53% of British people now think Brexit is going badly, poll says, after empty shelves and fuel shortages hit the UK

Everyone knew Brexit would be a fucking disaster.

But what Putin wants, Putin gets and he does not want a strong and united EU.

Well shouldn’t they be bucking that.

BJ just takes his orders and that’s that? Nothing can be done?

When do they get a new election over there?

How fast can they rejoin the E.U.? Is this something that could be done in time for Christmas?

I hate to think of food rations during the holidays.

Brits are incredibly dull, stupid, and racist people. Even more so than Americans.

Did they finish deporting Brits from Spain?

CUNTS R us

Who cares? Who does this affect outside the UK? Like we don't have our own problems.

53% isn't that bad. I would think it would be so much higher

They deported the European HGV drivers for not being “highly skilled”.

LOL.

They voted for it—now they have to deal with it.

They made their Brexit, now they have to lie in it. No sympathy for the Anglo version of MAGAtry.

Where's my petrol, luv?

^^ It's already in the lorry, old chap. It was gettin' a bit dodgy waitin' in the queues with so many blokes throwin' a wobbly about the whole bloody mess, though.

We just wanted our country back and have been let down by the cunts at Whitehall. It’s minging, innnit?

Your country never left you. You have certainly deserted your country.

R4 more and more I see that’s true. I guess it’s the posh accent that makes people think they are more sophisticated.

Donnez-moi un break.

What do you expect after living on an island for 3000 yrs and no fresh blood? All the while fucking their relatives and inbreeding. Weren't Scottish men still fucking their daughters until just a hundred years ago in the highlands? I think there was cannibalism going on too.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Tories: Fuck you Europe, we do not want to be a part of the EU.

Eurpeans: Okay, but this is going to cost you more in imports and exports.

Tories: Wait what?

British People: Whine

The World: Why do you keep voting for the Tories?

Putin: because the are dumb.

Was that investigation into Russian meddling into Brexit ever revealed to the public?

It will result in an independent Scotland.

The non-Brexit US also has a severe truck driver shortfall.

Well deserved.

Wow, this thread has certainly brought out the resident dimwit idiots of DL. And does anybody in the world really believe that there are people more racist than Americans. Most of them are one step away from the trailer park.

I voted to remain, but it gives me no pleasure to see how this disaster has unfolded.

Brits will Brit.

And yet the party that brought you Brexit is in power and leads in polls. Meanwhile, the "major" opposition party is literally celebrating the excommunication of a party member who retweeted "only women have cervixes."

Besides the US and UK, trucker shortage extends across Europe.

My neighbor became an over the road trucker two years ago, she said if you don't like the way the carrier is treating the drivers it's easy to find another job that pays better etc. She was stuck in a low laying job and her cranky husband was annoying the hell out of her so now she's gone Monday through Friday. Her route is Kansas City to Wisconsin one week and the next week KC to Texas.

She's always had strong spatial intelligence, I would be taking out mailboxes and parked cars every damn day.

I think they’d have to have another referendum . Unless they somehow declare the original deal null and void due to the reneg on NI and everyone goes, oh, never mind. I bet they’ll hold another referendum within 5 years; maybe Boris will offer it was a “promise” for his re-election. Or if they have a leadership challenge before then, the new leader, Rishi, could say, “I will hold a referendum.” If Britain votes rejoin, I doubt it would take very long to do the deal.

I would love it if Dataloungers would DLers would stop letting people like r28 try to hijack threads with their pet troll topics. I don't care if it's trans, immigration, Meghan, Janet, Madonna, whatever, this attention-getting troll shit has got to stop.

^^It will be another 20 years of strife and dissatisfaction before they get another referendum.

But that's not a bad thing; it will do the UK good to be on the outside looking-in for a while.

The European Union behaves like a commission of dictators. They allow themselves to take away the sovereignty of nations that have never voted for them. The ECHR, for example, only makes decisions that no people have asked for. They talk about a Europe of markets but in fact they dismantle a lot of strategic companies in several countries for the benefit of Germany which keeps its industry and its strategic flagships. I was not for the Brexit but the selfish and incoherent EU attitude is more and more questionable.

Recently, an investigation that the ECHR could not contest showed that within the magistrates themselves there was the influence of some guys who work for the Open Society of George Soros and who contest the judgments rendered in member countries in order to apply their ideology, which is generally very harmful to the countries in question. In particular on all the migratory questions. If there is not a real cleaning up within the EU itself or if these people are not in the near future submitted to the votes of the member states, this EU will collapse.

Thanks, Vlad @ R34!

Now could you repeat that screed in German (I hear you're fluent after all that time posted in Berlin), just to maximize the impact?

The EU will be collapsing under the weight of its own selfishness and incoherence any day now, I'm sure. Quite unlike strong states like Great Britain and Russia.

[quote]there was the influence of some guys who work for the Open Society of George Soros

Stopped reading.

Only surprised I read that far, but it is 6 in the morning.

R35 What's crazy on the DL is this way of calling everyone Vlad, Boris or Nazi as soon as an opinion is not yours. I come from a member country. I was for the idea of a European Union because it was presented to us with only advantages. We are decades later and the more time passes the more inconsistent the decisions of the EU are, whether you like it or not. Politics is not a monolithic thing. Your vision of things is not the vision of a whole continent, whether you like it or not. The fact is that many Europeans are beginning to be disillusioned about the de-instruction of their countries. If you can deny that, you are the Russian here. The fact is that the ECHR makes decisions that go against the sovereignty of nations. Consequences? The populists are only going to rise. And if that doesn't worry you, then you are part of the problem. When a judge in my country makes a decision, I don't want the ECHR to overrule it. I pay the judges with my taxes, not for complete strangers to dictate what should happen in my country. If that makes me a Russian in your eyes, so be it. I don't care what you think.

R36 A French magistrate, Gregor Puppink, a magistrate himself, conducted the investigation and submitted it to the European Parliament which did not contest it. So, if you, a nobody you have the claim to know better than him go ahead, share your knowledge with us

So, 47% of the country is in denial. Mess.

R35 If you can dispute an investigation that is official and that is officially on the website of the European Center for Law and Justice, go ahead, we'll watch you explain that it comes from the Russians. Use Google Translate and you will see that there is nothing more official. If you can dispute an investigation that is official and that is officially on the website of the European Center for Law and Justice, go ahead, we'll watch you explain that it comes from the Russians. Use Google Translate and you will see that there is nothing more official. Oh and Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) has been participating for more than twenty years in the game of influence and lobbying of the judiciary. Its director, Gregor Puppinck, has been involved in many cases at the Court and has good relations with most of its members.

^Sorry for the repetition but English is not my mothertongue

Another proof that the report has been made official on the website of the European Parliament.

How strange, the inquisition for which everyone is Russian or a Trumper, has he lost his Wifi connection? When you don't know, you ask around, you look for information, before accusing others of being Russians. George Soros has indeed sent his henchmen to the European Court of Human Rights. Period. Between a stranger on a website who doesn't even know what he's talking about and a judge whose investigation has not been challenged, I believe the judge.

I blocked the apparatchik, r36

R8, it's going to take a while for the morons who voted for it to admit they were wrong. More pertinently:

[quote]The previous poll, conducted on June 21, suggested only 38% of British people thought Brexit is going badly.

So, that's been in a rise of15% in 3 months. And let's not forget that full Brexit (i.e. out of the single market and customs union) only started at the beginning of this year and the government has been able to cover up most of the bad effects with the coronavirus crisis. Things can only get worse

As the full results show, the largest group is those who think Brexit is going very badly (32%) and only 18% think Brexit is going well (just 4% believe it's going very well).

Full results:

Very well - 4 %

Fairly well - 14 %

Neither well nor badly - 21%

Fairly badly - 21%

Very badly - 32%

Don't know - 8%

No, r39. The other 47% don't believe Brexit is going well - only 18% think it's going well. See r45.

Indeed r28, it's a fucking disaster. But let's not forget that it's also thanks to a completely shit Labour party, which had a very confused position on EU membership, that Leave won the referendum. Although, I'd point out that Johnson and Starmer are apparently equal in the polls as to who would make the best prime minister, but that's only because Johnson has fallen, not because Starmer has risen.

R44 You can block all you want. This information is official. People like you are just proving who they really are. When something is wrong with an institution, we clean it up. Corruption is everywhere in politics and if you are a Unicorn to believe that it doesn't exist, you must be a 5 years old kid. The fact is that this investigation is inconstant. There are members of the European Parliament who have spoken about this investigation in Parliament. But of course, on the Know-it-all website. And the -Everything-that-is-not-my-opinion-is-Russian, denial is king. Don't be surprised anymore that there are people who vote for the Brexit. Instead of making things better, you're just making them worse.

All this tells me is that the country is still divided. 53% or more is about what the Remain side has consistently been polling - before, during and after Brexit (Remain has pretty much always polled more than the Leave side).

It doesn't mean the country is divided r49 because the next biggest group is 21% who believe Brexit is going neither well or badly. Only 18% think it's going well.

Talk of remaining in of rejoining the EU is dead for now. No political party will take it up for some time. The country has to have some life lessons and then we may learn that we need to rejoin.

[quote]What do you expect after living on an island for 3000 yrs and no fresh blood?

R18, did you miss the Celtic, Roman, Germanic, Norse, and Norman invasions during all that time, and then the waves of immigration during the last two centuries of colonialism and decolonization? Don't blame their blood, blame their brains.

There will probably be a lot of kids who don’t get their presents this year. I hope that makes people see the consequences of going along with foreign stunts, and voting for a baboon like BJ.

This will be the year that Santa Claus died.

Thanks, conservatives!

[quote]Johnson and Starmer are apparently equal in the polls as to who would make the best prime minister, but that's only because Johnson has fallen, not because Starmer has risen.

Starmer's first big speech to the Labour Conference this week was very capable but uninspiring. He accurately put down Johnson as a showman, and handled destructive hecklers well. But he lacks rhetorical flair and fire, which shouldn't matter but somehow does.

Look forward to seeing Johnson live on the Marr show next Sunday, ahead of the Tory Conference. Let's see how the blond showman talks his way out of long petrol queues, empty shelves, rising energy prices, Brexit dismay and Christmas in peril (per the tabloids). I really hope Marr goes in hard.

The complete and OFFICIAL report from the Gregor Puppink investigation, which some ingorant on this site deny, is here if one day someone neutral who is for justice and fairness, passes by. This report has been discussed in the European Parliament and concrete measures will soon be taken, despite the ideologues on the DL

"Mummy, did Fahtha Christmas forget us this year?"

"No, dahling, he left this lovely Mars bar for you to share!"

^ignorant

The Council of Europe concedes the veracity of the report on NGOs and the judges of the ECHR & rejects the new "Soros-Judge" candidate

(But i thought it was a Russian thing??)

Sorry, r1, I accidentally FF'ed you. Meant to WW you.

R32 honestly I think this is naive and betrays a lack of appreciation for realpolitik. What is the functional path for ANY reevaluation on Brexit that allows for a further fracturing labour? To me, what you're arguing for here (with many people agreeing with you, so it's clearly a popular argument!) is the same as the US Democrats, while debating the current murder spike, decidedly refusing to entertain ANY discussion of the "defund the police" message and it's reverberations. I think that's a good analogy and I think the Dems will absolutely do this and will be wrong to do so, for the same reasons I disagree with you here. Anyway, we can disagree but you DONT have to call me a troll. That's rude and mostly untrue in general, and definitely untrue here specifically.

Sad to see the bigots got Brexit. They remind me of the Magats. Vote against their own interests to fill their hate love.

[quote]but you DONT have to call me a troll

"George Soros" ... "current murder spike" ... but ya are, Blanche, ya are!

R62 The Council of Europe recognized the truthfulness of the report and of the investigation made. Between what is official and unaware people who accuse anyone to be Russian trolls, I prefer the report that was discussed in the European Parliament in a very official way. I know it twists your guts to admit that there is a problem within the ECHR itself, but you are not going to rewrite history. Too bad for you and your crass ideology that does so much harm to Europe. Too late, the report is recognised offially. Keep living in your bubble I don't give a fuck what you think

^officially

Oh god. Not the NGO troll.

Smh.

It is the trolls who accuse the others of beinf trolls. There are official links, but they have the nerve to deny them. Only the mentally ill do that. Sane Europeans who would like the British to change their minds about the Brexit, would be pleased that things are working well within the EU and that there are vigilant members within it to ensure that it works well. Strangely enough, here only on the DL it is the truth that becomes a lie and the lie the truth. It is like George Orwell's 1984. If you say the sky is blue, they will call you a troll. They always find a way when they have their nose in their shit to say it smells good.

^Being trolls

[quote]I don't give a fuck what you think

Dear sweet baby jesus, that's a relief!

