The information about the Big EU Passport Campaign has now moved to its own blog at www.bigeupassport.blogspot.co.uk
Showing posts with label Remain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Remain. Show all posts
David Martin MEP Talk
I went along to a talk that had been organised by the European Parliament in Edinburgh which was advertised as a "Meet your MEP David Martin" event.
The venue was a nice one - the CCA - Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow. And there was food provided as the talk was over lunchtime so that was a treat ! Finally I am benefiting from all that money I sent to the EU !! ;-) (only joking!)
While waiting for the talk I chatted to a few people around me and heard how they were here in their professional capacities to ask questions about the funding they get and how Brexit would affect them. They worked for a charity and for a council, and both receive a lot of EU funding. I hadn't heard about charities receiving EU funding and it was another of those "Just when you think Brexit seems bad it then just gets a whole lot worse" moments ! And the councils are working together to campaign for continuity of funding. Another person was talking about how she had noticed how much the EU had improved infrastructure in Scotland such as the pier to the island of Muck etc making it more possible to travel around Scotland. And someone else talked about some high flats in Glasgow which had been renovated with EU funding - the Broomhill flats.
The talk had originally been organised before an election was announced and the MEP was careful not to touch on anything that was too relevant to the election campaign.
Firstly he started by summarising his week at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The topics are summarised in this video as the work that went on this week in Parliament
So it is business as usual at the European Parliament.
The 27 countries are united in their stance against Brexit and they took 2 minutes to agree the Brexit (negotiating?) guidelines
Article 50 was started on 29 March and this set a 2 year clock ticking.
Important Issues in the negotation.
Firstly the Rights of EU citizens of another member state.
A consensus seems to be arriving that the date that will be taken for being an EU citizen requiring an agreement will be that they were present in the UK on the 29th March. But... how do you prove that ? How do you prove they weren't just on holiday? or that they are here with a family member ? For example Belgium has ID cards so they can easily track people. We don't have this. He has been having to help out some people who have been here for a long time and had hit problems. For example a mother who had not worked but was married and had a family here for many years. And there were also situations mentioned from audience members later with people who are in stresstful situations of uncertainty around this.
The Issue of the Border between North and South of Ireland
There can be all sorts of problems with this and how it is organised re currency and customs union. There are a few main potential border points but the huge distance of the border I imagine could not be fully monitored !
And, for example, apparently the milk that goes into Baileys Irish cream goes across the border about six times during various stages of development.
He can remember back to border problems here when goods were traded using European Currency units (ECUs) before the Euro.
And, there is the Issue of the Settlement of Rights and Obligations.
Its not a "Brexit Bill"...
Its the ongoing payments for agreements we have entered into. Currently we have obligations until 2020 - social funds, structural funds, pensions, aid etc. There has been some acceptance of this in the Tory manifesto.
Michel Barnier wants to agree a methodology ...
And part of these commitments may well be ongoing due to contingencies (I guess that means unpredictability of certain things) as opposed to something you can just pay off.
My own speculation...
It will be interesting to hear what position the UK government takes in the negotiations - Theresa May has asked for people to vote for her to get a strong mandate ...but we don't yet know for sure what their position is ! Is it for a Hard Brexit or Soft Brexit ? We weren't asked this on the voting paper either !
Its hard to see other than that the long term effect of Brexit is that the economy will decline.
50% of our imports are from the EU and 44% of our exports. If we also add in all those countries that have preferential trade agreements then over 60% of our trade will be at a disadvantage to where we are today. If agreements go ahead between eg the EU and Japan, then 67% of our trade could be affected.
If we lost some of this trade we would need to make up an awful lot more from the rest of the world.
The "sunny uplands" of being "open to the world" are perhaps just too niave... We can currently trade with the rest of the world and there is nothing to stop us doing this. We export 16% to US, ??% with the BRICS economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and 9.5% with the Commonwealth. Trade agreements will not happen overnight. It took 7 years for the Canada / EU agreement to be organised and Australia took 10 years for an agreement with China, which they particularly wanted - something to do with raw materials ......and.... India took many years to make an agreement with ASEA.
And it is said that a free trade agreement only makes trade increase 10% anyway.
Modern production means that products are rarely now wholly made in one country. Supply chains are in place and production must run smoothly with components being readily available to avoid any interruption of production. So smooth customs unions and single markets mean that supply chains work smoothly across the EU and its population of 500 million people. (I think this is called Just In time manufacturing). So for each component there is no need to check standards/environmental standards/labelling etc - all this has been organised in advance to set European standards.
He has heard from a major company that they cannot risk having part of their assembly in a country where there is any interruption due to regulatory or customs controls.
And for example even with an iPhone which we think of as being built in China (well I think of that)...then apparently 19% of it is put together in Europe.
An argument we have heard re: trade deals is that "Europe will be desperate to do a trade deal as we are such good customers etc" but for example think of the French farmers....they might well be happy to see tariffs slapped on UK agricultural produce.
However, even if no trade deal is done, there might be "customs facilitation" - where would need a bit of trust/goodwill etc. And for example electronic labelling makes it easy to track things across borders. His worry is with agriculture as this is where the so-called "third countries" have the greatest problems exporting into the EU. There are certain sanitary standards required for the produce and veterinary inspections would be required at ports. Initially it wont even be possible to do this until the facilities are available as this hasnt been needed for years on a large scale.
Mind you (in my opinion), animal rights in the EU could do with improvement as transport of live animals over these distances has to surely be queried - and do the animals have access to food/water etc on these journeys?
The feeling is that with regards to EU27 and free trade agreements is that they are not "out to get us", its more like currently they are shocked with "what on earth are you doing with this Brexit? what has happened to your country?!"
