Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

So folks, only a few weeks to go and we proceed apace to the cliff edge. Kent will become the toilet of England with all those desperate truckers but what about Sussex? Will CH be able to feed its pupils in the style to which they've been accustomed or will it be a return to skiffage pie, as in my day (I hope not for their sake)? Even the Tory Brexiteer politicians are starting to get uneasy. They don't have a deal yet. Will this country be worth living in? Will all those Chinese and Singaporean and Russian oligarchs feel it's worth spending their valuable currencies to send their precious sprogs to a British public school when the country is collapsing into offshore North Sea irrelevance? Will CH itself have to decide whether it wants to get out the begging bowl again to become a charity school (as per 1553) or to sell out and chase Eton and Harrow for the money? If the former, then I imagine that the cull of staff and facilities will be savage.

"They" were expecting 2.5 million EU nationals to apply for residence permits. When I last heard they had received 4 million. Seems the EU hoi polloi want to be here. A lot of those are French entrepreneurs who came over when the socialist climate in France went against them.

They could aternate the skiffage pie with Marmite fritters to provide a balanced diet.

Last night's BBC Newsnight was interesting. One guest was a longtime trucker giving what he perceives to be the continental perspective. It appears that hauliers mainly start off on the continent, deliver their load in Britain and set off back with a replacement load. Not the other way round. Many of them are telling him that it won't be feasible in future because the five-hour journey that is a typical time frame in one direction is now going to multiply due to the new customs arrangements. They are saying that they will simply stop doing business in our direction. Ouch! All that food and medicines. The second guest was a French EU bureaucrat who cheerfully confirmed that the EU certainly wouldn't be giving way on the "level playing field" - product safety, workers' rights, environmental standards and "undercutting" in general. The third guest, rather predictably and tediously, was Peter Bonehead MP, professional Brexiteer blowhard and general denier of reality, who did what we expected and blamed it on the EU.
I wonder what Banker Brown is doing with his investments. The pound will tank when we leave, along with British based company equities presumably. If I had the spare money I think I'd have long ago put it into gold, the traditional safe haven. Of course what CH could have done would have been to have copied the Etons and Harrows of this world and set up clone institutions in far east countries where they've got the money to pay full fees. This could have subsidised the home school. Bluecoat uniform, quad, rugby, choirs and of course a military style band playing Singapore By The Sea as they all march into lunch.

rockfreak wrote: Sat Dec 05, 2020 5:54 pm Bluecoat uniform, quad, rugby, choirs and of course a military style band playing Singapore By The Sea as they all march into lunch.

The Thais would love it!

You couldn't make it up. Right on cue with my creating this Brexit thread, up pops an ad featuring Nigel Farrago telling us that he's now become a financial advisor. He's quit strutting around on the cliffs of Dover with a megaphone (where, if he'd been paying attention, he'd have realised that all these dinghies are laden not with Polish plumbers but desperate refugees from the middle east in flight from chaos, anarchy and civil war in their own countries created by our invasions) and is now telling us where to invest our money. He says that Leave has won. Well "winning" is up for debate as the next few months will show. Who will have "won" I wonder?
He says that you can't trust the financial industry. I wonder why? Nigel was one of those (a commodities broker) who did rather well out of Nigel Lawson's deregulation of the City. The same deregulation that resulted in a share crash in 1987, Barings, BCCI, pension miss-selling scandals and an irresponsible housing boom (right-to-buy, 100% mortgages) that went pear-shaped in 1990 and resulted in another massive recession. These damn City people must think we're all stupid. If we need Nigel's advice it'll be where to put our hard-earned savings for safety after the carnage that his Brexit will cause. What will Nigel do next year when the sh*t hits the fan? I imagine he's already got a tax haven lined up.

Wasn't one of the promises that Mr Johnson made at the general election that he had an 'oven ready deal' for leaving the EU? Clearly not as 'oven ready' as he throught, not that even his supporters seem to expect him to tell the truth. Actually, who exactly are these supporters? I have met Americans who support Trump and are happy to tell you so, but I've never met anyone who will hold up their hand and admit to being a supporter of Mr Johnson. This applies just as much to self-proclaimed Tories as to the rest of us, and even his MPs are turning against him now.

There was a Belgian MEP on the radio this morning talking extremely coherently about Brexit. His view was that, however it panned out and whatever deal was struck, Brexit was a lose-lose situation for both Britain and the EU. I simply cannot see how anyone is going to benefit from this. Even the most ardent of Brexiteers (except perhaps Mr Farage) have largely agreed that there leaving the EU would cause economic pain, at least in the short term, and I think that most are now agreed that this is going to be both more severe and longer-lasting than they anticipated. Add in Covid-19 and life is going to be pretty miserable for the foreseeable future.

