Congrats to England for getting their head out of their ass...

[None]

They always stuck with the Pound. Never adopted the Euro. It was an issue of intense and irrational nationalistic pride for them.

we loaned £10bn ... We and our allies fought that battle 70+ years ago and won.

Wow. You did?

You must be the first ever 95 year old plus, Harley riding, Russian multi-billionaire banker I've ever met.

[OleDirtyDoc]

Power is an illusion to trick the sheeple. Power to the sheeple

[Hoghead]

They always stuck with the Pound. Never adopted the Euro. It was an issue of intense and irrational nationalistic pride for them.



Wow. You did?

You must be the first ever 95 year old plus, Harley riding, Russian multi-billionaire banker I've ever met.

That's we, as in the British people...in case you couldn't guess

[Keeleyvision]

Personally, I think it's funny. In the course of one day the Britts become the stupidest first world country on the planet, cutting their nose off to spite their racist faces. But don't worry to much you limey cunts, we have Trump, so we may very well take the top spot back over making you look just slightly less stupid, racist, and short sighted. By all means enjoy that money thats now going towards your health care system... O wait, that was a lie huh? Well enjoy being on top anyway, I truly hope you get to stay there.

[None]

That's we, as in the British people...in case you couldn't guess

Do you really believe that all the British people are on the same team?

Do you really believe that the bankers and elite, even leading politicians, give a single damn about the working and even middle classes?

That you are in 'their' team?

I'm aways amazed when otherwise rational and intelligent enough people are duped into believing this. Likewise bemused when their pride and identity is based on claiming credit (or feel offence) for events that happened before they were event born.

You're being played if you do. The question is, by who and to what end?

Personally, I think it's funny. In the course of one day the Britts become the stupidest first world country on the planet, cutting their nose off to spite their racist faces. But don't worry to much you limey cunts, we have Trump, so we may very well take the top spot back over making you look just slightly less stupid, racist, and short sighted. By all means enjoy that money thats now going towards your health care system... O wait, that was a lie huh? Well enjoy being on top anyway, I truly hope you get to stay there.

I think you pretty much nailed it Keeley, the vote was swung by historical xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiments. The only thing is, it's not "the Brits" on the whole but the "Little Englanders" who believe waving some Union Jack bunting and singing WWII Vera Lynn songs, can save their future.

There are a few other subtlties that were going on, but the big question was, why on earth did they allow the mob to vote on such a big issue when they obvious have no understanding about them? They were voting against immigration, clueless and careless about other issues.

I think the bigger problem with the UK is that, in the past, their Right decimated its industry for political purposes (steel, mines, shipbuilding, auto industry etc), to the point where the country hardly produces anything any more; and then followed that by decimated their training/education system to the point where the people can hardly produces anything any more.

For example, compare England to Germany and its technical colleges/apprenticeship system (and 30/35 hours week and 5 weeks a year paid holidays).

[farmall]

This is a mere speedbump and the bankers will sort things out after initial panic. There was money to be made before the EU and there will be money to be made with a changed EU.

Decentralized control pisses off the bankers who exercised central control. That doesn't make it a bad idea in the long term.

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2016/06/brexit-decentralization-and-backroom.html

[None]

May be ... but who know how else it will hit the folks at the bottom.

In the meanwhile, the price of every already over priced Harley-Davidson, every over priced "Made in the USA" Harley part, every Ebay purchase, and any holidays to the States have just gone up 10%.

I suppose the Brits are just going to start buying Triumphs ... and who is left running their country? I bet you they ain't biker friendly libertarians.

OK, it's a dangerous metaphor to go down as there are plenty who would want to split the latter ... but what's any more wrong with the idea of a United States of Europe than a United States of America? I mean, at the time there were just as many language spoken and just as many different cultures onboard that experiment?

If the British Nationalists thinking just because they voted out it's going to stop guys turning up on dinghies, I think their deluded. Besides which, most of their immigrants are going from Africa/Caribbean or India/Pakisthan/Bangladesh. If there's anything wrong with British immigrant society, it's that they *did not* take European migrants first.

