EU referendum are you in or out

[merman]

So now what ? Africa is going to be UK's next Best Friend after Brexit ? Theresa May pledges Africa investment boost after Brexit

.. next what ? .. UK visit to North Korea ?

Exports to Africa - £17 billion
Exports to the EU - £420 billion

[KlaxonCow]

Bloody hell, the Brexiteers were actually being sincere about wanting to restore the British Empire?

Has anyone asked the Africans how they feel about being re-colonised by British "inward investment"?

I suggest we name this venture "the South India Company" and it can be headed up by Jacob Rees Mogg, in top hat with cane and monocle, telling them "fuzzy-wuzzies from Bongo-bongo-land" what's what. We could invite the French to come along with us.

Because that'll go down well.

Robert Mugabe, a horrible by-product of our earlier fucking-arounds with Africa, has only just been gotten rid of, and May wants to go in for "round 2"?

So, we're abandoning the largest trading bloc on Earth for some strange fantasy of out-competing the Chinese with the poorest continent on the planet? Swathes of which still fucking hate us, due to past colonial misdeeds, in the name of "civilising the savages".

Seriously, how the fuck is any of this supposed to work?

And I've a horrible feeling in asking that question. Because the one thing that the poorest continent on Earth, with the second highest "child per couple" rate (after Afghanistan) in Central Africa, can definitely provide is effective slave labour (as history reminds us only too well). The Asians are now slowly getting too rich to bundle into sweat shops anymore. But Africa's an untouched paradise of dirt cheap slave labour. And just like those Asian sweat shops before them, it's all perfectly distant enough that none of us need bother our consciences over what's actually happening there. Too far away. Well out of sight, well out of mind.

[tufty]

And just like those Asian sweat shops before them, it's all perfectly distant enough that none of us need bother our consciences over what's actually happening there. Too far away. Well out of sight, well out of mind.

And, of course, those sweatshops will be manned / womanned / childrened by darkies. Let's not forget that. It's only darkies, it's not like they're people.

[Rubisco]

China's not daft, with all that sun Africa's gonna be fucking rich once the oil runs out.

[PFVA]

Regarding the Scallop War, after Brexit will the British still have the right to fish in French waters?

Scallop war: French and British boats clash in Channel

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45337091

[zip accident]

Regarding the Scallop War, after Brexit will the British still have the right to fish in French waters?

Scallop war: French and British boats clash in Channel

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45337091

British waters are bigger. Half the EECs fisheries are probably British (Hm, that was before Ireland joined, with Sweden and Norway in (are they both in?) it's probably something like a quarter now). It will depend who agrees to what, but the EEC has been fishing British waters for years.

[toxibunny]

And just like those Asian sweat shops before them, it's all perfectly distant enough that none of us need bother our consciences over what's actually happening there. Too far away. Well out of sight, well out of mind.

And, of course, those sweatshops will be manned / womanned / childrened by darkies. Let's not forget that. It's only darkies, it's not like they're people.

Things are turning out pretty well for the asian sweat shop countries though, right? If it did happen that cheap manufacturing went to africa, wouldn't it be quite likely to be good for them overall?

[Harlequin]

And just like those Asian sweat shops before them, it's all perfectly distant enough that none of us need bother our consciences over what's actually happening there. Too far away. Well out of sight, well out of mind.

And, of course, those sweatshops will be manned / womanned / childrened by darkies. Let's not forget that. It's only darkies, it's not like they're people.

Things are turning out pretty well for the asian sweat shop countries though, right? If it did happen that cheap manufacturing went to africa, wouldn't it be quite likely to be good for them overall?

For the people working in the sweatshops?

Would you like to work in one?

[venusian]

The key metric should be inequality rather than aggrigate wealth. Trickle-down economics, which is what inward investment relies on to improve everyday lives, doesn't have a good record on this.

[Rubisco]

What is inequality? Degrees of non-communism?

All we ever hear about is how unequal everything is, but where it really counts we're not doing too badly:

[toxibunny]

And just like those Asian sweat shops before them, it's all perfectly distant enough that none of us need bother our consciences over what's actually happening there. Too far away. Well out of sight, well out of mind.

And, of course, those sweatshops will be manned / womanned / childrened by darkies. Let's not forget that. It's only darkies, it's not like they're people.

Things are turning out pretty well for the asian sweat shop countries though, right? If it did happen that cheap manufacturing went to africa, wouldn't it be quite likely to be good for them overall?

For the people working in the sweatshops?

Would you like to work in one?

Me now? No. Hypothetical me living in hypothetical developing country where new workplaces start opening up? I dunno, probably.

The bigger question, and the point I was getting at, was more about medium to long term development and modernisation, especially compared to plausibly-occurring alternatives. Maybe the sweatshop phase is a more-or-less natural thing that societies go through. Maybe it'd be best to leave them completely alone until somebody invents open-source self-replicating helper robots and they can just akip it. I dunno...

[PFVA]

The EU is going to abolish the change of the hour. What happens in the UK?

[noodles]

What is inequality? Degrees of non-communism?

All we ever hear about is how unequal everything is, but where it really counts we're not doing too badly:

Show me the graph that quantifies overall greed (gap in multiple between the lowest salary and the highest for example) and we're doing a lot worse
right now. Excluding times when large scale slavery was still common, of course. Precarity and impoverishment in developed countries have been progressing
for quite a while now.

The new bureaucratic "aristocracy" has figured out that it is best to throw some bread into the street, just to avoid an explosion, but that's about it.

[KlaxonCow]

The new bureaucratic "aristocracy" has figured out that it is best to throw some bread into the street, just to avoid an explosion, but that's about it.

I worry for when they start throwing circuses as well. Duck!

[snaff]

The EU is going to abolish the change of the hour. What happens in the UK?

That's brilliant. I might go and live in the EU. I hate it that the government is so arrogant they believe they can meddle with the fabric of time itself.