apologies by the way - I’d read that as English expats swinging the entire vote, rather than just the Welsh vote (which you clearly meant).
Though that does raise questions of the difference between ex-pat and immigrant, and indeed whether you can be an ex-pat or immigrant within the UK, which comes back to blood and soil….
I was born in England and moved to Scotland 12 years ago. My daughter was born in Scotland and I value Scotland for what it *is*, not how I can make it more like England (which isn't to say I'm uninterested in seeing Scotland be better). To me the ex-pat is someone who likes the landscape/weather of a place but thinks it would be improved by being socially and culturally more like their home. The immigrant sets up a restaurant to share their cuisine with the locals; the ex-pat sets one up to cater to other ex-pats. I think all of us who migrate exist on a continuum between the two, and I hope to be more toward the immigrant than the ex-pat end. I am, however, most definitely a migrant, even within the UK.
Agree with all of that, but is there a qualitative difference if you’d moved from Norwich to Northallerton (hypothetically) rather than Norwich to Nairn or Neath?
apologies by the way - I’d read that as English expats swinging the entire vote, rather than just the Welsh vote (which you clearly meant).
Though that does raise questions of the difference between ex-pat and immigrant, and indeed whether you can be an ex-pat or immigrant within the UK, which comes back to blood and soil….
I was born in England and moved to Scotland 12 years ago. My daughter was born in Scotland and I value Scotland for what it *is*, not how I can make it more like England (which isn't to say I'm uninterested in seeing Scotland be better). To me the ex-pat is someone who likes the landscape/weather of a place but thinks it would be improved by being socially and culturally more like their home. The immigrant sets up a restaurant to share their cuisine with the locals; the ex-pat sets one up to cater to other ex-pats. I think all of us who migrate exist on a continuum between the two, and I hope to be more toward the immigrant than the ex-pat end. I am, however, most definitely a migrant, even within the UK.
Agree with all of that, but is there a qualitative difference if you’d moved from Norwich to Northallerton (hypothetically) rather than Norwich to Nairn or Neath?
I moved from Somerset to Norfolk, then to Lancashire, Yorkshire and Lancashire again prior to moving to Scotland. Whether I'd have noticed less difference if I had moved to, say, Dunfermline rather than the Hebrides I couldn't say, but I think the difference would be there nonetheless.
To me the ex-pat is someone who likes the landscape/weather of a place but thinks it would be improved by being socially and culturally more like their home. The immigrant sets up a restaurant to share their cuisine with the locals; the ex-pat sets one up to cater to other ex-pats. I think all of us who migrate exist on a continuum between the two, and I hope to be more toward the immigrant than the ex-pat end.
Were I to suggest that those moving to the UK should be immigrants rather than ex-pats, and furthermore that the large number of ex-pats is at least partly a factor in Brexit itself, I’d probably be called a racist.
I think that will largely depend if WW3 kicks off more broadly or we manage to avoid it.
What is so frustrating is living through a rerun of the 20s and 30s and so many people *again* thinking jumping straight to isolationism and xenophobia is the solution just like it wasn’t last time. Does nobody read a bloody history book ?
My prediction is that by 2040 the EU will have either fully federated or spun apart. Either way the UK will be better off out of it in the long run.
I think both of the first two things are moderately likely, but the last is very unlikely. There are very few circumstances in the UK will be better off in 2040 by having lower economic growth between now and then - the strength of your economy is directly correlated with the options you have.
Perhaps not the 7 kingdoms then, but some sort of arrangement.
And "we want devolved government, so you have to want it too, or otherwise there's a power imbalance" isn't a good argument.
A Scots, Welsh or Irish nationalist would of course say - that having had an empire is not an excuse to keep total control of nations you previously invaded.
That's not what I meant. A Scot wanting devolution or independence for Scotland is entirely reasonable. That same Scot saying "and therefore we must subdivide England and insist that England has regional governments sized roughly one Scotland" is not.
To me the ex-pat is someone who likes the landscape/weather of a place but thinks it would be improved by being socially and culturally more like their home. The immigrant sets up a restaurant to share their cuisine with the locals; the ex-pat sets one up to cater to other ex-pats. I think all of us who migrate exist on a continuum between the two, and I hope to be more toward the immigrant than the ex-pat end.
Were I to suggest that those moving to the UK should be immigrants rather than ex-pats, and furthermore that the large number of ex-pats is at least partly a factor in Brexit itself, I’d probably be called a racist.
