1. #20476
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe 90 View Post
    Here, here
    A Brexiter proving SA right yet again...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    A Brexiter proving SA right yet again...

  3. #20478
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    The thing is, given the opportunity, the British would vote for full, frictionless trade with the EU by rejoining the single markt/customs union, returning the entire Common Travel Area back to normality, even if the price to pay was free movement permitting employers to maintain their businesses, musicians to travel, artists to work, Brits to live in the sun, and banks to passport wealthy commerce.

    But...........naah, let's stick to 1971 telling the frogs, wops, dagos and krauts to fuck off, and welcome those 3 million HK chinks and their flipper wives, eh

  4. #20479
    Isle of discombobulation Joe 90's Avatar
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  5. #20480
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    But...........naah, let's stick to 1971 telling the frogs, wops, dagos and krauts to fuck off
    * We need to add pikies to that list.

  6. #20481
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    welcome those 3 million HK chinks and their flipper wives, eh
    Still angry he can't export his bloke to the UK but hard working Kongers who'll contribute are welcomed.

  7. #20482
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    The thing is, given the opportunity, the British would vote for full, frictionless trade with the EU by rejoining the single markt/customs union, returning the entire Common Travel Area back to normality, even if the price to pay was free movement permitting employers to maintain their businesses, musicians to travel, artists to work, Brits to live in the sun, and banks to passport wealthy commerce.

    But...........naah, let's stick to 1971 telling the frogs, wops, dagos and krauts to fuck off, and welcome those 3 million HK chinks and their flipper wives, eh
    None of which, will have the remotest effect on you, or your future. You are destined to be a miserable complaining old bugger, wherever you eventually end up.
    Keep on building that alternate reality in your head. There, see, it’s all better now isn’t it. That’s the only one you will ever see. The one you made up to placate yourself.

  8. #20483
    Hangin' Around cyrille's Avatar
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    BREXITers focussing on ad hom as usual.

    14 months now (or two months for Hugh ) and they still can't show how anything is actually better.

    The 350 million quid per week that would supposedly be going spare for the NHS has actually added up to...a pay increase offer of 1%.

    Still, I guess everyone can stand outside their houses and clap to make up for it.


  9. #20484
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyrille View Post
    BREXITers focussing on ad hom as usual.

    14 months now (or two months for Hugh ) and they still can't show how anything is actually better.

    The 350 million quid per week that would supposedly be going spare for the NHS has actually added up to...a pay increase offer of 1%.

    Still, I guess everyone can stand outside their houses and clap to make up for it.

    Like it or not, the UK is no longer responsible for the humongous clusterfuck that is the EU. The looming train wreck that is led by the EC, will not receive any financial or political support from the British government.

    The UK is in no way responsible for the almighty mess, and failure of the EU collective and mangled response to the vaccine program of the union.

    That is not gloating about costs or funding, it’s about the lives lost to meddling civil servants intransigence, and the failure to allow MS the opportunity to protect their own people. You can harp on all you want about supposed ad hom, but the commission has failed the population badly, and no amount of clever sidestepping gets them out of it.
    The EU fucked up on a massive scale, and that has, and will cost lives.

  10. #20485
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    Quote Originally Posted by Switch View Post
    The looming train wreck that is led by the EC, will not receive any financial or political support from the British government.
    The UK will be paying the divorce bill until 2057, although the majority of the payment will be in the next 5 years.

    The EU will survive the upheaval of the UK leaving and continue regardless. Mistakes have and will continue to be made and the EU will learn from them.

    Meanwhile, the UK is where you should be looking if you are interested in the carnage following a train wreck.

  11. #20486
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    Quote Originally Posted by Switch View Post
    The looming train wreck that is led by the EC,
    Quote Originally Posted by Switch View Post
    My views are not based on wild predictions, or even cogent factual statistics, just truth and facts.

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    He is a funny little fellow, to be sure.

