So, we’re back to - what issues?
What issues are there in the UK today which leaving the EU will solve?
We’ve done schools, housing and investment and seem to agree that leaving the EU won’t solve those issues so what is going to get better when we leave?
Morning Paul, lots of issues in schools this being one of them. So voting leave would stop unskilled EU family’s settling in the UK, solving the problem of EU children that might not speak English in primary schools that put pressure on teachers.
There are other reasons for voting leave and i’m sure if i told them i would told i am unintelligent etc etc but most people latch on to one issue close to there heart and have personal experience in. Conversations would be a lot more fun if people voiced there personal reasons not just cut and paste from study’s carried out by people with an interest in the results.
I am sure most people don’t you like everything about the party they vote for. Like i said i don’t have all the answers and in some peoples view any answer but again that’s why you have the discussions. Dinner party’s would be very boring if everyone agreed with everything.
In my experience of non English speaking children entering the British education system it takes the between four and six months for them to become more than capable in the language. Is that worth giving up all the economic benefits of being part of one of the world’s largest trading groups brings?
My point about rubbing shoulders in Ruffec with the British immigrants who live there is that your views are hardly likely to make them feel good. They are the immigrants who are putting non native speaking children into the local schools, putting more pressure on the local health services and job markets. Many of them are people who have seen a huge cost in their everyday living costs since the vote to leave the EU. The British immigrants are like the EU immigrants that you are so anti in the U.K. You can hardly be surprised that some of us are unable to support your point of view even before taking the points that I made in my previous post into account.
I’ve heard about the horror of having non EFL children in London classrooms but I would be interested in hearing the other valid reasons for voting leave. Why? Because I don’t know of any and in the past week two other Leave posters who post in SFN have refused to do so. You are the third. Come on, tell us. Please.
Fair enough - I’ll leave David to discuss the ins and outs of this in terms of the effect on the shop floor as he clearly has direct experience but I would ask - How is leaving the EU going to improve this situation given that:
Edit: actually I was just looking at an FT article which was discussing the fears employers have at not being able to recruit. The wage cut off which is being bandied around is £30k per year (i.e no immigration allowed to fill a post which attracts less than £30k per year). That’s not that “low paid” - the alternative here is that employers can’t get staff and the economy tanks that way.
I’ll go back to - the problem is lack of education and training within the UK, how is leaving the EU going to improve this which is the underlying structural problem here.
2nd edit: Sorry, another point that I wanted to make but got lost - while I believe you that having to teach these kids English adds to stresses in an already over stretched system the fault, surely, still lies with the government for not providing adequate resources - to say “I want to leave the EU because my government won’t resource education and EU migration makes that a bit worse” is (as I said above) to place the blame on the wrong party.
As David says I would love to have a civilised, detailed, discussion with you on these advantages.
So having unleashed the biggest political disaster imaginable onto the UK you are now bored with the whole issue?
To be fair, I don’t exactly blame you - I think people are getting bored of of the endless arguments and debates but the importance of Brexit has not diminished and time is running out to get it right - or admit that it is going pear shaped and pull out, re-group and do the thing right later rather than completely fuck it up now.
I know I criticised you earlier for merely wanting to be disruptive - that would have been/was my view prior to the referendum, disruption for the sake of it is rarely useful in the short term and not necessarily beneficial in the medium or long term either.
But I do sometimes wonder, now that we have got to the current situation whether we need to go through a no-deal Brexit before we have any chance of restoring normality. I even started a thread on it - since then I have off-and-on read Pete North’s blog and, although I disagree with about 90% of what he says, this is something he occasionally expands on.
It is, of course a very dangerous path, I wasn’t joking with the civil war comment and it might take 20 or 30 years for the UK to recover.
i still think a deal will be done - or that it will be fudged so that we can agree the withdrawal agreement and enter the transition period, which puts the hard decisions off for a bit longer. However “no deal” is looking more and more likely which will be disastrous. Not least because by the time we realise that it is inevitable it will be too late to do much to mitigate the effects.
A lot of us do not have the luxury of disengaging from Brexit as it has such a huge impact on our lives. That, of course, is true for those EU families living in west London with their young families as much as it is for us immigrants living full time in France.
Afternoon David, I am NOT anti immigration i am anti free movement of all people, there has to be limits. I cannot believe any one thinks unlimited movement is a good thing.
I would be very interested to know how many low skilled UK immigrants with children live in and around Ruffec i’m sure it would be very low if any at all.
Living cost have risen for people in the EU for people relying on transferring money from UK things like pensions etc i do feel for people like that. But for people working i doubt there has been any increase but if there has please let me know. Having just bought a house it has cost me as well, my house would have cost around 15k cheaper before the vote.
So reason i voted leave.
Control of borders/immigration (in regards to EU)
Potential Trade with other country outside the EU
Further expansions of the EU ( a very bad thing)
There is no luxury of disengaging from Brexit it should have been sorted months ago.I know there are down sides but i believe they will be sorted. We will still buy German cars drink French Wine and eat Belgium chocolate. The cliff edge will not hopefully happen if it does lets hope we have wings.
