Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Da krimson barun wrote:
But...you knew it would be these numpties.

What I had hoped was that within the space of two and a half years, the whole of Parliament could have quickly decided on efta and then spent that time preparing for it instead of all this fething around. Jesus Christ, me, typing here on this website, figured it out fairly quickly. Why can’t they, with all their supposed resources and expertise, do the same?

 Future War Cultist wrote:
With the way May is handling things, I am seriously coming around to the idea of just stopping the current process altogether and starting over. Because it needs done right or not at all. I’m not an extremist, and I don’t believe in cutting off your nose to spite your face. The solution, EFTA, is sitting there staring them in the face and they are just too stupid to see it. I don’t regret my choice of vote but I do regret having it carried out by these fething numpties.

I agree with you. The problem is there isn't time for a second referendum before next March.

The way to solve the problem is to have a general election, form a new government -- hopefully not Conservative, considering tbe pig's ear they've made of it all -- and let that new government rescind the Article 50.

This would give us time to restart the entire process with a second referendum. The second referendum could be much better framed, people would be more knowledgeable about everything, and if it resulted in another Leave vote, at least the government would not have to draw red lines and set an impossible hard deadline.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
With the way May is handling things, I am seriously coming around to the idea of just stopping the current process altogether and starting over. Because it needs done right or not at all. I’m not an extremist, and I don’t believe in cutting off your nose to spite your face. The solution, EFTA, is sitting there staring them in the face and they are just too stupid to see it. I don’t regret my choice of vote but I do regret having it carried out by these fething numpties.

I agree with you. The problem is there isn't time for a second referendum before next March.

The way to solve the problem is to have a general election, form a new government -- hopefully not Conservative, considering tbe pig's ear they've made of it all -- and let that new government rescind the Article 50.

This would give us time to restart the entire process with a second referendum. The second referendum could be much better framed, people would be more knowledgeable about everything, and if it resulted in another Leave vote, at least the government would not have to draw red lines and set an impossible hard deadline.

Yes, this. All of this.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
With the way May is handling things, I am seriously coming around to the idea of just stopping the current process altogether and starting over. Because it needs done right or not at all. I’m not an extremist, and I don’t believe in cutting off your nose to spite your face. The solution, EFTA, is sitting there staring them in the face and they are just too stupid to see it. I don’t regret my choice of vote but I do regret having it carried out by these fething numpties.

EFTA still has freedom of movement and ECJ though? Those are apparently the bits we want to drop.

I'm actually wondering if the Japan Economic Partnership is the better way to go; it has some provision for services, and only some duties.

We don't know what we want to drop.

The referendum question was too vague. "Leave the EU" allows all kinds of interpretations of what people were thinking of.

The Japan deal might be a target to aim for, though Japan and the EU are starting from very different positions to the UK and the EU, so it would need serious reverse engineering.

For example there is no land border for Japan to worry about.

Forget another General Election. If we end up with another hung parliament, and it's likely, we're back to square one.

I'm with Future War Cultist: a smooth, orderly Brexit, even if we have to wait 2-3 more years, is preferable to a car crash that lets Remain fill the vacuum.

It's EEA for me. Solves Ireland, it's a compromise that will satisfy most people, gets us out of CAP and CFP, and buys us some time to get our no deal preparations into place.

As for immigration, we apply the emergency brake, and if we face action against us, then we can tie them up for years with the lawyers.

Job done.

EEA as a staging post gets the DINLT nod of approval.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Forget another General Election. If we end up with another hung parliament, and it's likely, we're back to square one.

I'm not sure we've even left square one. I can't fathom how we could get further behind.

I'm with Future War Cultist: a smooth, orderly Brexit, even if we have to wait 2-3 more years, is preferable to a car crash that lets Remain fill the vacuum.

It's the best option. We really should withdraw A50 until we have some coherent plan for what we're going to try and do.

It's EEA for me. Solves Ireland, it's a compromise that will satisfy most people, gets us out of CAP and CFP, and buys us some time to get our no deal preparations into place.