Personally, I can't say anything bad about most of the Turks (Kurds) and Lebanese I've met (Syrians are kind of the same), I'd put them in a different order to the Saudi/Kuwaitis the Brits love so much.

[Hoghead]

And whose left running their country?
There's the immediate problem. No-one , at the moment...Even europhobe colleagues of mine agreed that if a leave vote succeeded we couldn't
think of who would lead us out of this. Time will tell. Guess what? I don't think anyone in the UK should feel too smug about the short-term,either.

[farmall]

And whose left running their country?

Their government. What an autistic (in the internet sense of the word) question. Democracy got them the Brexit. The PEOPLE were pissed off and voted accordingly.

I should mention if you want any British spares or custom parts this would be a fine time to buy and help yourself and their cottage industries. When I was stationed in Germany in the early 1980s everyone played the currency exchange market to get a better deal on everything from rent to imports. I still have my Miles Engineering Trident chassis got when the pound went low.

Why shouldn't they buy Triumphs? Triumphs are now excellent motorcycles by functional standards while Harleys are little more than kool toy folk art and a way to flaunt you can afford a new one. Triumph have recaptured their own vintage look AND produced excellent modern sporting models.

What's any more wrong with the idea of a United States of Europe than a United States of America?

Democracy doesn't scale. The US has poor democratic representation because is it a massive Federal nation where power naturally centers on Washington. We are stuck with a binary party choice because there can be no practical competition. We are stuck waging perpetual global wars which do nothing (except pay my retirement) for the general public and rarely have anything to do with "freedom". In the case of Europe, the EU wants to flood Europe with enemy cultures and does nothing to defend what made Europe a desirable place to live. Sound familiar? All the globalist elites want is cheap labor. They have no loyalty to their peoples. The British public are tired of that shit.

Americans blindly praise everything about the US because they are mostly ignorant brainwashed rustics who have been bathed in lies since birth. The US is powerful because it is large, but the American public don't benefit. They are easily controlled by the elite-run Demublican and Repocrat parties who asphyxiate any opposition or serious dissent. We are slaves to capitalist oligarchs and that is what's very wrong with such massive central power.

The EU isn't an US of Europe in any case, and the idea that foreign competitors should dictate internal policy rightly offends many Britons.

[None]

Their government. What an autistic (in the internet sense of the word) question.

Now, you're being insulting "the government" consists of individuals, so what talent do they have? What great leaders? And I'd disagree with you. Government alone does not lead nations.

Apparently the Leave party had been riding around in a big red bus that said, "£350M a day to Europe, we'll spend it on the National Health!" (approx). It's not even Monday and one of their leaders has already backtracked on that. The same leader that was cutting off benefits to terminally ill individuals, claiming who died weeks later were "fit to work", and leaving veterans to starve to death (real story).

In the case of Europe, the EU wants to flood Europe with enemy cultures and does nothing to defend what made Europe a desirable place to live. Sound familiar? All the globalist elites want is cheap labor. They have no loyalty to their peoples. The British public are tired of that shit.

"Enemy cultures"?

The same "enemy" is to found at the top of every class system, not in other nations. The people of other nations face the same trials and tribulations from the same kind of enemy.

I suppose you could answer that the decision to allow in whoever it is you think are "enemy cultures" was also a democratic one too. (I have no idea how it was made but I doubt it was made on whim and outside of the law).

For the Scots and Irish, that "undemocratic foreign enemy" that they were subject to is/was always the English but, to be honest, I think you and you're like are blinded by simple prejudices. It's not that the individuals in question are Muslims, African tribalists, Gypsies or whatever, it's that they are uncivilized, uneducated, criminal and from the bottom of those other nations. Again, a class issue rather than a nationalist one.

(A view which, admittedly, is as equally politically incorrect as being racist ... but actually true and fair).

