You say that like I had not already acknowledged it.
With a shred of ambiguity, with your fear being uncertainty, so I strive for certainty - my purpose is self-discovery and alleviation of this in any way :
D
And as if it matters that ships heading from wherever to.Rotterdam/etc are a significant part of this traffic, to our economy. Point?
Matters immensely, means the Northern range can't get too uppity :
D
In regards to our economy, Rotterdam effect; trade is wonderful for most all involved and the Dutch have a really sexy port.
Transatlantic flights could land in Ireland (Republic of) if they want an earlier stop-off, as that diagram shows clearly.
Yeah but why would they want to? Besides ones that are based in or terminate at Dublin, Heathrow is larger, better stocked, better integrated with local transit, more attractive destination for business and leisure, better security and stopping at Dublin vs Heathrow does not shorten intercontinental flights, least of all it being a distance covered in about 40-50 minutes, has more international airlines based in it with more routes using it? And if we're talking EU here, we used to have an agreement with the USA that restricted trans-Atlantic air travel to certain British air companies to avoid total domination by the financially superior USA and that agreement was made void as of 2008 by the EU, so if you're worried about that we can now only trust in the faith of our workers. Alas, we are lucky to have such "fair" deals! :
D
Luckily British Airways and their ilk are bretty good
Of all the top 10 busiest commercial Transatlantic routes, only 3 of them don't end at London.
Because there are good reasons, right now, and not a little tradition/historical expectation. No guarantees to the future if a canny Eurozone takes the initiative. (Right now, there's fewer reasons to invoke internecine rivalries, but a UK-less EU wouldn't have too many qualms about undercutting the UK, if it helped Eire, perhaps. Or reason to stop France just muscling in over British interests as much as it wanted.
I WANT COMPETITION
I WANT THE EU TO THROW VAST SUMS OF EUROS AT IRELAND TO MAKE DUBLIN AIRPORT AN INTERNATIONAL WONDER TO MANKIND
COULD YOU IMAGINE DUBLIN BEING AS GOOD AS HEATHROW? TWO HEATHROWS! EVERYONE PROFITS!
Bloody hell if the EU has the capabilities to make Ireland prosperous there is zero reason not to. I want them to take the initiative and actually fucking do something towards making its members wealthy, not just Germany. There are good reasons why London dominates in so many fields, that is because it competes - not tradition or historical expectation (though that helps with Chinese investors heh), but because if our services are shit, overpriced and undermarketed no one has to use them. Pretty much the only people who would have to use them are the British, the tens of millions of international travelers choose us because we offer the best for their options. I don't want the British to become as EU protectionists, using political power to force people into buying their products instead of making products and services that people are happy to use.
I mean Jesus Christ, look at what Heathrow offers - airlines like Virgin or BA, whilst Dublin offers
RyanairIn what world would the EU throwing gorillions of dollars at Dublin not be a victory for all mankind?
You miss my point about Spain (or any other in-EU country) usurping London. Build it, and moreover support it with sufficient political will, and they will come. It's a possibility, not a certainty, but that's wbat I've been saying all along... The Unknowns worry me, moztly.
The will to power =/= Actual power
The notion of Spain usurping London is laughable, I mean I love Spain but the UK has a higher credit rating than the entire European Union, we're not even talking Spain xD.
Literally this whole endeavour falls flat at step one. "Build it." Build London?!! Rome was not built in a day Starver, as it stands the only two cities that would stand a chance of doing so are Paris and Frankfurt. I hope they keep their focus on Paris since Germany's influence in the EU's large enough as is, and it would be nice for the French to be able to look at their Germanbros eye to eye. Also the fact that London and Paris are only two hours away by Eurostar leads me to joy :
D
"Support it with sufficient political will," Starver it takes more than will to succeed. Germany twice devoted its entire Empire towards creating a state to last a thousand ages and both times they lasted a few years. There are 1.71 million high-skilled jobs in London, you can't politically will the appearance of 1.71 million highly skilled workers with businesses, capital and ideas into existence, you'll just be a director whose thrown trillions of euros into building a worthless city without people to make it what it is. Frankfurt was a Roman settlement, a Free City of the Holy Roman Empire and centre of the European Central Bank. Paris was founded 300 years B.C. by Celts, the capital of the Franks and one of the cultural centres of the world. London was a Roman settlement, the capital of Great Britain and is a cultural and financial capital of the world. You don't make these kinds of cities overnight, even at its fastest it takes 3-4 generations of people dedicated unflinchingly towards the task of creating an attractive foreign investment centre, centre of trade, culture, (or just a shit load of oil). There can be no corruption, no indecision, democracy itself may have to be curbed alongside civil rights, and whether you succeed even then rests on half luck and half the back of your labour. The only young city I've seen achieve this is Singapore city.