We are not allowed to negotiate agreements with other countries until we are through the Brexit - "loyal co-operation" ... so although Australia was keen to do a deal we cannot. But there is surely a conflict of interest where the UK can sit at negotiating table in EU talks with Australia and then use these snippets of information to formulate our own UK deal/adjust our own position with Australia...
Free trade agreements, though, only usually add 10% of trade. If we lose 5% (a conservative estimate), of our trade with the EU, we would have to increase trade with BRICS of 25% which would be a remarkable achievement ....
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Questions and discussion from the floor ..
Have they counted UK workers in Europe or just those living there ...
How long for Scotland if it was independent to get back into the EU? We would probably need to come out of the UK first then re-apply. We could then possibly be back within 2 years . Although Fishing is a big area of difficulty. And re: the Euro, we might have to sort of "say" we'd think about joining and then just not get round to it .... a tactic ...and then maybe avoid it - another guy there (I think from Sweden) said his country had not joined it.
There was a lady who worked in a Language school - the staff there are very concerned as they are EU citizens and do not know what is happening. In addition in that area of work it is very common to work freelance so this can make it difficult to prove you have worked or are continuing to work (I imagine) They have monthly Brexit chats there which sound interesting.
Someone said that at times they have a feeling they would like see the EU take Britain to the cleaners so we learn our place in the world as currently have an over-inflated opinion of ourselves. (I paraphrase here - but I do see their point as I would really like to see more "normal" people as representatives of the UK in our negotiations - people who are not arrogant and who do not take pleasure in winding other people up - but instead know how to get on with others !
And the converse of the EU workers in UK is that some folk know of UK workers on the continent who are desperately queuing to become a citizen of that country - we have all heard situations of this and we all know people affected. And in some cases we are all searching our family trees etc for Irish relatives or German relatives ! Unfortunately in my case my great grandfather came from Ireland but its a generation too far back ! (I think ... maybe I will look into it again !)
He has a sense of optimism re Citizenship
One problem is also that there are a lot of British people living in Spain and the Spanish government could end up with the responsibility for their healthcare which I imagine would be expensive. So although they do also contribute to the economy of Spain I imagine this could be a sticking poing.
And overall it sounds like a Trade Deal between the EU and UK in the given timescale makes it unlikely to happen.
**************************
Aid is a big area - and it sounds like currently our Aid budget or at least some of it is distributed via European agencies and things like the excellent Medecins Sans Frontieres.
European Aid is the biggest Aid Agency in the World.
Britain has led the way in Aid and our experience has been acknowledged by the European Commissioner (?) ... So we may struggle to get our Aid out - and we might need to use eg Oxfam or something ...
We also have strong links historically with some countries and for example he had been speaking in Tanzania last week as an EU representative but some people there were like "why are you here - the UK has left already!) and I think he may have said that this stopped some deal happening - but I maybe misheard that...
Possibly we could still pay into it and similarly with Erasmus and Horizon 2020 (programmes that some in the audience had experience of). We have paid and can still be part of these until 2021 I think by the sounds of it/...
In some programmes we have been told to no longer apply but he thinks we should keep applying as still paying in. It might just be the Scottish government who are saying this.
The Tory manifesto may also have said we will aim to stay in Research programmes - I guess if we pay towards those.
So some small glimmers of hope I guess...
Africa ... trade
The venue was a nice one - the CCA - Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow. And there was food provided as the talk was over lunchtime so that was a treat ! Finally I am benefiting from all that money I sent to the EU !! ;-) (only joking!)
While waiting for the talk I chatted to a few people around me and heard how they were here in their professional capacities to ask questions about the funding they get and how Brexit would affect them. They worked for a charity and for a council, and both receive a lot of EU funding. I hadn't heard about charities receiving EU funding and it was another of those "Just when you think Brexit seems bad it then just gets a whole lot worse" moments ! And the councils are working together to campaign for continuity of funding. Another person was talking about how she had noticed how much the EU had improved infrastructure in Scotland such as the pier to the island of Muck etc making it more possible to travel around Scotland. And someone else talked about some high flats in Glasgow which had been renovated with EU funding - the Broomhill flats.
The talk had originally been organised before an election was announced and the MEP was careful not to touch on anything that was too relevant to the election campaign.
Firstly he started by summarising his week at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The topics are summarised in this video as the work that went on this week in Parliament
To expand:The takeaways from this week’s #EPlenary? Our video has the five numbers to remember pic.twitter.com/8COv60sPmd— European Parliament (@Europarl_EN) May 19, 2017
- With the refugee crisis, only Finland and Malta have so far taken their quota of refugees. Of the 160,000 that are due to find places, only 18,000 have so far been placed. (I am not sure if this is refugees or asylum seekers) Currently some countries are dragging their feet while others have categorically said they are not participating, and for those countries the European Parliament is now considering sanctions.
In addition, Hungary is currently curtailing the rights of people to protest. These are core principles of the EU. The first stage is to start an Article 7 - if this is implemented there will be sanctions and they will not be able to vote in European Council and could lose funds as well. Signals have been sent - maybe that will be enough to get things changed?
- Food Waste - there have been many ideas but one is that restaurants or supermarkets who give away free food when it reaches sell by date could receive a tax break for this.
- Rights Restrictions - There is a move to make it easier for you to continue to view your subscriber content across Europe if you are a registered user in a member state. So I imagine things like continuing to watch BBC content or video streaming from a channel etc whichever country you are in, as long as you are signed in.
- Protecting Children -in a similar way, there is to be a move to put an obligation on platforms to deal with the content if complaints are made and to have a requirement to make it easier to make complaints.
