What do you think now?

Joelsnan - I don't think I actually said that the EU could grant funding into any country.

Where projects were identified that supported the ERDF/ESF and Objective 1 funds, they would need to support the EU specified rules to meet the community's agreed priorities. Those rules were set out here:

ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/information/legislation/regulations/2007-2013/#erdfregulation

And here:

eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32006R1080&from=EN

Just as an example, between 2007-2013 the Northwest of England was set to receive £521million in ERDF support under the Regional Competitiveness strand of the European Union’s (EU) Structural Funds. In the European policy context this meant The Lisbon Agenda, which was the overarching driving force for the Programme with two broad aims:

1.Generating stronger, sustainable economic growth. Achieving this goal requires a significant increase in emphasis on competitiveness, innovation and knowledge-intensive activities. 

2.Creating more and better jobs. A stronger economy will drive higher quality job creation in the EU and policies that promote social inclusion will facilitate faster economic growth by increasing the effective labour pool. 


The funds were allocated according to this policy through to the regional development agencies, where you were required to submit a claim for funding that was then managed by the NWDA, so long as the project met the specified criteria.

As a country, the UK was closely involved in defining these policies and processes so far as I'm aware.

I guess we'll soon have to start defining our own regional development policies and funds - I do assume that - whether I like it or not, we will be leaving the EU.

Urmstongran - has it been debunked? Where, When?

Did anyone snigger when TM said Boycott always got the runs? Maybe just my toilet humour.

Also did anyone really hope that half way through the parliament grilling she just slammed the papers down, told them all to fuck off and left like chamber saying ‘frankly my dears I don’t give a dam’

Now Kay Burkey would have exploded

I still can’t decide whether we’re better in or out, but I do know that Brexit should never have been attempted by a Government so totally and completely unprepared.
The resulting shambles will have set us back years.

MaryEliza54 the PM did not dissemble! FAKE NEWS from you ha!
I’ve just listened again to the LBC radio show from this morning to make sure I heard it correctly.
Nick Ferrari asks her about ‘the 350 million promised on the side of the bus - was Boris lying?’.
She then states quite clearly ‘well, it’s actually £390 million a week now’. So Nick Ferrari pushes her, saying ‘he wasn’t lying then?’
Major disclosure! Obviously not getting any airtime space on the BBC! All the Remainers love to continue to jump up and down saying it ‘was a lie’.
It obviously wasn’t and never was (Boris wouldn’t have been that stupid).
The billions we pay to the EU every year we’re so mind blowing that average people (like me) couldn’t take in the enormity of the sums involved so it was decided to break it up as a weekly amount .... £350,000,000 .... Every. Single. Week.
We could get our heads round that ‘smaller’ (sheesh) amount. The Leave campaign said it could be spent on the NHS. Or whatever we wanted.
The sums involved are huge.
If anyone on here would like to listen - it’s only just over 2 minutes long - Google Theresa May LBC radio interview.
I rest my case! Hurrah!!

Of course if the original £350m was correct, due to the devaluation of sterling since the vote the current figure is really even higher than £390m, because all EU finances are calculated in Euros and then converted.

But is the '£350 million, (or whatever figure TM now says) , going to the NHS as extra funding? The promise on the Brexit bus was that it would indeed go to the NHS.

Brexit is costing Britain £500m a week and rising, says a report from the Centre for European Reform. The economy 2.5% smaller than it would have been if UK had voted remain, says thinktank

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/29/britain-bill-brexit-hits-500-million-pounds-a-week

Yes, Applegran TM stated yesterday in the Commons that £390 million per week would be going to the NHS.
To be honest, whatever it gets spent on is better, in my opinion, than giving it to the EU! Who, let us remember won’t allow access to the accounts to have them audited. What a gravy train! Shuttling (first class flights too) between Brussels (beautiful building) and Strasbourg (another spectacularly plush building) with the whole caravan of interpreters, unelected officials etc. Sheesh!

