Welcome back to the EU!

[AHPP]

We didn't sell any tickets because we've got no fans. I thought it was funny, as did my guitarist. Sadly I think it went over the head of the youth who runs the venue. Too classical a reference for him.

[Steve Bullman]

12 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

 

Rumour has it that’s Danny g’s dad 

[Tree monkey 1682]

On 23/05/2025 at 16:57, Josey Wales said:

QFirst time poster here. Only joined last year, but for years had logged on for the chainsaw wisdom of @spudulike and ADW, the giggles from Wirral Boy and Logdaft and the free for all of 'Making the news today', so aware of the minefield I am entering.

Mine is probably not a popular opinion, but I see no problem with this 'reset' with the EU, nor anything alarming or controversial.

The Security & Defence Partnership is fairly typical for a EU - third country partnership, whereas the extension of the current fisheries agreement within the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) originally negotiated by Johnson and Frost for the Conservatives, is merely that. An extension. More importantly for the fishing debate is the alignment to SPS standards which should make exporting to the EU easier. Around 80% of what is caught in British waters was exported to the EU, but out of the Single Market and Customs Union , the shellfish industry specifically was hard hit. New Zealand is aligned with the EU as regards SPS standards for importing meat into the EU. As a third country, if you want to trade with one of the worlds big trade blocks, this is normal.

The Youth Mobility Scheme? A work permit for 18-30 year olds similar to the model already available to young Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Koreans. Why is it controversial if some Europeans want to work in London or Manchester as our Commonwealth friends do? This is not a return of Freedom of Movement (FoM). The free movement of people, goods, services and capital has been ruled out and would require rejoining the Single Market. The movement of people  to Europe and the UK not native to the region nor citizens of an EU state is completely different to FoM 'within' the EU that we had as members. There is much misunderstanding around migration, and rising immigration levels to this country are nothing to do with the EU and FoM as we ended it, but irregular immigration from outside the EU has risen both due to government policy and that in leaving the EU we left the Dublin Regulations whereby those seeking asylum could be returned to the first EU country they arrived in.

I neither want to rehash old arguments about Brexit, it happened, we have left the EU, nor engage in the immigration debate, it is discussed endlessly elsewhere, but as a country I feel that sometimes we lack accountability for our choices. The vote to leave the EU was carried out, the mandate fulfilled, but as a trade block on our doorstep with whom we have extensive trading ties I welcome a reset of relations in comparison to recent years whereby our politicians and media banged on endlessly about the Second World War and the Fourth Reich like an embarrassing drunk trying to start a fight at a party, or the annoying friend that constantly reminds you of a great favour they did you once and will never, ever, let you forget it no matter how many times you say thankyou.

Not being funny, but what does Wales really produce? It's got no industry... And relies on eu grants, if your going to comment about brexit and leaving the EU, you have to cover everything as this is politics can't cherry pick certain topics it's all of it, 

If we were going to fanny around with the EU, then we should have had a democratic vote about it... Not going in the back door and buggering it up again. 

It's democracy, just some people didn't like the fact of the process, wrongly or rightly. 

[Tree monkey 1682]

On 23/05/2025 at 08:31, Big J said:

As someone who's now lived outside of the UK for a few years, my perspective looking back in is that the reasons that the home-grown labour market is so weak are complex and tough to address. Here are a few comparisons between the UK and Sweden:
 

• In the UK, there is far too much focus on academic study, and particularly my generation (I'm 40) was essentially told that if you didn't have a university degree, that you were worthless. Here in Sweden, vocational training is highly valued, and you can start that at 16, and be fully qualified and in the jobs market at 19. As a young person, you have a pot of money that you can take anywhere in Sweden to study anything you want, but as I said, vocational training is valued as Sweden has a strong manufacturing base.
• People tend to stick at jobs for longer here. In the UK, people tend to 'CV build', thinking of jobs as a rung in a ladder, rather than something that they can be content with. This attitude is healthier, I think. 
• In the UK, we have a lot of people in a lot of trades who aren't actually particularly good at what they do (refer back to the lack of training). So to use myself as an example - in the UK, I built a sawmill without formal training, but with lots of self-directed study, I became very good at producing high grade, kiln dried hardwoods. That's my area of expertise. Latterly, I returned back to forestry, driving machines, and I'd describe myself as a decent forwarder operator, but not on the level of the Swedes. Not by a long shot - their training is routinely 2 years long and they are operator mechanics, which is necessary as many of the sites are fairly remote. As such, when I've done bits and bobs of machine work here, it's hard not to feel like an imposter as the locals are just so bloody good at it. This skill base is resultant from the training and the loyalty to jobs.
• In the UK, blue collar jobs have traditionally been looked down upon whereas that's not the case here. Manufacturing is valued and respected and seen as vital. Consequently, in the UK, we've had to import workers to fill these positions as no one from the UK is willing to do them.
• There are many more points, but I would say that the youth in the UK are just afraid of hard work, and I think a lot of that is down to general poor health. My daughters' school has over 300 pupils. I cannot recall having seen a single obese kid. It's rare to see seriously overweight people here and often they are German (there are heaps of Germans here). Processed food is more expensive, ready meals are largely non-existant and people are more physically active. 

