Brexit about to be triggered?

Poles faces post-Brexit Europe with confusion and fear.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poles, who have settled in large numbers in Britain in recent years, expressed confusion and apprehension as Britain formally triggered the process to leave the European Union. They rue being cut off from Europe's most attractive job market, while some even fear that weakened European unity leaves them more vulnerable to a belligerent Russia.

March 30, 2017

"It makes me very sad," said Anna Koziolek, 51, a Warsaw airport employee who traveled to Britain to visit friends on Wednesday, the day that Britain officially launched the exit process. Brexit means "a closed path to a better life," she said before boarding. "It will be harder to travel to work there. Everything will be harder. Finding work will be harder. What we earn here is not enough for a decent life. We need to work abroad."

Seeing her off at the airport was her husband, Adam Koziolek, 53, who also worries that Poland "will be poorer" because the EU will lose the financial support of a rich Western contributor. Those EU subsidies have fueled dramatic economic development in Poland in recent years.

To be sure, some people in the proud Central European nation sympathize with Britain's decision to restore greater national sovereignty, a priority for Poland's own nationalist government. But it appears that most Poles have little to celebrate. After decades behind the Iron Curtain, they eagerly seized the chance to emigrate for work or study when they joined the bloc in 2004. No country drew more Poles than the U.K., which beckoned with jobs aplenty and much higher wages than most could ever dream of earning at home. Young Poles often speak English and also adapt quickly to life in Britain.

Experts estimate that there are anywhere from 850,000 to somewhere over 1 million Poles living in Britain — people who have built families, homes and new lives and feel little desire to return home. Many of their relatives back in Poland have also come to depend on financial help sent from abroad.

"I think that current levels of uncertainty and anxiety connected to this are very high, much higher than even the biggest pessimists could have expected," said Jacek Kucharczyk, the director of the Institute of Public Affairs, a think tank in Warsaw. "This is related to the fact that the British government treats EU citizens, including Poles, as a bargaining card in the negotiations with the EU."

Prime Minister Theresa May rebuffed pressures in Britain to guarantee before negotiations that all EU citizens could remain. Until those negotiations are concluded — the target is 2019 — no doors will be closed to citizens of other EU countries. But after that?

Amid the uncertainty, officials from De Montefort University in Leicester were in Warsaw on Wednesday to reassure upcoming Polish students that the university will continue to welcome them despite Brexit, making available the same loans, grants and fee levels as before.

"I have basically been reassuring them that our country is still open for business," the university's vice-chancellor, Dominic Shellard, told The Associated Press after delivering that message to dozens of young Poles who will begin attending the school in the fall.

Students interviewed by the AP said that message of openness made them feel welcome — in contrast to the punch in the gut they felt when Britain voted last year to leave the EU. "Many of our classmates came to school crying," said Malgorzata Swiderska, an 18-year-old from Lodz, recalling that day in late June. She said they feared they would never be able to study in Britain and felt "unwanted."

Another student, Wojciech Choinski, also 18 and from Lodz, said the prospect of Brexit actually gave him greater impetus to study there. "This thought at the back of my head — that this opportunity can be lost in two years' time — it pushed me toward my goals to study in the U.K., to visit this country that I've always wanted to visit," Choinski said. "That just really gave me the kick to go there."

To be sure, some people in the proud Central European nation sympathize with Britain's decision to restore greater national sovereignty, a priority for Poland's own nationalist government.

IMO, it's not actually entirely good that young people should be drained out of other countries to supply the UK with cheap labour - one of the many reasons I dislike globalism so much.

But how can May guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the UK, when no such guarantee has been forthcoming for ex-pats in the EU?

That's what negotiations are all about....

Typical Remoaning propaganda:

http://news.sky.com/story/great-repeal-bill-could-see-these-10-eu-laws-abolished-10817936


European Commission rules, introduced in 2013, demand vacuum cleaners make efficient use of electricity and the EU is threatening to extend those rules to kettles, hair dryers, toasters and other household items. Once out of the EU, Parliament can decide whether the British should once again be able to buy inefficient electrical goods

Excuse me, but it's the EU mandated junk that is inefficient, as they take far longer to do their job.....

