Freggyragh

I agree that there is a democratic deficit here. If we were ever to be invaded it would likely be Ireland or Norway, either of which would quite frankly be an upgrade 🤣, but that's not going to happen. We are stuck with the UK as our defence partner, and chip in because the UK's foreign interests align with our own. If people disagree, then it needs to be debated. The UK has behaved very badly in many parts of the world, not least in its colonies. It also played an excellent role in defeating Hitler, and is doing its fair share against the Russia-Iran axis. On the whole, I consider the UK & NATO to be the good guys, but why they are lining up to back Israel's behaviour in Gaza, I do not know. Tynwald voted to not endorse the Gulf War, not that it made a jot of difference. Tynwald should also vote on current foreign policy, because if they come looking to enlist our children without ever discussing these wars, people will be very angry indeed.

Laurence is a fully elite toff. Couple of million kid on a frivolous legal case? Dad'll cover that one.

After the Act of Union 1801 Westminster did a genocide in Ireland, then kept the six industrialised counties of Ireland when they got booted out of the rest in 1921. The unionists said that 'Home Rule' would lead to 'Home Ruin', which seemed obvious since the new country had no industry, relied on the UK for trade and had literally been starving within living memory. Westminster tried prove the point by slapping 20% tariffs on goods from Éire from 1932 to 1938, whilst subsidising the sectarian statelet in the north. Under British rule the sectarian statelet deteriorated into a dysfunctional festering mess with community relations and a civil rights record Franco would have been ashamed of. It didn't have a sitting assembly from 1972 - 98, 2002-2007, 2017-2020, & 2222-2024. Look up the RHI Scandal to get a handle on the type of misrule the unionists have perpetrated for years. Frankly, to think the continued misrule of the six occupied counties within its own dysfunctional statelet would be good for anyone is ridiculous.

I suppose one good thing to come out of brexit is that the inevitable unification of Ireland has taken a massive step forward.

I'm against the death penalty. I do believe that many crimes deserve death, or worse, but I'm against the death penalty because: 1. The state should not have the power to kill its citizens. 2. The legal system favours the rich. 3. Juries will sometimes acquit if they know the sentence is death. 4. How many innocent Irish, black and other minority people would the UK have executed in the last century because of bad policing and societal prejudice. 5. What if embezzlement, such as stealing from a post office, was punishable by death? The perfect justice system just does not exist. 6. Start down the slope and you'll find the worst political commentators demanding the sentence be applicable to more types of crimes with fewer appeals as has happened in China. 7. Start down the slope and you'll find 'hanging's not good enough for them', you'll find bodged lethal injections, mobile death vans, nitrogen gassings, or prolonged mental torture — where death row lasts years with the false hope of a pardon dangling before the prisoner, or the no-appeal — you'll learn the appointed day of execution on the morning of the day itself approach favoured in the Far East. 8. There is no deterrent. In fact, the state is saying that violence is an acceptable way to deal with your problems, and some countries with the death penalty have very high murder rates.

P.K., you constantly conflate 'racist' with 'anti-immigration' — but in parts of England that have seen a lot of immigration and very little spending on infrastructure, housing and public services, immigration is understandably seen as undesirable — and statistics on the beneficial effect of immigration are just not obvious to people who can no longer see a dentist. Tice and Farage are obviously charlatans, but they are exploiting feelings born out of experience. Of course, it is stupid to hate the people moving to your town who are often coming to provide the services you lack, but I think it is a more general ignorance than pure racism that is to blame.

I stand corrected — except that the point is the same, which is also the point you make. Exchange rates are not reliable indicators of economic performance.

Currency rates do fluctuate, but they fluctuate according factors such as interest rates, levels of inward investment, money supply, inflation, balance of trade, and investor confidence. When the Pound was at €1.57 in 2015 the UK base rate was 3.5%, while the ECB's was 0.5%. When the pound was even stronger in 2000 the UK rate was 6%, while the ECB's was 4.2%. The difference now is that the UK's base interest rate is higher than the ECB's, but the pound has mot recovered, maybe because UK inflation is higher. The value of your currency is a poor gauge of the state of your economy — the chancellor may want a weaker pound as a means of stimulating exports. Investing in currencies is fun, but unpredictable.

