L00b

Nice ride, Chekhov. A very good friend of mine has long had a Robin Hood with a very tweaked Pinto in it. Last week I received the 2024 car tax notice : €25! After 22 years of ownership, that's it, she's officially a classic! 🙌 Topically for the thread , many cars owned both before that MX5 and meanwhile, from the mundane (AX, BX, Brava, Imprezas (non-T), V50, C220) to the extraordinary (CX GTI T, Delta HF T, Imprezas WRX). Aside from the Brava and V50 (late Friday shift-built), I have appreciated them all, but the current family wagon is the best by a country mile: First car in 22 years to start holding a candle to the MX5, in the smiles-per-mile . Always been a petrolhead, and of course there's been many cars I wanted or had opportunities to get, but did not (e.g. original M3, *any* TVR) and these days I'm getting a lil'old to be lusting after Porsches, Ferraris and whatnot. Not sure what to replace the XE with, if I were to ever part with it. Another RWD 6-pot, if anyone still makes any by then.

Closer to 48% (LUSTAT Data Explorer • Total population, Luxembourgers and foreigners, of usual residence in Luxembourg by sex (statec.lu)) AFAIK Lewis Hamilton still lives in Monaco, much much tax-friendlier to the wealthy, than Luxembourg which is not that much friendlier than others (Luxembourg Tax Rates & Rankings | Luxembourg Taxes (taxfoundation.org)) Spent some time in the UK a couple weeks ago, visiting my offices in Surrey and Greater Manchester, then friends and family in South Yorks. So one of those visitor/business visas could have been mine, though it certainly wasn't printed (or, if it was, then I never received any copy). Not the best time of year for that trip, unfortunately. Hugs and Kisses to all 😉

You do realise of course that, by the very example that you quote, clearly EU membership had no bearing on a country’s sovereign choices about its Covid-mitigating policies? Literally every single justification for Brexit put forward by Leavers since actual Brexit, follows the exact same logic: EU membership never prevented the UK from enacting or pursuing its chest-thumping policy choices since 2021. Pity you didn’t catch the irony of your post when you typed it. Edit - on the topic of Poland and Hungary, mentioned lately. https://www.dw.com/en/rule-of-law-eu-reprimands-poland-and-hungary/a-66165982 Small example, there are many more. You start playing against your own club on the field, you soon get benched and fined. Who’d have thought, <etc> Of course, it’s your everyday Hungarians and Poles, not really the Orbans or PIS types of this world, who suffer most from those measures. But well, Hungarians, Poles, etc. keep electing those populist autocrats. So, well, usual f around-find out dynamic. Like Brits, Tories and Brexit, really 😆

It was always going to happen, once UK mobile corporates were relieved from the EU trade rules-based obligation to implement and maintain free roaming intra-EU. We are now a good few years past proving, beyond any reasonable doubt, that any promises or assurances by Leavers in 2016 were, at best and to put it charitably, uninformed drivel. Moreover, and after all, any trade/economic counter-arguments made by the Remain side of the debate on the basis of facts and logic were, both before and after the referendum, steadfastly shutdown by Leave-quoting useful idiots arguing that Brexit was about sovereignty, not the economy, and that taking the economic hit was worth achieving Brexit. No point linking outside SF, there must be hundreds, if not low thousands, of such posts over the years, in the original ‘How will you vote’ Brexit-themed thread, and then the various ‘Consequences’ threads since. example: For the sake of your blood pressure, maybe better get used to consequences like the loss of free roaming already. You’re still only at the very beginning of the ‘finding out’ phase.

Good grief, are you guys still arguing about who said what 7 years ago? After 7 years, no one is ever going to convince the Brexit zealots or the idiots. Their cognitive bias is 6 feet thick, of solid titanium. Leave them where they’re happy to be, ignore them and let old age do the work for you. Brexit is done. The UK has been out of the EU for over 2 years. Nobody but the UK press and government gives a damn much, anymore. And positively noone outside the UK. The UK is where it is, and consequences continue to accrue because of it. Move the discussion on.

