Brexit top of the pops.

Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start the Fire

There’s a contemporary pop song my daughter’s into that seems apt:

“Miss Me More” by Kelsea Ballerina

Gilbert O. Sullivan: Alone Again, Naturally

Who do you think you are kidding Mr Britler, if you think the EU’s done?

Judges would’ve also accepted “Love Myself” by Hailee Steinfeld:

“I love me,
Gonna love myself, no I don’t need anybody else”

and like politics, this song is unsuitable for children…

“thus preserving free movement of peoples.”

There’s two parts to FOM; inbound and outbound. Are these both benefits? Or is only one of them a benefit and one a cost? The EU is free to preserve the benefits of immigration from the UK by offering to keep existing FOM rights for UK citizens in EU countries. As immigration is by all accounts a clear benefit it remains a mystery why they haven’t offered this. Perhaps someone on here would like to explain?

Also, if offering Bulgarians and Rumanians the right to live and work in the UK is a good idea, then offering the same to Ukrainians, Turks, and many more must also be a good idea. Is that your position? That we should extend the right to live here and the recruit workers from just EU nations to many more nations? Or is there some magic whereby this is only a benefit if these nations are in the EU? Asked more in hope than expectation, as no Remainer ever answers Leaver questions.

Anyway – Leavers list

Eric Carmen – All by myself
Johnny Nash – I can see clearly now
Boz Scaggs – We’re All Alone
Avril Lavigne – When You’re Gone
The Eagles – Already Gone

Remainers top 10

Pink Floyd – Wish you were here.
Dusty Springfield – I just don’t know what to do with myself
Harry Nielsen – Without You
Rod Stewart – I don’t want to talk about it
Randi Crawford – One Day I’ll Fly Away
Van Morrison – Have I told you lately
Take That – Back for good.
Chicago – Hard to say I’m sorry
Grease- You’re the one that I want.

The Clash – Safe European Home (and not Should I Stay or Should I go)

The Hives – Hate to Say I Told You So (for the post-Brexit crash)

Based on some of the suggestions, I’m not sure I do get the idea – I can be pretty thick – but I’ll give it a go, sticking mostly to the same era as the OP, and also sticking to England, since how can a Billy Joel or Bruce Springsteen song have any true “Brexity” feeling?

Wire, I Should Have Known Better
The Mekons, Learning to Live On Your Own
Au Pairs, Unfinished Business
Dalek I Love You, These Walls We Build
Comsat Angels, Waiting For a Miracle
Young Marble Giants, Credit in the Straight World [well, almost sticking to England]
Pink Military, Back on the London Stage
Japan, Obscure Alternatives
John Cooper Clarke, Evidently Chickentown
Pauline Murray & The Invisible Girls, When Will We Learn
Bellamy/Kipling, Poor Honest Men [bonus 60’s folk offering]
Bacharach/David, Walk On By (Stranglers version)
Joy Division, Disorder
Joy Division, New Dawn Fades
Joy Division, She’s Lost Control [my pick for the obvious one]
Joy Division, Isolation
The Fall, many [I’m assuming]
Gang of Four, Damaged Goods
Gang of Four, At Home He’s a Tourist
Gang of Four, It’s Her Factory
Gang of Four, Return the Gift
Gang of Four, If I Could Keep it for Myself
Gang of Four, Outside the Trains Don’t Run on Time
Gang of Four, A Hole in the Wallet
Gang of Four, In the Ditch
Gang of Four, Capital (It Fails Us Now)

Mudhoney – You Stupid Asshole (I’ve recommended this one to radio shows repeatedly, but for some reason they never play it)

Richard Thompson – End of the Rainbow

Just can’t stop…

Carol King: ‘It’s Too Late, Baby’

I have Handel’s Dixit Dominus in some playlist. It’s truly the Brexit song, the choir goes Brexit Brexit Brexit Brexit, and I can’t unhear it.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Dead Flag Blues

“The car’s on fire, and there’s no driver at the wheel…”
“We’re trapped in the belly of this horrible machine,
And the machine is bleeding to death…”

Peter Brötzmann Octet: Machine Gun

Pedantically, it’s Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall Part II.

New Model Army, “Whirlwind?”

Sinead O’Connor: “Black Boys On Mopeds”

@ Scott P U2 – I still haven’t found what I’ve been looking for. That’s not an explanation of this situation.

