Modern Vespa

Not at all. My point was that you can't generally pigeon hole people by social economic age etc commonalities but I haven't come across a racist who voted to remain yet. Sorry if that was misconstrued.

Not a "center of the universe" problem?

(On a related note, the DOW just hit an all-time high. Something must be working.)

Where was that Just Walk Away button?

Cheers,
Bob

Airborne, until Brexit, the EU was the source of central power and given that power by member states when it was formed in 1993. The vote was effectively a vote to secede from the EU and go it alone. Like it or not, this is going to be a costly move for the UK as they lost all the benefits of open borders and free trade.

And trust me, if Texas decided to declare its independence (which was not from us but Mexico) again, they would have a tough go of it. The only reason Brexit was possible is because the European Constitution had it written into it. A US state exiting the union doesn't get it that easy.

Also, alignment to humanity doesn't mean people don't have pride of where they are from including their language, foods and history. Most of this is about economics and bad economics hurt people every day.

As others have said, to preserve peace not to promote war. Is that such a bad thing?

Okay, so tell me again why a patriotic Brit should vote for independence from the EU, while a patriotic Texan should vote to remain with the US (if asked to vote on the subject).

Being a Texan, North Carolinian or Louisianan does not have the same meaning that it did just a short century ago. Unless you were a manufacturer, producer or importer paying specific federal taxes you paid all your taxes to the state, your loyalty was first to the state. Other than for a small standing army, if you went to war for the republic you went as a member of a state regiment. You were a Texan or what ever first. The change in the function of government along with the ease of travel has pretty much desolved the distinction.

The late, eminent Canadian historian, Pierre Burton caught the difference between the US and our Brit/Canadian cousins quite accurately. The US was born by an act of violence, and the founding document places the individual over the collective well being. Great Britain and Canada were born by peaceful means, and their founding documents stress the collective well being.

Airborne Spoon-- It's difficult for a Yank to get their head around what Burton wrote. Has nothing to do with being a soldier. All soldiers, regardless of nation, are simply instruments of national policy. Unless the country is a military dictatorship. Spent 35 years in the US military, and still saw myself as part of humanity first and foremost. War is not glorious, but tragic.

But that is not really true. There have been federal taxes from the original establishment of a US national government. Yes, they mostly took the form of fees and duties - but that is a fairly subtle difference. The income tax was simply a new way of collecting taxes, and most states now use it as well as the federal government of the US. Yes, the US federal government has gained in power and its budget has certainly grown, but there was not a watershed moment at the end of the 19th Century that separated government by the states from government by the feds.

But it's no longer about preventing war, it's about preserving economic power in Europe.

Many of our friends in the north have seen their towns literally taken over by economic migrants which has made them feel is if their british identity is being..... shall we say trodden on and it's my feeling that this where the majority of the leave vote came from.

I can understand that point of view.

Bill xxx

You should read the history of the Irish in the US.

Not to mention the history of the Irish in England.

There were plenty of Brexiteers in Kent too

but it's a fair point. a lot of the anger against the EU came from parts of the country who felt, justifiably, that their problems - job losses, lack of opportunity and economic growth, chronic underinvestment, etc. - had been ignored by political elites in the south. it's simplistic to say that EU migrants were the root cause of all of the problems - they weren't - but they were a highly visible target. many of them ended up crowded together in certain parts of the country because they couldn't afford to live in the south, they were warehoused in cheap, overcrowded, temporary accommodation by unscrupulous landlords, taken advantage of by greedy employers who gave them illegal work that didn't pay a living wage, never given the opportunity to learn the language, properly integrate or feel at home ... some parts of the country changed very quickly, and the communities who lived there felt that they'd not been given any say in the matter. I can understand their frustration.

From a Yankee, this has been a well informed thread with cool heads prevailing. Think we've learned a lot over here in the States.

But, now I have have a headache and still don't understand why the Queen has two birthdays.

Well...because she can! Ya know, she's queen!

This might help our overseas friends see how the UK voted regionally in the European Referendum vote.

There was 399 voting areas of which 129 voted to Remain and 270 voted to Leave.

Number of votes cast were 33,577,342 of which 48.1% of votes (16,141,241) voted to Remain with 51.9% of votes (17,410,742) voting to Leave. The balance of 25359 were spoilt ballot papers.

