Leave or Remain?

Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Son of Romanian immigrants joins exit campaign.


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ATJ

ATJ

Well-Known Forumite
I would love, love it, if this stupid country joined the rest of Europe in going fully metric. It is beyond my comprehension how this country helped invent the metric system, was one of the first to start implementing it, but somehow it's become a symbol of evil Europe. Yards! farking yards!
 
Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I am fairly bilingual in these matters and I come across lots of people of the "we love our Imperial measure and hate this foreign metric muck" type.

I always ask them how many feet there are in a mile - nobody has ever answered it straight off. They also struggle with yards, furlongs, etc, and frequently look very blank at mention of chains.
 
ATJ

ATJ

Well-Known Forumite
For a fully metric industry, engineers sure do love using chainage instead of metres. Don't get me started on the ones that still use inches.
 
Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
From the Inches or centimetres thread.

http://www.staffordforum.com/xf/index.php?threads/inches-or-centimetres.8663/

Gramaisc said:
I once had a conversation along the lines of 'They should wait until all the old people are dead' - he had complained that he didn't know what a kilogram was - I asked him when he last bought a two-pound bag of sugar -'This week', he said - 'No, you didn't' - 'Yes, I did' - I then gently explained that he had been buying his sugar in kilograms since 1968 - and he still didn't know what one was.
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Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I have spent a large part of this afternoon trying to explain to somebody that holds a UK passport what the difference is between The United Kingdom and Great Britain, terms which she uses interchangeably- she will not have it that it is the UK that is a member of the EU, not GB, which is merely a (large) part of the UK. She used to actually work for the EU (she says, though it scares me if she did). She is adamant that it is GB that is the member state and that the UK isn't a member - this confusion is not helped by having GB plates on NI cars and GB being the UK's Olympic team name, I suppose. When I queried whether NI is in the EU, I was told that it is, but, only because it is part of GB, which it clearly isn't - my assertion that GB is merely the name of the largest of the British Isles was completely disbelieved.

She seems to be unaware that the real name of her country is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - even when pointed out, that didn't seem to shake her faith in her own illogicality.

I asked her if she knew what the question in the referendum would use - UK or GB? I got no answer, but it is, of course, UK.


The question will be...

"Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

She disputed my point that Thatcher actually campaigned to stay in at the first referendum - which she has no memory of and doesn't really believe me about, I think - on the basis that Thatcher "didn't arrive until 1979, it must have been Heath". I avoided any mention of school milk, as I was getting tired by this stage,


I despair more every day.

She will have a vote - my Hungarian friend, who has lived here since 1956, knows what the UK is and paid more tax than she ever will, will not.
 
A

andy w

Well-Known Forumite
John Marwood said:
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Or alternatively Labour could pick a leader that could be considered as the next Prime Minister, have a coherent economic policy (not that hard considering Osborne's House of Debt), stop resembling a students debating society and show that they want to be the next government.
What depresses me is that there is a resignation that we will have a perpetual Tory government and that we can't be trusted to run our own affairs and need the EU to over see us.
 
Withnail

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
If we are to have a 'perpetual Tory government', then we will need all the outside help we can get. If it is to be one 'trusted to run our own affairs', i don't see how that help could be effectual.

I'm just not prepared to give them that much power, and would take the oversight of the EU as a price worth paying to avoid it.
 
A

andy w

Well-Known Forumite
And then give the likes of Merkel carte blanche to do shoddy deals with Turkey to try and stop the migrant crisis.
Yes we may have little influence on Westminster but even less on the direction that the Euro leaders are taking the EU. Time to Leave.
 
Withnail

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
But Merkel and the 'migrant crisis' are issues of today. What matters is not just today, but tomorrow too.

What part a fragmented and un-U'ed E would play in such a tomorrow can easily be seen when you look at what happened yesterday.
 
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