Border Control: a new short story

LOL, my ID has to do with beer... I'm not from the UK, grant you that. But I do follow quite a lot of UK websites due to both hobby and professional interests. Also my upbringing tought me a bit of history while my education and experience with managers make me spot BS (political or other) from far away. Also my maths are good enough to know that (17 and a half million) minus (16 and a bit million) is far from 4 million.

You could say that I do like facts. So I just wonder if you could give any examples of what you claim in your previous posts.
 
Spanik said:
Leave the European Union 17,410,742 51.89
Remain a member of the European Union 16,141,241 48.11

Same way of counting as the 350 million a week that they now can't find...
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Bloody FACTS again! You know that Leavers are not strong on facts.

I repeat my earlier request to the barbarian. Please elucidate the following:

1: How has membership of the EU adversely affected you personally?

2: Name one concrete, actual benefit of leaving the EU. Not woo about sovereignty and taking back control, but actual financial advantages or increases in personal freedom and rights.

No-one has yet taken up either challenge, which I have repeated quite often. I wonder why.

I know this sails close to this site's antipathy to politics, but equally, I am fascinated by the opportunity to interact with people who are not, by their own choices, locked into some form of echo chamber. Here, we are united by our love of photography: we can have different political views. Also, I'd suggest that we can argue facts rather than politics. In what sense is a weak currency an advantage to the inhabitants (and pensioners) of that country?

My (perhaps vain) hope is that some people have a slightly wider field of view than the relative advantages of different versions of good or very good lenses. For those who haven't, well, I propose http://rogerandfrances.eu/photography/intro-photo . Stick with that. But don't pretend that it's all that matters in the world.

Cheers,

R.
 
Spanik said:
. . . You could say that I do like facts. So I just wonder if you could give any examples of what you claim in your previous posts.
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Quite. See post 62.

But you sound foreign, and are therefore subhuman, at least from the viewpoint of someone whose ancestors moved to their present location before yours did. Heaven forfend that you should move from the village in which you were born to anywhere else!

Cheers,

R.
 
valdas said:
Now I am intrigued about "Bar8barian" ID 🙂
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Well, the "barbarian" invasions of Rome spanned at least a couple of centuries, but it is widely agreed that the Roman Empire was overextended and living on past glories, while being unable to adjust to new realities.

Where in the 21st century corresponds to that model? I have no doubt that there were Goths, Visigoths, etc., who claimed to be the True Heritors of Rome.

My excuse for promoting the original story on this site is that neither photographs nor stories are truly objective. We choose what we shoot; we choose what we write about. We can learn a lot about our fellow citizens (of the world) by looking at what they focus upon. If it's swans and sunsets, or the usually imperceptible differences between a dozen different lenses presented as low-resolution images on a computer screen; well, that tells us a lot too.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Unfortunately I have this terrible weakness of needing to eat. I moved here under the entirely reasonable assumption that my pension (and indeed my UK earnings) were not incompatible with exercising my rights as a citizen of Europe.

What am I supposed to live on? Or should I move back to the increasingly-less-United Kingdom and become a burden upon the state?

Overall, I probably value my European citizenship more, as I suspect that France will be less inclined to let me fall into penury.

Cheers,

R.
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You made the choice and took the risk to live outside of the UK in France, so you can't blame your loss of income on the current low pound.All currency's can go up or down, the EURO went through a rocky time recently and can do so again especially when the U.K leaves after paying one of the largest contributions to the E.U. budget.It only needs Greece, Italy or Spain to get into financial difficulties and the value of the Euro will be in trouble again.That's why we in the U.K.are very lucky to have kept out of using the EURO, anything can happen in the future uncertainties.
 
Bar8barian said:
You made the choice and took the risk to live outside of the UK in France, so you can't blame your loss of income on the current low pound.All currency's can go up or down, the EURO went through a rocky time recently and can do so again especially when the U.K leaves after paying one of the largest contributions to the E.U. budget.It only needs Greece, Italy or Spain to get into financial difficulties and the value of the Euro will be in trouble again.That's why we in the U.K.are very lucky to have kept out of using the EURO, anything can happen in the future uncertainties.
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Not really. There are rational choices and irrational choices. Yes, I CAN blame my loss of income on the current low pound. Why else would it have declined? Weak pound = lower income. Or have you some form of Brexit mathematics that transcends this?

Or are you saying that the current low pound has nothing to do with the decline of my pension and the rising cost of imports to the UK? You know: things like oil and food. Or are you denying it is Brexit-linked?

Incidentally it's currencies, not currency's. Plural and possessive, you know. As you are 77 I'm surprised you didn't learn this at school.