But it still violates what seem to be thickest of the red lines; movement, trade deals, sending money to the EU and ECJ. It also assumes that "no deal" is the end goal.

As for immigration, we apply the emergency brake, and if we face action against us, then we can tie them up for years with the lawyers.

I guess. If we want to waste millions preventing something we need. We're also not going to have a friendly EU to negotiate a "no deal" with, if we're gakking them about on migration.

I mean, we could always use our existing powers to do something about immigration, or infrastructure.

May's red lines are changing on a daily basis. They are no longer credible and I wouldn't put any stock into them.

Not worth the paper they're written on.

I rarely give credit to the EU, but it's obvious why they didn't initially respond to May's white paper: they knew it would go down like the Titanic.

Brexy Bonus!

New report from London School of Economics warns of problems with dairy foods.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
May's red lines are changing on a daily basis. They are no longer credible and I wouldn't put any stock into them.

I'm not even talking about Mays, which are worthless. I'm talking about the Brexiteers red lines; they'll never agree to anything that allows movement of following EU rules.

I rarely give credit to the EU, but it's obvious why they didn't initially respond to May's white paper: they knew it would go down like the Titanic.

Because they rejected them last time round?

Ian Paisley Jnr MP for North Antrim has received a 30 day suspension. Mrs May will be down a vote for that period at least. His constituents could petition for a by election but that’s incredibly unlikely. The Paisley family once again proving they are among the vilest political leaches in the UK. A disgrace to unionism.

This the trade deal between the EU and Japan



Fox, Davis et al claim we can just bang something like this out with a wide variety of countries on an almost monthly basis.



look at this :

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/eu-japan-economic-partnership-agreement/eu-japan-in-your-town/

and go to the UK info

EU-Japan


Companies and jobs
8,408
The number of British companies that export to Japan.

89%
The share of British companies exporting to Japan that are small and medium-sized enterprises.

90,915
The number of jobs in the United Kingdom that EU exports to Japan help support.

€6.5 bn
The value of British exports to Japan.

€11.4 bn
The value of British imports from Japan.

All of this is threatened by Brexit and will have to be renegotiated.





meanwhile, following on from the trend of the Govt. claiming that EU directives are it's own ideas and policies



.. the UK government is now using EU funding to pay for its trade missions.

That's just another example of why the £350M Brexit Bus was such a disgraceful lie.

It's also part of why UK universities have got so twitchy about Brexit. Our universitiues get the lion's share of funding from the EU Future 2020 and other science international funding programmes, because they are so good.

EU rules won't allow that to continue once we've outside, though. As well as the loss of European staff.

 Knockagh wrote:
What a lot of whataboutery. Utter nonsense.
The agreement is built on the self determination on NI and the obligation of the minority community to respect that. The fact that the republican community have never lived up to that obigation is why we are having the fuss. They still won’t even say the words Northern Ireland never mind accept the will of the majority. Which is that we remain an integral part of the UK, regardless of what happens in any trade agreements.

That's not what it says at all. Every citizen of NI is allowed to determine for themselves as to whether they consider themselves Irish or British. All it says is that people must recognise that, at the time of the Good Friday agreement, the majority of people prefer to be considered British and that United Ireland must pass a referendum both by NI and Eire. It doesn't state they have to accept (only respect) it. It doesn't prevent people from trying to change people's views on it as the agreement also states that (summarised):-

Northern Ireland will be governed based on mutual respect and recognition of the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly freedom of political thought, religion, place of residence and the rights of democratic government, peaceful constitutional change, absence of sectarianism and equal opportunity regardless of religion, politics, gender, race, disability, age, marital status, dependents or sexual orientation.

As such there has to be respect that some people still hold the view that NI is part of Eire (freedom of political thought). I would actually argue that your own views are in contravention of the Good Friday agreement as in your own words, you are not respecting that "they won't even say the words Northern Ireland...". That is their freedom of political thought prerogative. There also has to be a referendum on the issue if the SoS deems that that there is a majority in favour of a United Ireland. You can hardly call the last referendum 20 years ago as the "will of the majority" now (although the comparisons with what some people say about Wrexit is amusing).

