If only we’d stand up to these Frenchies and Germans, tell them straight out “we’re not having it”, they’d immediately line up to offer us the same trade access we currently enjoy (without reciprocity of course) and without insisting on stuff we don’t want like agreeing to their regulations, safety standards, etc. or freedom of movement.
All that stuff about how they won’t offer terms as good as membership to non-members or how the four freedoms are indivisible is just bosh and they’ll soon see sense as soon as someone stands up to them.
(That is sarcasm in my case but it is what real people actually say. Nigel Farage being Exhibit A but also lots of perfectly ordinary folk in pubs and allotments up and down the country).
The exquisite irony of the thing is shown in so many ways but one of the best in my view is the way Britain managed very nicely to get the EU to set lots of tariffs to protect British businesses, often in agriculture. So the EU has a nice high tariff on imports of beef (I think it’s 62%) and lamb (I believe 57%) for example.
Once we leave, unless we get a deal changing the default, all our negotiators’ hard work in getting the tariffs up nice and high ends up shafting the very industries it was supposed to assist.
I suspect Mr Klopp earns a little more than the £30,000 a year threshold posited for allowing ‘suitable’ foreigners to come over here and take hard-working Brits’ jobs post-Brexit.
There’s something about being a football spectator that really wakes up a person’s inner bigot, whether they be British or otherwise. Racism in particular:
Maybe it’s just being in a venue where you’re expected to shout stuff. If you’re terrible, eventually it’s going to just burst out.
I think it’s more that bigots like doing things that are popular, just like other people. Things seemed to be getting better in Britain until 2016, then all the racist chants started again. Fortunately those chants are still as illegal as they were before and have resulted in fines and stadium bans (usually both at the same time).
That, and the idea that you shout support at your team and derision at the other.
Before you know it the words get nastier and racism finds another home; people are dicks in crowds.
I’m serious about things seeming to be better in the past though. I used to work as a steward at Carlisle United, and I can only remember having to deal with one racist incident in my time there. Now it seems like there is at least one arsehole somewhere in Britain shouting racist abuse every matchday.
The racists know how to shut up, we just need to make them do it again. Or we can just ban them all, that works for me too.
