And my subscriptions to the club were……?

As you are probably aware Snowy I am a remainer, it wasn’t about subscriptions in fact the majority had little or no knowledge what the benefits were of being a member of the EU.
They thought it would be a good idea as it would stop immigration which it has now we have labour shortages and the big red bus was with millions written on it would help fund the NHS, as far as I know it hasn’t.
EU membership significantly raised the level of GDP per person in the UK through lowering trade costs and increasing the volume of trade. A reasonable estimate is that the gain was over 8 per cent per year, we have lost all that now.

I know aaaaall about it. I like going to Europe, but that’s about it. I like Germans to be Germans and Dutch to be Dutch, I don’t miss the EU, it’s gone, it’s in the rear view mirror.

Any good news on Europe's economy jamie? You can forget about asking us for any more money.sort it out for yourselves.

They don’t need to, they just impose tariffs on the goods we export to EU countries and goods we import as well from EU countries.

You only build a siege economy by imposing tariffs on your trading partners as a routine way of trading, which is a knee jerk tactic of first resort with them.
As we always ran at a massive trading deficit, buying more off them than they ever did with us and being one of the largest net contributors to the bills we were an economic Milch cow, as the Germans would say.
EU policy decimated several large UK industries by banning government subsidies to industry ……shipbuilding for instance and try spotting a British lorry on the roads, you won’t. All stitched by gloabalist transfers of industry, the huge modern Ford Transit plant near Southampton which I passed frequently closed in an EU inspired deal and moved to Turkey (not even jn the EU) financed by the EU.
The EU was ok as a trading organisation but when it becomes political you man the lifeboats.

It suited Thatcher not to subsidise any of the big industries all which were unionised, the unions brought the Tory government down, she believed in free enterprise and look where that has got the U.K. Consett steelworks was literally demolished the day after it closed likewise Sunderland shipbuilders.
Even if we opened industry back up again do you think kids would want to work in that environment more so the mining industry ?
Whilst I despised Thatcher and co at least they were proper politician not like the ones we have today.

She couldn’t if she wanted to…. or not, our continental chums found ways around it or turned a blind eye….we were infamous for obeying the rules, they didn’t bother……try and spot a British lorry on our roads….. the EU is a conduit for the globalists, they aren’t all neat, nice, twee reasonable folk, they’re part of the big financial brotherhood.
Er, what’s wrong with working in shipyards, we can’t all be tapping keyboards ‘working’ from home. If the ‘kids’ don’t want to do it we’re in a sorry state …sorry, if it’s good enough for kids across Europe to build ships you must have a pretty poor image of ‘kids’ in this country.

thats right. always remember not everyone went down the pit in mining areas or worked in shipyards in shipbuilding towns so that puts that argument to bed. think remainers have been lucky with the covid outbreak as it came just at the right time for there views to carry more weight. funny though how dribbles of information that does come out of europe aint that much different from what we are also suffering or are likely to do. possibly they are not doing as bad as us but they are certainly not in a good place either. personally i wanted to leave but knew every eu politician would see their future in putting the boot into the UK at every possible occasion. it certainly does not help with drakeford and sturgeon trying to do their worst by putting a wedge between the nations.

The frenzy the EU got in to just to stop us leaving serves well enough to anybody who is impartial to Brexit that we were a huge asset to them and politicians of all persuasions tried relentlessly to get us a better deal, without success.
They are now behaving like spoilt children who have had their sweets confiscated, trying to hold us back as best they can.
They want us to hold up our hands, say sorry for leaving and go crawling back.
You can imagine how they would milk that scenario.
Remember their antics over our vaccines. They tried their level best to downgrade our success and progress by putting as many restrictions and demands on us that they could dream up. That disgusting and disgraceful behaviour was actually playing with people's lives. There are no depths out of bounds in their determination to make us fail.
When we first went in it was a trading bloc called the common market. That was fine and still would be but the Brussels brigade wanted more. The wanted a united states of Europe, a single currency, central law making, removal of sovereignty, a European Army. free movement of people, a European Parliament, restrictions to prevent any member doing anything on their own, decisions on who makes what and where under their control.
An uncontrollable monster has been created and it's enlargement has slowly been leaning out of balance due to the fact that there are more nations interested only in what they can take out, instead of what they can put in. Eventually this unstable balance will put more and more pressure on the likes of Germany, whose citizens will become cynical and demand change or withdrawal. Then others will follow. This is their biggest weakness and is the reason they want to make it as difficult as possible for us, as a warning to others who may start to harbour disillusionment.