    It really is quite bizarre that they still cannot see that there was never any material benefit to the British common man in quitting the EU whatsoever.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    The UK will be paying the divorce bill until 2057, although the majority of the payment will be in the next 5 years.
    As long as we're out, who gives a fcuk? Oh yeah the Remoaners. Move on.

  14. #20489
    Isle of discombobulation Joe 90's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pragmatic View Post
    As long as we're out, who gives a fcuk? Oh yeah the Remoaners. Move on.
    Indeed, the futures bright

    The remoaners favourite saying is "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush".

    Thai mentality in a way, think now not tomorrow.

    Thank fvck the Great British electorate have the balls and vision.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe 90 View Post
    The remoaners favourite saying is "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush".
    They can mostly probably remember how it really goes, but no I'd say it's 'Don't cut off your nose to spite your face'.

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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    * We need to add pikies to that list.
    The Spics are missing too

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    Back in the 1960s, Charles de Gaulle vetoed the UK’s attempts to join what is now the EU. Exactly one year on from the Brexit vote, it’s clear that ‘the Great Asparagus’ was right to try and keep Britain out of the club.

    The Brief: De Gaulle was right about Britain all along – EURACTIV.com

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pragmatic View Post
    As long as we're out, who gives a fcuk? Oh yeah the Remoaners. Move on.
    Out of what exactly, Prag?

    The EU had no control over UK governance, that was a silly lie only swallowed by credulous dimwits too stupid to distinguish their arse from a hole in the ground. Politically, no member state's sovereignty was diminished by their membership not least because in matters of national interest each state had the power to derogate.

    The EU was first and foremost a socio-economic bloc offering unfettered trade to its member states to which the UK traded 49% of its entire manufacturing output. What fucking idiot would jeopardise that for no tangible gain?

    Membership of the EU ensured free trade with significant world partners amounting to over 62 FTAs, EPAs and TAs and in doing so protected the rigorous standards in health and hygiene of all its consumers, the highest in the developed world. What fucking idiot would sacrifice that?

    Membership of the EU ensured the free movement of goods, services, people and capital among 27 neighbouring states 22 miles distant from the UK comprising an unfettered single market of 500 million consumers energising a symbiosis benefiting all. Turning the clock back by raising barriers to that commerce and integration of interests is "free trade"? Only a fucking idiot would think that. The collapse in the British fishing industry, the distress among thousands of SMEs struggling to survive under the yoke of Brexit bureaucracy imposed by the Tory/Kipper loons and the seismic contraction in the British haulage and port services industries are all testament to th consequences of being a fucking Brexit idiot.

    And the ending of free movement was a benefit because migration from the member states posed a threat to the very existence of Britain? Given the movement of EU peoples boosted the UK's economy and their very presence yielded a net annual dividend to it of over £2 billions, that was never anything other than racist propaganda from prejudiced bigots and the stupid. But in light of the recent invitation to 3 million HK Chinese to settle in Britain the nonsense that the EU posed an existential threat was exposed for the absurdity that it was.

    But Prag, despite asking the same fucking question over and over again, just what the fuck do you think Britain is going to sell to the world that it couldn't before Brexit?

    I know why the ERG extremists wanted to break from the EU, it was simply an opportunity to exploit unprincipled capitalism free from standards and to conceal the profits in tax havens evading corporate and personal financial liabilities. But you are quite simply too thick to see that Prag because you are utterly hidebound by your carapace of ignorance, bigotry and stupidity.

    But there is no escaping from consequences Prag and the economic decline of Brexitania is now assured together with its growing political insignificance on the world stage as the manoeuvring of the tectonic plates of competing trading blocs grind it into the dust of its deserved oblivion.

    Essentially, what you have left Prag is a safe haven for Britain's services industries which account for 80% of GDP, a protective harbour ensuring a strength that could resist the vagaries of economic global shocks and the expansionism of foreign powers exercising their adverse hegemony.