Mostly you'd be called a liar or an idiot, because your hypothetical claim doesn't bear any relationship to reality.
@Arethosemyfeet That sounds awfully close to a hypothetical personal attack. You are absolutely welcome to express that point of view, but please express it in a way that disagrees or cites a disagreeing source and is not an attack--or hypothetically could be read as one.
I can't believe we're on page 2 of this thread and no-one has mentioned the Davis Downside Dossier yet, compiled by the citizen journalists at Yorkshire Bylines. So far they've identified about 18,000 downsides and fewer than 40 upsides.
Not mentioned so far I think, but rejoining the EU would also require us to join the Euro. We lost that concession when we left. I can’t conceive of us ever getting it back.
Gordon Brown specified a number of economic conditions for joining the Euro. My guess is that they are further away from being met now than they were then. I was a Remainer but was still cautious, for economic reasons, about the consequences of joining the Euro back then.
So I suspect Brexit is irreversible in the sense that we can never go back the the kind of membership we used to have.
I think leaving the EU was both politically and economically disastrous for us and the damage is now irreversible.
I was chatting to a regular customer yesterday, and he was complaining about how much more difficult it was to go abroad these days. I distinctly remember a conversation I had with him just before the Brexit vote, where he said it wouldn't make a difference to travel across Europe, and that the customs people would "just turn a blind eye" for British trucks. I remember asking him why they would do that (and did he know just how many trucks were involved? It's not just the odd one or two!). He had no good answer, and seemed to think that Britain could survive on basically smuggling goods in and out!
So I had no sympathy whatsoever for his travel woes.
I think it would be more of a commitment to work towards joining the Euro, rather than it being automatic. Certainly, the proposals for Scottish Independence being produced by the SNP/SGP at the moment include Scotland joining the other nations of Europe, but also setting up a Scottish Pound as an independent currency from the UK Pound (one of the points at which Unionists undermined Independence in 2014 was that retaining the UK Pound was economically infeasible). There's no suggestion from the EU that those proposals are incorrect and that setting up a Scottish currency would be incompatible with joining the EU. There are several countries in the EU that retain their own currency.
Though I agree that going back to the arrangements the UK had in 2015 would be impossible, the various opt outs and concessions the UK government had negotiated over the years will not be reproduced, adopting the Euro doesn't appear to be an essential requirement of EU membership. But, I also recognise that joining the EU is in the national interest, even with that being on different terms to when the UK left. The damage done, both to our economy and international reputation, will take a long time to repair, far longer than the few short years it took to wreck things, but much of it is fixable given time and a bit of effort. It's far easier to break something than it is to fix it.
We have a general election in a few weeks, and we certainly should be pressing candidates on their opinions on Europe, how they would propose closer relationships with other nations in Europe and the EU, and how they will be working over the next 5 years to prepare for the UK joining the EU at the soonest opportunity. One advantage (the only advantage) of Farage standing is that it's put Brexit back on the political agenda, highlighting the democratically deficient decision by the UK government to leave the EU and the disastrous impacts of that decision on the UK.
I think the conditions for a newly independent Scotland to join the EU would be rather different to the conditions for reentry for the UK as a whole.
Sitting in here on the other side of La Manche (sorry, can't resist giving it its French name in this context), ISTM that discussions of Brexit in the UK often rather assume that reentry into the EU is something under the UK's control. It isn't, and grasping this fact strikes me as very important. If ever the UK is reintegrate the bloc, this will be entirely within the EU's gift. By and large I think the EU has moved on from Brexit, and I just don't see any appetite for readmitting the UK over here, especially given the way the exit negotations were conducted.
That's why I think the Labour party are right to talk about improving relationships with Europe rather than trying to rejoin. I can't see any realistic prospect of the UK being allowed to rejoin any time in the near or medium term, and politicians shouldn't promise to do things there's no real possibility of them being able to deliver on.
I can't see any realistic prospect of the UK being allowed to rejoin any time in the near or medium term, and politicians shouldn't promise to do things there's no real possibility of them being able to deliver on.
Leaving an independent or otherwise Scotland to one side, my own prediction is that *when* the UK rejoins, it will be a Conservative government that does it.
Draw your own conclusions as to how far in the future that puts it…
I think the conditions for a newly independent Scotland to join the EU would be rather different to the conditions for reentry for the UK as a whole.
