Brexit Discussion Thread.

[GaelicFox]

Interesting you say that - I'm sure I saw a small rummor somewhere that he would be vying for the Labour Party leadership? Considering who we are possibly looking at on the Conservative's side, that would certainly make the politics of the next few years interesting to say the least!

Very true

But how with Nath Rothschild get them all on that boat

[GaelicFox]

I think the BBC have been a lot better in the last couple of years. They still have a slight metropolitan, soft left bias but I don't think it's a deliberate plan, I just think it's how the media class in this country are.

Media uni courses and faculties are full of lefties

The BBC is employing them so it's by osmosis rather than design

[Voll Blau]

Media uni courses and faculties are full of lefties

The BBC is employing them so it's by osmosis rather than design

 

And you say that having had what experience of university journalism/media courses exactly?

[davieG]

EU opens new phase in Turkey membership bid talks

• 4 hours ago

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• From the sectionEurope

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Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionSo far there has been little progress in Turkey's EU negotiations

The EU has opened a new chapter in Turkey's EU membership talks, covering budget contributions to the bloc.

By moving on with the negotiations the EU is delivering on a pledge it made to Turkey in March, said Slovakia - the country now set to manage EU affairs.

Turkey's bid to join the EU is highly controversial and featured prominently in the UK's EU referendum campaign.

Turkey demanded progress on its bid in return for taking back migrants who want to seek asylum in the EU.

Under the March deal, Turkey was also promised visa-free travel to the EU's Schengen area, if it complied with a series of demands.

Chapter 33 on financial and budgetary provisions is the 16th chapter to be opened with Turkey, out of a total of 35.

But five chapters in Turkey's talks are still blocked because of a dispute between the governments in Ankara and Cyprus.

Turkey does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus, whose Greek Cypriot leaders demand an end to Turkish control in the island's north.

Image copyrightAFPImage captionMigrants arriving in Lesbos, Greece: Turkey's co-operation has now limited the daily influx

There is widespread concern in the EU about the possibility of a future influx of Turkish workers. As a large, mainly Muslim country Turkey would significantly change the character of the EU.

The Leave campaign in the UK referendum warned that the EU was preparing for Turkey to join. The Remain camp however argued that Turkish membership was only a distant prospect and might never happen.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted that Turkey had met "almost all" of the criteria demanded by the EU under the March deal so, he argued, the EU should now fulfil the visa liberalisation pledge. It would mean Turks getting visa-free travel to most of Europe.

Five benchmarks set by EU for Turkey:

• Corruption: Turkey must pass measures to prevent corruption, in line with EU recommendations
• Data protection: It must align national legislation on personal data protection with EU standards
• Europol: An agreement is to be concluded with the continent's law enforcement agency
• Judicial co-operation: It must work with all EU members on criminal matters
• Legislation on terrorism: Turkey is required to bring its terror laws in line with European standards

Before the March deal Greece was overwhelmed by the challenge of housing migrants and refugees arriving by boat from Turkey.

The onward movement of migrants - many of them fleeing the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan - put severe strains on the EU, as most of them wanted to settle in Germany.

But since the deal was struck the numbers crossing the Aegean from Turkey to Greece have dropped dramatically.

[GaelicFox]

And you say that having had what experience of university journalism/media courses exactly?

I was a Student Union Council leader , they were all the silly wrenches who thought shampoo illigal and all thought Cuban revolutionaries were sexy

The biggest crock of shite was Scargil was "misunderstood" and they were all on media courses

Nothing has changed , my sister lectures media studies at a uni in ireland

Momentum is a media studies fraternity

[Voll Blau]

I was a Student Union Council leader , they were all the silly wrenches who thought shampoo illigal and all thought Cuban revolutionaries were sexy

The biggest crock of shite was Scargil was "misunderstood" and they were all all on media courses

 

Yeah, media courses as opposed to journalism ones? I've yet to meet any actual professional journalist who ever took a 'media' course.

[Guest Kopfkino]

I stayed away from posting much during the referendum campaign so I didn't get distracted during exams and because I'm busy working on an idea I've had. Had time to think about the result and digest what's been said everywhere so I have now decided to enter the fray. 