Dipper

Also, if offering Bulgarians and Rumanians the right to live and work in the UK is a good idea, then offering the same to Ukrainians, Turks, and many more must also be a good idea. Is that your position? That we should extend the right to live here and the recruit workers from just EU nations to many more nations? Or is there some magic whereby this is only a benefit if these nations are in the EU? Asked more in hope than expectation, as no Remainer ever answers Leaver questions.

Why is it so important to you to insist on the truth of this grossly implausible assertion?

Although I don’t think my answers to your questions can count, strictly speaking, as the answers of a Remainer, I can provide them without difficulty and they are: Yes; Yes; No.

JD – Thanks. I think your answers are the only sensible ones for those who believe in FOM. But it isn’t the position of Remainers, who only believe in offering FOM to those nations in the EU.

The concept of European citizenship together with freedom of movement and residence was enshrined in Maastricht effectively to counterbalance the potential of an isolationist German nationalism arising again. So it is primarily a political concept, not an economic one.

and .. Remainers –

Player – “Baby come back”
Rainbow – “Since you been gone”

– no it can’t be in English –

it HAS to be a ”European top of the pops” –
like:
Non, je ne regrette rien.

For the day after:
Yesterday
We’ll meet again

I’m not going to list a lot of Richard Thompson songs, though many of them fit the bill.

There was an SNL skit in which a hitchhiker is picked up by a scantily-clad woman whose intentions were obvious. She slid a cassette into the stereo; the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde played as the passenger eagerly shed his clothes, and it was no surprise when the car sailed off a cliff.

“Full English Brexit” by Billy Bragg is, of course, already there, though far from top of the pops.

Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” seem a fair pair to play.

And how about “Walkin’ Back To Happiness”?

Dipper

JD – Thanks. I think your answers are the only sensible ones for those who believe in FOM. But it isn’t the position of Remainers, who only believe in offering FOM to those nations in the EU.

I can’t think of any reason to believe you’re correct about that.

This Corrosion by Sisters of Mercy, surely.

“I Think We’re Alone Now” (lots of versions available; I’d go with Lene Lovich)
Black Box Recorder, “It’s Only the End of the World”
The Kinks, “Where Have All the Good Times Gone”
The Kinks, “I’m On an Island”
The Kinks, “Village Green Preservation Society”

Ha! was just comping here to post the Kinks: basically everything Ben mentions plus the entirety of _Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire_ (esp. “Brainwashed” and “Shangri-La”

U2, “With Or Without You”

@ Murc … and another thing.

“or relentless lying”. Many Remain/EU statements are not commensurate with their actions. The statement is that FOM is by itself a benefit. But no-one behaves as if by itself it is a benefit. It isn’t necessary for either country to be in the EU to have FOM, and if both sides of FOM are a benefit then it doesn’t have to be mutual. The obvious conclusion from the observed behaviour is that FOM is part of the creation of an EU Federal superstate, not a means of delivering economic benefit.

There’s the backstop. The EU don’t intend to use it, and it isn’t that important. But they won’t get ready of it. Which tells me they are lying; it is important and they will use it.

And the money. In the grand scheme of things, we are told, the UK’s contribution isn’t a lot. Fine, if it isn’t a lot then let us out of paying it. But no, we must pay it, which tells me they are lying and it is a lot.

so, just for you Remainers:

The Eagles – Lyin Eyes.

“Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails. My empire of dirt!

Other Kinks options would have to include “Victoria”, and “Australia”, from Arthur. Maybe “King Kong”, too?

Sex Pistols: Anarchy Autarky in the UK
FTFY

“Nothing Ever Happens”, Del Amitri

“Passover”, Joy Division

“Not Now John”, Pink Floyd (assuming anyone still recognizes satire by that point)

“Les Bigotes”, Jacques Brel

There’s two parts to FOM; inbound and outbound. Are these both benefits?

Because reciprocity is a thing. Freedom of movement is and should be something all nation-states allow just because, but it is also not unreasonable for nation-states or collectives thereof to demand reciprocity as well as other preconditions to prevent other nation-states from either free riding

If FOM is only a benefit and not a cost how can one-sided FOM be free-riding?

Thanks Orange Watch, I can never remember. I think South of Heaven is a better Slayer choice than raining blood, or the incomparable Expendable Youth. I like the other metal choices you offer!

Also we could go with the Suicidals, Gotta kill captain stupid, Bruce Dickinson has an excellent and angry metal version of the poem Jerusalem, and Skyclad’s Cardboard City is probably on topic …

If FOM is only a benefit and not a cost how can one-sided FOM be free-riding?

