On Sun, 17 Jul 2016 09:47:29 +0200
Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:

wrote in :

Also ironically Osborne only last year was suggesting that
perhaps it would be good if the pound did drop to aid exports.

It's not as simple, there are winners and losers. A drop of your local
currency is good for companies who sell abroad, but bad for conumsers.

Its about time a brake was put on consumer society. People by way too
much crap they don't need, most of which eventually ends up in
landfill.

Poverty is fine because it reduces landfills? That's one of the dafter
things one could say.

Poverty? There isn't much real poverty in the UK and thats unlikely to
change anytime soon barring some major natural disaster. Not having quite
enough cash to be able to upgrade to the latest iToy or buy some overpriced
cloth in Next isn't what I'd call poverty.

--
Spud

In message , at 10:39:37 on
Sun, 17 Jul 2016, Optimist remarked:
Plenty of EU citizens living in the UK earn much more than the minimum
wage. How would the NHS survive without them?

Sure, migrant workers do an excellent job in the NHS and elsewhere. But there are thousands of
Btritish people denied the opportunity to train as health workers because the UK government has cut
training.

Or in fact cut the funding for people undergoing training.

The short term issue is that if you can poach trained staff from the EU
free of charge, why would you spend £20-30K subsidising each Brit to get
qualified instead?

How many hip replacements would each £30k fund?
--
Roland Perry

Robin9 wrote:

tim...;156926 Wrote:
"Robin9" wrote in message
...-

Neil Williams;156835 Wrote:-
On 2016-07-15 08:29:59 +0000, Robin9 said:
-
Her choices are limited. As the SNP will try to block Brexit in
Parliament, and will receive much support from the Liberal
Democrats and many Labour MPs, at some stage Mrs. May
will have to repeal the Fixed Term Parliament Act and call a
general election. She will then have a commanding majority in
The House but most of her back-benchers will be strongly
opposed to free movement.-

Whyever do you think that? Parliament is quite heavily pro-European.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.-

Because, with the Labour Party is its present state,
the Tories would win with a huge majority. Tory Party
activists will make quite sure that most new Members
will be opposed to free movement.-

If there is a snap election "tomorrow" I doubt that Tory members will
have
any influence at all over the chosen candidates, there simply isn't the
time
-
The balance of power
in Parliament will be changed enormously.-

You may be right. Personally I can't see too many of these seats that
Labour are likely to lose changing hands to the Tories. UKIP are going
to
sweep them up.

Though I suspect my prediction is not going to be tested (it's only for

valid now, don't extrapolate it to 2020 - yet. A week is a long time in

politics a lot will change by then, for good or bad).

tim

There is no reason to expect an snap election in the next
few weeks. In my earlier post I said "at some stage." First,
the Fixed Term Parliament Act will have to be repealed.

The need to for Mrs. May to call an election will eventually
dawn on political commentators and soon the idea will become
common political currency. When that happens, Tory activists
will concentrate their minds on what they need to do to make
sure their Government can shrug off the SNP and the LD and
work towards the result most of us want.

There's no need to repeal the act to hold an election before 2020. There
can be either a vote of no confidence or the House of Commons, with the
support of two-thirds of its total membership (including vacant seats),
resolves "That there shall be an early parliamentary general election".

The SNP and LDs would presumably support the motion, but some Labour
members would also have to do so to get 434 votes. With the deep split in
Labour, one or other of the parliamentary Labour parties would probably be
happy to do so.

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 20:20:09 -0000 (UTC), bob put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:

In real life, I think it's likely we will end up as members of EFTA. The
benefits are useful, and the downsides of belonging are minimal (membership
carries far fewer obligations than EU membership). Whether we then go for
EEA membership will depend, I think, on whether or not we can negotiate a
suitable set of Swiss-style bilateral treaties with the EU or whether the
only way to get what we want is to join the EEA.

The difficulty is both EEA and EFTA involve paying money to the EU and
accepting free movement of people. An awful lot of people who voted "leave"
we're under the impression these were the things they were voting to get
rid of, and will be pretty miffed if they are retained.

EEA membership requires acceptance of the "four freedoms", including
freedom of movement, across the whole of EFTA and the EU. EFTA membership
alone doesn't. Switzerland has a bilateral treaty with the EU which
includes freedom of movement, but it would be possible not to have it.


The Swiss voted to restrict freedom of movement two years ago but haven't
yet found a way to implement it.


Anna Noyd-Dryver

Optimist wrote:
On 15 Jul 2016 18:20:48 GMT, Jeremy Double wrote:


Also, remember that companies, as well as universities, are partners in
collaborative projects funded by the EU. I have been involved in projects
where UK companies have benefitted from the expertise of partners
(companies and universities) from other EU countries. The UK will lose out
if it doesn't remain part of the European research funding system (as
non-EU-member Switzerland is).


