Lazy Lady

Immigration and deportation?
I just bet the conversation about this is going to be civilized, with neither side branding the other "racist nazi" or "terrorist-supporter".
/sarcasm

@DarkMage7280 Too late! The racist nazis already started!

@AlephFIN Racist Nazi terrorist supporter!

@leoleosuper
you forgot to add hippie and commie

Wonder if there'll be a comic about Trump bringing peace to Korea. Little rocket man couldn't handle the pressure, which is not surprising in the slightest really.

Like it or not, it worked

@Finn123 yeah, do it yourself... then u read it for yourself... Kim and trump are your role models.. No wonder your hate speechs come from..
Edit: fin123 is the racist... In the bottom this comment about immigrant he said nasty thing #9745729 he is the one who dissapointed to see black peoples in paris and mexican in texas not asian tourist..

@Zuperkrunch Kim is a retarded commie fatass and Trump is the factual cause of the progression in Korean peace, like it or not. What kind of nonsense have you gotten in your head again?

"Hate speech" LOL what. Wow, just wow.

@Finn123 oh.. Where are your hate speech comments? Alredy deleted by moderator coz it's to racist? Lol

@Zuperkrunch
No, cos I've not made any "hate speech". Sorry to ask, but have you been diagnosed with any mental disabilities? It'd certainly seem so.

@Finn123 sorry u must be ask that question to your self first? Lol...

@Finn123 I'm just gonna bud in on this little "debate". It's not a good idea to accuse someone of having a mental disability. It makes you seem immature, that's what middle schoolers do a lot! (No offense intended)

@MB-Bergholtz
Thanks for the concern
Responding to this boot to begin with was already immature. There's often some disagreements, provocation and back and forth jokes and stabs in these comments, which I don't usually mind but some people are just... wow.

Besides, it was a question and her comments in this comic and in general are genuinely making me wonder...

PS: You don't need any disclaimers or apologies with me, I'm not gonna get offended by any of this.

@Finn123 That's good to know. I try and settle disputes anywhere, even if there isn't a real dispute to be settled.

@MB-Bergholtz :Throwing around crap put-downs like "hate speech" (whatever that means in the real world?) isn't terribly mature either.

@Finn123 "I've not made any "hate speech"..."
That's bullshit. There's no way that you have *no* hate speech with over 60,000 comments.

@Ziebenhaub_the_Texan
What can I say, I watch what I say to abide the rules. You should watch what you say too, not fling out stupid accusations.

And again the vast majority of that was quick chatting on the community side of this site.

@Finn123 Then why does your original post have 11 downvotes?

@Ziebenhaub_the_Texan Because of bunch of uppity leftists and sjws disliked it? It's not a mystery, silly boy. Though I did expect equally many people to see the humor in it, not this time I guess.

@Finn123

What you posted wasn't humor - it was just right-wing hate.
That's why it's been deleted by the moderators now and most people disliked it before it was.

Life lesson from this:

It dosen't matter if you call your hate humor - it's still not funny or popular with most people.

@Finn123 I meant 7 downvotes. It was another one that had 11.

@Ziebenhaub_the_Texan
"That's bullshit. There's no way that you have *no* hate speech with over 60,000 comments. "

O.O
Wow... That sentence reveals a hell of a lot more about the one saying it than whom he's saying it to.

@Hinoron Have you seen the kind of comments he posts? Let me find a few examples for you:

Well to be fair the risk of being killed and tortured is higher in some poorer suburbs of Sweden than say Somalia. Especially for Swedish women, so Denmark should place her under protection.

Blacks don't need facepaint in the military to blend into their surroundings.

According to pew research center Sweden could be 30% muslim in 2050, lol.
Sad.
SD 2018 pls remove kebab.

Lots of people these days just running around with figurative needles trying to infect confused teenagers with the gay.

I found all that in just the first 30 comments. Imagine what else he said in the remaining 62,374? And that doesn't even include the ones that the moderators removed.

@Hinoron this is one of fin123 hate speech comment that still not deleted by moderator in the bottom of this comment #9745729 about immigration when he said "he feel sad for asian tourists that come to western europe or usa and are extremely disappointed with Paris being filled with blacks or Houston being full of mexicans with little to no white texans or frenchies in sight." we're asian not racist as he thinks also fin123 is the racist one why he describe asian peoples in his comment as the racist peoples why he didn'tdeclare himself as the racist one, we're asian really don't care about black peoples in paris or mexican in texas, i think every human beeing belongs to anywhere in this world..
a lot of his comment were nasty and already deleted by moderator and i'm not the want who reported his nasty comments.. It's really hard to find and prove it anyways coz it's already deleted

@Finn123 I'd imagine china was probably pressurimg kim along the way since he's a useful tool to keep the US buffered from china's direct border, but the general opinion has never really been with him beyond that. And a tool that starts a nuclear exchange is pretty terrible.

That said, even from what is known it wasn't trump alone that caused things to deescalate. As with anything it's a far larger effort since the presidents power is limited both by his actual being a single person and his powers granted by congress. Both good and bad stuff presidents get handed tends to be only marginally related to them being in office unless they're a political beast who has turned congress into a puppet, which isn't that common. And even then normally a bit of luck doesn't hurt. He was more than willing to throw conflict back and forth with north korea until pressure began dragging him back. Dude tends to do better escalating conflict than de-escalating it. Makes for good reality tv though.

@Soulbourne
Fair points.

Kim seeks to secure his own position. He tries to look big (heh) to fend off enemies but doesn't want war because he knows he'd die and his country would be lost. Trump's too scary for him.
I don't think Trump would start a nuclear war or any war though, he talks big too but he's not going to start anything that'd actually escalate. Even with the regrettable air strike to Syria he warned them in advance and struck targets that didn't really matter to Syria, I think in that case he was trying to show off to the warhawkish democrat & neo-conservative side of US politics.

@Zuperkrunch umm I don’t want to argue, but is that not a photo of a “retarded commie fatass” standing next to trump? The person that could very well be “the factual cause of the progression in Korean peace”? They are Cleary “mates” who knows what they talk about. I’m just not sure how this photo helps your point, it seems to help finn123s point more...

@Innkah

@Zuperkrunch umm yeh #thatstillisntprovingyourpoint

@Innkah thanx

@Zuperkrunch I do love pictures of complete idiots though so THANK YOU

@Finn123 In fact Donald Trump has nothing to do with progress on this issue. The diplomatic relations between North Korea and South Korea are very old, and they have always been there. During the 90s, Bill Clinton wanted to bomb North Korea and who prevented it? South Korea. What is happening now has more to do with the relations of Russia and China with North Korea than with the United States. And at the end of everything, the one that fits the best in all this is North Korea, since it is seen as more sivilized than the bully of the United States.

@Finn123 you’re laughing aren’t you?

@Finn123 More like Rocket Man already has the bombs and missiles he wants, so why not talk? Not only that, so far there's nothing but talk, so while we can hope there will be peace, it's way too early to be talking about it.

@Ernest
Sure, but regardless of if he has any missiles or not, it wouldn't save him in case of war. And he's not dumb enough to launch them first.

@Finn123 I'm not so sure of that, but I think we can trust the people around Trump will keep him from launching first since it takes more than a tweet to launch our missiles.

More seriously, Kim never built those things to launch first, but to ensure he can remain in charge of his regime. Given what happened to Saddam and Qaddafi, Kim's insistence on having a credible deterrent against regime change isn't a particularly crazy thing for him to want.

@Ernest Yeah this sounds a lot like the usual empty North Korean promises and propaganda. I doubt that much will change in the long run but I hope I'm wrong.

'@Rogers'' #9756305' https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/04/09/the-best-deal-trump-can-hope-for-from-north-korea-is-a-flawed-one-heres-why-thats-okay/

@comrade_Comrade The Norks don't need many kilotons or ICBM technology to hold Seoul hostage which should be enough to keep anyone from threatening the Kim dynasty for now and that is all the Little Rocket Man wanted.

'@Rogers' apparently, Trump made it obvious enough that Kim can't nuke or blackmail his way out of economic sanctions, and for stability of Party's rule this is a very important consideration now. It's a game of chicken in which Kim has everything to lose, and Trump at least looks like ending threat of North Korea is greater concern for him than safety of Seoul. Brinksmanship at it's finest.

@comrade_Comrade Economic sanctions never bothered the Party much. China have always made sure North Korea wont collapse. Almost anything to avoid a unified Korea to challenge them and no mass of poor North Koreans into Manchuria.

I think it's all mostly hyperbole anyway. There was never going to be much real trouble. China would never really challenge the USA and vice versa, certainly not over North Korea. The rest of the world don't want a war to disrupt the economy. Trump and Kim got to play big tough heroes for their propaganda. Kim also got bombs and a stronger economy as a bonus. Got to admit though, I'm still glad I don't live within bomb range of those paranoid Norks.

'@Rogers' "Economic sanctions never bothered the Party much."
They do now. China supports those sanctions as well, by the way. It's one of those rare moments when China even voted with US in UN, not abstained or voted against.

@comrade_Comrade I guess I should be a bit less negative. Hopefully the Chinese leaders have finally decided that North Korea are not worth the effort.

'@Rogers' I think celebration is premature, since meetings in Korea are mostly a theater and a setup for Trump's meeting with Kim, but the possibility of extracting lasting concessions from North Korea is there. It would be interesting to see how it plays out.

@comrade_Comrade Now that North Korea have the nuclear deterrent they can afford being generous with lasting concessions. It should be easy to give Trump something he can spin as a major victory to his base. So my guess is that not much will really change.

@Finn123 I very much doubt that Trump has anything to do with it. The most likely explanation from my point of view is that Kim's nuclear weapons program was seriously impacted when the weapons test facility was probably heavily damaged in the last test which may or may not have been a hydrogen bomb. Production of actual nuclear warheads (even if they manage to develop proper delivery systems, i.e. guidance systems for their ballistic missiles) may now be far beyond what North Korea can accomplish in the foreseeable future.
With the nuclear weapons program potentially delayed indefinitely, better international relations may look like the better choice for the continuation of the DPRK and the Kim dynasty.
Of course, due to the nature of both nuclear weapons programs everywhere and North Korea as one of the most secluded countries in the world, I can't actually back this speculation up with any proof but there are certainly indications supporting it.

'@VeryCreativeName'' #9756306' Guidance system for ICBM that should hit the general area of a major city is relatively easy, it's not like North Korea needs a bunker buster warhead with CEP of less than 200 meters. They've already figured out how to control the missile during ascent, so they've solved the most important problem. Failure of test facility kind of implies that they've figured out how to build a thermonuclear bomb as well. Even if best that they can do is a bomb with yield of tens of kilotons, they can still strap it to a land-based tactical ballistic missile, use it as a land mine, demolition charge or deliver it by submarine as either missile, torpedo or sea mine. That will be enough to threaten South Korea and Japan.

But hey, here's an opinion of someone studying North Korea since 1992: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/04/09/the-best-deal-trump-can-hope-for-from-north-korea-is-a-flawed-one-heres-why-thats-okay/

@Finn123 Great if it worked, but both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush claimed to have solved the Korea problem before too. So I'll believe it when it actually happens, until then I'll assume it's probably a ruse by NK to loosen sanctions, just like the other times before.

@Finn123 http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/366/841/78f.png

@Finn123 Yeah. It was totally Trump.

From the other side of the world.

Doing nothing but screeching at him.

@Finn123 The premise does not lead to the claimed conclusion. North-Korea has been under trade embargo and sanctions for quite some time and even with their trade partner China, the lacking access to international trade will start to influence any modern economy eventually. Kim also understands what keeps him in his luxurious life, and he'll uses North-Korean military operations as a form of threat and holding those near North-Korea as a hostage.

Politically, socially and culturally he is a cornered dog ready to fight for their life. So he'll use the opportunity to negotiate and try to save his regime. It is political theater. Trump has had very little influence in any of it, it is the trading partners like China and South-Korea that have been very influencing in this development. Trump is barely a blip on the radar, all he has done is use aggressive language which doesn't do a whole lot to a dictator.

There is an unusually high amount of hatred in the comment section.
Oh well. Humans will be humans.

@Ziebenhaub_the_Texan define "hate"

@yoisi Wiwiwiwiwiwiwiwi Wikipedia!

@yoisi Pretty much everything you have typed so far...

@AlephFIN unpleasant truths is not hate. im sorry that i value facts and logic over people's feelings .

@yoisi There's a little fine line between hate and unpleasant truth. Unfortunately todays society can't distinguish between those two anymore. (I'm saying this in a neutral way.)

@Ziebenhaub_the_Texan Apparently, it's a very polarising topic. Instead of speaking about the fact, that this is the first time the countries actually interact with their citizen, they all got toxic about... What exactly? I have seen rape stories and bias here in the comment section.

Can we please stay funny and non political? The world is crazy enough at the moment. Even North and South Korea are speaking with each other.

@Ziebenhaub_the_Texan Do you realize that not everything that you disagree with is considered 'hate'?

"so the Danish state can't afford to support people who aren't citizens or have no family connections within the country"

Yes they can. They choose not to. 2000 billion DK yearly budget. We can afford whatever we want.

@mowinckel
No, you can't. Your public debt is 163% of your GDP (compared to 98% for the drunken-sailor run US).

@CorruptUser
I was sure I've heard news that the danish public debt were close to no more. Just checked on their national bank and they say it's at 21% of their GDP at the end of year 2017. May I hear your source?

Source: http://www.nationalbanken.dk/da/statsgaeld/statens_gaeld/Sider/Default.aspx

@mowinckel you can but why would you want to? they arent your responsibility. jesus learn to be a little bit selfish from time to time or your altruism will get you destroyed like certain other countries.

She's probably there because there are no swedish maternity wards left.

@Deviant
what's hapenning in swedish maternity wards?

@CuriousC
A lot of young Syrians arrived recently, and as young people that just survived a traumatic event, they have kids. Some Swedes are upset by this.

I haven't seen anything about this in Swedish news yet and it sound very strange as all the Nordic countries are even more highly integrated then the rest of the EU are.
We abolished the need for passports while crossing the borders decades ago and citizens in one of our countries are supposed to be treated just like the citizens in any of the other they chose to live in.

If true, I can only guess this is some badly written law actually intended to target non-Nordic immigrants as Denmark is becoming increasingly hostile to immigration unfortunately.
But in a way it's good that things like these happen as they show people there are plenty of immigrants that aren't dark skinned.

Britain is suffering from the adverse effects of the same kind of policies at the moment too - people who've lived and paid taxes for decades in the country are suddenly being treated like dirt, just because the government was trying to kick out immigrants.

At the same time as the British National Health Service can't attract the nurses and staff it needs from abroad because of Brexit.

All a result of incredibly shortsighted and stupid nationalist policies that only hurt the nations that adopt them.

@Nisse_Hult

"At the same time as the British National Health Service can't attract the nurses and staff it needs from abroad because of Brexit.

All a result of incredibly shortsighted and stupid nationalist policies that only hurt the nations that adopt them. "

Partially correct. The policy is short sighted and stupid but more concerned with economic ideology than nationalism. Basically the government is seeking to divert the people from the real problems of the country, the growing centralisation of wealth and power into a very small number of hands and the resulting inefficiency and growing anger at the suffering caused. Its a revolting scandal and hopefully is nearly over as even this government is being forced to back-track on its abuse of British citizens.

Your wrong to say the problem with getting adequate staff is due to Britexit. Its far more due to chronic and prolonged under-funding, in large part because of that same desire to concentrate power in the small group that basically fund the Conservative party and that business interests can make more money out of the sick if the NHS is degraded or ideally [for them] destroyed totally.

The only factor Britexit is playing is that the contempt shown for EU citizens in Britain by the EU 'negotiators' is making them concerned about their position.

Like others I'm surprised that Denmark is able to do this sort of thing. Its not only immoral but I would have thought the EU and/or ECJ would have jumped on them like a ton of bricks.

@stevep59

Yes, the NHS has certainly been and still is chronically underfunded for decades of mainly right-wing British governments - that's certainly the main reason for the NHS's problem.

Britain certainly has both the wealth and the medical knowledge to operate a first class universal healthcare service if it chose to allocate resources to that end, but that hasn't been a true priority for decades.

Instead many short-sighted cost saving measures intended to finances ever more tax cuts has lead to a situation where the NHS can't attract staff because their wages and working conditions are shit, and too few new nurses and midwifes and doctors and every other type of personal is even being trained in Britain - because few people obviously want to take huge student loans for jobs they know pay shit anyway.
And with working conditions only deteriorating because of understaffing and underfunding, too many of the people with the training to actually do the jobs are also leaving.

Which in turn has lead to a situation where the NHS for years have been forced to rely in part on foreign staff to fill at least some of their many vacancies.

So yes, the very reason the NHS even needs foreign staff to begin with is entirely the fault of Britain's own domestic policies going back decades.

But now the NHS's ability to attract such foreign personal has certainly been dealt a heavy blow by Brexit - there is no doubt about that.

Now I know that you're a pro-Brexiter yourself, and I guess you have a hard time accepting Brexit could in any way be a bad thing - but the hard data is completely obvious on this point.

A record number of foreign medical personnel is leaving Britain and fewer then ever is seeking to come and work in Britain:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/25/brexit-blamed-record-number-eu-nurses-give-up-britain

At the same time as the May-government is following policies that actively bars foreign medical personnel from coming to Britain:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/01/theresa-may-blocking-requests-to-allow-in-more-overseas-doctors-nhs-shortages

Now whether these destructive policies are only a result of right-wing economic ideology and the nationalist element of them is just pandering to the Ukip vote I don't think anyone but May knows for sure.

But I'll note that May's refusal to even allow in highly qualified foreign doctors, desperately needed by the NHS, was defended by her official spokesman by citing the "national interest".

So the official rhetoric coming from the May-government is certainly based on stupid nationalist arguments, anyway.

Regarding "contempt for EU citizens in Britain" (as well as UK citizens in the EU), the only one who's shown that is clearly the May-government.

The EU has, ever since the pro-Brexit camp won the referendum almost two years ago, offered to resolve that issue completely by offering to keep all rights for all UK citizens living in the EU exactly the same as now - even after Britain leaves the EU.
On the condition that Britain offers the same for all EU citizens living in the UK.

This would have resolved the issue completely and left no one in uncertainty as to what the future rules will be - as the rules would stay exactly the same as they are now.

But the May-government flatly refused such an agreement - despite opposition from even it's own back-benchers, business and industry leaders, NGO's and others who have cautioned that refusing to offer certainly to these people are badly hurting Britain's ability to retain and attract foreign talent.

But since Brexit left Britain with a very weak hand in the exit negotiations with the EU, the May-government chose to keep the EU nationals (and conversely the UK nationals in the EU) in limbo to retain them as one of their few bargaining chips in the negotiations:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/04/liam-fox-refuses-to-guarantee-right-of-eu-citizens-to-remain-in-uk

The offer was always there from the EU to resolve the issue by a simple reciprocal agreement - we keep your citizens who wish to remain in the EU if you keep ours that wish to remain in the UK, with the exact same rights as today.

But no, the May-government always rejected that in the hopes of squeezing out further concessions from the EU by in some way linking this issue to some other.

In the end it seems like the May-government has now been forced to concede to the EU's original proposal (possibly gaining some concessions elsewhere, but I've not seen that reported) - but the almost two years of dithering on the issue and the May-governments hostile treatment of other people they suddenly deem to be "foreigners" (see the Windrush Scandal for more on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windrush_scandal) has certainly not improved Britain's reputation on this issue.

Nor does the refusal to this day to accept even highly skilled and desperately needed foreign doctors by citing the "national interest".