Sitting in here on the other side of La Manche (sorry, can't resist giving it its French name in this context), ISTM that discussions of Brexit in the UK often rather assume that reentry into the EU is something under the UK's control. It isn't, and grasping this fact strikes me as very important. If ever the UK is reintegrate the bloc, this will be entirely within the EU's gift. By and large I think the EU has moved on from Brexit, and I just don't see any appetite for readmitting the UK over here, especially given the way the exit negotations were conducted.
That's why I think the Labour party are right to talk about improving relationships with Europe rather than trying to rejoin. I can't see any realistic prospect of the UK being allowed to rejoin any time in the near or medium term, and politicians shouldn't promise to do things there's no real possibility of them being able to deliver on.
This. I'd love to see us back in the EU, as if the Brexit lunacy was all a bad dream, but it won't happen in my lifetime. I gave up looking out for my Unicorn some years ago...
I was chatting to a regular customer yesterday, and he was complaining about how much more difficult it was to go abroad these days. I distinctly remember a conversation I had with him just before the Brexit vote, where he said it wouldn't make a difference to travel across Europe, and that the customs people would "just turn a blind eye" for British trucks. I remember asking him why they would do that (and did he know just how many trucks were involved? It's not just the odd one or two!). He had no good answer, and seemed to think that Britain could survive on basically smuggling goods in and out!
So I had no sympathy whatsoever for his travel woes.
A couple from Our Place, despite being LibDems, and active in the local party, voted Leave, and yes, they, too, have complained about how much more difficult it is to travel abroad. Like you, I have no sympathy with them whatsoever.
Am I right in thinking that at the time of the referendum only the LibDems were sympathetic to a Remain position?
No, all the main parties (officially, the tories were very split, Labour less so) favoured Remain, and Labour, Lib dem and SNP voters decisively supported that choice. Tory and UKIP voters went at least as decisively the other way.
This unity in mainstream politics allowed Leave to play up a sort of anti-establishment persona, despite being run by private school boys and backed by the super rich and much of the media.
By and large I think the EU has moved on from Brexit, and I just don't see any appetite for readmitting the UK over here, especially given the way the exit negotations were conducted.
The EU (indeed, any vaguely similar organization) doesn't work if countries can just opt in and out as their particular whims take them. Any such organization requires an element of trust and shared commitment to a common future. Until Brexit, I don't think anyone in the EU really imagined that Article 50 would ever get invoked.
But then nobody (including me) really thought that any government would be foolish enough to apply Chekhov's Rule* to real life...
As I understand it, joining the Euro is a condition of membership for prospective new members. And I agree with la vie en rouge: there is absolutely no way we will be readmitted to the EU in the near future, certainly not on the same terms as 2015. Closer cooperation on defence and security and (hopefully) rejoining the customs union and single market is the best we can hope for.
*If you have a gun on stage, it must be used before the end of the play
My prediction is that by 2040 the EU will have either fully federated or spun apart. Either way the UK will be better off out of it in the long run.
I think both of the first two things are moderately likely, but the last is very unlikely. There are very few circumstances in the UK will be better off in 2040 by having lower economic growth between now and then - the strength of your economy is directly correlated with the options you have.
Economic strength is not the only measure by which “being better off” can be measured.
But as I said earlier, from where I'm sitting I don't think the EU is remotely interested in revisiting Brexit any time soon.
British politicians who talk about rejoining remind me of someone still begging their ex to take them back long after they've already married someone else and had a couple of children with them. You can add to this analogy that it was the UK who asked for a divorce in the first place.
The problem will always be that only a slight majority of the people of the UK allowed to vote in a deeply flawed referendum voted for the divorce.
When people fall for a scam and send their life savings to someone claiming to be a Nigerian prince no one would object to the police and banks doing their best to identify the criminal and recover at least some of what they had stolen. I'd hope that there'd be a similar view to those of us who have had our future stolen from us by a group of grifters who have been living the high life on the profits of their lies and manipulation and false promises.
My prediction is that by 2040 the EU will have either fully federated or spun apart. Either way the UK will be better off out of it in the long run.
I think both of the first two things are moderately likely, but the last is very unlikely. There are very few circumstances in the UK will be better off in 2040 by having lower economic growth between now and then - the strength of your economy is directly correlated with the options you have.
Economic strength is not the only measure by which “being better off” can be measured.