Switzerland was excluded from the Erasmus student exchange programme when
they voted to restrict free movement of people two years ago. So there are
precedents for exclusion.

And there's no reason why the UK won't follow Switzerland's example.
Leaving the EU will save £10
billion a year net so lack of money need not be an issue.


I thought all of that was going to be spent on the NHS?


Anna Noyd-Dryver

Nobody wrote:
On Sat, 16 Jul 2016 19:34:09 +0100, Graham Murray
wrote:

"tim..." writes:

as the 5th largest economy in the world, with the second best range of
universities in the world (and the best in Europe) with one of the top
5 destinations in the world that "elites" want to live in, why do you
think that we wont easily be able to employ the world's best

Prof X (of foreign university) applies for UK visa.
Home Office: Sorry Prof X, we have filled our quota of workers of your
category, and we do not consider you a special case.


http://www.burnabynow.com/news/educa...eave-1.2297619


404.

Incidentally, I've no idea where Burnaby is, but I've just voted in favour
of a gondola up Burnaby Mountain


Anna Noyd-Dryver

Optimist wrote:
On Sun, 17 Jul 2016 00:07:48 -0000 (UTC), Recliner wrote:


https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jul/16/research-funding-hit-by-brexit-vote

The fact is the hundreds of millions of pounds supposedly from the EU are
provided by UK taxpayers
in the first place. So, if they axe a grant, UK can pay it directly instead


They could, yes. But will they? Hmmm...


Anna Noyd-Dryver

On Sun, 17 Jul 2016 15:01:25 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:

Optimist wrote:
On 15 Jul 2016 18:20:48 GMT, Jeremy Double wrote:


Also, remember that companies, as well as universities, are partners in
collaborative projects funded by the EU. I have been involved in projects
where UK companies have benefitted from the expertise of partners
(companies and universities) from other EU countries. The UK will lose out
if it doesn't remain part of the European research funding system (as
non-EU-member Switzerland is).


Switzerland was excluded from the Erasmus student exchange programme when
they voted to restrict free movement of people two years ago. So there are
precedents for exclusion.

According to the Erasmus website participating countries include non-EU Iceland, Liechtenstein,
Macedonia, Norway & Turkey.


And there's no reason why the UK won't follow Switzerland's example.
Leaving the EU will save £10
billion a year net so lack of money need not be an issue.


I thought all of that was going to be spent on the NHS?

That will be the decision of the elected government

In article ,
(Optimist) wrote:

*Subject:* Will Brexit lead to the abandonment of Crossrail2
On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 07:50:43 -0500,
wrote:

In article e.net,
(Mark Goodge) wrote:

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 20:20:09 -0000 (UTC), bob put
finger to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:

In real life, I think it's likely we will end up as members of EFTA.
The benefits are useful, and the downsides of belonging are minimal
(membership carries far fewer obligations than EU membership).
Whether we then go for EEA membership will depend, I think, on
whether or not we can negotiate a suitable set of Swiss-style
bilateral treaties with the EU or whether the only way to get what
we want is to join the EEA.

The difficulty is both EEA and EFTA involve paying money to the EU and
accepting free movement of people. An awful lot of people who voted
"leave" we're under the impression these were the things they were
voting to get rid of, and will be pretty miffed if they are retained.

EEA membership requires acceptance of the "four freedoms", including
freedom of movement, across the whole of EFTA and the EU. EFTA
membership alone doesn't. Switzerland has a bilateral treaty with the
EU which includes freedom of movement, but it would be possible not to
have it.

Not to have what? As the Swiss are currently finding out not having
freedom of movement is not an option.

So Switzerland has found that the EU is a bully. No surprise there.
But UK is significantly larger
than the Alpine state and not landlocked.

It's not bullying to say that if you want the benefits of the single market
you can't choose to exclude part of it because of your xenophobia. Freedom
of movement is a bit inevitable for Switzerland with its land frontiers and
not being a police state.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Optimist) wrote:

On Sat, 16 Jul 2016 14:23:08 -0500,
wrote:

In article ,
(tim...) wrote:

as the 5th largest economy in the world, with the second best range
of universities in the world (and the best in Europe) with one of the
top 5 destinations in the world that "elites" want to live in, why do
you think that we wont easily be able to employ the world's best

I'm sorry to tell you that, following the Brexit vote and fall in the
value of sterling, the British economy fell to 6th largest economy in
the world.

Do you really think that was because of the Brexit vote? So nothing to
do with fact that Osborne's creature at the Bank of England signalled
even lower interest rates and more money-printing (reminiscent of Weimar
Germany)?

The truth hurts the Brexiters I see.

--
Colin Rosenstiel