Brexit 2019: the Good, Bad and could-turn-Ugly options
- Thread starter Blackleaf
- Start date
Trump and Putin are both in favour of Brexit. That alone should cause one to take a second look at it.
I thought it was about keeping the pesky mainlanders out and raising tariffs against the EU to bring your old industries back, with free-trading Brexiteers forming a fringe minority within the Brexit crowd.
You just added another reason to take a second look at it.
If most Brexiteers were the free-trading type, I might lean more in favour of Brexit than I do. But since I have reason to believe that most are the protectionist type, I lean more towards the UK remaining in the EU. But again, the Brexiteers could prove me wrong.
Neither Putin nor Trump desire a powerful European superstate. I wonder who's intelligence communities have worked harder at splitting it up? I also wonder if their intelligence communities have co-operated in the process of breaking it up. Can the British distance themselves from the process far enough to realize that they might just be doing somwone else's bidding?
Protectionist xenophobes who know so little about economics are easy to manipulate. What do you expect?
The result of the Brexit referendum was 51% for and 48% against. That's a pretty damned slim "most" ... so slim that it very well may no longer be true, now that Britons have more information about it.
Add to that that we could probably split the Brexit camp itself into the protectionist Brexiteers and the free-trading ones, both of whom hold fundamentally incompatible views of Brexit.
To be fair though, I imagine that most Brexiteers who favoured free trade probably voted remain due to the ambiguity of the kind of Brexit they were voting for, and they'd probably vote remain again if asked the same question with the same vague answer without a more precise clarification of the kind of Brexit they would be voting for.
I imagine too that some who voted Brexit might switch to remain if faced with an equally ambiguous referendum again too now that they understand just how incompatibly divided the Brexit camp itself stands between free-traders and protectionists.
Even free-trading Brexiteers would prefer to trade freely within a protectionist EU than to just isolate themselves from all free trade outside of the UK.
Last edited:
Probably, a solid 1/3rd or so of Britons will always be anti-Europe because they "won't abide that foreign mook.". They're roughly analagous to that solid 1/3rd of hillbillies-for-Trump that love the man in spite of the mounting evidence that he's a major league crook.
I'd say probably around 90% of Brexiteers fall into that camp. As for the other 10%, while they may like the idea of Brexit in theory as a way for the Uk to adopt global free trade, I'm sure many of them are well aware that the protectionists among the Brexit camp would soon take over the reigns and raise tariffs against the world and just isolate the UK and so throw it into a decades-long inflationary spiral.
Well it's about ending free movement and introducing border controls similar to those that Canada has. Thereby greatly reducing immigration and allowing us to decide who we let in and not just have all sorts of people flood into the country.
What I think is bizarre is that you think it's racist for Britain to end a racist EU immigration policy to adopt one that Canada and 87% of the world's countries have - a normal immigration policy.
Well under WTO rules, the UK couldn't just raise tariffs against the EU. It'd have to do it against every country.
Ending free movement would also reduce the value of the UK passport. The German and Indonesian passports are among the most powerful in the world in terms of allowing visa-free entry into the greatest number of countries. However, the EU passports (including the UK's) are among the most powerful in terms of allowing visa-free access to work and business in the greatest number of countries.
That's just something to think about. Now I guess the UK could compensate for that loss by trying to expand the number of countries in which UK citizens can enter visa-free. While that would be something, it still wouldn't compare to visa-free access to work and business abroad, but I guess it would be someting.
Also, why are you assuming that I admire the Canadian system just because I happen to be Canadian?
And unfortunately, most Brexiteers would probably applaud that. How will free-trading Brexiteers respond to that other than to turn to remain as the less harmful option?
Don't be silly.
So you want Canada to adopt a free movement, unlimited number of migrants policy for a select group of countries similar to that within the EU - which, of course, means letting in thousands of unskilled people each year, who might not even be wanting to look for work in Canada and just want to go there to claim benefits, and even letting in convicted foreign murderers, child rapists and other criminals, as happens with EU free movement in the UK - or is free movement something you wish Britain to keep but is not something you want Canada to copy?
And if you are in favour of EU-style free movement in Canada, that means you are in favour of adopting a blatantly racist immigration system.
It's Remainers who want higher tariffs, not the Leavers.
Britain is not remaining or re-entering the EU. It leaves at 11pm on Friday 29th March - for good.
I'd want neither. What I'd like to see would be what we might call 'language passports.' For example, I could see Canada recognize three:
1. An English-Language Passport (ELP),
2. A French-Language passport (PLF), and
3. An Esperanto Passport (EP).
To obtain any of these passports, a person would need to be either below age fifteen (in which case the passport expires on his fifteenth birthday), over age seventy, pass the appropriate high-level language test (including a test of his knowledge of the UDHR and practical knowledge of the world's major religons such as marriage laws and such so as to avoid running into problems in intercultural environments), or obtain a medical certificate exempting him from the language test. Additionally, any applicant over the age of fifteen would need to sign a self-exclusion agreement that would make it a fineable offence for him to engage in any addictive adcitivy (such as gambling, drinking, smoking, etc.) other than as prescribed and might even ban him from other activities under threat of a fine too, but still with the presumption of innocence until proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The self-exclusion agreement could also authorize the government to confiscate his share of any business that sells recreational addictive products and services and maybe other specified controversial products and services too. The agreement might also requirement to answer a police officer or a judge in the language of his passport too unless otherwise permitted, again under threat of a heavy fine. It might even ban him from fornication as a public-health measure too.
Anyone in the world could apply for any of the three passports, and any holder of this passport could transit, visit, study, work, or do business in Canada visa-free but not collect benefits.
Well that would be copying the EU, the world's largest protectionist racket, so there'd almost be no point in Brexit in the first place.
Let's hope it does turn to free trade. That make actually make Brexit worthwhile in the end.