Because even if both sides are benefits, one side is seeking to enjoy one set of benefits (UK citizen movement from UK to EU) while refusing to allow members of the EU to enjoy the same benefit WRT the EU (EU citizen movement from EU to UK). Even if there is benefit to having incoming FOM, there’s no reason to grant it to a state that refuses to reciprocate – particularly when the UK is seeking to get the right to travel to many countries while only offering in exchange one nation’s worth of diversity in exchange. They may be offering up a benefit (allowing their citizens to work and contribute towards EU nations) but it’s not the same as the benefit they’re asking for in exchange, and the valuation of each benefit is subjective and individual*, so it’s disputable who is getting the better deal – while with reciprocation, that’s less disputable as both sides are offering the same qualitative exchanges even if they’re not offering the same quantitative ones.

It’s obvious that the likes of Dipper thinks it’d be freeloading because they view incoming FOM as purely detrimental, so why would anyone negotiating with an entity that is by all appearances bargaining selfishly give that entity something they value without reciprocation? The EU has a responsibility to get a good deal for its members, it has a strong incentive not to grant non-members privileges it does not grant its own members (i.e., unidirectional FOM), its governing consensus presumably prefers bidirectional FOM, and letting the UK get something they’re not willing to offer in exchange is giving up leverage in exchange for nothing while incurring a political cost. If the weaker party views it as a situation where they’d be freeloading, the stronger party has no clear reason to give it to them for nothing when they could get something in exchange.

*Note that even if we think both origin and destination of FOM receive a net benefit, not everyone does as Dipper makes painfully clear. The EU is a democratic organization made up of other democratic organizations. Given that there is disagreement among EU citizens about these value judgements, there would a political cost to granting foreign nations non-reciprocal FOM, and avoiding that political cost has its own value which is distinct from the cost or benefit of FOM. Functioning democracy is concerned with opinions besides those of elites. So to answer Dipper’s question why the EU isn’t offering the UK something the UK wants but doesn’t want to reciprocate: because nationalists, protectionists, etc. in the EU think like Dipper and will be angered if they perceive the UK as freeloading. Even if we set aside fairness, it’s still easier and safer not to grant a petulant soon-to-be former member special favors when doing so will cause discontent and potentially encourage member states to demand the same special arrangement that British nationalists want in order to placate their nationalists.

How about some oldies.
For remainders:
Rolling Stones: You can’t always get what you want
For leavers:
Beatles: Back in the USSR

From Urgh – 3 tunes that may meet the bill
Generally agree that American songs (& Australian songs as well) shouldn’t qualify

Members – Offshore Banking Business
Au Pairs – Come again
Magazine – He’d send in the army

Oh, and
XTC – Everybody’s making plans for Nigel

Sting: Englishman in New York
And just for Dipper:
Heinz Rudolf Kunze: Europas Sohn
Dicht und Ergreifend: Ned Dahoam
Casper/Kollegah: Mittelfinger Hoch

“Because reciprocity is a thing” why? If my granting free movement into my country is a benefit for me, why would I only do it if the other country also did it? This doesn’t make sense.

It absolutely makes sense. If I’m a nation-state, and someone wants to fuck my people over and also free-ride by obtaining a benefit for their own people while denying it to mine, I am going to be disinclined to take that offer even if produces a better result than “no deal.”

“A complex multilateral framework of which freedom of movement is one important moving part” why? If it stands alone as a benefit, why not just do it just for that benefit?

Because people, quite justifiably, don’t like being taken advantage of? If a nation-state wishes its citizens to enjoy unfettered access to the EU and its businesses to enjoy unfettered access to the EU marketplace and all the privileges that accrue from that, the EU is quite justified in saying “well, then you have to abide by all of the various rules, and grant your people all the various rights and protections, that we ask of you.” Especially when those rights, protections, and rules are good things on the merits as well.

There’s also the fact that freedom of movement by itself, while it has many benefits, is also open to abuse. Nation-states can engaged in races to the bottom. They can deliberately abuse, mistreat, and expel population groups they consider undesirable. They can do a lot of other heinous bullshit. Ideally, you pair freedom of movement with reciprocal benefits, a promise that if you assure people in your sphere of governance certain rights, freedoms, and privileges, those rights, freedoms, and privileges will be respected in your partners sphere of governance.