Back to the lose-lose situation let us look at fishinbg rights: either the French and other EU fishermen will be banned from UK TTW and are going to kick up a fuss, or they're not going to be under the terms of a deal yet to be struck, and the British fishermen will feel betrayed. It may be a relatively minior issue in reality but it was one of the Leave campaign's flagship promises along with the £350m a week for the NHS, of course, and another looming disaster.

When the history of the early part of the twenty-first century is written, Brexit is going to be right up there with Covid as one of the great disasters of the time. Ironic really, however badly the Covid crisis was handled we could have done nothing to prevent its existence; Brexit is wholly self-inflicted.

Here's an idea. Everyone who voted in the referendum of 2016 pays £1000 into a fund which is then invested (overseas to ensure a reasonable return). After 10 years if Brexit is a success; it is then shared out amongst the Leave voters. If it's a disaster, the remainers get the money. I'd be happy to pay in to this; would be a good return on my investment I think!

^^ Where has the "thank you" option gone?

loringa wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 11:27 am Here's an idea. Everyone who voted in the referendum of 2016 pays £1000 into a fund which is then invested (overseas to ensure a reasonable return). After 10 years if Brexit is a success; it is then shared out amongst the Leave voters. If it's a disaster, the remainers get the money. I'd be happy to pay in to this; would be a good return on my investment I think!

I do like to think that somewhere there is indeed a record of who voted what. In future years it can be used to pillory the ignorant, racist, sheeple who voted leave, and perhaps to ensure them lesser degrees of citizenship.

No forgiveness, just a permanent record to ensure I know who my social, moral and intellectual enemies are.

Avon says: "I do like to think that somewhere there is indeed a record of who voted what. In future years it can be used to pillory the ignorant, racist, sheeple who voted leave, and perhaps to ensure them lesser degrees of citizenship. No forgiveness, just a permanent record to ensure I know who my social, moral and intellectual enemies are."

OK, Mr Bell, I find that extremely objectionable and take serious personal offence. I voted for Brexit and am proud that I did so. Just for the record, I have lived in Austria, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands, in all of which I made local friends. I speak German (albeit not as well now as I used to), read German documents and poetry, and have a reasonable knowledge of German and European history. I have travelled in Germany, France, Russia, Austria, Italy and Cyprus, and enjoyed all of them.

I also object, very strongly, to being described as 'racist', which is a ridiculous charge in this instance, since the major population groups in all EU countries are ethnic Europeans. It is also particularly offensive to me, for reasons I shall not explain in a public forum.

Anyway, with all that background and after very careful consideration and discussion, I voted for Brexit, and find Mr Bell's language very offensive.

David Miller

loringa wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 11:27 amEven the most ardent of Brexiteers (except perhaps Mr Farage) have largely agreed that there leaving the EU would cause economic pain, at least in the short term, and I think that most are now agreed that this is going to be both more severe and longer-lasting than they anticipated.

I think you're being a touch generous here. Even Vote Leave said that leaving the single market would be unthinkable and so obviously detrimental to the UK economy that under no circumstances would they do it. They were very specific about it and even campaigned on it. So, to me, it's obvious that they knew the costs of the current apparent course of action back in 2016.

Like the overwhelming majority of active voters, my voice has counted exactly once, in 2016, and my opinion has not changed since.

In my case, I didn't want Brexit then, still don't think it's a good idea now, and I'm still waiting for someone to tell me a single, quantifiable, tangible benefit of it that directly improves an aspect of my life that the EU was solely responsible for making unbearable. Before anyone says "Sovereignty", I class that as an intangible benefit since I'm unable to pay rent or buy beer with it.

It's an academic matter for me these days, since I'm leaving the country in a week or so. One benefit of being a "citizen of nowhere", as one of our delightful former PMs put it, is that when an opportunity presents itself, the fact it may be in another country is irrelevant. This move would have likely happened anyway in the next few years, but Brexit has been a contributing factor in the shortening of our timeframes.

As for what will happen, I have no idea, and anyone who says they do is either trying to fool themselves or others. Brexit has been a purely ideological crusade for a few years now and as with all types of movements, no one knows what the fallout will look like until it gets on their shoes.

scrub wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 3:42 pm
In my case, I didn't want Brexit then, still don't think it's a good idea now, and I'm still waiting for someone to tell me a single, quantifiable, tangible benefit of it that directly improves an aspect of my life that the EU was solely responsible for making unbearable. Before anyone says "Sovereignty", I class that as an intangible benefit since I'm unable to pay rent or buy beer with it.

