Brexit may kill off the European Superstate dream of the EU perhaps?

Is the end of the EU in sight?

Democracy, what democracy?

The United Kingdom's democratic vote to leave the EU in 2016 seemed to show an indication of what the British public desired - separation from the European super state.

That this vote result was almost trashed by some who decided that their point of view counted more than the citizen, showed a degree of arrogance and an affront to democracy.

When you hold an election, the winner is the winner, yet with Brexit, it seemed there were some who could not accept democracy.

Freedom, perhaps?

So the questions I have for Remainers are easy to answer, but what do they see in the EU that blinkers them to the obvious?

1. Is it common sense to throw back fish because a quota has been reached?

2. So when more fish are inadvertently landed, that the process happens again and tons of perfectly edible food are junked because of this stupid edict? what is the sense here?

3. What do you get for paying the EU around £53 million a week? A free no passport travel situation. And not much else.

4. Are nation states not grown up enough to be able to make their own laws, set their own tax rates and manage their own affairs? Or does the EU just treat them as imbeciles and take their money for the privilege of telling them what to do?

5. How much money does the EU rake in from its member states?

6. Where and how is it spent?

Maybe that's the rub... And when I put these questions to apparently brainwashed Europhiles, they have no real answers. Especially about the money.

Follow the money. 

I wonder why we aren't allowed to see audited accounts from the EU? 

When you see a label 'funded by the EU' that's because the money we pay comes back and we largely 'pay' for the funding that the EU so generously gives out.

The audacity of leaving

There was much publicity given to the fact that the UK would be punished for having the audacity and temerity to leave the EU, so, that threat does nothing for the EU. In fact it shows that there is desperation in the EU to resort to threats of future trade and negotiations in order to scare and cajole, well it didn't work and it won't.

Well, in my view, if that is their pattern of behaviour then perhaps others will adopt the same stance as the UK and leave. 

We stood alone in 1940, we traded outside of the EU before 1973 and we have been very successful too.

The problem is its about the money.

When Britain leaves the EU on January 31st, the money should stop, future demands for divorce bills of £39 billion should be ignored.

That means the UK can disregard being told where and how much to spend on foreign aid and perhaps start spending that money at home on things like dementia care, potholes in the roads (which we surely pay for in vehicle excise duty?), the NHS and many other situations in the UK.

But that's the rub.... it means that EU nations, many already in or teetering into recession will have to make up the UK's contributions. 

The EU Tsunami

Its a perfect storm potentially coming for the EU, in that the UK can pursue trade deals elsewhere it pleases, if the EU plays bully boy, the UK can walk away and embrace a potentially amazing trade deal with the US. 

If the UK stops buying EU goods, the EU is going to start collapsing and that's before the other member states decide to vote and possibly vote to leave the EU.

Look to your history books

All the previous attempts to 'unite' and make a European super state, from Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler have all failed. The EU will too.

Brexit and guitars - buy now if you can!

Thinking of buying a guitar? It may be prudent not to delay

Whatever your standpoint on the In / Out argument over Britain's membership of the EU, two things are happening, Sterling has weakened and other currencies have not, causing UK citizens' buying power to decrease.

When Brexit was announced, we should have immediately started to talk whilst at the same time started drawing up the deal we wanted. It needed business people to do this
 
In 2015, the Dollar started to gain ground against Sterling, the world is geared  to the Dollar price for commerce and as a result, its value started a climb as Sterling weakened. Suddenly, we in Britain were getting less for our Pound. 

For those of us in the music industry or players, we saw the sale ticket prices of instrument start to climb. It has always been unfair that in the US you can pay a lot less for a musical instrument, yet over here, the same instrument is or was about half as expensive again in real terms.

With new models out on the market, Britain is now paying out more than before, so the answer is if you can, buy now. The good news for the second hand market is your used instrument is now worth more and is a more attractive buy than a new one.

A well looked after and best condition guitar retailing at £1700 secondhand is going to be a better buy than the same or near same at £3600 new, the value almost having gone up by half on the new price from some that were £2800 a year or two back. The reality is that many shops now get guitars with big ticket prices in to order. 

The future may hold a better deal, but not for a while. If the UK can get the best of both worlds and cash in on the rich Dollar market so we don't have to pay over the odds for USA goods, then we will be ok.

The EU has to have the UK buying its goods, if we didn't it would be in trouble. The fact we are getting out means that our membership fees will have to be picked up by the other remaining countries many of which can't afford what they already pay now.

The EU could likely cease to be within a few years perhaps, but meanwhile, be smart with your buying.

Should Foreign aid be dropped? - its time we looked after the UK.

Charity begins at home -

We should start spending at home

We could an awful lot with £12.2 billion -  that's our Foreign aid budget, put that with the £14 billion we will save fron EU donations post Brexit and that's a lot of money we can spend at home, in the UK.

They say charity begins at home and the time has now come to shut  our foreign aid budget down and start spending the money in the UK.

We have faced years of cuts to services  in the UK, yet at the same juncture, we are sending money to oil rich countries like Bahrain, how mad is that?

We give to countries that have space programs - why?

If they can afford this they don't need our money

If a country has a space program then they don't need our aid, yet thanks to external directives issued beyond our shores, we seem obliged to give where it is not needed.

We give aid to China -

This is madness!

Yes, you couldn't make it up, we give foreign aid to the second wealthiest nation in the world - China.

Africa should by now after trillions of dollars of aid be at a level of development equal to modern European nations. Yet we keep tipping buckets of the stuff out, unaccountable 'gifts' which are not administered, allow rife corruption, which seems to be the norm.

Giving to help with incidents is one thing, but we now need to put the UK first if we want a secure future.

Post Brexit result jobs market is better - for a number of reasons

The EU is now facing a collapse of the 'Project' post UK voting to leave

Some months after 'Project Fear' failed to stop the rout, Britain is leaving the EU building, albeit slowly. So has Britain collapsed? Far from it.

Although a lot of speculative bidding was done on the eve of the Brexit vote, those that anticipated a remain, sadly lost a lot more than their shirts when the vote went against them.

But far from gloom and disaster predictions, Britain has not crashed and burned, au contraire, countries are queueing up to negotiate trading deals. So the scaremongering didn't work. Thank goodness.

In the months that followed the leave vote, there has been a shift in the jobs market, more opportunities and why is that?

Partly to do with immigration falling. The future of unlimited it seems immigration is over, there is no automatic right to remain for outside visitors and migrants have been making renewed efforts to get into Britain from the European continent.

What Britain needs is an Australian style points system, so that we can choose who we allow in to the country. We don't need any more Mullahs spouting hate or terrorists so that is one demographic sector or two we can get rid of from our list of people.

Seriously though, the drop in migrants many who come here for agricultural work is down to the advances in Robotic Machinery. These new advances displace human labour, they are able to work for longer and even identify produce at the peak time for picking.

The new interest in Britain has also started to come through into orders from companies to British manufacturing firms which is welcome.

Over the next 10 years 9 million people's jobs will be displaced by robotics and automation, the problem will be how to fix that gap. And how to pay the displaced. That's easy, a basic income guarantee (BIG) is the answer and is cheaper than the current employment model.