Of course they wanted us to stay because of £££££££££££££££…..we were one of the biggest contributors and now we’re gone the subs are being spread further afield, even the Irish who’ve been on subsidies from the start are being expected to contribute.
As a footnote, I was over in the Republic post the crash with ghost towns of new houses abandoned like the Marie Celeste overnight and the Irish Banks were bailed out by the UK…. not the EU.

plus they were also frightened that once we left and were allowed to make a success of leaving others would also follow and the whole thing eventually falling apart. I really doubt they,d have bothered for a single second if one of the old eastern block countries wanted to leave or greece for that matter. funny how the entry of these countries and free movement got people questioning the eu even if they never bothered much before.

To be brutal the original format consisted of financially comfortable country’s, the political decision to start taking in financial basket cases was all about expanding political power for European elitists.
Gordon Brown kept us out of the Euro, thank god for that as having it is the political handcufffs that keep it together.

Gordon Brown possibly regrets that stance considering he is an ardent remainer.

Aye, you’ve gorra laugh….

even they cannot agree on what went and is going on. even with remainers in charge we must have been a bloody nuisence to most in the eu as we always seemed to be at loggerheads with it and not a happy clapping member nation.

We are looking in the rear view mirror as the brick wall looms in front.

I supervised U.K. ‘kids’ 25/35 years old who were on mega bucks in Kazakhstan, they didn’t even have to get their hands dirty, the Indian labour did that for them, trying to motivate them was a nightmare, all they wanted to do was play on the internet, gamble etc. and brag about how big their house was, what car they drove and Rolex watch they wore.

Good job I’m driving a tank then.

We live on an island, it’s what we do, don’t fight it.

Who were you supervising, ‘Love Island meets The Simpson’s. ….Sorry, that bears no resemblance whatsoever to 95% of the kids I’ve known over the years.

Disagree kids/people nowadays are very materialistic, not like the old days when they were running round the town in beat up Vauxhall Novas, now it’s brand new Vauxhall Corsas.
Electricians who were given the title of Electrical Inspectors, some couldn’t put a plug on, but hey they had loads of qualifications.

You were a spoilt brat then…… you’re describing yourself in the seventies when most lads used the bus.

Yes during the 70's I had a Bull Nosed Morris Oxford Estate (the ones you still see driving around Delhi) and could drive to the coast with Mum & Dad, my married sister & her husband, my brother & younger sister and still had room for the dog.

Nope not a spoiled brat, far from it, my Father was a farm worker and my Mother had 3 cleaning jobs, car nope, we cycled to school every day and hail or snow.
I am referring to the kids of today.

I was joking.

I bite too easily some times Snow.

Just like my Ratboy but he hurts….

I see they've managed to legally get away with it, big shock.

You could make it into a sitcom though couldn't you? A kind of fawlty towers meets cruise ships? Complete with haphazard captains. Rude check in staff. Dumb crew members. Politically incorrect children's entertainers. The list of potential characters is endless.

Used them before, wouldn’t again, even the ferries have been registered under flags of convenience, so which island in the Caribbean is responsible for standards on board. Joke.
Was also gonna use them for a cruise for our anniversary, different branch of P&O but all the same to me, so that’s torpedoed too.

with a touch of hi di hi in the bargain.