EU. In or out?

[Spike941]

[quote=garyboy post_id=638626 time=1554705852 user_id=6836

“The public feel strongly that the system of governing favours the rich and powerful and that political parties don’t care about the average person. And people are not confident that politicians act in the public interest. Unless something changes, this is a potentially toxic recipe for the future of British politics
[/quote]

But there again, quite a large percentage of the population think the politicians currently preventing a no deal/preventing Brexit altogether, are acting in the best interest of the country.

[Asgard]

Well the day finally came. 5 months after our initial application.

3 solid days of collecting together eleven years of documents, tax declarations, utility bills, business records, health card documentation and inside leg measurements, 3.5kgs of paper copies, a new better quality photocopier!, and then two separate trips into Limoges, digital fingerprinting, photographs, stool samples etc etc etc... We finally, today, have out Cartes De Sejours residency cards.

It was a strangely important moment today to sign the receipts and get them given to us at the Prefecture. After 11 years of living here, we now have two slivers of plastic and microchip that establish our right to live here. A right that we already had.

None of which would have been necessary if the UK had not threatened to leave the EU.

Hopefully the whole thing will be called off and our inconvenience will join the millions of other inconveniences associated with the great brexit mistake.

You do realise you've just helped dozens of Albanians called Dave Ricketts gain French Residency...don't you?

[daveuprite]

You do realise you've just helped dozens of Albanians called Dave Ricketts gain French Residency...don't you?

And they'd be very welcome That awful photo makes me look like some kind of Balkan criminal anyway...

Actually the card is brimming with watermarks, embedded microchips and god knows what else. We even had to have our fingerprints scanned at the prefecture. So I don't think it's easily faked.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Ironically, it is the French id card that makes the UK so attractive a destination for clandestines.

The UK parliament rejected them because the 'British people' wouldn't stand for them...but virtually everyone now carries their own personal tracking/bugging device and pays for it!

[DavidS]

I could never understand why people won’t carry an ID card...unless they have something to hide.
All modern driving licences are already ID cards anyway.

[Brenhden]

I could never understand why people won’t carry an ID card...unless they have something to hide.
All modern driving licences are already ID cards anyway.

I know we are drifting off topic with this but my understanding of the argument about UK ID cards was that it would be a really expensive and badly implemented project that would never work...

Anyway, anyone care to place a bet as to what will happen next with Brexit? If these May/JC talks fail we'll have still achieved nothing...

[OB1]

Mark Francois has been back on Radio 4 spewing his hypocrisy again.

During an interview on The World at One, whilst calling for another vote of confidence on Theresa May's leadership (remember, they're only allowed one every 12 months), he was challenged by Sarah Montague, who suggested that if the Tories were allowed another vote when the believed that they were told falsehoods, then the people should get another vote as they were also lied to.

His response: WE'VE already had three votes against another referendum.

Well, Mr Francois, you agreed to the rules when you joined the Conservatives!

Typical f'ing Tory!

[garyboy]

“The public feel strongly that the system of governing favours the rich and powerful and that political parties don’t care about the average person. And people are not confident that politicians act in the public interest. Unless something changes, this is a potentially toxic recipe for the future of British politics

[/size]
But there again, quite a large percentage of the population think the politicians currently preventing a no deal/preventing Brexit altogether, are acting in the best interest of the country.

yes …. both extreme sides of the issue feel strongly about the interest of the nation .. but are unwilling to put the interest of the nation above their own beliefs, and their own party, and unwilling to accept and execute the wishes of their own constituents

[garyboy]

Anyway, anyone care to place a bet as to what will happen next with Brexit? If these May/JC talks fail we'll have still achieved nothing...

it is just a ruse to take `evidence` to the EU that there is hope of change or resolution, so that she can get an extension.

`no deal` is `out`.

a50 extension is `in`.

the bot is still kikking the can and running the klokk down

the EU love it.

the british people are wearing down

she will win in the end

but remember it is not HER deal .. it is the EU deal

[daveuprite]

but remember it is not HER deal .. it is the EU deal

Don't know where you get that idea from Gary. You'd have to be deaf not to have heard months and months of regret from the EU that the UK is leaving. It is not in either the EU or the UK's interest to split. The EU, country by country, and as a block, commission and council, has made clear that they feel brexit is a mistake and a poor decision which is to the detriment of both sides (UK worse than the EU obviously). They don't want any deal; they want the UK to remain. But if it is intent on leaving they want some kind of order to the process.

Which is why the EU's response has been one of sad reluctance, in the hope that sense would prevail. After the tories squandered over a year and only negotiated meaningfully very late in the day, the EU simply sought to preserve as much of the relationship as possible, for the sake of the UK's future and of course to protect the key principles of the European Union itself. The compromise reached with May does one vital thing in particular - the backstop protects the Good Friday Agreement, which some particularly rabid brexiteers seem content to rip up.

Of course May's deal is crap. Anything other than the current deal (staying in the EU with the UK's existing preferential treatment) is a crap deal. And May's deal satisfies almost no-one (although go back 5 years and most EU-sceptics would have loved it!). But it is most definitely not the EU's ideal arrangement. They are supporting it currently because the default alternative of a No-Deal is so very terrible for all concerned, and they just want to draw some kind of a line under the whole sorry affair.