 

Firstly, the result did surprise me. I expected it to be close but I didn't think there was quite enough of an appetite to break away from the status quo to overhaul the strength of the London and Scotland remain vote. I expected the London remain vote to be slightly stronger in truth and I never anticipated places like Leicester being so close.  I don't buy this desperate notion that a lot of people voted leave because they thought remain would win anyway and they wanted to stick two fingers up to the establishment. There was a strong anti-establishment vote but it wasn't because people thought remain would win anyway, it was a true vote of anger towards the establishment. This was clear but, even now, l the remain camp fall into the trap of patronising anyone who hasn't bowed down and accepted their superior knowledge. 

Facebook and Twitter has turned into a party for those having an existential crisis. Instead of offering anything constructive for the future, it has become their mission to find anything and everything on the internet to tell the leavers they are wrong, to tell the elderly they have selfishly destroyed the futures of the young, to find a way to pin this solely on racism. Unfortunately, it is just a continuation of the campaign, whereby there's a lack of constructive, sensible discussion without hyperbole. If people on both sides just spent 5 minutes researching some of the things they say, there would be an immediate marked improvement on the standard of the debate. Rather than all the leavers just labelling the remainers left-wing, metropolitan etc and the remainers labelling leaver misinformed, racist etc, it'd be useful for people to understand why the other sides think as they do and not just listen to what the trained politicians are saying for soundbites.

 

I was a leave voter myself, so naturally I have some bias towards accusing people in the remain campaign more than the leave campaign. I feel it is important to tell the retainers what they do wrong from my point of view, as someone who considered fully, the arguments that were made and researched a lot more than most. This does not make my view any more important, nor am I looking down on the remainers, just my observations. 

For a start, the fear of outsiders is a very natural, evolutionary side to a human. As developed as we may think we are, we still have these traits which are seen across the animal kingdom. The way to combat this isn't to throw big numbers at people about how much they contribute or to tell them the NHS won't function without immigrants etc. Whilst these may be true, this is not targeting what the everyday public see. They don't actually care about the exact numbers either, they see a change and they're not comfortable with it. John working in his factory in Bolton will likely work with many Europeans who stay in their own little groups, probably live together and have kept his pay down so he feels slightly excluded and angry. And this is where the remain campaign failed, they didn't have enough Sid's explaining to John that he understands John's problem but this is of benefit to the country, nobody to explain how his problem would be dealt with if he voted to remain. And that's where Mr Corbyn failed. He may have got Labour voters out to vote remain, but he didn't get Labour voters out to put forward the message to other working class, disillusioned people. Instead Mr Corbyn is good at getting his activists out, a lot of them are fresh-faced, utopian, lefty, liberal, middle class kids who just can't ram the message home on the doorsteps. That's a slight generalisation, I admit but it does hold some truth. John in Bolton does not care what these people have to say because 'they haven't lived life' and 'they don't know what it's like' and 'they're just fanciful students' (all things I've heard thrown at them) and they are not offering real solutions to his problems, real words that address his fears and most importantly John sees them as the future establishment. There is genuine resentment towards the political class and the establishment with their regurgitation of failure and broken promises and the patronising nature of a lot of remainers only reinforced this belief further. They were then not helped further by the hyperbolic scare stories of what would happen upon leaving. People don't feel particularly well off so when the establishment tell them this, they buck against it cos they don't see as they're being helped anyway. Telling them how bad it's going to be only reinforces the stoic British nature, a belief that we can do it.

  I took particular note of one thing that was said to me during the campaign. How can people bemoan our governments policy of austerity and continue to support an organisation that is imposing austerity on a lot of nations and destroying Southern Europe. General hypocrisy made a difference to the campaign.

 

So I now find it embarrassing that post vote, remainers still adopt the same tactics. The emphasis put on the reaction of the markets was an embarrassment, that was always going to happen, just like a remain vote would have spiked them. A lot of us leavers are prepared to accept short term pain as we see a long term gain, anyone who thought it was going to be any different was not misled, they are foolish.

 

This is where I think we're at now.

There will not be a full British exit from the European Union, there is a deal to be done which Europe will begrudgingly do and that's the road we'll go down. I don't believe there is a strong enough mandate from the vote for Britain to properly exit the EU. 
I have no doubt that it's not going to be the easiest time for this country. It seems unclear whether a Prime Minister is able to invoke Article 50 without the permission of parliament. The referendum was not legally binding and I'm not sure a PM can repeal an act of parliament without parliament voting on it. First motivation for doing a deal but staying in the EU. Secondly, there is a real possibility that leaving the EU could trigger the end of the UK, nobody is going to want to be the PM who presides over this. Second motivation for doing a deal. 