- Adverts on TV etc - there is to be restrictions on the amount of adverts ie no more than 20% of adverts vs action and also taking into account production placement in TV programmes etc
So it is business as usual at the European Parliament.
The 27 countries are united in their stance against Brexit and they took 2 minutes to agree the Brexit (negotiating?) guidelines
Article 50 was started on 29 March and this set a 2 year clock ticking.
Important Issues in the negotation.
Firstly the Rights of EU citizens of another member state.
A consensus seems to be arriving that the date that will be taken for being an EU citizen requiring an agreement will be that they were present in the UK on the 29th March. But... how do you prove that ? How do you prove they weren't just on holiday? or that they are here with a family member ? For example Belgium has ID cards so they can easily track people. We don't have this. He has been having to help out some people who have been here for a long time and had hit problems. For example a mother who had not worked but was married and had a family here for many years. And there were also situations mentioned from audience members later with people who are in stresstful situations of uncertainty around this.
The Issue of the Border between North and South of Ireland
There can be all sorts of problems with this and how it is organised re currency and customs union. There are a few main potential border points but the huge distance of the border I imagine could not be fully monitored !
And, for example, apparently the milk that goes into Baileys Irish cream goes across the border about six times during various stages of development.
He can remember back to border problems here when goods were traded using European Currency units (ECUs) before the Euro.
And, there is the Issue of the Settlement of Rights and Obligations.
Its not a "Brexit Bill"...
Its the ongoing payments for agreements we have entered into. Currently we have obligations until 2020 - social funds, structural funds, pensions, aid etc. There has been some acceptance of this in the Tory manifesto.
Michel Barnier wants to agree a methodology ...
And part of these commitments may well be ongoing due to contingencies (I guess that means unpredictability of certain things) as opposed to something you can just pay off.
My own speculation...
It will be interesting to hear what position the UK government takes in the negotiations - Theresa May has asked for people to vote for her to get a strong mandate ...but we don't yet know for sure what their position is ! Is it for a Hard Brexit or Soft Brexit ? We weren't asked this on the voting paper either !
Its hard to see other than that the long term effect of Brexit is that the economy will decline.
50% of our imports are from the EU and 44% of our exports. If we also add in all those countries that have preferential trade agreements then over 60% of our trade will be at a disadvantage to where we are today. If agreements go ahead between eg the EU and Japan, then 67% of our trade could be affected.
If we lost some of this trade we would need to make up an awful lot more from the rest of the world.
The "sunny uplands" of being "open to the world" are perhaps just too niave... We can currently trade with the rest of the world and there is nothing to stop us doing this. We export 16% to US, ??% with the BRICS economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and 9.5% with the Commonwealth. Trade agreements will not happen overnight. It took 7 years for the Canada / EU agreement to be organised and Australia took 10 years for an agreement with China, which they particularly wanted - something to do with raw materials ......and.... India took many years to make an agreement with ASEA.
And it is said that a free trade agreement only makes trade increase 10% anyway.
Modern production means that products are rarely now wholly made in one country. Supply chains are in place and production must run smoothly with components being readily available to avoid any interruption of production. So smooth customs unions and single markets mean that supply chains work smoothly across the EU and its population of 500 million people. (I think this is called Just In time manufacturing). So for each component there is no need to check standards/environmental standards/labelling etc - all this has been organised in advance to set European standards.
He has heard from a major company that they cannot risk having part of their assembly in a country where there is any interruption due to regulatory or customs controls.
And for example even with an iPhone which we think of as being built in China (well I think of that)...then apparently 19% of it is put together in Europe.
An argument we have heard re: trade deals is that "Europe will be desperate to do a trade deal as we are such good customers etc" but for example think of the French farmers....they might well be happy to see tariffs slapped on UK agricultural produce.
However, even if no trade deal is done, there might be "customs facilitation" - where would need a bit of trust/goodwill etc. And for example electronic labelling makes it easy to track things across borders. His worry is with agriculture as this is where the so-called "third countries" have the greatest problems exporting into the EU. There are certain sanitary standards required for the produce and veterinary inspections would be required at ports. Initially it wont even be possible to do this until the facilities are available as this hasnt been needed for years on a large scale.
Mind you (in my opinion), animal rights in the EU could do with improvement as transport of live animals over these distances has to surely be queried - and do the animals have access to food/water etc on these journeys?
The feeling is that with regards to EU27 and free trade agreements is that they are not "out to get us", its more like currently they are shocked with "what on earth are you doing with this Brexit? what has happened to your country?!"
We are not allowed to negotiate agreements with other countries until we are through the Brexit - "loyal co-operation" ... so although Australia was keen to do a deal we cannot. But there is surely a conflict of interest where the UK can sit at negotiating table in EU talks with Australia and then use these snippets of information to formulate our own UK deal/adjust our own position with Australia...
Free trade agreements, though, only usually add 10% of trade. If we lose 5% (a conservative estimate), of our trade with the EU, we would have to increase trade with BRICS of 25% which would be a remarkable achievement ....
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Questions and discussion from the floor ..
Have they counted UK workers in Europe or just those living there ...
How long for Scotland if it was independent to get back into the EU? We would probably need to come out of the UK first then re-apply. We could then possibly be back within 2 years . Although Fishing is a big area of difficulty. And re: the Euro, we might have to sort of "say" we'd think about joining and then just not get round to it .... a tactic ...and then maybe avoid it - another guy there (I think from Sweden) said his country had not joined it.
There was a lady who worked in a Language school - the staff there are very concerned as they are EU citizens and do not know what is happening. In addition in that area of work it is very common to work freelance so this can make it difficult to prove you have worked or are continuing to work (I imagine) They have monthly Brexit chats there which sound interesting.