    Indeed Prag, you have become the little parochial man of no significance that in truth you always probably were, a bit player on the world stage lost in a nostalgic delusion wrapped in a tattered and shrinking union jack, smacking toothless gums as he regales all others with dreary anecdotes about faded glories of a distant imperial past no-one gives a flying fuck about except the dull-witted, the irretrievably stupid, the mawkish and the terminally ignorant.

  19. #20494
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    Indeed Prag, you have become the little parochial man of no significance that in truth you always probably were, a bit player on the world stage lost in a nostalgic delusion wrapped in a tattered and shrinking union jack, smacking toothless gums as he regales all others with dreary anecdotes about faded glories of a distant imperial past no-one gives a flying fuck about except the dull-witted, the irretrievably stupid, the mawkish and the terminally ignorant.
    Union flag comments not withstanding, you have just described yourself perfectly. That is the image of an intolerant and bigoted old fool that you have engendered for yourself on this forum.

  20. #20495
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    Meanwhile the EU's President Charles Michel has criticised the UK for holding up vaccine shipments to the EU, which is according to the British government totally untrue, while Italy, backed up by the EU, are themselves withholding 250,000 vaccine doses to Australia. There seems to be no limit to EU hypocrisy. Meanwhile, Troy and SA, the E.U. equivalent of OhOh and Klondyke, will be along shortly to obfuscate.

    Italy, EU refuse AstraZeneca request to ship 250,000 doses of vaccine to Australia - ABC News

  21. #20496
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    Well, why the fuck didn't you ockers not buy the Chink vaccine, they were your bestest trading buddies for the past decade.

    Oops, sorry, I forgot you gonzos have fallen out.

    Har, har.

    And who is the fucking hypocrite?? You've spent fucking years denigrating the EU and now you're berating it because they won't let you have a few crumbs of the table.

    You cobbers sure like to whine.

  22. #20497
    Member Wakey's Avatar
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    EU struggles with vaccine delays and new Covid surge

    Europeans, like many others across the world, hoped for a better and happier year in 2021 - after seemingly endless months of Covid illness, deaths and pandemic-linked economic misery.

    But so far, so annus horribilis for the EU. On a number of Covid fronts.

    The bloc's by now infamous vaccination procurement scheme - trumpeting the securing of up to 2.6 billion doses - has so far failed to deliver. EU countries lag significantly behind Israel, the UK and the US in getting jabs into arms.

    A number of EU members have stumbled nationally, too, with heavily criticised roll-outs of the vaccines they did manage to obtain, in Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria and beyond.






    And all the while the virus continues its deadly spread.

    On Friday, Italy's Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, and Germany's respected Robert Koch institute for infectious diseases confirmed their respective countries were experiencing a third wave of the pandemic. Covid restrictions in Italy will be tightened from Monday, with a national lockdown planned for Easter Weekend.

    Countries in Central and Eastern Europe, proud of their health record during the first Covid wave, are now suffering terribly.



    Infection levels in Poland have returned to previous peaks seen in November as Central Europe is hit by a surge of cases

    Poland and Hungary have seen serious spikes in infection, while the Czech Republic and neighbouring Slovakia report some of the highest death rates per population in the world.

    This was certainly not what the European Commission had in mind back in June when it announced a "European strategy to accelerate the development, manufacturing and deployment of effective and safe vaccines against Covid-19".

    At the time, the UK was derided by many at home and abroad for not accepting an invitation from Brussels - even as a departing member state - to jump aboard the EU vaccine procurement scheme.

    "Boris Johnson's Brexit-focused government prefers to go it alone? More fool them," was the sentiment of many in the EU.

    But fast forward to late February and take a look at the front-page headline of Germany's popular Bild newspaper. In a mixture of German and English and with the union flag as a backdrop, it reads in bold print: Liebe Britain, We Beneiden You ( Dear Britain, we envy you).

    This from a country with the famously level-headed scientist Angela Merkel at its helm and which, at the start of the pandemic, seemed to lead the way in how to deal with the virus effectively.