Most treaties won't, and can't, put every possible scenario down in writing and hence are a set of principles. A hard border introduces a discriminatory selection process as the majority that will be affected are those that consider themselves Irish. Of course we could put hard borders between the UK / NI and NI / Eire. That at least would be less discriminatory.

Tony Blair, Jonathan Powell and the Labour Party gangster who added to agreements and made dirty little back room deals after the GFA with the IRA are the reason for much of the anger in the unionist community here. They behaved appallingly and have zero credibility.

Like? You can't just state something without evidence.

No one wants a hard border. The EU are just using the RoI as a beating stick for the UK as are remainers. But there is a very real possibility of a border being forced on us across the sea. And this is the real threat a border against the wishes of the people if Northern Ireland.

If there is no customs union then it has to be a hard border of some form. This is the problem. Even with free trade deals you still have a 'hard border'. Customs checks still have to be made to ensure that the goods comply with the agreement. Customs union means you have aligned rules and hence there is no risk that the goods don't meet the appropriate standards. Free trade just means there won't be any additional customs tax on the goods (noting VAT still is). Hence you still apply VAT at the point of entry. That means you have to have some border controls. At the moment the VAT is applied at the point of sale regardless of which state you are buying from.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

It's also part of why UK universities have got so twitchy about Brexit. Our universitiues get the lion's share of funding from the EU Future 2020 and other science international funding programmes, because they are so good.

EU rules won't allow that to continue once we've outside, though. As well as the loss of European staff.

Non-EU countries can be associated members to the 2020 Horizons projects. However it usually costs and as ever you get better benefits from being inside the group (associated members usually have conditions attached).

I'm just going to stick this out there.
I really think that a no deal is going to happen.
I also think that it was the tory plan from the beginning.

EFTA rules would have worked form day one and would work now we could have spent the time trying to get a BETTER deal more opt outs/ins etc.
a done deal in months.

A hard brexit would have been much harder to achieve, as we have found out, but the government have literally done everything they can to NOT negotiate
calling an election, asking to run trade talks at the same time as the other negotiations when we didn't even have a trade negotiator at the time.
Proposing half baked ideas about the northern ireland border and how we should be allowed to have our cake and eat it.
I remember reading a quote from someone in the EU which said essentially
The british civil service always has a plan the fact that they don't scares me.
Hell look at the tory party now and the months preceding, fighting over plans the EU have already rejected!

We still don't even know what brexit is 2 years later.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So a no deal brexit
It seems to make sense to me.
create a cliff edge by demanding we leave on a set date, then walk backwards towards it while we make shushing noises at everyone.

It solves the hard brexit issues.
I have seen nothing that indicates the majority of even brexiters want a hard brexit.
Lets face it the people of britain just will not except another 8,10 15? years MORE of austerity. And that is IF we get trade deals quickly.
How will they solve the northern ireland border? 2 years on we have no idea.
How will we solve the immigration problems? most of it is due to government policy, dumping them where it's cheap. Rees mogg and his lot
have said we will just have necessary immigration from ELSE WHERE. I'm sure that's what the brexiters voted for.
the list is endless really THAT is probably why we can't cobble together a deal.

It certainly explains a lot (I will come back to more a bit busy at the moment) starting with how may has survived, Its a suicide mission
It solves northern ireland, bye bye northern ireland you never voted tory, you were constant trouble and cost more then you brought in via tax.
Why did may demand an end date? why did she refuse to give parliament a meaningful vote? why did davis spend 4 hours negotiating this year?
why did davis a man who got everything he wanted not demand changes to the chequers proposal but just resign?
Him and boris are fleeing the catastrophe, they have enough time to snipe at the edges claiming they would have done it better.

@whirlwind r.e Jonathan Powell and Tony Blair.
*On the run letters.
*Sneaking in agreements to the St. Andrews agreements on an Irish Language act that was never agreed.