So I'll stand by my rejection of "incredibly shortsighted and stupid nationalist policies that only hurt the nations that adopt them" as that's actually the motivation given by the May-government themselves.

But as I noted - that may of course just be pandering to the Ukip vote of stupid nationalists.
May herself may very well be following these policies mainly because of an ideological wish to reform Britain into a neoliberal paradise of low taxes and for-profit healthcare à la the US.

@Nisse_Hult

As you say the main problem is prolonged under-investment in the NHS over decades.

There has been problems with the current government, both in stupid decisions on migrants and also on the weak approach their taken to the EU when the latter's non-negotiators have repeatedly lied and made irresponsible demands.

At heart I'm a believer in a free Britain but the main impulse that has driven me into the camp has been the behaviour of irresponsible idiots such as Tusk and Barnier. Fully agree that May and her mob have been idiots as well but its the former that are the immediate problem. Also that for a long time the Tories have been playing a simplistic 'nationalist'/racist card to divert attention from the results of their policies.

I also stand by my view that the EU mis-leaders have been showing contempt for the people of the EU. The fact they have repeated insisted on deepening hostility between Britain and the EU, with demands for ever increasing subsides, with continued insults and lies and with the clear aim of doing as much damage as they can to the British economy.

This shows a clear contempt for the people of the EU as it will do harm to a lot of them. Especially those inside Britain as their welfare will be directly threatened if they lose their jobs as a result of the economic damage. the EU is seeking to inflict. But also those in businesses who trade with Britain. This is compounded by the point blank refusal to consider a free trade agreement with Britain which would minimise a lot of those problems. It would also remove the EU's insistence that the current open border between Britain and Ireland must end. [I know they have claimed otherwise but it is they who are the barrier to the continuation of the current relationship.] This is likely to be very damaging to the Irish economy, as well as is likely to cause tension which might end up weakening or at worse dooming the Good Friday Agreement.

By all those measures, because their more concerned with posturing and immature demands that only what they want will be discussed, as well as their continuing moving of the goal posts, they have shown contempt for the people their buggering about, whether their EU or UK citizens. We could have an amicable divorce but Tusk and co refuse to consider that in what seems to be largely an infantile tantrum because the people of Britain have made a decision they don't like.

@stevep59

Well, we agree on the main cause of the NHS's problem and the ineptitude of the currant British government.
We also seem to agree on many of your country's previous governments policies have been detrimental to the majority of Britons as well.

I'd also like to point to your mention of the Tories "playing a simplistic 'nationalist'/racist card to divert attention from the results of their policies" - because that exactly what they have been doing for decades regarding the EU.

Blame the "bloody foreigner" for any domestic problem, then travel to Brussels and demand ever increasing concession based on the British publics distrust of the EU, then back to Britain to wrap themselves in the Union Jack and portray themselves as staunch defenders of Britain against the evils of the continent.

The rinse and repeat as soon as they're down in the polls.

And your gutter press has lived in not a small part off printing lies and smears against the rest of Europe in just the same way.

But the thing is of course it's just all been lies.

The EU doesn't rule over Britain, nor any other country in it and Britain has thus never been anything but "free".
You where free to whine incessantly about how badly you where treated while you where a member, you where free to block any number of measures (just like any other country is - only you did so more then most), you where free to throw tantrums and demand special concessions (which you did repeatedly), and despite the baseless claims about some evil EU-tyranny you where always free to leave.

Well now you've elected to do so, and the consequences are becoming clear.

They should have been clear long before of course - because EVERYONE told you EXACTLY what to expect if you did leave - but a small majority of Britons instead chose to believe the Brexiters who promised everything under the sun if people just voted to leave.

Well that won't happen - and you have no one to blame but yourself for believing the lies you where told.

The basic fact is that no matter how unfair some Brexiters may think the EU's stance is, the EU simply CAN'T just let Britain decide her own terms.
That would undermine the entire union - just like you can't decide to stop paying membership fees to the local gym but demand that you still get to decide what part of the service you want to keep using.
NOTHING in the world works like that, so it's obviously ridiculous for millions of Britons to believe it suddenly should, just because the likes of Farage, Gove and Johnson promised them so.

Norway, Switzerland and Canada have all spent years negotiating separate and bespoke deals for themselves where they still have to pay for access to much of the same things EU members are automatically given - and obviously Britain can't be given any preferential treatment compared to them once it leaves.

Why on earth should she? And how on earth could the EU ever defend such a stance against other nations, who would obviously all want to renegotiate their own deals as a result?

I'm sure neither you nor any other Brexiter care one jot about that - but it's always been completely unrealistic from the start to expect the EU to simply roll over and hand Britain everything she ever wanted.
Britain had a much better chance of gaining special consideration while she was an EU-member - and she got it, time and time again!

The problem was that that trick worked so well that expectations only rose in Britain, with the Tories and the gutter press blaming the EU whenever they needed a scapegoat or to sell more copy.

A larger and larger amount of Britons began to believe you where horribly mistreated and where entitled to demand anything from the rest of the continent - just because they'd heard that load of bollocks for decades.
Just like a large amount of Britons believe you will win every World Cup - because obviously the English team is always the best according to the tabloids.

Then Cameron felt lucky after the Scottish referendum and decided to gamble Britain's place in the EU to quiet his own eurosceptic back-benchers and Ukip - expecting remain to win because obviously all sensible Tories knew EU-bashing was good for getting votes, but not actually a sensible policy - right?

Well wrong, because Johnson and Gove decided to break ranks and turn Brexiters.

Still not actually expecting leave to win, but hoping to portray themselves as the gallant fighters for the lost cause when it failed - thus upping their chances in the cut-throat struggle to replace Cameron as Tory leader once he was gone.
You could see it on their chocked faces as the results came in on election night, and how they completely disappeared from public view for 48 hours after the vote.

There was no celebration from them - they just snuck away in the night to figure out what the hell just happened, and how to best deal with the unexpected fall out.
Unlike Farage of course, who was happy as a pig in muck on election night obviously - but then fled the field some days later to ingratiate himself with Trump instead.

But, realizing that the die was cast, Johnson and Gove soon enough got back to their usual backstabbing and scheming - realizing that however bad this would be for Britain, it could still offer their own careers opportunities if they played their cards right.
And none of them will ever pay the price for what they convinced the British public to vote for of course - they'll just keep blaming the EU for not fulfilling all the empty promises they made.

Regarding the EU-representatives you pour so much scorn on - save your breath, because they don't actually decide anything.

It's one of the basic misconceptions of the Brexiters. You may dislike them all you want, but the real power in the EU resides in the national governments representatives as each nation has an effective veto on any major issue.
Barnier and Tusk are only employees carrying out the collective decisions of the member states - they can't decide policy.

Barnier seems to be a bit of a dick in person, as far as I've seen, while Tusk seems perfectly professional to me - but you and other Brexiters still dislike them just because they express the position of the rest of the EU members.
Which are the exact same positions that where made clear to you before the referendum, but you refused to listen to them then.
Because they're still based on the same basic fact that the EU simply CAN'T give Britain everything you where promised by the Brexiters - it's always been a pipe dream.

But it's easier to sell newspapers when you have a familiar face to direct your hate at. Oh if only that evil Barnier would stop being so mean to poor Britain everything could be as wonderful as Farage and the others promised!
Sorry, but it doesn't work like that. If you'd switch Barnier for a Brexiter body-double the EU would still not give you what you want, because it's simply not in the best interest of the other member states to give Britain the preferential treatment she seeks.

I understand full well you won't like reading this and you won't agree of course. But arguing about this now is pointless anyway.

Britain voted to leave and leave she will - but it seems in the most shambolic way possible, unfortunately.

It will be bad for both Britain and the EU, but them are the consequences of democratic elections and once Britain voted they way she did it couldn't end much differently.

@Nisse_Hult

You keep ignoring what I've told you in the past. Or continue to be deluded that the BBC is some rabid right wing propaganda group.

Like the EU you also continue to cherry pick the facts. Yes a lot of Britain's problems have been caused by corrupt and incompetent internal government. However there has been serious problems with the EEC/EU throughout our period inside it in large part due to our different economic and social structure. This has been worsened by the short-sighted incompetence of its leadership since Britain voted to leave.

Its also untrue that national government have vetoes on policy. When it suits the EU, such as providing excuses for Spain to make demands on British territory as a way of increasing pressure for further concessions. There are a fair number of examples of national governments being forced to accept EU demands, even when its not in their interests.

I noticed you didn't reply to the points I made, just instead repeating the spiel of the hard-liner looters. Because you take the fanatics stance that everything the EU does is perfect and correct and everything anyone else do is wrong/evil your unwilling to accept reality.

Yes the Tories have, as so often before, made a shambles of fighting the EU for a balanced deal. However such a fight was necessary because of the infantile stance of the EU non-negotiators. We could have had an amical divorce to the mutual benefit of both sides but their determined on making Britain pay for deciding to leave. Hence the continuing demands for every increasing subsidies and refusal to negotiate the terms for leaving. The Tories as usual have cocked it up totally, not surprising for a party that has a long history of appeasement.

You say you like Tusk. I bet you don't agree with his argument - albeit unintentional - a few months back that there is neither legal or moral reason for Britain to give a penny in subsidy to the EU after next March?

I'll be blunt. If I had been in charge on the British side then one of two things would have happened. Either Britain would have been well on the way to a UDI exit with plans worked out for what was needed to protect Britain as much as possible against the desired trade war the EU is so insistent on or when facing the the result of their intransigence the EU would have started serious negotiations rather than the "we will discuss what we want, when you meet all our demand and possibly discuss other aspects of the leaving conditions if/when it suits us." True that demands a stable and responsible government in Britain, which unfortunately we have lacked for decades but as an idealistic liberal I still like to think that's not impossible.

@stevep59

"Or continue to be deluded that the BBC is some rabid right wing propaganda group."

I don't follow the BBC, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they gave a very UK-centric version of the issues.
The problem is of course, that when British society has been marinating in euroscepticism for decades if not centuries, it infects even institutions that are supposed to be impartial.

So no, I'm not ignoring anything. The problem is that your entire understanding of the EU and the relationship between Britain and the EU is based on decades of anti-EU lies that makes you draw erroneous conclusions.

Most of what you claim has simply no basis in facts, I'm afraid.

"Its also untrue that national government have vetoes on policy. When it suits the EU, such as providing excuses for Spain to make demands on British territory as a way of increasing pressure for further concessions. There are a fair number of examples of national governments being forced to accept EU demands, even when its not in their interests."

I didn't say they have veto power over ALL policy - I said they had so over all major decisions - which is perfectly true.

Regarding Spain you seem to willfully misunderstand the realities.
If Britain leaves the EU she will become a counterpart to the EU. Then obviously the EU:s position will change from now trying to mediate a conflict over Gibraltar within the EU-family, to one where the EU obviously will back the only nation in the EU - Spain.
It's simply ridiculous for Britain to expect the EU nations to show more consideration for a non-member then a member, of course.
So again this is just a natural consequence of Britain's own decision to leave - nothing more.

And yes obviously countries have been forced to accept compromises within the EU - again it's simply ridiculous for you or any other Brexiter to expect anything else.
But it's not some evil EU overlord that have forced these compromises on Britain - it's the result of Britain's own priorities in negotiations.

The EU is a collaboration between 28 sovereign nations that all have their own interest closest at heart of course - just as it should be.
But for the EU to work and all members to gain the benefits of that cooperation, every nation also sometimes have to concede things in negotiations with the others.

Every nation spends it's own negotiating capital in the way they see fit, prioritizing the issues that are most important to them and judging the stance of the other nations.
Having a decisive input on EU:s joint policy in one area is obviously a lot easier if no other nation really cares about that issue - or if they all agree with your nation.
If most of them agree but some oppose you position it's slightly harder and if every single other EU nation oppose your position it's almost impossible - that's just the realities of negotiations.

Britain, as one of the major nations of the EU, has had a major negotiating capital and been very influential in forming EU policy - far more so then many smaller nations.
But it still doesn't mean that Britain's negotiating capital is unlimited - she can't expect to get her wish on every single topic.

The problem is that that's precisely what the EU-bashing British politicians and your tabloids have been telling Britons for decades you have the right to expect and demand.

Any development that hasn't gone Britain's way has immediately been decried as horribly unfair, while you've accepted every decision that's gone in your favor as the only acceptable outcome.

That other nations often have been forced to concede their interests for you to gain those favorable outcomes means nothing to you, as you've been actively encouraged to only see yourselves as the permanently wronged party.

You've cultivated a ridiculous sense of victimhood over perceived slights at the hand of the evil EU, while ignoring that the reality is that compromise is always necessary for 28 nations to be able to agree on anything.

No nation can always get it's way and despite Britain actually getting it's way far more often then many smaller countries, it was never enough for you.

Thus the so called "points" you made actually has no basis in reality.
Britain hasn't been conceding more to the EU then other nations - quite the opposite.
And while you're a net-contributor to the overall budget, you're not the biggest one by far as many other nations in the EU contribute more per capita to the budget then Britain does.

But those facts never matter - because far to many Britons "know" you've somehow been wronged and have been taken advantage of.

Because that's what politicians who want you to look elsewhere for scapegoats, and publishers who want to sell copy have told you for decades.

"We could have had an amical divorce to the mutual benefit of both sides but their determined on making Britain pay for deciding to leave."

You keep parroting that since that's what the Brexiter's told you - but it's simply fantasy.
The remaining 27 nations in the EU have no incentive what so ever to give Britain the preferential deal she seeks. Again you're completely ignoring the interests of all other nations in the mistaken belief that what's best for Britain is somehow magically also best for every other nation. It's not and therefore the promise of an easy deal in everyone's best interest has always been an empty promise.

Which again, EVERYONE told you before the referendum - but a slim majority of Britons instead chose to believe the Brexiter's who gave you that empty promise.

"I'll be blunt. If I had been in charge on the British side then one of two things would have happened. [and so on]"

Then let me be blunt in saying that you're frankly delusional.
Britain leaving the EU is a TERRIBLE negotiation position as the combined 27 European nations left in the EU far outnumbers Britain on virtually every single metric.
Everyone who's studied the issue knows that and that's why even the best negotiators in the world couldn't gain Britain all the Brexiter's promised the British voters.

And you're probably not the best negotiator in the world anyway.

Britain leaving the EU was never ever going to give you all the Brexiter's promised you, and the greater danger here is that if you and millions of other Britons continue to believe in that pip-dream you also (like you've shown) continue to feed your resentment over your belief that "the EU" in some way wanted to punish Britain for leaving.
While in fact of course, the hostile sentiment in the UK against the continent has NEVER been mirrored in the rest of Europe.
Britain had a good reputation abroad and most Europeans had nothing but positive feelings for it and it's peoples.

But then most Europeans don't actually follow the debate in Britain and know with what resentments and scorn much of Britain speaks of the rest of Europe.

Thus the real risk here is that the currant and future British governments and your tabloids fosters Britain's very own version of the Germans stab-in-the-back myth regarding the loss of the First World War, where you attribute your own failures and catastrophic policy decisions to others in an attempt to mitigate the sense of shame over the defeat for Britain Brexit will become.
It's always tempting to blame others for your own mistakes - especially so if they're "bloody foreigners".

So far most Europeans don't actually know how the debate is being carried on in Britain - and they'd be shocked to hear you speak in the manner you do about them and the EU at large.
Not because we don't all can have our misgivings about the EU, but because your understanding is a caricature of an evil empire ruled by some individuals you detest.

Europeans understands the EU doesn't work like that at all and Britain would lose tremendously in credibility if people understood that this stupid caricature has now basically become official UK policy.

Europeans expect Britain's to be rational and negotiate in good faith, but if the full extent of Britain's Brexit delusions would dawn in Europe, you'd see a much tougher stance from ordinary people here.

As of now most people don't care to much about the whole issue. Few even understands why Britain suddenly decided to leave (since they haven't followed the decades of EU-smearing in Britain), and chalk it up to basically the same thing as Trump winning in the US - in 2016 the US and UK just went mad all of a sudden and shot themselves in the foot for no apparent reason at all.
Well that's too bad for you guy's, but we don't need to be mean about it - just let you sort out your own mess.

But if word got out about what a majority of Britons actually seem to believe about the rest of Europe?
Boy - you'd better believe European voters would start pressing their politicians to take a much tougher stance on Brexit.

What the British tabloids and May-government is decrying as completely unfair to Britain is the best you're ever going to get with the weak hand you have.
If the EU member states really wanted to punish Britain they could do a whole lot worse - believe me.

So let's not hope it ends up going down that road, but you can sort this mess out in Britain amongst yourselves and not turn this into a toxic conflict with the EU.
Because like Brexit itself in the first place, we would all just lose on that - but no country more so then Britain.

@Nisse_Hult im curious, do most swedish guys think like you? because if they do then im honestly shocked. i heard sweden is basically the most PC feminist place in the world but i didnt realize it was this bad where even the swedish men are bigger sjws and feminists than women in other countries. wow life has been waaaay too easy for you swedes that you've completely lost touch of reality. whatever just dont come running to other countries when yours becomes messed up. deal with your own mess.

you are going to learn the hard way that multiculturalism doesnt work. multiethnicism works maybe but not multiculturalism. especially when it comes to islam. trust me i have experience with muslim countries i have family members that came from one. i know how they operate and how they think. if you do not assimilate them they WILL try to force their own beliefs and cultures on to you eventually when they grow in numbers and force YOU to assimilate to THEM instead. islam is a very forceful religion. and no amount of virtue signaling and pc outrage will change that. think with your head instead of your heart

@Nisse_Hult

You are so impenetrable to reason aren't you? You would rather twist my words to fit your desires than consider you may be mistaken. I will repeat the key points again but I very much doubt you will pay attention.

a) I'm not saying Britain should get everything it desires without any cost so please stop using that strawman. I'm saying the EU should negotiate responsibly to get the best terms for its subjects. Which is not deliberately being obstructive and seeking to bugger Britain about largely for the sake of it apparently, Especially since that route is going to cost the EU and its people a lot, even with the crap mismanagement by the Tories. I notice you avoided the points I raised here about why an hostile settlement is a bad result for the EU so I don't expect you to respond to them now but that does make them any less hostile.

b) You may finally have accepted I'm not brainwashed by the right wing press - although I fear your will revert to type soon. I suggest you look up the BBC news web site and you will see what stance it actually takes rather than assuming it fits your assumptions.

c) Interesting that you view the EU as an imperialistic bloc seeking to abuse its neighbours. Which is what you say when your saying it will automatically support stripping the people of Gibraltar of any say in their government to appease Spanish imperial designs.

d) I must admit I haven't payed much attention to the payments to the EU in recent years as I have got dispirited with politics. I do know that in the past we paid way about our weight, at one time being one of only 2-3 payers while other nations were all receiving net gains from the EEC/EU. The 'settlement' Thatcher 'achieved' reduced this subsidy but didn't remove it totally. My point however is the desire for the subsidy to continue for the foreseeable future despite the UK no longer being in the EU. Its another case of the EU seeking to have its cake and eat it, already removing Britain from so many functions but expecting us to continue paying subsidies. Especially since their making clear they want a blank check.

No doubt you will continue to ignore what I say and spout more unsupported conclusions about what I'm saying and why you think I'm saying it.

I called you a bigot before and i mean it because you refuse to admit you might be less than 100% accurate regardless of what is said. I agree there is also a serious problem with British politics, especially the bigots, on BOTH sides, on the EU 'debate' but also the deep corruption and contempt for the people of the Tories. However because I'm aware of such problems I'm also aware of how the EU is failing, often in similar fashions.

@stevep59

But you present no reason here - only opinions informed by decades of eurosceptic British sentiment. Most of what you write simply isn't true at all, or the world viewed through a fun-house mirror - all distorted.