Of course it isn't, but what you are suggesting can't be measured either, it's just a very vague ('in the long run') claim of doom sometime in the future, against which the future state of Britain will be somehow 'better'.
I'm simply pointing out that richer countries are generally better able to cope with crises that poorer ones, because they have more surplus resources that they direct towards crisis management. Of course, this also relies on good governance, and a country intent on removing external checks and balances is probably going to fail on that measure too.
When people fall for a scam and send their life savings to someone claiming to be a Nigerian prince no one would object to the police and banks doing their best to identify the criminal and recover at least some of what they had stolen.
Whereas if you fall for a fairly standard advertising campaign, and buy some expensive thing you don't need because the advert told you it would change your life, then caveat emptor.
Where you draw the line between legitimate but misguided political opinion and advertising vs fraud is not obvious. I will note that the current state of law in the UK is that electoral law doesn’t require claims in political campaigns to be truthful or factually accurate. Unlike the Crown Prince of Nigeria and the millions that he inexplicably needs to funnel through your bank account, political parties promising you rainbows and unicorns isn't against the law, and the recourse is to have a different political campaign stand up and make the opposing point.
Certainly, it's a problem for the UK. For a start, it's a problem with our constitution largely based on precedent and convention but allowing an unconventional and unprecedented glorified opinion poll to dictate a major policy decision against the wishes of the electorate a year before who had rejected the parties advocating leaving the EU.
It won't be an issue for the EU until some point after the UK sorts things out and common sense returns, which I fear won't be a feature of the incoming government. It will be an issue for the EU when the UK seeks to move closer to the rest of Europe - even if short of EU membership, there'll need to be renegotiation of the current deal if the UK seeks to join the single market and customs union, or even to re-enter the arrangements that allow sending asylum seekers to other nations in Europe (which is, I think, a potential part of Labour manifesto). While the UK remains under the shadow of the stupidity of Brexit any dealings with the UK will be an issue for the EU, though probably no more than dealing with other nations.
My prediction is that by 2040 the EU will have either fully federated or spun apart. Either way the UK will be better off out of it in the long run.
I think both of the first two things are moderately likely, but the last is very unlikely. There are very few circumstances in the UK will be better off in 2040 by having lower economic growth between now and then - the strength of your economy is directly correlated with the options you have.
Economic strength is not the only measure by which “being better off” can be measured.
Indeed not. I think the economic downside of Brexit, while significant, is the least of the problems with it. The major problems are to do with geopolitics and identity. We are now locked for the foreseeable future into a position where Britain tends to perceive itself as other than the EU rather than part of the EU, seeing it largely as a rival and competitor - and a powerful one at that - rather than as a bunch of generally friendly peers. Even if one embraced a nationalist perspective this is pragmatically a bad thing - one big aim of historical British foreign policy was to avoid uniting Continental Europe against us.
But there is no point moaning about it, really. As @la vie en rouge says I can't see the EU admitting us even if we wanted to rejoin! Best to make the best of a bad job and try to do as well as possible outside the EU, which is the essential condition for a decent relationship with the EU, minimising envy and resentment as much as possible.
But there is no point moaning about it, really. As @la vie en rouge says I can't see the EU admitting us even if we wanted to rejoin! Best to make the best of a bad job and try to do as well as possible outside the EU
To question it isn't necessarily 'moaning about it'. Those who wanted to leave need to clearly articulate what it is - exactly - that they envisage. Until they are forced to do so, they'll have a permanent policy veto by being able to pose an imagined ideal against reality.
which is the essential condition for a decent relationship with the EU
The people who pushed for Brexit, and those who ended up on top as a result have long fostered an adversarial relationship with the EU, precisely because it's instrumentally useful to their cause, which is why, again, they need to be forced to state what they view as the end state.
The French have form for this sort of thing. When France withdrew from NATO and gave US forces notice to quit French soil the US Secretary of State (Dean Rusk) asked if that included the ones in the war cemeteries…
Although, when I was in the forces in the 2000s we had to show passports when we entered France (nowhere else in the EU) so it’s not a Brexit thing at all, it’s a French thing…
Comments
Agree with all of that, but is there a qualitative difference if you’d moved from Norwich to Northallerton (hypothetically) rather than Norwich to Nairn or Neath?