Someone said that at times they have a feeling they would like see the EU take Britain to the cleaners so we learn our place in the world as currently have an over-inflated opinion of ourselves. (I paraphrase here - but I do see their point as I would really like to see more "normal" people as representatives of the UK in our negotiations - people who are not arrogant and who do not take pleasure in winding other people up - but instead know how to get on with others !
And the converse of the EU workers in UK is that some folk know of UK workers on the continent who are desperately queuing to become a citizen of that country - we have all heard situations of this and we all know people affected. And in some cases we are all searching our family trees etc for Irish relatives or German relatives ! Unfortunately in my case my great grandfather came from Ireland but its a generation too far back ! (I think ... maybe I will look into it again !)
He has a sense of optimism re Citizenship
One problem is also that there are a lot of British people living in Spain and the Spanish government could end up with the responsibility for their healthcare which I imagine would be expensive. So although they do also contribute to the economy of Spain I imagine this could be a sticking poing.
And overall it sounds like a Trade Deal between the EU and UK in the given timescale makes it unlikely to happen.
**************************
Aid is a big area - and it sounds like currently our Aid budget or at least some of it is distributed via European agencies and things like the excellent Medecins Sans Frontieres.
European Aid is the biggest Aid Agency in the World.
Britain has led the way in Aid and our experience has been acknowledged by the European Commissioner (?) ... So we may struggle to get our Aid out - and we might need to use eg Oxfam or something ...
We also have strong links historically with some countries and for example he had been speaking in Tanzania last week as an EU representative but some people there were like "why are you here - the UK has left already!) and I think he may have said that this stopped some deal happening - but I maybe misheard that...
Possibly we could still pay into it and similarly with Erasmus and Horizon 2020 (programmes that some in the audience had experience of). We have paid and can still be part of these until 2021 I think by the sounds of it/...
In some programmes we have been told to no longer apply but he thinks we should keep applying as still paying in. It might just be the Scottish government who are saying this.
The Tory manifesto may also have said we will aim to stay in Research programmes - I guess if we pay towards those.
So some small glimmers of hope I guess...
Africa ... trade
The EU March in Edinburgh - 25th March 2017 - 60th Anniversary of Treaty of Rome
I set off early for Edinburgh, heading to the EU March. It was going to be a stunning sunny day. Thankfully the coffee stall at our local station in Glasgow was open so I was able to get a coffee for the one and a half hour journey ! Very civilised !
During the start of the journey I could hear two young guys who were sitting opposite me, who were talking about their various projects they were involved with. One of them was on the local Railway forum and the other was talking about his degree where instead of taking one module, they instead work with students from across year groups to look at the impact of their engineering projects on the environment and on European citizens etc. An EU Project ! All these little things that we could lose.
Anyway I got to Edinburgh and met up with the group from the North East of England who I had met previously. We then eventually left Waverley station and headed up to the start of the March at the end of Princes Street at Waterloo Place. We would walk from there, up past Calton Hill where the Scottish Parliament was going to be at one point, then walking onwards with views of Arthur's Seat, and then finishing up down at the Scottish Parliament. We sat there or stood there in the sun listening to some excellent talks from a variety of people.
I met a woman who works as a translator and who may have to move abroad if Brexit happens as most of her work is in Euros and she expects she may have to move. I met an astrophysicist who has now had to put on hold a project to create a solar observatory in Europe, as things are now so uncertain with regards to whether people can be employed or will have citizenship abroad etc. How sad is that - these are concrete victims of Brexit and it hasn't even happened yet ! I met a scientist who comes from mainland Europe but is working and living in a University in the North of England who assured me that quite a number of her colleagues are seriously contemplating moving to Scotland ! I met some French people and lots of other lovely and interesting people from all over the UK and abroad. I heard from a German scientist all about her work on the environment. It sounded interesting. And she explained how Germany has the equivalent differences as the UK or France does - a sort of North / South divide. Always interesting to hear new things ! Two SNP "Yes" supporters were speaking French to a French lady next to me ! I also met up again with the Perth for EU group. (I used to live in Perth !) They have a thriving Remain in EU group based in Perth.
The speakers were from a variety of political backgrounds and other backgrounds. They started by thanking the police who had kept us safe en route. And remembering the events in London.
Things then proceeded, and in typical British style someone started their speech - "We must Remain in the EU - its brought us peace, prosperity .... and .... and " (stutter) - someone in crowd shouts "cheese" !!
Then a return to fluency ! We heard from a rebellious Labour group who have not been listened to by Jeremy Corbyn, but number 5,000 Labour party members who support Remain and had signed a letter to Jeremy, with no response ! One speaker had lived in Berlin just after the second world war and was reminding us how the European Union had kept a peaceful Europe, and he was reminding us how it is not difficult to slip into a non peaceful situation. Most of the individual country flags have been involved in something disreputable over time, but the European flag of yellow stars on the blue background had only presided over peace. We heard from a retired Edinburgh judge (born in Perth !), David Edward who was a former Judge of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, working on panels with colleagues from Finland, France etc. ( And we heard from Joanna Cherry of the SNP who had been taught law by this judge 30 years ago in Edinburgh ! We heard about the lack of any response from Theresa May from the large White Paper of questions from the Scottish Government. Scotland has been given tax raising powers, yet now the method of controlling their economy in the way they see best has been taken away from them. Oh yes and from another speaker, another slightly amusing correction when someone listed all the "industries" Scotland is good at and which prosper in the EU - finance, IT, farming, food and drink etc were listed - but they forgot science - that was shouted out from the crowd - there were a number of scientists certainly that I spoke to over the day ! And Scotland is famed for science and industry - these areas are thriving at the moment as is the University sector, brining in many from abroad as well. In fact today they said that EU students would have guarantees to complete their studies in Scotland ... And for me the most stirring talks were from the organisers - a French guy and a woman called Vanessa Glynn, Chair of the European Movement in Scotland, who gave a fantastic speech which had the crowd cheering.
