Leaked e-mails and Farage as replacement?

I've seen that suggested too. He certainly had access to some of the ambassador''s reports, though some post date his spell as Foreign Sec.. Is this the start of a purge of non-believers?

We will see.

I don't want to see. I don't want it to happen for me to see!

Oh elegran that’s exactly how I feel. I have never felt so worried or frustrated.

n 1937 the British ambassador in Berlin, Sir Eric Phipps, who had been highly critical of Adolph Hitler, was replaced by Nazi sympathiser and appeaser Nevile Henderson. History repeating itself again.

Helpless. There is such a rush over the cliff that common sense has vanished.

The mindset of so many seems to be "If we leap out of the boat and into the water we will be able to swim the Atlantic, storm the US market and sell them all the stuff we don't make any more. We can jettison all our safeguards on imports, our employment rules, our health service. Who needs them? We are strong, we are great, we are the champions! We will prevail! Let's go back to Tudor times, when we explored the unknown world and began to trade with countries who were unable to make all the manufactured goods we were so good at producing, countries who were delighted to sell us their food and raw materials at low prices, because they didn't have the expertise to exploit them, who had no knowledge of how to negotiate good terms, so we could get the best deals that were going"

So we part company with our allies and colleagues in the EU and go it alone, because some of us think they cramp our style. There are no lifebelts in this marathon swim. We throw away everything gradually achieved over years, the hard-won trading agreements, the food production standards, the employment safeguards, the health and welfare systems that may not be perfect, but make sure that poverty and disability are not punishable offences. We start again as a third world country with a shaky political and social infrastructure and no record of success in international trade and relations.

It is national suicide, and who gains from it? Those who have envied us for decades and are pleased to see the cracks in the scaffolding of our civilisation.

Where is that oh so apt quote from please Elegran?

Not from anywhere, GracesGran, just my own imagining of what is going through their minds. Had it been a quote from someone else I would have attributed it.

Perhaps not a conscious thought by anyone of a reason to leave a successful trading group, but an unconscious echo of the "we are the empire" hubris that led to it.

Excellent post Elegran - it sums up the views of the Brexiteers perfectly

Bollox!

Have not got a problem trading with the EU - but after the "stitch-up" of recent top job allocations in the EU parliament, how can anyone think that the EU is a democratic organisation?

Asked why he was not more supportive of Sir Kim, Boris said it was "wrong to drag civil servants into the political arena" but he clearly thinks that an ambassador doing their job as he should, by expressing an opinion IN A SECURE REPORT should be hounded out of office, and he probably agrees with Farage that anyone in UK civil service or military who doesn’t believe in Brexit should be removed.

Do look up the translation of the Malay/Tagalog word faraj, by the way, and of an anagram of UKIP (PUKI).

Yes Urmstongran a lot of Bollox being posted on here today lol ?

Not bollocks at all

I can't say that 'Bollox' is the most convincing argument I've ever heard in favour of leaving the EU

Perhaps one of the 'bollox' crew would like to take Elegran's post and go through it to show us just what is 'bollox' and why it is so...

Yes, MaizieD, I'd like to see that. One point at a time:-

"If we leap out of the boat and into the water" - leaving the EU is leaving a boat that is safely afloat, has a compass and radar and lifeboats, and that has space for a lot of valuable cargo which we know is saleable for a decent price. We are (soon to be were!) members of the decision-making body, which decides the standards of the merchandise, the rules of trading, and the way the crew and passengers are treated. We get on well with of fellow crew-members (mostly) and we haven't had a punch-up with them for decades. We visit each other's homes without needing visas, send our young people to complete their education in one another's colleges without any bar, We treat one another's illnesses.

"we will be able to swim the Atlantic, storm the US market and sell them all the stuff we don't make any more." Well, that doesn't need explaining. Negotiating a trade deal with the US and that nice Mr Trump will be a doddle - we hold all the aces. Don't we?

"We can jettison all our safeguards on imports, our employment rules, our health service." We'll have to, to get that trade deaL

"We are strong, we are great, we are the champions! We will prevail!" Nothing if not optimistic.

"Let's go back to Tudor times, when we explored the unknown world and began to trade . . ." We WERE among the greatest, then. We were one of the three great trading nations, expanding round the globe, opening up trade routes to the east and West, doing battle, literally, with Spain and Portugal for power and influence over the New World. We did pretty well under Queen Victoria, too, the queen empress, but she is dead now.

" . . with countries who were unable to make all the manufactured goods we were so good at producing," now we don't produce nearly as much, but those countries have taken enthusiastically to manufacturing, streamlining production and improving quality and marketing methods. They don't want to buy our "cheap tin trays" any more - they can make their own, and sell them to us.

" . . countries who were delighted to sell us their food and raw materials at low prices, because they didn't have the expertise to exploit them, . . " but now they have that expertise, and their populations have expanded. They need their food and raw materials for their own people and thgeir factories. They will only sell it to us at a profit.

" . . who had no knowledge of how to negotiate good terms, so we could get the best deals that were going" Since then they have learnt from us how to screw the best price to sell at and the lowest price to buy. They have their own trading groups and their special deals - they don't need ours.

Now point out the bollocks. Don't bother repeating that we will be free - free to do what? We will be no freer than we are now.

I wish we had a big clapping emoticon, Elegran.

Excellent post

We do live in very scary and disturbing times indeed - and so many just do not want to see or hear.

Independence? Democracy? they said ?!?