Amusingly the Malayans kicked out the Singaporeans believing that without access to their single market, Singapore would crumble. That is why I like those who take nothing for granted and use necessity to compel them to greater heights.
Our city has long been a commercial centre since before recorded history and throughout the last two centuries become a financial hub for[...]
And the Clyde had some of the greatest shipyards and Sheffield probably the best steelworks and the pottery of Staffordshire rivaled the rest of the world and, and, and... Permanence and historic rights to continuation is an illusion, and on a knife-edge too that just needs enough people to be unsure or unwilling about something and move elsewbere.
Hahaha, because of diversification or lack thereof Starver. Clyde relied on shipbuilding, when it could not compete with global shipbuilders it had to be nationalized. When Sheffield's cheap steel began being eroded by the rising industrialization of the world they adapted to making higher-quality steel using their expertise, diversifying - though not enough, given China's cheeky EU steel banter. You might even say they're having quite the steal :
D
And there just aint much money in ceramics as there was 300 year ago.
Just saying, when London wool and furs started going out of business, London cotton was born. When that too was getting fucked, industrialization was born. When that too was getting fucked, financial development explosion of London!
Innovation or stagnation, give me shekels4ideas or give me death4comfort
And then you have arguments against the way the EU has been run. As if that's solely the domain of the EU.
Starver that is a rather odd point to make, whether it's solely the domain of the EU or not is irrelevant because other governing bodies are not trying to take over Europe :
P
It's rather impressive the scale of permanent damage the EU has caused. Can't unfuck an exodus :
D
Whither the coalfields, since the 1980s? Heavy industry? The Empire itself, if you want me to avoid "maybe the EU had a hand in that" events.
1. We hit peak coal a hundred years ago and made the switch to gas, diesel and nuclear
2. British investors found it cheaper to hire Americans to do the same job, nowadays pretty much the same only with Indians and Chinese. The alternative would be to pay more for the same products but from Britons, but as a free market that defeats the purpose
3. Overextension, de-colonialism, the rise of the USA, nationalism and total economic devastation from two world wars
We just finished repaying our WWI debt 2 years ago
They were very costly times
(Note, I distrust politicians. You seem to think that local politicians will do things better than EU beaurocrats.
I've not seen any of my local politicians fuck up an entire continent before
I disagree not because it's the EU, or not, but because of the type of people they are. Which is not to say that I like beaurocrats, either, but they are a necessary element to keep populist knee-jerks in check, IMO. To this end, I dislike the same Europhile politicians that you hate, but I also dislike the Euroskeptics and Europhobes, too. Unfortunately, some of them will still be around after the Referendum, however the penny falls.)
There is no one to keep them in check, and they are the check, balance and executives. At home our populists have no political power. Why should I sacrifice my country to unnecessary bureaucrats to thwart people without any cards?
Our Empire is long dead, so why try to make ourselves a province of a failing Empire?
Something I already said I'm not keen on. Not that I agree that it's definitely failing, just that itvs curreny on a bumpy road. But that's a side argument. If the EU is teetering and Britain leaves, causing the EU to fragment, then do we benefit? Geopolitically, Russia gets a chance of reabsorbing ex-Soviet states that were angling towards the EU, if not already in it, and who knows how that'll end up. Frictions within tbe EU will ramp up (as with France/Spain/Ireland competing with Britain in political, financial and other arenas). The law of unintended consequences.
