look to be heading for a chaotic withdrawal and it is anybody’s guess what will happen. But the nation didn’t actually implode during the post WWI depression, the great depression, the post WWII recession the 1970’s or the recent financial collapse so I expect that we will soldier on one way or another.

But to suggest that Brexit will benefit Britain economically or politically in the short to medium term is hokum.

Sorry, it just is.

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We have more misrepresentation, (lying), by politicians and the misuse of data illegally obtained from Facebook etc.
make it harder to understand truth.
Politicians must be monitored more carefully and there should be real consequences if they are found to have deliberately misled.Unfortunately, it is not just the politicians of the nation involved in an election that now try to sway opinion.
The USA has charged a russian woman of being behind interference in the last american election, not that she is ever likely to appear in an american court.
It flagged a huge warning when Trump refused to open his accounts.

You do realise I hope, that the money that comes back to the UK from the EU probably started here in the first place. That’s the price of being a net contributor.

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Yes, but the UK may well not choose to spend it on the things we need.
I really don’t think the UK would’ve chosen to regenerate some of our cities if we hadn’t been in the EU.
In my experience of Thatcher she saw cities like Liverpool as expendable. The southern bias is very strong.

Michael Heseltine was appalled when he saw how hard life was for some of the people of Liverpool.
I cannot understand how ateas like Devon and Cornwall which had benefitted from EU funding after being ignored by UK governments for a long time.

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You can’t understand what Jane? Why they voted Leave or why they received funding?

I find it difficult to see how areas which had been ignored by UK government and which then benefitted from regional development grants from the EU would vote to leave.

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