The lights are going out all over Europe

[cyprusgrump]

What? I have to say I am utterly stunned and incredulous that none, not one of the Remainers have mentioned this. I wonder why?! Good to see things going ok for Britain.

I should not have to remind (yet again) but Article 50 has not yet been declared...and 'negotiations' (I use the term loosely) have not started. That's when the true test of how things are going for the UK will be apparent. As I've observed before, what we are witnessing at the moment is the lull before the storm.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten the Remainers rules...

1) If anything bad happens, exchange rate changes, alleged increase in hate crime, etc >>>> Because Brexit.
2) If anything good happens, business investment, etc. >>>> Brexit hasn't happened yet.

Extremely convenient.

[Jimgym]

What? I have to say I am utterly stunned and incredulous that none, not one of the Remainers have mentioned this. I wonder why?! Good to see things going ok for Britain.

I should not have to remind (yet again) but Article 50 has not yet been declared...and 'negotiations' (I use the term loosely) have not started. That's when the true test of how things are going for the UK will be apparent.

As I've observed before, what we are witnessing at the moment is the calm before the storm.

You don't have to remind me Happy in Cyprus. I was only posting a jokey remark because no good news seems to be mentioned in relation to Brexit.

[johnoddy]

This will obviously come as a bit of a shock to Europhiles but the fact of the matter is quite simply this- the ordinary people of the UK and Europe have worked out that the EU isn’t all it’s cracked up to be .

Yes the plebs, the great unwashed, the uneducated and those considered too stupid to know what was best for them on both sides of the Channel have managed to see through the spin and worked out the actual substance. They managed to achieve that simply using their own eyes and the common sense they were born with, and even without the recent input of the likes of Joseph Stiglitz and Otmar Issing.

In doing so they will have realised that;

A- freedom of movement is as much a curse as it is a bonus
B- Schengen is a terrorist's dream, unworkable with an all welcoming asylum policy
C- the Euro ranks as the most catastrophic economic project in history
D- the advantages of the single market are becoming less and less as regulation and homologation eliminates the competition that produces greater efficiencies that produce real economic growth.

All this means debts are going up, living standards are falling,quality of life is diminishing and the growth levels aren’t sufficient to finance the debt levels. Perfect storm a brewing methinks ?

Not all the problems with the internal workings of the nation states are the EU’s fault of course, but the blame for many of problems plaguing Europe as a whole lie squarely with Brussels.

However the EU and their acolytes simply dismiss the natural democratic reaction to this unacceptable state of affairs and unwanted integration as “populism” and continue to spout all sorts of pseudo democratic nonsense and conspiracy theories to try and convince themselves what has happened doesn’t really reflect the wishes of the people they allegedly “represent”

Well I’m sorry boys and girls but it goes a lot deeper than that and Brexit is a symptom of all that, not just a protest knee jerk reaction people are allegedly having “regrets” about. That’s the sort of contemptuous and supercilious “you know nothing, we know best” analysis from the “know nothing know it alls” that has allowed the problems to reach such critical levels

There isn’t one thing on that above list that the EU was not warned about before it started implementing them on some sort of idealistic “it’ll be alright on the night” wing and a prayer basis. Those chickens are now coming home to roost and have the capacity to undo the good work the European project did actually achieve.

If those running EU genuinely believe they can survive, let alone continue on the same course,without a significantly higher approval rating than they currently posses then they are going to be in for one heck of a shock. Trying to use expulsion from the single market as a tool to bully members into staying in the club and further complying with these unworkable and socially/economically destructive policies is a strategy ultimately doomed to failure- and rightly so.

Superb comment!

[Dominic]

What? I have to say I am utterly stunned and incredulous that none, not one of the Remainers have mentioned this. I wonder why?! Good to see things going ok for Britain.

I should not have to remind (yet again) but Article 50 has not yet been declared...and 'negotiations' (I use the term loosely) have not started. That's when the true test of how things are going for the UK will be apparent.

As I've observed before, what we are witnessing at the moment is the calm before the storm.

You don't have to remind me Happy in Cyprus. I was only posting a jokey remark because no good news seems to be mentioned in relation to Brexit.

