Monday 5 September 2016

Where so we go from here?

Whilst I was away on my recent cruise I was ill for much of the time...so I didn't get about enough to talk to people much ....but I did often talk as I coughed and it was both enlightening and worrying.
For a few days my scary coughing was so bad that for much of the time I just stayed in my room and enjoyed room service.
When I did get out and managed a conversation, the main topic was inevitably Brexit!
The Germans were astounded! The French were slightly condescending. Us English were always unreliable etc...
The talk relaxed when I told them that I had not voted Brexit....and indeed had been stunned by the result the next morning...
Some very interesting conversations ensued....
The main emotion I found was puzzlement. They really didn't understand why the vote went as it did!
I was asked several times if we would have a rerun of it!
The general effect of several conversations, being asked about it was genuine disbelief....they just didn't understand why us Brits had voted to leave!
As to where we went from here....the French, Italians and Germans were anxious....it wasn't just our small island that has been affected by this vote.....the world as well as Europe is involved.
The main puzzle seemed to be that having voted to leave we had no plans in place to affect it!
I suppose the answer was that none of us actually believed it would happen!
But it has....so where do we go from here?
Answers on a postcard please!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

1 comment:

UKViewer said...

It is becoming clearer after the G20 Summit at the weekend. Mrs May is not in favour of points based migration systems, and seems determined to put a block on all of the free movement that Europe currently enjoys into the UK - perhaps a reaction to her failure during her tenure as Home Secretary of getting to grips with the many thousands of illegal migrants on the loose in the UK.

It seems that perhaps a new Bill of Rights is to go ahead after all, which will do away with the current subscription to the ECR and make our own Supreme Court the final authority. While it might be problematic, having that legal control does seem to me to make sense. At the moment, illegal migrants who have committed serious crimes can't be deported to their home countries, due to the over prescription on the ECR and rulings arising from it's past decisions.

The other thing is that aspiration for tariff free trade with Europe as a bloc won't be possible without us continuing to subscribe to European mores such as free movement and paying some of the shared costs and taking on board European directives. So, in my view, we will move more towards Free trade agreements with nations or groups of nations outside Europe, such as the USA, Russia, and the Common Wealth Countries such as Australia and India, deals for which are currently being negotiated. The prospect of a deal with China is ropy due to the decision to delay the Hinckley Point nuclear power station and Japan is making noises about if Britain is no longer the gateway to Europe for their sales, they will move elsewhere.

Science is in a flap and threatening to move abroad - if they are not allowed to freely continue to share the work with European colleagues (forgetting how much of their funding actually comes directly from the UK taxpayer).

Banks are also on edge - but given the strength of the financial services industry are likely to stay, with the exception of HSBC, who will probably move their HQ to Ireland, where they seem to be able to have tax breaks.

The man in the street perspective is more interesting. Those living in the London metropolis seem to be upset and angry about losing out on subsidies, while we, living on the fringes of London, and starved of resources, while paying high council tax to the services provided by the Greater London Authority, are more sanguine - most in our borough voted for Out, as we've seen billions spent of things like Cross Rail and the Docklands Light Railway, both of which are terminated in Greenwich, meaning that we don't have ready access to their benefits. In addition, we are threatened by Thames River Crossings being built on our doorstep, which will direct huge volumes of traffic right through the middle of the borough (dividing us) and increasing the pollution levels, which are, due to heavy industry along the river side, well above the legal levels, with nothing being done about it. We are not even in the London Congestion zone, which stops heavily polluting vehicles being used or driven through central London, but we, the poor relations, get it all.

People here voted out, because they were tired of austerity, tired of the nanny state and fed up with the ongoing reduction to services, particularly our NHS, which has seen the closure or downgrading of two major general hospitals and A&E's, meaning now that for other than the most routine treatments, we have to go to big hospitals, miles away in London, Such as Kings, Guys and St Thomas.

What hospitals that we have left are failing and have been merged with distant health trusts who are 'sic' successful, as they have more resources, not accounting for the fact, our local health services have been systematically downgraded and starved of resources for the past 25 years.

The Metropolitan, view is being resisted here and wider in the country and about time too.

Sorry for the rant.