A) It's not a strawman - it's official UK government policy these days.
And before it became that, it's been the stance of the eurosceptics in Britain for decades.
Every single EU decision that doesn't end exactly like these people have wanted has been decried as some huge injustice to Britain - there have been no understanding what so ever that no nation in a cooperation with 27 others can get it's wish on every single topic.

"I'm saying the EU should negotiate responsibly to get the best terms for its subjects."

And I've told you the best terms for the other member nations is obviously NOT what you or other Brexiter's wish the terms would be.
You're seeing the question from a purely UK-centric perspective, while at the same time arguing that what would be best for Britain would also be best for all other member nations - but it OBVIOUSLY wouldn't!
It's ridiculous that Brexiter's even argue this as the entire reason for any negotiation is obviously always that the different sides has DIFFERING interests!

"Which is not deliberately being obstructive and seeking to bugger Britain about largely for the sake of it apparently."

But the EU isn't being "obstructive" - that would be stalling the negotiations, like the May-government has repeatedly done because they haven't been able to get their act together.
The EU was ready to negotiate long before Britain was and have actively tried to get Britain to speed up the process on many occasions.

What you call "obstructive" and "seeking to bugger Britain about largely for the sake of it" is instead something completely different - it's that the EU negotiators simply aren't giving Britain what she wants and the Brexiter's promised you she would get in the negotiations.

But that's because the EU has a much stronger hand in the negotiations and she doesn't need to give Britain all those concessions you where led to believe she would get.

I know the Brexiter's told you otherwise, but Britain need the EU a hell of a lot more then the rest of Europe needs Britain. I know, I know - that's not at all what you've been told and believe - but that's simply the truth.

Otherwise Britain would obviously be able to dictate the negotiations - like the Brexiter's told you she would. But that isn't happening - now is it?

Germany didn't come crawling on it's knees, desperate to sell it's cars to you, like the Brexiter's promised - now did she?

Nor did Italy or France or any other EU member.

Because it's actually NOT in their best interest to hand Britain everything she asks for, just because they're desperate to keep access to the British market, like the Brexiter's told you.

"Especially since that route is going to cost the EU and its people a lot"

Yes, it will cost them some. But it will cost Britain a hell of a lot more - which means the EU certainly won't blink first in the negotiations.

Also - and much more importantly, and as I've told you repeatedly - the EU actually CAN'T give Britain what the Brexiter's promised you, because we don't live in their fantasy world where only Britain's and the EU's bilateral relation matters.

In the real world, the EU has relations with the rest of the world as well, and it simply CAN'T give Britain a much better deal then anyone else is getting - as that would lead to conflicts with all those other nations.

Now I know you and the other Brexiter's don't give a fig about the EU's situation - but ignoring your negotiating partners situation and demanding the clearly impossible from him will not actually give you more in the real world.

It only makes the Brexiter's demands seem detached from reality and the people arguing for them ridiculous.

Which was all good and well as long as it was internal UK politics.
Farage, Gove and Johnson could promise the British public the moon and anything below it without any real consequences - but it's always been a pipe-dream to ever achieve all of that in negotiations with the EU.

Which, again, EVERYONE that wasn't a Brexit campaigner told you long before the referendum.

"I notice you avoided the points I raised here about why an hostile settlement is a bad result for the EU so I don't expect you to respond to them now but that does make them any less hostile."

And I've told you repeatedly that what you now call a "hostile settlement" actually isn't by far the worst result for the EU.
The EU would much rather lose access to the British markets (if it ever came to that) then it would see their relations with the rest of the world outside the EU deteriorate, because it gives Britain better terms then anyone else.

It's such incredible hubris by the Brexiter's to believe that little Britain would be a more important trading partner for the EU then THE REST OF THE WORLD - but still you people keep making that assumption.

B). I've never neither thought, nor claimed, that you where "brainwashed by the right wing press" - what I've said and stand by is that you'll clearly deluded by the eurosceptic propaganda in Britain.
As far as I know that comes mainly from Ukip, Tory back-benchers and the gutter press - of which I guess most are on the right-wing.
But as far as I know, that sentiment in Britain isn't as much right-wing as it's a populist sentiment. It's just blaming someone else for all your countries problems and offering nonsensical "solutions" to complicated problems. In this case the basic premise that "If we just leave the EU, everything will instantly become much better".

Regarding the BBC, it seems their bias is actually worse then I thought, when they run obvious anti-Labour smears like this and then refuse to even acknowledge their bias or apologize for it:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/may/11/bbc-rejects-complaints-newsnight-corbyn-russian

When they photoshop the leader of the main opposition party to make him look like a Soviet stooge, how impartial can anyone expect them to be on the issue of Brexit?

C). Actually I don't.
The imperialist party in the Gibraltar conflict is obviously Britain, who has occupied a piece of Spain for centuries - not Spain who wish to see their land returned to them.
Your talk of "imperialism" is ridiculous considering the history of the situation, and makes me wonder if you label Ghandi an imperialist as well, for wanting to see his nation regain independence from British rule?

Regarding the wish of the people of Gibraltar that's obviously important and the EU obviously wouldn't back any decision that's not supported by the people who live there.
But with Britain and Gibraltar leaving the EU they obviously no longer can expect to regain the benefits they had as members to automatically continue.

In the referendum on Brexit, every political party and every politician in the Gibraltar parliament supported the remain side, and that side won a whopping 96% of the popular vote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_(Referendum)_Act_2016_(Gibraltar)

Thus we'll just have to wait and see what the population of Gibraltar prefers in the long run - remaining British subjects outside the EU, or becoming Spanish and rejoining the EU.

D). Well Britain have been a member of the EEC/EU for many decades now and I can't say I know for sure how things looked way back when.
But I do know that today, many pro-Brexiter's you find online have absolutely no clue about the realities - because the promoters of Brexit are putting out deliberately misleading statistics.

One favorite trick of theirs is talking about the amount Britain pays to the EU, or it's net contribution, in ABSOLUTE NUMBERS.
Well then obviously, Britain should be amongst the top 2-3 payers, as she's amongst the top 2-3 economies of the EU and the nation with the third largest population in the EU.
So saying she pays a lot more then most other countries in ABSOLUTE NUMBERS says virtually nothing.

Instead, you always have to compare stats like these between nation in PER CAPITA, that is per citizen of the nation.
And looked at the numbers that way, Britain is in fact only the eight largest net contributor, per capita, in the EU.

So yes - Britain is still a net contributor, which all nations certainly aren't - but she's not by far the only or one of very few. Her net contribution per capita is smaller then both Germany and France (as it should be, as she's smaller then them in economy and population size). But she's in fact also contributing less in net contribution then several much smaller nations with much smaller economies.

So it's not like Britain had a worse deal then most other rich, western European, nations. If anything, she actually had a slightly better one - considering her large population and economy.

https://inews.co.uk/news/charts/much-uk-pays-eu-much-get-back/

"My point however is the desire for the subsidy to continue for the foreseeable future despite the UK no longer being in the EU."

The EU has never ever expressed any such desire.
Instead, with Britain leaving she'd be treated just like any other non-member and she will instead have to pay for the access that she wants in the future - just like Norway and Switzerland does today, for instance.

That's not the full EU membership and the fees are lower - but on the other hand you get no subsidies in return and you have no say-so on future EU policy.

There was also the issue of future commitments Britain had signed on to as a member - thing like pensions for people like Farage, where Britain has a responsibility to pay it's fair share of the future costs.
But that seems to have been settled now.

I'm sure you felt that was totally unfair too, but in the real world nations can't just go back on their word without consequences as other nations obviously take notice of how the nation respects treaties it's signed before.

Which is why Europe (including even the May-governments Britain) is not a fan of Trump breaking any commitments the US has made that he no longer feels like honoring.

You destroy your international reputation very quickly as a nation, if you act like that, so it was clearly in Britain's own interest to pony up the money it owed.

"Its another case of the EU seeking to have its cake and eat it, already removing Britain from so many functions but expecting us to continue paying subsidies."

No, it's another case of you not accepting the realities of life.
If you're a member of a gym you get to use the facilities - if you leave you no longer do.
In this case Britain no longer wishes to be a full member - but she still wants to retain access to some services. Which the gym (or in this case the EU) then has the right to charge her for.
It's not a complicated concept at all - you and most other Brexiter's just refuse to accept those facts.

"Especially since their making clear they want a blank check."

The EU has made no such demands. Instead the problem is that the May-government can't seem to decide what type and how much access they want to the EU going forward.

Which is the unfortunate result of the different Brexit campaigners promising everything under the sun to get people to vote for Brexit, which means that May's "Brexit means Brexit" means nothing, as the very term Brexit means different things to different people.

Some promised continued access to the EU:s open market - some promised Britain would leave. Some promised access to the customs union - some promised Britain would leave.
Some promised complete control over immigration - some promised continued movement of citizens between Britain and the EU in the future.
And so on and so forth.

The May-government knows full well that whatever relations it seeks with the EU going forward, they will betray some of these promises as some of them are simply mutually excluding.

And May being a very weak PM and party leader, constantly fighting of inter-party sniping and potential coups, she is not in a position or unwilling to give a strong commitment on any fixed version it seems.

Instead the May-government dithers and blames the EU for not simply solving all their problems for them, by giving them all the Brexiter's promised.

But as we all told you years ago - that'll never happen, because that's not in the EU:s best interest.

As soon as May actually decides what type of deal she wants Britain to have with the EU going forward, the EU will be able to crunch the numbers and present a price tag for that amount of access.

But since the Brexiter's promised Britain would get all this for free, no number will obviously ever be satisfying to most people like you.

Which I understand, based on your faulty assumptions. But that's not the EU demanding some "blank check" - that's simply Britain paying just the same as any other non-EU member would for the access she wants to have.

But Britain is of course also entirely free to not seek any such access at all if she wants to minimize her costs to only cover prior commitments like pensions - and there are Brexiter's that support such a stance as well.

"No doubt you will continue to ignore what I say and spout more unsupported conclusions about what I'm saying and why you think I'm saying it."

Well most what you say is rubbish, unfortunately.
I'm the only one of us who have supported ANY of my claims with any kind of source, so I'd get of that high horse if I where you.
Regarding why you're saying things I've made far fewer assumptions then you've claimed. As I pointed out above I've never actually claimed you where "brainwashed by the right wing press" for instance.

But it's clear your understanding of the issue is based on the kind of nonsense eurosceptic propaganda that lead Gove to defend rejection of the facts with the memorable quote "I think that the people of this country have had enough of experts".

Well he, Farage and Johnson convinced a slim majority of Britons to vote for Brexit (whatever version of it each individual voter believed that was) with rubbish like that, and now Britain has to deal with all those consequences all those experts warned about before the referendum.

"I called you a bigot before and i mean it because you refuse to admit you might be less than 100% accurate regardless of what is said."

You can call me whatever you want - it still won't change the facts.
Just like you can rage against the EU for not giving Britain that magical deal that would be best for everyone - but that won't change that fact that no such deal exists.
The British people where sold a pipe-dream that where never going to happen - and now it's not happening.
Just like EVERYONE not actively campaigning for Brexit told you before the referendum.

"However because I'm aware of such problems I'm also aware of how the EU is failing, often in similar fashions."

You seem to make a lot of assumptions about me.
I voted against my own country joining the EU and I'm certainly no uncritical observer of it.

But, I also recognize there is a BIG difference between voting to not join an economic union and voting to leave it after more then four decades, like Britain did.

Your entire economy is now built on access to the EU:s open market and the customs union. You laws and regulations have been streamlined with EU regulation. People have uprooted their families, moved and started new lives based on assumptions about the future that are suddenly put in question.
In a thousand different ways, leaving something like the EU is much, much, much more complicated then joining it in the first place - and it was never going to happen without major disruption.

The problem is that the Brexit campaigners so obviously lied, lied and lied to the British public about what would happen if you left, how easy it would all be and all the free stuff Britain would suddenly receive if you only voted to leave.
And that people like you swallowed all that nonsense and are so sadly misinformed about basic realities of a major decision like this.

And the lies where so easy to spot - with different Brexit campaigners promising mutually excluding version of what would happen!
You obviously can't both be a member and not a member of the open market or the customs union at the same time - but the most basic divisions like that within the Brexit-collective was papered over with the happy assumptions that everything would just work out perfectly if people only voted to leave.

So vote to leave they did, and unfortunately now a lot of the people that did - like you - desperately cling on to the belief that the lies you where told where real and the only reason you're not getting what you where promised is because of the evil EU.

When even IF the EU gave Britain everything YOU personally wanted from Brexit - some Brexiter's still wouldn't be happy, as you can't even agree amongst yourselves exactly what Brexit should look like!

It's a farce and tragedy at the same time, and it won't be good for anyone but Putin and the far-right who lives of scapegoating people.
But as I said that's how democracy works and now we'll just have to accept the consequences.

@Nisse_Hult

Your simply unable to accept any viewpoint that disagrees with you aren't you! I have repeated made points and because you disagree rather than actually read them and think about them you post your normal dribble assuming, without any evidence, that I'm one of the deluded far right bigots. [Which if you ever read my posts you would realise I wasn't].

Try reading what I actually say rather than assuming, because I'm not 100% in agreement with you, that you KNOW what I'm say.

I didn't bother reading most of what you wrote because its largely both repetitive and totally unrelated to what I'm talking about. However I will shoot down one strawman you used. Ghandi, while irresponsible in some ways was working for Indian independence not control over another people by force. As such there's no comparison with Gibraltar where Spain wants to control it regardless of the wish of its people AND as YOU YOUSELF said you would see the EU supporting Spain in achieving its aims.

I have repeatedly pointed out problems for the EU posed by the irresponsible behaviour of its [non-]negotiators. However you keep ignoring this, ranting on about how I'm demanding unlimited concessions for Britain. No I am NOT suggesting using EU tactics.

If I had been leading the British negotiations I would have negotiated in good faith, both because that's the best approach and because its what I believe in. However every time one of them lied, about cherry picking, British intransigence because we won't immediately meet every EU demand or sought to move the goal posts after Britain makes a concession I would damned well call them on it. Initially in private but in public if they kept it up, especially given all the lies their been spreading. I know enough about history - I would suggest more than you given your ignorance about Britain - to know that appeasing bullies and bandits never works.

I do agree on one point. The EU insistence on being as disruptive as possible is only going to help bigots and haters who like scapegoating people, including right wingers like you. Your no doubt going to have a feeling of glee that will only increase the worst the mess the EU makes of it but you won't accept your scared delusion is responsible for much of it.

@stevep59

"Your simply unable to accept any viewpoint that disagrees with you aren't you!"

No - I have no problem accepting what your viewpoint is. And you're perfectly entitled to hold that of course.
It is however not in any way based on fact - which is why you and the others Brexiter's rage is so impotent.
No matter how much you huff and puff on about what you believe, reality still won't conform to your fantasy.

"I have repeated made points and because you disagree rather than actually read them and think about them you post your normal dribble"

You've made points based on fantasies with no basis in reality. I've responded to those by pointing our reality. That doesn't suit you, so you ignore what I write and instead repeat you fantasy ad nauseam.

"assuming, without any evidence, that I'm one of the deluded far right bigots. [Which if you ever read my posts you would realize I wasn't]."

You're like a broken record, so let me reply by quoting myself as I've already answered this exact point several times already:

"Regarding why you're saying things I've made far fewer assumptions then you've claimed. As I pointed out above I've never actually claimed you where "brainwashed by the right wing press" for instance.

But it's clear your understanding of the issue is based on the kind of nonsense eurosceptic propaganda that lead Gove to defend rejection of the facts with the memorable quote "I think that the people of this country have had enough of experts"."

"Ghandi, while irresponsible in some ways was working for Indian independence not control over another people by force. As such there's no comparison with Gibraltar where Spain wants to control it regardless of the wish of its people AND as YOU YOUSELF said you would see the EU supporting Spain in achieving its aims."

1.) You've offered no proof that Spain "wants to control [Gibraltar] regardless of the wish of its people".

2.) But making that baseless assumption, you then go on to make the further assumption that the EU and I too would favor such an action, based on my words that:

"If Britain leaves the EU she will become a counterpart to the EU. Then obviously the EU:s position will change from now trying to mediate a conflict over Gibraltar within the EU-family, to one where the EU obviously will back the only nation in the EU - Spain."

3.) To make this baseless assumption, you deliberately ignore that I clearly wrote:

"Regarding the wish of the people of Gibraltar that's obviously important and the EU obviously wouldn't back any decision that's not supported by the people who live there."

4.) In reality, the most likely resolution of the issue is instead what I pointed out before:

"Thus we'll just have to wait and see what the population of Gibraltar prefers in the long run - remaining British subjects outside the EU, or becoming Spanish and rejoining the EU."

The EU will, like I've pointed out, obviously never back any decision on Gibraltar that's not supported by the people who live there.
And as far as I know Spain has never even proposed any such action (and you certainly haven't supported your claim of any such intention from them with any source, what so ever).

But Britain's own decision to leave the EU might very well end up souring the population of Gibraltar on it's connection to Britain. As well as several other parts of the UK that might, over time, see more benefits inside the EU then being part of an isolationist little England.

Again, that would then be results of Britain's own decision to leave and not some evil plot by the EU.
But you seem unable to see that Brexit could have any consequences not promised by the Brexit campaigners - except if they're masterminded by the evil EU, that is.

I'll just give the rest of you comment a pass as it's just the same broken record playing over again.

It doesn't matter how many times you whine about it - I've already explained to you why you're not getting what the Brexiter's promised you.

It was never going to happen - everyone not campaigning for Brexit told you so before the referendum.
You and people like you just wouldn't listen - just like you're not listening now.

@Nisse_Hult

The problem is that your so blinkered you are unable to consider you may be mistaken. As such you prefer deciding what people think than reading what they say. As such this constant repeating that I [and every other person who now supports leaving the EU are ranting bigots blinded by propaganda by the Tory press. The fact this isn't the case and I've made clear to you it isn't is less important to you than the fact you have to assume it is as otherwise you have to understand what people are actually saying.

That's why you keep saying that I'm whining about not getting everything the hard line Britexers wanted. Despite that being both false and nothing to do with what I'm saying. Your stuck in a rut of your own blind ignorance and will continuing repeating that rather than look at the facts. Similarly that's why you never consider what I've said, let alone attempt a meaningful answer to that. You will continue to stew in your blind bigotry and hatred because to actually open your eyes and listen to alternative views would mean questioning your own assumptions and your too much of a coward to do that.

On the issue of Gibraltar I called it imperialist because you initially said you see the EU supporting Spain's claim, which is based solely on the "we want it and we don't give a damn what the people living there think". You have back-tracked on that by saying that the EU wouldn't support the ignoring of the rights of the people, which is a definite improvement on what you said before but is certainly a reversal of what you said before.

It might be that the Gibraltarians might decide, given the hostility displayed by the EU and the incompetence by the Tories that they are better off staying part of the EU, in which case, while I would be sad to see them go I would accept that as their right. However that doesn't mean their necessarily forced to accept Spanish territorial demands and I can see that being a sticking point if the EU stays so opposed to self-government.

As you say your unable to see you can be wrong so there's no point in continuing this 'debate'. If your ever willing to actually listen to what other people say then by all means contact me again but until then forget it. I reverse the right to challenge you when you make false and inaccurate claims, as you have done repeatedly but I don't see any point in wasting any further time on your delusions.

@stevep59

"That's why you keep saying that I'm whining about not getting everything the hard line Britexers wanted. Despite that being both false and nothing to do with what I'm saying."

But you are. You keep harping on about a magical deal that simply doesn't exist. For instance:

"We could have had an amical divorce to the mutual benefit of both sides but their determined on making Britain pay for deciding to leave. Hence the continuing demands for every increasing subsidies and refusal to negotiate the terms for leaving."