You can read it here: http://www.euromovescotland.org.uk/documents/VanessaMarch4EU.pdf
Some of the gist of what was said that I can remember - We want to Remain in the EU - We value our EU citizenship - the Young people deserve their future. If it came to it, Scotland would love to offer EU citizens the right to stay. And how the Europeans are quite open to having a country like Scotland, who are keen to be in the EU. There was a lot of negative feeling about the influence of the Daily Mail. And who is really going to benefit in the so called return of powers from the EU - straight into the hands of those who will happily have deregulation etc...
But first things first - today was the Anniversary of 60 years since the Treaty of Rome. UK was not in the group immediately, but tried three times to get in and finally got in. Yet now we could give all this progress away. The EU has kept peace for 60 years in Europe.
The blue sky overhead could almost have had yellow EU stars on it. The flag of the EU has reigned over countries which have worked together and kept peace together. Yes, there are issues - but we need to be a positive force and get in and work to sort out the EU. And the UK argued to bring in the Eastern countries - yet now we are quitting - join our club - but actually we are leaving the club.
Let's hope not - let's hope Theresa May sees sense and does not sign Article 50 on Wednesday. Guy Verhofstadt is apparently to be the EU negotiator. He understands the people who were with me on the March better than our own government. Let's hope Guy can fight our cause - we are EU Citizens. Many of us have been born as EU Citizens - we have ALWAYS BEEN EU CITIZENS.
Oh yes and I heard two good jokes today - well a couple of cheesy ones anyway !
Question - How do you entice a bear out of a cave using just cheese ?
Answer - you say "Camembert" !!
and ... even worse
Question - How do you hide a horse using cheese ?
Answer - you "Mascarpone" !!
(Thanks to the Newcastle group for those - keeping us entertained at the Station!)
Videos of Edinburgh March:
http://breakingbrexit.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-eu-march-in-edinburgh-25th-march.html
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQtUExB-XI0&spfreload=5 (I am sure there are more than 2000 here !!)
During the start of the journey I could hear two young guys who were sitting opposite me, who were talking about their various projects they were involved with. One of them was on the local Railway forum and the other was talking about his degree where instead of taking one module, they instead work with students from across year groups to look at the impact of their engineering projects on the environment and on European citizens etc. An EU Project ! All these little things that we could lose.
Anyway I got to Edinburgh and met up with the group from the North East of England who I had met previously. We then eventually left Waverley station and headed up to the start of the March at the end of Princes Street at Waterloo Place. We would walk from there, up past Calton Hill where the Scottish Parliament was going to be at one point, then walking onwards with views of Arthur's Seat, and then finishing up down at the Scottish Parliament. We sat there or stood there in the sun listening to some excellent talks from a variety of people.
I met a woman who works as a translator and who may have to move abroad if Brexit happens as most of her work is in Euros and she expects she may have to move. I met an astrophysicist who has now had to put on hold a project to create a solar observatory in Europe, as things are now so uncertain with regards to whether people can be employed or will have citizenship abroad etc. How sad is that - these are concrete victims of Brexit and it hasn't even happened yet ! I met a scientist who comes from mainland Europe but is working and living in a University in the North of England who assured me that quite a number of her colleagues are seriously contemplating moving to Scotland ! I met some French people and lots of other lovely and interesting people from all over the UK and abroad. I heard from a German scientist all about her work on the environment. It sounded interesting. And she explained how Germany has the equivalent differences as the UK or France does - a sort of North / South divide. Always interesting to hear new things ! Two SNP "Yes" supporters were speaking French to a French lady next to me ! I also met up again with the Perth for EU group. (I used to live in Perth !) They have a thriving Remain in EU group based in Perth.
 |
| Gathering at the start - looking back to Princes Street and the Scott Monument |
 |
| Past Calton Hill - |
 |
| Arthur's Seat in Background |
 |
| Perth for Europe |
 |
| Excellent knitted EU Hats ! |
 |
| Past the Gates of Holyroodhouse - wonder what Her Majesty really thinks re EU ! |
 |
| Edinburgh - always a stunning backdrop ! |
 |
| Arthur's Seat in background |
 |
| Past the Scottish Parliament |
 |
| This is possibly the best photo I took from a photography perspective and meaning too ! |
 |
| Listening to the speeches - another EU hat too ! |
Things then proceeded, and in typical British style someone started their speech - "We must Remain in the EU - its brought us peace, prosperity .... and .... and " (stutter) - someone in crowd shouts "cheese" !!
Then a return to fluency ! We heard from a rebellious Labour group who have not been listened to by Jeremy Corbyn, but number 5,000 Labour party members who support Remain and had signed a letter to Jeremy, with no response ! One speaker had lived in Berlin just after the second world war and was reminding us how the European Union had kept a peaceful Europe, and he was reminding us how it is not difficult to slip into a non peaceful situation. Most of the individual country flags have been involved in something disreputable over time, but the European flag of yellow stars on the blue background had only presided over peace. We heard from a retired Edinburgh judge (born in Perth !), David Edward who was a former Judge of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, working on panels with colleagues from Finland, France etc. ( And we heard from Joanna Cherry of the SNP who had been taught law by this judge 30 years ago in Edinburgh ! We heard about the lack of any response from Theresa May from the large White Paper of questions from the Scottish Government. Scotland has been given tax raising powers, yet now the method of controlling their economy in the way they see best has been taken away from them. Oh yes and from another speaker, another slightly amusing correction when someone listed all the "industries" Scotland is good at and which prosper in the EU - finance, IT, farming, food and drink etc were listed - but they forgot science - that was shouted out from the crowd - there were a number of scientists certainly that I spoke to over the day ! And Scotland is famed for science and industry - these areas are thriving at the moment as is the University sector, brining in many from abroad as well. In fact today they said that EU students would have guarantees to complete their studies in Scotland ... And for me the most stirring talks were from the organisers - a French guy and a woman called Vanessa Glynn, Chair of the European Movement in Scotland, who gave a fantastic speech which had the crowd cheering.