All that inefficient use of power will mean higher bills, so many Britons, especially those on lower incomes, will be glad the UK government will be able to remove VAT from gas and electricity bills, but environmental campaigners may object that it is not green.

B*gger 'environmental campaigners', when they start paying people's bills, then their views might count for something.

Though I doubt it, after the way the Greens betrayed their supporters in Scotland this week.

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Theresa May will now begin to take back control of an estimated 19,000 EU laws https://bloom.bg/2niMPKl

19,000. Just stop and think about that for a minute - the bloated monster a simple trading bloc turned into meddled in every aspect of people's lives.

The puffed up seekers of power in action.

They're going to have a whole new problem when the UK finally leaves, Lily. We are the second-biggest contributor to the Bank of Juncker, and I doubt if Merkel is looking forward to explaining to her public why Germany is now going to have to foot the bill for just about everything.

Oh, and handing Erdogan a weapon with which to blackmail the EU wasn't exactly the act of a political genius, either.

https://order-order.com/2017/03/30/polish-mp-complains-jean-claude-druncker/

No.  Not Juncker...... 

This may help explain the complete and utter shambles Sturgeon and co have created in only a few years. The old guard of the SNP won't support her, former moderates won't support her - she's down to Europhiles supporting her because it suits their bank balance, and the face-painting Free Sh*t Army.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/brian-wilson-permanent-cacophony-of-grievance-from-snp-1-4408359

Brian Wilson: Permanent cacophony of grievance from SNP

Of course an independent Scotland could prosper - if Singapore and Switzerland were used as role models. Instead, Sturgeon is using Venezuela as her economic role model.

Or Scotland could thrive holding the same place in the UK as Bavaria does in Germany, but she won't even try to make devolution work. Too busy whinging about Toaries!


A lot of people can see this ending with Holyrood being shut down.

PS - pay no attention to the online polls. As with the McCann-haters, orders go round the face-painting sites to spam these and repeat-vote.

EU draft guidelines soften line on future UK relationship

BRUSSELS (AP) March 31, 2017 — The European Union softened its public stance on Britain's exit from the bloc Friday, with Council President Donald Tusk signaling some flexibility on allowing talks on a new relationship before the divorce proceedings are complete.

Draft guidelines obtained by the Associated Press say that the EU and Britain must first "settle the disentanglement" of Britain from the bloc but added that "an overall understanding on the framework for the future relationship could be identified during the second phase of the negotiations under Article 50."

The guidelines also say it is a priority to settle questions about British and other European citizens living in each other's countries, and call for "flexible and imaginative solutions" for the issue of the U.K.'s land border with Ireland.

EU leaders warned after a meeting Friday that the two years of talks triggered this week to negotiate Britain's exit will be difficult — but insisted they don't want all-out economic or diplomatic conflict. Tusk is presenting the EU's draft negotiating guidelines to leaders of the remaining 27 member states Friday.

Tusk said the EU will not punish Britain in the talks, saying that Brexit itself is "punitive enough." The head of the rotating EU presidency, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, insisted the negotiations "will not be a war."

Tusk said there would not be parallel discussions about Britain's exit and its future relationship with the EU, but said that the negotiations could move onto a second phase if there is "sufficient progress" in the exit talks.

He didn't define what kind of progress that would have to be, but said that the 27 remaining EU members would have to agree before moving on. Tusk ruled out the suggestion that there was an inherent threat in British Prime Minister Theresa May's departure letter Wednesday, which some felt hinted that Britain was threatening to end security cooperation with continental Europe unless it gets a good Brexit deal.

"I know Theresa May well enough and I know her approach to this issue. This is why I rule out this kind of interpretation ... that security cooperation is used as a bargaining chip. It must be a misunderstanding," Tusk said.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson also insisted Friday that Britain's commitment to European defense and security is "unconditional" and "not some bargaining chip in any negotiations" over Brexit.