None of that is true. You're simply spouting the pro-Brexiter's usual fantasy about how everything could be wonderful for everyone, if only the evil EU wasn't so evil.

But none of that is true.

You and many other Brexiter's simply believe in a fantasy world where fantasy things should happen - but as EVERYONE not actually trying to sell Brexit to you before the referendum bloody well told you - NONE OF THAT IS TRUE!

"Your stuck in a rut of your own blind ignorance and will continuing repeating that rather than look at the facts."

I'm the only one of us that's even supported any of my claims with sources. All you ever do is repeat your belief in things over and over again like a broken record - but that obviously proves none of what you claim.
So let's not pretend I'm the one ignoring facts here, shall we?

"On the issue of Gibraltar I called it imperialist because you initially said you see the EU supporting Spain's claim, which is based solely on the "we want it and we don't give a damn what the people living there think". You have back-tracked on that by saying that the EU wouldn't support the ignoring of the rights of the people, which is a definite improvement on what you said before but is certainly a reversal of what you said before."

Nope, no "back-track" or "reversal" in anything I've written - not in any way.

You just assumed - just like you still do - that Spain's claim to Gibraltar "is based solely on the "we want it and we don't give a damn what the people living there think"."

I've asked you to prove that Spain has ever expressed that view - you have failed to do so, but keep claiming it to be a fact none the less.
I don't even think Spain actual has expressed that view to begin with, but I also pointed out that the EU certainly never would support such a stance anyway.

What I did write before that was that:

"If Britain leaves the EU she will become a counterpart to the EU. Then obviously the EU:s position will change from now trying to mediate a conflict over Gibraltar within the EU-family, to one where the EU obviously will back the only nation in the EU - Spain."

Which you've since tried to twisted into the EU or me supporting non-democratic action - but that's still only based on YOUR UNPROVEN claim that Spain has expressed a willingness to force a decision on the citizens of Gibraltar, against their will.

And even if you sometime in the future (if you ever bother doing any real work) would be able to prove your first assumption (that Spain has expressed such views as you claim), that still doesn't prove your second assumption that the EU would ever support such a stance.

The EU-collective will obviously back it's fellow member Spain in a conflict with Britain over Gibraltar, yes - but not to any end of course.
Obviously the 26 other members of the EU wouldn't suddenly be OK with the annexation of land by one country from another, in conflict between the two and disregarding what the people living there felt about the matter.

That would be like Putin invading Crimea - and the very idea on your part that the EU member states would ever agree to something like that shows what kind of anti-EU propaganda you've been consuming.

So again - you're not actually arguing the issues based on an understanding of the real world, but you speak on them only from your fantasy version of it.

The one in which Spain has demanded the return of Gibraltar without any consideration for the people living there, and where I and the EU where perfectly willing to back such demands (until I apparently back-tracked, scared off by a strongly worded reply from you?).

But again - none of that is true, of course.

And with you living in this parallel fantasy world of Brexiter imagination, it's obviously hard to have a serious discussion.
Because you feel I'm condescending to you when I tell you this of course, and I see that your "solutions" aren't actually based on reality, but fantasy.

Now please try to break out of this fantasy by using some very basic reason:

You where promised by the Brexit campaigners that negotiating Brexit would be a breeze - because the rest of Europe would come crawling on it's bare knees to get continued access to the British market.

German manufacturers would be desperate to sell their cars to you and pressure their government to be able to do so, Italian producers to sell it's prosecco would do the same - according to Johnson.

The big European nations business and national interest would force the EU to give Britain continued access to the EU's open market and customs union for no cost at all to you (if you wanted it), total rights to block any and all immigration and still give Britain full rights to cut any trade deals it wanted with any non-EU nations, the Brexiters promised.

Well that isn't happening - now is it?

So OBVIOUSLY the basic premise you where sold - Britain's incredible value to the other European nations - weren't actually true.

OR, to keep that illusion alive, you would have to believe that not only European national governments, but also business leaders, are actively working AGAINST their own economical interest - and why would they ever do that?

To "punish" Britain for wanting to leave the EU?
Now if you think German car manufacturers or Italian spirit producers would take an unnecessary economic hit simply to punish British voters for supporting Brexit, then I can't help you any further.

Then you're so far gone into fantasyland that reason no longer works, I'm afraid.

OBVIOUSLY reality is more complicated then the black and white Brexit fantasy you where sold - but if you refuse to see that, no one can force it on you.

Either way, what the Brexit campaigners promised you still won't happen - just like EVERYONE but them has been telling you for years by now.

So the only question now is whether you will ever accept the truth of WHY things didn't end up like the Brexit campaigners promised you, or if you'll go to you death believing in a fantasy that was never real to begin with?

Here's a further little dose of reality for you. Might help to see what those German business leaders and politicians actually think about Brexit:

(EDIT: Unfortunetly I'm having problems with the pay wall on the Financial Times web site. I can read the article when I find it via Google, but the links I post here are blocked by the pay wall.
So try either of these links - maybe they'll work for you, or just do a google search for the name of the article: "Germans see Brexit as a UK own goal" and if needed add "FT" or "Financial Times" to find it - that should work at least.)

https://www.ft.com/content/ff475478-4d1e-11e8-8a8e-22951a2d8493

https://twitter.com/FT/status/991278628561477633

@Nisse_Hult

Lets look at some facts.

a) I pointed out that the current stance of the EU for a hard exit will cause problems for a lot of people inside the EU.

You continually rant about my alleged dissatisfaction with the poor deal that Britain is getting and that this is because I've been deluded by extremist propaganda from the Tory media. I'll fully agree that Britain is getting a poor deal and a lot of blame is due to the incompetence and mismanagement of the Tories as much as the repeated and clear dishonesty of the EU mis-leaders. [By which I refer to what they themselves have said not as you continue to assume without any evidence, a twisted version of this in the Tory media.] However:
i) This is nothing to do with the points I have raised and which you completely and repeatedly ignore.

ii) As I have repeated said I know about the crap that is the Tory media and what garbage they say, on the EU and many other issues. I have repeated made clear I don't read it. You finally accept that, as I have told you repeatedly, my primary source is the BBC. However that meant rather than accept I'm not necessarily an ignorant bigot you immediately assume the BBC is highly anti-EU. You just can not accept anyone can disagree with you and may have a point.

b) On Spain as YOU say "Then obviously the EU:s position will change from now trying to mediate a conflict over Gibraltar within the EU-family, to one where the EU obviously will back the only nation in the EU - Spain". You don't say they will back Spain if they think the Spanish have a legitimate claim but they will back Spain regardless. I pointed out that that lacks any moral restriction. At that point you did back-track.

I'm quite happy to accept you may have meant back Spain if Spain was in the right, which their clearly been shown not to be by multiple referendums. However that's not what you said. You could have come back and clarified your statement by saying you phased it wrongly but that would have admitted you made even the smallest mistake and you don't have the self-respect to do that so once again you take an aggressive response, claiming I was seeking to misrepresent you.

c) I think the point in issue here is that you continue to misunderstand/ignore what I'm saying. My problem with you is your insistence that anyone who disagrees with you is at least an ignorant bigot misread by anti-EU propaganda and at worse evil. You have no concept that you could be mistaken/misinformed yourself, let alone that another view could be valid. Hence the way you keep failing to address the points I raise.

I can't see any way you will broaden your viewpoint so I see no point in continuing this 'discussion'. That would require both of us to accept we might not be totally correct and the other might have a point and only one of us is willing to do that.

@stevep59

"Lets look at some facts."

Yes, by all means let's!

"a) I pointed out that the current stance of the EU for a hard exit will cause problems for a lot of people inside the EU."

and there you immediately drove right of the fact road into fantasy land...

Because the EU obviously doesn't have a stance FOR any version of Brexit!
They are not the ones who initiated or are steering the process at all - they are only responding to the stance (or rather lack thereof) the May-government is presenting as the latest version of Brexit they're pushing this week.

And regardless of which fantasy version the May-government is asking for, the EU simply replies according to the exact same principles that was made clear years ago:

No, Britain does not get to pick and chose which rules it has to follow if it wishes to retain access to the EU's benefits in some way.
The open market and the customs union contains both benefits and obligations for the non-EU nations that wish to take part in them and Britain will have to follow the same rules as everyone else.
Which includes paying for the access she wishes to have.

All of this was pointed out repeatedly before the referendum, and should come as no surprise now.

The EU certainly isn't FOR a hard Brexit - it's never been FOR any kind of Brexit at all.
The only ones that are FOR a hard Brexit are some on the British side, who in turn are in a constant battle with others on the British side over what kind of Brexit Britain should seek.
And some of these others will - like you now - happily claim the EU is FOR the same hard Brexit, just because it doesn't give them the fantasy deal they're asking for.

Which is just yet another attempt by Brexiters to blame the EU for the consequences of their own actions.

Because the simple truth is that the fantasy versions of wonderful deals beneficial to all the Brexiters sold Brexit with to the British public where never real to begin with.
And now that that's becoming obvious, the people who made those empty promises obviously don't want to be held responsible for them, so they do what they've always done - they blame the evil EU for not fulfilling their own empty promises.

While EVERYONE not actually trying to sell Brexit on the British public before the referendum clearly said that these where empty promises at the time.

It's like me telling you that if you walk down to you local bank, they'll hand you a thousand pounds just for showing up, while everyone else told you I'm obviously just lying to you.

Well you trust me and walk down to the bank, where the teller obviously tell you you're not getting a penny from them - while I stand beside you and cry that they're only not fulfilling my promise because they're evil and want to punish you for showing the plucky courage to walk down to the bank and demand money.

At which point you keep believing me and whine loudly about the money you feel you are now owed by the bank.

While the tellers and the other customers in the bank look at the two of us like we're not quite sane.

You can stand there whining for the rest of your life if you like - but you're still not getting any money.

Just like EVERYONE else but me told you in this story - I obviously lied to you. But your refusal to acknowledge that fact still won't make my lie come true. Nothing ever will.

Regarding your obsession with claiming that I've claimed you get all your ideas from the right-wing press - that's not actually true, of course.
So I'll just - once again - repeat what I already answered on this:

"Regarding why you're saying things I've made far fewer assumptions then you've claimed. As I pointed out above I've never actually claimed you where "brainwashed by the right wing press" for instance.

But it's clear your understanding of the issue is based on the kind of nonsense eurosceptic propaganda that lead Gove to defend rejection of the facts with the memorable quote "I think that the people of this country have had enough of experts"."

The point is obviously that it doesn't matter exactly where you got your ideas on this issue. What matters are that they are not in any way resembling reality, but that you - like all other pro-Brexiters I've encountered online - walk around believing in a fantasy version of the world and you resent any information that doesn't conform to that fantasy.

"You just can not accept anyone can disagree with you and may have a point."

But you have yet to present a single point that's based on reality, concerning Brexit!
All you do is claim things you can't prove and reject (or ignore) fact that I have proven - because you're only interested in holding on to your fantasy version of the issue, unfortunately.

"On Spain as YOU say "Then obviously the EU:s position will change from now trying to mediate a conflict over Gibraltar within the EU-family, to one where the EU obviously will back the only nation in the EU - Spain". You don't say they will back Spain if they think the Spanish have a legitimate claim but they will back Spain regardless. I pointed out that that lacks any moral restriction. At that point you did back-track."

No I didn't. You just assumed too much - because you believe in a fantasy world where Spain, the EU or I would ever "lack any moral restriction" and would be perfectly fine handling Gibraltar the way Putin handled the Crimea.

Rational people, basing their understand on the real world, understands that neither Spain nor the EU would ever do such a thing - but you don't, because you live in a fantasy world where the nations on the continent are apparently all evil imperialists who's only goal is to punish Britain for voting for Brexit.

"You could have come back and clarified your statement by saying you phased it wrongly but that would have admitted you made even the smallest mistake and you don't have the self-respect to do that so once again you take an aggressive response, claiming I was seeking to misrepresent you."

But I didn't phrase it wrongly - not at all. The EU certainly will back their only member Spain in the conflict over Gibraltar against Britain - just like I said.
But not to any end of course.
Which rational people understand, but you either didn't - because you live in a fantasy world where there are no limits to what other nations might do to hurt Britain - or you did and still deliberately sought to misrepresent what I said, yes.

Personally I think the first is more likely - I don't think you're deliberately trying to misunderstand what I'm saying - it's just that you're entire view of the world is so messed up by decades of eurosceptic propaganda, that you now seem perfectly willing to believe anything about any other nation.

The world (and especially Europe) from the point of view of Brexiters seem filled with countries all just out to hurt Britain as much as possible.
And when that's your understanding of the world your fear and conspiracy theories kind of makes sense of course.
But none of that is real, and it leads you into making the most faulty assumptions about other countries actions or possible future actions, as well as what people like me actually mean when we talk about these issues.

I'm sure you've read or heard people say they or someone else would "back someone" a thousand times in your life, without immediately jumping to the conclusion that that means doing ANYTHING to support the entity in question - no matter how illegal or immoral.

People saying they back a football team for instance - I'm sure you don't imagine that means they'd be perfectly fine with murdering the opposing teams players to win an important game.

Because rational people of course understand that there are limits to which one goes in support of something. That doesn't need to be mentioned, it's just automatically understood that that's the case.

But since you believe that Spain would be willing to ignore the will of the people of Gibraltar and basically invade the enclave like Putin did to Crimea (something you still haven't been able to prove that Spain has actually expressed a willingness to do, by the way), you also assumes the EU backing them must mean they would be willing to support such action and that that's what I meant and I support too.

But that was simply a misconception on your part. Not only do I not think Spain has ever expressed a willingness to do such a thing, neither has the EU or I of course.
But when I point this out to you, in your mind this becomes a "back-track" - but that's from a position I never expressed and you only imagined.

And you did so only because you live in a fantasy world where you believe all manner of things that aren't actually real - when it comes to Brexit.
Which makes your discussions with other people, who aren't living in the same fantasy, wrought with difficulty as you make faulty assumptions about what they're actually saying and their intentions all the time.

"My problem with you is your insistence that anyone who disagrees with you is at least an ignorant bigot misread by anti-EU propaganda and at worse evil. You have no concept that you could be mistaken/misinformed yourself, let alone that another view could be valid. Hence the way you keep failing to address the points I raise."

I've never said any of the things you claim I believe about you - except that you are misread, which you clearly are.
I've seen openly racists remarks, threats and all manner of violent rhetoric from pro-Brexiters online - but I've never accused you of any of that, nor do I think you share or support those views.
I certainly don't think all Britons that support Brexit are racist or evil - certainly not.
But you are all ill informed and thus much of what you believe and say about the issue has no relation to reality - which means that you keep making "points" that aren't actually relevant at all.

Because as long as your basis for viewing the issue is a fantasy, the points you think you make will unfortunately continue to be nonsense - that's just the way it is.

Complaining about the EU holding a stance FOR a hard Brexit when the EU clearly doesn't even want Brexit in ANY form is obviously nonsense.
Talking about being a believer in a "Free Britain", when Britain obviously never been anything but free in the EU, is nonsense.
Talking about the EU wanting to "punish" Britain, when they are simply adhering to the same rules and principles that guide their interaction with all other nations, is nonsense.
Wishfully talking about the magical deal that would benefit everyone when no such deal exists is also nonsense.

and so on and so forth.

Compare that to the question of internal UK politics and the NHS, which we talked about in the beginning, where your understanding of the issue is clearly based on the actual reality of the issue, as far as I've been able to see anyway.

There it seems we could actually understand each others positions - because we spoke based on an if not completely mutual, at least very similar understanding of the issue.

But on Brexit, you and other pro-Brexiters online are of in La La land, dreaming about things that are clearly never going to happen.
Which makes rational discussion almost impossible.

@Nisse_Hult

The same old broken record. You still work under the delusion that I'm mislead by right wing propaganda when I have repeatedly made clear I an NOT. Until you accept this we will get nowhere.

I suggest you actually look at the BBC News pages and then see if you can still support the idea their strongly anti-EU.

My interpretation of the EU mis-leadership comes from what they themselves have said. Including their repeated demands that they will dictate terms, deciding what will be discussed and what won't. They have been cherry picking from the start and the feeble Tories have allowed them to largely get away with it.

As I have repeatedly said I'm happy to come to agreements with the EU and to pay for where we get facilities, as well as continuing areas of mutual benefit. What I do not agree with is the EU continuing to get money for nothing. To use Tusk's infamous drinking club example that once Britain has left that it will gain no benefits but that the EU still expect to put their drinks on the British tab. Simplistic perhaps but its the example he himself used and it highlights the point nicely.

@stevep59

"The same old broken record. You still work under the delusion that I'm mislead by right wing propaganda when I have repeatedly made clear I an NOT. Until you accept this we will get nowhere."

You're starting to become a caricature of yourself at this point. I've reposted the exact same reply to this false claim by you several times already, but let's see if the fifth time I post the exact same text you might finally understand it:

"Regarding why you're saying things I've made far fewer assumptions then you've claimed. As I pointed out above I've never actually claimed you where "brainwashed by the right wing press" for instance.

But it's clear your understanding of the issue is based on the kind of nonsense eurosceptic propaganda that lead Gove to defend rejection of the facts with the memorable quote "I think that the people of this country have had enough of experts"."

Which means that:

"The point is obviously that it doesn't matter exactly where you got your ideas on this issue. What matters are that they are not in any way resembling reality, but that you - like all other pro-Brexiters I've encountered online - walk around believing in a fantasy version of the world and you resent any information that doesn't conform to that fantasy."

In the last post you talked about EU's stance for hard Brexit - which is obviously completely false, as the EU isn't FOR Brexit in any shape or form.

You've made several equally nonsensical claims about the state of affairs that are simply delusional - all because you live in a fantasy world of pro-Brexiter creation.

Now you continue listing off your grievances - all based on your fantasy world not lining up with reality.

The EU "dictate terms", decides what will be discussed, have been cherry picking from the start and so on.

While I'd probably disagree with the you on the things you claim the EU "cherry pick" things, and that they "dictate terms", I understand what you're basically upset about is that the negotiations aren't going like you expected them to.

And yes, the EU are running circles around the British in the negotiations - but anyone understanding the facts knew that would happen. Because the EU has a much stronger hand in the negotiations - which they where always going to have, because the EU is much stronger then Britain. Which again - EVERYONE who bothered to study the facts knew where the case.

I know - that's not what you where told in Brexiter fantasy world. But you simply have to accept that that fantasy world doesn't matter to anyone in the real world.

The EU has a much stronger hand in the negotiations then Britain does, because they frankly stand to lose a hell of a lot less by Britain leaving then Britain does.

Again - I know you don't believe that - because that's not what the fantasy world tells you - but in the real world these are the facts:

Britain leaving the EU was a shit idea for many different reasons - a big one of which is that Britain has basically NO leverage in the negotiations as Britain stands to lose much, much more then the EU does if they don't get some kind of access to the common market.

Yes, Britain can threaten to shot the EU in the foot. But the bullet will then ricochet straight into Britain's brain - which makes for a pretty lousy threat.

Which means that the EU doesn't have to give Britain any preferential treatment compared to any other non-EU member state that wants that access.

Which is obviously the fair thing anyway, to begin with.
If you're a member you pay the membership fees and gets access - if you're not a member you get to pay for the access you want.

But in Brexiter fantasy world, you where told Britain was going to get basically anything she asked for for free - but that was always just a lie.
Which EVERYONE not campaigning for Brexit told you.

So the real problem isn't that the May-government are useless (but they are of course - and that isn't helping of course) - the real problem is the very notion that Britain could ever have left the EU and gotten a better deal as a non-member then she had as a member was ALWAYS a pipe-dream to begin with.

