But wait the EU is just a trade body

[GerryT]

Good luck get many of them to turn up to fight.
Not much point even having a military if you aren't going to use it.

You could get all spiritual like the Dalai Lama instead. That has worked out great for him.
Not that you even need an army since you have the IRA to do your fighting for you.

But hey, do your thing.
We will rearm to counter any increased threat you present.


The ambassador of peace that wants his own army. Righto.

That's the problem baff, it's not like there will be troops in trenches. I favour EU countries reducing their individual spend on defence and pooling that as an EU defence resource. That's the point, you don't want any of them fighting.
Armies are such a waste of money, prob why the UK has reduced it's forces strength greatly over the past 30 yrs. That's a good thing.
As for the IRA, they became the Irish Army after we got the UK out, and they still are today. What is the IRA today is not the same thing, a faction breakaway group.

[GerryT]

So looks like paddy and mick are taking up a good bit of the slack.

Once johnson cuts off the uk funding supply  , all out war will start breaking out when pierre and pedro realise they need to start paying a lot more to the unelected clowns in brussells while paddy already has his hands in his pocket.

IRL will contribute more and that's a fantastic thing. The better your countries performance the more you pay. I'd prefer to be thriving as part of the EU paying a fraction of a percent of GDP. The Budget has the 750b additional for loans/grants, initially no country will be paying back on the grant debt until a mechanism for repaying that money is trashed out by the 27 countries. Each country that takes a low interest loan will pay that back themselves.
The UK net was contributing 7.5b, it's peanuts in the grand scheme of things.

[Thomas]

This is why we question the SNP setermination to stay/rejoin the EU having determined independence. It doesn't seem logical.

No toots. Let me first establish ,i am not  , and never have been or will be british or a british nationalist.

The question isnt wether scotland should or shouldnt join the eu after independence. We have our own scottish pro and anti europeans who can perfectly well argue this out between us.

The question is , if we are an appendage of your country , england will take us out the eu , just as england took us in. We dont get a say on the matter.

The SNP position is perfectly logical. They believe in scotland s right to choose.

I have said many a time , you can't argue 62% of scotland voted remain. Personally im not fussed either way , but as i said i am growing increasingly disquieted about the eu and its behaviour.

......but first and foremost , i want scotland to be independent of your country.

The article i quote you by an english conservative goes on..

So this is the tangle my Brexiteer friends – Tories, Labour, UKIP folks – appear unwilling or unable to unravel. They fought for the right of what they thought was a nation – Britain – to make a choice about its future. Their philosophical case was flawless, it was just that the nation they believed they were safeguarding didn't and doesn't exist.

But the moral basis of that campaign has been established and is there to be taken and asserted by the SNP with the voice Scotland's parliament, the country's crucible for national debate, gives it.

its your position which is completely illogical toots.

You want your country free , and to have the choice what to do over issues like the eu while denying scotland that same choice.

If you think holding scotland captive and refusing to agree to an indy ref is the way to preserve your union , then history shows you are sadly mistaken and merely re making the mistakes of the past which lost you 62 countires around the world including the "west britons" in ireland.

What makes the Union so "precious" for those who see it as such? Mere history and sentiment? They undoubtedly have weight in the affairs of nations and their alliances, but they do not fix constitutions in stone.

Or an intellectual inability to accept the mortality of all unions, even those that have survived for three centuries? Possibly; it was quite beyond the comprehension of EU Remainers that Britain's obviously unhappy 48-year marriage with Brussels could ever be brought to an end.

Yanking Britain out of its place in the Brussels Empire – a servitude Oxbridge and the BBC judged everlasting – was the act of radicals. That radical spirit on the Tory right will be needed again if it's clear that the majority of Scots are as displeased with the British union as the British – or chiefly, the English – were with Europe

[Thomas]

I ain't that important Gerry, no need to be bring me into it. Stand by your own convictions, as dodgy as they may be.

Heres another wan fur pair auld gerry sheep....


I dont think he quite gets this...

For a great many of us in the Brexit movement, the argument was not fundamentally about immigration numbers, the financial cost of EU membership, or the best ways in which to sell and move cars, kettles, cows and Cognac across Europe. Neither was it about any particular EU law that might or might not be useful or useless.

It was at its heart a struggle to restore the right and liberty of a country – albeit at this point a polity comprising four nations – to elect directly the people who make the laws of their state and remove them. It was about restoring the democratic government of a free nation state.

[T00ts]

What both of these people – Thatcher somewhat later than others such as Hugh Gaitskell, Tony Benn, Enoch Powell and Ernie Bevin – could see coming down the track was the step-by-stealth creation of exactly what the project's founders had in mind from its origins in the 1920s: a country – or a state – called Europe, its ancient nations reduced to mere counties.

The decades-long struggle by EU-sceptics to regain the sovereignty of the nation they called Britain might, once upon a time, have been recognizable in Ireland as a quest for nothing other than Home Rule.

https://wingsoverscotland.com/fairs-fair-the-brexit-case-for-indyref-2/#more-118585

Good article on wings today by a right of centre english tory.

Interesting reading , and as i keep saying the more i read about this eu project ,the more im coming to despise it.

This is why we question the SNP setermination to stay/rejoin the EU having determined independence. It doesn't seem logical.

