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So why promise something that no one could deliver?

Re: Brexit Discussion (New thread-Follow First Post Rules!)
 

I don’t recall any “promises” being made. I saw “suggestions”.

Re: Brexit Discussion (New thread-Follow First Post Rules!)
 

Why suggest things that no one could deliver?

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That’s a false narrative. They can be delivered. We leave on WTO terms, don’t give them the 40 Billion quid, no deal is better than a bad deal, May’s deal is a bad deal.

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If we don’t fulfil our part in previously agreed treaties, why would anyone enter into new treaties with us?

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But what about future trade deals which will also require regulatory standards changing, impositions on our own laws and extranational judication on disputes? May's deal is just a matter of degrees further on a trade deal but then the EU is by far our biggest trading partner and the biggest economic block in the World.


That's because they quit. David Davies was Brexit Secretary, Boris Johnson was Foreign Secretary, Liam Fox is international trade Secretary. There were a few others but not in Brexit related roles (i.e Priti Patel as International Trade Secretary).

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Er no, they were not in government in 2016, I did say that in that post.

They cannot quit a position they were never in just after the Brexit vote.

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You are correct. We did have holidays. New Years Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Spring Holiday, Summer Holiday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

A whopping 7 of them. May day was added after we joined.

It was only in the mid 1990's that the right to paid holidays was introduced. Originally at 20 including the above public holidays, and then in the early 2000s changed to 28 including public holidays.

Until the Social directive of 20 days, there was no right to paid holidays other than the 8 public holidays. The Labour opposition at the time in the early 90s actually objected to its introduction although it was one of the first acts of the Tony Blair Government to introduce.

So, shall be now talk about the right to be sacked if a woman was pregnant which was only abolished after we joined as well?

Lots of the things we now take for granted were only introduced as a result of the EC. And why some people think it is ok to force people to work for more than 48 hours per week is beyond me.

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Sigh - all them laws will be protected once we leave - they will not be changed, we do not need to be stuck in a corrupt institution to be protected by laws we will already have.

That said - Some people WANT to work 48 hours a week, which is why they can tell their employer to waive the Working Time Directive on this issue.

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You are confusing the codification of pretty well everything which the EU likes to do with the way we used to work, which was simply by making rules where they were needed (by statute), and common law. We may not have had an actual statute about minimum holiday entitlements, but then again, how wohld any company recruit if it didn't offer paid holidays?

My father worked as a toolmaker, a milkman and a bus driver in his time and always received paid holidays.

By the way, you talk about people being forced to work more than 48 hours per week as if the Working Time Directive has stopped such practices. Are you aware of the number of hours per week doctors have been working since the Directive was implemented in the UK?

The fact is, the partially effective Directive seeks to control how many hours you can work on a voluntary basis as well. The 'opt out' was a hard won concession to Britain, but the EU never liked that and would seek to get rid of it at every opportunity. People should be free to work however many hours they goddam liked. By preventing that, some people on low wages with big commitments and were working the number of hours they were to survive suddenly had their lucrative overtime payments reduced, which put them in an impossible position.

You can try to paint this vaneer of respectability on the huge wealth of regulation the EU have created, but in the end it restricts our ability to compete and aims at exerting more and more control over how we live our lives. We simply don't need this.

---------- Post added at 09:30 ---------- Previous post was at 09:26 ----------

I let this go at the time, but having now seen the interview, I don't know how you can say that. She answered every question, and anything she did not say was due to continuing interruptions by Andrew Marr, who seems to prefer asking questions and not waiting to hear the answers unless it looks like the politician may have to admit something embarrassing. Then he frolicks in the squirming.

There was no squirming in this interview, so I think Theresa May won that contest.

---------- Post added at 09:31 ---------- Previous post was at 09:30 ----------

Agreed, Mick.

---------- Post added at 09:44 ---------- Previous post was at 09:31 ----------

I have some sympathy with that, because the referendum decision was to leave the EU. WTO rules would apply to all trade with other nations except where trade deals could be done, and much was made about forging new trade deals.

As far as the EU is concerned, I look at our negotiations as being just one of those trade deals. It should not tie us to the EU, but it should aim at achieving smoother trading relationships than we would get without such a deal.

I am looking at the progress on this very carefully because anything that smacks of drawing us back in needs to be resisted.

TM says there will be no free movement, we'll be outside the jurisdiction of the EU and out of the single market and customs union, CAP, Common Fisheries Policy, etc. To me, so far so good. But there is much in the White Paper that needs clarifying and I wait to see what is negotiated before passing judgement on that.

If the EU won't accept this limit on how far we are prepared to go, we need to walk away, we get WTO and Brexiteers will be happy. If she's criticised for that, at least she would be able to say that she tried, and everyone will be able to see that she did.

If they do accept, then most of our existing trade with the EU will be protected and we are out of the EU, free to forge our own trade deals. By the way, there is no reason why TM needs to accept a deal that restricts our ability to trade elsewhere. For me, that is a step too far.

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Fake News. From the official Leave campaign web site:

http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/...g_newdeal.html

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I stand by my post - we fall on WTO terms.

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You are wrong on every count. The fact is many employers like to pay the bare minimum - whilst unemployment is low, competition for employees is only at one end of the spectrum; the low paid, low skilled jobs employers do not really care about employee attrition - they will always find someone to do the job until they can find something better. By the end of next year 12% of all employees will be paid the National Minimum Wage/National Living Wage. There is no competition for the low end spectrum and employers will try and get away with what they can - and they do. Look at how many get caught trying to get away with it. The last report from HMRC had over 800 employers on it - and they are the ones that were caught and reported.

It is the EU directive that has protected British workers, without it we would still be in the 90's of 7 days holiday and the rest by negotiation. You may be capable of expressing yourself, many aren't.

I think you ought to take a read of the WTD. If you had you know that Doctors and other emergency services are not covered by it.

Germany is one of the most regulated employment law countries in the world. It seems it is hard to go to the toilet without having to go through a works council. Their laws would send JRM into a permanent state of corma if they were to come in this country. Yet they don't seem to have any problems with competitiveness, with low wages, etc etc - and they are now allowed to work more than 35 hours per week, not 48 hours!

By the way, the bit about people losing their overtime etc is rubbish. The number that it affected was actually tiny. So small in fact that at the time they could not produce any figures to show.

So, show me one single EU regulation that has restricted "our ability to compete and aims at exerting more and more control over how we live our lives."

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Ninth resignation over Theresa May's Brexit plan

https://news.sky.com/story/live-nint...-plan-11438505

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There can't be many chairs left now on the sinking ship..