Even the strongest possible British government, with the most comprehensive plan and the best negotiations couldn't have made Brexit a better deal for Britain (in relation to the EU) then she had as a member - because it's obviously not in the EU's best interest to ever give Britain such a deal!

You talked about "an amical divorce to the mutual benefit of both sides" - but no such deal has ever existed. Both sides will lose - it's only a matter who will lose the most.
And with the EU holding the stronger hand, in the real world that was ALWAYS going to be Britain.

But not in Brexiter fantasy world of course - there everything would just work out for the best for everyone, or at least for Britain. There was obviously no way Brexit could be a bad idea in Brexiter fantasy world, so all facts that pointed to that conclusion must of course be ignored.
Just as all the experts that plainly said this before the referendum must be - as Gove said.

Well the experts where obviously right all along, and the Brexiter fantasy world just that - a figment of imagination.

Britain's negotiation position is shit, and the May-government mishandling of the negotiations aren't helping either.

Britain hasn't even left yet, but as you know if you read the link I recommended above, Britain has already dropped two spots from third to fifth biggest trading partner for Germany.

European business is already calculating with Britain leaving the common market and there is no uproar of German business leaders, desperately trying to get Merkel to use her influence to give Britain a sweeter deal.
Nor is there from business leaders or trade unions or regular citizens in any other EU member state.

Because the EU's position has been completely clear since long before the referendum - and it's a position supported by virtually all EU-citizens:

If Britain wishes to leave, she's of course free to do so. Once she triggers article 50, negotiations will start, and as the stronger party, the EU will obviously set the order for such talks.
First Britain's future obligations to the EU must be resolved (things like future pensions for people like Farage for instance), before each and every topic is decided in order.

Only when all of the negotiations for Britain leaving the EU are done can negotiations for Britain, then as a non-member, seeking future access to the EU's open market start.

Again, this is of course not at all the order or topics promised in the Brexiter fantasy world where Britain would just ignore all prior obligations, not pay the EU a penny, and then briskly move on to cutting new great deals with both the EU and the rest of the world - while still being a member.

Well none of that happened of course - because it was all just a fantasy to begin with - as EVERYONE not actually campaigning for Brexit told you.

Instead Britain has so far basically been forced to follow the negotiation plan made by the EU, and she's been forced to concede point after point in the negotiations.

Which again was entirely expected because of Britain's week hand in the negotiations.

So again - it doesn't matter that you and the other Brexiters are upset that the "evil" EU didn't behave like you wanted them to - because your assumptions where always based on a fantasy that was never going to happen.

Look at what all those experts Gove brushed aside so easily said before the referendum instead, and you'll see that all of what's happening now was foretold to you.

This is in no way surprising or unfair by the EU - it's the inevitable result of a much weaker party trying to squeeze concessions from a much stronger party - it was simply never going to happen, in the real world.

Britain's ONLY chance to get a slightly better deal (but still not as good, and certainly not better then as a member), was to try and play on the other EU-member states positive view of Britain (yes, I know you think the rest of Europe hates Britain and only tries to thwart her in every way - but that's never actually been the case in the real world - only in the Brexiter's fantasy version).

But May cocked that up from the very beginning, by instead trying to play chicken with the EU, threatening to turn Britain into a tax haven to steal European investments if the EU didn't give her what she wanted, and deploying "Mr. Brexit" Boris Johnson as possibly the worst foreign secretary of all time.
A role in which he has so far (apart from many other blunders) managed to compare different EU member states and the whole of the EU to Nazi Germany on no less then three separate occasion (it may be more as well, but I remember three instances).

So Britain getting that slightly better deal because it played the "why can't we all be friends card?" is probably not even possible now.

@Nisse_Hult

The problem is twofold. That I've been misled by Eu-spectic propaganda is what you have said, through you deny it now. Also that any criticism of the EU you automatically assume to be inaccurate. It doesn't help further that in this 'discussion' while I have pointed out the problems for people in the EU from the current situation you ignore that to rabbit on about me complaining we're not getting everything which 'deluded Britexiter's have claimed Britain would get out of leaving' which is totally unrelated to what I've been saying here.

I will go into it one more time, in a bit more detail in the hope you will actually read what I say and think about it rather than go " I disagree with this so its wrong".

The only time I've had any real exposure to the right wing press was in the last couple of years was when I was looking after my mum for a couple of years. She was actually a close mirror image of you having extreme views on the EU among other matters. Which I put down in large part to her suffering from dementia and also as another factor the paper she read and believed rather blindly. Give you a clue my nickname for it was the Daily Distress as it was always so negative and right wing. In response to reading this, because it was about and to avoid raising my blood pressure too high I regularly read the 'I', a shorten form of the Independent. Did that until a few months after the 2016 referendum as it went too far to the other extreme in its rejection of the vote and was using any excuse to try and ignore it. Other than that I haven't regularly read a paper for ~20 years or more.

Most of my knowledge comes from electronic media, largely the BBC, their new channel, their regular TV news and also radio 4 which has a lot of news and current affairs. Again here I mainly go by what people say. I routinely ignore the Tories, who make up the most vocal pro-exit group [and their UKIP fellow-travellers] because I'm used to them lying. Its what people like Tusk and Barnier themselves say which has led to me viewing them with such contempt and distrust.

Similarly I have long had doubts about the EEC/EEU/EU going back to when Britain 1st joined. If I had had a say in 75 I think it was when we had the previous referendum I would have voted to leave then. I accepted the decision especially as, with the steady cutting of Britain's links to the rest of the world and decline of our relative power under the Thatcherites made it seem the best option. However the deteriorating status of the relationship and the attitude of the Euro-fanatics were the major drivers for me in continuing to distrust the union. Here I thought it was largely an internal British problem as the extremists in question who were so anti us leaving and used such extreme language were overwhelmingly British. Its only with the irresponsible behaviour of the EU 'representatives' since 2016 that I accept the enmity towards Britain goes much deeper.

I will repeat, although I suspect you will ignore me again. Its the extremists on the pro-EU side that are the reason I and I think many others have been alienated from it.

If you stop with the blind insistence that despite knowing nothing about me you can tell me why I disagree with you we might have a basis for discussion. Especially when your conclusion is so obviously wrong. As I have probably said before you will not influence me by continuing to insult me, which is what you have done every time.

@stevep59

"That I've been misled by Eu-spectic propaganda is what you have said, through you deny it now."

No, I've never denied that - that's what I've said all along.
What I've denied is your claim that this propaganda could only have come in the form of right-wing tabloids - that I've never claimed.
I wrote earlier that as far as I know the main sources of eurosceptic sentiment in the UK is Ukip, Tory back benchers and the tabloids - most of which are right-wing as far as I know, yes. But I went on to write that I don't believe the crucial point of eurosceptisism is that it's right-wing as much as that it's populist.

Like all populism it seeks to explain all manner of internal UK problems by blaming a scapegoat (the EU) and simplifies a complex reality into a false "us vs. them" where "us" is always the wronged party at the hands of the evil "them" who is deliberately out to control and dominate Britain.
It's stupidly populist - but unfortunately stupid populism often works if respectable institutions don't use their influence to educate the public on the reality the populist message distorts.

And in the case of Britain, as far as I know, most such respectable institutions have been asleep at the wheel for decades.

Populist eurosceptisism has been allowed to grow unchecked for decades because many of the respectable institutions (or what one would hope where respectable institutions) have stood to gain by this development.

As I described before, decades of British politicians have found it useful do blame the EU for all manner of internal problems in the UK, and the tabloids (and in part I guess even the regular press) have found it useful to sell copy.

While no, or few, such respectable institutions seem to have seen a value in correcting the misconceptions about the EU this populist rhetoric has spread - leaving the British public very uneducated about the true state of affairs.

We see the same thing play out in the US, where a large minority of the country simply doesn't trust the truth when presented to them, but preferring instead to live in the fantasy world created by populist rhetoric.

I'm sure Trump supporters and Brexit supporters are utterly convinced about the things they believe - but the fact is nonetheless that much of what they believe is pure fantasy.
Which you of course resent hearing - but there is no nice way of saying it, unfortunately.

"Also that any criticism of the EU you automatically assume to be inaccurate."

No I don't - but you have yet to offer any criticism of the EU that's actually based on reality!
I have my issues with the EU as well - but the things you've brought up are either simply not true at all, or based on irrational expectations of what Brexit would mean for Britain.

Like for instance the simple fact that there has never been that magical deal that could be best for everyone and the only reason Britain isn't getting that is that the EU is somehow trying to "punish" Britain for voting leave.

In reality no such deal ever existed - Brexit would always mean a loss for both sides. And because of the unbalance in power between the two sides in the negotiations, the side that would lose the most was always going to be Britain.
Which everyone who knew the first thing about this said before the referendum - but the Brexit campaigners of course ignored anyone who did and instead promised everything under the sun, if people just voted to leave.

But there has never been a realistic plan how to achieve all the things they promised - because they simply promised the impossible!

"It doesn't help further that in this 'discussion' while I have pointed out the problems for people in the EU from the current situation you ignore that to rabbit on about me complaining we're not getting everything which 'deluded Britexiter's have claimed Britain would get out of leaving' which is totally unrelated to what I've been saying here."

Everyone in the remaining EU understands that Brexit will mean a loss to us as well - that's not something that has been hidden from the public and we don't live under the illusion that there is some perfect deal that could benefit everyone more then Britain being a member.

But Britain has decided to leave and we obviously respect her decision to do so.

There is absolutely no comparable UK-skeptic sentiment in the rest of Europe, to the British eurosceptic sentiment. There never has been and there aren't now.
You can't find tabloids in Europe filled with spite and illwill towards Britain, and neither are the respectable press gleeful over the sad fate of Britain, nor are broadcast journalists.

Mainstream European sentiment on Brexit is very much that we're sad to see Britain leave, but since she voted like she did we guess she's leaving.
We know that'll result in some financial losses and that we'll have to renegotiate the EU budget once she's gone - but there is no great uproar about those things.

Mainstream European news don't cover Brexit a tenth as much as UK news does - because it's frankly not a huge issue for us.

All of this is because the rest of Europe has a rational understanding of Brexit and what will happen. They haven't been sold a fantasy version either of a huge benefit, or warned of a huge disaster when Brexit occurs - because neither of those scenarios will happen in the rest of Europe.

There will be some financial loss in Europe as well, and some problems for business and individuals - yes. But that's unavoidable - we realize that.

So Brexit supporters trying to tell other Europeans how terrible everything will be for them if they don't pressure their government to give Britain a better deal falls on deaf ears here - no one is listening to those claims.

"Its what people like Tusk and Barnier themselves say which has led to me viewing them with such contempt and distrust."

I've seen many quotes either fabricated completely, or taken out of context and presented as something completely different then what the person in question was actually saying, online.
So if you want to present quotes from individual EU employees (which they are - remember neither of them decide policy, they only implement it), you will have to provide me with the exact quote or a link to a place where it occurs so I can research it further.

Last time a person online claimed a quote to me it was some Russian, claiming Hillary Clinton had talked about how she wanted to control Russia's Siberian natural resources.

After some digging I found out the first "source" for that quote was a Russian intelligence officer who - in a Russian newspaper some years ago - claimed Russian military psychic's had gleaned this from Clinton by looking at pictures of her and reading her mind...

And that "quote" is still being used in Russian propaganda today, as "proof" of the west's evil intentions towards Russia.
The Russian I talked to presented it as a factual quote.

"Its only with the irresponsible behaviour of the EU 'representatives' since 2016 that I accept the enmity towards Britain goes much deeper."

Show me proof of this "irresponsible behavior" then. Not just you claiming things again, but actual PROOF. Link to sources showing what you claim is "irresponsible behavior" and I'll at least be able to check it out in some way.
I've seen none of that, so my basic assumption is that this is in fact not at all the case.
Instead, I very much believe that what you're upset about is the discrepancy between the fantasy of Brexit you where sold, and the reality that's now emerging.

But as I told you before - none of that is actually surprising or "irresponsible behavior" in reality, but a consequence of Britain's weak hand in the negotiations.

You can be as upset as you like about the stronger party in the negotiations not handing the weaker party all it wanted - but in reality that was never going to happen, and that's not in any way "irresponsible behavior" on the part of the EU negotiators.

Instead they're just responsible to the people they represent - the other 27 EU members.

That may suck for Britain - but again that's just a result of Brexit being a very bad idea to begin with, not some evil plan by the EU to be nasty to Britain.

Also, on the topic of "irresponsible behavior" I would like to point out that I've already showed you that one of your first attacks on the EU - for not wanting to agree to a deal for the EU's citizens in Britain and Britain's in the EU - was in reality the exact opposite of what you claimed.

The EU has NEVER been the party that refused such a deal. It was ALWAYS the May-government which refused to settle this issue, because they wished to keep the fate of these people as a bargaining chip in the future negotiations.
So far from "irresponsible behavior" the EU has in fact - as far as I know, barring any possible actual proof you have yet to provide - been the responsible party in these negotiations so far.

While the May-government has wasted time dithering and vacillating between positions, not willing (or unable) to decide what they actual want out of the negotiations.

Which, again, is a natural result of the fact that the Brexit campaigners, to sell Brexit to the British public, sold several different and mutually excluding versions of what Brexit would actually mean.
Which means that the May-government knows it can't possibly fulfill all the promises made, and is locked in a constant internal war over which version of Brexit to pursue.

Which in turn is why the best May could offer was "Brexit means Brexit" - which says NOTHING - but let's everyone think she's for whatever version of Brexit they are for.

"Its the extremists on the pro-EU side that are the reason I and I think many others have been alienated from it."

Ok then - let's see some of the extremist things these extremists have said then?
Again - actual sources are what's needed and not just you claiming things.
Also - remember there are actual extremists on both sides of every issue, and that it's pointless to talk about those unless they have some actual power to influence policy with their extremism.

So pointing out some private citizen saying stupid things doesn't actually prove anything, as you could always find people like that.
What's interesting is if you can point to people, or better still entire organizations with actual power or influence over policy that hold extreme views - that actually says something.

"If you stop with the blind insistence that despite knowing nothing about me you can tell me why I disagree with you we might have a basis for discussion. Especially when your conclusion is so obviously wrong. As I have probably said before you will not influence me by continuing to insult me, which is what you have done every time. "

As I've repeatedly said, I've actually made far fewer claims about you then you have claimed. The only thing I've really said about you is that you're ill-informed about Brexit and the EU - and you clearly are, as shown by the many false claims you've made.
Now I guess you find it insulting that I tell you so, but it none the less remains a fact that you've main a number of claims that are simply wrong.

Something I've proven with a number of sources, while you so far has not presented a single source.

It's really not my intention to be mean or disrespectful - but when someone is wrong on the facts, that's just the way it is and I don't believe that sugarcoating it will do much difference.

Wrong is still wrong.

But I've also said I've certainly never believed you to be a racist or evil or that you deliberately misstate what I write or misunderstand it.
I've always felt you're just very ill-informed about the realities - and I truly believe that to be the case with many Britons who support Brexit as well.

Which isn't really that surprising. You've been lied to by populist euroeceptic rhetoric for decades, and few respectable institutions in Britain seems to have helped you get your facts straight.
With that kind of background, it's not hard to understand why many Britons hold such a negative view towards the EU, compared to any other people in Europe.

@Nisse_Hult

You have changed your argument from time to time, although as in the case of the Spanish claims on Gibraltar it could be that your initial statement was vaguer than you intended. However the basic issue that your correct on every point regardless of the evidence is the sticking point. As long as you insist on that your not only wrong but your also insulting to continually call me a liar because you insist your delusions about me are accurate.

I have pointed out a number of dubious statements. Such as the insistence on no cherry picking when the EU has done nothing but that. Their demands that we meet all of their conditions before they will consider anything else to talk about. Their pretense their willing to continue the current open border with Ireland when they continually reject any such border. There was Tusk's drinking club analogy, where he actually shot himself in the foot because while he was - again - trying to claim Britain was asking for something it wasn't he basically gave a case for Britain not paying a penny to the EU after March 2019.

However as I say, until your willing to behave in a civil manner rather than insist you know how I think, regardless of the evidence, there is no point in continuing.

@stevep59

"You have changed your argument from time to time, although as in the case of the Spanish claims on Gibraltar it could be that your initial statement was vaguer than you intended."

No I haven't. I've been entirely consistent the whole time.
The problem is that you've repeatedly made false assumptions based on what I've written - without me ever actually writing what you then claim.

Like in the question of Gibraltar where you assumed Spain has expressed a willingness to do things you haven't been able to prove they've actually expressed. And then based on that you assumed further things about the EU and me, based on my reply.
While I never actually wrote any of the things you claimed.
You just assumed my and the EU's position based on your prior belief about Spain's position - which you again haven't actually been able to prove is true either.

Which again is a result of you having an erroneous understanding of the basic facts - or as I have described this - you living in the Brexiter fantasy world and not the real world.

"However the basic issue that your correct on every point regardless of the evidence is the sticking point."

That sentence doesn't make any sense to me - I'm not sure what you're trying to say?

" As long as you insist on that your not only wrong but your also insulting to continually call me a liar because you insist your delusions about me are accurate."

I've never called you a liar - I've consistently said you're misinformed.
A liar knows he's lying - a misinformed person simply says what he believes to be the truth.

I guess you feel it's insulting that I say that you are misinformed about the facts - but as I said before, you simply are.
I've proven several things you've claimed as true to be wrong with sources to back that up, while you haven't been willing or able to back up any of your claims with any sources at all.

I truly believe you believe the things you say - but that doesn't make them any more true, you know.

If you want to prove your claims you have to back them up with reputable sources - that's how a serious debate works.

"Such as the insistence on no cherry picking when the EU has done nothing but that. Their demands that we meet all of their conditions before they will consider anything else to talk about."

Again - these are examples of what happens in negotiations.
Both sides want to set the negotiating agenda to favor their interests of course, and the result will be based on the different sides strengths.

Since Britain stands to lose a whole lot more in Brexit if the negotiations don't finish in time and she's been able to acquire some sort of access to the EU's common market and probably the customs union as well, basically all pressure is on her to strike a deal.
The EU, having a much stronger hand as they have far less to lose if Britain doesn't acquire this new deal, don't have the same pressure to close a deal and consequently don't have to concede to British demands.

This is precisely what EVERYONE not campaigning for Brexit told the British public before the referendum would happen in the negotiations - and now it's happening.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone - except the people who never actually understood the realities, but believed in the fantasy world of Brexiter imagination.

Because in that fantasy - and only in that fantasy - Britain was in fact the stronger party in the negotiations as German car manufacturers would be begging to retain access to the British market on the same terms as before - desperate to sell their cars. Just in the same way as Italian prosecco producers and so on.
But in fact this was of course never going to happen - and now it isn't happening.

The different strengths of the two sides is what decides the outcome of the negotiation, and if the Brexit fantasy had been true and Britain had been the stronger party and could pressure the EU for more favorable terms for herself - you and all other Brexiter's would of course find that perfectly in order.
The only reason you're unhappy with the result in the real world is of course that the Brexit fantasy wasn't true at all and Britain doesn't have the strength to pressure the EU to the concessions the Brexit campaigners promised you Britain would get, to get you to vote for Brexit.

"Their pretense their willing to continue the current open border with Ireland when they continually reject any such border."

I'm not sure what you actually mean by this? Presumably you meant to say that they "reject any such open border"?
Because there will obviously be a national border across Ireland after Brexit, just as there is today.

The question is if that national border will also be an external border for the EU - which it will be, if Britain doesn't secure access to at least the customs union.