The Map below shows in Yellow to Remain and Blue to Leave.



somerset

Of course there have been federal taxes from shortly after the forming of this nation. They were in the forms of tariffs and excise taxes. One of the first was the whiskey tax levied on the producers of alcoholic beverages, if my memory serves me it was on distilled liquor only. That tax sparked the Whiskey Rebellion. The rest of the money came from the states based on population. That is where the 3/5th compromise came from. The northern states wanted the southern states to pay their "fair" share for the entire population in the south free and slave but only wanted the south to have representation based on the free population. The state collected taxes from its citizens and passed it on to the central government according to their levy based on population.
The Senate was comprised of members, two from each state, who were appointed by the state legislatures so that each state had equal representation in the senate regardless of size. Their job was to represent the interest of the state that appointed them and not necessarily the interests of the individual citizen of the state. The primary reason there is a North and South Dakota is so that they would have 4 Senators to represent the interests of the Dakotas so that they would not be run over by the likes of NY,PA, and IL. It was the job of the House of Representatives to represent the people of any given state and thus the number of representatives was based on population.

First the 16th amendment allowed the federal government to tax every citizen directly that had an income, effectively cutting the states out of the funding loop. If you want to see how things work follow the money.

Secondly the 17th Amendment took the power to appoint their chosen representatives out of the hands of the state legislatures and gave it to the people. That all sounds nice and fuzzy but it in effect made the Senate nothing more that a super House of Representatives representing in microcosm rather than representing the state as a whole. This once again places all the power in the states with the most population and all the "flyover states" have to go hat in hand begging for the scraps.

So in my opinion the second decade of the 20th century was a pivotal moment in the shift of power from the states to the central government.

Wow. Not been on here for years.

Interesting to see how many old members are still going strong.

The deed's done now. Just want them all to sort out the agreements and see how it actually affects us.

I've got an escape clause, I don't need to look at my eligibility for an Irish passport. I'm first generation born outside Ireland in generations so if things get as bad as the scaremongering I could always go back to the family farm. It's so remote nobody would come looking for me.

Not everyone from 3rd World Economies can immigrate to
the UK or 1st World Economies. Not that they would not
want to. There seems to be a push back from internationalism.

I do not blame the UK wanting to remain something that is
UK. This country spread western civilization around the world.
The Empire has been attached for their colonial practices.
I say they did much more good than bad.

I think the country voted to not water down their culture.

Bob Copeland

It is really distressing when a vote is decided by such a small margin. I can understand that there are a lot of folk who are going to be upset...almost half the population of Britan. It is going to be tough going for a while but I am confident that our resourceful British friends will bounce back in due time. They have gone through far tougher times than these.

You bring up an excellent point. This is a decision that will have consequences for generations. For all practical purposes voters were split down the middle - and the vote was advisory. Seems like more discussion, more details on how the Brexit would be done, and another vote on the actual process would be one reasonable way to proceed. Real consequences are often a different thing than making a "statement".

In short, move the goal posts after the game has begun?

Exactly what "they" are manoeuvring for.....

just like "they" would have done

Nigel Farage said back in May that 52-48 win for the Remain side in the EU referendum would be "unfinished business".

In the interview the Ukip leader said such a narrow margin would prompt him to fight for a second referendum.

He said: "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."

Going down fighting is the British way of doing things 8)

The EU "leadership " are their own worst enemy. For example, in April 2015, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker "pledged " 2 billion Euros in humanitarian aid to Greece. Since that day, not one step to deliver was taken. Meanwhile, anyone using Facebook from a Greek IP receives regular, sponsored bulletins proudly detailing the hundreds of millions in humanitarian aid being delivered to countries outside the EU. I, for one, find it rather insulting for the EU to spend money targeting me to tell me that they are grand philanthropists in Somalia, while failing to deliver on promises to my suffering Greek neighbors.

For all the good the EU might do, it still hasn't learned how to "win friends and influence people" at home. A government needs the consent of the people to survive. Sadly, far too many of the high profile officials who speak, rightly or not, as the voice of the EU seem oblivious to that, and I can easily see where those in the UK who feel disenfranchised might wish to withdraw from a union that has failed to make its case to them, even though it's perception rather than fact. It was a standing joke in the NY garment industry that, "trust me" is simply a polite way of saying, "bend over and spread your cheeks". The EU needs to build trust, and they obviously haven't in some quarters.