When you have other intelligible arguments to propose besides "troll", like a real adult who knows how to reason and discuss, you will maybe become credible. Until then, you can't deny official documents. YOU are the troll here. R68

This is the very profile of a troll: hijacking a thread with multiple posts about a barely relevant hobbyhorse that doesn't indicate anything more dire than that some EU judges have ties to Soros' Open Society organization (which helped fight communism), and then dragging in some half-understood crap about a "murder spike" in the US. Then adding further posts correcting the misspellings in their other posts.

Brexit and its discontents may be justifiable, but not because some right-wing French lawyer found out that certain EU judges had ties to Soros. Let's please just block the troll and get back to mocking the poor Brits on their self-inflicted petrol lines.

R70 The right-wing lawyer is also a member of the EU FYI. In France, the right wing is also European as far as I know. Secondly, George Soros is accused of several corruptions facts. Moreover, he is more and more contested within the European Union. Only members of the Open Society defend this swindler. Block me, I don't care. The report exists and has been VALIDATED. You can continue to whine. I repeat, the report has been VALIDATED, deal with it, Soros minions.

[quote]Brits are incredibly dull, stupid, and racist people. Even more so than Americans.

They must be very bad then.

R70 And I'm blocking you too asshole

[quote]George Soros is accused of several corruptions facts

J'accuse!

They wanted out. Now they should enjoy it. If they want back EU should demand GB to join Schengen and euro among many other things.

Hear! Hear! Mumble! Mumble! Cacophonies of discord! White noise!

I'm just starting to understand who these people are who accuse everyone of being Russian trolls. Soros' minions are also on the DL. It all makes sense now. The argument is that lawyer Puppink is right wing lol as if democracy starts and end at the left. There are hundreds of right wing MEPs for the information of the ignorant on this website.

Besides, the right wing in Europe is not the right in America. The president of this lawyer is Macron, from the center right. The prime minister of this lawyer is in the Republican party in France, and the minister of the economy in France is also from the right-wing, a right-wing that has nothing to do with the one in America. They are all for European Union. What is comparable to Trump in France is Marine Le Pen and not the Republican right-wing. Jeez, these ignorants on the DL are really stupid as fuck. I didn't know that making typos and correcting them makes you a right-wing person or a Russian troll. I also didn't know that DL allowed a certain number of comments per person. It's crazy that it's anonymous people who dictate who is good enough to speak on this site. The level of the Dlers is getting lower and lower.

Since when is it up to Americans to explain to Europeans how the European Union works and who is authorized to talk about it?

No Christmas for the kiddies.

They will be lucky if they get any gruel to eat.

[quote]Besides, the right wing in Europe is not the right in America.

No, it's more anti-Semitic.

The U.S. is having worker shortages for the same reason as Great Britain: viciously racist policies that block the foreign workers the society depends on. We have shortages in the same areas, especially agricultural workers.

I say Great Britain because both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are still in the EU and aren't having these issues.

What a messy mess that keeps getting messier. The money that has been spent and lost could have rebuilt the entire kingdom in gold.

Brits Discover Shooting Yourself in Foot Leads to Pain, film at 11.

George Soros is to Russian trolls and their American dupes what Emmanuel Goldstein is to the brainwashed hordes in "1984." Besides being grotesquely antisemitic, of course.

Does the UK ask themselves: who does this really benefit?

Certainly not them. But it benefits others very much. Not the UK citizens so much. They are the collateral damage here. They need to get their heads out of the sand and get back to being a leader nation and not an international punchline.

Just make an independent Scotland more probable.

The end of the English Empire.

It only takes a couple months to get a CDL license. Put the unemployed Muslim boys to work.

R80 NI is NOT in the EU. It is part of Great Britain, and Great Britain left, taking NI with it.

"Northern Ireland remains legally in the UK Customs Territory and part of any future UK trade deals. Northern Ireland is also no longer legally in the EU Customs Union, but remains an entry point into it, creating the Irish Sea border, a de facto customs border down the Irish Sea."

Try some research first.

R85 - Oh, ffs - Scotland is fucking bankrupt. The polls for independence are well below what that obsessed dwarf needs as she ignores the plight of drug addiction, huge national debt, and a failing educational system as she takes money from Westminster hand over fist whilst talking about Scotland being Denmark.

Scotland joined up voluntarily, remember, in the early 1700s, also because it was bankrupt?

Christ, anyone would think that Scotland was sending 100 virgins to England every year to be sacrificed in Parliament Square.

Recent polling for Scottish Independence:

18 September 2021, Redfield & Wilton - YES 44% NO 47%

6–10 September 2021, Panelbase/SundayTimes -YES 45% NO 49%

3–9 September 2021, Savanta ComRes - YES 45% NO 48%

Do those numbers look like the Scots particularly want out? Grow the fuck up. The Empire was gone a long time ago and most Englishmen never give it a thought from one year's end to the next.

If a meteor struck Yorkshire tomorrow morning, you lot would be out the next day blaming BREXIT.

R83 So the Council of Europe that recognizes Puppink's report is anti Semitic? Hahaha my God, you are more and more ridiculous. it's funny because between your pathetic anti conspiracy postures and accusation of being Russian trolls, the truth is that the report is validated, whether the DL morons like it or not. The investigation is impossible to deny. After the nazi, fascist, boris, Vlad, Russian troll, here is now the accusation of being anti Semitic. You'll have a hard time saying that to the Council of Europe, which has a lot of Jews in it. The fact is that the veracity of the report is already recognized officially and you can't change that. Facts are the facts. And not your ideology or your pathological paranoid fantasies

‘I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum’

The Torys would reverse ship and bring the UK back into the EU before losing an election to Labour. As they should as Labour is not a party fit to govern.

It’s ok for the UK to say that it made a huge, embarrassing blunder, wasted a fortune and alienated itself from its trading partners, allies and the world.

Just fix it in time for the little kiddies to have a decent Christmas. They have had a rough few years, with mom and dad fighting over Brexit as it is. And then for Covid to be deliberately spread all over by the maniac Prime Ministers policies.

This issue has torn apart famines all across the kingdom. This stunt has caused enough loss and grief and the right thing to do is to is rejoin the EU and give the kids a Christmas.

*families

But famines won’t be far behind at this rate

[quote]What do you expect after living on an island for 3000 yrs and no fresh blood? All the while fucking their relatives and inbreeding

R18, the Celts came over to Britain from central Europe, and then the Romans, and then the Anglo Saxons and then the Normans...

When do citizens have the next opportunity to vote? What about PM? When do they get new leadership? The current leadership seems like the b-team, if you catch my drift.

And the Prime Minister is a bum. Is that the best UK can do? Really? They elected an ape.

At least the U.S. kicked out their buffoon president. Now it’s the UK’s turn.

FYI, if you're sending packages from the USA to UK or elsewhere, do it tomorrow! postal rates are going up for the holiday season!

The fucking rates just went up end of Aug and now it's going up again but I read that it's temporary and only for the holiday season. You should definitely send your packages soon as they will be delays.

Also I read that regular mail is gonna get slower...permanently!

Brexit really ruined the U.K. both economically and in reputation. People don’t think of the royals anymore they think of the messy-haired clown barking on t.v. and all the constant turmoil and uncertainty. It was a losing proposition and it’s only getting worse.

[quote] Everyone knew Brexit would be a fucking disaster.

No, hon.

R97, the royal family = white trash.

Oh no! Will we not have our jellied eels for Christmas?!!!

This is why UK tourism is in the toilet. Nobody wants to go anymore because they have a jackass running the place.

[quote]NI is NOT in the EU. It is part of Great Britain

I think you mean not in the UK. In my experience people from Northern Ireland hate it when you say NI is part of Great Britain.

^^ That would make sense, as using that phrase is essentially snubbing them.

R87, Scotland was coerced into the union by Queen Anne paying off the Scottish wealthy and handing out newly minted Brit titles. The local debates were all anti union. 1707 must be undone. English colonialism must end.

The EU isn't so fabulous Mary and the truck driver problem is all over Europe.

[quite]This is why UK tourism is in the toilet. Nobody wants to go anymore because they have a jackass running the place.

um, no it's something to do with Corona actually, idiot.

[quote]The fucking rates just went up end of Aug and now it's going up again but I read that it's temporary and only for the holiday season.

If you believe it will be temporary, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

I live in the U.K. and I couldn’t care less about Brexit. Hasn’t affected me in any way.

[quote] Brits are incredibly dull, stupid, and racist people.

Not really. But they are certainly becoming so. It’s part of the general decline.

[quote] Putin: because the are dumb.

Why are straight me so stupid?

r107 = Jacob Rees Mogg

[quote]But famines won’t be far behind at this rate

Not to worry, we've helped you before and will do so again.

NI is not in the island of Great Britain, but in the island of Ireland, R102. NI is part of the UK, but many people there would rather it belonged to the Republic of Ireland. Although it is in the UK, NI remained in the EU’s single market. This was the only practical option to uphold the Good Friday Agreement, which requires mobility between NI and the Republic (I am simplifying). So there is a customs border between NI and the rest of the UK.

Our peerless leaders could foresee all of these complications when we departed for the sunny uplands of Brexit, but they do not give a f***, because they are English nationalist pricks. The risk of sectarian conflict is a minor concern to them.

In the 70s when we were going thru a tough time the Americans were all gleeful, I remember.

I think you gurls need to keep an eye on what's going on in your own country right now. Looks like Biden and Kamala aren't working out as well as you had hoped. Oh, well...

[quote]53% of British people now think Brexit is going badly

That actually sounds like a pretty good showing.

The problems described in OP's link are the same all over the EU.

And note that the latest polling by Gallup shows 77% of Americans dissatisfied with the direction of the US. "In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?"

In France, Macron's approval rating is at 37% (Elabe polling)

So in comparison, it seems like the UK is doing OK.

[quote]So in comparison, it seems like the UK is doing OK.

& don't forget Australia. What a hell hole!

[quote]In the 70s when we were going thru a tough time the Americans were all gleeful, I remember.

Hoe cute that you fancied we were paying attention.

We didn't have the time to think about you. Were just list rhe Vietnam war and New York was tanning.

You sure were.

[quote] We didn't have the time to think about you.

As I said, you found time to sneer.

[quote]53% isn't that bad. I would think it would be so much higher

It seems 20% still have no idea what it is that they voted for.

It seems that U.K. is on a decline that parallels that of the U.S.: a major player, high GDP (5th place for nominal GDP), but its cultural strength, its position as a center of world finance and technological innovation have been knocked down a bit, its ability to set its own terms and to set the course for others, these things are not what they once were and are weaking. Not to say that either is weak or insignificant, but they have lost considerable centrality; there are more centers of influence now.

Brexit was a mistake, and now the UK is forced to choose sides with the U.S. because it will be smarting with the unpleasantness with Europe for some time. Where the EU, the UK, and the U.S. were in some loose sort of presumed broad alliance with room for differences, now that's all fucked until the "well it fucking seres them right phase" passes.

R62 here's another good example of you being wrong. Not only an i NOT the person (s? I assume it's just one) in this thread talking about George Soros (seriously r62 it's not hard to ignore/check a user's posts, you would have saved yourself from looking like an idiot), but I actually STUDIED George Soros in my undergrad and am a huge fan of both Soros himself and his economic philosophy--"reflexivity" wrt finance shaped much of my undergrad studies. Lmao you just so wrong but it's ok you CAN do better.

R121 and six of you morons w&w r62 like dumb sheep--you all must also do better as well.

I apologize, R60/121, for confusing you with the anti-Soros loon; my accusation of trollery was directed at the poster whom I quoted on Soros and the "murder spike." I'd thought you were he because you were vehemently denying being a troll as was he.

[quote] my accusation of trollery

glad you got caught out - people like you are dragging down DL

people like you are dragging down DL

You do know DL has always been dragging down don't you, tired old comment.

It's so funny to see all this here. Using either sophisticated language and the old tired stuff about OUR RIGHTS and out right prejudice to justify leaving the EU is the same thing. You are racists. Nothing more, nothing less. The powers that be in this country and their buddies the right wing media want to stop paying taxes and to gain power. And you gave it to them because you are racist. You will never admit your wrong. Just like you will never admit to being racists.

Oh the bullshit racist routine. When you don't have an argument accuse everyone of racism.

[quote]You are racists.

And you're a moron who knows two words - racist and troll.

STFU

Gotta love the people commenting that "53% doesn't sound that bad" while completely ignoring the fact that only 18% believe Brexit is going well.

Lol, r114, you are so naive, or perhaps just a Brexiter. Macron's approval rating, whatever it is, is not comparable to Brexit. Brexit is forever and its consequences monumental. A president or prime minister will be changed every few years and there will be another one and another one after that. Some will do well, some less well. Brexit is in another league of consequentiality.

For what it's worth, 58% believe Boris Johnson is doing well and his approval rating in August was 34% in August, it's probably lower than that even now. And he hasn't been in power for as long as Macron.