    So what went wrong?

    The debate in Germany has become highly politicised in the lead-up to September's general election.

    The secretary general of the Social Democrat Party, a bitter election rival of Chancellor Merkel's CDU, announced that Germany should never have handed over power to the European Commission to purchase vaccines on its behalf.

    A few weeks ago there was talk of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen possibly having to resign over the fact that contracts signed with vaccine producers came late and weren't tight enough to guarantee delivery.

    European politicians and voters alike wanted to know why the UK was able to get all its vaccines but the EU wasn't.

    But the EU mood has shifted slowly since.

    Ursula von der Leyen (belatedly) admitted that mistakes were made and EU governments privately acknowledge they share some of the blame as they were consulted by Brussels before it negotiated the vaccine contracts on their behalf.

    In February the head of the European Commission insisted on Europe's "fair share" of vaccines

    An EU diplomat, representing an influential member state told me the frustration felt by people across the EU was understandable.


    "We hate to see our loved ones and the vulnerable still exposed to the virus when counterparts elsewhere are protected by vaccines we can't access as fast as we expected." But, he added, on reflection the Commission had done "an excellent job".

    Could it have been better?

    "Undoubtedly," he answered. "But the complexity of the EU has its price."

    The European Commission has been heavily criticised for having been too bureaucratic in its approach to vaccine contracts and for focusing too much on AstraZeneca - which has ended up seriously defaulting on delivery to the EU.

    But EU insiders say a number of countries originally favoured Astra Zeneca as a cheaper option. The Pfizer vaccine was seen as pricey and I'm told a number of member states were suspicious that Germany had an agenda: to make money for the German business BioNtech behind the vaccine.

    By now though, there's a growing feeling in the EU that they're "all in it together", bearing in mind the single market and the open-border Schengen Agreement.

    This was the opinion of one European politician I spoke to on condition of anonymity. "We're not protected at all if we're not all vaccinated at a European level," he told me.

    "Going it alone could never have really been an option, even for the rich countries. So the pan-EU plan is really an investment in each of us."

    That said, the European Commission is hardly off the hook.

    On Friday, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz accused it of presiding over a vaccine "bazaar" and failing to distribute jabs according to each country's population size, despite an agreement to do so. A charge the Commission denies.


    IMAGE COPYRIGHTREUTERS
    image captionAustrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Friday that vaccine doses were not being distributed fairly within the EU

    And the European medical body the EMA consistently comes under fire for being "slow" to approve vaccines.


    Now that a number of EU countries have shown an interest in vaccines from Russia and, to a lesser extent, from China, the Slovak Prime Minister, Igor Matovic, announced he would like to send "a little message to the head of the EMA: 'Dear Christa, we would all be very happy for you to change your working hours at the EMA for the following months to 24 hours a day and 7 days a week - and to approve vaccines not in three months but in three weeks. It's a matter of life and death'."

    At the same time though, there is a growing sense of the EU closing ranks.

    Smaller and less well-off member states were always grateful to have access to any vaccines at all. Thanks to Brussels, they say, they can vaccinate at the same time as wealthy France and Germany. An impossible prospect had they been left to fend for themselves.

    Increasingly the EU finger of blame points outwards: at governments outside the bloc and at pharmaceutical companies.

    Even well-known Brussels critic Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, recently admitted that vaccine deliveries agreed by the EU were "constantly delayed and rescheduled".

    The EU has approved the use of four vaccines so far: Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson and BioNtech-Pfizer.

    Each and every one has posed delivery problems.

    Above all, AstraZeneca. The EU expected around 100 million doses of the AZ vaccine by the end of this month but AZ is struggling to deliver even 40 million. It's now feared it will be pushed to honour commitments to the EU from April, too.

    This has led to a blame game with the UK government, as AstraZeneca has not defaulted on its deliveries there.

    The European Commission insists that its contract with AZ included promises of vaccine delivery from the company's UK-based plants, too.

