Whitey Grandad

Because leaving the EU would be a case of the sassenachs telling them what to do. That plus the £250 bribe that I'd be willing to give them

'Forging ahead' is putting it a bit strongly. A couple of phone calls might be a better description.

Maybe, but it wouldn't help us to get the best deal.

You would be surprised how clueless some of our major politicians are. I remember Tony Benn in a TV discussion thinking that the BofE base rate was what businesses actually had to pay. Some of these people are not very bright, I've met quite a few and some things have to be explained in very short words. Anyway, it's not just me: https://politicalscrapbook.net/2016/07/britains-new-brexit-minister-david-davis-doesnt-even-understand-how-eu-does-trade-deals/ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/minister-for-brexit-davis-davis-eu-european-union-germany-single-market-trade-deals-unaware-mistake-a7136121.html

You think?

It clearly wasn't.

Less of the childish insults please. I know what I read but I also read many other sources which is how I get a balanced and realistic view of the situation. I could retort with puerile comments of my own but I prefer to have an adult civilised discussion. Legally (you may have missed that word) we cannot negotiate with anybody until we have left. Of course we can have informal chats but these are not the same thing as a formal discussion. In any case, having a trade deal in place does not necessarily mean that there will be any trade taking place. What circumstances do you expect whereby trading with the rest of the world will be easier/less costly/quicker than it is today? Why do you expect that dealing with the EU will be any better than our current situation? These are serious questions and I would be interested in your serious answers.

And I think I know where the snot landed.

Ah, you think you exist. The world that we experience is a construct of our consciousness and what we see is only the part that makes sense. Countless philosophers have spent many sleepless nights trying to make sense of it all. I find that a few beers help

Not sure what you mean by your middle paragraph. It's not the deals with the non-EU countries that matter, rather the deal with the 27. As for the last paragraph, they had a deal with the EU, they won't have one with us and legally we can't begin to negotiate one until we have legally left the EU.

Possibly. Personally I have always threaded carefully once east of the River Hamble.

I haven't been to Warsash for some time. What constitutes a night on the lash there? Drinking cider out if a paper bag whilst sitting in the car park?

What??? Even I wouldn't blame Brexit for that.

All good ideas but why haven't we done this before?

Hubble found the the red shift increased with assumed distance and the interpretation was that the universe was expanding. The expansion is one explanation, and the one that is generally accepted nowadays. Mathematically there are other solutions, such as the light slowing up between emission and reception. The other is that the time itself has changed over the billions of years. Or that mass has increased: http://www.nature.com/news/cosmologist-claims-universe-may-not-be-expanding-1.13379 These alternative theories are not normally considered plausible. https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-alternative-explanations-for-the-observed-red-shift-of-the-bodies-in-the-universe-other-than-spacing-expansion-and-thus-the-implied-Big-Bang-and-quest-for-dark-matter http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/hubble/ http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.2885 (description) http://arxiv.org/pdf/0706.2885v2.pdf. (Document) Cosmology is a fascinating subject. For further reading you could also look for 'steady state theory'.

And more crowded.

I'd go for two strikers myself.

They appear to be moving apart. Or time itself might be slowing down. Or the light might get tired on it's long journey. Mathematically it would look much the same to us mere mortals. It all depends on how you look at it. Congratulations to the young man. He is asking the right questions. http://www.wired.com/2007/12/scientists-time/ http://estfound.org/ http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/156618/tired-light-red-shift-hypothesis

Or stay where they were?

That was my first thought too. it just didn't seem to fit into the her speech otherwise.

The Conservatives only have a very small majority in the Commons so their possible courses of action are limited. For every person that wants to change to UKIP there'll be a youngster registering that wants to stay in the EU. If the Conservatives don't pull the plug prematurely they will never govern again. This was a vote to leave with a very small margin which doesn't mean that it can be discounted but does mean that the scenario you describe is unlikely.

Thanks for the reply. Of course there are many other contributory factors, the exchange rate being one of the most important. I have been held up to ridicule by some on here by saying that I thought not joining the Euro was a missed opportunity but I can understand the strength of feeling against. In my view the Single Market would be even more beneficial to us if we used the same currency with all the stability (sic) that this would bring. In order for us to extend the trading opportunities down from deals of a few hundred €s down to the tens of €s I believe that we would need a quick cheap and effective European-wide postal and parcel service but achieving this would probably be a greater challenge than establishing the Eurozone in the first place. The question is of course entirely academic since until we leave we have a full veto over anything that we don't want to do and we could never have been forced into using the Euro. Given the amount of misinformation over the recent vote there woudlbe no chance of a reasoned and balanced debate.

I didn't mean to be offensive or critical. So let me ask you your views on these two questions - and anybody else who feels up to it. Would being outside the Single Market make it... a) Easier to trade with the EU b) More difficult to trade with the EU C) About the same And regarding the rest of the world... a) Easier to trade with them b) More difficult to trade with them C) About the same

From the tone of your reply it would appear that you never have. There are costs and delays associated with not being in the Single Market that are major disincentives to bothe supplier and customer.

Yes I agree, but this venture from Boeing does not count as foreign investment. In effect we've contracted out an important part of our defence structure to a foreign company who will then employ mainly UK personnel. This is better than having them seting up a repair and maintenance base in north Germany, for example, but let's not kid ourselves that this is not paid for by the UK. Also let us not forget that foreign investors in general will want to get their money back over the long term.