Johnson, speaking in Brussels upon arrival for a NATO meeting, said he has had good feedback from partners since Wednesday's British formal announcement of its departure from the EU, despite worries on both sides of the Channel about Brexit.

"We really are moving forward now. There's a lot of good will, willingness to achieve what the Prime Minister has said she wants to achieve," he said. The British government triggered the EU exit process Wednesday with May's letter to the EU and began outlining Thursday how it intends to convert thousands of EU rules into British laws in a Great Repeal Bill.

Thanks, LL.

My personal view is that there is way too much money involved in this for it NOT to be sorted out amicably. Of course there will be growling from various sides initially, and special interest groups will try to exploit it for their own ends, but that's the way diplomacy works.

In the end, all sides will make concessions - remember the old saying about how you don't make peace with your friends?

Future of Gibraltar to be set by UK-Spain talks

BRUSSELS (AP) — The EU's roadmap on Brexit negotiations leaves the U.K. and Spain to discuss what agreements will apply to Gibraltar, a British overseas territory on the edge of Spain that Spain has wanted back since it ceded it more than three centuries ago.

This could force a dialogue on Gibraltar in which Madrid could have the upper hand. Still, the Spanish government has said it will ensure an open border for European workers that are key to both Gibraltar and the neighboring area in southern Spain.

Gibraltar has a population of 32,000 and about 96 percent of its residents voted to remain in the EU last year. Spanish minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo says "this is an important point in the future negotiations of the United Kingdom's exit from the EU."

Scotland's Nicola Sturgeon formally requests referendum

LONDON (AP) — Scotland's first minister formally requested a second referendum on independence on Friday, declaring that Scots have the right to exercise their right of self-determination. Nicola Sturgeon sent U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May a letter formally requesting the transfer of powers to allow a second vote. Sturgeon argued that Britain's planned exit from the European Union's single market is an outcome that will have significant implications on Scotland, which voted in favor of remaining in the EU.

"In these very changed circumstances, the people of Scotland must have the right to choose our own future — in short, to exercise our right of self-determination," Sturgeon wrote. The letter followed a 69-59 vote in the Scottish Parliament this week in favor of asking for an independence referendum. The Scots want the vote to take place between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

Britain's government has said it will deny the request. May has made clear she does not believe it is the time for another vote. Scottish voters rejected independence in a 2014 referendum that Sturgeon's Scottish National Party called a once-in-a-generation vote. But Sturgeon says Brexit has altered conditions dramatically.

May's Downing Street office confirmed that the letter had been received. It said it would respond in due course. Sturgeon said there appeared to be "no rational reason" to deny a vote. "It is my firm view that the mandate of the Scottish Parliament must be respected and progressed," she wrote. "The question is not if, but how."

"I hope that will be by constructive discussion between our governments." Sturgeon continued. "However, if that is not yet possible, I will set out to the Scottish Parliament the steps I intend to take to ensure that progress is made towards a referendum."

Some 62 percent of Scottish voters were in favor of remaining in the EU in last June's plebiscite.

That lunatic woman doesn't seem to know, or care, about the sheer rage that is building up here. She's acting like a tinpot dictator, screaming about Toaries! and Referendums! constantly to distract from the mess she and her incompetent MPs and MSPs are causing.



Mine's just as bad. After all his big talk pre-election about the wondrous things he would do for the constituency, the only time anyone sees him is on telly, when he's strutting around Europe pretending to be a diplomat, like some mini-Kissinger with a tartan bow.

They're just awful, and if you aren't in Scotland, it's impossible to comprehend just how useless and dishonest they are - they bear NO resemblance to previous generations of SNP people.

Some 62 percent of Scottish voters were in favor of remaining in the EU in last June's plebiscite.

No, they weren't - the turnout was appallingly low. That is a percentage of those that could actually be bothered to go and vote.

The Scots want the vote to take place between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

No, 'the Scots' don't - the SNP does. Sturgeon lost her majority last year.

https://youtu.be/DYL2YaurOjA

Sturgeon supporters outside Holyrood earlier this week.

