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The Brexit Thread

Soon a major world power with start world war 3. Then zefram cochrane will invent warp drive. And the world will come together as one after meeting aliens.

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AstroDan said:
I genuinely don't understand if you are being serious. I mean, there was a vague attempt at this with Esperanto, but it totally failed. Language is an enrichment of society and part of identity - homogenising it by forcing English on Europeans would be an insult to the diversity of the continent. I spent four years doing a degree in French Studies, and the idea that you would ever seek to compel all countries to adopt a common language based on what a language represents to the society in which it operates is totally unrealistic, borderline madness.

The best ways to align are through removal of trade barriers and having common standards to ensure it operates transparently. We've left the Single Market, though, so are actually moving in the opposite direction and language skills in the UK have worsened in the past decade - with languages at GCSE, A Level and Undergraduate all falling in terms of uptake.
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I think it’s an interesting discussion, Brexit has happened but did we have it that good before? Would we have been better off seeking to join Schengen and the Euro and push for even closer alignment?
I mean it wouldn’t have been easy to convince individual nations to adopt a common language but then again who would have thought a common currency would work either?
Nations were also attached to the individual currencies but in the end were convinced it was better for a single one.
It could only work if that language was English though as it is the second language of most EU countries, although a huge change it could potentially work and economically would be a game changer for the EU if everything doesn’t have to be translated.
 
BigT said:
I think it’s an interesting discussion, Brexit has happened but did we have it that good before? Would we have been better off seeking to join Schengen and the Euro and push for even closer alignment?
I mean it wouldn’t have been easy to convince individual nations to adopt a common language but then again who would have thought a common currency would work either?
Nations were also attached to the individual currencies but in the end were convinced it was better for a single one.
It could only work if that language was English though as it is the second language of most EU countries, although a huge change it could potentially work and economically would be a game changer for the EU if everything doesn’t have to be translated.
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There are numerous examples of attempts to forcibly populations to change the language they speak - as you'll know if ever you head in to Wales, it doesn't work out.
 
As someone who voted for Brexit and accepts that it may prove to be detrimental for our country in some ways in the coming years...

It's only fair to accept that a global pandemic may have caused the following months/years to mean that you can't really have a fair test to it's success/failure, and/or
It's only fair to accept that a large scale war in Europe directly afterwards might cause some irregularities to what was already going to be a dodgy economy.

Saying that, our government in the past half decade or more have been an absolute disgrace and some bad things should happen to them (to put it mildly).
 
BarryZola said:
As someone who voted for Brexit and accepts that it may prove to be detrimental for our country in some ways in the coming years...

It's only fair to accept that a global pandemic may have caused the following months/years to mean that you can't really have a fair test to it's success/failure, and/or
It's only fair to accept that a large scale war in Europe directly afterwards might cause some irregularities to what was already going to be a dodgy economy.

Saying that, our government in the past half decade or more have been an absolute disgrace and some bad things should happen to them (to put it mildly).
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Both the pandemic and the war in Ukraine are things that have had an impact on all of Europe. But we’re the only country that has food shortages, massively increased household bills, and stunted economic growth. Wonder what makes us different from every other European country ?
 
Privatisation of all the means of production by Thatcher decades ago, and the scrapping of all the nationalised industries, perhaps?
Very large numbers of countries have food shortages, caused by war, poverty and recent weather issues in southern Europe.
Other nations have massive changes underway...French pension strikes come to mind...Europe is not united, far from it.
 
tayspru said:
Both the pandemic and the war in Ukraine are things that have had an impact on all of Europe. But we’re the only country that has food shortages, massively increased household bills, and stunted economic growth. Wonder what makes us different from every other European country ?
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Tbf, I'm a very, very strong pro remainer but let's not pretend.

Bills have gone up in some other countries by an absolute ton, too. Germany especially has been very exposed.

Economic growth and shortages though - bang on.

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WillPS said:
There are numerous examples of attempts to forcibly populations to change the language they speak - as you'll know if ever you head in to Wales, it doesn't work out.
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21% of the population of Wales speak Welsh, even less as a first language despite the best efforts of the Welsh Assembly so that’s hardly the best example.

Nobody is forcing countries to change language any more than forcing a new currency, that was a choice, some joined some didn’t.
Choose a different language other than English if it’s the English part that offends (even though it makes sense as it’s the most widely spoken language in Europe) but the advantages of a single language can’t be overlooked.

www.forbes.com

Despite Brexit, English Remains The EU’s Most Spoken Language By Far

England may have left the EU, but even after Brexit almost half of EU citizens can speak English.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com

How much time and tax payers money is spent translating all of the texts to all the different languages in the EU?
 
Actually, a move towards English was outlined in 2015, prior to David Cameron's spectacularly-bad 'renegotiations' prior to the referendum:

The European Commission has announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU, rather than German, which was the other contender. Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had room for improvement and has therefore accepted a five-year phasing in of "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make sivil servants jump for joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k", Which should klear up some konfusion and allow one key less on keyboards.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f", making words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e" is disgrasful.

By the fourth yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and everivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI COM TRU!
 
www.bbc.co.uk

Brexit: DUP will vote against Windsor Framework plans

The party's leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says he will continue to work with the government to address "outstanding issues".
www.bbc.co.uk

So it appears the DUP are going to vote against the Windsor Framework.

Imagine being a unionist and instead of championing and voting for something that allows Northern Ireland to prosper with access to both the UK Internal Market and also the EU Single Market, would rather isolate themselves further with the side effect of increasing support for a United Ireland instead.
 
I think I just heard something in the wind. Think it was someone saying 'shooting themselves in the foot'...
 
Great to see utter chaos at Dover once again, tangible, real life evidence of what Brexit looks like to everyday people.

It takes around 30 to 45 seconds per passenger now to scan, check and stamp a British passport vs. about 10 seconds before Brexit.

A coach load of 50 people, well. You do the maths.

It's ok though, Suella Braverman says it's unfair to blame Brexit.
 
Most people on those coached probably didn't vote for it, to be fair.

In any event, it's more the government's failure to mitigate against the barriers erected under their own Brexit deal.
 
Tom said:
Most people on those coached probably didn't vote for it, to be fair.

In any event, it's more the government's failure to mitigate against the barriers erected under their own Brexit deal.
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Absolutely. It's not said in a spirit of 'you deserve it'. More in a spirit of hard evidence, gets it in the media etc.
 
I know it's all good fun saying these things but I don't know anyone who voted for Brexit to get a blue passport or for sovereignty. Most people I know were more interested in trying to limit immigration and foreign workers keeping wages down. You don't need to tell me about how unsuccessful these hopes were at this point, and we've done the debate to death hundreds of times, but they were the things that seemed to crop up with people I know.
 
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