Oh yeah, like Russia is going to take on NATO. Our troops are already in place in Poland and the Baltics with twice their number in American allies, if the EU collapses and the Europeans get their democracies back that is a victory, if it doesn't and the EU is finally forced to restructure into a democracy and listen to Europeans that is a victory, if literally nothing happens then that is a victory. I'm more concerned with the EU's continual expansion in the most retarded ways, given what they did in Ukraine and what they're doing in Turkey xD
Thus (without desiring greater integration), I like the idea that we can (from the sidelines, but not beyond them) help create an EU without less problems than now. Not that I think that'll work, but it definitely won't if we don't do it...
If we are within the EU we are not on the sidelines Starver,
we are in them. The EU's court will continue to have supremacy over ours, the Commission supremacy over our state and they will be able to integrate us at a time of their choosing, whether or not they've made any attempt to solve their problems.
What do we get in return for dismantling our state?
We're doing that through devolution.
What the fuck hahaha
Delegating powers to local authorities is not dismantling. It's not like how the Europeans dismantled their central banks, their currencies, made their parliaments managers and executives subservient, their supreme courts not supreme, dismantling their borders and security checks and so on.
And, again, I'm not really a fan of the 'dismantling' that is Federalisation, or otherwise Unifying, so that's not the question to ask me.
Doesn't matter what you're a fan of, integration will continue for as long as the EU exists and is capable of seizing sovereign powers. Barroso
began plans for a federal Europe in 2013 and has only been interrupted because of their open asylum catastrophe. There's a silver lining to every disaster I suppose.
Why do you have no faith in our own elected government's ability to spend our money on our vital institutions yet place faith in the EU to spend our money for that instead, as opposed to merely spending money to boost its own popularity?
By chance, I explained tbat above. But, to reiterate, it's popularism and soundbite politics that I dislike. There are indeed other ways to mess things up, but this is where I see it going wrong upon Leaving.
What would be messed up?
...irregardless...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless
fite me irregardless fam xD
There is that issue of media control, academic control and state control by the EU and so on[...]
Media control is relative.
It's not. Keep in mind what I've linked you to is what I found regarding the coverage of the rape gang scandal, so it's a very, very heavy read and is soul-crushingly depressing, that you can only laugh. The take home point is with publicly available information it's demonstrable; media heads, faculty heads, managers going down the hierarchy, and it's very easy to follow the money. Just takes time. Oh! There's also some stuff about EU, Russian, British and American strategic media funding
And then there's mutually disliked, but monatomic, viewpoints that seems to simultaneously be in support of both opposing parties, and biased against each side's own. Not that anyone in an echochamber would notice this.
I call them basic bitch arguments
Wew that took a long time to write.
Tell me about it. I want cursor keys! I nearly extinguished phrases that I wanted to reply to, and even clicked 'forward' somewhere, accidentally, and had my heart in my mouth as I clicked back again to see if I would need to do everything again, up to the advanced point I had ready reached.
RIP in peace your patience, I can't imagine doing all this via tablet. I remember when I tried doing so quality dropped like a cliff xD
The Liberal Democrats are happy to have gained seats in Scotland (avoiding total extinction),
Did they? I thought they went from five down to zero, in the table I glanced over. But not sure this is the same subset of Scottish elections as you mean.
They got 5 seats in Scotland but greens have overtaken themGotta disagree with you, there. Regional Assemblies and the Scottish Parliament just add 'localisation rules' in various allowable aspects of UK-wide law (noting that Scottish law ready differed from England-and-Wales law prior to the reprovision of its own Assembly-named-as-Parliament, in a number of ways), which does include the possibility of nullifying (certain Westminster-led) UK-wide policies, e.g. prescription charge hikes, but it works as a patch, not a Lords-like "we are concerned about this bill, and would like you to redraft it before passing it" voice of reason. Or meddling old fools, depending on your personal feelings about the issue at hand.
I quite like the HoL. I don't think it's perfect, but making it into a fully-elected Second House would remove pretty much everything I do like about it. But that's an argument for another thread, if I haven't already participated in one such upon this board already, in the past.
Well you've changed my mind on the HoL
I still want to get rid of the Bishops in it though