Some of us did explain, nearly 8 years ago now, and with added emphasis 6 years ago after Theresa May’s Lancaster speech, how Brexiting would affect- (i) the UK’s services sector-led economy: no UK policy focus *whatsoever* pre-referendum, nor at any times since, *ever*, on services (cue banking, asset management, insurance, legal, etc services all gone from the U.K. to Ireland (Dublin mostly, hence Irish GDP effect in more recent times), the Continent (Paris, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Amsterdam) and the US (New York mostly)) and (ii) supply lines used by UK ‘manufacturers’ (whose business model of offshoring all manufacturing to China and Vietnam, already old by then, would run afoul of the EU’s rules of origin) in and amongst so many other fully-predictable economic consequences of hard Brexiting. But well. Farage and Leave’s snake oil rubbish, “Project Fear”, “has enough of experts”, German car manufacturers, “they need us more than we need them”, “it’s about sovereignty not the economy” and all that mountain of other cretinous slogans peddled by the right wing media, found its audience alright. You weren’t helped by your political leaders. Lest we forget- https://x.com/AlexTaylorNews/status/1068080900037099522 You still haven’t been since, either.

How much food on British tables and roofs over British heads does the Eurovision song contest bring? Trade, on the other hand…

Trade-wise, in these post-Brexit days, it is so, more than ever before: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/25/ports-france-ireland-brexit-cherbourg-rosslare

Why was freedom of movement a big issue for the UK? Looking at the sheer volume of Brits moaning at the personal consequence of losing FoM when eventually experiencing it at the coal face in their jobs, holidays, retirement <etc> as related by the MSM (mostly the right wing press, irony of ironies)…most people still don’t seem to understand it now, 7 years on. Edit - example #2457: https://x.com/Seven7Kevin/status/1701573699667726436?s=20 400+m EU27 citizens did not lose FoM. They ‘lost’ the UK as 1 of 28 opportunities. 67m Brits lost FoM, completely but for the historical CTA with Ireland.

Ah, so it’s ‘or something’ then. Best leave it there with you, I’m told it’s not nice to mock the afflicted. Came to this thread for a look-see, thought I’d post some benefits. Look what £75m of your hard-earned tax money spent on German manufacturers bought you: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/11/bmw-u-turns-on-plans-to-move-electric-mini-production-from-uk-to-china 👍🏻

Do you have issues with reading comprehension, or something?

If you researched and answered your own question, you could present your debating argument. I can only presume that you are incapable of doing basic online research, or that you do not have any argument worth making. In the meantime, the point stands - unchallenged by your testiculations of the last 2 pages: the U.K. handles a tiny fraction of the asylum seekers making their way through the EU, multiples of which get handled by Germany, France and others. So quit moaning and own your stats.

The UN is not an anonymous internet source. Neither is the EU. Neither is the Red Cross. Neither is <etc>. If you should be so devoid of critical thinking faculties, as to class every official source of immigration statistics as ‘anonymous’, shorthand for ‘invalid’ no doubt…there isn’t a debate worth having with you I’m afraid. As for my reluctance, it is to get drawn into your nonsensical -and rather desperate by now- diversion (“but but but Luxembourg”) from the original point: Germany, 70m inhabitants, handled 243k asylum seeking applications 2023 YTD. France, 67m inhabitants, 156k. Spain, 47m inhabitants, 118k. The U.K., 67m, 78k (end Jun 23).

And I asked you why did you bring up that country (it’s not mine), as your first and only reply to a post drawing attention to the difference in volumes of refugees respectively handled by the U.K. and some EU countries. Since you couldn’t be @rsed to find the answer to your own question in the first place, a 2 minutes-Googling away. Do you believe that such stats, for a country of 650k inhabitants (48+% foreign-born) which is 95% smaller than the U.K., is critical to discussing that point? Can’t wait to read your explanation as to why that is 😏

No answer to what? The question which you are desperate for me to answer, for furthering your strawman argument along? When you could be finding out the answer yourself with a little searching for around 5 minutes? For the rest of it, I’m insulted that you feel insulted. I did not have you down, as a poster willing to target little boats in the Channel, but maybe I missed your posts stating that opinion? By all means, feel free to stop debating. But maybe give it a start first, eh?

