Bien entendu, Jane. 
I think I meant coq au vin. But you were very gentle with me, ‘cos you know I’ m still learning, and get mixed up. 
Hope you’re right Jane! Did you see that 10 Downing Street has cancelled all staff leave before 31 October - some are saying it means a General Election before then, as I feared.
Did you see the recent release of Labour Party membership figures Peter? Very interesting - but under-reported since it didn’t support the media narrative that people were leaving Labour (membership still well over half-a-million people, still the largest socialist party in Europe, small decline since the peak but only in line with previous trends between leadership/general elections).
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No, hadn’t seen it but very pleased to be made aware. I have great admiration for Corbyn: the man has guts, staying power, and a charisma that isn’t of the fake tan spray-on variety peddled by the vulgar press. Any man who works an allotment is a man deeply rooted in the future of the planet, and in our national heritage. He makes me feel proud to be British. Not much else does that for me these days.
UK press completely misreporting the intent behind Merkel’s comments although with Johnson acknowledging that it is the UK’s responsibility to come up with new suggestions she has batted the blame-game ball firmly in his court.
Macron injecting a bit of clarity.
I despair, I really do.
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Let’s continue in an appropriate thread, then.
So nice of you to consider my blood pressure 
But I think you confuse me with a Remainer - OK, you are right to a point but actually I am much more affronted by the dismal process from a highly irregular Leave campaign, a supposedly advisory vote twisted into being binding on the government by Cameron’s ineptitude, the rewriting of the promises made by Leave from (eg) Farage’s “would it be so bad to be like Norway” to his recent outburst declaring “only a complete break delivers Brexit”, the (over)influence of spads, especially Cummings, failure to seek compromise early on, incompetent negotiating from Davis - the list goes on and on, all in a wrapping of events and language which is uncomfortably close to the rise of fascism across Europe in the early part of the 20th century.
So, yes, I am a bit pissed off as to the way things are going.
And you still haven’t explained why you think any of this is a good idea.
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I think my point all those months ago was that we don’t have all the pertinent information to make a reasonable choice.
The brexit campaign has been littered with falsehoods on BOTH sides.
You clearly think (in the short term) that it will be a complete shitstorm. I suspect there will be some short term issues getting stuff through the borders until the government’s get their acts together. God knows what the long term effects are. Even you, with your huge grasp of this subject you don’t know that either.
But this topic is on an Expat forum site and many members either live permanently in France or own second homes there. It’s a bubble of opinion that isn’t reflected in the UK nationals.
The likes of Cameron, Farage, Corbin and all the other self interested MPs, have their own agendas.
I have no idea what will happen come 1st November. Frankly I’m not going to lose any sleep. I have far more important fires to fight.
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That certainly was the case - there is a very big difference however in that one group was campaigning for things to pretty well stay as they were (whilst warning what may/would happen if we left). Fundimentally as things would stay the same any “lies” would not misrepresent what they were offering.
On the flip side the leave campaign - the opposite was the case as they had to sell a vision of what Brexit would be. It would appear that the suggestions made are not coming true and that there is now even denial of certain promises that were made. (“Easiest trade deal in history/seamless EU trade” etc).
In brief I feel that the Remain campaign exaggerated the effects of leaving whereas the leave campaign made unachievable promises.
So although there were lies made by both sides of the argument I feel that the lies made by the Leave campaign to be far more damaging selling a concept which would now appear to not exist or possible - whereas the Remain campaign their lies referred to the effects of Brexit.
If someone can sum this up more clearly it would be good!
Err, if we (Britain?) doesn’t have all the pertinent information needed to make a reasonable choice why should anybody be happy that there are power crazy fools out there who are going against all the financial forecasts and are attempting to leave one of the largest training blocks in the world for personal political gain?
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I agree with your view in the main Mat, except in one point only.
We dont yet know if the Remain campaign has exaggerated the effects of leaving - because we havent left yet. Unfortunately, their campaign cannot be ‘proven’ unless we do leave - especially with no deal - and by then, it will be too late to do anything about it. However, we can certainly see the effects of the Leave campaigns promises - unicorns, huff and bluster - and a clear sign that what they promised was unachievable.
Clearly, the Remain campaign should have majored on the benefits of staying in the EU and not taken the path of trying to counter the Leave campaign’s points.