On the GFA respect is quite different from an aspiration to change the status quo, no one is arguing they can’t work towards whatever goal they desire, changing of articles 2&3 were sold to the unionist communities as a sign that republicans would respect the wishes of the majority in N.I.

Personally I never liked the GFA I voted no. I stand by that even though the party I belonged to voted yes and urged all its members to vote yes. I didn’t leave the party over it. It’s a repugnant agreement on so many levels. But the people voted for it and I have to live with it. Won’t stop me from arguing against it. But I will respect the laws it has brought into being.

You'd rather have returned to letting the IRA flatten Britain's economic sector, shoot Britain's soldiers and overcrowd Britain's prisons then give peace a chance? The GFA is perfect in that it satisifies absolutely nobody, is everything to anyone and is a jagged edge waiting to cut any Irish or British government that isn't careful with it. The fact that we had people threatening to kill Martin McGuinness with a homemafe rocket is proof that we didn't walk away with everything we wanted, the DUP refusing to sign showing the same for you.

I don't like the GFA either: mostly because we left the border poll authority in the hands of the SoS instead of some other system. Also the fact that we didn't get the ILA stuck in there, the lack of a peace and reconciliation commission, not getting that hard border legislation in just in case...an agreement both sides like is impossible, so one we both hate is the best solution possible.

Perhaps you missed it: I have already underlined exactly why we will never respect the "majority" in North Eastern Ireland except as a practical matter. We are after all defending the majority's decision to stay in the EU are we not? Perhaps unionism should have respected the majority when it put the DUP in power instead of the UUP? Even then unionism didn't win a majority vote share last assembly election.

 Knockagh wrote:
@whirlwind r.e Jonathan Powell and Tony Blair.
*On the run letters.
*Sneaking in agreements to the St. Andrews agreements on an Irish Language act that was never agreed.

'On the run letters' were never secret, badly implemented perhaps and the judge considering the issue noted there was systematic failures. However it didn't amount to an amnesty and that the information was available if people cared to look in the correct direction and monitored NI politics. It was noted that it wasn't advertised with a fanfare but then nothing poltically sensitive is. The idea that this was back room deals is a fallacy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-26359906

As for the Irish language act, barring I think it's a stupid reason for people to be complaining about. Lots of countries have two or more main languages and it works just fine - Canada for example. In fact I'd argue that children learning it have an advantage as the general view it gives people an ability to see things in different ways. However the DUP did agree that the uk government should implement an Irish language act. The DUP never agreed to implement it as it wasn't for them to place in the statutes book. The U.K. Government instead introduced a strategy on the Irish language. Hence DUP never agreed to put something on the books because it was never intended that they should do so. It again wasn't a secretive agreement, the DUP did sign up to the UK government implementing it. That the uk government didn't act on what it signed up to is a different issue.

On the GFA respect is quite different from an aspiration to change the status quo, no one is arguing they can’t work towards whatever goal they desire, changing of articles 2&3 were sold to the unionist communities as a sign that republicans would respect the wishes of the majority in N.I.

I'm not sure you are making any sense here. No one on the unionist side is forcing you to change an opinion and leave the uk. They are arguing a case just as SNP do on independence. If they win that argument then people will become pro unionist and that means a referendum will be held. I am hence not sure what you mean in that they are not respecting 'the majority'. In the end it is just a line on a map and people could call the island the "land of milk and potatoes" but no one is forcing you to call it that.

Personally I never liked the GFA I voted no. I stand by that even though the party I belonged to voted yes and urged all its members to vote yes. I didn’t leave the party over it. It’s a repugnant agreement on so many levels. But the people voted for it and I have to live with it. Won’t stop me from arguing against it. But I will respect the laws it has brought into being.

In what way is it repugnant?

The agreement institutionalised secteranism. It forces all parties to designate themselves as one camp or other or none. It requires all decisions to be passed by both secterian camps. It leaves us forever election after election running to tribal camps to make sure our side has the max vote. Therefore It has created the dominance of the two extremes and created a climate of fear.