As with everything else about Brexit, the EU is always in favor of the status quo - which works just fine now. So they definitely want to retain the open border we have today.
But like everything else regarding Brexit - this isn't up to the EU to decide.
Because Britain has decided to leave - and when she does all the agreement which currently keeps that border open are nullified.
Which means that for the border to remain open, Britain has to decide to seek a deal with the EU to keep it open - in effect at least access to the EU's customs union.

If Britain doesn't secure access to the customs union, the EU has no choice but to enforce border controls on what will then become an external border for the EU.
Otherwise Britain would in effect get an unfair advantage compared to all other non-EU nations bordering the EU that aren't either part of the customs union, as good could flow without any control across that border.
That's an untenable situation of course, as unscrupulous businessmen would exploit such a loophole to circumvent paying customs by sending goods to and fro the UK across that border. It would also become a security nightmare as the customs union regulates that the country of origin is responsible for inspecting all cargo before it's sent, so regular security checks aren't necessary at the very border.
But if Britain no longer signs on to the customs union, there are no longer any demands on her to check and seal each lorry before it crosses the border - meaning the EU must, for it's own safety, check them at the border.
And the same of course goes for British customs checking all incoming cargo to Britain.

Which is why experts have also been talking about the utter nightmare that will develop at Dover-Calais, if Britain doesn't secure access to the customs union.
Lorries will probably be stuck in queues for days before they can pass, as they all have to be inspected right at the border.

But yes, the EU very much want to retain the open border on Ireland - but it's all up to Britain and what she decides to do.

"There was Tusk's drinking club analogy"

Again - it's not actually that important what either Tusk or Barnier says, as they are simple employees of the EU and don't decide policy.

But if you still wish to keep bringing this up, the least you could do is provide an actual source for this quote you attach so much importance to.
Because so far you've completely failed to do so - despite me asking for it.

Further more - despite the fact that it's your responsibility to provide sources for the claims you make upon request, I've nonetheless searched for this comment by Tusk myself - but I've come up empty.
I'm not saying he didn't said something along the lines you claim - but I simply can't find it, so if you want to continue citing that quote, you'll at least have to find a source for it.

"However as I say, until your willing to behave in a civil manner rather than insist you know how I think, regardless of the evidence, there is no point in continuing."

I've never actually claimed I know how you think. What I've claimed is that you've made several false claims, which I attribute to the fact that you're misinformed about the facts.
And that it's my belief that you are so because you get your understanding of the world not from the real world, but from the Brexiter fantasy version of it.

You're perfectly welcome to challenge these assumptions of mine by providing proof of the claims you make by citing reputable sources - but so far you've chosen not to.
Instead you keep repeating the same beliefs over and over - but that of course proves nothing.

@Nisse_Hult

Then your the most deluded person I know as you keep making false statements. You do finally admit its your BELIEF that I'm getting my views from false propaganda, again without providing any evidence of that. The problem is that because your mind is totally closed you won't consider anything that doesn't agree with your original faulty assumptions.

@stevep59

"Then your the most deluded person I know as you keep making false statements."

Unlike you, I've actually proven many of my claims with sources.

"You do finally admit its your BELIEF that I'm getting my views from false propaganda, again without providing any evidence of that."

The proof is that I've proven several of the things you've claimed as true are simply dead wrong.
You clearly don't know what you're talking about.

Of course you're still entitled to your opinions - they just happens to be factually wrong.

"The problem is that because your mind is totally closed you won't consider anything that doesn't agree with your original faulty assumptions."

It's a problem to you that I'm not willing to agree with your beliefs - yes.
But it's not actually a problem in the real world, as I base my opinions on actual facts - which is how a rational mind should function.

It's however of course not at all how the Brexit fantasy world works, so of course you and others who base your understanding of the real world on that fantasy will always be disappointed in the real world.

But everything I've said here is just based on facts.

You may dislike those facts however much you want - but they're still true.

And as a consequence the Brexit negotiations will never ever produce the outcome you where promised and Brexit won't be the magical transformative decision that makes Britain stronger or richer or freer - or anything else you where told by the Brexit campaigners.

Instead Brexit will create a lot of problems for Britain and mean few if any real gains.

Which again is what EVERYONE not actually trying to sell the British people on Brexit told you before the referendum.

But there is no point in arguing about that now - we'll all see soon enough how it will play out anyway.

@Nisse_Hult

The problem is you have a 1D manta that any criticism of the EU is based on being mislead by anti-EU propaganda. As such you trot this out regardless of what I say. We could argue about how accurate or not this viewpoint is but it is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to the points I've actually been making in this thread. I have not mentioned anything about what Britain [whatever that means as there are various viewpoints] wants but why the current path being taken by the EU mis-leaders is bad for a lot of people in the EU!

I will repeat, but suspect you will ignore it again, that the main reason why I distrust the EU is not because of what anti-EU bigots and fanatics say - which I largely ignore as I detest them anyway - but because of pro-EU bigots and fanatics say. It is they that have poisoned the pool so to speak for British option as much as their twins on the other side.

If you're incapable of understanding the above then I really need to stop wasting my time with you. If your willing to accept your not a god then we might have a basis for discussion.

@stevep59

"The problem is you have a 1D manta that any criticism of the EU is based on being mislead by anti-EU propaganda. As such you trot this out regardless of what I say. We could argue about how accurate or not this viewpoint is but it is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to the points I've actually been making in this thread."

You keep claiming that, but the problem is that everything you've claimed has been completely wrong - and you've also been unable to provide sources for any of it!

You may wish to make this a question about me having some preconceived notion and refusing to listen to reasonable critique - but the problem is that you offer NO such critique!

All you do is repeat nonsense talking points from the pro-Brexit side which has no relations to reality, and which are only viewed as reasonable in the fantasy world of Brexit creation.

But despite me telling you this over and over, and asking you to prove ANYTHING of what you claim, you just ignore that and continue playing the same tune like a broken record.

"I have not mentioned anything about what Britain [whatever that means as there are various viewpoints] wants but why the current path being taken by the EU mis-leaders is bad for a lot of people in the EU!"

And as I have told you repeatedly, the actions of the EU leaders in the Brexit negotiations are in fact not at all bad for the people of the EU!
On the contrary - if the EU's leaders where to give Britain the sweetheart deal the Brexit campaigners promised Britons to get you to vote for it, the EU's leaders would be severely punished by their own constituents who certainly don't want to see Britain being handed concessions they'll have to pay!

Because that's what this is about - as I've repeatedly told you, and as anyone not actively trying to sell Brexit to the British people has also said.

There was never any magical Brexit deal that was good for everyone. Quite the contrary - Brexit will be bad for both Britain and the EU and only good for Putin.
But when the losses of Brexit will be divvied up between Britain and the EU, Britons are fools if they for one second expect the EU to take on one Euro more of that loss then it absolutely have too!

And obviously Britain's negotiators and the May-government has the exact same stance from their side. Both sides will obviously always try to get the best deal for themselves.

And the problem is, that quite contrary to the Brexit fantasy world where Britain would get everything she wanted, Britain's negotiation position in leaving the EU is in fact shit - which is why in the real world Britain was ALWAYS going to be the party who made the worst deal on Brexit.

Which again is precisely why EVERYONE not actively trying to sell Brexit on the British people said so loud and clear before the referendum!

"Don't do this - it's a shit deal for Britain!"

But of course you and a slim majority of other Britons didn't listen to the experts, but instead to the likes of Farage, Gove and Johnson - and now Britain unfortunately have to suffer trough the consequences of your decision.

You can try blaming what you call the "pro-EU bigots and fanatics" all you want - but it doesn't change the fact that nobody forces you to vote the way you did and that Brexit was sold to the British people with a bunch of lies that where actually very easy to see through if one only bothered to check.

Like the widely reported fact that Gove's best argument to counter all of the countless institutions that warned against Brexit was that infamous crap about people being tired of experts.

Anyone who wanted to know how this would end could know. It's just that a slim majority of Britons unfortunately didn't want to know, but preferred to live in the fantasy world of Brexiter creation.

And discussing this with you, it seems obvious that's where you prefer to remain - rather then to admit the unpleasant fact that "oops, whoopsy, we might have fucked this up totally!".

Which is understandable from a psychological point of view - people tend to not want to admit mistakes they've made - but it makes for ridiculous arguing from you when you just ignore everything I write, can't prove a single thing you claim, and just keep repeating the same debunked fantasies over and over.

It might sound good in your mind - but it's not convincing anyone else, I can tell you.

@Nisse_Hult

Your just totally incapable of listening. Be happy with your delusions. Goodbye.

@stevep59

No, I'm not - but you're apparently totally incapable of providing any evidence what so ever for any of the claim you make - which makes it pointless to listen to your claims.

Maternity leave? I think you mean Maternity get out.

@Torvir "Maternity don't-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out!"

Denmark probably knocked her up in the first place

Maybe the pregnant woman doesn't want to go back to the rape capital of Europe (highest reported rate, lowest conviction rate according to Amnesty International): https://www.greennet.org.uk/network/news/sweden-has-worst-rape-conviction-record-europe

@CaliforniaAmazon
1) Given the presumption of innocence, shouldn't the accused being found not guilty render the accusation moot?

2) Furthermore all those studies are almost a decade old.

@TheChief http://www.outono.net/elentir/2018/01/25/a-feminist-mother-concealed-a-refugee-who-abused-her-daughter-to-avoid-his-expulsion/

@CaliforniaAmazon
I feel the need to chip in here. Yes, Sweden has tons of issues with that and yes, they are turning blind eye to that way too much (lets be fair, even 1 case is too much), but i do have to point out that its one of cases where perception is worse than reality.

@Meelis13

While I appreciate your overall sentiment and comment, I have to point out we don't actually have "tons of issues with that" which the link CaliforniaAmazon posted talks about.

That's classic far-right propaganda, based on reporting from a Swedish online hate site.

This is what the far-right always does - they cherry-pick individual cases to enforce the perception that there is "tons of issues" when there really isn't.

Crimes are committed in every nation by all kinds of people, but the far-right is only ever interested in crimes committed by the object of their hate and only cover those.

Well, if you subsist on a diet of only that information, and the half-truths and lies that is served with the few kernels of actual truth they present, you'll end up with a completely fucked up understanding of reality.

Which is the far-right's goal with pushing this kind of propaganda - they want to make you see the world as only they see it, and make you believe they alone represent the truth.

Just like any other fundamentalists.

@Nisse_Hult
Actually you do have problems. And no, im not cherrypicking individual cases, but its claim based on several sources (including several people i know live in Sweden). Also i know few people living in reported areas and its not rosy. Its not as bad as often stated by people who want to skew perception.
Whats interesting in Swedens case that crime rates seem to be same level, if we look at stats, but immigrant crime rates seem to be going up (although many do believe that stats arent 100 percent correct either way).

So is it as bad as some people say? No. Is it bad enough to be dealt with? Yes. Can immigrants be blamed for this? Yes and no. On one side they too are commiting crimes and by all accounts, not exactly little- which has been hinted and drawn to light, such as Peter Springare case last year (policeman who brought out crime stats). Now, i dont think Springare told 100 percent truth, but judging from swedish officials akward response, i do deduce he hit close to the mark and it IS bigger issue than public is often let on, especially because they didnt outright deny it (which in such cases is pretty common practise).
At same time, its also fault of swedish goverment, because they are responsible for creating effective means for immigrants to merge into society, which in itself would solve huge portion of problem. And i know it sounds cold, but if you cant handle that many immigrants, you really need to limit it. I mean if im not mistaken, isnt about 25 percent of swedish population migrated at this point (including 2nd generation). Thats a LOT to handle to anyone to integrate- i know that from Estonia's experience (and russians are relatively similar in terms of culture to europe)
Right now though, seems like swedish goverment is hiding head beneath a sand instead facing issue right now, expecting drastically different cultures magically get along. But thats bigger issue than just migrants, because whole swedish system, its currently running on inertia with big warning lights all across the board. Person i know very well and communicate very often is working as teacher there and if even 1/10th of stories are correct about whats happening just in education (in normal school), im afraid that Sweden comes to crash stop in next 20 years.
I cannot stress how much i hope i am wrong here or that Sweden actually pulls off positive change that keeps their positive images (and justifies them) yet solves glaring issues Sweden has right now. Facing the problem is something that needs to be done earlier rather than later

So if you are worried i have been victim of propaganda, well, not really because i diversify my sources on purpose.

@Meelis13

"Actually you do have problems."

All countries has problems.
What I corrected you on was the claim that Sweden has a "tons of issues with that" ("that" being the lies in CaliforniaAmazon:s link). We don't have that.

"And no, im not cherrypicking individual cases, but its claim based on several sources (including several people i know live in Sweden)."

You are - and you're even admitting it by referring to individual people you know.
That's not a scientific method of collecting data in any way.

We actually have experts who've spent years educating themselves and now work only studying issues like these.
Criminologists they're called - and their research don't in any way support the claims made by far-right propagandists.

"Also i know few people living in reported areas and its not rosy. Its not as bad as often stated by people who want to skew perception."

It's not rosy but it's not as bad? Which is it?

I can tell you I personally lived in one of those fantasy "no-go zones" the far-right made up for 15 years, moving from that area only 2 years ago.
In 15 years I was never subjected to a crime there, never saw a crime being committed, never heard a crime occur. No one ever bothered me, not once - for 15 years.

That's not to say that crime didn't happen there, and if we look at the statistics they probably happen there more frequently then more affluent areas - but these places are far, far from the lawless war zones the far-right propaganda portray them as.

"Is it bad enough to be dealt with?"

All crime need to be dealt with of course - no one disagrees on that point.

"Can immigrants be blamed for this? Yes and no. On one side they too are commiting crimes and by all accounts, not exactly little"

No, "immigrants" can't be blamed for anything, because "immigrants" don't commit crime - INDIVIDUALS commit crime. Some of them happen to be immigrants yes - but in a democracy ruled by laws we don't scapegoat entire groups of people because of the actions of individuals.

And if we were to begin to do so now, far and away the largest group who commit crime are men - so should we now talk about whether or not men can be blamed for crime?

Are ALL men suddenly in some way partly responsible for the crimes committed by other men - just because we also happen to be men?
No, of course not.

Because we don't scapegoat entire groups for the actions of individuals.

Regarding your belief that immigrants "are commiting crimes and by all accounts, not exactly little" - that's precisely how the far-right would like you to frame the issue.
But you could just as well say the same thing about men and it would be saying just as little.

Because whether or not a criminal also happens to be an immigrant is NOT a determining factor in why these individuals commit crime.
In fact, whether or not a person is a man is probably a way stronger indicator for his likelihood of ever committing a crime, then whether or not a person is an immigrant.

The far-right propaganda will tell you that immigrants commit crime because they are evil, violent people and some such nonsense.

While in fact, what criminologists who actually study these issues have consistently seen since the invention of the science about a century ago is that poverty, unemployment and low education level breeds certain types of crime.

So people of immigrant decent don't actually commit more crimes then Swedes suffering the same social problems - it's just that a large part of the immigrant community suffer from these social problems.
They are poorer, have lower then average income, higher unemployment rate and parts of the immigrant community has lower then average education levels.

And as all people in that situation they are, because of that situation, more likely to commit certain types of crime.

On the other hand other types of crime are almost exclusively committed by the very rich and affluent members of society - like white collar financial crimes.
Those people instead tend to not have any recent immigrant background in their family history, and they tend to have a very high education level and very well paying jobs.

But they are still just as criminal as someone who steals a car in the suburbs. Only the far-right is never interested in their crimes, because they're not immigrants.

So people are more or less likely to commit crime depending on any number of factors, but whether or not they or their parents immigrated to Sweden is NOT one of those factors.

That's the scientific consensus amongst actual experts in this field.

"which has been hinted and drawn to light, such as Peter Springare case last year (policeman who brought out crime stats). Now, i dont think Springare told 100 percent truth, but judging from swedish officials akward response, i do deduce he hit close to the mark and it IS bigger issue than public is often let on, especially because they didnt outright deny it (which in such cases is pretty common practise)."

This is just all baseless assumptions on your part.
Peter Springare is one individual with an axe to grind and he's used his position to spread his personal opinions - but he's no actual expert on the overall issue of crime.
He's a policeman who sees his little part of the issue, and like you he's drawn assumptions based on that.
But he doesn't actually have either the education or the data to say anything definitive on the larger issue.

But since he's said things the far-right like to hear, they've promoted him heavily of course.
That there are others, in a similar position to him, that says something different get's no attention what so ever from the far-right of course.

And the criminologists who actually study the entire issue are routinely accused of being part of a massive conspiracy and cover-up by the far-right - because they don't at all support the claims made by the far-right.

"At same time, its also fault of swedish goverment, because they are responsible for creating effective means for immigrants to merge into society, which in itself would solve huge portion of problem."

Sweden is actually one of the most successful countries in the world when it comes to the integration of immigrants.
Most people don't know that, because the right-wing propaganda obviously paints a completely different picture, but that's still the truth.

See for instance the MIPEX-project for more on this. This is Sweden country specific page:

http://www.mipex.eu/sweden

One thing you might want to ask your Swedish friends about for an example of this is how much they hear about the refugees from the Balkans these days?

The story behind this is that the last time we saw a huge influx of refugees to Sweden, was during the civil war in the Balkans in 1992 when we had 84.000 refugees arrive.
Our far-right neo-fascist party the Sweden Democrats had been formed as a neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic party in the late 80's, but they jumped at the chance to hate on the refugees coming from the Balkans at that time.

They would never be able to integrate into Sweden, they where poorly educated and had "violent genes" they said - and general racist bullshit like that.
Got them a lot of attention at the time and their currant party leader joined them then.

Today they don't say a word about the refugees from the Balkans, or their children - because they are now well integrated into the Swedish society.
Their level of education is the same as Swedes with no immigration roots, their unemployment level is even slightly lower.

All the hysterical fearmongering and hatred that was directed at the Balkan refugees back then was simply just prejudice and bigotry, and now when they've adjusted just fine in Sweden (those that didn't go back when the wars ended that is), the far-right no longer want to mention them at all - because their success disproves their entire bullshit propaganda.

"Right now though, seems like swedish goverment is hiding head beneath a sand instead facing issue right now, expecting drastically different cultures magically get along."

Again, that's what the far-right propaganda want people to believe - but it's not true.
As I've already shown above, Sweden is actually doing quite well in integrating immigrants into our society. Of course there are always things that can be done better, and there is plenty of serious discussion about these things - but the far-right is of course offering none of that.
All they want to do is scream constantly about how everything is a disaster and how we're all DOOMED unless we all vote for them and adopt their racist policies tomorrow.

Fortunately, so far they have no political influence and our sane parties and authorities are instead dealing with the situation in a rational way.

An example of this is the major shift that was made in immigration policy as a result of the massive wave of refugees who came in the late autumn of 2015.

You remember those 84.000 refugees from the Balkans who came in 1992? The one's who are by now integrated into Swedish society and which the far-right no longer want to talk about?

Well after they came and the wars in the Balkans ended the numbers of arriving refugees decreased rapidly.
Despite this the far-right continued screaming about "mass immigration" - because to them of course any immigrants at all are too many, regardless of the actual numbers.

They've claimed for a decade that Sweden would surely collapse completely any day now and generally tried to frighten people with claims of massive amounts of immigrants coming here - despite that not being true at all.

While all the other Swedish political parties and Swedish authorities and society at large has calmly said that no, there is no great problem associated with the refugees coming here.

Yes, it costs some money in the short run, but then they become self sufficient and contribute to society and pay their taxes like everyone else.
Some immigrants don't, some even commit crime - but so does some native born Swedes - and then we deal with them individually.

But we don't scapegoat entire groups of people based on the actions of individuals, and we don't lie and fearmonger about "mass immigration" when that's not actually a problem.