[quote]glad you got caught out

Didn't get caught out at all; the poster I was actually addressing (who's blocked me) was clogging up this thread with irrelevant conspiracy claims against Soros and anti-Democratic gibberish in the service of championing Brexit: a troll pure and simple. Brexit has obviously marginalized the British and made life on their little island harder, as many of us overseas and in the UK itself predicted it would. Glad to see the British themselves are waking up to that. Are they planning to tar and feather Nigel Farage yet?

Well prove to me then why Brexit was a good idea? Everyone I have ever ever spoken to that supports Brexit says two things only- I don't want other countries to rule me etc and well the immigrants are just out of control. Please name something else? Because I don't see anything different on this thread.

R130 LOL. You're great with the straw man arguments. No one equating Macron or Biden with Brexit, but if we're looking at "how things are going", those poll numbers at OP's link pretty much sum up the general dissatisfaction people are feeling in most other countries as well.

Block r34, and half of this thread (and all the crazy anti-Soros gibberish in broken English) disappears.

For the rest of us: Brexit was always going to be a disaster, and the only surprising thing is that only 53% of Britons have realized it yet. But I guess it's like Trumpism: the diehards will die before admitting the deplorable truth.

We need a rejoin referendum.

Didn't they fall for some dishonest political ad on the side of a bus? Buncha dumb motherf.ckers.

Brexit is the punishment Britain deserves for allowing it to occur.

[quote]Buncha dumb motherf.ckers.

Oh, great... you've found another group to hate and feel superior to, so you can leave intelligent messages like that on an anonymous message board.

You know NOTHING about it.

R97 - Oh, is that why Kate's golden gown a few days ago blazed across the headlines?

Give it a rest. The royals are still what people think of when they think England England England. Politicans come and go, the monarchy remains.

As for BREXIT, please. The rest of the EU isn't doing too well, either, and Britain is striking trade deals with other blocs. It just fucked France out of billions in a submarine deal.

It isn't going down, it's not going anywhere, and PMs like the PMs of other countries are always a mixed bag.

We're still here, we're not going anywhere, and migrants by the millions are still trying to get in. Do you notice those migrants filing for asylum in France?

[quote]It's so funny to see all this here. Using either sophisticated language and the old tired stuff about OUR RIGHTS and out right prejudice to justify leaving the EU is the same thing. You are racists. Nothing more, nothing less. The powers that be in this country and their buddies the right wing media want to stop paying taxes and to gain power. And you gave it to them because you are racist. You will never admit your wrong. Just like you will never admit to being racists.

This needs to be repeated because it is spot on. You were played for the fools you are.

Christ, there isn't a thing left on the planet that can't be viewed through the lens of race.

Immigration from the Third World is an issue in Sweden, France, Germany, the Visegrad bloc in the EU, and America. In the meantime, Britain has become possibly the most diverse country in Europe, especially England, the place has allowed itself to be virtually unmade and remade in 60 years from what it was before the war.

BREXIT occurred mostly because of the fucking left, not the right, which refused to address the concerns of the working-class of this country as the post-war economy left them behind.

Reducing it all to racism is racist in itself. BREXIT had its roots in quite a few issues, but it's only convenient for you Brit haters to reduce all those working-class voters in the northeast, the fucking stepchild of England, to your blinkered stereotype.

Go talk to the worker whose wages got halved because the Polish migrants would do it for half. When housewives on the doorstep told Labour canvassers about it, and the canvassers sent back to Labour HQ on how to handle the topic, the instruction came back: "Change the subject."

That's how Cameron got in in 2015.

And, oh, by the way, you want to talk racism? How about the Rotherham and other dozens of grooming gangs preying on young Anglo Girls with impunity because the authorities were afraid to touch them because they were all Pakistani?

Take your convenient reductionist bullshit and stuff it.

The conservatives have killed Christmas!

Scrooges, the lot of ‘em!

R140 If you insist on calling people racists, it's the EU you should be calling out:

"The EU increasingly embraces the idea of a continental identity, one that’s white and Christian. Is it really the liberal body of remainer lore?"

R135 how fast can we get that going?

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Check this out Brexit bashers.

Eek, I missed out a very important couple of words at r130: "58% DO NOT believe Boris Johnson is doing well".

R133, you don't get it. Brexit is existential, it can't simply be changed or undone with a change in political leadership or a cabinet reshuffle. You could easily point to other EU countries where governments have higher approval ratings.

The figures for how well people think Brexit is going will only get worse as the realities become clearer. They won't improve with a change in government and all UK governments will have low approval ratings while we are out of the EU because the country will only do badly.

This is what you get for having conservative leadership during a pandemic. This virus never had to spread as far and wide if it weren’t for two nincompoops in charge of the two most influential countries. Every other pandemic was stopped before it spread so far.

The UK needs to elect a Biden so we can get back to being sensible again.

[quote]This is what you get for having conservative leadership during a pandemic.

Spain, France and Italy haven't done much better.

Well duh. We proclaimed Europe over when I left.

Brexit was always going to end badly for the UK, however, in fairness there is a global supply chain issue effect countries all over the world not just the UK. I knew here in Canada, retailers are warning we could face similar problems to Europe within weeks and in the last year there has been record breaking inflation.

While I'm ideologically opposed to Brexit, it's not the major underlying cause of shortages.

R138 ."In a survey by the ING Economic Network ten months after the EU referendum, 45% of the respondents did not fully understand the economic consequences of leaving the EU. One of the main talking points from the referendum debate centred around the Vote Leave campaign’s narrative of ‘taking back control’... " The poor schmucks thoughts the EU controlled things like the NHS, and Britain's economy, housing, education, etc.

Don't get mad at me. Get mad at the Brexit voters who bought the proverbial "pig in a poke,"

I wonder how Pete Burns would have felt about Brexit.

Gee looks like "idiot moron racists of Brexit" are affecting America as well

[bold]"Cargo ships anchored off NY and LA face 4-WEEK wait to berth and trains in Chicago are backed up 25 miles with global supply chain on the brink of collapse"

i'm sure magic Kamala will sort it out in no time.

A hotel local to me can only open its restaurant on certain days now because they can't employ people from the EU who were here pre Brexit. Lots of local businesses are suffering. Like it or not, being in the EU meant jobs could be filled much more easily.

There are enough people in the UK to fill said jobs but the lazy bastards don't want them.

English people are AWFUL at service jobs. Always were.

R149, Spain, France and Italy have significantly fewer Covid deaths per day than the UK does - we're on three-digit figures and they are on two-digit figures, with around 80-100 more deaths a day in the UK (even adjusting for differences in population size, the difference in death rates is a tad shocking).

It might not be anything to do with a conservative government (the French and Italian governments are not left/centre-left), but the British government is blasé and arrogant and always thinks it knows best. These are the people who brought us Brexit, because they are blasé and arrogant and always think they know best.

R151, Brexit is and isn't the underlying cause of shortages. There are shortages of HGV drivers everywhere, but it is hugely exacerbated in the UK by Brexit and many drivers have left the country for good. Brexit also makes it very difficult for them to come to do short-term jobs in the UK.

Brexit is also the reason why the UK will rear a million fewer turkeys for Christmas this year and will instead import them from the EU (it's tragi-comic that Boris Johnson asked Bolsonaro of Brazil to help the UK with emergency food supplies).

Let's face it, no EU or probably any other country is ordering its army out to deliver petrol to the petrol stations. And that's just the start.

Look at that slob @r158. How on earth is that the highest elected official of state? He looks like a pig on two legs.

I didn’t understand the issue with the fishermen post-Brexit.

[quote] Wow, this thread has certainly brought out the resident dimwit idiots of DL. And does anybody in the world really believe that there are people more racist than Americans. Most of them are one step away from the trailer park.

Says someone whose countrymen mainline lager and baked beans.

I vehemently dispute that statement, r156!

Leaving the European Union had been a disaster for London. In recent years it had become THE most important city in the world. Now it’s declining economically- corporations are fleeing to the continent.

[QUOTE] “only women have cervixes."

Finally, someone saying it out loud!

I see all the metrosexual elites from Primrose Hill who got their arses handed to them in the referendum are out in full swing looking down their noses at working-class yobs.

They get all their opinions from the Graun, probably couldn't find Sunderland on a map if you covered up Newcastle, dddont go to those places and never talk to THOSE PEOPLE, who, with their usual display of righteous virtue, they have reduced to one gigantic social cliche.

Of course, they do need to be reminded that their Marxist Hero, Jeremy Corbyn, was a dyed in the wool eurosceptics and voted against every single treaty.

And as they bash the Tories, they ignore what stellar counterparts Labour produced - Gordo Broon comes to mind.

In fact, if you aren't a Remainer troll possibly working for Brussels, you might even recall that even that shite Tony Blair admitted publicly that he laid the foundation for the OUT vote by handling EU immigtation as he did.

You remember the suave, literate godlike Blair, right, so much more appealing than the current occupant of Downing Street?

You known - the one who hitched his little cock to George Bush's bigger one by dragging us into the folly of Iraq? Despite knowing that there was absolutely no evidence of either functional nuclear weapons there or involvement in 9-11?

Yes, let's pretend that "this is what you get when you have Conservatives at the helm."

You fuckinf hypocrites.

France is in the EU. Its economy is still stagnant. Then there's glorious Italy and Greece, and the other net recipients . . .

Yeah, the EU was nirvana.

And all the EU migrants were white Christians.

Since when is Polish a "race"?

Go back to your self-congratulatory dens. Oh, and look up the Downing Street Memos. That's why dear old Labour PM has to walk around with bodyguards. Oh, did I omit the tens of millions he's made off dodgy real estate deals and "consulting" with the Saudi Royal Family?

But it's really Boris' hair that's the problem for Britain.

That, and the unctuous, virtue-signalling, contemptuous of anyone who isn't them, denizens of the rich southeast.

It's the new version of the old aristocracy, it just doesn't bestow titles.

[quote] does anybody in the world really believe that there are people more racist than Americans. Most of them are one step away from the trailer park.

Children learn form their parents. Thanks for bringing the slave trade to the new world. The gift that keeps giving.

Wait, when I voted for Brexit I thought it meant we could just get rid of the Muzzies and the Poles, and maybe some Blacks. Nothing else was supposed to happen.

First they came for the expats in Marbella, and I said nothing.

From above :

Another returning at Malaga airport today was Shaun Cromber who despite voting for Britain to leave the EU, didn’t believe it would end his Spanish lifestyle, he said: ” Yes I voted out, but I didn’t realise it would come to this, my application has been rejected and we are on our way home – the wife is in tears, she’s distraught if I’m honest and I’m not too happy at the prospect of returning back to the UK.

He vote for Brexit and is upset when he has to leave an EU country...

They have idiot deplorables in the UK too.

[quote]There are enough people in the UK to fill said jobs but the lazy bastards don't want them.

That's appealing reasoning, R155, but really not true. If you were a small business owner, would you hire Vicky Pollard to work in your store, handle your cash, and interact with your customers? That's the problem.

When the UK was in the EU, it was not just easier to find workers, it was possible to find QUALIFIED workers. Vicky Pollard and her ilk are everywhere in the UK. Lots of them are produced every year. They have no skills or abilities to participate in an economy and are nothing but dead weight.

Therein lies the problem the UK faces. It's not just that a sizable portion of the British population won't work, they're simply not fit to hold a job.

Let’s bring the UK back into the EU and cut the losses. There is no shame in admitting failure and getting back on the horse.

And spare a thought for the piglets.

[quote]English people are AWFUL at service jobs. Always were.

Fuck you, R156!

[quote]He looks like a pig on two legs.

Mm, sexy!

Right - anyone who rejects globalisation and Brussels HQ telling Britain what to do, how to do it, and when to do it, is a deplorable. All those working-class jobs in the entire northeast of England are nothing but deplorables - they hate gays, they hate women, they hate Muslims, they hate blacks . . .

Because you actually talked to them?

And do remember what that "basket of deplorables" meme did for Hillary Clinton.

You think people you inherently despise should vote the way you want them to.

And then you wonder why when they don't.

R176, why talking about ad hominems and optics instead of the merits of Brexit? How exactly did Brexit counter "globalisation" or give the UK more power?

Brexiteers pre-Brexit: “How dare they come over here and take our jobs!”

Brexiteers post-Brexit: “How dare they not come over here and take our jobs!”

It was a failure. They started the EU for damn good reasons.

These rural toads are only making their own lives harder. It will take 10 years to fix the supply chain issues that were a result of conservative leadership during a pandemic. The rural areas will completely collapse by the time it’s all over.

It's the Conservatives' fault!

Oh well, it be that way sometimes...

[quote]And do remember what that "basket of deplorables" meme did for Hillary Clinton.