It's an academic matter for me these days, since I'm leaving the country in a week or so. One benefit of being a "citizen of nowhere", as one of our delightful former PMs put it, is that when an opportunity presents itself, the fact it may be in another country is irrelevant. This move would have likely happened anyway in the next few years, but Brexit has been a contributing factor in the shortening of our timeframes.

Annual huge payments for other EU countries as chosen by foreigners
We were not allowed effective positions in the government
Huge financial demands placed on our infrastructure (example the requirement to rebuild every road bridge to take weights of 44 tonnes instead of 35 tonnes
Petty fines on municipalities, companies etc for irrelevant misdemeanors (flag flying etc.)
cost of huge bureaucracies plus the demand that UK citizens could not be taxed if working for foreign governments. (A friend used to drive across the border and teach in a college in Eire - his pay was not taxable by anyone.
Standards designed to drive down our economic competitiveness
We will not be forced to pay for Athens to be totally rebuilt when it is destroyed by the earthquake
We will have the choice whether to accept economic refugees and to expel foreign nationality criminals

By leaving the EU is making it more difficult for UK residents to transfer money abroad to pay for holidays etc which will help the UK economy a) more hotel bookings in the UK and b) less waste of precious foreign currency
The UK is still a hive of inventors - now the government can enforce heavy payments by foreigners for use of UK patents when registered abroad (which is standard practice)

Well, you did ask for one benefit - take your choice

If you don't mind, I'll go through them piece by piece. In general though, none of these have any impact upon me, and the majority have more to do with the UK government and either their own sovereign legislation, or their interpretation of EU rules.
More importantly, I still don't see any personal tangible benefit, only an increase in paperwork.

sejintenej wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 7:44 pmAnnual huge payments for other EU countries as chosen by foreigners

To the best of my knowledge, no country has just received suitcases full of cash from the EU. Some receive more in funding for various projects than others, this is true, but since most economists have stated that while membership is expensive, the overall benefits to the total economy have been seen to outweigh the raw costs of membership. Where the funding goes is determined by the various bodies of the EU, all of which the UK had representatives in.
Take the EU parliament for example. Until early 2020, there were 741 MEPs, of which 71 were sent there by the UK electorate in elections that used proportional representation (IMO a far more democratic system than FPTP, but that's not the point here). So nearly 10% of a governing body was sent by 1 of its 28 member states. The fact that the UK chose to send people like Nigel Farage, who had the 4th worst attendance record during his multi decade political career, is entirely on the UK. This is someone who held a senior position on the EU fisheries committee, yet despite claiming to be champion of UK fishing, made it to a total of 3 meetings and abstained from all votes. Even the members of the Le Pen political dynasty turned up more often. He did however turn up every month to file expenses and get his 3 min open mic time. All this can be checked on the EU parliament database where all of the records, minutes, and votes are kept and publicly searchable.
As always, the UK had a veto. Every member state does. That the UK may not have chosen to use it is down to the head of the UK at that time. The PM in other words.

sejintenej wrote:We were not allowed effective positions in the government

See above. We had the opportunity, we just chose to send people who didn't turn up. The EU loves to share things around, so 1 member state never has a majority on its own in any committee. It has even less of a say if its representative don't attend. We did send a lot of civil servants who turned up and had a hand in drafting a lot of legislation, most notably, Article 50. Drafted by a Brit, on orders from the UK gov. It's one of the most highlighted pieces of EU legislation over the last 5 years, we (the UK) put it in there, and it did exactly what we intended. UK trained civil servants were highly valued enough by the EU that the commission granted them a unique form of citizenship so that they could keep on working there. Call me naive, but you don't bother doing that for people if you don't value them or their expertise. This annoyed Belgium, but nobody besides Belgium seems to care.

sejintenej wrote:Huge financial demands placed on our infrastructure (example the requirement to rebuild every road bridge to take weights of 44 tonnes instead of 35 tonnes

At the risk of sounding facetious, I don't own a bridge, nor am I building one in the near future. However, as someone who has travelled over a lot of bridges, I'm happy to know that they'll take a hefty load. Than again, my personal philosophy is that there is no such thing as over-engineered. My meringues are load bearing. Given that a lot of bridges in Yorkshire have been unable to stand up to recent floods, over-engineering may not be such a bad thing here.

sejintenej wrote:Petty fines on municipalities, companies etc for irrelevant misdemeanors (flag flying etc.)