You can read it here: http://www.euromovescotland.org.uk/documents/VanessaMarch4EU.pdf
Some of the gist of what was said that I can remember - We want to Remain in the EU - We value our EU citizenship - the Young people deserve their future. If it came to it, Scotland would love to offer EU citizens the right to stay. And how the Europeans are quite open to having a country like Scotland, who are keen to be in the EU. There was a lot of negative feeling about the influence of the Daily Mail. And who is really going to benefit in the so called return of powers from the EU - straight into the hands of those who will happily have deregulation etc...
But first things first - today was the Anniversary of 60 years since the Treaty of Rome. UK was not in the group immediately, but tried three times to get in and finally got in. Yet now we could give all this progress away. The EU has kept peace for 60 years in Europe.
The blue sky overhead could almost have had yellow EU stars on it. The flag of the EU has reigned over countries which have worked together and kept peace together. Yes, there are issues - but we need to be a positive force and get in and work to sort out the EU. And the UK argued to bring in the Eastern countries - yet now we are quitting - join our club - but actually we are leaving the club.
Let's hope not - let's hope Theresa May sees sense and does not sign Article 50 on Wednesday. Guy Verhofstadt is apparently to be the EU negotiator. He understands the people who were with me on the March better than our own government. Let's hope Guy can fight our cause - we are EU Citizens. Many of us have been born as EU Citizens - we have ALWAYS BEEN EU CITIZENS.
Oh yes and I heard two good jokes today - well a couple of cheesy ones anyway !
Question - How do you entice a bear out of a cave using just cheese ?
Answer - you say "Camembert" !!
and ... even worse
Question - How do you hide a horse using cheese ?
Answer - you "Mascarpone" !!
(Thanks to the Newcastle group for those - keeping us entertained at the Station!)
Videos of Edinburgh March:
http://breakingbrexit.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-eu-march-in-edinburgh-25th-march.html
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQtUExB-XI0&spfreload=5 (I am sure there are more than 2000 here !!)
Justin Trudeau of Canada talking about the EU
Justin Trudeau of Canada commending the EU - as a Free Trade deal is signed soon - although currently UK government has failed to include protection for location based products eg Scotch Beef, Cornish Pasties etc etc - a deliberate mistake or incompetent error ? Paving the way for cheap meat products to come in from US and Canada - certainly I have heard of poor treatment of animals in intensive production in the US - I don't know about Canada.... but it seems our UK government are continually poor at supporting our fishermen, our farmers, our producers ...
.@JustinTrudeau says the "the whole world benefits from a strong EU" while speaking to the European Parliament at Strasbourg. pic.twitter.com/znFrA3YWqV— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) February 16, 2017
Very Good From the New York Times
And I thought that American's didn't do Irony .... !
Very good ! Sums up this nonsense of Brexit entirely. Certainly this reflects many of the people I know who work globally now or at least across Europe. This is the way many people work now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/opinion/theresa-mays-global-britain-is-baloney.html
Very good ! Sums up this nonsense of Brexit entirely. Certainly this reflects many of the people I know who work globally now or at least across Europe. This is the way many people work now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/opinion/theresa-mays-global-britain-is-baloney.html
The Will of the People ? Not ! This is not Democracy as it should be !
If I hear the term "The Will of the People" again I will seriously scream !
The Will of the People.... A Heroic term but a term that to me reflects something rather like a character from Charlie and the Chocolate factory ... "I Will have that Chocolate ... NOW !!!" ... Give me ! We Will Rise Up ! (from more heroic battles) ... I Will I Will I Will (stamps feet)
Well The Will of this person is that I Wish that people had properly educated themselves before this Referendum Vote. I wish we had kept in touch more with the goings on of the European Parliament. I wish our MEPs had been more pro-active and kept us informed. For example one of our local MEPs is I think the longest standing one in Parliament. I was in the audience at a radio show on which he was a panellist and he did seem very good. But I have not seen a single article from him in public or in the local paper etc since. Nothing. Why was he not more pro-active in trying to get the public more informed about the benefits of Europe ?
Now there are many benefits. I personally did in fact work for a brief while for the European Union. I gave talks and demonstrated how to use a particular database which daily has Tenders available - Tenders Electronic Daily - TED. I gave talks to Small and Medium Enterprises to show them how to search the database and find relevant Tenders to bid for. Again these are the hidden opportunities in the EU - contracts that were won that the general public probably never heard about, but it is just another of the positive benefits.
So... the Will of the People or at least of the 37% who voted ... or the 25% of people - not sure if that even includes EU citizens in the UK who didn't have the vote or many UK people who live and work abroad who didn't get the vote ... anyway the Will of the People .... apparently is to leave the EU.