The nature of the executive, forcing parties with completely different policies and manifestos to make joint decisions means no party can ever stand by their promises to the electorate. Which in turn means a party can promise anything in their electoral manifesto but even if they get into government they can’t be held accountable for failing to implement their commitments as it would have to be agreed by an opposing party. Those decisions that can be made by ministers without executive approval are in the odd position that they will almost certainly be reversed at the next election as the parties (who due to the designation of ministers) are guaranteed executive seats and they will choose that ministry just to reverse a decision. It’s a system that promotes stagnation and stalemate. Elected MLAs have virtually no authority as votes are just taken by ministers not by the elected assembly. At the time of the agreement it was assumed that the two moderate parties would continue to dominate the political landscape and it was assumed that they could get on. What wasn’t predicted was that the institutionalising of secterianism through the agreement would lead to the rise of the extremes and the further polarising of the electorate. Leaving aside the secterian nature of the parties they disagree massively in economic and social policies making stagnation in the assembly assured. It would be the equivalent of Labour and Conservative party making up cabinet and never having to bring their decisions before Parliament.

It freed onto our streets some of the most evil men and women who ever walked the planet and through the institutionalising of sectarianism and causing the rise of the extremes gave some of those evil people a position in government.

It creates a situation where the current minority community gets an equal say in government, but only while the majority wish to stay in the UK. If the majority swings the other way the new minority would have no equal say. They would be open to wholesale discrimination. A 50% plus one would abolish any of the protections for a minority community.

One thing everyone forgets is that at the time no one said the agreement was a permanent fixture it was supposed to be a sticking plaster to get us out of a hole. A short term interim agreement to move beyond violence and allow us to mature into a normal democracy. That’s how it was sold to everyone, who at the time yearned for peace above everything. My generation grew up thinking the troubles would never end. Desperate people will agree to anything. However once the extremes took over they realised that this worked in their favour it guaranteed them power, a place on the executive and as a by product has left NI more polarised and more secterian than at any time in my life

 Knockagh wrote:
The agreement institutionalised secteranism. It forces all parties to designate themselves as one camp or other or none. It requires all decisions to be passed by both secterian camps. It leaves us forever election after election running to tribal camps to make sure our side has the max vote. Therefore It has created the dominance of the two extremes and created a climate of fear.

I'm not sure what else you were expecting. That is no different from the rest of the UK where it is predominantly split into two factions. It is more reasonable where there is a relatively even split of views across the region as to how to go forward. You were never going to get a system that wasn't split into sectarian camps even if you tried to force a completely neutral system onto the situation. People still predominantly vote down religious lines. It will take generations to clear that out of the system. People's views will change over time as the troubles fade away - it will however be a hundred years, when politicians will become more driven by politics rather than "what happened in the past". It's not a perfect system by any means but it does allow all elements of the population to have their say. If you just had a parliamentary system like in the UK then you would just have the unionists dominating the agenda. The DUP would dominate, and to be honest massively favour their own supporters (one of the reasons for the collapse is for this reason). That would leave half the population continuously being shafted and you would never have any form of stable peace.

The nature of the executive, forcing parties with completely different policies and manifestos to make joint decisions means no party can ever stand by their promises to the electorate.

That is really for the electorate to control though. If they don't vote for people that make impossible promises then this won't happen. When the electorate have had enough then things will change.

It freed onto our streets some of the most evil men and women who ever walked the planet and through the institutionalising of sectarianism and causing the rise of the extremes gave some of those evil people a position in government.

If you want progress from violence then this is something you have to stomach I'm afraid. For the people on the other side they more then likely see them as "freedom fighters". Whether some are intrinsically evil is probably more questionable. Some are likely not to have acted in the same way if the world had turned out differently and didn't feel like they are being suppressed. Yes killing anyone is horrific, however when it comes to political causes then some leeway has to be given. The French resistance in WWII for example killed people, yet we don't generally claim these people were 'evil'. Indeed from a modern point of view how many people support the rebel alliance in star wars? It seems a bit daft, but in reality the Rebel Alliance were a political group using violence to change what they felt was an unjust system. Is Luke Skywalker evil from a political perspective. It's simply not as black and white as the way you are portraying it.