Given that Remainers get told to stop blaming Brexit every time they mention something bad that occurs in the UK after June 2016, it is a bit rich for Brexiters to start claiming credit when good things happen.

[cyprusgrump]

I should not have to remind (yet again) but Article 50 has not yet been declared...and 'negotiations' (I use the term loosely) have not started. That's when the true test of how things are going for the UK will be apparent.

As I've observed before, what we are witnessing at the moment is the calm before the storm.

You don't have to remind me Happy in Cyprus. I was only posting a jokey remark because no good news seems to be mentioned in relation to Brexit.

Given that Remainers get told to stop blaming Brexit every time they mention something bad that occurs in the UK after June 2016, it is a bit rich for Brexiters to start claiming credit when good things happen.

I think you'll find that the article linked doesn't claim the good news is as a result of Brexit...

[Dominic]

Are you taking the #DespiteBrexit hashtag at the top of the story at face value then?

[cyprusgrump]

Are you taking the #DespiteBrexit hashtag at the top of the story at face value then?

Yes...

His blog is impartial (unlike most other news outlets)...

He has run a series of articles from newspapers that always follow and good news story with 'despite Brexit' - hence the tag...

It is a good daily read.

[Conoflex]

I thought the idea behind the political section was no links, own thoughts only? Anyway, here's another tuppence worth (for what it's worth)

Anyone who thinks the EU is not in danger of collapse is quite simply deluded. Even EU Presidents and European heads of state have admitted it, so why some people state differently on here I have no idea

It is not too late to change things or course, but Europhiles need to get it into their heads that the leaders and the institutions of the EU need to re-establish some sort of democratic legitimacy, totally revamp their whole governance structure, backtrack on some of their core policies and either dismantle the Euro or turn it into a proper currency/transfer union if it is to survive.

The EU (and the Euro) cannot survive in it’s current form and it does currently not have trust or even mandate to proceed with further integration.

This has come about because the financial crisis has continually seen various instruments of the EU break their own rules whilst denying doing so, which in turn has divided Europe along the obvious fault lines of North and South, and those who have benefited most from the European project and those who have suffered most from some of the core policies (Brexit springs to mind for the latter )

Power will have to be taken away from the President, Commission and the Council and transferred to the Parliament , the ECB will have to start behaving by it’s own rules and the ECJ will have to become an impartial court dispensing justice on merit, not political expediency. The unanimity rule is unworkable amongst so many different states and needs to replaced with more regional policies or individual opt outs

Of course there will be all sorts of impediments put in the way of that not inconsiderable “to do” list- not least of all Jean Claude Juncker who to be quite honest with you is the worst possible person to be in charge at this moment in time. You could scour Europe and not find anyone more offensive to national democratic principles than this clown- just another symptom of all that is wrong with the EU I suppose?

It is simply lurching from crisis to crisis without tackling any of them on the way, and may be about to receive a couple of potentially fatal blows from the nation states of the EU.The biggest danger is Italy of course- Le Pen and Wilders may or may not get elected, but Italy is the real elephant in the room.

Italy desperately needs to reform, but PM Renzi staked his future on a referendum he thought he could win but actually probably never could. I still believe the biggest contributory factor to the Italian rejection was Greece- if the austerity programme undertaken there had shown any sort of semblance of success it might have been different, but no one is going to sign up for a reform package of the type that has seen Greece reduced to 3rd world country status with an austerity based bailout plan that was doomed to fail by the basic laws of economics.

At some stage Italy is going to have anti Euro government (maybe not anti EU, but definitely anti Euro) Such a government may very well come after a bail in of the Italian banks, at which point there will be another run on the Italian banks if people believe that some sort of return of the Lira is on the cards - and that is when we will have a full blown Euro crisis.

That is the ever more pressing dilemma facing the EU over Italy and it is far and away the biggest problem the EU has ever faced. What do you do when "resolving" one chronic banking crisis automatically triggers an even bigger one ?