Faced with this complete rebuttal to their wild claims of impending doom from all other parts of Swedish society, the far-right did what the far-right always does when faced with opposition to their world view - they created a conspiracy theory.

We're right they said - Sweden will be completely destroyed by immigration - and what's more - ALL the other parties actually know it!
They're deliberately trying to destroy Sweden and they're lying to the public and hiding all the evidence of the massive problems only we are brave enough to talk about!

OK... So then there was the problem that the civil authorities didn't agree with the far-rights claim either?

They're ALL lying too! the far-right said - they're part of the conspiracy to destroy Sweden by mass immigration!
And the scientific community, and the media and everyone else that doesn't agree with us!
ALL part of the massive conspiracy!

So that was the situation in 2015, when the next massive wave of refugees hit Sweden.

Remember that number from 1992?
84.000 refugees in one year - the largest influx of refugees we've ever had?

Well in 2015 that number was completely swamped when 163.000 refugees arrived - and most of them in a few months in the autumn.

Here is a graph over the weekly arrival of asylum seekers - the peek in late 2015 is quite easy to spot:

https://www.migrationsverket.se/images/18.4cb46070161462db1131c9/1524481830388/Graf.png

Then, for the first time ever, the Swedish authorities said that this is clearly not manageable - there are simply too many people coming for us to cope with this amount.
There weren't facilities to house them all and not enough personnel to even handle all their cases - which obviously have to be reviewed and handled individually.

So then the left-green government decided - in complete unanimity with all other political parties, except the far-right Sweden Democrats, that Sweden had to tighten it's borders.

Now remember the Sweden Democrats had for a decade pushed the conspiracy theory that ALL the other political parties, and civil authorities and the academic community and media, deliberately wanted to destroy Sweden by way of mass immigration.

Now if that had been the case, all these groups would of course have rejoiced at the sight of this huge wave of refugees. "Oh, lucky us - now we can destroy Sweden so much quicker with all these refugees coming all at once!"
If what the Sweden Democrat had claimed in their propaganda had been true, no one would of course have lifted a finger to tighten the borders.

Instead everyone the Sweden Democrats had claimed was part of this massive conspiracy just responded to the changed circumstances and took the appropriate measures.

Because the truth is of course, that the Sweden Democrats hysterical claims of mass immigration that was more then Sweden could handle had never been true during all those years they made them before.

But when they finally where, that autumn of 2015, everyone responded in a rational way to the changed circumstances - and the Sweden Democrats wasn't even part of that decision.
As always they just stood on the sidelines, screaming insane things about the country being destroyed, while the grown-ups handled the actual real world issue in a rational way.

Since that decision, Sweden now has one of the strictest immigration policies in all of Europe, because we still have a huge backlog in dealing with all the people who came in 2015.
So not only our government, but all the opposition parties have responded in a rational manner to the situation.

Except for the far-right Sweden Democrats of course, who still screams about mass immigration and claims all the other parties are for unrestricted immigration.

In short, they do what they've always done and always will do - they lie.

"But thats bigger issue than just migrants, because whole swedish system, its currently running on inertia with big warning lights all across the board."

Well I have no idea what you're talking about here, but again it seems to be assumptions you've made on God knows what sources. And I really can't comment on your beliefs.

"Person i know very well and communicate very often is working as teacher there and if even 1/10th of stories are correct about whats happening just in education (in normal school), im afraid that Sweden comes to crash stop in next 20 years."

Again - not really possible to comment on any of this, it's just your beliefs based on what someone told you.

"I cannot stress how much i hope i am wrong here or that Sweden actually pulls off positive change that keeps their positive images (and justifies them) yet solves glaring issues Sweden has right now.
Facing the problem is something that needs to be done earlier rather than later"

Sweden's been around for a long time and we're not going anywhere - no matter how much the hysterical far-right screams about our impending doom.
If I'd be you I'd be more worried about Estonia, considering your Russian neighbor.

If you continue treating Estonians of Russian heritage as second class citizens in their own country, you sooner or later will create a conflict with Russia over that.
And don't be so sure the west will stick up for Estonias "right" to mistreat it's own citizens.

"So if you are worried i have been victim of propaganda, well, not really because i diversify my sources on purpose."

I've given you some sources here - you've given me none, but cited what friends of yours have said.
I'm quite comfortable with my position.

@Nisse_Hult
Do you honestly expect me to say peoples names and how i know them in public forums? Suffice to say, they live in Stockholm area in most part and 1 person living in Malmö.
To clarify, i DID NOT say anything about that specific link, so claiming i support validity of that is unfair. That said, i did refer i used what my friends said as ONE of the sources, i did compare it to others as well (i usually compare at least 3 different sources for 1 such claim, including nations own official stats, UN estimates and at least 1 newspaper (with double checking its inclination- so there you have my sources. Also Springer is friend of mine? since when? dont even know the guy).

Also you seem to be extreme person yourself- since i claim its not as rosy, but its not as bad as extreme right claims, you think im lying? Because obviously there cant be ANY middle ground. Its either perfectly safe and fine or complete disaster, right? Give me a break. Life is rarely in extremes, although lately people think thats all there is. You have to make compromises every single day and this is no exception. So thats quite rich, in my opinion, for you blaming me on being victim of propaganda, yet thinking there cant be any middle ground (which is 99 percent of the case where truth lies).

I do agree with you that "no-go" zones are complete and utter garbage. I think confusion just comes with phrase used to refer to those- police does admit operating in some areas is difficult, but thats not because extremely high crime rates (though as everywhere there are areas that get higher crime)

And of course individuals commit crimes, but in order to stop it or minimise it, its important to know why. Immigrants as group commit a lot toward crime and yes, so do men. So its important to realise why that is if we are ever hoping to drop crime rates. If percentage is skewed toward specific group, then its safe to assume there is some large problem with said group and we need to find out core reasons. Obviously yes, we cannot blame all migrants for it, we cannot punish them and we shouldnt punish them. But thats not even solution i was referring to. You cant fix something without knowing whats causing it and where it originates.
Thus is so odd to read that you actually know whats causing it and deny correlation to it. Nobody is claiming immigrants are inherently criminals, they just do have usually less income and bigger unemployment rates, which pushes people more toward crime (that IS connection you cant deny, one of problems cores). Plus, in cases they come from drastically different cultures like during this migration wave, they also experience heavy culture shock. We like to think that western values have spread trough world, but its not case.

Which leads me back to what i meant when i said Sweden needs to create more effective means to integrate. Its true that in the past you have done it well, but those migrants were in large majority people from western world, with similar enough set of morals and culture. Its easier to integrate such people. Its more difficult when they are from another culture space. Also things are constantly evolving, you cant stay reliant on old methods to last forever.

I do remember that and that was correct reaction, to tighten borders. But its not just about letting people in that needs rework, its integration process as well, because its obvious even from this conversation that there are few gaps that can be bettered.

As for person thats teacher, all i can say is that while that person does have some tendency to boast, that person is usually reliable source to get idea whats going on.

Sweden has been around for long time, yes, but that cant make you lazy, which it currently does. But i suppose in the end, you probably can afford to take hit more than most other nations should things go wrong due to overconfidence.

As for Estonia, yeah, that proves you follow propaganda yourself. We dont treat people as second class citizens. In fact, they have at least as many rights as residents in Sweden. They can vote in local and european parliament elections, they have same access to all facilities, they have schools that teach in their language, etc. So pray tell me, how are we treating them as second rate?

@Meelis13

"Do you honestly expect me to say peoples names and how i know them in public forums? Suffice to say, they live in Stockholm area in most part and 1 person living in Malmö."

No I don't and I never asked you to name them either.
If you re-read what I wrote, my point is instead that it doesn't matter who these individual friends of yours are - they're still just individuals with no expertise in the area we're talking about.
I'm sure they believe what they tell you, and you think you're getting a balanced understanding from them and other (unnamed) sources - but that's still not a scientific approach to understanding the issue.

For that we have actual experts with actual expertise in the area, doing actual scientific research on it.

If you want to understand a complex issue like this, you read what they write and listen to what they say - not just random people you happen to know.

"To clarify, i DID NOT say anything about that specific link, so claiming i support validity of that is unfair."

CaliforniaAmazon entire post you replied to was the link - that's ALL she posted.
To which you replied in part that "Yes, Sweden has tons of issues with that and yes, they are turning blind eye to that way too much".
So you certainly endorsed the link, claiming that much of the point it was making was true.
But then you also offered critique to part of it.

Which is why I replied to you like I did. I told you that:

"While I appreciate your overall sentiment and comment, I have to point out we don't actually have "tons of issues with that" which the link CaliforniaAmazon posted talks about."

So no, you certainly referenced the link CaliforniaAmazon posted and I corrected you on some of what you wrote - but complimented you on other parts of it.

"That said, i did refer i used what my friends said as ONE of the sources, i did compare it to others as well (i usually compare at least 3 different sources for 1 such claim, including nations own official stats, UN estimates and at least 1 newspaper (with double checking its inclination- so there you have my sources."

Claiming sources isn't the same as actually citing them. And again - I'm not talking about the names of your friends here as their opinion has no value as a source on a topic like this anyway.
But the official, published sources you claim to base you assumptions on - if you want to present a credible argument you have to present those so we all can review them and see if they stand up to scrutiny.

But with the generalized claims you've made it's hard to see that anything can actually prove those claims.

How do you for instance prove the broad claim that:

"because whole swedish system, its currently running on inertia with big warning lights all across the board." ?

You're basically saying the entire country of Sweden is going to hell - and you prove that claim with NOTHING.
But what kind of source would even prove a generalized claim like that?

You're free to believe anything you like of course, but you've certainly not proven anything you've claimed so far - so why should anyone believe a word you've written here?

"Also Springer is friend of mine? since when? dont even know the guy)."

Again, I've never claimed he was and it wouldn't matter if he was. My point (which I clearly expressed) is instead that he too is just one individual without any actual expertise in the overall area of immigration or immigrant criminality.
He's one policeman who's opinions happen to line up with the far-right in many ways, which is why they promote him heavily.

There are plenty of other policemen that don't agree with him - but those are irrelevant to the far-right of course, as they only ever cherry-pick the "evidence" they think "proves" their beliefs.

Also, again, the actual experts in this area - being criminologists - don't actually support the anti-immigrant claims made by either Springare or the far-right.

"Also you seem to be extreme person yourself- since i claim its not as rosy, but its not as bad as extreme right claims, you think im lying?"

I'm not extreme in the least - I simply base my understanding on the issues on the actual facts we have. Facts that are researched by actual experts in the areas in question.

I of course never claimed you lied, instead I simply asked what you meant as you said two things that appear to contradict each other.

And then I gave you my personal experience, as another example.
Not worth more then any other personal opinion you've heard, but it seems you haven't ever heard anyone give you the personal experience I have to offer, so I wrote that to show you other experiences exists as well.

"Because obviously there cant be ANY middle ground. Its either perfectly safe and fine or complete disaster, right? Give me a break."

Again, I never said any of that.

"Life is rarely in extremes, although lately people think thats all there is. You have to make compromises every single day and this is no exception."

I completely agree. That's why I wrote what I did when I first replied to you.
I didn't say everything you wrote was terrible and wrong, nor did I say you where completely right. I complimented you on your overall approach - but pointed out that it is wrong to say that Sweden "has tons of issues with that" which CaliforniaAmazon's link talks about.

"So thats quite rich, in my opinion, for you blaming me on being victim of propaganda, yet thinking there cant be any middle ground (which is 99 percent of the case where truth lies)."

So now you know what I'm thinking too?
Again - I've never said anything like that, but apparently I didn't need to as you can read my mind.

"I do agree with you that "no-go" zones are complete and utter garbage."

I know and that's why I wrote that "I appreciate your overall sentiment and comment".
You've clearly not completely fallen victim to far-right propaganda - but you are still influenced by it, which is why I wrote what I did.

"I think confusion just comes with phrase used to refer to those- police does admit operating in some areas is difficult, but thats not because extremely high crime rates (though as everywhere there are areas that get higher crime)"

Well actually there in no "confusion" what so ever - it's just a case of very deliberate propaganda from the far-right.
The basis (as I think you know?) is that Swedish police compiled a list of areas that need special attention, because they have higher then average crime rates and are troubled by social problems and poverty.
Now ALL nations have these areas of course, as crime is never spread evenly in any nation.
And these areas are almost always the poorer parts of cities or the suburbs of cities, when the people of the lowest social class tend to end up.

In the case of Sweden most of these areas contain a lot of immigrants - as they are often poorer, has higher unemployment and less education then the national average.

But the far-right took this list and ran with it - claiming all manner of insane things based on it.

In their propaganda version of reality these places where suddenly "no-go zones" where police no longer dared to go. They where controlled by violent gangs of dangerous immigrants, roaming the streets and terrorizing anyone - especially all white people who dared to enter.
In some version it was even claimed the Sharia-law was being enforced by gangs of fundamentalists and Swedish authorities had no control what so ever of these areas.

Well obviously that's all just lies. But it doesn't matter how many times you repeat that to the far-right fundamentalists who believe this propaganda - because as fundamentalist they feel the already know the "REAL TRUTH" and they reject any information that doesn't confirm their pre-conceived notions.

So this propaganda is no mere "confusion" - it's a deliberate lie pushed by the far-right, and as I've noted in another post it's not even original, as the same claims has been made against virtually every western European country that's taken in immigrants.

See for instance this earlier post of mine:

~9743702

"And of course individuals commit crimes, but in order to stop it or minimise it, its important to know why. Immigrants as group commit a lot toward crime and yes, so do men. So its important to realise why that is if we are ever hoping to drop crime rates. If percentage is skewed toward specific group, then its safe to assume there is some large problem with said group and we need to find out core reasons. Obviously yes, we cannot blame all migrants for it, we cannot punish them and we shouldnt punish them. But thats not even solution i was referring to. You cant fix something without knowing whats causing it and where it originates."

We're agreed on that.
So let's stop saying things like:

"Can immigrants be blamed for this? Yes and no."

then shall we, since we agree that immigrants can't be blamed for things?
Just like men or any other arbitrarily chosen group can't be blamed for things individuals do.

Because as I've told you we know - because criminologist research shows that - it's NOT the case that people commit crimes because they have an immigrant background.
Instead they commit more of certain types of crime if they are poor, poorly educated and suffer from other social problems - which many immigrants happen to be and do.

"Thus is so odd to read that you actually know whats causing it and deny correlation to it."

I'm not. The causation are these social problems I brought up.
What I'm denying is the correlation between immigration background and criminality - because any such correlation is denied by actual research.

"Nobody is claiming immigrants are inherently criminals"

The far-right certainly is!
That's their entire point with endlessly scouring the news and public sources for any crime committed by an immigrant or person of immigrant decent.
Or actually, SOME people of such background.
Because they're of course actually just racists, so it's only persons with darker skin or from certain countries that interest them.

An immigrant from Finland or Germany committing a crime is completely uninteresting to them - as long as he's white.

Their entire motivation is just about "proving" their racist beliefs that people with darker skin or who comes from certain countries or belong to certain religions are less civilized and more violent then their fantasy version of themselves and the people they claim they represent.

"...they just do have usually less income and bigger unemployment rates, which pushes people more toward crime (that IS connection you cant deny, one of problems cores)."

Not only do I not deny it - I'm actually the one that brought it up in this discussion in my last post, since that's an actual fact and I base my understanding of the issues on those.

"Plus, in cases they come from drastically different cultures like during this migration wave, they also experience heavy culture shock. We like to think that western values have spread trough world, but its not case."

That's partly true - but I don't actually think most people believe western values have spread through the world like you seem to think they do.

But what is also true is that the vast majority of the people fleeing to the west actually want to embrace our values - that's one of the reasons they come here.

Now the far-right propaganda obviously denies this, instead claiming that all immigrants ever want to do is abuse the system and live of the state. Or even more insane - describe immigrants as some huge conspiracy to turn the west into the nations they came from.

It's all part of their fear-based propaganda - to frighten people into believing the worst of immigrants and seeing them all as some deadly threat to life as we know it.

The reality is of course much different.

The vast majority of all immigrants seeking asylum in the west comes from deeply troubled countries. Non-democratic with repressive regimes where people aren't allowed to express their views and large minorities are often subjected to open percussion.

The people who flee from these places are the ones that's actually experienced this oppression first hand - it's the people who don't fit into the mold that country's leader/s had decided is the only acceptable one, and thus they really understand the value of the freedoms in the west.

And they risk everything to get to enjoy those freedoms, but often more importantly - to be able to secure those freedoms for their own children.

The vast majority of them are certainly not going to accept that anyone try to turn the countries they flee to into the same hell they left!

Of course there are always exceptions, and the far-right does all they can to highlight every single such exception (including fabricating a lot of their claims) - but it remains the fact that the vast majority of immigrants to the west (just like people born here) never commit any crimes at all and their only wish is to live their life in peace with a roof over their head, food in their belly and the ability to provide a better life for their children.

Now obviously, many of the people who come here will have grown up with much more conservative social norms then we have.
But then there are also differences on this in the west. Eastern Europe is far more conservative still then western Europe and Sweden is probably among the most liberal countries in all of the world.

This will sometimes lead to tensions - especially as the children of immigrants can find themselves stuck between the more conservative expectations of their parents, and the life they see other western youths their age lead.

But the fact is again, that in the vast majority of these cases, the western values will win out - because the children will rightly see that the greater freedoms of the west is much more appealing to them then their parents conservative views.

Not that ALL immigrant parents hold such conservative views mind you - many are quite open to their children choosing their own way in fact - but if they do.

It's always amused me how completely illogical the far-rights propaganda is on this topic.

They claim all immigrants are these deeply conservative (if not outright religiously fundamentalist) people who want to enslave their children and turn the country the flee to into a copy of the one they fled from.

But still they ALSO claim that the children of immigrants will turn out exactly the same. That they will dutifully become copies of their parents and reject all western values.

How little faith the far-right has in the values they themselves claim to champion!

Not believing anyone would freely chose to embrace freedom and democracy over fundamentalism and oppression!

It's of course completely ridiculous and just stupid propaganda.

For every generation of an immigrant family, the children become ever more integrated into the majority culture - as long as the majority culture is open to integrating them into their society.

People want to belong and fit in - they don't want to be part of an odd minority. Especially not teens and young adults who are really sensitive to what people their age think about them.

But again - this is of course talking about the vast majority here. There will always be individual cases that don't conform to this, and there will be special issues that arises from that. But we handle those cases individually - we don't pretend they represent the vast majority of immigrants. Because they simply don't.

"Which leads me back to what i meant when i said Sweden needs to create more effective means to integrate. Its true that in the past you have done it well, but those migrants were in large majority people from western world, with similar enough set of morals and culture. Its easier to integrate such people. Its more difficult when they are from another culture space."

"In the past"?
The link I posted shows the MIPEX-studies last score from 2014.
It ranked Sweden as number 1 on integration of immigrants out of 38 countries scored (including Estonia, which was ranked 22:nd out of 38).

Here's another link for you saying the same thing.
Slightly older, but referencing a British study which in 2011 listed Sweden as the "top country at integrating immigrants" out of 31 European and North American countries studied:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/8359653/Sweden-is-top-country-at-integrating-immigrants.html

And it's patently untrue that we've mostly had immigrants from the western world before that time. Sweden has taken immigrants from all over the world for decades.

"Also things are constantly evolving, you cant stay reliant on old methods to last forever."

As I've already said it's already the case that "there is plenty of serious discussion about these things".
It's just that Sweden (for the most part) bases it's policies on actual evidence as presented by experts in the field. We don't (usually) let ideological or irrational arguments dictate our policies, but instead have a long tradition of listening to the actual experts in the area and follow their professional advice.

