The majority over the irish sea are very happy with that.

Or in other words, "How can you have the temerity to not think like me?"

Has Donald trump given his approval. He seems to have an opinion on everything

I can see them winning the league cup domestically but that's it. The only way they will win the FA cup is if the planets aligned and the big boys get knocked off and/or they play a strong side against a top 6 side. The league has gotten much tougher top to bottom.

I can see them winning the Europa Cup though. Frankly, and I know I will get some stick for it, the Europa cup seems easier to win than the FA Cup.

In its original form, it was a peace project. In the devastating aftermath of WWII, it was designed to bind Germany into a political and economic relationship with their neighbours so that their marching tendencies might be controlled and a third European war avoided.

Like so much else that’s flowed from that original and radical initiative, it’s worked perfectly and to everyone’s benefit.

In my opinion Old Man, Brexit has been foisted upon us by a curious alliance of the rich and super-rich (whose interests are served by lack of regulation and who have been waging a vicious anti-EU and anti-Foreigner campaign for a generation through their control of 90% of the print media), the super-poor (who after years of austerity, just voted for a change in their circumstances, which couldn’t get any worse, poor sods), the b****** ‘brains-on-sticks’ Hedge Funds (who’ve all shorted the £ and make large contributions to make sure maximum chaos ensues), the ill-educated (who are blissfully unaware still of the damage being done and probably always will be) and the under- or un-employed crypto- or not so crypto-racists (who live in working class areas where there just aren’t any bleeding jobs, thanks largely - still - to Thatcher, but continue to blame foreigners for taking non-existent jobs).

Oh, and the glue that holds together all these disparate strands of British society, our blessed elderly (who, rich or poor, sharp or otherwise, hark back wistfully with rheumy eyes to a time when the sun never set on the Empire and the globe was red, and who were prepared to sacrifice their grandchildrens’ futures on the altar of nostalgia). Mustn’t forget their pivotal part in this utterly chaotic tragedy that has made us the laughing stock of the world, eh Old Man?

You may not agree; I understand.

Peace and love.

Strange how all the remoaners are calling Brexitters thick when they appear to have no idea how the system is working.

The EU is about to implode and they want to be in the club when it does. Unbelievable.

Thousands of voters are rebelling against the elite because they can see that their only being is to serve their masters, work etheir balls off for no reward. Directors wages and bonuses are exploding while all the workers get are zero hours. The UK rich are the entrepeneurs of yesterday who made their money with hard work. Very few of them believe the EU is helping the situation whilst the Soros's of the world are backing remainers and making billions out of the chaos they are causing.

Top Gun you are a moron of the highest order and at times worse than obnoxious. The EU is not working ask the Greek islanders what their lives are like with all the so called refugees invade their islands while the EU does nothing to help them. Oh and Erdogan has another million and more to send their way.

Where do I start with this one.

Rebelling against the Elite ? Let’s start there do you really think the likes of Rees Mogg, Farage and Boris aren’t the elite? If you think these people act in your interests I really am speechless. They are the elite and control the newspapers whose content and lies you lap up and recite. They couldn’t give a toss about your interests and the fact Boris is about to serve up a piece of paper which is Brexit in name only, and you wish to lap it up shows its more about making you feel better about yourself than any actual change in reality.

Workers rights, zero contracts haha are you *%^@*** kidding me. Why do you think somebody like Tim Martin wants out of the E.U....because he wants the freedom to change his workers rights for the worse. No reason no more.

The refugee INVASION !!! You know the E.U. rules let us kick out anyone arriving in The UK without the intention to work after 90 days.visits exceeding that period remain subject to national procedures ie it’s our decision. In addition Belgium requires all migrants to register at their Town Hall within 3 months of entering the country and if they intend to work their claim will be assessed and will be processed within 6 months. Far stricter. We don’t do this at all. Immigration is on us.

So in summary,

You don’t really get the EU

You believe everything you read in the media which is controlled by the elites

You believe all the trump stuff about Soros etc (this really means your beyond help)

You think a refugee invasion is coming when migration from EU countries is on a 6 year low and actually seem to think Turkey is part of the E.U. now.

In short you are beyond help or reasoning.

Cheers

Freedom of speech and thought is a key virtue and part of my belief system but I also believe if a mentally impaired relative keeps trying to stick their dick in a food blender a sterner approach is required than indulging it.

It comes down to quite a lot of people just wanting to be able to hold a different opinion, and vote that way, without being considered thick, racist or an imperialist. In parts your analysis typifies the elitism that still soaks the European Union debate. And it is nostalgic, for the current EU is but a self-serving club compared to the big ideals of the post-war originators.

Anyway, I say to Remainers, fear not, there is every chance your elite will still win the day and Brexit confounded.

Yes, you constantly demonstrate your belief system in your Brexit exchanges on the forum. So persuasive is your latest argument, I have now changed my mind completely. Draped in the EU flag, Lib Dem application form in one hand and a photo of Emmanuel Macron in the other, I have removed my dick from my UK-made blender and have flopped it instead into a glass of French wine. Not a pretty sight.