Please remember that 17,410,742 people voted leave, cant all be wrong.
David, I was talking generally and it is probably the fault of the leave side that did not expand on the so called benefits as they saw them or expanded on the statements being made by the remain side. Although I don’t watch a great deal of TV or listen to radio, I did read a lot on the web via newspapers and looked up many topics I was not sure of. Some I thought were sensible and correct others were just too silly for words.
This really did not make any difference to the outcome as I have lived here for nearly 20 years so was out of time for voting. I do however, have family in the UK and was concerned for them. I just hope the end result is something everyone can live with provided we are all prepared to adjust a little as there is not a solution to keep everyone happy. I intend returning to the UK one day so I do have a vested interest in the outcome. Living in rural France, one can get a bit laissez faire but whatever happens it will affect us all.
Being a true Britisher, perhaps I favoured the underdog and tried to see it from their side , but I am concerned also about the lack of respect for the vote by the opposing side, if it had gone the other way and leavers had attacked remainers in the same derogatory way, I would have felt the same. It’s the unncesessary insults that are thrown around that make it all so horrible. My post is more about respecting democracy and I can honestly say that I heard no debate or discussion on what the future EU would look like. We don’t know although we can guess. It is obvious that the budget would have to be increased and the possibility of rebates being cut but again we don’t know. There are benefits for remaining but those have to be paid for like any other commodity so, (according to many remainers) to say we already have a free trade deal is not technically correct.
David Cameron made it clear at the time that it was one off vote for each man and woman that were eligible to vote and that leave meant no freedom of movement, no customs union, no single market or free movement of goods. That was a pretty strong anti list and should have put many people off voting leave, but for some reason it didn’t. Maybe remainers were too complacent and thought it would be a walk over and those that did not vote, didn’t care and were happy to go along with the majority. Then of course, there were those that were not allowed the vote. The whole thing was handled in a half cocked manner and we now have the resulting mess.
Peter, I have tried to answer David’s post but I am more concerned that you are inferring that I am a lazy,civically irresponsible person. I am not, I leave that to those that could vote but didn’t bother to. I am neither strongly opposed to, or, in favour of remaining as not having had a vote I have to accept the end result, what ever. I will do my best to accept with grace and try to make the best of it as I always have done.
September 24
Aquitaine:
If we are not told about these things how do you know about them?
I don’t know whether @Elizabeth_Cox is going to answer your perfectly reasonable question David, but she will surely be aware that she has an MEP who will willingly give her any information she wants about any aspect of EU policy that concerns or interests her, whether in her own European Parliamentary constituency, or more widely. And he/she will point her to sources of information on issues, or developments, that she needs to know of, and be pleased to do so, at a face-to-face meeting by mutual agreement if requested.
The idea that people don’t or can’t know about the EU is just a slogan adopted by people who can’t be bothered to think, or are too lazy-minded to do the civically responsible thing and find out. Like some Brexiteers, perhaps?
Not that old chestnut, Turkey? That died with Erdogan.
Yes, you can buy German cars, French wine and Belgian chocolates. But then Brexit hasn’t happened yet.
My oldest friend (same age as me 
) in the UK voted Leave because she wanted to give the EU a kicking. Now she’s fed up with the whole damn thing. I just don’t get how she voted for, at best, a leap in the dark. For me, it was a no-brainer that the UK - assuming the UK survives the rumbles from eg. Scotland - will get poorer in every sense, post-Brexit. If I’m right (and I’d like not to be), we’re going to see a very much diminished country over the next decades. The only winners are those who want British voters to be so disillusioned with politics and politicians that they just disengage and disbelieve. Now, I wonder who could possibly want that?
I’m glad that you believe that you’re not anti immigration, if I may say so that’s not what your posts have implied. There are plenty of low skilled British families around Ruffec and many other more highly trained and qualified individuals who are happy to take on low skilled work in exchange for enjoying life in France. I suggest a look at the number of British children who attend school in the north of La Charente and the south of La Vienne would give you a good idea of the number of families. I’m amazed that you don’t think that there are any at all! ThosecLondon registered cars you see in front of Lidl are second home owners.
Your reasons for voting leave.
I really hope that the UK manages to get some good trade deals and prosper because my three children all still live there but I’m not sure where this wealth is going to come from. There are only two other non aligned trading countries in the world and one of them is North Korea. Forging links with any other nation will be as the underdog. Good luck with that. Luxury German cars, fine French wines and Italian fashions will still flow into the UK in the future but they will become available for a much smaller group as the higher costs of imports alongside less disposable income and higher credit charges will exclude buying them to hundreds of thousands who do so now.
Enjoy your holiday home and the increased paperwork and hassle of running it that Brexit will bring. Enjoy the lovely countryside around Ruffec and the wonders of life in rural France but please, please be careful about talking to any of the British citizens resident in France about how you voted Leave because you objected to EC citizens taking up their right to freedom to movement who brought their non English speaking children to your country. At best they might not understand and worst the will take offence.