I moved from Somerset to Norfolk, then to Lancashire, Yorkshire and Lancashire again prior to moving to Scotland. Whether I'd have noticed less difference if I had moved to, say, Dunfermline rather than the Hebrides I couldn't say, but I think the difference would be there nonetheless.
My prediction is that by 2040 the EU will have either fully federated or spun apart. Either way the UK will be better off out of it in the long run.
Feel free to hold me to that if I’m still on this forum (if it still exists) by then.
Were I to suggest that those moving to the UK should be immigrants rather than ex-pats, and furthermore that the large number of ex-pats is at least partly a factor in Brexit itself, I’d probably be called a racist.
What is so frustrating is living through a rerun of the 20s and 30s and so many people *again* thinking jumping straight to isolationism and xenophobia is the solution just like it wasn’t last time. Does nobody read a bloody history book ?
I think both of the first two things are moderately likely, but the last is very unlikely. There are very few circumstances in the UK will be better off in 2040 by having lower economic growth between now and then - the strength of your economy is directly correlated with the options you have.
That's not what I meant. A Scot wanting devolution or independence for Scotland is entirely reasonable. That same Scot saying "and therefore we must subdivide England and insist that England has regional governments sized roughly one Scotland" is not.
Mostly you'd be called a liar or an idiot, because your hypothetical claim doesn't bear any relationship to reality.
The idea that I have more in common with Jacob Rees-Mogg than with a European mainland worker is laughable.
https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/regular-features/the-davis-downside-dossier/
Gordon Brown specified a number of economic conditions for joining the Euro. My guess is that they are further away from being met now than they were then. I was a Remainer but was still cautious, for economic reasons, about the consequences of joining the Euro back then.
So I suspect Brexit is irreversible in the sense that we can never go back the the kind of membership we used to have.
I think leaving the EU was both politically and economically disastrous for us and the damage is now irreversible.
So I had no sympathy whatsoever for his travel woes.
Though I agree that going back to the arrangements the UK had in 2015 would be impossible, the various opt outs and concessions the UK government had negotiated over the years will not be reproduced, adopting the Euro doesn't appear to be an essential requirement of EU membership. But, I also recognise that joining the EU is in the national interest, even with that being on different terms to when the UK left. The damage done, both to our economy and international reputation, will take a long time to repair, far longer than the few short years it took to wreck things, but much of it is fixable given time and a bit of effort. It's far easier to break something than it is to fix it.
We have a general election in a few weeks, and we certainly should be pressing candidates on their opinions on Europe, how they would propose closer relationships with other nations in Europe and the EU, and how they will be working over the next 5 years to prepare for the UK joining the EU at the soonest opportunity. One advantage (the only advantage) of Farage standing is that it's put Brexit back on the political agenda, highlighting the democratically deficient decision by the UK government to leave the EU and the disastrous impacts of that decision on the UK.
Sitting in here on the other side of La Manche (sorry, can't resist giving it its French name in this context), ISTM that discussions of Brexit in the UK often rather assume that reentry into the EU is something under the UK's control. It isn't, and grasping this fact strikes me as very important. If ever the UK is reintegrate the bloc, this will be entirely within the EU's gift. By and large I think the EU has moved on from Brexit, and I just don't see any appetite for readmitting the UK over here, especially given the way the exit negotations were conducted.
That's why I think the Labour party are right to talk about improving relationships with Europe rather than trying to rejoin. I can't see any realistic prospect of the UK being allowed to rejoin any time in the near or medium term, and politicians shouldn't promise to do things there's no real possibility of them being able to deliver on.
Leaving an independent or otherwise Scotland to one side, my own prediction is that *when* the UK rejoins, it will be a Conservative government that does it.
Draw your own conclusions as to how far in the future that puts it…
This. I'd love to see us back in the EU, as if the Brexit lunacy was all a bad dream, but it won't happen in my lifetime. I gave up looking out for my Unicorn some years ago...
A couple from Our Place, despite being LibDems, and active in the local party, voted Leave, and yes, they, too, have complained about how much more difficult it is to travel abroad. Like you, I have no sympathy with them whatsoever.
No, all the main parties (officially, the tories were very split, Labour less so) favoured Remain, and Labour, Lib dem and SNP voters decisively supported that choice. Tory and UKIP voters went at least as decisively the other way.
This unity in mainstream politics allowed Leave to play up a sort of anti-establishment persona, despite being run by private school boys and backed by the super rich and much of the media.