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A thoughtful reply - thanks.
I would completely agree - but that, in itself, is an argument for not careering headlong into a no-deal exit from the EU.
Except that the Leave campaign was notably mendacious (99 million Turks waiting to invade etc) whereas Remain made some predictions which are hard to test because they were predicated on leaving (or at least triggering A50) very soon after the vote.
As it happens I don’t think the Remain campaign should have focussed so heavily on the dire predictions - it turned voters off. They should have concentrated much more on the benefits of remaining - I don’t think they have learnt this lesion yet.
To be honest I don’t know what will happen either in the short or long terms - I’m not sure that it will “be a shitstorm” on Nov 1st, it is more likely to be a slow but accelerating, downturn. That said a no deal scenario could have immediate problems, especially if people panic buy. As it is I plan to be in France on the 1st returning the first weekend in Nov; might be entertaining (not quite as bad as March 29th when we were travelling overnight so would have got on the ferry as EU citizens and disembarked having lost that status).
I totally agree - freedom of movement (for example) is not a tangible benefit to a low skilled Geordie who doesn’t own property in his home town much less abroad, has no exportable skills and speaks no European languages.
But that self-same Geordie is going to be amongst the hardest hit by an economic downturn in the UK caused by Brexit.
Glad that you recognise that.
Which is fair enough, we all have our own priorities - personally I might not be directly affected, certainly things would be massively bad if I lost my job to Brexit, my wife not so much - her trade is sensitive to economic ups and downs.
But there is stuff I do care about which is threatened - peace in Ireland is one; I grew up in the 70’s when news of IRA bombs was a daily event - and not just bombs but other violence such as punishment beatings. It must have been truly terrifying for many people in Northern Ireland and if membership of the EU has enabled even a fragile peace then I think it worth it for that fact alone.
I also worry about my son’s future in a world where we are much more a vassal state of the US than we ever were of the EU, not to mention what might happen to the NHS and provision of healthcare in such a scenario.
See above - I think we have moved so far from the world model that those perditions were based on that you simply will never be able to “test” them in a meaningful way.
But there is evidence of economic harm just from the way in which Brexit has been handled - it’s not a big stretch to consider that “the real thing” will be worse.
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Hmmm. it doesn’t really work like that does it.
All we had as voters were the claims that were being made. Clearly after the fact, some of the claims have been proved to be false.
Just because someone voted differently to you doesn’t make their vote foolish. People voted in that referendum for a variety of reasons and NOT JUST based on the claims being make by the factions.
I grew up in that time too.
We had mainland IRA bombings, miners on strike, my dad was on a 3 day week, The US nukes were at Greenham Common and AIDs was a terrifying new diseases that was going to wipe us out.
So… Brexit…so what
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Apart from AIDS potentially a return to the 1970’s
Fit’s with Corbyn’s agenda - back to good old British Rail and the GPO - though I don’t think he will be able to resurrect the NCB.
Typical, I’m using facts and you come back with the same old, same old. I presume your posts are wind ups because you know you will get a reaction from a group like this. Come back with some valid points and your contribution will be valuable, until then, we’ll done, you’ve achieved your aim.
It doesn’t make them NOT foolish either.
People voted as you say “for a variety of reasons” and some of them were ignorance, xenophobia, gullibility, and emotional nonsense.
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Martin, there is no need for that. Stop being so angry with strangers who have different opinions . I don’t need to justify my views any more than you do.
This is the thing with Brexit, people think they can be so direct to the point of rudeness.
As to whether they are foolish or not is not available until after the fact. Some of the reasons you quote could be applied to people who voted remain too.
Many thought Churchill was foolish to enter the war.
Anyway, I feel like a passenger on a brexit train. BoJo is suspending parliament, perhaps we should all adopt the brace position…or just get on with our lives.
Yes such a view would be foolish as Churchill did not enter the war, he did not become Prime Minister until May 1940, 8 months after WW2 started.
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C’mon Mat give Darren a break - he obviously wasn’t at the head of the class when they were giving out awards in modern history - he always says he doesn’t have to justify his views even when his outrageous statements have no basis in truth - reminds me of that Trump bloke who always talks bollocks:laughing:
Beam me up, eh Darren?