Once again I repeat my request:

1: How has membership of the EU adversely affected you personally?

2: Name one concrete, actual benefit of leaving the EU. Not woo about sovereignty and taking back control, but actual financial advantages or increases in personal freedom and rights.

Until you reply, I will assume that you have no answer.

Cheers,

R.l
 
ptpdprinter said:
Do you currently have a carte de resident?
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No, nor have I needed one. Nor shall I need one unless Brexit steals my European citizenship. I had a carte de séjour but let it lapse on official French advice: as they pointed out, I didn't need it.

I have no great fear of not being granted permanent residency, with the backing of the local Mayor and the local Deputé. But what was your point?

Cheers,

R.
 
Bar8barian said:
Roger Hicks,

As for your point about my spelling- as you say"Incidentally it's currencies, not currency's. Plural and possessive, you know. As you are 77 I'm surprised you didn't learn this at school."
I possibly did, but presently suffering and in pain from two types of cancer - spelling is not a priority for me.
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Its disappointing that that the old spelling /grammar ploy has been deployed so early in the discussion.
 
Bar8barian said:
Roger Hicks,

1)You will just have to accept that there are many reasons that membership of the E.U. as adversely affected us and that is why we have chosen to leave the E.U. That is as much as I am prepared to say. Take it or leave it.. . .
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Indeed, it's all you CAN say. You have no arguments. Why on earth should I or anyone else anyone accept your unsupported statements? As I have asked twice before, please provide a single example of how EU membership has affected you adversely, or any concrete way in which leaving the EU will benefit the vast majority of the UK population.

I am very sorry to hear about your cancer -- probably more sorry than you can imagine -- but equally, I re-read what I have written and usually spot errors. Not always, it's true. But if you start on the "older and wiser" path, it's generally as well to provide evidence of the "wiser" as well as the "older".

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger, I couldn't care whether you or anyone else accept my unsupported statements?
I don't have to justify my statements to anybody.
All I am interested in is that we leave the E.U. as soon as possible, the quicker the better, come what may.
 
Bar8barian said:
Roger, I couldn't care whether you or anyone else accept my unsupported statements?
I don't have to justify my statements to anybody.
All I am interested in is that we leave the E.U. as soon as possible, the quicker the better, come what may.
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Isn't this a part of the problem? You have such a rabid sense of entitlement that you think your unsupported statements mean something. What do you think it is?

I'm not asking for much. Just a single rational argument, or even a short story with an emotional argument, as I posted when I started this thread.

All you have to offer, though, is "I'm right, you're wrong, take it or leave it." Does this not strike even you as less than a compelling argument?

Again I ask: (1) Name a single way in which EU membership has adversely affected you and/or (2) Name a single way in which Brexit will benefit the majority of UK citizens.

If you refuse to do so, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that you have no answers; that you have nothing to offer but empty bluster.

This is not a question of politics. It is a question of fact. Can you deal with facts? If not, admit it.

Cheers,

R.
 
Spanik said:
I take it we can understand this as an answer. Our other member doesn't have any rational arguments.
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Well, quite. This is why I'm no longer bothering to try to argue with him. It takes a minimum of research to discover that the original horse meat scandal was discovered by (wicked, EU, Irish) scientists, because UK food inspectors were neither required nor equipped to do basic DNA testing. The current scandal, in Spain, again involves EU authorities dealing with an illegal use of horse meat. The word "illegal" is quite important. But perhaps he imagines that after Brexit, there will suddenly be no more crooks in the UK, and no more meat imports.

As for housing, schools, etc., in the UK, he has adopted the usual Brexit trick of attributing to the vile, evil EU the decades-long failure by UK politicians to plan for anything much; or more accurately, to gather the taxes necessary to pay for basic social services. It is odd that in most of the rest of the EU, such problems are much reduced, and harping upon immigration (i.e. blaming someone else for poor government decisions) is generally regarded as the province of the far right.

But then, he's probably finding it very hard to come to terms with the ever-growing probability that Brexit won't happen; and that if it does, it won't Keep Out The Foreigners because freedom of movement is pretty much a precondition of any rational trade deal. The British could of course have exercised far more control of immigration, totally within EU rules, but repeatedly chose not to.

Cheers,

R.
 
johnf04 said:
Isn't there a push for a second referendum?
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Dear John,

Yes. And the Brexiteers are terrified because they know that their wafer-thin majority is unlikely ever to be repeated. If they were really confident, they'd be cheerleaders for a second referendum because they'd know they were going to win.

As it is, they're running scared because they know they'd almost certainly lose.

Cheers,

R.
 
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