Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,796
Spain will definitely be unhappy if we stop buying their fruit and veg.
That might even mean we start producing more home grown veg instead of importing the blinking stuff which could cut down on some of the lorries that come from Spain and elsewhere in Europe.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
All turning nasty in instances now with children born here 12 and 15 years ago respectively being threatened with deportation. I don't see why the Home Office appear to be changing before we have left the EU.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/13/european-couple-stunned-as-uk-born-children-denied-residencyJan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,796
If their children have gone to school here surely that would be proof they have lived here permanently for at least ten years and doctors records should support their residency.
There is surely more to this but the Guardian like to look on the gloomy side of most stories.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
For those who have never got over our Referendum result spare a thought this evening for those in Turkey where a century of civilisation has been overturned by voting for a President to have sweeping powers. Journalists get banged up, religious extremists are encouraged and dissent pounced upon.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Should be interesting in France next Sunday, 4 candidates neck and neck for the Presidency, far right to far left and two in between. The EU issue taking centre stage again.
Guest 1849- Registered: 12 Sep 2016
- Posts: 440
howard mcsweeney1 wrote:Should be interesting in France next Sunday, 4 candidates neck and neck for the Presidency, far right to far left and two in between. The EU issue taking centre stage again.
What does far right and far left mean?
I don't follow French politics but I'm always curious what is meant by "far" anything
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
david its the same as ours but more up market.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Brian is not far wrong, extreme parties do well throughout Europe except here where the likes of Britain First and EDL represent the far right whilst Antifa/UAF/Hate not Hope represent the far left - both are laughing stocks to the general public.
In France we all know the stance of the Front Nationale and Marine Le Pen and they have respectability with the electorate. The Communist candidate(Mr Melenchon) a new one on me, has burst on to the scene and raised the stature of the far left by demanding immediate withdrawal from the EU and NATO, bashing the high earners with a 100% top tax rate, raising wages and cutting hours for the rest and giving workers more rights.
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Hope not Hate, surely?! Mr McSweeney1, have you been over-imbibing on my communion again?
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Seen them in action Your Grace so there was no slip of my typing finger. Back in January last year I got there early for the official riot in order to chat with some of the participants, a true eye opener!! HNH were mostly college educated yobs with a sneering contempt for everyone and were fully masked for the violence to follow. When the police called both sides into position for the affray I darted in front of them for a group shot. Many of them threw a gloved hand in front of their mask to hide their identity!!!
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Jezza has ruled out a final vote on the Brexit deal if and when he forms a Government. Howls of anguish from all directions but any vote would be impractical. The final deal will run into endless pages of detail which most will not bother to plough through and what if the vote was no? Negotiations would have to restart with the 27 countries who would never agree as one anyway.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Polls close soon in France and depending on the result the break up of the EU could be a lot closer.
http://news.sky.com/story/france-election-the-mood-of-a-nation-as-it-goes-to-the-polls-10847731Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
lets have another referendum to sort it out.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
The rise of the populist right in Europe seems to have reached an impasse with the centre candidate in France set to lead tonight and then win comfortably in two weeks time. Notably the candidates of the two main parties came a cropper.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,796
The political establishment around the world must be wondering what has happened to the old safe format. Could it be that joe public are really thinking for themselves at long last?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39686993Paul M likes this
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,856
I hope that is the case
I'v left you a P/M
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Interesting summing up of the situation in France, not good news for our esteemed PM.
For once there was no nasty election surprise for Europe’s political establishment - the pollsters have got it spot-on. As predicted, the centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-Right Marine Le Pen will face off for the French presidency.
This news will have been greeted with glee in Brussels where Mr Macron - who is predicted by those same pollsters to win by a comfortable 20-point margin in two weeks time - is seen as a potential saviour of their troubled Union.
With his pledge to strengthen EU external borders with a 5,000 strong force, maintain the Schengen free-travel zone and appoint a finance minister for the eurozone, Mr Macron has pledged to start a “rebirth” of the European project.
But there are several hurdles in the way of Mr Macron before he can crank up Europe’s Franco-German motor, which has been sputtering badly these past two decades because of France’s continued failure to pass serious economic reforms.
Le Pen and Macron fans celebrate poll results
00:43
The first obstacle is Ms Le Pen herself. She looks unlikely to win, but her campaign will - as Mujtaba Rahman at the Eurasia Group notes - force Mr Macron to defend vigorously immigration, the EU and open borders. In the age of Isil and austerity, these are all things which the French public have become notably more lukewarm about.
In short, if Ms Le Pen runs a strong campaign then Mr Macron may not win as easily as the pollsters expect.
Supporters of far-right leader and candidate for the 2017 French presidential election, Marine Le Pen, celebrate
Supporters of far-right leader and candidate for the 2017 French presidential election, Marine Le Pen, celebrate CREDIT: AP
In any event, he will emerge from the process with nothing like the 82 per cent mandate won by Jacques Chirac when he saw off Ms Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, in the 2002 run-off.
Next, if Mr Macron wants to implement his agenda he will need to win a majority in the French legislative elections in June. Many political observers believe that is very unlikely to happen.
Mr Macron’s ‘En Marche!” movement has only existed for a year, and even though he has promised to put up candidates in every seat, his rag-tag mix of political defectors and candidates drawn from civil society will be fighting entrenched incumbents.
Much more likely, is a majority for Les Republicains - the centre-right party of Nicolas Sarkozy - which was damaged by the scandal-plagued candidacy of Francois Fillon but remains a strong force on the ground.
Unless he can fashion an electoral miracle, Mr Macron will end up in the Elysee Palace, but forced into a ‘cohabitation’ with his political rivals, severely limiting his room for to deliver the reforms needed to reawaken France.
Mr Macron is often likened (not always kindly) to “a French Tony Blair” but in today’s Europe, riven with insecurity caused by stagnation, immigration and terror, his mushy third-way policies cannot gain the broad traction or enthusiasm they did in the heady, boomtime Blair-Clinton years.
Alas for France, with its 25 per cent youth unemployment and sclerotic, bloated state, Mr Macron will struggle to deliver the structural reforms that will get Germany to sign up to his schemes to reboot the euro.
Emmanuel Macron, head of the political movement En Marche !, or Onwards !, and candidate for the 2017 French presidential election, takes ballot slips in Le Touquet
Emmanuel Macron, head of the political movement En Marche !, or Onwards !, and candidate for the 2017 French presidential election, takes ballot slips in Le Touquet CREDIT: REUTERS
For those that dream of a rebirth of Europe - or even, like Theresa May, a strong and stable Europe with which to cohabit after Brexit - the risk is that a Macron presidency, weakened from the outset by the lack of a parliamentary majority and the fracturing of french politics, is likely to disappoint when the initial sugar-rush of his election fades.
If Ms Le Pen makes another strong showing in the European elections in 2019 and if she can point to the failure of another establishment internationalist to deliver the change needed for France to live up to his high opinion of itself, she will see that as her chance.
Front National strategists, in private, like to say that 2022 is their real goal when it comes to winning power in France. Looking at the neophyte figure of Mr Macron, and Europe’s intractable political and economic morass, that is an outcome that cannot be discounted.
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Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,856
cor howard that was long lol
soz just realised in my last post it should have read
p/m sent to you Jan H
howard mcsweeney1 likes this
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
