I think that when we voted to leave, we we deemed to be a fair bit lower down on the friends list.
Friends stick together, they dont walk away. Britain has walked away and we will get what we deserve.
The EU should look after the member nations, once we finally press the "eject" button, we have decided that we dont want to be "friends"

If you're so confident I suggest you put a lump on, currently at 5/2.

After the last two "shock" results I was tempted myself, but it sounds like after the first round of voting, those on the left will vote for the Republican to stop Le Pen at all cost.

However, stranger things have happened.

The organization evolved significantly between the UK joining the Common Market and where we are now. In that time there have been a variety of wheezes to get around democratic short comings. Perhaps if meaningful reform had been put on the table it wouldn't have come down to this, but nothing must threaten the gravy train.



Some have helped, some haven't.


The sun coming up in the morning, the wars in the Balkans, the Greek debt crisis...
Attributing stuff to the EU doesn't mean the EU was actually primarily responsible for it, it has had a positive impact in some places and a negative in others.



This is why I voted Remain, simply due to the pain of untangling the UK from this sleazy and corrupt organisation. For 40 years the EU and its previous incarnations has been insidious in ingratiating itself into every layer of society (paid for by our own money), making client groups out of businesses and politicians of all types and stripes. EU regulation permeates almost every aspect of domestic regulation, regardless of need, politicians and civil servants from your local council up to government ministries operate within a system where the EU's influence extends. I was a district councilor on a small district councilor, a few years ago we couldn't award a small services contract to the best supplier because an EU rule said that the bidder had to have a certain type of EU accreditation to sell to local authorities, none of this had anything to do with the company's actual capability to deliver, they were doing it for other non-local authority customers, but as a small company the best supplier couldn't afford the high cost of the EU "accreditation" (i.e. kickback), so we could only consider bigger and more expensive tenders. Most people associate EU crony jobs with has been politicians like Kinnock (and his wife), Chris Patten, Peter Mandelson, but even on my little district council we had councilors sitting on EU quangos (funded by UK taxpayers of course), they were far more lucrative than the domestic allowances.

farage for U.S ambassador

Excellent post

Bottom line is the EU just emanates a bad smell , as you suggest proper reforms and ousting of trough users and it could ( and should ) work , but allowing in countries just to get them out of Putins influence has created a massive imbalance

Brexit will hurt , but eventually that will subside and the world will just carry on

The key question with all of this is, whether the UK is stronger and more prosperous on the outside, without any influence on what is the country's largest trade block or, are we better off separating ourselves from our closest neighbours, rather than trying to correct any of the faults that there are within the EU and whether having a referendum on this in June was sensible, given that there will be substantial economic fall out in the short-medium term, was in any way sensible.
Of course, over the long term, things will find a new level.
It could be better, it could be worse but, people have voted for the unknown, sold to them by Farage and Johnson and other politicians who told us that we would be able to achieve the same tradinbg terms that we had when we were part of the EU "club".

Btw, I agree with your comments on the "trough" and lets not forget that we have our own MP's, Peers and Royals being very well fed in our own UK trough.

Judging by...

As we all know so many things have been attributed or linked to Brexit. As reported in today's Times, yesterday's London Standard came up with the days most bizarre linkage: "Londoners are still forking out for boob jobs despite the Brexit vote." Strange times we live in.

That was never, ever going to happen.

I mentioned many pages back that watching a 'fly on the wall' documentary on the EU Commission in which Mr Juncker and his cronies spoke candidly about the the looming EU Referendum was enough to secure my 'Out' vote. The widespread contempt, disdain and sheer arrogance expressed towards any criticism of the system was appalling.

All of them, without fail, believe the ideology of the core EU principles and even closer union is absolutely, utterly correct and flawless, and crucially: NOT UP FOR NEGOTIATION IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. Remember, this is not a democratically elected body, yet they shape the future of the EU, like it or not. At least if our government does a terrible job and the populace want a different direction we can vote a new one in. We can do precisely nothing about the EU Commission and you simply can't get away from that fact.

No thanks. I'll take my chances.

Mr Juncker would probably be utterly bewildered he helped contribute to Brexit.

Come on then all of you "Brexitiers".
Following the Chancellors blanket reduction in growth forecasts and increases in borrowing, how is leaving the EU helping us ?
Despite 2% growth this year, we are heading for the rocks and Brexit is starting to have the effect that everybody was warned about but, it was "just scaremongering"
I despise Osborne but, he did appear to have a clear plan, painful as it was for the poorest members of the population.
His successor seems to have taken a leaf out of Gordon Brown's political strategy, where the Chancellor just crosses his fingers and hopes for the best.

Separate trade deals, even if they happen quickly, aren't going to help significantly and we are still left with a pound that has similar value to gold milk bottle tops.

We've taken back control of the Titanic (sorry UK) just as we approach a huge iceberg.

Farage is too busy sticking his head up Trump's backside, Cameron fell on his sword, Boris remains, a clown and Corbyn cant even lead his own party.
It's bloody depressing