It creates a situation where the current minority community gets an equal say in government, but only while the majority wish to stay in the UK. If the majority swings the other way the new minority would have no equal say. They would be open to wholesale discrimination. A 50% plus one would abolish any of the protections for a minority community.

You've stated earlier that decisions have to be passed through both camps. I'm not sure this isn't just fearmongering that your faction might lose that majority in the future. It doesn't change what you have already noted in that both factions still get a say. You argument is effectively "while we have power, the minority have no discrimination under current rules. If that changes then those rules somehow change even though regardless of who has the majority those same rules apply). The GFA also utilises the ECHR as a backstop position. That in itself minimise s the risk of discrimination.

One thing everyone forgets is that at the time no one said the agreement was a permanent fixture it was supposed to be a sticking plaster to get us out of a hole. A short term interim agreement to move beyond violence and allow us to mature into a normal democracy. That’s how it was sold to everyone, who at the time yearned for peace above everything. My generation grew up thinking the troubles would never end. Desperate people will agree to anything. However once the extremes took over they realised that this worked in their favour it guaranteed them power, a place on the executive and as a by product has left NI more polarised and more secterian than at any time in my life

A plaster is there to help heal a wound. If the wound is a savage scar then it takes longer to heal and you need it on for longer. You won't see the end of that plaster because it is a huge wound. It is unlikely I will either. My niece / nephews may but I'm of the view that it won't truly heal until no-one is left alive that remembers any of their family talking about it. We are looking at a plaster for 150-200 years, not 10-20.

Only someone who’s experience of conflict is restricted to pushing plastic men round a table would dare to compare terrorists who bombed school buses, town centres, shot people for their religion with the French resistance fighters or cheapen victims by comparing scum to a fictional sc fi character. A foul analogy but I can let it go because it’s based on total ignorance.

https://news.sky.com/story/pharmacists-preparing-to-stockpile-medicines-and-medical-supplies-for-no-deal-brexit-11441089?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter

Pharmacists preparing to stockpile medicines and medical supplies for no-deal Brexit
Health experts are warning that leaving the European Medicines Agency could impact on the supply of drugs into the UK.

But this is fine, obviously.

 Knockagh wrote:
Only someone who’s experience of conflict is restricted to pushing plastic men round a table would dare to compare terrorists who bombed school buses, town centres, shot people for their religion with the French resistance fighters or cheapen victims by comparing scum to a fictional sc fi character. A foul analogy but I can let it go because it’s based on total ignorance.

You know this how? It's a point of perspective. If you become too narrow close, too blinded, about what has happened in the past then you can miss the benefits of, unfortunately, having to ignore that past for the betterment of the future. That's not to say those crimes are any worse or better because of what could happen. However you have to make a choice as to whether you accept the past and move on, or live in the past and risk continuing that same issue. It was a political debate to and to an extent almost a civil war. That never makes murdering other people acceptable. However from the other sides perspective they were fighting what they considered repression and to an extent occupation of another country. In that way it's not actually so far from the French resistance as they too were fighting against what they believed were an occupying force. Whether the UK is occupying NI is both a historical and political debate, but it does not move away from the fact that to some people the UK is indeed occupying another country.

I appreciate it is easier to dehumanise the people on the 'other side' as some sort of evil caricature but it doesn't get past the basic psychology that from the other side they are the righteous ones and that in effect you are dehumanised as being part of an occupying force. Both are wrong but the way to manage that is to ensure that dehumanisation of people by each side is whittled away. The best way to do that is to bring those people that were opposed to each other to the table. It is not a quick process and the scars will last several generations but they will heal over time. The alternative is that those people you demonise remain in the outskirts, reinforcing their view that they are being repressed and leaving them with the view that the only choice is to continue that form of violence.