The prospect of implementing a bail in is what is keeping the Euro intact at the moment (be it for banks balance sheets or even possibly national debt reduction) but without a proper banking union it is a bit of a Doomsday weapon. Used on a minnow like Cyprus then the population just has to bite the bullet and the ECJ simply rubber stamps it . Do it on the third biggest economy in the Eurozone and you may just unleash unmanageable chaos

[Dominic]

I thought the idea behind the political section was no links, own thoughts only?

In this case I think the post makes a valid point. I would normally hope for a user's comment as well, but it would be a bit redundant here.

What I hate in political debates is people posting links to stuff which has to be read or watched elsewhere. In this case, as the text appeared here, the link served as a citation.

[cyprusgrump]

I thought the idea behind the political section was no links, own thoughts only? Anyway, here's another tuppence worth (for what it's worth)

Anyone who thinks the EU is not in danger of collapse is quite simply deluded. Even EU Presidents and European heads of state have admitted it, so why some people state differently on here I have no idea

It is not too late to change things or course, but Europhiles need to get it into their heads that the leaders and the institutions of the EU need to re-establish some sort of democratic legitimacy, totally revamp their whole governance structure, backtrack on some of their core policies and either dismantle the Euro or turn it into a proper currency/transfer union if it is to survive.

The EU (and the Euro) cannot survive in it’s current form and it does currently not have trust or even mandate to proceed with further integration.

This has come about because the financial crisis has continually seen various instruments of the EU break their own rules whilst denying doing so, which in turn has divided Europe along the obvious fault lines of North and South, and those who have benefited most from the European project and those who have suffered most from some of the core policies (Brexit springs to mind for the latter )

Power will have to be taken away from the President, Commission and the Council and transferred to the Parliament , the ECB will have to start behaving by it’s own rules and the ECJ will have to become an impartial court dispensing justice on merit, not political expediency. The unanimity rule is unworkable amongst so many different states and needs to replaced with more regional policies or individual opt outs

Of course there will be all sorts of impediments put in the way of that not inconsiderable “to do” list- not least of all Jean Claude Juncker who to be quite honest with you is the worst possible person to be in charge at this moment in time. You could scour Europe and not find anyone more offensive to national democratic principles than this clown- just another symptom of all that is wrong with the EU I suppose?

It is simply lurching from crisis to crisis without tackling any of them on the way, and may be about to receive a couple of potentially fatal blows from the nation states of the EU.The biggest danger is Italy of course- Le Pen and Wilders may or may not get elected, but Italy is the real elephant in the room.

Italy desperately needs to reform, but PM Renzi staked his future on a referendum he thought he could win but actually probably never could. I still believe the biggest contributory factor to the Italian rejection was Greece- if the austerity programme undertaken there had shown any sort of semblance of success it might have been different, but no one is going to sign up for a reform package of the type that has seen Greece reduced to 3rd world country status with an austerity based bailout plan that was doomed to fail by the basic laws of economics.

At some stage Italy is going to have anti Euro government (maybe not anti EU, but definitely anti Euro) Such a government may very well come after a bail in of the Italian banks, at which point there will be another run on the Italian banks if people believe that some sort of return of the Lira is on the cards - and that is when we will have a full blown Euro crisis.

That is the ever more pressing dilemma facing the EU over Italy and it is far and away the biggest problem the EU has ever faced. What do you do when "resolving" one chronic banking crisis automatically triggers an even bigger one ?

The prospect of implementing a bail in is what is keeping the Euro intact at the moment (be it for banks balance sheets or even possibly national debt reduction) but without a proper banking union it is a bit of a Doomsday weapon. Used on a minnow like Cyprus then the population just has to bite the bullet and the ECJ simply rubber stamps it . Do it on the third biggest economy in the Eurozone and you may just unleash unmanageable chaos

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree 100% by the way...

One of the problems facing the EU is that politicians will never, EVER admit they were wrong...

...when policies fail they simply throw good money after bad, complaining that they didn't go far enough, spend enough the last time.

They now think the problems facing the EU (which are many) can only be solved with more EU - more integration and central control.

It will end in tears...