Oh FFS!



That should be a rousing success, as she's done nothing but insult the President for months now, and tried to ban him from Scotland - despite his crucial role in keeping Prestwick Spaceport afloat, and all those people he employs at his golf resort.

But hey, she's going to sign a meaningless bit of paper with Governor Moonbeam, doubtless involving bird-mincers aka windfarms.

Why not, there's nothing Krankie needs to attend to at home, like the collapsing health system, chaotic, failing schools, policing disasters, monumental debt, that sort of boring stuff.....

She'll get her photie took in the US, and the US progressives will say how wonderful she is.

Meanwhile, at home....



http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/786777/snp-twitter-pornography-complaints-paul-wright-council-election-candidate#gig_comment_id=4eeb46323490412790630614c3da6647

MSP accused of ignoring complaints about ‘sickening’ porn posts by SNP’s candidate

Quote:

Mr Wright’s user name on Twitter is Paula Honey Rose and until recently he boasted on his profile that he had been described as a “known rabid vitriolic nationalist”.

He is also the organiser of the Be More Brechin pro-independence group and a veteran member of City of Brechin and District community council.

His Twitter account has 2,500 followers, including politicians from all parties such as Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson and the SNP's chief whip at Westminster and Angus MP Mike Weir.

However, many of his followers are local people who simply want to keep up to date with events in and around Brechin.

The two offensive photos were posted during a heated argument with other Twitter users shortly before Christmas, apparently in an attempt to smear one particular individual.

Anyone still wondering why the old guard of the SNP is fleeing, screaming in horror at what it has turned into?

https://stephendaisley.com/2017/04/01/whatever-the-question-sturgeons-answer-will-always-be-independence/

Quote:

Police Scotland has a projected deficit of £47 million and the Scottish Government is pressing ahead with its latest nationalist vanity project — scrapping the British Transport Police against the vocal opposition of everyone involved. The SNP can’t get cancer patients seen on time but it certainly springs to action when there’s another chance to score the word ‘British’ out of public life in Scotland.
All this and the Scottish Parliament hasn’t passed a single bill other than the budget in over a year. Only the SNP could do nothing and still make things worse.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4372666/Fallon-vows-defend-Gibraltar-way.html


Warning Theresa May 'would go to war' to defend Gibraltar as Defence Secretary Michael Fallon vows to 'protect' its sovereignty 'all the way'
Fabian Picardo said he was working closely with Theresa May over Brexit
Spain was handed an effective veto over the entire Brexit deal by the EU Council
Claim No 10 refused Gibraltan demands for a specific mention in Article 50 letter
Defence Secretary said Gibraltar would be protected 'all the way' from Spain

Oh good. Will we be singeing the King of Spain's beard again?

How about a compromise? Spain gets Gibraltar, Morocco gets back Ceuta and Melilla, both seized by Spain in the 15th and 17th century. No? Well, there you go .... LL

Quite, LL.

And Russia should get Alaska back, the Hawaiian royal family should get their island back - oh, and the whole Louisiana Purchase should be scrapped.

It's ridiculous - I believe Gibraltar has actually been British longer than it was Spanish? I take it Spain wishes to distract from their ongoing domestic problems by sabre-rattling?

Gibraltar became part of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania following the collapse of the Roman Empire and came under Muslim Moorish rule in 711 AD. It was permanently settled for the first time by the Moors and was renamed Jebel Tariq – the Mount of Tariq, later corrupted into Gibraltar. The Christian Crown of Castile annexed it in 1309, lost it again to the Moors in 1333 and finally regained it in 1462. Gibraltar became part of the unified Kingdom of Spain and remained under Spanish rule until 1704. It was captured during the War of the Spanish Succession by an Anglo-Dutch fleet in the name of Charles VI of Austria, the Habsburg contender to the Spanish throne. At the war's end, Spain ceded the territory to Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713.

Looks like it went back and forth for some time. LL