The EU should, of course, accept as immigrants almost anyone who wishes to immigrate there as a matter of course, as should the US and the UK. But that’s an entirely different matte from freedom of movement, which is substantially different from full-fledged immigration/emigration (or fleeing somewhere as a refugee) in many ways.

The statement is that FOM is by itself a benefit. But no-one behaves as if by itself it is a benefit.

Of course it is, and of course they do. People being able to raise stakes and go where they like to make new lives for themselves, especially if they can also be assured that their basic rights and freedoms will be protected in their new locale (which is an important part of EU membership; freedom of movement is great, but freedom of movement where you know you’ll be secure where you end up is even better) is manifestly a benefit; my life would be much improved if I could move freely across the world in the same manner that, oh, say, capital is allowed to, and so would the lives of millions of others.

It isn’t necessary for either country to be in the EU to have FOM, and if both sides of FOM are a benefit then it doesn’t have to be mutual.

It doesn’t have to be but it should be, and “go fuck yourself, free rider” isn’t inappropriate.

The obvious conclusion from the observed behaviour is that FOM is part of the creation of an EU Federal superstate,

Yes? Of course the EU is a federal superstate. It’s been like that for a very long time.

not a means of delivering economic benefit.

Freedom of movement would manifestly provide an incredible amount of benefits even if it didn’t produce an economic benefit for anyone at all. Which of course it does; many millions of people have used freedom of movement to better their economic circumstances. But even if they weren’t and freedom of movements only benefit was that it provided what should be a basic freedom, the right to move across the world unfettered of someone kicking you in the face either during transit or when you arrive at your destination, that would still be an IMMENSE benefit.

You moved the goalposts from “benefit” to “economic benefit,” and based on your earlier and deplorable comments on this topic I suspect you rigidly define “economic benefits” as “they only count if they accrue to a specific set of people I have deemed worthy of them, and if they happen in other ways they suck.”

I just read Maria’s post; ‘At least you can leave’; I hope that I’m not trashing things here by mentioning it.

Maria, my thought at the end of this post is that you should get out of the UK if possible.
Every single thing about Brexit has been terribly botched by the UK government, with the exception of hatred. Somebody had a saying about right-wing policy in the USA: “the cruelty is not a by-product; it’s goal”.

The UK is going to take a serious economic hit, probably to the point where food is tricky. The Brexiters can take the blame, or blame others.

Since I’m not a musical person really the only thing I can add is Europe’s famous final countdown.

Murc – the more you write the more you stop making sense (Talking Heads). How can someone hitch a ride(Boston) on something which is not apparently a cost?

@ Orange Watch – i>”because FOM is inherently reciprocal” but as applied in the EU it clear isn’t reciprocal. The number of people coming to the UK far exceeds the number of people going from the UK to the rest of the EU.

But hey, lets be positive. After all, The World Is just a Great Big Onion (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Tyrell). If FOM is such a force for good, lets have it All over the world (ELO)! Lets have a world without borders! Let me hear you shouting out for all countries to take down their borders!

Dipper

Let me hear you shouting out for all countries to take down their borders!

Since you requested it, I did just shout that. I don’t know how you expected to be able to hear me shouting, but I did what I could. Did it help to make you feel better?

@ J-D – yes it did thanks. Appreciated. As always a clear and logical response.

@Zamfir: no, why on earth should you be? They made both versions; preferring one over the other is just a personal thing. I guess I’d be saddened by an attitude that one would never listen to anything not in English, but then I’m pretentious enough to prefer the French version of the new Christine and the Queens album, so I would say that…

Dipper, the difference between moving to the US and moving within the EU is night and day. One is a Byzantine nightmare of rules and waiting, unless you have a rather cosy job already lined up – and even then, you can find yourself at the mercy of your employer if your status is tied to them. In the other, you just go to wherever you like, and once you are there you apply for jobs just as you would in your original country

That’s nice for the people, you know. I don’t care much if it’s nice for countries in the abstract – it’s nice for individual people that you can do that.

I worked in the UK for a while. I liked living in Bristol, there was a job. In the end I did not like job enough. I found another job back in the Netherlands. Nothing big about this, nothing to do with anyone having their pick or subhumans or whatever. The nice thing is exactly how minor this had become (but won’t be)

Some uncle once made a family tree. A centuries ago, there were regular entries from “across the border”. Many relations in Germany, the family lived on that side of the country. From Belgium, someone from the south of France. We don’t know why these people moved here, they just did.