This presents Europe with a problem, give the UK preferential treatment and they risk dissent from everyone else that we have too much say, don't make a deal to keep the UK in and the social and political problems that other governments are facing aren't quelled and others in Europe follow the UK out of the door as the EU doesn't reform.

 

I believe something can be done on freedom of movement and EU centralisation which may not delight the leavers but it will be something they can live with. There is a deal to be done which is favourable to the UK and good for the EU. EU leaders will wake up to the problem and realise society is not ready for this yet, whether that's before we've left or after, I don't know. I must admit, I haven't got a clue how we can get the deal that sees us remain a part of the EU but also satisfies our wants but thankfully I'm not one of the smart people in the Civil Service who is meant to work this out. Maybe it's pie in the sky thinking and if the EU really won't budge then I'm more than happy to just go for it, hence my position of leave.

Okay it probably won't sterilise the UKIP movement but it would be up to the remain camp and the leavers whoa re in favour of the deal to properly explain it and discuss it with those who are still reluctant. To actually inform people rather than just calling them thick, to actually give them the facts to make their mind up, to realise compromises have to be made all the time. Maybe my critique of society being at its pubescent stage hinders this adult type discussion.

What we mustn't do is divide ourselves like we have done in the last week, now is the ultimate time for unity and for a sensible, informed discussion on the way forward and how to overcome the problems that a lot of people have with the country. For too long, the people have been ignored which is the fault of the people as much as the politicians. Politics needs opening up to the masses, so John from Bolton can air his grievances alongside Horatio from the Cotswolds rather than it being a closed book for 5 years before the politicians show an interest in people again. This is up to the people to drive forward, not the politicians to just hand to them. 'Democracy' needs shifting as I said on here pre referendum and failing that, we shouldn't keep up the pretence that we're democratic.

[GaelicFox]

Yeah, media courses as opposed to journalism ones? I've yet to meet any actual professional journalist who ever took a 'media' course.

Now that's a very valid point !

[bovril]

 

 

Very nice post. Kudos. (I cut it out to save on mega scrollage for the other posters).

 

One thing though. "They haven't got a solution to John's problem". I've heard similar stuff this last week. Who says John hasn't got the solution to his own problems? Sometimes it's not the Tories, the EU, the immigrants, it's actually you. I come from a long-forgotten provincial town and I and my friends went to Uni, got jobs. What happened to 'get on your bike'? Did the immigrants nick the bikes?

[reynard]

On a scale of 1-10 how much of a hypocrite would I be to exercise my right to an Irish passport/citizenship in case Brexit goes tits up? :whistle:I'd say you were being eminently sensible

I would say you were being eminently sensible. Especially if you can have dual citizenship. Carrying an Irish passport can sometimes be more useful than a UK one I believe.

[GaelicFox]

I would say you were being eminently sensible. Especially if you can have dual citizenship. Carrying an Irish passport can sometimes be more useful than a UK one I believe.

Indeed it can

Gets you laid in lisdoonvarna every sept !

[Thracian]

Criticise the BBC for not being neutral and cite Daily Express articles as a tool for backing up opinion.

Hmmmmm

 

 

 

I'm a lay person reflecting my own thoughts, like all the rest of the individuals on here, but they are national broadcaster which is supposedly obliged to be unbiased.

Furthermore I post links from all manner of sources including the BBC.

The use of an Express link was entirely incidental.

If a BBC link on the subject had been first to hand I'd likely have used that so your point is contrived unless you have some information to refute the truth of the link.     

[Thracian]

There's no urgency, it's the next one on the schedule as agreed months ago.

 

 

I'm happy to watch this space on the subject! But I think there's quite specific, though arguably misguided reasons, for the attempted acceleration of Turkey's membership application.   

[Vardinio'sCat]

For a minute there I thought you said respected voice and economic forecasting in the same sentence!  Good one!

Economists hate uncertainty, you give them uncertainty and they to a man will be pessimistic.  This is not news.

 

Nope fella, its stock markets that hate uncertainty, and will tend to view it negatively, not economists, so you've got that wrong for a start.

 

Maybe you have a Govian attitude to experts, but I don't. If you don't know who the IFS are, then you don't know much about UK economics.

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

EU opens new phase in Turkey membership bid talks

• 4 hours ago
•  
• From the sectionEurope

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Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionSo far there has been little progress in Turkey's EU negotiations

The EU has opened a new chapter in Turkey's EU membership talks, covering budget contributions to the bloc.

By moving on with the negotiations the EU is delivering on a pledge it made to Turkey in March, said Slovakia - the country now set to manage EU affairs.

