Re: Brexit discussion
 

I've been on 'the continent' for over a week and spoke to few locals and watched a few news programmes. Not once has 'Brexit' been mentioned, it seems to be a total irrelevance. The only ones obsessed are sunburnt irate British, whining from behind their tabloids on sunloungers they haven't moved from ! Just thought it interesting that we seem to overestimate own importance.

Re: Brexit discussion
 

why bother coming back if you love it so much

Re: Brexit discussion
 

Obviously because he lives here , his family lives here and he works here..;)

Re: Brexit discussion
 

Maybe because it's affects our our country more than theirs? so it will be a political sore point for most that live here?

Just saying :erm:

Re: Brexit discussion
 

poor excuse .

Re: Brexit discussion
 

Not a excuse but a fact even though it might not be to your liking..

Re: Brexit discussion
 

Apologies, poor wording on my part, I was asking how the EU was ineffective, not the UK. I think we are agreed that the UK intelligence systems are pretty good and membership of the ‘five eyes’ agreement certainly helps us and our allies. But to say the EU is ineffective is not backed up by the number of arrests, the number of convictions and the conviction rate as shown the Europol report I linked to.

Re: Brexit discussion
 

Old Boy has failed to support his moaning with any facts as the evidence contradicts his assertions.

Re: Brexit discussion
 

I had in mind the failure of the European countries to track suspected or known terrorists as they moved from country to country. I don't know what 'facts' you are alluding to. Europe relies heavily on our intelligence and expertise in this field.

Re: Brexit discussion
 

I don't think anyone is disagreeing here that the UK is a leader in intelligence gathering and analysis. The UK has also led initiatives on intelligence sharing across the EU. However, to say that other intelligence agencies in Europe are ineffective doesn't seem to be supported by any evidence that I can find.

Again, the Europol document I linked to shows the levels of arrests and successful convictions by country across the EU. I would like to know what percentage are due to UK intelligence gathering

Re: Brexit discussion
 

I think what your trying to say is the EU is a nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to stay in it ;)

Re: Brexit discussion
 

It's the ones they miss you want to worry about :erm:

Re: Brexit discussion
 

I shouldn't laugh but :D

Re: Brexit discussion
 

Very true, but we are heading in the right direction at least. The numbers of arrests are going up (1002 in 2016 vs. 776 in 2014) while the number of attacks is going down (226 in 2014 vs. 142 in 2016. Only 47% of planned attacks were successful which is an OKish result. The other 53% were failed or foiled.

I had a look at some the data in that Europol report to see if we can get any 'bang for the buck' information. I looked at the number of arrests and divided that number by the number of attacks.

Ireland and Austria stood out with plenty of arrests and and attacks. In countries were there were attacks, these are the number of arrests per attack;

UK - 2 (not reported)
France - 20 (Not reported)
Belgium - 16 (92%)
Spain - 12 (85%)
Netherlands - 45 (93%)
Germany - 7 (not reported)
Italy - 2 (55%)
Greece - 3 (Not reported)

The figures in brackets are the conviction rates. Well done the Netherlands!

Re: Brexit discussion
 

l am perfectly happy here in dear old Blighty and as for visiting abroad well lets just say it would cost more then a arm and a leg..:)