Then in the late 19th and 20th century, only people born in the Netherlands. The borders had become barriers even for ordinary people, not just lines on the maps for kings. It’s great that they went down again, became minor things again in ordinary lives.

A friend of is getting married soon, to a girl from outside of the EU. The contrast is stark again. This took years of planning, living in different parts of the world because they can’t easily move together. Uncertainty about work, about visiting family, everything.

I just don’t get why you brits want this all back. I hear a lot about the war, and how we are the fourth Reich and you will be free again. Apparently that wasn’t a joke.

Dipper@84:
So when people shout out about FOM to signal their virtue, many people hear something quite different.

If you’re going to complain about others virtue signalling, you might want to tone down your own. “many people hear something quite different” is posturing insinuation, plain and simple. Did you notice how I previously simply described disagreements as revolving around subjective interpretation rather than attempting to place myself on a moral plinth? You on the other hand are doing your best to show that your perspective is more moral – see for example how you’ve now held up people who suggest nativism can be racist as the real racists, contra your eminently democratic, open-minded, tolerant, realistic, and fair point of view. That’s textbook, pictured-example-in-the-dictionary virtue signalling.

It’s only made worse when you ask for discussion but then ignore resulting discussion while reciting orthogonal paeans to your virtue and your opponents’ lack thereof. Dipper, observe thyself.

I’ve pretty much accepted that brexit of some form will happen, and the task for responsible MPs now is to make it as soft as possible. That includes leaving in name only

I’m more sympathetic to this than the People’s Vote tendency which seems to be the CT mainstream but by definition ‘Brexit in name only’ means disregarding the substance of the referendum result, which is surely undemocratic.

I voted Remain and I’d do so in a 2nd ref (which I don’t think there should be) despite being very pessimistic about the chances of reforming the EU in a socialist direction but the increasingly evident narcissism, cluelessness and bigotry of the middle-class remainers who dominate this position has given me a certain psychological, if not political, sympathy with the likes of Dipper.

@Zamfir at Comment 89:

Zamfir, there are no guarantees even if you’re already in the U.S. and have a job and your employer wants you to stay.

I’m in a book group in the San Francisco Bay Area with a woman from Albania. She’s worked for several years at a tech company here; her company recruited her, specifically, from her European job to do this work for them. (She tried to explain her work but you have to be a technophile even to understand it, and I’m not.) Her work visa came up for renewal last fall — and U.S. immigration denied the renewal. No official reason was given, but informally she was told, “the current administration doesn’t want any foreigners here.” The moment she got notice of this denial she had to stop work (and stop getting paid, too). She’s appealing this but in the meantime she and her company are planning for her to move to their Canadian branch — to do the same job. Her boyfriend had introduced her to his family and they were considering marriage. He’s American and he’s thinking of going with her when/if she does move to Canada. He’s beyond devastated — not just for his relationship but because he thought this country was open to people from any country coming here for a better future.

And even if you do have a job, there are other issues. An acquaintance of mine — a Canadian — is working on a project at Google. She’s afraid to go to Canada to visit her parents for fear she won’t be able to return. She says she’d leave now but has a binding legal contract to finish this project and also does not want a reputation for abandoning projects in midstream. When her contract is up she says she’s leaving the U.S. and won’t return, ever, even for a visit.

For Brexit music: how about Britten’s War Requiem, as a reminder of where xenophobia and its cousin racism can lead?

I’m having trouble understanding how you and Dipper disagree. The statement above makes sense if FOM is a benefit for the person moving, but a cost to the country they move to; it doesn’t make sense to talk about free riding if there’s a benefit to the country where people move to.

Of course it does. If someone wants to negotiate a benefit for their citizens (freedom of movement) while denying it to the citizens of other countries, that first nation-state is free riding. It’s obtaining benefits for its populace (freedom of movement) without extending those benefits to the populace of other countries as well. That’d the very definition of free riding; you get all the benefits for yourself while denying themselves to others.

I suppose you could subscribe to a very rigid definition of “free rider” that means “in order to be truly free-riding, there has to be a COST that others are paying in your stead. Otherwise, while it may be unfair, it isn’t free-riding.” But even if that were the case, this would still be free-riding. Maintaining the bureaucratic and physical infrastructure to allow freedom of movement is a cost; if you get other nation-states to maintain that for you while not maintaining it yourself, you’re free-riding.