Turkey's bid to join the EU is highly controversial and featured prominently in the UK's EU referendum campaign.

Turkey demanded progress on its bid in return for taking back migrants who want to seek asylum in the EU.

Under the March deal, Turkey was also promised visa-free travel to the EU's Schengen area, if it complied with a series of demands.

Chapter 33 on financial and budgetary provisions is the 16th chapter to be opened with Turkey, out of a total of 35.

But five chapters in Turkey's talks are still blocked because of a dispute between the governments in Ankara and Cyprus.

Turkey does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus, whose Greek Cypriot leaders demand an end to Turkish control in the island's north.

Image copyrightAFPImage captionMigrants arriving in Lesbos, Greece: Turkey's co-operation has now limited the daily influx

There is widespread concern in the EU about the possibility of a future influx of Turkish workers. As a large, mainly Muslim country Turkey would significantly change the character of the EU.

The Leave campaign in the UK referendum warned that the EU was preparing for Turkey to join. The Remain camp however argued that Turkish membership was only a distant prospect and might never happen.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted that Turkey had met "almost all" of the criteria demanded by the EU under the March deal so, he argued, the EU should now fulfil the visa liberalisation pledge. It would mean Turks getting visa-free travel to most of Europe.

Five benchmarks set by EU for Turkey:

• Corruption: Turkey must pass measures to prevent corruption, in line with EU recommendations
• Data protection: It must align national legislation on personal data protection with EU standards
• Europol: An agreement is to be concluded with the continent's law enforcement agency
• Judicial co-operation: It must work with all EU members on criminal matters
• Legislation on terrorism: Turkey is required to bring its terror laws in line with European standards

Before the March deal Greece was overwhelmed by the challenge of housing migrants and refugees arriving by boat from Turkey.

The onward movement of migrants - many of them fleeing the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan - put severe strains on the EU, as most of them wanted to settle in Germany.

But since the deal was struck the numbers crossing the Aegean from Turkey to Greece have dropped dramatically.

 

It can't be true, the pro Europe lobby on here said they couldn't,   Bunch of domb tossers.

 

The £ was back higher than it's pre Brexit vote as well, and the Dairy Farmers, Bakers Fishing industries are delighted to be out, or are they just lying as well? 

[Dodgy Bob]

One thing though. "They haven't got a solution to John's problem". I've heard similar stuff this last week. Who says John hasn't got the solution to his own problems? Sometimes it's not the Tories, the EU, the immigrants, it's actually you. I come from a long-forgotten provincial town and I and my friends went to Uni, got jobs. What happened to 'get on your bike'? Did the immigrants nick the bikes?

That was also my first thought. If John the factory worker from Bolton (why does he have to be northern by the way? Are we stereotyping?) is unhappy that his low skilled job doesn't pay very much then he should have been thinking about improving his skill set. He didn't, and now he blames immigrants for all his problems. I've little sympathy.

[Vardinio'sCat]

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/684282/Germany-Eu-referendum-Dexit-Brexit-Angela-Merkel-european-union

 

You are complaining about the 'subtle' bias of the Beeb on the EU, then you post something from the Express! 

 

So bias is ok when it reinforces your worldview, or bias is ok when it isn't subtle. Which is it?

[reynard]

It can't be true, the pro Europe lobby on here said they couldn't,   Bunch of domb tossers.

 

The £ was back higher than it's pre Brexit vote as well, and the Dairy Farmers, Bakers Fishing industries are delighted to be out, or are they just lying as well? 

The pound has fallen by more than 1% after Bank of England governor Mark Carney hinted at fresh economic stimulus measures.

He said it was likely "some monetary policy easing" would be required in response to the Brexit vote.

A deteriorating economic outlook means action from the Bank is likely during the summer, Mr Carney said.

The Bank's key interest rate - currently at a record low of 0.5% - is its chief tool of monetary policy.

A cut in interest rates would have a knock-on effect on savings rates, and makes the pound a less attractive currency to hold and do business in.

 

BBC website just one hour ago before you gloat too much.

[lifted*fox]

 Bunch of domb tossers.

 

 

 

[reynard]

Nope fella, its stock markets that hate uncertainty, and will tend to view it negatively, not economists, so you've got that wrong for a start.

 

Maybe you have a Govian attitude to experts, but I don't. If you don't know who the IFS are, then you don't know much about UK economics.