Since everyone is still scrambling to find a Brexit benefit on here, there you go: Modern slavery on British farms, delivered courtesy of Brexit. Such a good look 😉 Reported by LeMonde, since you’re hardly likely to find media from either side of the British political spectrum touching on it. Yup, not exactly glowing for Lexiters 😏

Did you now? harvey, were you aware that close to 50% of residents in my location are foreign-born? I might have mentioned it once or thrice. Whether they are refugees or immigrants does not matter one iota, when every second person in the street, anywhere in Luxembourg, is a foreigner. Just imagine: going to your local for a pint, place is rammed, every flavour of ethnic background in there and conversations in half-a-dozen different languages. Exactly like in that Greek restaurant last night, as it happens. Situation completely normal, no different to the office, the local high street, the local supermarket, the bus stop - every single day. 🤯, amIrite? The notion must be enough to give Brexiters like you, and certainly narrow-minded bigots willing to target little boats in the Channel on sight, the worst nightmares. Yet that is exactly why I don’t have the *slightest* interest in your strawman.

I am, and I did indeed. You must have missed the linked tweet in my earlier post, somehow. I did not bring Luxembourg into it, however: you did. So I don’t have to link anything about it: you do.

and every other EU member state besides France, Germany and Luxembourg, plus the non-EU states that take in the bulk of refugees before a fraction of them ever moves on towards Europe? Do your own homework, I’m not building your straw man for you.

What’s Luxembourg got to do with the point made? Read the link? If you don’t like the source, maybe Google the issue independently? Thousands upon thousands of search results linking to official statistics and articles based on same validating the point made (that tweet is simply a convenient summary - a very brief one). The very vast majority of asylum seekers reaching Europe stop long before hitting the Calais beaches, never mind the fraction that makes it to GB shores, indeed. Or keep swallowing your government’s hyperbole, makes no difference to me: I’m just countering the falsehoods in your earlier post with facts, I’m not desperate to change your mind.

That all probably explains why France and Germany accept multiples of the refugee numbers that the UK accepts, every year 😏 But by all means, stick with your old tropes. In the meantime, GB’s reaccession to bits of Horizon, clearly signposts that GB is heading for a period of lessening as much friction as it can with the EU outside the bounds of membership, collaborating as much as the EU care to collaborate. The country and even the Westminster bubble has quietly accepted that Brexit was a mistake. Only took 7 years.

Xmas dinner analogy: you bought yourselves a seat at the kiddy table 😉 Still…now you’re in the same room. A welcome development. Now, for more 🙌🏻

Today in the Commons, Robert Jenrick MP was threatening lawyers, who advise refugees which the British government deems to be illegals, with a life prison term. The video is floating about on the web. That's your immigration minister, by the way, going full-on protofascist. SNAFU. I think it’s in everybody’s best interest that the UK sets about that implementation sometime soon. Don’t forget about the agrifood customs checks this time, you haven't had enough food inflation yet and your food security situation still isn't trashed enough. Somebody mentioned up-thread that the Tories will likely campaign on exiting the ECHR next year, under the sunlit uplands-grade falsehood that doing so would allow them to solve the small boats issue. Exiting the ECHR can’t begin to solve that issue, no more than Brexiting could begin to solve the (inexistent) issues with the EU...but it would certainly strip you of your human rights, in the exact same way the Tories successfully stripped you of your EU rights.

The aim is to better control right of admission onto the EU territory, like others (notably the US) have done for years and longer, and like the UK will itself be doing with its own ETIAS. As for ‘even more bureaucracy’: at the risk of restating the obvious, that is what the UK decided that it wanted in 2019 vis-à-vis the EU27, when it negotiated a hard form of Brexit. Even if many (most?) in the U.K. did not necessarily understand that before, at the time or -reading this thread- since.

Sorry, I don’t follow. What’s your point?