London did pretty well from every wave of wealthy cultured emigrés; the Jews, the Hugenots, the Persians, the Ismaelis. What they are doing is cutting their noses off from allowing in immigrant elites which are to be found in leading position in every industry. Perhaps the change could lead to the UK being more open to the elite immigration the USA accepts ... but I doubt they'll attract it because outside of Loondon, the country is pretty much a rundown shithole these days. They don't have the universities, the institutions and opportunities that the US has.

The bottomline is, it's just not been "Great" for a very long time and it's no more going back to be "Great" than the Greeks are likely to conquer India.

The EU isn't an US of Europe in any case, and the idea that foreign competitors should dictate internal policy rightly offends many Britons.

I think you are confusing companies with nations. It's been along time since all the nationalized companies in the UK have been privatized, and bought and sold many times over to foreign investors.

Do companies even act in the best interests of their workers?

British workers would benefit greatly from having Germany and French workers style rights. American worker would faint if they thought such rights were possible ... Google Mutterschutzfrist, Mutterschutzgeld, and Elternzeit and Elterngeld.

My guess is the Brit working class communities are about to be painfully reamed by even more Chicago-style "neo-liberal" politics and economics, and pummeled down to Chinese subsistence levels. And by "Chicago-style", I'll include Dillingers, not just Milton Friedmans.

[farmall]

The way the question was phrased was silly. Democracies are always run by the government, though often badly. The government will be influenced by business interests and powerful individuals. Nothing to see there.

If the Scots and Irish eject, good for them! Change is opportunity and they may prefer self-determination. I'm not familiar with Gibraltar's internal political situation but it's trivially small and of no global importance now it isn't militarily necessary to bottle up the Med.

Worker rights are whatever workers collectively bargain to obtain. I favor collective bargaining but unless workers do it goes nowhere. VW tried to implement a German-style union in the US but that effort was squashed. US unions have a history of being in bed with the Mob (they had no choice originally because workers required a counter to the Pinkerton thugs) and except for a few skilled trades have faded away. All that protects skilled trades is their pool of skilled workers who cannot yet be replaced by machines.

Technology and global competition will continue to make workers less valuable and their bargaining position weaker. If they squawk, companies can move elsewhere. Shipping is cheap. (An example is BMW manufacturing SUVs in SC for export to mainland China to escape high German labor costs.) It's an inevitable race to the bottom.

If the Brits want to compete they'll have to do what every other competitive nation does. Work hard, cheap, and efficiently. Worker rights don't accomplish much without a job.

[None]

I would have said a government or even political party was a 'what', whereas people were 'whos'.

I certainly meant who. What talented leaders do they have?

As far as I could work out, and it was a position taken by many political commentators, although the moron vote which swung the decision was about "immigration", what the referendum was really about what some Right/Further Right squabble within the Conservative Party.

A gamble which went in the wrong direction as the mob was misled to thinking it was about something else by the tabloid papers ... or using it as a protest vote at how shit their lives and communities had become.

There's a scene in the UK that is similar to the USA, In the USA, conspiracy theorists go on about the Skull and Bones Club, through which so many presidents and leaders have passed. In the UK, there's The Bullingdon Club, through which so many of the establishmentary players pass.

It's a real thing, not a theory. Many of the top Right wing leaders in power at this time, including the exiting Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the latest wannabe PM Boris Johnson were all part of it at the same time. It's a railroad to power ... Eton school > Oxford or Cambridge > The Bullingdon Club > Power.

There was a pretty good movie about it, called 'The Riot Club' (link) which is an education about the British upper class.

What I cannot understand is when you get some guy in the working classes, a biker, actually falling for the idea they are on the same sides as them, or that the they give a damn about the British working classes.

There's a famous saying, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel". I'd rather say it's just the easiest way to lead the morons by their nose to a slaughter, whether it's on the battlefields or the employment market.

I've never looked at it closely enough, but I suspect the City of London, the oil/financial center (which voted remain), is keeping afloat the rest of the country (which voted out ... because it does not like fereners).