So the question you have to ask yourself is that whether you would prefer the attempt to clean the slate and give everyone a brighter future, even though for some they get away with murder. Or would you prefer to get so strung up on the past that you allow it to repeat and recycle endlessly resulting in more deaths and maiming of innocent people. None of us can do anything about what happened in the past, but we can influence the future. Is it better to continue in the same vein as the past or try and find a new peaceful path even if does mean from your perspective that you have to deal with the devil? And likewise those on the other side from their perspective they also have to deal with the devil.

So yes I am quite happy to allow those that committed the atrocities to get away with it. Not because I like the idea, but because it simply means that the people of today and tomorrow have a much better chance of not having to deal with such atrocities.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 reds8n wrote:
https://news.sky.com/story/pharmacists-preparing-to-stockpile-medicines-and-medical-supplies-for-no-deal-brexit-11441089?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter

Pharmacists preparing to stockpile medicines and medical supplies for no-deal Brexit
Health experts are warning that leaving the European Medicines Agency could impact on the supply of drugs into the UK.

But this is fine, obviously.

It's not just this, the government are preparing 70 documents of advice for households and businesses in the case of no deal.

https://en.mogaznews.com/World-News/970198/Theresa-May-will-issue-70-papers-on-how-to-prepare-for-a-no-deal-Brexit.html

You wouldn't be doing this if that possiblilty was remote.

So I guess the advice will be:-

Stockpile medicine, food, water.
Keep a wind up radio on you at all times
Minimise the use of the car
Do not go outside for at least 48 hours.
On re-appearing from your vault...
Those exposed to Wrexit radiation (warning Daily Fail and Scum newspapers contain much of this) brains *may* degrade to mindless ghoul like mentality.
Ensure you know what your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skills are and choose your perks wisely.
Those that haven't prepared may wish to take your stockpiles (also known as Raiders led by someone called JRM), be prepared to defend them and hide them in carefully concealed places.

No one charged for 9 out of 10 crimes.

Homicides increase for the 4th year running.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44884113

I'll spare people my usual rant on law and order. It gives me no satisfaction to be proved right. Again!

Country's going to the dogs

Let’s not lose site that the most extreme Brexiteers want us to crash out with no deal.

They’re disaster capitalists in waiting.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
No one charged for 9 out of 10 crimes.

Homicides increase for the 4th year running.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44884113

I'll spare people my usual rant on law and order. It gives me no satisfaction to be proved right. Again!

Country's going to the dogs

We've probably got off pretty lightly given 10 years of austerity.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
No one charged for 9 out of 10 crimes.

Homicides increase for the 4th year running.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44884113

I'll spare people my usual rant on law and order. It gives me no satisfaction to be proved right. Again!

Country's going to the dogs

This is what happens when you continually defund social support systems whilst simultaneously removing police funding.

Probably should vote for a different party *cough*

zerosignal wrote:


Probably should vote for a different party *cough*

No no no, DINLT hates the Tories, don't you know? He proved this by voting for a crisis and then give them the wheel to steer us through it.

 Riquende wrote:

zerosignal wrote:


Probably should vote for a different party *cough*

No no no, DINLT hates the Tories, don't you know? He proved this by voting for a crisis and then give them the wheel to steer us through it.

But not attached to the car mind you, which doesn't have any brakes or seat belts, barrelling down a 45% gradient with the only option being a cliff edge or a concrete wall.

However to point out that the car crash that is Wrexit will strongly encourage Scotland to vote for independence....

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
No one charged for 9 out of 10 crimes.

Homicides increase for the 4th year running.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44884113

I'll spare people my usual rant on law and order. It gives me no satisfaction to be proved right. Again!

Country's going to the dogs

I have some issues with those homicide figures; 1) they show that although homicide is rising, it had previously reduced, so we’re still better off than we were a decade ago. 2) those appear to be absolute numbers, rather than per capita. Given that our population has grown by ~10%, if all other factors are equal, you would expect a 10% increase in the absolute number of homicides. From that graph it looks like ~770 in 2008. So if homicide rate was constant, we should be seeing ~847 homicides. We’re seeing ~700, which is actually an 18% reduction in homicide rates, when adjusted for population growth.

/scientific