Now many of these people were attracted by tabloid headlines. Tabloids that are all owned by rich billionaires who do not live in the UK. They tuned in to anti immigrant sentimentality. They tuned into desperate people who have experienced the overstretched NHS and who appreciate our NHS and believed the carefully worded "Brexit Bus", that the money would go to the NHS. Now firstly the maths was wrong - it was never 350m (see my Page about this ....) it was much less. Now secondly this money does bring us many untold benefits which we will now lose - for example access to a single market, cross EUropean science research etc .... but ... assuming we do come out and the figures of 130million is saved a week. No way is it all going to go to the NHS - and you will see that the bus does not exactly say that - people just believed what those "clever manipulators" wanted them to believe - jargon - slogans.... and they fell into the slick trap set by those clever millionaires, most of whom have dual nationality .... funny that !
And getting on to Democracy ... thats another of their refrains - "ITS THE DEMOCRATIC WILL OF THE PEOPLE" ... this is the more than monosyllabic "educated" version of the refrain ... this will definitely win the argument - who could argue with democracy ?
it literally does mean People Power ! Power to the People !
But ... and here's the but ... in Greece, although people did finally get a vote - or at least some did ! they elected a representative to the forum... they elected a person like our parliamentarian. And the leadership of this group changed too so it was not too much time for one person in power. ie the European Parliament has this model.
But ... the UK is not really following democracy as :
WE ARE EU CITIZENS - WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIVE AND WORK ACROSS THE EU - THEY SURELY DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO TAKE AWAY OUR RIGHTS. MANY ARE CURRENTLY WORKING IN EUROPE WITH THESE RIGHTS AND OUR YOUNG FOLK NOW ASSUME THAT WORKING IN EUROPE IS A NATURAL PART OF THEIR CAREERS AND MAY EVEN BE WHERE THEY WILL SETTLE DOWN.
THAT IS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE - ITS POSSIBLY THE WILL OF 63% OF VOTERS - THOSE WHO DID NOT VOTE FOR BREXIT !
The Will of the People.... A Heroic term but a term that to me reflects something rather like a character from Charlie and the Chocolate factory ... "I Will have that Chocolate ... NOW !!!" ... Give me ! We Will Rise Up ! (from more heroic battles) ... I Will I Will I Will (stamps feet)
Well The Will of this person is that I Wish that people had properly educated themselves before this Referendum Vote. I wish we had kept in touch more with the goings on of the European Parliament. I wish our MEPs had been more pro-active and kept us informed. For example one of our local MEPs is I think the longest standing one in Parliament. I was in the audience at a radio show on which he was a panellist and he did seem very good. But I have not seen a single article from him in public or in the local paper etc since. Nothing. Why was he not more pro-active in trying to get the public more informed about the benefits of Europe ?
Now there are many benefits. I personally did in fact work for a brief while for the European Union. I gave talks and demonstrated how to use a particular database which daily has Tenders available - Tenders Electronic Daily - TED. I gave talks to Small and Medium Enterprises to show them how to search the database and find relevant Tenders to bid for. Again these are the hidden opportunities in the EU - contracts that were won that the general public probably never heard about, but it is just another of the positive benefits.
So... the Will of the People or at least of the 37% who voted ... or the 25% of people - not sure if that even includes EU citizens in the UK who didn't have the vote or many UK people who live and work abroad who didn't get the vote ... anyway the Will of the People .... apparently is to leave the EU.
Now many of these people were attracted by tabloid headlines. Tabloids that are all owned by rich billionaires who do not live in the UK. They tuned in to anti immigrant sentimentality. They tuned into desperate people who have experienced the overstretched NHS and who appreciate our NHS and believed the carefully worded "Brexit Bus", that the money would go to the NHS. Now firstly the maths was wrong - it was never 350m (see my Page about this ....) it was much less. Now secondly this money does bring us many untold benefits which we will now lose - for example access to a single market, cross EUropean science research etc .... but ... assuming we do come out and the figures of 130million is saved a week. No way is it all going to go to the NHS - and you will see that the bus does not exactly say that - people just believed what those "clever manipulators" wanted them to believe - jargon - slogans.... and they fell into the slick trap set by those clever millionaires, most of whom have dual nationality .... funny that !
And getting on to Democracy ... thats another of their refrains - "ITS THE DEMOCRATIC WILL OF THE PEOPLE" ... this is the more than monosyllabic "educated" version of the refrain ... this will definitely win the argument - who could argue with democracy ?
it literally does mean People Power ! Power to the People !
But ... and here's the but ... in Greece, although people did finally get a vote - or at least some did ! they elected a representative to the forum... they elected a person like our parliamentarian. And the leadership of this group changed too so it was not too much time for one person in power. ie the European Parliament has this model.
But ... the UK is not really following democracy as :
- Firstly Our Government is not elected by PR - so is unrepresentative - we have a government that was elected by only 36.9% of the electorate. Yet got over 50% of the seats - see -http://greatideasworld.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/libdems-middle-needs-voice-or-we-will.html
- Secondly even those voting Conservative voted for a party that was led by David Cameron - but he resigned after the EU vote and now we have Theresa May - who appears to be only slightly less extreme than Angela Leadsom might have been ! But certainly was not the leader at the General Election.
- Thirdly we are now following by the word the result of a Referendum - an advisory referendum. And a referendum with too narrow a winning margin and with no required minimum turnout.
- But in my opinion this referendum was based on lies and untruths and also characterised by people not looking properly into issues.
- Fourthly and disappointingly it also seemed to become about immigration and I have yet to hear the government condemn any personal attacks strongly etc. We are currently still in the EU and EU citizens are fully legitimately able to live here. And should not be harassed. As an aside I will say that some other European countries appear to insist you should be able to support yourself in order to live there - I do wonder why the UK didn't do this ...Theresa May's old department?!?