How's that? I thought that the UK was Ireland's biggest trading partner and market so the economics looks very bad. Is support purely on political grounds--i.e. a move towards a united Ireland?

There does seems to be a significant Trumpish element amongst the Brexit supporters, you must admit.

That alliance seems to have gained control in a scary number of countries.

Perhaps AG is not aware that we don't have the electoral college system at the Arsenal?

Frankly with Trump, Boris and etc rampant I strongly disagree that we need another toxic preening drama queen in our headspace. Hopefully they get a bland Swede or dour Scot or something like that.

While there are some exciting young players. on the management side the Premiership is pretty bland at the moment. Like him or not, Mourinho adds value, if only as a pantomime villain?

Yes, but take 52% of the UK population on any given subject and there will be some Trumpetry. The mistake certain Remainers have made is to bag everybody who disagees with them as stupid, racist and worst of all old or working-class!

No doubt there are grounds for being wary of the EU. But when the two figureheads of the movement are Johnson and Farage one wonders ...

G'Day Old Man

I’ve a slightly different perspective now on Trumpsters and Brexiteers. I’ve been in America for the last few weeks, mostly in Trump heartland. I’ve been listening to UK radio, courtesy of Alexa, and reading my Grauniad cover to cover on-line to keep up with the Brexit developments. I’ve also been keeping abreast of the impeachment developments on US TV. I sat for almost 2 hours last week slack-jawed and utterly mesmerised as I watched Trump’s rally live. Farage may be a devious and slightly sinister nutter, Rees-Mogg a privileged anachronistic irrelevance and Johnson a self-serving policy-vacuum liar – but – Trump is in a whole different league.

Whilst there are indeed similarities between the two groups, I’d have to observe that the average Trump supporter is far scarier than soppy old Brexiteers – probably because they tend to be armed.

I was at a very civilised dinner party the other night. 8 guests including me and the old trout and an old left-leaning Gooner mate from London and his wife; he’s been a US Citizen for 30 years, though you’d never know it. The other 4 were rampant Trump supporters. They were extolling the virtues of Trump’s policies, particularly on tax cuts. I mentioned that only the wealthy were advantaged by these policies. I asked one guy – a retired Fire Chief in a major US city – whether he was concerned about the poor. Two word answer – *%^@ ‘em. Not often I’m lost for words.

I'm completely baffled at how you think the ills you describe will subside with return to unfettered nationalism. I'm sure that the likes of Putin and Xi and other strong-men, and the plutocrats, are rubbing their hand with glee at the prospect of European disintegration. Certain factions of capital will suffer, but others will thrive.

The alternatives are pretty stark: a united Europe warts and all, or lots of Polands, Turkeys, and Bulgarias engaging oppressive politics and feuding with each other. Nationalism and Great Power politics are on the rise and are very ugly indeed.

The ability of people to support Trump is astounding, when he quite blatantly makes a complete fool of himself, and shows himself to b e a dangerously moronic and deranged megalomaniac criminal, whenever he opens his mouth or sets his thumbs in motion.

Evidence and logic say he will come unstuck very soon. But wow, he has surely proven that anything is possible in politics, and his base seeming remains as solid as ever. I'm waiting for that approval rating to start dipping below 40% -- then rats will be jumping ship and corks will be popping and handcuffs clicking. However, it it stays above 40% I fear we are doomed.

Özil says he intends staying at Arsenal until the end of his contract in 2021. If that’s what happens it uses up £18.2m (£350k x 52) of the annual pay budget until the end of next season.

Football contracts routinely expire on 30 June of whatever year. So there’s approximately 8.5 months of this season’s contract to pay him (70.8%) plus the full 12 months (100%) of his contract next season. At £350k per week that’s approaching another £31.1m that we will be paying Özil before we finally get rid of him.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indepe ... html%3Famp

People on the fringe right try to say that America isn't as bad as others say because afterall, "we" (not them) elected Barack Obama didn't we? Well, if we look closely at the numbers. Obama got nearly 53% of the popular vote. McCain got 45% (specifically 45.7%).

Trump has routinely polled around 45% of the people. So, the major difference between now and then is that people who were opposed to the right wing side of things came out to vote. They didn't come out for Hillary and she lost a few people on the way.

You have given anecdotal evidence to my prior post when I say America is done. Trump has sped up the decline. Part of that 45% are for big business, against the "poor" even though they may very well be defined as poor and many are.

As far as i can tell the average Brexiter is no where close to the core Trump supporter. I'd trade them for our Trumpsters any day of the week. Trump has dismantled many Civil Rights Era laws and regulations. Targeting the businesses of those that oppose him like Bezos of Amazon (which I am no fan of but abuse of power is illegal if you are an elected politician). People think his hard core supporters of country rubes with limited education and intelligence. I can only tel you of the ones I know who have advanced degrees, some of them well traveled, etc.
There are so many things going on here behind the scenes that are straight out of the fascist playbook it would make your headspin.

Trump has dismantled many Civil Rights Era laws and regulations.