 

 

Business also hates uncertainty and we are already finding that trying to sort out medium term export deals to the EU are hitting problems whilst our government simply stalls and doesn't get on with the job of invoking article 50 and negotiating the best deal possible. I'm talking about deals 18 months down the line. People are just deciding to wait before deciding. Though we export to the whole world the EU is an important market for us and we're likely to see redundancies if things are not sorted out quickly.

[Vardinio'sCat]

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36672242

 

EU opens new phase in Turkey membership bid talks

 

 

 The EU have been stringing the Turks along for over 50 years. It ain't gonna happen, its just the Brexiteers version of Osbourne's Project Fear.

[sphericalfox]

[lifted*fox]

The £ was back higher than it's pre Brexit vote as well

 

Also this means nothing. Many are speculating that after a bounce back such as this, it will then give way to a slow decline as investment into the UK lessens amongst uncertainty over the coming period. 

 

So just because it's bounced doesn't mean it's going to retain it's value.

[Thracian]

Also this means nothing. Many are speculating that after a bounce back such as this, it will then give way to a slow decline as investment into the UK lessens amongst uncertainty over the coming period. 

 

So just because it's bounced doesn't mean it's going to retain it's value.

 

 

Who knows what will happen but there's probably as much "uncertainty" about the Euro as the £ with lots of already iffy economies and various countries rumbling about their own referendums.

Against all this I seem to recall that our economy's been described as both sound and adaptable.

That the EU's getting uncomfortable is emphasised by the gradual change of tone on free movement. For an organisation so characterised (and increasingly despised) by Juncker's initially stated intransigence, I'd be increasingly concerned if I were a mainland EU supporter.

Because people know that their listening ear is a pretence and won't last beyond the time it takes for them to either scare their members into greater submission or until the whole enterprise starts collapsing and a better, inevitably smaller, market model starts emerging. One that's far more flexible, more democratic, genuinely listens and doesn't require its member countries to sell their souls.         

[johnny the fox]

It's very easy to acuse the BBC of bias, but I often find the accusations are planted by those with an existing bias themselves to a political view as a wedge to support an argument. It's also been such a long standing accusation, that has been made across governments of different types, that I wonder if those claiming it have ever gone back to check if their original position remains the case.

Personally I believe to accuse bias you first need to take a step back, understand the difficulty you have of appearing bias free when those you are reporting on are looking to use their bias to effect minds and consider the output of other mainstream news organisations such as newspapers (which do have known bias) and corporate news stations and then watch enough of the BBC's output across a variety of platforms to come to an overall conclusion - and once you have done that, I think you'd be hard pushed to maintain the bias accusation with actual repeated examples and reasoning.

What the BBC has been very good at of late is asking the questions that need to be asked of politicians and giving the public a voice in a variety of formats. I watched most of the month long Newsnight programmes on the EU referendum with a small panel of undecided voters on a large variety of subjects with various people representing both sides, both official parts and borrowed 'experts'. They looked at the issues forensically and put forward difficult questions to both sides.

Now you could claim that Leave got a lot more and a much harder set of questions from the BBC in the big set pieces - however, bias can't be determined on that alone - wouldn't you expect more questions to be asked of a complete unknown situation? If they hadn't been asking these questions, they wouldn't be doing their job, not showing bias isn't about being fair to both sides, it's actually about being unfair to both if you get what I mean.

Personally I would maintain, the BBC gave people on the Remain side a tough time too, case in point the pilaring Osbrone's punishment budget annocument got (and rightly so).

The other often used accusation is towards Laura K and her Tory bias.

Now I can accept that to some degree, but then again, she's the lead politics reporter and so it makes sense she plants herself as close to the government as possible to get those key bits of information first. She's there as a go between to attract government sources to put out their message across to the BBC - which then allows other people within the organisation that do the forensic questioning, such as the excellent Neil, Coburn and Davies. Without that sort of relationship across the journalist piece, I doubt whether we'd get half of the leaks we do get.

There is a fair bit of subconscious bias due the indoctrination of the PC agenda... I will give you one clear example ..on radio 4 the day MP. jo cox was murdered the news reporter couldn't wait to announce the perpetrator  "was a middle aged white man" .. emphasizing  the word white.. why his ethnicity was relevant I don't know..I doubt it would of been said if it had been a chinese or red indian... a bit of reverse negative racism at work by the Liberal PC BBC....but nobody seems to care  about caucasian english men... Why in Leicester is ok to have a huge sign on a building saying asian drop in center... nobody would dare to put a sign saying  caucasian drop in centre there would be hell to pay..