January 6 proved that she opted for understatement. And to my knowledge she's never uttered those bittersweet words, 'I told you so.'

what do you expect? You elected a man who doesn't even know how to comb his hair...did you expect great things from him? It's totally your fault.

He knows how to comb his hair. The unkempt thatch is just part of the brand he's been cultivating since his youth.

So Brexit caused Covid?

You people the biggest bigots on DL.

The Tories still lead in the polls. The UK isn't joining the EU again, and by next year the UK economy is projected to be back to pre pandemic levels.

If you don't like it, suggest you all emigrate to France or Germany.

How much is Brussels paying you trolls?

[quote]You elected a man who doesn't even know how to comb his hair....

Well, R183 and the people who W'd his post... actually, they didn't. Dumb asses.

Of course they did, r187. They gave a majority to the party (and within that party to the rightwing majority) that was then allowed to choose its leader and therefore the PM. It might be indirect, but the people elected him.

The Brits don’t have any monopoly on stupidity. Didn’t we recently elect *literally the worst human being on earth* to be our leader? The story of humanity is the march of folly.

[quote]Didn’t we recently elect *literally the worst human being on earth* to be our leader?

A three-million voter MINORITY voted for electors in just enough states (by razor-thin margins in the three crucial ones), and the rest of us were saddled with literally the worst human being on earth for four years. But whenever I get tempted by a parliamentary system, I consider Britain.

[quote] Let’s bring the UK back into the EU and cut the losses. There is no shame in admitting failure and getting back on the horse.

After the PITA the UK has been, the EU wouldn't want them back.

R139 just because the English edition of the daily mail put Kate on the front page doesn’t mean the royals have good standing internationally. And to that matter the mail are using the royal family as a right wing figurehead. It’s like when Fox News would publish stories about how glamorous the Bush daughters were lolol.

Nowadays internationally, people are looking at how they’re dealing with Andrew, how seriously they take the rape of sex slaves by one of their own, the allegations of racism, the financial crimes of the head of the family (and surely the rest) and they’re looked on as generally dysfunctional at best (works for brexit I suppose you could say) and criminal at worst.

You have a different impression from within England of course but you’re surrounded by the covers of the express / telegraph / DM on the daily so it’s a little bit of a propaganda situation. I suppose you could call it a delusion x.

Of course, they didn't. They elected their local representatives. Those representatives elected Boris.

Don't conflate the two things.

Boris and Lilibet

Now do one with him calling his international handlers.

Lol r139, you are so fucking stupid. There are millions of immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers/recipients of asylum in France, just as there are in the whole of the EU. Dumb Brexiters like you are so fucking ignorant.

R192, I don't think that many people abroad really care about Andrew. The only people who care about Andrew are basically Megstans. People in the UK don't care about Andrew, as in he's not relevant. If he's found guilty or whatever it is that people are found in civil suits, then he'll just give Giuffre the money she seeks and was trying to get from him in an out-of-court settlement. Even if he's banged up in prison for life, no one would give a shit about him. US courts don't have jurisdiction in the UK anyway. Why doesn't Giuffre go after any of the other men Epstein trafficked her to?

Nobody even knows who Andrew is but they know the clown PM and his embarrassing shtick.

The UK has ruined its reputation. The average person thinks it’s a joke. They have lowered their cache on the world stage and will be reduced to a wasteland once the shortages really kick in. They will be begging the EU for supplies.

I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way.

Yes poseur Boris and his tacky tramp in her rented dresses and fancy wallpaper...what a fuckin mess.

As the witch says in Into the Woods: 'Of course, what really matters is the blame. Somebody to blame.'

I heard something on French radio the other day. They were saying they knew that everything negative that will happen going forward in the UK now will still be blamed on Brussels, on France, on Germany, but the British really need to grow up and start taking responsibility for themselves and their own decisions. To certain British people, everything before leaving was the EU's fault and everything after leaving will also be the EU's fault.

I laughed when I heard the Dutch union rep who recently said he was talking to the drivers in Europe who said they have no desire to go back to the UK to help the UK get itself out of the shit they created themselves. The interviewer was merely left to flounder: 'oh, well, we could do without that kind of language' - when all you have to resort to is criticising the language used rather than the message, well...

I'm not British, but I am an anglophile, I love a lot about that country, I view it as a second home. But humans have this annoying habit of always wanting to present themselves as the victims of everyone else and not taking responsibility for their actions.

UK went from HOT to NOT under conservative leadership.

Could you all pass on the horror of Britain to all those migrants refusing to file for asylum I wonderful EU France? And stop coming to Britain in rubber dinghies?

Today's anti-Brexit demonstration was so pathetically sparse it was comical.

The French had to fire rubber bullets at migrants to stop them from setting out for the shores of Kent.

Why don't you lot go talk to them and tell them what a terrible mistake they're making?

These Brexit fools are in for some tough times.

"The ECLJ is the European arm of the American Center for Law and Justice founded by the American televangelist Pat Robertson (known for its theories that Jews are plotting with freemasons to rule the world or for comparing feminists with witches), an organisation famous for its strong anti-choice and anti-LGBT rights stances (they supported anti-homosexuality laws in Africa).....etc etc"

I'm not able to read the entire thread, but the hijack in favor of a report prepared by the organization, on A GAY FORUM, is outrageous. And yes, it is a BORIS hijack.

[quote]Distinctly Soviet vibe in Britain at moment. My son just messaged triumphantly to say he had found last pack of couscous hidden behind an empty supermarket shelf. Neighbour came round to say he’d heard local garage will be getting some petrol tonight

Inflation in the 19 European countries that share the euro hit a 13-year high, challenging the European Central Bank’s (ECB) view that price pressures are largely benign and will soon fade.

Consumer price inflation in the eurozone accelerated to 3.4 percent over the year in September, up from 3 percent a month earlier and 2.2 percent the month before that, according to Oct. 1 data (pdf) from Eurostat, the European Union’s statisics agency.

Prices rose predominantly on a surge in energy costs, mostly a reversal of the oil price crash that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the impact from production and shipping bottlenecks was also showing as durable goods prices rose 2.3% from August.

With natural gas prices surging and bottlenecks impacting everything from car production to computer manufacturing, inflation could hit 4% by the end of the year, twice the ECB's target, before what the bank anticipates will be a relatively quick decline in early 2022.

But supply-chain disruptions appear to be getting worse, raising the chances that the inflation hump seeps into underlying prices and creates more permanent pressures as firms adjust pricing and wage policy.

Why?

Why?

tell them to stop!

But still not as bad as in the UK and still far more manageable, r206. I am a Brit but live in both the UK and EU and just came back to the UK from the EU a couple of days ago. Went to the supermarket and local deli/bakery yesterday and the shortages and empty shelves are astonishing. Yes, the shelves in the EU country in which I live are not as full as usual, but they're positively packed compared with what I've seen in the UK. The local petrol station in the UK is closed too, which is not happening in the EU. Sent my partner - who is currently in another EU country - some pics of the empty British supermarket shelves, and she was was shocked.

Inflation is going to lead to far higher prices in the UK but wages will not be going up in line with inflation.

There is a specific problem in the UK which makes everything much, much worse and, worst of all irreparable.

R207, your link is a little confused. The date given is June 2017, the data goes up to 2016, and the blurb at the bottom says the briefing was written for the 2015 election.

Whenever it was written, everything changed in 2016. By June 2017 this wasn't fully apparent, but now it is (except to the idiotic few). Brexit has made the UK unattractive and inaccessible. The embarrassment of the UK government now offering short-term work visas with unattractive conditions to EU nationals, after they had insisted they wouldn't. Very few, a negligible number, if any, will take up that gracious offer.

It comes down to this: Has the British government come up with a deal or agreement as equally good or better than whatever the EU had to offer? I fail to see all the reports in the press about how successful Britain is doing with all the Brexit handling to make sure the UK will go on without being part of the EU and its deals.

It really does feel like the shit has hit the fan in this country. Fuel shortages, stupid twats panic buying, gas companies folding and prices shooting up, not being able to fill jobs because all the EU nationals had to leave the country.

Before long the migrants will be rowing their boats back to France.

R211 - Really? The migrant boat crisis has been going for several years.

So far, not one boat has set out for France.

The same shit has hit the fan in other places than Britain. So far, the British are holding up.

And the Tories are 8 points ahead of Labour if you check YouGov.

Somewhere along the line, your message isn't getting through.

'UK Economic Outlook Summer 2021: Emerging from the Shadow of Covid-19. In our Summer forecast for the UK economy GDP grows by 6.8 per cent in 2021, an upward revision of 1.1 percentage points since May's Spring Outlook, and 5.3 per cent in 2022."

Disappointing, innit?

You could always try another REJOIN demonstration. Maybe, if you corral all the dinghy migrants, you'll get more than 100 people next time.

As for the BREXIT polls - every time things get rough, the regret vote goes up, and the polls for Scottish independence go up.

And then, times goes by, and, what do you know, the polls for Scottish independence are back down to 45% (they were up to 56% in the midst of the pandemic) with NO slightly ahead.

And as the pandemic passes and the trade deals keep getting struck . . . the polls re BREXIT will shift, too.

Well, there it is, voters are fickle.

And the UK isn't rejoining the EU.

And the migrants don't want to stay in France.

And no one is going to find the lost continent of Atlantis.

[quote]There is a specific problem in the UK which makes everything much, much worse and, worst of all irreparable.

Okay, R208. Please spill. What is that "specific problem" that you have seemingly identified, but clearly not revealed.

I may be wrong, R213, but I thought R208 was citing the consequences of Brexit as making the shortage problem specific to Britain, whereas in the EU the like problems have other and fewer causes and are more easily reparable. No mystery.

Thank you for your unsolicited opinion, R214. But your interpretations are not the gold standard on which the world relies. There is nothing here for you to fix.

R208 did not state that Brexit was the problem. And if you have personal knowledge of what R208 was thinking when s/he wrote it, you did not state the source of that personal knowledge.

In short, when you intruded and offered your mere opinion, you added nothing. R208 wrote an interesting post, but the summation was not explicit. Since it goes to the entire point of the post, I'll wait to see if R208 replies.

what are the food shortages? this is shocking...

The specific problem in Britain is leaving the single market and customs union (aka Brexit), which leads to barriers to trade, higher prices, bureaucracy and excessive labour shortages. While other EU countries are also seeing labour shortages as furloughs end, businesses open up again and consumers go back to shopping on the high street and return to cafes and restaurants, the problem in the UK is far more structural and is not solely related to this sudden surge in demand.

When the UK is having to import turkeys for Christmas from countries such as Poland and France because there isn't enough farm labour to rear turkeys in the UK, then there's an obvious problem that the UK is suffering from but that EU countries aren't.

[quote]Millions of British Christmas dinners are to be saved by turkeys imported from Poland and France after UK farmers were forced to slash production because of fears of labour shortages.

[quote]UK supermarkets and restaurants will have to import hundreds of thousands of the birds from the EU for Christmas after British farmers reared at least 1m fewer birds, the poultry industry has warned.

Thank you. Lots of info there that it would difficult to obtain from the other side of the Atlantic. There are dynamics that can be anticipated, or speculated upon. But observations from some on the ground and watching are invaluable.

Much appreciated.

Yes, R212, tell us about all of the trade deals that are being struck. Share the terms with us, please. I need a good laugh.

Will Hutton in today's Observer echoes the FT's sentiments:

"Meanwhile, surveys show a growing majority in favour of immigration. The open question in British politics is whether Brexit can even half work before the public gives up on it. The government’s actions betray its anxiety over the answer. My guess, after this week, is that the moment when the public begins to stop believing is approaching and faster than anyone thinks."

I see our resident Brexiteer @ r212 (and about 20 other posts on this thread alone) is getting a little testy.

Just keep repeating "It's all for the best, it's all for the best" and I'm sure everything will be fine again, dear.

You might also try clicking your heels together three times...it can't hurt.

I have r218/r219 on ignore so I can't see what they're saying, although I can imagine it's some swivel loon drivel

Whoops, no, my bad. I must have been trying to W&W them and my fat finger tapped Ignore instead. Sorry, guys!

If there were a general election held tomorrow, which party would you vote for? %

Sept 29th:

R212 is so out of touch.

It's no longer just about the polls or the numbers or the political wind.

People are actually struggling now because of Brexit. Food, fuel, labour shortages.

Britain is nothing without Europe. And the Brits are all about to learn that painful truth.

Denying that truth is exactly what Brexit was about, r226, and like all dyed-in-the-wool chauvinists (see link below), the Brexiters, like the MAGAts, will go to their deaths asserting that leaving the EU was a good idea and a return to Britain's former glory is just around the corner -- if only there weren't COVID, and then the supply chain problems, and then... well, who knows what the next excuse will be.

Sorry, forgot the link above.