One of the costs of freedom of movement is also “racist shitheads raise a fuss and a holler about it.” If you manage to get a situation where that doesn’t happen because you don’t allow it, but other nation-states are putting up with it because they did allow it, you’re free-riding.

Btw anyone who seriously thinks that prior to Trump the US was open to people from any country coming there in search of a better future would seem to be beyond help (that’s not to downplay the seriousness of what’s happening).

@ Engels

That alleged “openness” is definitely an American myth but that never stopped anyone believing in it/hoping it was true. Also there seem to be a lot of Americans who believed Trump when he said he’d only go after bad people.

@Faustusnotes
I suspected that but wanted to ask — I work in the legal system and therefore get frequent reminders that suspicions are not truth. I have actually seen people change their opinions when slapped in the face with consequences of their ideas.

faustusnotes – “he tried to post one comment sneering and laughing at someone else’s experience of racist abuse” – For the record I didn’t do that. I’m not sure quite what Maria took exception too but I did not sneer and laugh at someone receiving racist abuse.

Afaics this is as about as close as one can feasibly get to what people here are yammering for (super-soft Brexit which leaves door open to FoM) so I expect it be hysterically vilified…
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2019/02/jeremy-corbyn-throws-his-weight-behind-soft-brexit-surprise-letter-theresa

Dipper your basic shtick for two years has been to threaten violence in the streets if you don’t get the brexit you want, and to sneer at young people who feel brexit has screwed their future (remember your little “haha good luck with that” to young people wanting to rejoin the eu?) but somehow I’m supposed to believe it’s Maria who overreacted to your latest effort? I asked you in that thread what you thought of the racist torrent your movement has managed to unleash and you couldn’t even be bothered to answer.

I grew up around brexiters and your lot can’t fool me. I know what you’re all about. We’ve all read bojo ‘s imperial nostalgia and we know where your vote leave money came from. It’s too late to pretend you care about England, let alone any of your non-white fellow citizens. Tusk is right: there’s a special place in hell for you.

@ Annie “Can you really not see how a movement that says politely that we don’t want more immigrants fuels the racism of the less-polite who do want to “insult people or otherwise making people uncomfortable because of their non-English nationality”?”

Just to labour the point, you cannot not have an immigration policy. And an immigration policy comes with expectations about numbers, so the EU policy had, by the EU’s own projections, a UK population around 80 million by 2050/60. So, it would seem reasonable to ask what your immigration policy is and what do you expect that to be in terms of numbers?

Dipper@104:
to repeat, what we are repeatedly told is that incoming freedom of movement is a benefit. We don’t have to negotiate with anyone to grant that.

Setting aside the thorough explanations that you’ve persistently ignored in favor of hammering this simplistic line of reasoning, consider visa reciprocity. Barring a fairly serious power disparity and a dramatic reliance on tourism, how many nations allow citizens of nations who do not reciprocate to travel to their country w/o a visa? Tourism is an economic benefit, yet nations require reciprocity for visa-free travel – and may impose reciprocal fees if a nation who requires visas chooses to impose visa fees on their citizens. This is not some strange, novel idea even if you may have never bothered to think about it pre-Brexit. Nations don’t like freeloaders, and citizens of nations don’t like seeing their nations condoning freeloading, especially when it suggests that they are inferior to the freeloaders.

Finally, and more personally, if you’re going to make the argument that incoming FOM is a benefit so nations should grant it to your nationals regardless of whether your nation reciprocates, you must actually accept the logic that you’re advocating. If you do not, it is entirely reasonable (and frankly correct) to conclude that you’re either trying to cleverly get one over on other nations via selfish and specious reasoning, or you’re simply virtue-signalling.

@110

Well I certainly hope you don’t keep on digging on your scam which is a sinking ship which is wearing no clothes. Something awful might happen. Metaphorically speaking.

‘Tusk was right on the money with his comment bout “a special place in hell” and it applies to Corbyn et al as well.’

Of course. In years to come, people will ask, ‘Why did Prime Minister Corbyn allow this to happen? And why did he call the Brexit referendum in the first place?’