[Supertjeduc]

I would have said a government or even political party was a 'what', whereas people were 'whos'.

I certainly meant who. What talented leaders do they have?

As far as I could work out, and it was a position taken by many political commentators, although the moron vote which swung the decision was about "immigration", what the referendum was really about what some Right/Further Right squabble within the Conservative Party.

A gamble which went in the wrong direction as the mob was misled to thinking it was about something else by the tabloid papers ... or using it as a protest vote at how shit their lives and communities had become.

There's a scene in the UK that is similar to the USA, In the USA, conspiracy theorists go on about the Skull and Bones Club, through which so many presidents and leaders have passed. In the UK, there's The Bullingdon Club, through which so many of the establishmentary players pass.

It's a real thing, not a theory. Many of the top Right wing leaders in power at this time, including the exiting Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the latest wannabe PM Boris Johnson were all part of it at the same time. It's a railroad to power ... Eton school > Oxford or Cambridge > The Bullingdon Club > Power.

There was a pretty good movie about it, called 'The Riot Club' (link) which is an education about the British upper class.

What I cannot understand is when you get some guy in the working classes, a biker, actually falling for the idea they are on the same sides as them, or that the they give a damn about the British working classes.

There's a famous saying, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel". I'd rather say it's just the easiest way to lead the morons by their nose to a slaughter, whether it's on the battlefields or the employment market.

I've never looked at it closely enough, but I suspect the City of London, the oil/financial center (which voted remain), is keeping afloat the rest of the country (which voted out ... because it does not like fereners).

[ATTACH=CONFIG]70661[/ATTACH]

I think you are a wise man

[farmall]

No government gives a damn about the working class and all pretend to. Some will trade social issues for votes, that is all so voters are going to insist on what they can get.

I see no "slaughter" coming. Change is another interesting roll of the dice. Globalists built the EU because it gave them more wealth and opportunities to expand their power, not out of concern for the workers or peasants. The Common Market (now EU) elites who run NATO even conquered the former Republic of Yugoslavia to bump off the rather successful socialist competition then buy its assets at fire sale (pun very much intended) prices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weight_of_Chains is on Youtube. The displaced workers may not think of the EU as their savior. The Euro-elites sided with Muslims against Serbs out of NeoCon hatred of Russia, proving they will not culturally defend the realm.

They will retain a hand in all governments one way or the other and the leaders matter little. They are always figureheads though they will passionately quarrel over power. The economic disruption is temporary like the recent recession in the US. What will be interesting is where the money goes and which businesses come out on top. Who is going to score good deals during the panic?

There are no good guys, just bad masters and worse outright enemies.

[None]

I'll buy pretty much all of that and watch the documentary. Actually, the rise of the Balkans following the rise of Germany, was predicted about 100 years or more; as was its crushing by establish powers in the West. If I can remember who it was, I'll mention.

No government gives a damn about the working class and all pretend to. Some will trade social issues for votes, that is all so voters are going to insist on what they can get. ...

There are no good guys, just bad masters and worse outright enemies.

I wonder if our English friend will read that and consider. It's like asking, who do you want to get prison raped by an English man or a German? Does his nationality really matter? Is it more patriotic to choose an English man? The worst "outright enemies" are within.

The sad thing is, when you look at the demographics, many of those voting out have never lived in "foreign" European culture. Probably never even left their home town except to go on a package holiday to an English catering resort in Spain where they serve the same beer and chips.

It seems the Scots are p*ssed as they had a vote for independence which was swung by fear mongering from the very same people that if they voted for Scottish Independence, the Cameron and English would refuse to let them remain in Europe! Then Cameron led the English out. If re-uniting Ireland is back on the agenda, The Troubles should soon follow. If Scotland and Ireland remain, England with surrounded.

So I'd say, "Congrats to England for getting their heads stuck in all sort of ass they never considered". It's much bigger than I can conceive but I'll be interested to see how things evolve.