Article 50 trigger 29th March

If you read my previous posts you will recall that I didn't vote to leave trisher BUT as that decision has been taken I really don't understand why people find it necessary to make things worse by their cup half full attitude.

It's going to happen, get over it. Support your friends and colleagues by explaining to them that they are valued and of course, will be staying. Make them feel welcome instead of spreading all this stupid doom and gloom and making them feel worse.

We need a 'like' button similar to Twitter

Annoyed by the 'my country' lobby. We don't 'own' anything, we just happen to live here.

This is a joke right?

The EU wiped out our fishing industries and made life for the farmers doubly difficult

I am a 'Little Englander' and proud of it lesley4357. I can trace my family back to the 16th century. I am like a stick of rock...British all through.

Dream on trisher. Do some research and you will see I am right. Do not cling to the EU because in a few years time it will also be GONE! It is alrady crumbling.

Don't tell me about what caused the fishing industry's decline. I come from a fishing community.

Sorry Yorkshiregel I must play devil's advocate here and put the record straight. I lived in an agricultural area for 20 years and the reason we need to employ labourers from abroad is 2-fold.

Firstly because it is seasonal (and b****y hard work) our own people don't want this work, though sometimes students will be employed in the summer months. My own two children both worked profitably in the fields and greenhouses picking seasonal crops when at Uni.

And, yes, they were all paid minimum wages and a bonus on top. There might be the odd charlatan gang-master but generally these workers are treated well, provided with good accommodation and they return year after year.

Can those who voted to leave please let me know what the positives are? Gov don't seem to have any idea. It just seems a way for the 'Little Englanders' to get rid of 'foreigners'. Makes me ashamed to be British

sarahellenwhitney Well said! I completely agree with you. What is there to celebrate about being part of a crumbling EU?

We are NOT turning our back on Europe, just the EU, that is a completely differet kettle of fish. We were conned by Edward Heath and every PM afterwards, at least Mrs May is trying her very best to get us out which is what we voted for by a majority. You do not re-play a football match if you didn't get the result you wanted, so Mrs Sturgeon needs to shut up wailing on about a second Referendum and help to make UK great again, and Scotland is still part of the UK!

Anya It isn't "hysteria" to wonder if you will be allowed to work, if it will be financially viable for you to work and if you will be targeted by racist people who blame you for what is happening.
Yorkshiregel what a load of shite to use a word from another thread
The fishing industry disappeared because of many things- the Icelandic cod wars for one, huge freezer trawlers and over fishing for another. Farmers struggle because supermarkets charge so little for milk-nothing to do with the EU. Universities actively recruit students from abroad because they pay more money, and they will continue to do so. In fact they will probably try to get more when their EU research funds disappear.
The pound is dropping and inflation is rising.
Banks are already stopping people from coming to work here and will be looking for other places to centre their activities. At least one English speaking EU country is getting ready to step into the breech.
Good luck with your fantasy Brexit. Perhaps when reality bites and we once again become the' sick man of Europe' you will realise how valuable the EU was.

Completely agreeing with costafina and daphnedill here. As a newby to gransnet I hadn't fully realised how right wing a lot of the views are!
I do worry what sort of UK my daughter and grandchildren will be left with.

When we were in Guernsey we were talking to this pretty waitress who told us that she was part of a group who had been brought from Europe to train before being sent to Britain to work. She was part of a gang of them with a gang master who was in charge. The jobs were ONLY advertised in countries in the EU and not in Britain. That is how our hotels are filled with foreigners, and the same goes for our hospitals. Fruit pickers and labourers were encouraged to come here because they could earn more money than they could in their own country. These wages were LESS THAN the minimum wage so wages for everyone were quietly eroded right across the board. To offer LESS THAN the minimum wage is ILLEGAL and yet our Government did nothing about this. Our own people could not afford to apply for them, they had bills to pay, this was a deliberate act. Now people are saying 'How will we ever manage without them?'. I will tell you how. Pay them the PROPER wage and British workers will fill the gap!

Yes, calm down is good advice and then perhaps those from other countries will not be affected by this hysteria and feel more confident that they are secure in their jobs.

'If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ......' ??

The EU wiped out our fishing industries and made life for the farmers doubly difficult, as if they weren't difficult enough already. French farmers prospered. I know that because we went before the EU and we went years after the EU. Our own farmers have really struggled what with milk quotas etc. Our Armed Forces have been cut to the bone. Our universities now have more foreigners in them than they do British students. Now we are being told to build, build, build houses all over the country, obviously to accommodate all the immigrants who will be clamouring to get here before the Brexit happens in two years time.

Our PMs have had the door slammed in their faces more often than you can count and they have been cold shouldered by EU Leaders, also not included in secret meetings which is not right. We are fined left right and centre and yet France can do almost what it likes. Take the smoking ban for example, you go to France and it is as if nothing has changed. They are the first to complain if Britain tried to 'cherry pick' the rules they impose on us. Our prisons are bursting at the seams because they forbid us to return criminals to the country they came from. Our hospitals cannot cope with all these extra people we are obliged to take in. The list is endless but I won't go on.