[cyprusgrump]

I can just about remember someone who on CL used to make prediction after prediction - just like conoflex. Invariably, over time, all the predictions turned out to be fanciful thinking and just plain wrong. Not one prediction ever came true. Now what was that name? Am sure it began Mc?...but for the life of me I can't figure out the rest. Someone help me out please

Were they rather like the prediction of the remain campaign who predicted deleterious effects of Brexit immediately after a vote to leave - emergency budget, recession, stock market crash, etc?

[Conoflex]

Well I can't speak for anyone else, but I did predict Brexit, Trump, Cyprus bail in , Greek election result, Greek referendum result amongst others - how many of those did you get right ? I also predicted the rise of sterling to it's current level and the soaring stock market after the impact of the vote settled down- what was your prediction there ?

The Euro and the EU prediction is not a matter of "if" (they can be cobbled together for a little while yet and have been patched over unconvincingly for these last few years ) but when - and if they don't change that is as certain as night follows day. It's just a question of which night after which day. The timing is impossible to predict but the fact it will happen is the most inevitable result of any of the above predictions

The fact Stiglitz and Issing are now openly saying what I and others have maintained for years surely should register with even the most ardent Europhile? Not liking something doesn't make it change or go away

[Conoflex]

Countries don't die- anything I have ever predicted about the demise of the PIGs has been in relation to the Euro and they/it are still in desperate trouble,

It is only the ECB soaking up their junk debt to the tune of €1 trillion that has kept them afloat, and the underlying fundamental problems are still be be resolved. The clock is ticking on them and the ECB is reining that programme in

Cyprus is the same, Cyprus remains a very desirable part of the world for outside investment, but the economic fundamentals are still all wrong, and are susceptible to the slightest downturn. Even the Cyprus government admits as much, you are he only one who refuses to believe it

You have a very strange concept of economics.

Your excitement at the tales of "fabulously wealth Chinese investors" and" prominent local businessmen" borders on fawning. Sure some Chinese businessman buying an EU passport for €1 million has a trickle down effect, but you gauge a country's economic recovery by the effects on ordinary people and they are for the most part still up to their eyeballs in debt as as their businesses.

Italian banks are on the point of collapse with a NPL ratio of about one third of the Cypriot banks levels. The government is still spending more than it's income and is only managing to do so because it rolled over the Russian loan. Cyprus has received warnings from the EU Commission about it's budget deficit FFS amidst genuine concerns it will not be able to meet it's repayment schedule if it continues to spend money to buy votes

Sure there are more tourists, but that is only clawing back those they have lost over the last 20 years and they are only arriving because of terrorist atrocities elsewhere.

The original terms of the bailout never met, they didn't borrow all they were able to because of rolling over the Russian loan (which still has to be paid in about 2 years) they haven't started paying back the bailout loan yet and are still in deep doo doo .

They haven't privatised anything yet, they are still below investment level for QE and if you think all these are merely an irrelevant backdrop to a few more tourists and such irrelevances as souvla sales being up you are about as in touch with "reality" as one of Mickey Mouse's wet dreams

[johnoddy]

OUCH!!!!!........love it!

[keving]

I read today that only 35% of French people want to leave the EU ... so it occurs me that the majority of French people scrub up far better than the UK's 'great unwashed' (as referred to by a previous poster on this thread).

Maybe, the French are also neither 'plebs nor uneducated' either?

Or perhaps the French are just too stupid to know what's best for them?

[Conoflex]

Opinion polls come and go- the last time he French were actually consulted on their relationship with the EU was over the Constitutional Treaty- and guess what- 55% of them rejected it. That treaty was then scrapped and France signed up for the Lisbon Treaty by Sarkozy without another referendum and against the prevailing public opinion at the time. Sarkozy has since said he would scrap Lisbon if he got the chance.

France I am sure wants to be part of a functioning EU- I do really doubt it wants to be part of the current one.

Juncker has of course stepped in and warned EU heads of state about offering their electorates referendums on their EU membership, presumably because he knows the nations of Europe will reject it (certainly in it's current form)

If Juncker for one minute thought 65% of France would vote to stay in the EU he surely wouldn't have issued such a ludicrous warning

[keving]

If you think Junker is half mad (or even 65% mad) then it can come as no surprise that he issued his "warning".