Afternoon Amanda, Turkey are a long off from joining. At the moment waiting for approval are
More country’s where the standard of living and monthly average wage are a lot lower than western Europe that cannot wait for the European hand outs. That is a major problem in such a big club like the Euro zone.
Hand outs. Now you have let the real politics slip out!
David beat me to commenting on these points
OK, you have given your reasons but not precisely why you think leaving would benefit the UK - apart from, perhaps, reducing the number of EU pupils in London schools who need support in English.
Other than that:
Control of borders: My own take is that this was/is a bit of a red herring. For one thing we might not have that much “control” as, at present, we need foreign workers and there is the distinct possibility that we will have to take just as many but from different sources or we will have to “pay” for trade deals with access to our jobs market - pretty much the first thing India and China did when initial approaches regarding trade deals were made was to ask for the visa numbers to increase.
the other problem that I had with the whole freedom of movement thing was that it was Blair’s fault for not implementing restrictions on migration from the A8 nations (who would have guessed that if we allowed free access but other EU nations did not we’d be the destination of choice). We also fail to implement such restrictions as are permitted under EU rules so it is hardly fair to blame the EU because we make it easy and attractive to migrate to the UK.
Trade deals: I’m also not persuaded that we will be able to do all the wonderful trade deals that the Leave campaign promised. At least I suspect the benefit is going to be restricted to improving the opportunities for certain individuals with business ties to the 'States (the IEA has been implicated here) who want to be able to dump crap stuff on the UK market but can’t because of EU product standards.
We are about to discover that the International reach and clout of a small nation of some 70 million people is the square root of sod all.
EU expansion - OK the EU is in discussion with Serbia (pop 7 million), Montenegro (pop 3, sorry 650k) and was in conversation with Turkey but you can forget that now. I agree that Turkey joining the EU was slightly more likely in 2016 but even then not for donkey’s years - Cameron could have come out and said that but he dithered (possibly because he had given his support to their application) but didn’t - but we know Cameron was a expletive deleted
Afternoon David,
“Hand outs. Now you have let the real politics slip out!”
I’ve not let any thing “slip out” its part of the reason i am against Euro Zone expansion.
I’m sorry about the slur suggesting you are one amongst the lazy or irresposnsible people who voted leave, Elizabeth. I think there may be some like that, but the great majority acted on their understanding of the issues at stake, and can’t be blamed for doing so.
You are clearly far from unintelligent, but you may see my point about not knowing that the EU stood for, or what direction it wanted it to move in on matters like regulatory coherence, the equitable sharing-out of resources, and defence/security solidarity. Many of these issues were aired in the British media, including the press, often with a misleading and sometimes malicious anti-EU slant. Developing a sense of common purpose amongst people who grown up identifying with a sense of unique and superior national identity and culture takes time, but history teaches that such virtues may be easily distorted and manipulated, leading to catastrophic wars. The EU project has the mitigation of risk of war at its heart, and is my main reason for supporting it. I grew up during WW2, and the wounds and scars of that are still tender here in Normandy where now live, and are still raw in Germany, Poland and many other parts of continental Europe. Perhaps complacency is more characteristic amongst Brits than elsewhere.
Like you, my wife and I are reconciled to what will be, as were are old now: but we are deeply concerned for our children, who have close ties with the people in and affection for France, Germany, Spain, Sicily, and some countries in Eastern Europe. Their lives will be dimished and impoverished by restrictions on travel and opportunities for work in Europe. They are neither wealthy nor educationally privileged.
I hope you will continue to post and comment as your opinions are valued: this community is robust and diverse and very well informed by the inputs of many, amongst whom I don’t presume to count myself, although I count myself very fortunate to have encountered them, and gained hugely thereby. Best wishes, Elizabeth and I hope, à bientôt ! 
Afternoon Paul, you have asked for my reasons and that is them. There has been enough written about them for us to make our minds up, i made my mind up but i still question it not human not to.
Sorry they are not valid to you or you cant be persuaded that is fine no problem. I do understand a lot of people will be negatively effected by Brexit but i also believe lots of people will benefit. Truth is no one knows until it happens.
Totally agree about Cameron calling for Referendum then quitting when he lost.
In a nutshell.
Hello Elizabeth - always nice to ‘meet’ another Cox!
Of course you’re right, as others have already pointed out, that we can’t know all future developments when we take any decision; equally, though, most of the areas you mention were discussed, and of course if the UK ultimately remained in the EU it would still have the opportunity to shape such developments.
I can’t help wondering how you would feel about all the possible future developments that might follow ‘leave’ - such as the ultimate break-up of the UK?
Personally, I see most of the big issues facing humanity, such as climate breakdown, disappearing national tax bases because wealth now moves so easily around the world, terrorism, and - yes - future mass migrations - as inherently supra-national, so what we need is in fact more and stronger structures for international co-operation like the EU.