Labour is never gonna win an election as long as they pander to the woke crowd and erase women at the same time. Women have had enough.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Sobering figures for Labour r224 who, let's not forget, voted for Boris Johnson's Brexit deal with a three-line whip, on diktat from Keir Starmer. Labour also make every effort never to mention Brexit or point out that it's the reason for many of our country's problems. There's really little difference between the Tories and Labour on Brexit now.

Combine that with, as r229, points out Labour's nasty attitude to women, even the women within its own party, and Labour don't have a hope in hell.

Interesting to watch BJ on the flagship Marr TV show today. Despite the firm feeling that the UK feels all too Soviet-era and/or 70s dysfunction, BJ was in confident if not bullish mood.

Body language open and relaxed, unruffled by any pressing question despite Marr's best efforts. BJ will dredge up routine charm to touch the Tories' g-spot for the big speech this week. Pandering press will hose him down in treacle again. Wonder how much the public will continue to eat it.

That BJ swagger or confidence you refer to, is not really going over well it appears, r232. Some columnist just shredded him - seeing through the fake bravado. Wish I could remember where I read it.

Even the Sunday Times front page cartoon depicts a slobbering, fat, paunchy, disheveled, BJ amidst cartoons of Cressida Dick, this tragic rundown double decker red bus (supposedly to pick up frightened women stopped by "pervert" cops), electricity lines, etc That's the Tory - loving Times.

[quote]BJ was in confident if not bullish mood. Body language open and relaxed, unruffled

That's his brand. If things get worse he'll start quoting the Iliad in Greek and pounding his chest.

And from today’s Marr interview, r232, we also get a glimpse of BJ’s new Tatcher-like strategy of forcing the country go through whatever horrors it takes to reconstruct the UK as a post-EU nirvana. It’s Thatcher’s ruthless anti-miners pt 2, and her equally appallingly ruthless anti-Irish-hunger strikers redux. I hope the Brits don’t just lie back and let it happen again.

[quote] IOW, not proper jogging attire.

Oh my god! He was dressed 𝑢𝑛𝑓𝑎𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑦. The bastard.!

The supply chain issue is worldwide.

Try the piece on CNN today called, How America Ruined Christmas.

Did America vote for BREXIT?

Keep trying, trolls. You can whistle it from now till Donesday. It's not happening.

Sure R237, keep telling yourself that

R235, does BJ have all the North Sea oil that Mrs. Thatcher had to make his ruthlessness more palatable?

Oh, yes, the trade deals:

As of June 2021, major trade deals were signed with Japan, Australia and the (gasp!) EU.

In addition, 67 continuity agreements were signed replicating and replacing agreements that were part of Britain's EU status.

You fucking trolls works just love to see Britain sink into the sea for leaving the EU.

It won't. It stood off the Wars of the Rose's, the Black Plague, WWI. WWII, the Depression, the loss of empire in the modern era, andnit will bloodu well survive the EU.

And, by the way, the EU in its stupidity (remember how it let those falsified VW fuel emissions pass?) let go one of the only two members who had anything resembling a bona fide military defence force.

The EU isn't the Alpha and Omega of human society. Britain did far better with its vaccination programme.

And, again, I refer you to Britain, America, and Australia putting the boot up France's arse as they turn their attention to the real issue: China.

See you in ten years, trolls.

No Labour conference bounce for Keir Starmer as Tories EXTEND lead in poll… despite Boris Johnson being engulfed in fuel chaos

@R240, I've heard Britain is sinking

R241, Starmer is a disgrace and a divisive figure in his own party. That's why he was not given a hard time by the right-wing press because the Tories knew he wasn't up to the job, not a real threat like Corbyn.

r243 = anti-Semitic Corbynista.

^To stand the old saying on its head, with enemies like Starmer and the delightful Angela Rayner, who needs enemies?

R244, Keir, is that you? Et tu brute...

The Tories also fell in the polls r241, but Labour fell more so that increases the Tory lead.

Corbyn completely decimated Labour r243. Starmer is the fag end of Corbyn's "leadership". All the Labour politicians with any true political intelligence avoided having anything to do with Corbyn's shadow cabinet. Starmer is the product of Corbyn's Labour.

Let's not forget r243 that one very obvious reason why Labour have not only not had a conference bounce but have even slipped in the polls is the horrendous mess over the trans issue and who has a cervix, which the Corbynites forced on the party. The irony is that Corbyn even adopted the Tories' then policy (under Theresa May) of gender self-id, which Labour had not previously supported and which Labour Women opposed. Corbyn agreed with the Tories and would have forced his party to help the Tory government push through a policy that grassroots Labour activists vehemently opposed!

The Johnson government was then able to quietly drop gender self-ID in the wake of the Keira Bell ruling, but Labour are still glued to this bullshit. Thanks, Corbyn!

And since this thread is about Brexit, just so we don't get too off-topic, Corbyn is a lifelong ideological Brexiter whose lukewarm "support" for Remain legitimised the Leave campaign and allowed many Labour voters to think voting Leave was fine and there wouldn't be any serious repercussions.

[quote] the delightful Angela Rayner

She is a 'Bovver Boy' in hob-nailed boots.

R37, it was the blathering about George Soros, who is completely irrelevant to any of this that led to the Vlad comment. Anyone who mentions him is likely a MAGA-equivalent. The sentiment behind the formation of the EU was a positive one, to create a unit with more clout in the world as other regions became more powerful economically. The problem is that it did not anticipate the effects of cultural differences and the great changes in immigration.

There appeared to be a big populist influence in the UK. The smartest thing that bonehead Boris Johnson ever did was call the election when he did, because he was able to capitalize on that populist wave. If the election were today, the outcome would be difference as the fisherman and farmers are running into so many problems. Thus, by winning when he did, he was able to buy himself more time to really empty the government coffers. Here is a piece of an interview that he did a day or so ago. . .Of course he's lying. No one is getting paid much of anything. So much of the British economy is going up in flames. And I think until the conservatives call another election, they can continue to rob the country blind.

Here's a better interview where the interviewer actually points out his lies about wages, and cites his governments own reports to prove that Johnson is lying.

I don't know why you need 'proof' of anything R252, Boris is always lying. If you had to fact-check everything that comes out of his mouth, there wouldn't be anough hours in a day.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

R242, please see article in R254 where it says that Keir is doing even worse than Jeremy ever was at this stage.

As I said — utter disgrace

Sorry R255 is for R248 NOT R242

R249 I brought the cervix comments up at r28 and was immediately accused of being a "troll" and detailing the thread into a "pet topic." The subject is literally unmentionable to a significant number on the left and I can't see that changing, can you?

R224 sobering all you people so sure that you're right about everything, when do you think that the ignorant bigots will finally accept your wisdom and start accepting that you ARE correct about everything?

Of course Keir is doing worse at this stage than Corbyn because Corbyn left Labour in a shittier state than Miliband did, so Corbyn started at a higher point than Starmer did. Labour at the same point in Corbyn's rule, after about 18 months, still had a decent body of MPs and local party organisation and there was also some hope in 2016/2017 that Labour might be able to deflect the worst effects of the referendum. That's what buoyed the party and which rubbed off on Corbyn, it wasn't Corbyn himself. Moreover, his grip on the party and the infiltration by Momentum had not been completely consolidated by that point, and the anti-Semitism hadn't become so rife. Basically, at the same point in Corbyn's leadership as Starmer is now, people still saw Labour, because of what it had been not long previously, as a somewhat reasonable opposition party that offered a prospect for government in the future but not with Corbyn. And Corbyn himself at that point was trying to appear more moderate, wearing smart suits and ties and trying to soften his image.

As I said at r248, one of the many negative effects of Corbyn's control of Labour is that the vaguely decent Labour MPs avoided Corbyn's shadow cabinet, so there was little talent left at the top once Corbyn had decimated the party. That Starmer was part of Corbyn's shadow cabinet is a reflection of his lack of political talent. Moreover, Corbyn drove out almost all the decent MPs, certainly those with government-level skill, and the current PLP that he bequeathed to Starmer is a shell of the one he inherited from Miliband.

Corbyn is complete trash and Starmer is a product of Corbyn's leadership of the Labour party. Starmer is simply continuing the slide that Corbyn started.

It's changing r257, albeit gradually and slowly. After the way top Labour party members, including the leader, embarrassed themselves over cervixes last week and the upshot is that, instead of a conference bounce they lose support in the polls will make some start to reconsider this issue. There is a grassroots fightback, in Labour and within the country, against the trans cult. Women are fed up with this shit and Labour can see that they are losing votes and coming across as a bunch of extremist loons.

The Cass Review into "gender identity" services for young people and children will also expose how troubled kids have been shoved into transition, medicalisation and mutilation instead of being given proper psychiatric treatment and social care.

"If there was another referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, how would you vote?"

Field work dates: 28 June 2016 - 3 September 2021

Data from: Great Britain, United Kingdom Results from: 111 polls

R224 - Yes, dear, we all know that that pendulum goes on swinging, especially in volatile times when the unexpected descends, such as pandemics and the global supply chain that is affecting most of the West.

If you read the article under the stats, you can see that YouGov makes clear that the Tories still hold a lead, but that their lead is far more fragile than it was.

This is pat for the course in politics. Joe Biden's approval ratings are plunging, and Angela Merkel's CDU just had the worst result in its history, at last losing the power it has wielded for decades over the course of Germany.

In 2015, David Cameron was writing his resignation speech, because all the polls said Labour was about to get in. Ten minutes after the exit polls emerged, he tore it up and began writing his speech as the new PM, but without having to go into coalition with the Lib Dems, and the rest, as they say, is history, as the first thing the fool did was promise a referendum on the EU because he looked at the polls and no one, anywhere, thought LEAVE had a snowball's.

You know what they say: in politics, a week is a lifetime, and a year and eternity.

Frankly, I never thought the Tories would hold onto all of the Red Wall voters. I saw an interview after the election with two former multi-generational Labour voters who voted the Tories in, and both said, looking around their dismal northern town, that Labour had done nothing for them in decades, so they were going to give the Tories a chance. Corbyn was also unpopular - quite ironically, one of the world's foremost Eurosceptics, whose defence of REMAIN because Labour was formally for REMAIN, was so half-hearted he probably persuaded Labour voters up north to vote LEAVE by damning with faint praise. It's one of the few issues I've ever agreed with Corbyn on.

BREXIT had nothing to do with those two people's vote.

I said to myself, watching that interview, "Don't hold your breath."

Labour totally cocked it up, not BREXIT.

The people laying at BREXIT's and LEAVE voter's feet the fact that perfection didn't rise and shine on Britain on 25 June 2016 are the true bigots here. As I said, if a meteor struck Yorkshire tomorrow, the people on this thread would blame BREXIT.

The EU has been papering over the cracks in its delusions of grandeur for some time. The future lies with China. Merkel has been in Putin's pocket for a long time and that's why the Nord II pipeline, bringing cheap energy to Germany, is going through. Yes, despite having to grovel to Putin for it.

Please. Stop the bullshit about - let's see, how did Corbyn put it? - this "corporate old boys' club".

^*par (not pat) for the course

So what would be your solution exactly to the employment issues we are now facing? Specifically London. Where will get the workforce we need? The future is China you say? Well there are a few issues with that. No? What are your politics exactly?

Whom are you addressing, r263?

R261 - whom I do have on ignore for the right reason - has no answer, r263, and talks complete shit.

The only option for the UK economy now is to shrink, and that is what will happen over time if things stay like this.

Nobody was whingeing about bring out of the EU when the EU cocked up its vaccine rollout.

Visas for foreign workers are an easy fix. Germany did it with the Turks for decades.

America does it with illegal Hispanics.

America's supply chain is also hit.

Crises come and go.

I voted Labour in 2015 - Cameron was not the only one in shock when those exit polls came out at ten past ten, and there was I who had believed all those polls giving Labour the night. I loathed Cameron, always have, almost as much as I despised Blair over Iraq.

I was against the EU from the beginning and turned against Labourvwhen Corbyn took over, and voted Tory in 2019.

I've never believed in party loyalty, they're all just bands of thugs one way or another.

I wasn't thrilled with Miliband, I thought he got a raw deal, but I'd have accepted him. But I'd never have accepted Corbyn in #10 and voted accordingly.

I don't like huge centralised power. Never have. I expected BREXIT to take years to settle.

And lastly, Europe has always hated Britain. It hated us inside the EU and now it hates us for leaving.

All that We're going to stay in and reform the EU from the inside was codswollop and the people who said it knew it as they uttered the words. Britain won about 8% only of its push for certain things.

The EU could easily have headed off BREXIT when Cameron came calling in February 2016, with the polls shifting suddenly and begging for something he could take back to swing the polls back.

Instead, Merkel and that corrupt drunk Juncker laughed him out of the room.

Do any of you lot blame THEM?! No, of course not.

It's just the fault of us racist Brits.