However, I am 100% sure that EU leaders are fully aware of the risks associated with referenda and didn't learn anything from Junckers warning.

What they know already they learned from Cameron's cynical use of the offer of a referendum to get votes for the Conservative party in the last General Election so that that they were returned into power with a majority. That is why the UK referendum was called and as we know, it had unintended results.

Juncker might well have said beware of referendums because the electorate is unpredictable. But again, we know that anyway.

I see that Le Pen has changed her tune ... anything to get votes ... and is now not advocating leaving the EU

[Conoflex]

Le Pen wants legislative, territorial, economic and monetary sovereignty all returned to France via a renegotiated relationship with the EU. If the EU doesn't want that France will then presumably quit. It seems a perfectly sensible way to try and get the EU to reform along the lines I previously outlined- which is the only way it is going to survive.

The French rejected the Constitutional treaty in 2005- long before the economic crisis, the Euro crisis, the migration crisis,the immigration crisis, the terrorist crisis and before it became a pretty poor second fiddle to Germany in the whole project. The level of Euroscepticim in France towards the current EU set up runs very high indeed

I did not want Britain to quit the general concept of a united, co-operating Europe , but I did not believe it should remain in an EU that was unwilling to change course and hell bent on supra national authority and unworkable core projects. I suspect France is very much in a similar frame of mind

[Lynsab]

If you think Junker is half mad (or even 65% mad) then it can come as no surprise that he issued his "warning".

However, I am 100% sure that EU leaders are fully aware of the risks associated with referenda and didn't learn anything from Junckers warning.

What they know already they learned from Cameron's cynical use of the offer of a referendum to get votes for the Conservative party in the last General Election so that that they were returned into power with a majority. That is why the UK referendum was called and as we know, it had unintended results.

Juncker might well have said beware of referendums because the electorate is unpredictable. But again, we know that anyway.

I see that Le Pen has changed her tune ... anything to get votes ... and is now not advocating leaving the EU

Very true Keving...

No matter how many times you add up the figures, just 28% of the UK gets to take us out of the EU by a small majority....followed by revelations that much of that campaign wasn't accurate...I'm sure if Remain had won by the same margins with equally spurious claims ( which we also now know off ) we'd be arguing the toss just as much the other way...I have no doubts at all...

Now we're stuck with this chaos, I'm hoping that somewhere, somehow a genuius will emerge that can guide a brilliant country such as the UK thru the mire caused by such plonkers as Cameron, Gove, Johnson and that despicable Farage...I don't think it's May who can do so either.... but I'm waiting for a Phoenix to rise from the ashes and guide the country onto a reasonable path...I've never known such a divide before...but strangely the feeling on the street in my region of the UK is people are fed up, let down, bored, shocked, disillusioned....until some read the DM or the Express then they think all is well again....when it isn't....

On a very very small scale in the scheme of things ( and I apologise for my selfishness ) if we sell up in Cyprus this year or even next, then we gain from brexit, as the weak pound makes many thousands difference to us living in the UK....and although it may rise from today's low it won't reach high exchanges in the time the UK will be leaving...so we get to drop our sale price and accept a lower offer....not something I thought about when voting Remain.... having said that we're still selling at less than what we paid in 2007/8 but who's going to notice...not us...we've moved on..

[cyprusgrump]

Now we're stuck with this chaos, I'm hoping that somewhere, somehow a genuius will emerge that can guide a brilliant country such as the UK thru the mire caused by such plonkers as Cameron, Gove, Johnson and that despicable Farage...I don't think it's May who can do so either.... but I'm waiting for a Phoenix to rise from the ashes and guide the country onto a reasonable path...I've never known such a divide before...but strangely the feeling on the street in my region of the UK is people are fed up, let down, bored, shocked, disillusioned....until some read the DM or the Express then they think all is well again....when it isn't....

Firstly, I don't see any 'chaos' quite the opposite...

Secondly, it is a shame that you can't post without resorting to ad hominem attacks on those that disagree with your world view.