But this discussion on policy, between academic experts, is mostly not taking place in the public eye - as most people are bored stiff listening to policy experts discuss complicated topics in great detail, or reading their published studies.

But our serious political parties all do, and they have so far all agreed on the basic outlines of our immigration policies - because they too trust the advice the actual experts can provide, based on serious research.

Now the far-right of course rejects ALL of this - they just want to close the borders completely, and preferable throw everyone out that isn't Swedish enough in their eyes.

So they spend their time blasting simple propaganda all over the internet and do their best diverting attention from the real data and facts we actually do have.

And they're unfortunately succeeding rather well, as your post here shows.

Now you seem to be an honest person, trying to honestly understand the issue.

But yet you believe that Sweden is some how failing in integrating immigrants - because that's what the far-right propaganda claims and what many people believe.

That Sweden is in fact one of the most successful nations in the world on integration is completely lost on most people - because that fact is almost never mentioned. And when it is, it's completely swamped by the far-right propaganda that claims the opposite.

In that environment it's hard for people to actually get an honest understanding of the issue, of course.

"I do remember that and that was correct reaction, to tighten borders. But its not just about letting people in that needs rework, its integration process as well, because its obvious even from this conversation that there are few gaps that can be bettered."

As I've shown (now twice) Sweden is actually doing pretty well on immigration.
But as I've also said the issues are being discussed constantly in the academic community and changes occur as the need arises.

The far-right does however not contribute in any meaningful way to this discussion, as all their proposals are just based on anti-immigrant sentiment or outright racism.

"As for person thats teacher, all i can say is that while that person does have some tendency to boast, that person is usually reliable source to get idea whats going on. "

He/she may obviously give you his/hers personal opinion about things - but that's still not scientific evidence of anything.
As I happen to have spent several years working in schools as well, I should point out that the main problem with the Swedish school system (if that is something your friend has talked about) is the disastrous reform a right-wing government enacted in 1992.

That's one of the cases where Swedish policy certainly wasn't guided by a scientific approach, but partisan ideological beliefs.

Sweden got the most market-liberal school system in the world and our education results turned to shit because of it.

It's an over simplified description I'm giving here, but it's the basic truth.

The Swedish Royal Academy of Science (the one that awards the winners in all the scientific Nobel prizes) has concluded that that reform is the major reason behind Swedens falling education results in the last decades.

So again, this is actually based on scientific research - not just my opinion.

"Sweden has been around for long time, yes, but that cant make you lazy, which it currently does. But i suppose in the end, you probably can afford to take hit more than most other nations should things go wrong due to overconfidence."

Well we're not lazy, as I've shown you - we're doing quite well, thank you very much.
That's not to say we can't possibly be even better and we're constantly looking at all serious options to improve our system and society as well.

Despite what the far-right propaganda will have people believe.

"As for Estonia, yeah, that proves you follow propaganda yourself. We dont treat people as second class citizens. In fact, they have at least as many rights as residents in Sweden. They can vote in local and european parliament elections, they have same access to all facilities, they have schools that teach in their language, etc. So pray tell me, how are we treating them as second rate?"

Nope, no propaganda at all.
I'm simply reading the reporting and academic studies that are being done on the issue.

Some Estonians of Russian heritage are being treated as second rate citizens because they are denied citizenship without having to jump through hurdles the Estonian state has put up for them - namely the language test.

People born in Estonia considered having Estonian heritage was not forced to take any test, while people deemed to have Russian heritage was.

So Estonia is clearly operating a double standard where some of it's native born citizens are treated unfairly compared to others. I.E they are being treated like second rate citizens, despite having done nothing to deserve this discrimination.

Some of the many available sources on this:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2017/03/many_ethnic_russians_in_estonia_have_gray_passports_live_in_legal_limbo.html

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129333023

https://www.fpri.org/article/2016/05/lost-conflation-estonian-city-narva-russian-speakers/

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/01/17/its-time-end-child-statelessness-estonia

https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/verges/article/viewFile/11634/3698

https://ecpr.eu/filestore/paperproposal/3e77f4ab-9a20-4440-b23c-0746c8bce314.pdf

@CaliforniaAmazon

Classical far-right propaganda, based on reporting by a Swedish online hate site.

This is what the far-right always do:

They find isolated cases and then try to portray them as the norm or indicative of a larger "hidden truth" only they themselves claim to see.
Or, even crazier, they claim other people see this "truth" too, but for some insane reason the rest of us are all part of a huge conspiracy to cover this "truth" up because we all want to destroy our own nation.

In reality of course these partisan arguments can be made against any nation or any system in the word.
There are plenty of insane or criminal people in every country in the world doing terrible things that one could use as fodder for any false claim one would like to make.

But it's obviously still not true - it's just propaganda.

@CaliforniaAmazon

Complete bullshit - as have been pointed out a number of times by me and others here - that part about "rape capital of Europe".

It comes from a "report" put out by two infamous Scandinavian islamophobes on an American far-right propaganda outlet called the "Gatestone Institute" that publishes pure propaganda.

The Swedish woman that was one of the two behind the report has since moved even further to the far-right and now supports an openly neo-Nazi group in Sweden and spouts anti-semitic conspiracy theories as well.

But of course she's still been invited to spread her propaganda on Fox News as an "expert" on Sweden:

https://expo.se/2017/03/notorious-swedish-right-wing-extremist-touted-expert-fox-business

I guess that's where you get your information on Sweden, huh? Fox News and the fever swamp of the far-right online?

The low conviction rate in rapes compared to other countries is an obvious effect of the high number of reported rapes, as no nation in the world unfortunately can solve all crime.
With Swedish policy being to decrease the number of unreported rapes, and classify more and more types of sexual crimes as rapes, we get a high rate of reported rapes.
But there is nothing to prove that we actually have more rapes in Sweden then anywhere else, as criminologists of course agree that rapes go unreported in huge numbers all over the world.

But this has, as I said, of course been pointed out over and over already - so why are you spreading these disproven lies?

@Nisse_Hult She's what we call a "SJW" in America.

@n8cwhite

No she's not.
She's what you call a Trump supporter.
People like her call people like me a "SJW" because I don't buy their bigoted right-wing propaganda but instead rely on actual facts to understand the world.

@Nisse_Hult
I have my doubts that a conservative in America would be concerned about rape. It's more of a left thing

@n8cwhite

She's not actually concerned about rape - her interest is just to smear Sweden.

Since Sweden has taken in a lot of immigrants, we've become a hate object of the far-right.

It's become an obsession of them to portray Sweden as a crime-ridden hell hole - because that what they believe any nation will become if it accepts immigrants.

Sweden on the other hand is politically and socially far to the left of the US, and as such we as a society actually do care a lot about woman's issues, and crimes against women - like rape.
Which is why we've made an effort to decrease the number of unreported rapes and tightened and streamlined the legislation so many more types of sexual assaults are now being defined as rape.
Which in turn is why we have higher numbers of reported rape then many other nations.

But the far-right of course want to claim it's actually all because we've taken in immigrants who now rape every Swedish women they see.

@Nisse_Hult you ARE an SJW. you are the EXACT definition of a SJW. you ignore facts and genuine problems of certain groups of people just so you can virtue signal. crime rates have shot up since sweden started taking in so many 3rd word immigrants and that is a FACT. you tolerate so much that you even tolerate the intolerant and prefer to stick your head in the sand instead of acknowledging that immigrants have been the cause of the rise in crime levels and rape in sweden(i must stress that its 3rd world uneducated immigrants in particular. its not like sweden is making any effort to take in the actually good and educated immigrants in that will assimilate are they?).

but whatever. your country is doomed in 50 years time . dig your own grave if you want but dont go running off to other countries when your own country collapses ok? deal with your own self created mess. being destroyed from the inside out is a fitting end for the country from where the term Stockholm syndrome originated from.

life has been too easy for swedish people for so long that they have completely forgotten how the real world is like and have chosen to use feelings to decide things instead of LOGIC and FACTS

@n8cwhite

~9756528

There you have it in a highly concentrated form - the far-right propaganda I was talking about.
These are the kind of people who call people like me - who actually base our understanding of the world on facts - "SJW:s".

Notice how nothing this person claims is based on any actual sources or proof of any kind - it's just all about pushing their own propaganda and assigning derogatory names like "SJW" and memes like "virtue signaling" to anyone that doesn't agree with them.

The assumption this person bases her fever fantasy on is that the majority of the population of an entire nation (in this case Sweden) is either insane or suicidal, as her claim is that the entire nation "is doomed in 50 years time", if we don't accept her baseless claims.

Now does that seem likely?

No, of course not - but that's where the far-right ends up when they make insane claims they have no proof for.

Everyone not agreeing is just labeled insane or part of the huge conspiracy of people who deliberately want to see their own nation (and often the entire western world) destroyed.

In short - these people are simply just fundamentalists.
They believe they and they alone know the only TRUTH and anyone not agreeing with them must be crushed to save their chosen people and the world from terrible danger.

While in reality, it's of course fundamentalists like them that ARE the real danger to the world - whether they be militant Islamic fundamentalists of militant far-right fundamentalists.
Both of them happily kill in the name of their fucked up beliefs.
Because that's what fundamentalists sooner or later always end up doing - killing people.

@Nisse_Hult having common sense and observation skills doesn't make me a far righter. In the first place being a right winger or left winger should be based on economic opinions not social or immigration opinions. I'm left leaning on economic issues so yeah Im a real lefty unlike some certain people who say they are left but who only care about being sjws but don't care about economic issues. I've lived in multicultural areas all my life so don't tell me I'm ignorant or uneducated on this topic I know more about the world than you do because unlike you I actually do have family members living in 3rd and 2nd world countries. I'm not against immigration I'm against MASS immigration of people coming from problematic cultures with no skills and no real effort being made to screen them or assimilate them.

And you ARE virtue signalling and being an sjw. It doesn't matter whether or not you think the terms are far right or whatever, the definitions of the terms fits you perfectly. Why else do you willingly stick your head in the sand and ignore some very observable facts. If you don't consider yourself to be an sjw or virtue signalling than what DO you consider as an sjw . You swedes have been living an easy life for far too long that you've forgotten how to see reality for what it is and you only care about feelings instead of facts

@yoisi
I think it's funny that the only statistics showing such an increase are those from neo-nazi organizations (I'm not going to call them the fundamentalist far right, because even the fundamentalist right hate them).

All other sources, including the judicial system and case-by-case analysis, shows the same thing: there have been no significant increase in sexual or violent crime the past ten years. Sadly, one of the few types of crime that actually have increased is native-on-immigrant violence and harassment, mostly in the agrarian provinces.
I'm not going to say that all asylumn seekers are perfectly pure and innocent and incorruptible, because they are not. they are saints and jerks like everyone else. There is no statistically significant difference.
And the vast majority of them have no problems with equality and HBTQ people, because they fled here from that prosecution and genuinly want to conform.
I can't say how it's done in all of Sweden, but in the province I live in the troublemakers are swiftly reeducated and assimilated.
And , yes, we do have check-ups. Several, in fact. The higher your education, the more likely you are to get approved. The smaller your known criminal record, the more likely you are to get approved.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you call us; the largest problem facing sweden isn't people fleeing prosecution. It's the extremism that straves for militarization and reduced democratic rights.

But, whatever. I guess it just means I'm an anti- everything moron with no sense of patriotism who thinks you get to chose what reality you want to live in just because it happens to explain availiable data better than any other.
Let's see again in fifty years. Or was it 2050? or 2045? or maybe 2060? Regardless of which variant you adhere to, lets see who is in valhalla.

@NeframeTheCosmonaut I don't even need to look at statistics to know what's happening . Ive got COMMON SENSE and observation skills to see that those fake "refugees"(they are mostly economic migrants) are bad news. The ones that you are talking about are assimilated and haven't created ethnic enclaves that's why it works but if you keep taking in so many of them without control you will no longer be able to assimilate them properly .its already happening with the no go zones and ethic enclaves they are creating So yeah see you in 50 years Im sure I'll win the bet that Sweden will collapse. It's BECAUSE I've lived in a multicultural society my whole life and I've been to and lived in many different countries including 3rd world and 2nd world countries( my parents have as well) that I can recognise that certain groups are extremely problematic if they don't assimilate properly and that they commit crime more than anyone else. I've LIVED With them for years before so don't tell me I am ignorant or uneducated on the subject

@NeframeTheCosmonaut and yes one of those countries that my family have lived in was in fact a Muslim country . One of the more moderate ones actually yet it was STILL horrible and you want to import that nonsense to Europe? The only ones that should be accepted are the Syrian ones and they should not stay forever . Peace needs to be encouraged in Syria and the refugees need to be sent back eventually so if you want to help them then pressure your country's governments to stop trying to overthrow the Syrian govt.

. And even if they aren't Muslims from the Middle East a lot of those African economic migrants are uneducated and have no skills or desire to assimilate a lot of them cause more crimes than the local populations you are in denial if you can't accept some very obvious and observable facts . The ones you do know of that live in the city are assimilated and not create ethnic enclaves but if you keep taking them in without control you will not be able to assimilate them anymore and that's when the serious problems start. It already has with all the no go zones

. When will you guys learn that importing tons of uneducated people that leech of welfare and commit more crimes than the local population is a terrible idea. Its not right wing to state facts and have some common sense and observation skills. I'm not a right winger I'm left leaning on economic issues.

@Nisse_Hult you are either anti female or anti islam. . if you support islam you support an ideology that suppresses females and lgbt people. mind you ALL abrahamic religions are a problem in my opinion not just islam. judaism and christianity are problematic as well. judaism creates jewish supremacy tribalistic thinking in isreal(they think they are gods chosen people and all that) and christianity has the same backwards anti women anti lgbt thinking as islam.

@CaliforniaAmazon Actually this sourced article: https://www.greennet.org.uk/network/news/sweden-has-worst-rape-conviction-record-europe - has inaccurate reporting. The reason being that unlike in other nations, in Sweden what is classified under the legal stature of ' rape ' in research methodology includes but is not limited to all cases of reported sexual assault, as well as all reported cases of rape regardless of conviction. In most countries the reports of rape either only include convictions of rape, or them and unresolved accusations. Another variable is that people and especially women now feel more comfortable openly talking about it and reporting sexual assault and rape, which I find to be a good thing that there is less stigma attached to reporting on a crime, and it is not seen as a shame or the victims fault.

Indeed the research paper from Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/36000/act770012010eng.pdf - that the: https://www.greennet.org.uk/network/news/sweden-has-worst-rape-conviction-record-europe - vaguely referred to says the following on the abstract definition of rape section: " In Norway and Sweden, the letter of the law allows even slight use of force to be interpreted as
constituting rape: [...] From a human rights perspective, it is important that acts which do not include any kind of
penetration or intercourse are criminalized when the act seriously infringes the sexual
autonomy and integrity of the victim. This is the case in most of the Nordic countries. In
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, in addition to oral, vaginal or anal penetration with body parts
or objects, rape definitions also include comparable forced sexual acts that do not require any
kind of penetration: such as touching of genitals or masturbation. " - a legal stature I find to be in the right direction, absent from my nation much to my shame.

When you consider what constitutes as ' rape ' under Swedish research methodology, the articles reporting on: https://www.greennet.org.uk/network/news/sweden-has-worst-rape-conviction-record-europe - are misleading, but not extraordinary. Indeed sexual assaults are not usually resolved in courts and are more common than rapes, therefore they inflate claims such as the one: " On 23 April 2010 Carina Hägg and Nalin Pekgul (respectively MP and chairwoman of Social Democratic Women in Sweden) wrote in the Göteborgs-Posten that "up to 90% of all reported rapes never get to court. " - Source: http://www.womenagainstrape.net/inthemedia/women-question-unusual-zeal-pursuing-julian-assang - Of course they won't, because sexual assaults are not resolved in courts. Neither are accusations of rape unless there is enough evidence for the government to make a case against a citizen. This is actually quite standard procedure in a lot of places in the world. I am not commenting whether it ought or ought not to be like that, but it is not unusual to see a reporting of a statistic that lacks context which it relies on.

While it is unfortunate that rape is an elusive crime and difficult to solve or protect against, it should be recognized to the extent which all reporting can be accurate and inaccurate, because not knowing any better often leads to misguided perceptions. When you do account for the difference in research methodology and calculate the differential index, you'll notice that Sweden has a relatively small frequency of convicted rapes by the world standards. Of course this is noting we are only speaking of convicted cases, it is near impossible to tell how many of the unresolved cases are true in any part of the world.

Personally i wish none are, not because I don't want justice to be served but because nobodies autonomy should be violated. But that is not the world we live in unfortunately, and therefore I hope that every person gets justice properly. 1 is 1 too many in any case, there is zero tolerance for violating someones right for privacy and autonomy. I'd like to think I went to study mental health so I could especially hope those whose autonomy has been violated. What it does to a person is heartbreaking.

The best we can hope to do currently is educate people on the subject matter and seek ways in which we could more effectively solve these crimes and more effectively investigate the claims and protect those who have been sexually violated. Of that I presume we can all agree upon.

@CaliforniaAmazon
A high reporting rate is paradoxically a good thing. It means they are being reported instead of ignored. India has one of the lowest reporting rates in the world as every Indian nationalist is quick to point out, but it's certainly not safer for a woman in Mumbai than in Stockholm.

Kicking out people who are disabled and "too old to work" is already bad enough if you ask me. Well, capitalism gotta capitalism.

@HUNDmiau That's immigration policy, not just "capitalism".

@HUNDmiau Actually, Denmark is Socialist, not capitalist.

@MB-Bergholtz No. Denmark is sort of like a combination of capitalist and socialist. If you want to see real socialism, go to Yugoslavia. Oh, that's right: It doesn't exist anymore. That's because with the USSR gone, Tito dead, and all the nations within it fighting with each other, the centrifugal force literally tore it apart.
And now that Yugoslavia doesn't exist, they're economy is crap. Nothing like it was before.

@Ziebenhaub_the_Texan : There's always Venezuela!

@Newnetherlander Communism attempts to forcefully close the wage gap very rapidly, in a time when the country is not ready for it, leading to problems. Socialism, on the other hand, happens naturally as technology develops and the country develops as well. We're not ready for full socialism yet, but we could be very soon.

@Ziebenhaub_the_Texan : Not if the majority of Americans can help it!

@Ziebenhaub_the_Texan Well, no. Socialism is between Capitalist and Communist.

Basically, a capitalist society with some Communist programs.

@MB-Bergholtz Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production and extraction of surplus value (The difference between the value created by the worker and the pay the worker gets) to enrich the owner.

This fits Denmark, therefor it is not socialist, but capitalist.

Socialism means workers owning the means of produciton.

@HUNDmiau If it were capitalism, the government wouldn't care because it wasn't paying unearned benefits to pregnant people.

@Agemegos Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production and extraction of surplus value (The difference between the value created by the worker and the pay the worker gets) to enrich the owner.

This fits Denmark, therefor it is not socialist, but capitalist.

@HUNDmiau Like almost all real economies, it's a mixture. The bit where the State extracts some of the surplus value by way of taxation (and then uses it to pay welfare benefits) is not one of the capitalist parts.

@HUNDmiau Despite my socialist tendencies, I'm going to have to tentatively agree with Danish policy here. Our system works because the people we pay, pay it back through taxes. So there are benefits to people who can't work for one reason or another, through the understanding that they paid their due in taxes while they could. However, if you move here for those benefits with no chnace of ever returning the favour, then yeah... you're kind of a jerk and should just... not.

That being said, deporting pregnant women seems extremely weird to me.

@HUNDmiau
Because non-capitalist societies have always been welcoming to foreigners?