Since you asked about my politics.

Like I said, r266 talks complete shit and is also obviously very demented.

And there we have our answer folks! ^^^

Honestly R266 I don’t know how any gay person could vote Tory. That’s depressing that you did.

[quote]Europe has always hated Britain. It hated us inside the EU and now it hates us for leaving.

On the occasional moments when their thoughts drift across the channel.

Could it be because of the drunken British soccer fans trashing the Continent every time someone kicks a soccer ball?

R270 You mean like when they were remembering that Britain was their second biggest net contributor, and one of only two members with an actual defence force?

Yeah, they needed our money and our military security and one of the best intelligence services on the planet . . .

But, really, they never gave us a thought.

Till we left and they had to start plugging the gaping budgetary hole we left.

Your comment proves my point. A G7 nation with the world's 5th largest economy, their second biggest net contributor, one of only two members with a trsl defence force. . .

And you lot pretend they never gave us a thought from one year's end to the next.

In which case, it begs the question about WHY THEY WERE SO FUCKING ENRAGED WHEN WE LEFT.

With our money, our defence force, and our intelligence service.

Funny, they didn't squawk at all when Greenland left.

You fucking hypocrites. Only a moron would pretend that Britain wasn't a major loss for the EU.

If we weren't, they wouldn't have been so bloody angry.

[quote] Only a moron would pretend that Britain wasn't a major loss for the EU.

Britain is not a major loss for us

R272 (aka R266 R261 R240 R212 R186 R165) is a nutjob, who despite his/her/its mile-long posts, never makes any sense.

Keir Starmer reminds me of Winnie The Pooh.

Britain? I dropped by once. Terrible weather.

On second thought, can we get this thread paywalled again just to quarantine the looney Brexiteer at r212 ff spamming the place up?

It's becoming unreadable with all his/her/xyr rants...

[quote] The Brits don’t have any monopoly on stupidity. Didn’t we recently elect *literally the worst human being on earth* to be our leader? The story of humanity is the march of folly.

Come now. There are worse people than Donald Trump. Trump isn’t a woke virtue signaller, is he? It could be so much worse. Tom Hanks, Lewis Hamilton, Prince Harry or one of The Pogues, for instance.

[bold]France Threatens Channel Islands' Power Supply Over Fishing[/bold]

Britain has refused to grant all the fishing licences sought by French boats. France "will not stand for this," European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune said. Channel Islands Jersey and Guernsey are close to France which supplies them with electricity. Fishing rights for EU boats in UK waters were a key stumbling block to negotiations for a post-Brexit trade accord.

If there is a labor shortage, I wonder if the UK has able-bodied people who won’t work, like the U.S. has. There may be a need to curtail benefits for people who won’t work.

Nope, that’s the lazy assumption r280. The Conservative solution to the WFC wasn’t investment in industry to encourage employment and spending to beef up the economy but Austerity. Welfare benefits have been pared to the bone for well over a decade. When schools operated remotely during lockdown there was a real concern that children would not be fed at home, as the school lunch was the main meal of the day.

The HGV driver shortage eventuated from four great issues (among many more):

1. European drivers leaving the UK,

2. disinterest from the local population,

3. the local population not being able to be tested and qualified during the pandemic and

4. the nature of the logistics itself: when it is organised that goods are distributed according to a tight schedule with the minimum of waste, when tens of thousands of workers are lost from the industry and not replaced at the same rate, the result is exponentially worse than expected.

[quote] Nope, that’s the lazy assumption

Because it’s about lazy people who would rather live on the dole than work for a living?

Nope. Because the lack of European workers/immigrants has less to do with lazy English peasants and more to do with the parochial British character.

R8 While 53% isn't overwhelming disapproval, the "things are going well, glad we exited" number is 38% in this poll. That's a seriously lower number than anything since the election. If that continues to fall, down to 30% or under, both Labor and Torries will run next time on "let's rethink this"...

Push people off the dole and they will become less lazy out of neccessity.

It's so interesting that it's just *now that Tories realize the Empire is over and no one cares what the UK thinks.

Push people off the dole and they will break into your house and steal your stuff while you're away slaving for the man.

R285 - It does not work like that. You cannot pull someone out of a dole line, wave a magic want and make them a HGV driver in less than 24 hours. Same goes with skilled healthcare workers as you cannot pull someone out of a dole line, wave a magic want and make them a nurse in less than a week.

r288, you have to start the process sometime or else the additional trained workers will never be there.

R286 should Google "Margaret Thatcher."

Another great Brexit achievement!

The slaughter of healthy pigs has begun on British farms, with farmers forced to kill animals to make space and ensure the continued welfare of their livestock, amid an ongoing shortage of workers at slaughterhouses.

Pig farmers have been warning for several weeks that labour shortages at abattoirs have led to a backlog of as many as 120,000 pigs left stranded on farms long after they should have gone to slaughter.

The meat industry is one of many sectors of the UK economy grappling with labour shortages linked to Brexit and the pandemic, while a lack of delivery workers and drivers has affected supply chains.

About 600 pigs have been killed at farms across the country, according to Zoe Davies, the chief executive of the National Pigs Association, who said that culling had begun at a “handful” of farms.

R289 - You start the process when people are leaving high school to train them for a profession that needs workers.

Gosh it's almost like a national tantrum that attacked immigrants would have repercussions! It's almost as if immigrants were contributing members of society and not the scary foreign leeches the shit British tabloid media said they were! Huh!!

R274 - No one who disagrees with you is making sense, right?

You're blocked. Perhaps the rest of us can engage in some civil discourse on what is, despite your attempts to paint it as a comprehensive analysis of a country you clearly hate pathologically, a complicated geopolitical picture with some appreciation of same.

R276 - Then you dropped by in November, mighty Caesar.

As the poet said, "Oh, to be in England now that April's there."

There's nothing terribly geopolitical about Britain these days. They're a third-rate power with a negligible military who decided to leave an economic bloc that rivaled the US or China. They have decided they want to be a laughingstock, a backwater, because they hate Polish plumbers with the heat of 1000 suns.

But Brexit isn't geopolitical. It's a resignation from geopolitical significance.

M296 "Oh Doris, y'er so right! All the stores up on High Street have all that Polish stoof... can't even find a box of PG Tips to save yer life!!"

I think it's time to start whoring out British women to Russian oligarchs for cash. Russian men are used to women with rotten teeth, they certainly won't mind a bit.

[quote]It's almost as if immigrants were contributing members of society and not the scary foreign leeches the shit British tabloid media said they were!

Yes, Daily Mail, proud Britain has finally 'Taken Back Control!' No more immigrants, many with darker skin tones, swarming into our island to take jobs from honest British workers!

Four years on, and we can all see how well this is working! Britain has never felt so Great about itself!

Oh, wait...

[quote] They're a third-rate power with a negligible military

I wouldn't say that.

Winter is coming!

Even Pakistan and North Korea have nukes, R300.

Australia now has nuclear submarines. Your point is that the UK is now as powerful as Australia? Gosh, congrats.

Australia will end up with several more attack subs than the UK but so far Australia has not entered the strategic boomer race. Attack subs kill other subs, and boomrs kill countries

[quote]I think it's time to start whoring out British women to Russian oligarchs for cash.

Start?

She was German, dear.

I think the main problems are over-optimisation and diploma inflation. They employ the minimum amount of minimum wage workers and too many useless managers. Same thing in healthcare.

So much silliness in Britain now.

Were Londoners as silly as this during The Blitz?

I do love the self-righteous virtue-signalling of people whilst demonstrating hate and spouting out of date stereotypes.

If you changed Brits to blacks or Asians, you lot would be frothing at the mouth with indignation.

You make the case for BREXIT.

Rant all you like. It's thankfully done and YOU CAN FUCKING EAT IT.

And yet, R309, the pigs are being slaughtered, the lorries are staying put, and Tiny Tim won't get his Christmas turkey.

"because they hate Polish plumbers with the heat of 1000 suns."

R296 - I have heard the English do not care for Bulgarian brick layers either.

It was always known that there would be adjustment. The success of Brexit will take years before it can be properly assessed.

It's so interesting how R309 and others like him love to feel oppressed. They seem to think that oppressed people get like free stuff or get a free parade or something. It's weird.

Being oppressed sucks and ruins your life. If you're not oppressed, be happy about it.

And people saying mean things online about your stupid fucking idea (like Brexit) isn't oppression.

[quote]It was always known that there would be adjustment. The success of Brexit will take years before it can be properly assessed.

So 'adjustment' for years then, meaning the type of disruption visited upon national life not experienced for fifty years.

Odd that such 'adjustment' wasn't referred to in Dominic Cummings's 'brilliant' glib three-word slogans which so thrilled Johnson and let him claim a 'famous victory.'

Doubtless 'ordinary hard-working taxpayers' who wanted chiefly to 'take back control' will be only too glad to put up with all and any disruption and limitations to their lives, in the knowledge that - at some unspecified date years hence - their 'victory' will be assessed as a 'success.'

Jam tomorrow, people, when the supermarket shelves are full again.

Bad:

[quote]self-righteous virtue-signaling

Good:

[quote]YOU CAN FUCKING EAT IT!!

R309 Hence the problem with our times......

[quote] I think it's time to start whoring out British women to Russian oligarchs for cash.

Way ahead of you.

R282 escaped the Con conference in Manchester to grace us with his/her presence.

Do you live on the dole, R317?

You're not uncommon.

R318, no but neither am I a sociopath with little empathy for people who are struggling under the circumstances of covid + brexit and need help to make ends meet.

[quote]So 'adjustment' for years then, meaning the type of disruption visited upon national life not experienced for fifty years.

All of the EU is experiencing the type of disruption visited upon national life not experienced for fifty years.

R320, the EU is experiencing the disruption of the pandemic, but not anywhere near to the extent that the UK is, where everything is compounded by Brexit. How many pigs have been culled in the EU? Which EU country sent its army out to deliver petrol? How many EU energy companies have gone bust in the past few weeks?

R320 took the words right out of my mouth.

The Brexiteer @r320 refuses to admit that Brexit is a shitshow, and that the UK hasn’t seen the worst of it—by a long shot.

Sorry, r321 took the words right out of my mouth.

No, It was the other guy who took the words right out of my mouth.

It's is a curse to get what you wish for! And the UK got no one but BoJo the clown to get them out of this mess. Best of luck to ya!

The repercussions of Amexit were far worse, yet the U.S. bounced back. It’s silly to say the UK won’t also.

[quote] From the outbreak of war in the spring of 1775 until 1781, immigration to the thirteen rebellious colonies by both free and bound fell to a trickle. Natural increase during the war raised the free population by over 200,000, but far more British regulars arrived in the colonies than migrating settlers. Although natural increase among slaves continued during the Revolution, the evaporation of new imports plus the escape of slaves and some emancipations caused the slave population to decline by nearly 1 percent a year. Shortages of servant labor were more acute. Nearly all servant indentures required four to five years of service; approximately 20 percent of all servant indentures expired each year. Without immigration, the normal replacement pool of servants was not available. As a result, by 1780 the servant population was less than 20 percent of what it had been five years earlier.

[quote] In short, the economy of the new nation in 1781 was a shambles. The United States had combined debts of nearly £40 million, no national treasury, and a national government, under the Articles of Confederation, with no power to tax. It had no international credibility to borrow monies against. Its devastated countryside, including a manufacturing base that even at its previous best had supplied 10 percent of consumer needs, would take several years to recover. It was at least temporarily barred from its place within an international commercial network on which it had been dependent for 150 years.

Immigration helped a lot with America's bounce back. I'm not sure the same is possible for the UK and Brexit was about (supposedly) reducing immigration. The US had slavery too, regardless of whether the slave population declined, and infinite unconquered lands to claim. It's kinda a different situation.

In the very long term, I believe BREXIT will seriously hurt the UK (or England in the UK discombobulates).

[quote] In the very long term, I believe BREXIT will seriously hurt the UK (or England in the UK discombobulates).

You should also indicate to what extent you fervently hope that that happens.

R326? What R327 said. Apples and oranges.

R329 - I hope it does not happen. I have no desire to see anything bad happen to the UK.

R331 - In support of your comment, many of us here do not wish misfortune on the British people. They have, however, chosen to embark on a course of action that will have consequences, some of them negative. The present government seems more interested in digging in its heels than finding solutions that will benefit the general population. The UK has left the EU - that is a reality - but as the world's sixth-largest economy, events there will have repercussions well beyond their borders.

So I, for one, wish for the UK to find its way as a partner in the greater world community, and mitigate the damage that Brexit has caused for its people.

All the above is pointless, factless speculation.

I want the UK to achieve all the benefits of leaving the EU and to prosper greatly. I hope the people of the UK in the future will be well satisfied that they made the right choice to leave the EU.

That’s how to be affirmative in expressing support for the British people.