Ah, the fine for not flying the flag trope. Something I've only seen reference to in DM articles that are about a decade old and which were, to put it bluntly, misinterpretations. Or lies. Whichever you prefer. Again though, we had a hand in drafting the rules (assuming any of our elected MEPs turned up) and we are responsible for their implementation.

sejintenej wrote:cost of huge bureaucracies plus the demand that UK citizens could not be taxed if working for foreign governments. (A friend used to drive across the border and teach in a college in Eire - his pay was not taxable by anyone.

We have our own bloated, expensive bureaucracies. At least the EU actually publishes their minutes and books, as we have seen with the PPE contracts rort, the UK hides them. Tax evasion works both ways, and a number of UK citizens have benefited from it. A number of UK MPs take full advantage of it and after the Netherlands, the UK is the best place in the EU to avoid tax. Aspects of EU law to curb it have been resisted and vetoed by the UK.

sejintenej wrote:Standards designed to drive down our economic competitiveness

Again, if they were EU standards, we most likely had a hand in drafting them, and then chose to implement them. Given that we were the 5th largest economy in the world before the 2016 vote, it didn't appear to hamstring us too much. A number of globally respected economists have remarked that the UK already had fewer regulations and rules than the EU while it was a member. More competitive in other words, although the distribution of these benefits, again a UK choice, will have made it seem otherwise.

sejintenej wrote:We will not be forced to pay for Athens to be totally rebuilt when it is destroyed by the earthquake

When was this? I haven't kept up with Greek news, but Athens was still standing last I looked. I could make the tired old joke about not being able to tell the difference if a scale 8 hit, but I'm too tired for that.

sejintenej wrote:We will have the choice whether to accept economic refugees and to expel foreign nationality criminals

We always have, we either chose not to apply the rules (a.k.a. the handbrake) that all EU states could (and have) or we put staggeringly incompetent people in charge, then gutted the departments during austerity before handing out contracts to Serco/G4S to do the same job, but even more ineffectively. There's a book by 'The Secret Barrister' entitled "Fake Law" that outlines this more effectively than I ever could.

sejintenej wrote:By leaving the EU is making it more difficult for UK residents to transfer money abroad to pay for holidays etc which will help the UK economy a) more hotel bookings in the UK and b) less waste of precious foreign currency

We left the EU at the start of the year, and as of last night, I had no problems transferring money into the EU. I have had more problems paying council fines than I have paying for travel and accommodation in the EU.

sejintenej wrote:The UK is still a hive of inventors - now the government can enforce heavy payments by foreigners for use of UK patents when registered abroad (which is standard practice)

Patents have always been protected in the country they are filed in. Most patent infringement (or let's call it what it is, patent theft) is done by countries outside the EU. As someone who works tangentially in this area, the EU is very heavy handed with enforcement. The UK gov has given away billions in biotech patents through utter incompetence and negligence, the main financial beneficiary being a non-EU country.

Wow - well said Scrub! What an excellent post and one of the best sets of arguments I've seen for being a member of the EU. There was so much disinformation posted by the likes of Johnson, Banks and Farage, and so much nonsense about straight bananas etc, it is clear that people came to believe it. Yes - it has a huge bureaucracy but on the whole the people it employs are pretty talented and the entry requirements for the EU Civil Service are much, much higher than many of its member states (including us where the basic requirement for the Civil Service non-industrial grades is 5, I think, GCSEs at Grade 5 or above, or the threshold level for school leavers seeking a decent job). I believe that to join the EU Civil Service one requires to be fully bi-lingual for a start.

So, my question now is - do I look to relocate to Ireland or wait for IndyRef2 and go to Scotland where I already have a holiday home? Funnily enough, I'll probably be all right myself in New England; it's the shame I'll feel at the inexorable rise in unemployment, poverty and misery all around that's likely to drive me out ...

... but I could be wrong and the Davids' sunlit uplands await!

Thank you, but to be honest, it's not something I think would have persuaded anyone at the time, and I certainly don't think it would change anyone's mind now. The referendum was always a deeply emotional vote, rather than a rational one.
The Vote Leave campaign understood this, played to it and was fronted by an effective campaigner (albeit a useless governor), the remain side didn't and was spearheaded by two widely hated politicians, one of whom has a decades-long public record of being anti-EU.
Set this against a backdrop of austerity, a general lack of understanding of the EU (both what it is and what it does), and decades of successive governments blaming the EU for their unpopular decisions, and you get what we got. Looking back, I'm surprised I was surprised at the result, and I'm annoyed with myself I didn't put any money on it.

Leaving the single market will have a profound effect on the UK. While this may well lead to the eventual dissolution of the Union, when this happens is anyone's guess. The only thing I know for certain is that I want to be nowhere near it when that debate and vote takes place.