Of course the side desperate for any kind of deal has to accept the terms dictated by the stronger side. Signing deals like that just make mountains of red tape now for UK producers to prove country of origin when exporting to other markets. All this nonsense is about political careers — nothing to do with the real needs of the country.

You see, you don't seem to understand that treaties are laws. Laws that cover a lot more than tariff arrangements. Now the UK is out, if it wants to the influence the terms of trade set by its largest trading partner it has to negotiate as third country, and the terms of a third country are never going to be as good as the terms of a member — as the steel industry could explain to you, if you were prepared to listen.

The problem is with the English. They haven't come to terms with losing the Empire. It seems they think they can go back to days when they could dictate trade terms to the colonies and by representing one of the largest markets on the planet, have the upper-hand in deals with the rest of the world. It's fucking delusional.

Every trade deal on the planet has rules on subsidies. If the UK ever wants to trade freely with the US or UK again it will have to make agreements on all sorts of things, including subsidies, environmental and worker protections. Pretending that you can do away with standards and bi-lateral agreements and still trade freely because 'sovrunty' is what got the UK into this stupid mess.

Sweden, Finland, Poland & the Baltics are most hawkish. For historical reasons they fear and distrust Russia the most. The Brits, Irish, French, Spanish, Dutch, Belgians, — I think they would fight to defend a rules based Europe. The further south and the further east you go, the less enthusiasm you'll find amongst the general public for resisting Russia. Bulgarians and Serbs in particular see Russians as their historical allies, even if their governments know which side their bread is buttered on. Germany is a very pacifist country, in polls, only a small minority of Germans say they would fight to defend their country. They're apparently quite happy to let others do that for them, but they will stump up the cash. On the other hand, Hungary and Slovakia have Putin-friendly governments and many countries have well-funded far-left or far-right Putin friendly parties.

Don't forget, most of the EU wanted to keep out cheap Chinese & Russian coal-produced steel when it was being dumped on the world market during the steel glut that became acute from 2015. However, whilst Trump was slapping 25% on steel imports, the UK as a rule maker prevented Europe from raising the steel tariff above 9%. (You'll remember the tories under Cameron were very keen on doing business with the CCP). One result of the failure to protect the steel industry was that British Steel couldn't make any money to upgrade its plant, went bust, and the Chinese Jingye Group took it over in March 2022. The larger steel operations at Port Talbot had already been sold to Tata back in 2007. The Jingye Group only paid £24M for British Steel, made a £140M loss in its first year, but is chasing £300M in subsidies from the UK Gov to upgrade the Scunthorpe plant to EAF (that would make their products easier to export to the EU). So, the UK's steel industry is in the hands of Indian and Chinese companies, and if it is to survive, based as it is in a third country, those companies will need eye-watering investment from the UK.

I'm appalled by this attitude that thousands of people losing their livelihoods and Britain losing its steel industry was somehow inevitable. It was not. Choosing to be treated as a third country and therefore subject to EU carbon taxes was A CHOICE. I know people based their choices on a range of dumb notions and feelings from xenophobia, trusting Boris Johnson in the NHS, nostalgia for tungsten lightbulbs, navy blue passports or bendy bananas, or whatever, but even the redest-faced flag-shagger now knows it was a vote to be much poorer country, to lose influence and become a rule taker, not a rule maker. The only benefits were for the charlatans that sold the idea, and, of course, Vladimir Putin.

Britain does need a steel industry. It doesn't need one of world's largest like it did when it led the world in making cars, ships, trains and bikes, but it does need it. The main reason it can't have what it needs is brexit.

His mother's first language was Scottish Gaelic. She was born Màiri Anna Nic Leòid and grew up near Stornoway in Lewis. She was Presbyterian . His father, who was arrested at a KKK rally in 1927, was born to Lutheran German immigrants. His wives, Ivana, Marla & Melania, Czech, American & Slovenian respectively, have all been Christian. Trump is not Jewish.