WE ARE EU CITIZENS - WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIVE AND WORK ACROSS THE EU - THEY SURELY DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO TAKE AWAY OUR RIGHTS. MANY ARE CURRENTLY WORKING IN EUROPE WITH THESE RIGHTS AND OUR YOUNG FOLK NOW ASSUME THAT WORKING IN EUROPE IS A NATURAL PART OF THEIR CAREERS AND MAY EVEN BE WHERE THEY WILL SETTLE DOWN.
THAT IS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE - ITS POSSIBLY THE WILL OF 63% OF VOTERS - THOSE WHO DID NOT VOTE FOR BREXIT !
How some of "Thatchers Children" - Expats and UK Workers Abroad have been excluded from the Debate on the EU !
I am just an ordinary person but among the people I know there are a few groups who should probably have had votes in the EU Referendum. And I could almost frame them as "Thatcher's Children" ! My generation left school in the 80s. There were no jobs where I lived - well jobs were hard to come by. Industries were closing. My father worked in an esteemed company designing gas turbines which were installed in power stations worldwide. I can remember him visiting Delhi (as it was called then), Argentina, Colombia, the US, Norway, he nearly had to go to Iraq, Europe and no doubt other places I forget. Those are the ones I remember. But that company was hit by the level of the pound in the 80s and the intransigence of Heseltine to consider investment in a new technology they had invented to use coal more efficiently. They also use the environmentally friendly Combined Heat and Power technology where a town can re-use heat produced in one part eg if freezing an ice rink then heat is produced and you can use that to heat houses. That sort of idea ! Anyway to explain, this esteemed company that was trading worldwide in high tech turbines largely did not survive the 80s. There was a lot of people who lost their jobs. And my generation were just leaving school at that time.
Now this is the reason that most people I left school with moved to England or moved abroad. Certainly most graduates did so. People I was at University with left to work in Europe or elsewhere. But many still have their ultimate home and certainly their citizenship is in the UK ! My friend's brother has worked worldwide as a civil engineer. All with have worked over 15 years away from the UK and did not get a vote in the EU Referendum. Even though the EU will definitely have had an impact either positively or negatively on their own and their family's lifes. As it is the only citizenship many of them had, they should have had a vote. In fact two of them who I know about have decided to apply for Swedish and Germany nationality, so I suspect realistically we have now lost them finally to the UK. But those ones were fairly settled in their countries. The other ones I know are more mobile and work in different countries.
Other people I know literally live in the UK and work abroad staying in hotels or rented apartments. If there were enough jobs in their sector here then they would have taken them. But there weren't.
These are the people who have been largely overlooked in the debate. In that I have two close friends who are working/commuting in this way and two others who did this fairly recently then I would imagine the numbers involved must be higher than the official estimates.
And then there are the UK expats who have retired to live in the sun ! (this does not tend to be my generation as we are not quite at the retirement stage yet - unless you are lucky such as Fred the Shred !! - but I don't really consider that he has retired on his own money ... )
Most of the retired expats we hear about are based in Spain but many are in France, Germany or other countries. Now a very common story we have heard from this group is their ballot papers arrived suspiciously late. I have spoken personally to some and they relate other stories indirectly. One I spoke to had received his paper late and the postmark was for the day of the referendum, so there is no way it could have arrived on time ! Now this was a group who I think would probably have voted Remain ... well possibly not. But someone somewhere might well have thought that ... or was it just incompetence ? But electoral returns officers in those regions should be held to account for this mismanagement - it is disgraceful.
So taking into account these groups - the people over 15 years away and the expats with late ballots - I wonder how many extra votes for Remain there might have been ?
Now this is the reason that most people I left school with moved to England or moved abroad. Certainly most graduates did so. People I was at University with left to work in Europe or elsewhere. But many still have their ultimate home and certainly their citizenship is in the UK ! My friend's brother has worked worldwide as a civil engineer. All with have worked over 15 years away from the UK and did not get a vote in the EU Referendum. Even though the EU will definitely have had an impact either positively or negatively on their own and their family's lifes. As it is the only citizenship many of them had, they should have had a vote. In fact two of them who I know about have decided to apply for Swedish and Germany nationality, so I suspect realistically we have now lost them finally to the UK. But those ones were fairly settled in their countries. The other ones I know are more mobile and work in different countries.
Other people I know literally live in the UK and work abroad staying in hotels or rented apartments. If there were enough jobs in their sector here then they would have taken them. But there weren't.
These are the people who have been largely overlooked in the debate. In that I have two close friends who are working/commuting in this way and two others who did this fairly recently then I would imagine the numbers involved must be higher than the official estimates.
And then there are the UK expats who have retired to live in the sun ! (this does not tend to be my generation as we are not quite at the retirement stage yet - unless you are lucky such as Fred the Shred !! - but I don't really consider that he has retired on his own money ... )
Most of the retired expats we hear about are based in Spain but many are in France, Germany or other countries. Now a very common story we have heard from this group is their ballot papers arrived suspiciously late. I have spoken personally to some and they relate other stories indirectly. One I spoke to had received his paper late and the postmark was for the day of the referendum, so there is no way it could have arrived on time ! Now this was a group who I think would probably have voted Remain ... well possibly not. But someone somewhere might well have thought that ... or was it just incompetence ? But electoral returns officers in those regions should be held to account for this mismanagement - it is disgraceful.
So taking into account these groups - the people over 15 years away and the expats with late ballots - I wonder how many extra votes for Remain there might have been ?
ECHR - Patrick Stewart explains !
This is very good - Patrick Stewart explains the European Convention on Human Rights for us -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfmAY6M6aA - great acting ! Would be funny if it wasn't all so true !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfmAY6M6aA - great acting ! Would be funny if it wasn't all so true !
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)