[Thomas]

What both of these people – Thatcher somewhat later than others such as Hugh Gaitskell, Tony Benn, Enoch Powell and Ernie Bevin – could see coming down the track was the step-by-stealth creation of exactly what the project's founders had in mind from its origins in the 1920s: a country – or a state – called Europe, its ancient nations reduced to mere counties.

The decades-long struggle by EU-sceptics to regain the sovereignty of the nation they called Britain might, once upon a time, have been recognizable in Ireland as a quest for nothing other than Home Rule.

https://wingsoverscotland.com/fairs-fair-the-brexit-case-for-indyref-2/#more-118585

Good article on wings today by a right of centre english tory.

Interesting reading , and as i keep saying the more i read about this eu project ,the more im coming to despise it.

[T00ts]

Actually, I think it was these guys

http://www.tuaeu.co.uk/

No2EU died out around 2014/15 it seems.

Were killed off more likely.  It's hard to believe the gullibility and naivety of successive governments.  I would give a lot to know just how those discussions between different British PMs and the EU went to make them tell us it that each turn of the screw via treaties they agreed to sign was all so great.

[Borg Refinery]

Actually, I think it was these guys

http://www.tuaeu.co.uk/

No2EU died out around 2014/15 it seems.

[Borg Refinery]

and the old labour opposition to the european project...

One was Peter Shore, a nonconformist left-wing minister in the Labour governments of the 1960s and 70s, and an unwavering opponent of UK involvement in the European project.

Shore said when the Commons was asked in 1972 to accept the Treaty of Rome:

    "It is a treaty – the first in our history – which would deprive the British Parliament and people of democratic rights which they have exercised for many centuries.

    I can think of no treaty, to cite only one characteristic of the Rome Treaty, in which the British Parliament agree that the power to tax the British people should be handed over to another group, or countries, or people outside this country, and that they should have the right in perpetuity to levy taxes upon us and decide how the revenues of those taxes should be spent."

He added later: "I did not come into socialist politics in order to connive in the dismantling of the power of the British people." He voted against all of the European treaties and opposed UK participation in elections to the European Parliament.

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1972/jan/20/european-economic-community-treaty-of

only just read that today for the first time.....pretty powerfull stuff.

Surprised to hear, you are usually 10x up on me on the reading list on most political subjects (I'm not suggesting anything by that).

No2EU were the lefty commie group opposing the EU headed by that Union boss during the ref. They made some alright arguments but were a bit pigheaded Old Labour unionmen from the 70's types for me..but they made some good arguments

[Thomas]

and the old labour opposition to the european project...

One was Peter Shore, a nonconformist left-wing minister in the Labour governments of the 1960s and 70s, and an unwavering opponent of UK involvement in the European project.

Shore said when the Commons was asked in 1972 to accept the Treaty of Rome:

    "It is a treaty – the first in our history – which would deprive the British Parliament and people of democratic rights which they have exercised for many centuries.

    I can think of no treaty, to cite only one characteristic of the Rome Treaty, in which the British Parliament agree that the power to tax the British people should be handed over to another group, or countries, or people outside this country, and that they should have the right in perpetuity to levy taxes upon us and decide how the revenues of those taxes should be spent."

He added later: "I did not come into socialist politics in order to connive in the dismantling of the power of the British people." He voted against all of the European treaties and opposed UK participation in elections to the European Parliament.

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1972/jan/20/european-economic-community-treaty-of

only just read that today for the first time.....pretty powerfull stuff.

[Thomas]

Guy Verhofstadt on the vision of the "european empire"

The world of tomorrow is not a world order based on nation states or countries. It is a world order that is based on empires. China, is not a nation, it's a civilisation. India... is not a nation... The US is also an empire, more than a nation... And then finally the Russian federation.
The world of tomorrow is a world of empires in which we Europeans, and you British, can only defend your interests, your way of life, by doing it together, in a European framework and in the European Union.'

https://archive.is/11n9q

[Baff]

Has been completey disproven by the UK japan trade deal.
In which UK got a better deal and made that deal faster.

Not to mention all the others signed this year.

The more people you add, the harder it is co-ordinate them.
The less easy it is to act in all their best interests at the same time.

This is called a negative economy of scale.

Example:
Is it quicker and cheaper for you to go out and grab a bite to eat, or for you to take your family of 4 out for a bite to eat.

A negative economy of scale.

[Sheepy]

it is leaving gerry. 15 weeks to go , and the clock is ticking down.

I cannae believe thats another week went by. Seriously doesnt time fly when you are having fun?

Agh great crack, especially when the likes of sheepy comes along, digs into the far corners of his head and just starts writing.

I ain't that important Gerry, no need to be bring me into it. Stand by your own convictions, as dodgy as they may be. 

[Stevlin]

Go easy on him stevlin. Gerry is increasingly becoming hysterical as the countdown approaches d day.

C'mon now Thomas...you should realise that such 'hysteria' is part and parcel of growing up!..Ultimately , it will be good experience for him....and could even prove invaluable if Ireland are subsequently 'taken to the cleaners' by the EU instead of being spoon fed by them, as they have been until fairly recently.
The major problem of course, is still that massive border problem - which if not amicably solved , could well rise again even if/when the  EU is history.

[Forum admin]

But I can assure you I'm sitting in Dublin. Happy for the mods to confirm this, I'm sure they have a way of doing this through the IP address.

Yes, you appear to be in Ireland.