It's not really as simple as that.

The majority (of those who voted) voted "to leave the EU". They didn't vote on HOW to leave the EU.

There are several possible models for the UK's future. Some of these models involve most of the things that many of the Brexiters were voting against (for example paying into the EU, free movement of people as a condition of free trade with the EU, etc).

A referendum IS, factually, only advisory. Of course, with a circa 70% electoral turnout, the weight of feeling in favour of Brexit shouldn't be ignored, BUT the Brexiters don't actually know what they have voted for.

I'm not saying that as a slur on them, rather as a fact. I imagine the Brexiters represent a wide range of different views as to what Britain's future should be. They share the desire to leave the EU, but there is no mandate for how this should be done or what sort of relationship Britain should have with the EU and the rest of the world.

At the very least, imho, Parliament should have a long hard look at the range of options and their implications, and a majority vote of MPs should be needed to decide on which of the possible futures we're aiming for.

The idea of one person (the new Prime Minister), or one party being able to decide what may well be the biggest issue in my lifetime is not one that I would welcome.

Voting to leave is the easy part. Deciding how to leave and what comes next is much more complex.[/i]

Nothing has hit the fan yet, it's still mid-flight, pointy end first

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

When the economy goes, everything goes !!
The accumulation of economic problems begets research responsibility ...
The E.U.. is an easy target, I'm pretty sure that a referendum in France could give the same results. The overall vision often escapes the population already busy with its own problems ...

I'm glad you put your finger of one of the biggest problems, Mr Juncker.

Juncker (accepting that the British had never wanted him at all) was all that stood between us leaving and us remaining. Had Juncker agreed an emergency brake for immigration at that renegotiation then Britain would not be leaving. The European Commission is happy to allow Denmark such a brake, but not Britain. Why? What a farce.

Everything else was really unimportant. I'll put good money on Juncker having been gone within 18 months, and the Council of Ministers will negotiate Brexit. They now realise that they should not have let the European Commission handle Cameron's renegotiation (which should never have been in public in the first place).

The Germans will lose the second biggest contributor to the European budget when we leave. They are furious about it but they should not have appointed Juncker and they should have taken Brexit seriously.

This morning I am counting a set of crisp twenty pound notes after putting money on Teresa May to be PM three weeks ago. She's very, very good and if we must have Brexit she has the toughness to do it well.

I think this thread is pretty civilised but no posting Youtube vids please because I think we will lose the veneer of that.

If you voted one way or another that is fine but other media make things more incendiary between everyone, thanks.

+1

I could see steam coming out of my laptop

Good betting, Kate!!!

I called that in our office, when everyone was wanting to back Boris, but I didn't put my money where my mouth was.

Ha! It is the only way I will make money out of Brexit.

There were no odds on Boris Johnson being tarred and feathered. Other mystic predictions:

No election until 2020
Brexit not completed until 2019
Freedom of movement retained with emergency brake of some kind
Boris Johnson to still be writing unsustainable garbage on Europe in the Daily Telegraph
Austerity to end and domestic spending UP

This string is political by definition and covers a quite heated topic.

As usual when discussing topics with Brits this was both polite and informing.

Interesting, the remain voters , do they come from a industrial center, agriculture?

Well from the map you will notice that the whole of Scotland voted in. I guess that was so they could temper the imperialistic aspirations of HM Gov't with the imperialistic aspirations of the EU demi-gods, the ones that no one can vote out.

That's a really hard thing confirm but in general there's a lot of industry in the north and more technology and financial based stuff in the south.

Yes I am generalising.

Bill x

If you want a good metaphor it's like you're at a very bed wedding where many of the guests have subsidised the proceedings but with unequal amounts.

Many of the guests bare grudges against each other but to make sure the evening goes well they keep their feelings to themselves.

You have had enough and so decide to leave, at which point all of the other guests bitch about you but only because they havn't got the balls to do it themselves.

Will they blank you in the future ? Of course.

Bill xxx

the big yellow blob near the bottom of the map is London and the surrounding areas. the giant yellow bit at the top is scotland. the yellow blob on the west of the UK mainland is coastal areas of wales.

nearly all of the remain areas are neither industrial nor agricultural - as Bill said the economies in these areas are mostly tech-based, media and financial services.