The EU (indeed, any vaguely similar organization) doesn't work if countries can just opt in and out as their particular whims take them. Any such organization requires an element of trust and shared commitment to a common future. Until Brexit, I don't think anyone in the EU really imagined that Article 50 would ever get invoked.
As I understand it, joining the Euro is a condition of membership for prospective new members. And I agree with la vie en rouge: there is absolutely no way we will be readmitted to the EU in the near future, certainly not on the same terms as 2015. Closer cooperation on defence and security and (hopefully) rejoining the customs union and single market is the best we can hope for.
*If you have a gun on stage, it must be used before the end of the play
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jun/05/uk-clothing-sales-eu-crash-brexit-red-tape-deters-exporters
Economic strength is not the only measure by which “being better off” can be measured.
But as I said earlier, from where I'm sitting I don't think the EU is remotely interested in revisiting Brexit any time soon.
British politicians who talk about rejoining remind me of someone still begging their ex to take them back long after they've already married someone else and had a couple of children with them. You can add to this analogy that it was the UK who asked for a divorce in the first place.
When people fall for a scam and send their life savings to someone claiming to be a Nigerian prince no one would object to the police and banks doing their best to identify the criminal and recover at least some of what they had stolen. I'd hope that there'd be a similar view to those of us who have had our future stolen from us by a group of grifters who have been living the high life on the profits of their lies and manipulation and false promises.
Of course it isn't, but what you are suggesting can't be measured either, it's just a very vague ('in the long run') claim of doom sometime in the future, against which the future state of Britain will be somehow 'better'.
I'm simply pointing out that richer countries are generally better able to cope with crises that poorer ones, because they have more surplus resources that they direct towards crisis management. Of course, this also relies on good governance, and a country intent on removing external checks and balances is probably going to fail on that measure too.
Whereas if you fall for a fairly standard advertising campaign, and buy some expensive thing you don't need because the advert told you it would change your life, then caveat emptor.
Where you draw the line between legitimate but misguided political opinion and advertising vs fraud is not obvious. I will note that the current state of law in the UK is that electoral law doesn’t require claims in political campaigns to be truthful or factually accurate. Unlike the Crown Prince of Nigeria and the millions that he inexplicably needs to funnel through your bank account, political parties promising you rainbows and unicorns isn't against the law, and the recourse is to have a different political campaign stand up and make the opposing point.
That's the UK's problem, certainly. Unfortunately my point is that I'm not at all convinced that it's the EU's problem.
It won't be an issue for the EU until some point after the UK sorts things out and common sense returns, which I fear won't be a feature of the incoming government. It will be an issue for the EU when the UK seeks to move closer to the rest of Europe - even if short of EU membership, there'll need to be renegotiation of the current deal if the UK seeks to join the single market and customs union, or even to re-enter the arrangements that allow sending asylum seekers to other nations in Europe (which is, I think, a potential part of Labour manifesto). While the UK remains under the shadow of the stupidity of Brexit any dealings with the UK will be an issue for the EU, though probably no more than dealing with other nations.
Indeed not. I think the economic downside of Brexit, while significant, is the least of the problems with it. The major problems are to do with geopolitics and identity. We are now locked for the foreseeable future into a position where Britain tends to perceive itself as other than the EU rather than part of the EU, seeing it largely as a rival and competitor - and a powerful one at that - rather than as a bunch of generally friendly peers. Even if one embraced a nationalist perspective this is pragmatically a bad thing - one big aim of historical British foreign policy was to avoid uniting Continental Europe against us.
To question it isn't necessarily 'moaning about it'. Those who wanted to leave need to clearly articulate what it is - exactly - that they envisage. Until they are forced to do so, they'll have a permanent policy veto by being able to pose an imagined ideal against reality.
The people who pushed for Brexit, and those who ended up on top as a result have long fostered an adversarial relationship with the EU, precisely because it's instrumentally useful to their cause, which is why, again, they need to be forced to state what they view as the end state.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/06/british-paratroopers-landing-in-france-for-d-day-event-told-to-show-passports
You couldn't make it up.
🤣
That's pretty funny, right there.
The French have form for this sort of thing. When France withdrew from NATO and gave US forces notice to quit French soil the US Secretary of State (Dean Rusk) asked if that included the ones in the war cemeteries…
Although, when I was in the forces in the 2000s we had to show passports when we entered France (nowhere else in the EU) so it’s not a Brexit thing at all, it’s a French thing…