I'm not trying to shit on the UK here, rather, seeking to illustrate that there are systemic issues with the UK labour market that mean that there are not the home-grown kids to fill the vacancies for jobs that we want to keep in the UK. Either the jobs get exported or the workers get imported. 

 Your missing the obvious about UK people, that the are a certain group of people who think they're to good to do manual jobs... Their still hoping to have  a degree job and the arogancy that goes with it.. 

Yet being a plant driver you earn more than a uni bod! 

[Johnsond]

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lukedmcmillan_oceanprotection-whales-dolphins-activity-7331313876619177984-df8p?utm_medium=ios_app&rcm=ACoAADB-kJ0BWrJUW5tVr2sxqvep_SKvMEUK9bk&utm_source=screenshot_social_share&utm_campaign=copy_link

Good news for the environment bad news for the foreign beamers that wreck the sea bed ecosystem. 

[Squaredy]

On 23/05/2025 at 16:57, Josey Wales said:

QFirst time poster here. Only joined last year, but for years had logged on for the chainsaw wisdom of @spudulike and ADW, the giggles from Wirral Boy and Logdaft and the free for all of 'Making the news today', so aware of the minefield I am entering.

Mine is probably not a popular opinion, but I see no problem with this 'reset' with the EU, nor anything alarming or controversial.

The Security & Defence Partnership is fairly typical for a EU - third country partnership, whereas the extension of the current fisheries agreement within the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) originally negotiated by Johnson and Frost for the Conservatives, is merely that. An extension. More importantly for the fishing debate is the alignment to SPS standards which should make exporting to the EU easier. Around 80% of what is caught in British waters was exported to the EU, but out of the Single Market and Customs Union , the shellfish industry specifically was hard hit. New Zealand is aligned with the EU as regards SPS standards for importing meat into the EU. As a third country, if you want to trade with one of the worlds big trade blocks, this is normal.

The Youth Mobility Scheme? A work permit for 18-30 year olds similar to the model already available to young Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Koreans. Why is it controversial if some Europeans want to work in London or Manchester as our Commonwealth friends do? This is not a return of Freedom of Movement (FoM). The free movement of people, goods, services and capital has been ruled out and would require rejoining the Single Market. The movement of people  to Europe and the UK not native to the region nor citizens of an EU state is completely different to FoM 'within' the EU that we had as members. There is much misunderstanding around migration, and rising immigration levels to this country are nothing to do with the EU and FoM as we ended it, but irregular immigration from outside the EU has risen both due to government policy and that in leaving the EU we left the Dublin Regulations whereby those seeking asylum could be returned to the first EU country they arrived in.

I neither want to rehash old arguments about Brexit, it happened, we have left the EU, nor engage in the immigration debate, it is discussed endlessly elsewhere, but as a country I feel that sometimes we lack accountability for our choices. The vote to leave the EU was carried out, the mandate fulfilled, but as a trade block on our doorstep with whom we have extensive trading ties I welcome a reset of relations in comparison to recent years whereby our politicians and media banged on endlessly about the Second World War and the Fourth Reich like an embarrassing drunk trying to start a fight at a party, or the annoying friend that constantly reminds you of a great favour they did you once and will never, ever, let you forget it no matter how many times you say thankyou.

It doesn't sound as if you read the very first post on this thread. 

 

The reset goes way way further than you appear to be aware.  Are you comfortable that our elected parliament (useless as it is) is in effect always subject to judges based in other countries?  Judges that it is worth pointing out are elected by no-one.

 

Suppose the UK passes a new law to try and improve the terrible state of our rivers by limiting the chicken farm runoff that destroys them (you may be aware that salmon have almost totally disappeared from the famous Usk and Wye salmon fisheries).  Would you be comfortable that the EU could effectively block such a move even though the UK held a referendum which then took us out of the EU?

[Steven P]

2 hours ago, Squaredy said:

Judges that it is worth pointing out are elected by no-one.

 

Without being argumentative, the judges get to that point through years of study, work, experience, case law, more study, more experience and so on. All they do is apply the law as it is written and ensure that it is applied properly.

 

The elected officials make the laws.

[GarethM]

9 minutes ago, Steven P said:

Without being argumentative, the judges get to that point through years of study, work, experience, case law, more study, more experience and so on. All they do is apply the law as it is written and ensure that it is applied properly.

 

The elected officials make the laws.

In simplified terms, you get a load of judges that are like Starmer, AI with even less personality.

 

Zero ability to understand the world, unless it's written down in a flow chart.

 

Computer says .....

[Squaredy]

8 minutes ago, Steven P said:

Without being argumentative, the judges get to that point through years of study, work, experience, case law, more study, more experience and so on. All they do is apply the law as it is written and ensure that it is applied properly

Well if everything were simple and black and white this would be true.  In reality the courts make arguably more law then parliament.  And I don't just mean foreign courts, but the UK ones also.  The law says that you may use reasonable force to defend yourself.  The courts interpret this, and once interpreted that becomes case law.  So parliament doesn't say whether you can shoot a robber in the back - the courts do.

[Steven P]

That's the interpretation of the written law, though the law makers update the laws as necessary if case law does not do as they want (which is the fault of the law makers for not describing the law properly first time round of if society changes). The judges aren't making the laws and if they aren't fit for purpose they can repeal them either.