[quote] I want the UK to achieve all the benefits of leaving the EU and to prosper greatly. I hope the people of the UK in the future will be well satisfied that they made the right choice to leave the EU.

[quote] That’s how to be affirmative in expressing support for the British people.

I want the UK to achieve all the benefits of leaving the EU and to prosper greatly. I hope the people of the UK in the future will be well satisfied that they made the right choice to leave the EU.

That’s how to be affirmative in expressing support for the racism, bigotry, and xenophobia of the British people.

R334 That's called silly wishful thinking. Wishing they can survive this mess is more realistic.

R334 is being sarcastic, because there are no benefits to leaving the EU.

Interesting clip on Youtube:

[quote] German Shopkeepers Laugh at Brexit Shortages

[quote] I want the UK to achieve all the benefits of leaving the EU and to prosper greatly. I hope the people of the UK in the future will be well satisfied that they made the right choice to leave the EU. That’s how to be affirmative in expressing support for the British people.

Oh fuck off, Camilla Parker Bowles

The posters on this thread claiming the UK's global importance are neglecting to mention that the EU is, in economic terms, a single unit. It is the equal of the US and it is more important than China.

The UK decided, based on lies, to leave that unit and strike out on its own. Fine. Why should anyone bother with the relative piddling nature of the UK market when the EU is right there?

[quote] Why should anyone bother with the relative piddling nature of the UK market when the EU is right there?

It’s not an either-or situation.

A big, important country like the US is going to do deals with the EU and relegate the UK to third-string. It was the UK's choice to do so.

The U.S. has deals with countries smaller than the UK. It’s more wishful thinking that the U.S. wouldn’t have a trade deal with the UK.

Of course it will, r343. The question is, what bargaining power will the UK have over the US in any negotiations? Do the Brits really believe that their “special relationship” with the US is going to stop the US from extracting every possible advantage out of trade deals, even at the expense of the Brits? The world is no longer what it was when Maggie and Ronald did the two-step as they watched the Soviet Union collapse.

I even doubt that the UK has any bargaining power when it comes to Australia, to be honest. I can see a scumbag like Scott Morrison riding roughshod over BoJo’s plans to “expand” into the southeast Asian or Pacific markets.

The U.S. has a trade agreement with Australia, which is only about 40% the population of the UK. The U.S. will have a agreement with the UK that is beneficial to both nations and the pro-EU people will wail and gnash their teeth.

[quote]That’s how to be affirmative in expressing support for the racism, bigotry, and xenophobia of the British people.

You mean like the racism, bigotry, and xenophobia of the EU? That bad?

The Tory leadership of the UK sold Brexit partly on the idea that Our Best Buds the USA will swoop in and form a Special Trade Relationship to make up for all the trade lost to the Continent and that...didn't happen.

Because without the EU, the UK isn't that important. The US will get to it when it gets to it.

Meanwhile, enjoy waiting for gas!

Germany is laughing...

[quote] Germany is laughing...

The same country that laughed at Jews being rounded up. Are you sure you want to use them as a reference?

R341, Brexiters were very anxious to convince us that it's an either-or situation. And, in a way, they are right. Say you are Intel and you want to build a new chip factory in Europe. Would you choose the UK, which has a small market and barriers to trade and the movement of capital and people, or would you choose the EU, which has a 450 million population, freedom of movement and capital so you can have talented staff from all over the EU and also sites in various EU countries in a seamless supply chain, and which is capable of developing international standards for chips and has serious trade agreements with other parts of the world that will really help promote your product?

Trump never bothered much with a trade deal with the UK and Biden has explicitly said it's not a priority. And why would the UK want a free trade agreement with the US? So we can lower our food standards and obliterate our farming and some of our manufacturing, all for a tiny, tiny increase in trade that will have very little benefit for UK households but could have a knock-on effect and undermine our trade with the EU, where they have different food and other standards (in fact, the same standards the UK has today and which we claim we want to maintain)?

R349, once you invoke logical fallacies, you lose the argument. Thanks for playing.

R349, since we are playing that game, shall we also talk about the concentration camps the English set up in Kenya and how they exterminated thousands of people. Or the harm they caused in populations in Ireland, India, South Africa.....In fact, everywhere that has been under their rule.

Since we are going to play that game....

The US will trade with the EU because it is to the mutual financial advantage of those two huge markets to trade with one another.

The US will trade with the UK when it is politically advantageous to do so. That long history shared by the two countries, as well as a language and a legal system, is far from being played out. But economically, the UK is not hugely important. The economy of California is larger than that of the UK. The economy of Texas approaches that of the UK in size. But economically, the UK is strictly optional for the US. For the UK, the financial relationship is do-or-die. Look for the US to be making the UK bend over frequently. If any UK government wants to survive, it will do as instructed by the US. Or starve.

This is why the Tory harrumphing over Afghanistan was so cute. They're like a Shih Tzo who thinks it's a Labrador. Sad.

[quote] The Tory leadership of the UK sold Brexit partly on the idea that Our Best Buds the USA will swoop in and form a Special Trade Relationship to make up for all the trade lost to the Continent

And those cunts have criticized Biden since the day he won the election

The British politicians called President Biden feeble minded, an imbecil , dangerous, deranged, crazy. Boris johnson even called him "sleepy Joe" to other tory idiots and said, they'd have been better off with trump

But the best part is when they said Biden was delusional when he told them in July that they would be having enormous shortages in the coming months. They laughed and laughed at "crazy Joe Biden"

And in September they said, "doddery old Biden is a liability for Britain - and can't be trusted"

This is so funny. They did this to themselves and they deserve every bit of it

Give credit where credit is due, r353 -- the English didn't just use concentration camps, they invented them! After all, they needed someplace to lock up all those dangerous Boer women and children while they stole their land.

All hail Lord Kitchener! And BoJo too!

r354, every country the size of the UK or smaller is “optional”, so to speak, yet we trade with them. The hope that the UK and U.S, won’t have a trade deal or that it will be disadvantageous to the UK is what Remainers desperately cling to, but there’s no reasonable basis for their pipe dream..

Lol r358, those of us who think Brexit is bullshit don't cling to any particular position on a free trade agreement with the US because we were never obsessed with one. It's the Brexiters who tried to turn the small possibility of an FTA with the US into some amazing reason to leave the EU. The truth is that an FTA with the US would be to the disadvantage of the UK, as it would require the UK to lower standards and open parts of its economy to US industries and agriculture that receive subsidies, hence wiping out large chunks of our own agriculture and industry. Whatever extra trade might be done with the US would be negligible.

The US has no appetite for a free trade agreement with the UK at present and hasn't been for many years, which is why three successive presidents have dismissed the idea. Especially now with the Covid pandemic and US attempts to reshore manufacturing and with a more protectionist-minded US president. The pipe dream is that of the dumb leavers who think that there is any possibility for an FTA with the US (or any nation, aside from the rollovers of the deals the UK had through EU membership or FTA's that involve a significant lowering of standards, i.e. with Australia) or that, in the very unlikely hypothetical possibility of an FTA, such an FTA would be of advantage to the UK.

The UK Brexit government is even now considering trying to join the updated version of NAFTA because they know there's no chance of an FTA with the US.

UK considers joining existing US-Mexico-Canada trade deal as hopes of standalone post-Brexit agreement fade

A senior government figure suggests an alternative route to boosting trans-Atlantic trade could be the UK joining the existing free trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada, known as USMCA.

Greg Heffer, political reporter

Wednesday 22 September 2021 10:39, UK

Ministers are considering efforts to join an existing free trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada - or to strike a series of mini-deals with America - after Boris Johnson appeared to admit a standalone UK-US free trade deal was not an imminent prospect.

On his visit to New York and Washington DC this week, the prime minister has failed to commit to securing a free trade agreement between Britain and America by the time of the next general election in 2024.

He has also acknowledged that US President Joe Biden has "a lot of fish to fry" as he played down the chances of an agreement being struck soon between the two countries.

A senior government figure has suggested that an alternative route to boosting trans-Atlantic trade could be the UK joining the existing free trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada, known as USMCA.

Another option could be pursuing a series of smaller UK-US deals on separate issues, they added.

"There are different ways to do this, the ball in their court and it takes two to tango," the source said.

Asked about the prospects of a US-UK trade deal, as he sat next to Mr Johnson ahead of a White House meeting on Tuesday night, Mr Biden said: "We're going to talk a little bit about trade today and we're going to have to work that through."

And he did not reject the past suggestion, made by former US president Barack Obama, that the UK would be "back of the queue" for a post-Brexit trade agreement.

Mr Biden also issued a warning that post-Brexit arrangements between the UK and EU must not end in a "closed border" on the island of Ireland.

"On the (Northern Ireland) protocols I feel very strongly on those. We spent an enormous amount of time and effort, the United States, it was a major bipartisan effort made," he added.

"And I would not at all like to see, nor I might add would many of my Republican colleagues like to see, a change in the Irish accords, the end result having a closed border in Ireland."

The USMCA agreement came into effect in July last year and replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which former president Donald Trump had vowed to replace on taking office.

New Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is said to have raised the status of stalled UK-US trade negotiations during her meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in New York on Monday.

BoJo was trying to negotiate free movement between UK and Australia, but the Aussies put the nix on that.

Boris said one of the great benefits of Brexit will be cheaper energy prices! Tax promises, more trade the list is endless...

Don't forget the £350 million extra a week for the NHS, r362!

[quote] Boris said one of the great benefits of Brexit will be cheaper energy prices! Tax promises, more trade the list is endless...

Once the time it takes to make these things happen passes, we’ll see if he was right.

Pity they didn't stay in the EU and share all that cheap Euroenergy.

Gripped by Energy Crisis, Europe Considers Breaking Climate Promises and Turning to Coal

Europe is in the grip of an energy crisis amid rising prices for natural gas, increased demand for fossil fuels and the approach of the winter that will make access to fuel even more urgent.

The price of natural gas on the continent has risen sharply over the past year with the European benchmark up nearly 600 percent as of Thursday and the European Union (EU) seeking more gas supply from Russian energy firm Gazprom, which is already Europe's largest supplier, providing 35 percent of the continent's needs.

The UK is going through exactly the same energy problems r365 and even worse.

Energy crisis to last until 2022, with UK especially exposed, economists warn

UK is more reliant on gas than its EU neighbours, but it also has less capacity to store the fuel

Anna Isaac

Higher natural gas prices will last well into next year and the UK is acutely vulnerable to the global surge, economists have warned.

[...]

“In the UK, the problem is even more acute,” they warned. There had been “severe underinvestment in storage capacity over the past few years”.

“To make matters worse, the UK is far more dependent on natural gas for electricity generation compared to its EU neighbours,” the Oxford Economics briefing said. This dependency was for 40 per cent of energy generation, compared with 17 per cent in Germany and 7 per cent in France.

The UK’s largest gas storage facility, the Centrica-owned Rough site, was closed in 2017. Net imports of gas to the UK more than doubled in the three months to June compared with the same period in 2020, and exports fell by more than three-quarters (76 per cent) during the same three-month stretch.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

A circuit breaker of an electric generator that supplied homes with power in 2019 is pictured in the Lebanese capital Beirut's southern suburbs. Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images

Much of Lebanon is without power following outages in the country's core power plants.

The Zahrani plant lost power on Saturday and the Deir Ammar plant shut down the day before, Reuters reports. 𝐵𝑜𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦. The two plants, among Lebanon's largest, are responsible for supplying 40% of the country's power, according to the BBC.

The nation's power grid is not expected to work again until "next Monday, or for several days," a government official told Reuters.

R369, grasping at straws. The lengths some people would go to.....

If the BREXITERs in the UK wanted to immigration of Polish and Bulgarians, then why is the UK government considering extending thousands of work Visas to Polish and Bulgarian workers? This makes no sense to me. Hopefully a UK BREXITER can explain it.

NOT a UK Brexiter, but the difference between permanent residency by right and a time limited discretionary work visa is pretty fucking obvious.

R372 - I do not think the many EU people will take advantage of this UK visa scheme without very-very high wages being offered. The EU, like the UK, is said to have a shortage of skilled workers. Do you many EU citizens will take advantage of this VISA scheme?

[quote]Do you many EU citizens will take advantage of this VISA scheme?

I think you described it well. A time limited work visa is not particularly attractive, UNLESS local work is unavailable and the pay is well worth uprooting one's self and moving, temporarily, to the UK.

The motivation for the UK to hatch this plan is racism, xenophobia, and an on-going pig-headed refusal to accept the Empire has been lost. Reduced, anyway, down to a tiny island (and a part of another) off the coast of Europe.

Living in the UK is preferable to other options for migrants.

It is? Why? The lovely weather? The welcoming locals? The amazing food? The roaring economy? The competent governance?

[quote]Living in the UK is preferable to other options for migrants.