    Privately some EU diplomats describe Brussels' digs at the UK as "childish".

    "I don't understand those in the EU who can't praise the UK where praise is due," one EU insider told me. "The government there has done a great job getting vaccines. The NHS is doing amazing work with the vaccine roll-out. And we should openly say that."

    He was also heavily critical of how the French President Emmanuel Macron had "attempted to make out the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was sub-standard", only to row back from those comments later.



    "You can't blame the UK for working with AstraZeneca to its best advantage," was the opinion of another diplomat I spoke to. "You have to blame the company itself for selling the same vaccine twice over yet only delivering to one of its clients."

    AstraZeneca denies wrongdoing and points out its contract with the EU requires it to make "best efforts to supply".

    The EU's trade commissioner took to Twitter this week to declare, one presumes with intended irony, that AZ was making efforts to deliver to the EU - but not "best efforts".

    Adding to the fraught atmosphere, as governments push to protect - and be seen to be trying to do their best to protect - their populations against the virus - is the fact that EU-UK relations are already strained after Brexit and they are particularly prickly because of ongoing disagreements over the implementation of the Brexit agreement for Northern Ireland.


    IMAGE COPYRIGHTEPA
    image captionThe head of the European Council Charles Michel said his accusations against the UK were based on facts

    Tempers were easily inflamed on both sides of the Channel again this week when European Council President Charles Michel accused the UK of having an outright export ban on Covid vaccines.

    This assertion was described by the UK government as "completely false".

    The UK does not in fact have an explicit export ban on vaccines. Nor does the US, although Charles Michel also accused Washington of having one, yet the EU continues to ask the UK whether it has actually exported any vaccines to the bloc.

    By contrast, the EU this week declared itself to be "the leading provider of vaccines around the world", exporting more vaccines than it has access to, because of the number of production sites based in the EU.

    The European Commission pointedly declared the UK as the biggest recipient of vaccine exports from the EU to date - receiving approximately 9 million doses or components of doses, it said.

    The EU was hitting back at criticism for an authorisation mechanism it has put in place for vaccine exports from pharma companies that have failed to honour their contractual commitments with the EU.

    The EU has a long list of less well-off countries exempt from export controls and so far the mechanism has been used once only to actually stop vaccines from leaving the EU. A week ago Italy blocked the export of 250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia, sparking considerable controversy.

    While some in the EU favour a much tougher stance on exports, as long as pharma companies fail to deliver to the bloc, others I speak to think that would be a terrible idea, affecting the EU's image abroad.

    "Just look at the soft power Russia and China are exerting by bestowing their vaccines around the world," one of the diplomats I spoke to said to me.

    "The EU has to step up and honour its commitments to those less fortunate than ourselves. It's a moral and political imperative. At the moment these vaccine rows are a stupid competition between rich, privileged nations. I hope we can co-ordinate our international obligations at the upcoming EU leaders' summit."

    But the hopes of many EU leaders for that end-of-month summit lie far closer to home. The European Commission has promised a dramatic increase in vaccine deliveries as of April. With 300 million vaccines to be delivered by July.

    Europeans are crossing their fingers that this time it's a promise the Commission can make good on.

    EU struggles with vaccine delays and new Covid surge - BBC News
    Last edited by Wakey; 13-03-2021 at 12:44 PM.

  23. #20498
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    ^ i am not a fan but in this case White Supremacy is a good thing, text wise

  24. #20499
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    They are making a bit of a mess of the vaccine rollout, without doubt.

    It kind of pales when compared to BoJos litany of deadly fuck ups over the last 12 months or so though.

  25. #20500
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    ^ There's no doubt that the EU have made a mess of the Covid vaccine rollout. However, I don't think the UK is adopting the best practice with it's rollout either. For example, my dad still hasn't had his second dose after having the first one on 6 Jan. What's the maximum time allowed between injections and can the UK manage to provide a second dose within the time constraints.

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