When Brexit happens I will breath a sigh of relief to have my country back to normal. There is a lot of scaremongering going on even now, but things are already getting better. The £ has NOT hit rock bottom, our exports are increasing every day, lots of big businesses and banks are waiting to come here bringing lots of jobs with them. We will be able to trade with the rest of the world, something the EU has denied us for 40 years.

STOP talking this country down and things will get even better. So sick of moaning remainers and people who say we weren't told what will happen so they cannot decide. I wasn't told any more than anyone else but I made a determined effort to find out about everything I could via the internet. Loads of information on there if you look for it. If the EU want to be nasty about us leaving it will be them who are the losers. If they will not guarantee that our British citizens will be given a fair ride in Europe then they can expect the same back. IT IS UP TO THE EU NOT BRITAIN!

Phoebes (how many of you are there?) ...you were not told? What are you, 6 years old? There was plenty of information around if you simply looked for it, including This from the Government and debate on all TV channels.,

You couldn't make it up, could you?

We're all doomed!

sarahellenwhitney
"Calm down dear.
Unless I am mistaken those persons already here will not be forced to go back to whence they came.[smile)"
Perhaps they will not be FORCED to go back but the uncertainty, the crashing of the pound and the distinctly anti-EU atmosphere may result in some of them leaving voluntarily and others being sent home. It doesn't really matter how or why the fact is that we can il afford to lose any of these people and your condescending tone indicates that you are completely unaware of how people who actually know and work with people from the EU feel about this. We are annoyed about how our friends and associates are being treated, we value their work and the contribution they are making and we think they deserve better.

Mr D is hoping that if he spouts the message often enough people might believe it!

Phoebes
Calm down dear.
Unless I am mistaken those persons already here will not be forced to go back to whence they came.[smile}

We weren't told the full implications before the Brexit vote, so how could we make an informed decision? It's just a joke which will have far-reaching repercussions. I had an operation on Friday and only one of the staff I saw in hospital was British. The surgeons were Romanian and Greek and the anaesthetist was Indian. What will happen to our wonderful health Service if they all decide to go home, or are forced to go back to their own countries?





Romanian and greek and the anaesthetist was Indian.

Not all "remain" voters are "remoaners".

Quite right, Caro1954. In my experience, most of those who voted to remain accept the decision and would rather just get on with it now too. This doesn't mean that people can't have reservations or worries about what will happen, and they have every right to express them.

I think "remoaners" is a very childish term, anyway. It was funny for about five minutes.

£350 million a week doesn’t include the rebate but uses better figures

It’s also been claimed that we send £350 million a week to the EU. That also misses out the rebate, although is based on better figures for the UK’s contributions.

£350 million is what we would pay to the EU budget, without the rebate.

But the UK actually pays just under £250 million a week.

The UK Statistics Authority has said the EU membership fee figure of £19 billion a year, or £350 million a week, is "not an amount of money that the UK pays to the EU each year".

£500 billion cost since joining the EU has the same problem

A further claim is that, if you add up the UK’s payments to the EU budget since 1973, we’ve contributed nearly £500 billion in total.

It uses the correct ONS figures on official contributions, although the ONS published slightly revised figures earlier this week. It also factors in inflation to reflect the rise in prices over the last four decades.

But it still doesn’t account for our rebate, so doesn’t represent what we have actually paid. Applying the discount reduces the figure to about £380 billion, or £9 billion a year.

The UK gets money back

The government then gets some of that money back, mainly through payments to farmers and for poorer areas of the country such as Wales and Cornwall.

In 2015, the UK's ‘public sector receipts’ amounted to £4.5 billion.

So overall we paid in £8.5 billion more than we got back, or £23 million a day.

The Treasury figures note payments the EU makes directly to the private sector, such as research grants. In 2013, these were worth an estimated £1.4 billion, so including them could reduce our net contribution further still.

The money we get back will be spent on things the government may or may not choose to fund if we left the EU. It’s not enough to look at the net contribution in isolation because what we get back isn’t fully under our control.

Therefore that seems to bring our overall contribution to the EU (with ALL deductions) to £7.1 billion. Which I calculate is just over £19 million a day.

Is that better for you Maisie et al

Not all "remain" voters are "remoaners". I voted "remain" but the majority didn't so now we have to accept that and get on with it. The reasons the SNP are making so much of their majority of remain voters is so that they can return to their real raision d'etre - independence. They are interested in nothing else.

So MaisieD you tell us how much we pay into the EU annually if you think you know best.

I'm waiting .....

How rude you are Lucy - I didn't vote to leave, but I've met plenty of intelligent people who did, so try for a little decorum please.