I'll give you one example. Maintaining your American citizenship has never been questioned, even when there were tens of thousands of poor Europeans coming to us. Once they got citizenship it was a done deal...till now.

Trump's immigration adviser, the same one who started putting kids in cages, has sent teams of workers to cities like Los Angeles to pour through hundreds of thousands of citizenship applications and retroactively dissolve citizenship. This is a first.

https://www.thenation.com/article/denat ... a-goldman/

This January a judge revoked the citizenship of Baljinder Singh. The Trump administration looking to slice and dice the country along the lines of white nativism hit upon a jackpot; in a memo dated September 2016, Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General announced that, because of some past oversight, nearly 148,000 fingerprints of deported and criminal aliens had not been uploaded into the system and were missing. The consequence, according to the government calculation, was that 858 individuals may have been granted citizenship despite the possibility that they may have committed crimes of moral turpitude.

In Baljinder Singh’s case, the problem lay in a more than 25-year-old lie. He had been unmade an American citizen because he had the temerity to use a false name when he entered the country in 1991. The USCIS is also in the process of denaturalizing two other men, Parvez Manzoor Khan and Rashid Mahmood, both of whom had been citizens for over a decade for similarly minor issues in their applications.

No fan of either of them but are they really any worse than the grey men of Brussels who take their pound of flesh for nothing but spinning a web of bureaucracy, it's not 1957 anymore and the EU today has become a nest of old men and lawyers making money for nothing.

I'm not going to cry about leaving, why would I?.

I would do exactly the same but I would accept a settlement to leave - call it 30mil

Can I ask a couple of simple questions for either or both of Brexit views.

Last time I was in London, which was over 12 years ago, the hotels I stayed at had all european staff. The service was great I must add.

All employed as part of the EU arrangement. Whether there is a deal or not, will these hotels now be staffed with British people and if so when will the current staff be required to leave the country.

Can I rent a car in the UK and drive it in Europe and will all the insurance and rego still be recognised. Or vica versa?

I don’t blame him either. As DHD implied a few days ago, Özil is playing things cleverly, appearing the perfect professional and so on.

Unless he’s a bad influence on the dressing room and team spirit, and there’s no evidence of that which I can see, what will paying off his contract with £30m do? It lowers Arsenal’s transfer budget by that sum for January and next summer, rather than losing it in stages of £350k per week. Is that any better? I’m not sure.

Or maybe we might just get a manager who can utilise Özil's abilities.

Is Nigel Farage worse than some EU bureaucrats? Yes he is.

Or Boris who wastes the taxpayers money openly and blatantly to get himself laid or hand it to his mates

Jesus Christ imagine thinking they aren’t

Ozils a wasteman going through the motions. No manager improves him. He’s terrible away from home even in his best few years and he’s simply angling for a pay off and has been for a while now.

Ok you can rent a car and drive it into a Europe after Brexit but you will need to make sure a green card has been arranged but no doubt the car rental company can sort it for you. A small cost might be applicable

On the hotel thing I’d suggest that isn’t the major question. The most interesting and relevant one is that 26% of doctors in the NHS aren’t British so will you see staffing issues. These doctors from overseas may not see Britain as an attractive proposition because of the thick xenophobic population who voted for Brexit and who believe it’s ok for them to treat our medical issues but they don’t belong in the country.

I spend a lot of time in the US in Trumpland. I wouldn’t broach a political conversation whilst there, New York maybe but not Florida. The trump thing is crazy with seemingly intelligent people voting for him just because he’s a republican. Many of his voters seem to preach Christian type values whilst indulging in his facism. Hypocrites

That all said trump is only in power for 8 years at most and everyone can make a bad political choice for a candidate. Brexit however is for life so there’s just cause to suggest an argument that brexiteers are one of the stupidest groups of people of all time and have eclipsed the Trumpers in red hats. It’s not definite but possible.

Basically, most people in Ireland (north and south) rather the UK didn't leave - but if it is to go ahead and leave the major objective was to avoid the imposition checks/border on the island of Ireland against the will of the vast majority of the people. Johnson's deal delivers the border down the Irish Sea and also the north of Ireland seems to be protected in many regards from his "hard Brexit" deal for the rest of the UK. It also allows the rest of the UK to go ahead as they please in the future.

That makes it acceptable and lets be honest it's another step in the road towards eventual unity of the island which I want to see.

Probably not get through Westminster though.

Okay was interested from a holiday perspective As we are booked for Turkey as one of destinations next year and wanted to think sbout the uk if our tour gets cancelled. But it will have to be very messy for us not to go to Turkey.

Always wanted to go to Turkey but never been so far. That should be an amazing holiday.

As Mark Twain once said 'Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.'”

A Few in the UK need a reminder of this

Turkey is a wonderful place. Get yourself to Ephesus if you have the chance and wonder at the majesty of it.

Ironic that you’ll be visiting Europes newest member whilst we’re jumping ship. If Turkey can sort it’s leadership issues it will fast become a major player on the world stage.

Exhibit A as to why there is a Brexit.

Boris Johnson will be leader of the Labour Party before Turkey will be in the EU.