Tusk was right on the money with his comment bout “a special place in hell”

Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) tweeted at 10:58 AM – 7 Feb 2019 :
@eucopresident Probably very similar to the place reserved for those who designed a monetary union without a proper banking union and, once the banking crisis hit, transferred cynically the bankers’ gigantic losses onto the shoulders of the weakest taxpayers. (http://twitter.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1093448850801680384?s=17)

@ faustusnotes “Dipper your basic shtick for two years has been to threaten violence in the streets if you don’t get the brexit you want”. I did post a while back a question on whether if you thought a policy would result in criminal actions against people you should say it, as saying it would be code for encouraging it, and decided that it would be tantamount to encouraging that response, so to the best of my knowledge I haven’t “threatened violence” and I’ve pretty consistently said abuse of people on any basis is not justifiable. Having had that consideration and discussion I’ve been pretty amazed at the zeal with which Remainers and pro-EU politicians have whipped up threats of bombings and assassinations if the UK refuses to accede to what is an one-sided and partisan interpretation of a treaty.

As for “I grew up around brexiters and your lot can’t fool me.” to repeat, transferring your experience to a whole load of people based on some loose association is a standard trope in racist politics. Just try some random insertions in “I grew up around XX and you can’t fool me”.

@ Niall McAuley “And yet there are a million or so UK ex-pats living in other EU countries”. There are about 4 million EU citizens in the UK, so that is 4:1 @ Orange Watch “how many nations allow citizens of nations who do not reciprocate to travel to their country w/o a visa?” – well, the UK experience is that it is in may cases non -reciprocal. So many young continental people have a choice of their own country or the UK, but many UK young people have a struggle in their own country because of the volume of applications from the EU. In academia, for instance, the UK has a higher proportions of non-UK staff than any other EU country (I note NL is not on this and believe it also has a high proportion). Now that maybe because the UK University sector has been rapidly expanding whereas other nations have not, but nevertheless the evidence is that many EU nations have been free-riding.

@ Chris Bertram. Oh come on. People are posting here because they want to. No one makes them. Take a tip from Barry White – Let The Music Play!

Song choices? Leave….Happy Days Are Here Again
Remain…Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen

As to Dipper…the sovereignty issue for England is the US and none of Dipper’s opinions are relevant. So much for that!

Dylan: One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
Elvis Costello: Two Little Hitlers, Watching the Defectives (as Elvis is said to have altered his lyric in performance when he didn’t like the crowd)
The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter

Brexiters: Beach Boys: Don’t Worry Baby; Dylan, Most Likely You Go Your Way, (And I’ll Go Mine)

Remainers: The Beatles, You Can’t Do That; Derek and the Dominos: Bell Bottom Blues

Jeremy Corbin: Beach Boys, Busy Doin’ Nothin’

Mrs. May: “You’ll never be the guilty party, girl….”

Oops. That’s spelled “Corbyn”, of course…..

Those percentages are probably all wrong considering the source. Alas the only 8% never went abroad one is actually lower than what i would expect. Just consider how many people are bipolar or psychotic alone – since for those travel abroad is often a particular health challenge.

Lucy Harris, a 28-year-old classically trained singer, founded the group in London after finding her views shouted down regularly. Last year, she said, a man yelled at her on the Underground, calling her a racist for carrying a bag with the slogan “The EU’s not my bag”. Since then she has met many people who say they have not been able to “come out” at work or even to their family for fear of being vilified. She parted with her Remain-voting boyfriend. “People who voted Leave are told they are bigots or stupid. They are decent, good people. They deserve the benefit of the doubt.” So Ms Harris quit her job in publishing and established a national group in November. It now has more than 4,000 members, with 1,200 in London. There are more than 30 groups across the country, mainly in Remain voting cities such as Cambridge, Glasgow and Bristol. The group’s Facebook page has almost 11,000 followers. …

https://www.ft.com/content/57cd2f9c-1f0f-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87c65

@ Orange Watch “the discussion of passport & visa reciprocity”. why would I care about this? We have had the “country X will require us to have visas!” warning over Brexit. Fine. If you don’t want me to visit, I won’t visit. I don’t see why we would automatically reciprocate requiring visas. I’d quite like tourists and business visitors to come to my country. I’ve worked in countries that require visas. A minor issue.

But to be a stuck record, its that European Commission report forecastingprojecting a 25% increase in population by mid century driven primarily by migration. Sweden was the only country to have a higher projected population growth. Honestly, if we cannot even organise a ferry company how do we think we can build a medium-sized country in a generation? And its not because we need this to happen, its because other nations have been so economically ravaged by the Euro that they need it to happen.

“At this point, I’m leaning to the third, and shall not be feeding you any more” Missing you already!!