Some data: UK steel production per year: 1970 (peak) 28M tonnes 1974 23M tonnes 1979 22M tonnes Thatcher elected 1984 15M tonnes 1988 — British Steel privatised 1989 15M tonnes 1992 — Maastricht Treaty 1994 17M tonnes GATT Uruguay round - hugely reduced tariffs on imported steel from third countries 1999 16M tonnes — British Steel merger with Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus. 2004 14M tonnes 2007 — Corus sold to Tata Steel 2008 — banking crisis 2009 10M tonnes 2014 12M tonnes 2016 brexit vote, Longbridge MG factory closes — 7M tonnes 2017 brexit chaos — 7M tonnes 2018 — Trump tariff (25% on steel), brexit chaos — 7M tonnes 2019 brexit chaos — 7M tonnes 2020 brexit chaos, covid — 7M tonnes December 2020 brexit withdrawal 'deal' 2021 covid chaos — 7M tonnes Honda Swindon closes 2022 — 6M tonnes, Trump tariff lifted 2023 — production figures unavailable. September 2023 — Initially as a response to the Trump tariff, and conscious that 10% of carbon emissions globally are due to steel production, the EU began moving to a carbon based tariff system (the carbon border adjustment mechanism) that will progressively protect EU steel producers from imports from third countries like China that burn carbon fuels to produce steel, as EU countries move to electric arc (EAF) production (but are protected from having to do so immediately). As a third country with only 19% of its steel produced by EAF the UK is fucked, as 37% of its export steel trade is with the EU. British Steel and Tata Steel begged the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero to align energy costs in the UK with the EU and make an emergency trade agreement with the EU to allow them to ease into the transition to EAF. Brexit headbangers could not bring themselves to 'align' themselves with the EU in any way, or negotiate a new trade deal for steel. Instead, Sunak gave a £500M grant to Tata Steel and offered £300M to the Chinese owned British Steel to transition to EAF. January 2023 — Although we still live in a world where everything is either made of steel or made by steel, and steel production is therefore strategically vital to both the economy and security of the UK, we have a situation where: — The UK's steel plants are owned by companies based in BRICS countries. — The British taxpayer is funding the l transition to EAF. — To ensure exports to the EU can recover, the EAF transition will happen all in one go (if it actually happens at all) and in the meantime 10s of thousands of jobs will go. But of course, this has nothing at all to do with brexit.

Oh, and there's mote brexit misery coming soon:

Britain needs a steel industry — not just because the tories promised 'levelling up' for the regions that produce and an infrastructure & building boom, but also because it is crucial to defence and soon Britain will be the only G20 country without one. Trump got the ball rolling by slapping tariffs on imports. The EU responded by putting tariffs on imports according to the carbon costs of production — as a third country subject to tariffs Britain just cannot compete on the world market — well, not without new green tech, but they've negotiated themselves out of the two biggest markets that might have offered a safety-net during transition. So brexiters are happy just to write off the British steel industry as a loss that was just bound to happen, nothing to do with having the worst trading position in the world this side of Serbia. Right.

I wonder how Brexiters are going to spin the collapse of the British steel industry away from Brexit. 37% of British steel is exported to the EU, but as a third country it will be subject to the EU coming carbon tax from 2026), which will make sales to the EU just about unviable. Brexit ideologues have so far refused to reach any agreement that looks like 'convergence' with the EU's net zero policy, so Britain once again we find can't have nice things, like a steel industry.

Thing is, not many were rich 40 years ago, and we were ruled by knobs, but it was better then than it is now. We had better swimming pools, a cleaner environment, quieter roads, much better food, and the best nightlife in Europe. Someone pointed out to me many years ago that [progress] does not = [happy capitalist], progress equals = [happy people]. Politicians should be looking at how to make this Island happier for the people who live here, not how they can best exploit it and hawk it off.