A bullshit statement that does not hold up to scrutiny. It's just the sort of racist and xenophobic bullshit one expects from a wide swath of the British populace. Not all. But far too many.

Of course, it depends on the migrant. And the migrant's current circumstances. And the pressures causing the migrant to migrate. The migrant's health, age, family status. The political conflicts between the potential migrant and the power brokers in his or her home country. And on and on.

A discretionary time-limited visa provides almost nothing that a migrant fleeing genuine hardship would need, i.e., stability and permanence and hope for a better life for the migrant and the migrant's family. It's just Britain once again preying on the weakness of unfortunate others.

[quote] It is? Why? The lovely weather? The welcoming locals? The amazing food? The roaring economy? The competent governance?

There’s plenty of them to ask.

Judging by what right-wing DLers say about the UK, it's a dangerous shithole where white women get raped by Muslims everywhere all the time and the police don't do anything about it.

I mean there is always a civil war somewhere, sometimes spurred on by financial shenanigans that come out of the City of London. Weird how that happens.

I can't wait to live temporarily in the storied country of Downton Abbey, Jane Austen, and clotted cream! Can I get a place with a thatched roof?

"There’s plenty of them to ask."

R378 - Refugees are not the people the UK is seeking with this current visa scheme. The UK wants EU skilled workers in the fields of Healthcare and HGV drivers (truckers in the USA) to work for a short time then leave.

I do not think EU skilled workers will be interested in any numbers to make a difference and I do not believe this Visa scheme is any way an answer for the labor distribution problem in the UK.

Yes, what could be more attractive an idea than to move to a poor, rainy, xenophobic island to be screamed at by an angry sick fat old lady from Pinner.

[quote] Refugees are not the people the UK is seeking with this current visa scheme.

People are people, and apparently, people want to be in the UK.

That Dutch guy interviewed last week who represents the union when it comes to the drivers laughed off the suggestion Europeans would want to go to the UK under this scheme. He said he had spoken to many drivers who "weren't willing to go to the UK to help it get itself out of the shit it created." The whole scheme is just insulting, but the people who created it are so arrogant they think workers in the EU would love to give up their time for a temporary arrangement like that because the UK is somehow so attractive that they can't help it.

It's that kind of thinking that lead to the mess that is Brexit in the first place.

But the UK doesn't want them, r384. The Brexiteers want refugees even less than they want Bulgarian and Polish workers. Those are staying away, but the refugees keep coming back to the mother country of their erstwhile empire.

Just another way Brexit was an own goal.

[quote]A bullshit statement that does not hold up to scrutiny. It's just the sort of racist and xenophobic bullshit one expects from a wide swath of the British populace. Not all. But far too many.

Just like the rest of the EU.

It's interesting that so many arguments from right-wingers in general boil down to "I know you are but what am I???"

It's interesting that so many arguments from left-wingers in general boil down to "you're a racist!", "you're a fascist!"

If only more right-wingers weren't racists or fascists.

Maybe right-wingers would prefer to be called stupid, illiterate, paranoid or gullible?

To all Brits - How would you solve the shortage of lorry drivers? I would really love to hear your ideas.

Why don’t they import truck drivers from India? They drive trucks in India and the drivers there earn little.

R393 - That is an excellent question.

I hope they are not just looking for drivers from Europe. Europeans on the continent are horrible, spiteful people.

[quote]How would you solve the shortage of lorry drivers?

Prince Andrew's available for good works.

Why would anyone who doesn't speak English want to move to a miserly, xenophobic shithole that just had a national freakout about accepting people like you?

Brexit was in the works for five years; the agonizing negotiations over details were in the news every day. How did the British not anticipate and plan for a shortage of truck drivers and turkey butchers by, e.g., training and licensing their own citizens in that time? Can they at least sneak a few in through the soft border from Ireland?

I believe that very few people would move to the UK on a temporary work visa to be a lorry driver or healthcare worker.

Tory leadership is stupid and blinkered and incompetent? They thought everything would magically fix itself while they drank and fornicated?

Transition takes time.

R401, half a decade transition wasn't enough?

Various sectors will take longer than others.

[quote]They thought everything would magically fix itself while they drank and fornicated?

Don't forget cricket. Johnson the day after the momentous vote which will change UK life for a generation at least went off to play cricket at Lord Althorp's estate.

He declined to share any statesmanlike reassuring words about the seismic shift he had campaigned for and won. Perhaps he didn't have any words to say. Cricket was far more important anyway. Perfect example of Johnson's style and approach. Followed up by being cavalier about Covid.

Please forgive R403 for stating the obvious. Pointlessly.

Sad video

Let us not forget this sad tale from earlier this year.

Anything that happens at Calais, I blame Queen Mary.

Silly old women sitting in the road.

[quote]"It is what it is at the end of the day, isn't it? I don't think it's Brexit at all."

So many words to say nothing

[quote] So many words to say nothing

You were able to use only six words to achieve that. Bravo.

Wow those Insulate Britain people are fucking lunatics. Imagine thinking you’ll get the general public on your side by repeatedly blocking major highways and further disrupting life in Britain! Some of them were even super glueing their hands to the road so that it takes longer to remove them. If I were a driver I’d spray those motherfuckers in the eyes with white mace - oh the dilemma they’d face! “Do I sit here with my hands glued to the road and endure the burning agony in my eyes, or rip the skin from my palms to rub my eyes?!”

You're a sick motherfucker, R412. You are further proof of the failed state of the human race.

I saw images of the protests of people sitting in streets and roads - but just now read about Insulate Britain which, to my surprise was not some Brexit issue but a movement to make the government provide insulation (of the wall and ceiling type) in social housing? For fuck's sake, what a lot of idiots picking that as their "hill to die on." And they want all British housing retrofitted with insulation y 2030? (They will want to trash all historic houses as well, no doubt.)

Car drivers are the most selfish violent monsters. Inconvenience them for 20 minutes and they react with homicidal violence and feel justified doing it.

Back to Lorry Drivers and skilled Nurses. What is the plan of the UK government to increase the number of Lorry Drivers and skilled Nurses in England & Wales?

[quote]What is the plan of the UK government to increase the number of Lorry Drivers and skilled Nurses in England & Wales?

Please don't bother PM Boris Johnson with such matters - don't you know he's busy oil painting in Marbella?

[quote]Car drivers are the most selfish violent monsters. Inconvenience them for 20 minutes and they react with homicidal violence and feel justified doing it.

You do understand that ambulance, police cars and fire trucks all use those very same roads to attend to serious illnesses/injuries, crimes in progress, and burning homes?

But yeah, what's a little "inconvenience" (death, injury) compared with bringing attention to the urgent need to insulate one's home!

This video shows that glued hands can be torn from the road.

It also shows Corbyn's lunatic brother.

Cattleprods would gotten the traffic flowing again

R418 that “ooooh ambulance drivers and saving people from burning homes!” is such a fallacy. Road protest is valid. Think of it as rush hour for the ambulances.

[quote] Think of it as rush hour for the ambulances.

Can you rephrase that, R421. What do you mean?

Yes, because the people on this thread fantasizing about the violent murder of protesters care about human life.

This thread is on a downward spiral

R165 tbf the only thing I know about Sunderland is that the really fit Liverpool FC Captain comes from there, and I’d really like him to rail me.

What else is there of interest or import to know?

[quote] She was German, dear.

So are we!

How is the new trade deal with New Zealand working for the UK?

What's the point of trading with some islands half the world away? Not like NZ being just an Anglo/Euro outpost produces anything that couldn't be found closer to home.

The UK still has South Africa to supply its produce.

"What's the point of trading with some islands half the world away? "

R428 - There must be a point as Boris Johnson negotiated and signed a trade deal with some islands half the world away, I just cannot figure out what it is and the benefit to the UK.

Because, R430, he has to do SOMETHING.

How long does it take for Kiwi bird meat to reach the UK?

[quote]What's the point of trading with some islands half the world away? Not like NZ being just an Anglo/Euro outpost produces anything that couldn't be found closer to home.

You mean like Japan and Taiwan, "some islands" half the world away?

Well played, r433.

Japan GDP: 5.065 trillion USD New Zealand GDP: 212.5 billion USD

[quote] What's the point of trading with some islands half the world away?

The point is DESPERATION. BJ begged everyone to make a deal with him, everyone else declined.

From an interview with Billy Porter (of all people), commenting on BJ's speech at the Conservative Party conference:

[quote] Porter watched it on TV. “I was like, ‘Y’all have no gas [petrol] and you have gaps in your grocery stores with food you can’t get and this motherf***er is on the news cracking jokes?! But we’re the crazy ones?! ....... Are you kidding me?”

Even Billy Porter who doesn't live in the UK gets it.

^ Irrelevant to Britain.

And with Brexit, Britain made itself irrelevant to the rest of the world.

Except for Shakespeare. Of course.

r437, yes, let’s all give credence to the economic views of a foreign actor who frequently addresses others as “y’all” and whose biggest concern is that Harry Styles was featured on a magazine cover.

Yes, and we Americans can't wait to listen to the foreign policy advice of a bunch of stumbling Brexiters who brought their own nation to the brink of ruin for no reason. Them wanting us to stay in Afghanistan is reason enough to leave.

Hmmm, R441. Trying to think of another nation where stumbling leaders brought it to the brink of ruin for no good reason. It's on the tip of my tongue...

R440, oh yes, I forgot in Brexit Britain foreigners have no rights or shouldn't have a voice at all or opinions.

Foreigners should have the most influential voice on keeping the monarchy. That will preserve it forever.

Americans don't sit around telling the UK what to do, R442. Mostly because we barely notice the small, sad, wet island of coke addicts off the coast of the big, rich EU.

r445, I’m surprised you even tried to pull that one off. I’m not sure how you could convince people anywhere that Americans care more about EU countries than the UK.

R446, the US is a big, diverse place. Americans whose ancestry is British may think about the UK a lot, or they might not. Italian Americans, Polish Americans, Latino Americans, Jewish Americans, etc. may well think of their own ancestral countries more than they do of the UK. We also include very many Irish Americans, who probably do think about the UK a good deal, though not in the way you probably have in mind.

The American people don't give a shit about the rest of the world in general. Policymakers don't give a shit about the UK since they chose to immiserate themselves in a fit of xenophobia.

It would be quite a major challenge to make people believe that Americans collectively don’t care more about the UK than the EU countries. You are going to have to do a lot better than that. Maybe by using hypnosis?

Americans don't care about *anyone. They barely care about their neighbors. They certainly don't care about the UK, the EU or anyone else.

Policymakers, as was pretty clearly stated, prefer dealing with other big, powerful entities than dealing with penny-ante little pissers like the UK, who just spend the past three months whining about Afghanistan.

R446 / R449... You are deluded.

It just ain't the way you think it is. Not even close.

r450, are you trying to narrow the definition of “care” to make your statements seem less incorrect? That’s one tactic you could use, I suppose.

At least we'll never have to hear anyone utter the phrase "special relationship" again.

Someone here (r446 / 449/ 452 et al) is way too invested in the fantasy of a "Special Relationship" between Britain and the US.

Americans may like Downton Abbey, and some Americans like royal watching ("Ooh, look at that fascinator!"), but no one in the general population gives a damn about England beyond pretty pictures. And the people actually responsible for negotiating treaties, the diplomats and politicians, are not going to focus on a smallish island nation led by an erratic buffoon while they have bigger fish to fry.

Sorry!

r454, that would be hard to convince many people of that since they already know better.

[quote]Americans don't sit around telling the UK what to do...

Still, they liked the supine support of Blair for the illegal futile invasion of Iraq well enough. Copious special relationship deaths for that one. Similarly Blair's 'shoulder to shoulder' support in person after 9/11. Useful to keep foul-weather friends on tap.

Sorry, R456 but that was 20 years ago, when the UK was more powerful. It's been on a cliff-dive of power and prosperity ever since.

That’s true that things have been different since Blair, while the UK remains as important and influential now as it was then.

[quote]It's been on a cliff-dive of power and prosperity ever since.

Odd then that Trump was so desperate for that State Visit. He never missed the slightest chance for an insult, yet was as keen to meet The Queen as he was Putin.

Trump had no idea where the real power in this world was. He just wanted the picture.

The way Jacinta is laughing in the video clip. This is so embarrassing

[quote] so embarrassing

Jacinta's a show pony like Zoolander Trudeau.

R454, the special relationship was due to being major allies in WWII you numbskull, not because of American's love of Masterpiece Theatre.

You're not very bright.

It's funny - Churchill didn't really think we were such great and true friends in WWII. The UK wanted a whole host of military, technical and financial considerations from the US before, during and after the war and got almost none of it.

The UK basically sold their wedding silver to pay for the war and wanted the US to give them a whole bunch of money and forgive a whole bunch of loans after it was all over and Truman said no.