I’m getting fed up of the whole dog’s dinner that TM has negotiated - well Olly Robbins & the Establishment civil service who want us to Remain come what may (no wonder DD and DR both resigned as Brexit ministers as OR constantly overrode them even inserting ‘extra unseen texts into the final drafts’ - but it’s too important to bury one’s head in the sand.

As Jeremy Corbyn crowed yesterday ‘does the Prime Minister agree with me that the post of Brexit Secretary is just a ceremonial one?’. That was one helluva dig!

I voted Leave. I would vote leave again today. I would have voted leave back in 1975 had I been allowed to vote back then ( why do we want to give the vote to 16 year olds in this now when it wasn't even suggested back then..... but the EU has one way or another blighted all of my adult life.

The arguments before the referendum didn't work then and the remain arguments are just as vacuous now. Neither di I vote because I believed there would be more money for the NHS - I never believed or took notice of that at all.

My reasons were based on my own experience, research and logic.

Its not leavers who have caused this mess, its actually remainers ( including the political party remainers) who have created the mess because they just cannot accept democracy.

I do not think another referendum will solve anything. It will simply reinforce that we have no democracy. We will be like Eire, having to vote, vote and vote again until we give the remainers the "right answer".

If that happens, then clearly we will all know this country is now a dictatorship. If we cannot leave as remainers keep saying , then that is because we have been lied to for 45 years.

Remain seem to have no shame when it comes to thinking they know best. I read an analysis recently that actually pointed out that in fact it was not older people who swung the vote for Leave but younger ones - those aged between 45 and 54 mainly, followed by a slightly wider demo graph of those aged between 40 and 60 overall.

The "oldies" like grans netters voted remain it seems. Its those of us who are still having to work who voted out.

"The "oldies" like grans netters voted remain it seems. Its those of us who are still having to work who voted out."
Are you sure? I thought many older people voted leave because they remember the WW2 days and the years after, when we stood on our own feet and survived.
Rule Britannia etc. Not ridiculing, I feel similar myself, up to a point.

abbey where did you get your figures? These are the official you.gov ones. Huge majority to remain in 18-24 Smaller one in 25-49. Leave majority in 50-64 and 65+

And still Diane Abbott says if there were to be another vote she thinks Leave would win (again). Polls swing one way one week and another the next. Most people ignore them. At the time of the referendum the biggest pollsters forecast Remain to win. Hey ho.

"Are you sure? I thought many older people voted leave because they remember the WW2 days and the years after, when we stood on our own feet and survived.
Rule Britannia etc. Not ridiculing, I feel similar myself, up to a point"

Then you really bought into the remain rubbish as spouted. YouGov is not a government agency by the way and as a matter of fact it has its funding grated largely by left wing organisations with a political agenda largely.

I got my information from an article published in an academic sociological journal but it was also published in an LSE bulletin I read a few weeks ago.

Its taken a long time to make any analysis because of all the lies, false statistics and many other factors that have confounded the issue. But they came out that it was mainly 45 - 54 year olds who swung the Leave vote.

If you read it further, you will also find that a significant proportion ( and the proportion thought to have made the biggest difference in the end ) were those who identified as C of E members. They did this despite being told from the Pulpit to vote remain. So it was Anglicans who tipped the Brexit vote.

Make of that what you will - no doubt you will want to insult them with swivel eyes or religious nutters or whatever but you may find that will come back to bite you one day. Insults no longer wash.

When I went to work the day after the referendum I heard those insults and I was angry and wont ever forget. if anything will make me go out again, again and again despite being told where to put my cross, I will put to leave and I wont be put off or intimidated. I will do it because of those remain insults. I will never give up, no matter how many referendums you shout for.

I know some might give up simply because they get fed up but that is precisely what remain are hoping for in demanding we vote again, again and again and again.....

Interesting chart trisher.

What is interesting too is that many traditional Labour voters defected to UKIP, voted leave, now have returned to Labour.

"And still Diane Abbott says if there were to be another vote she thinks Leave would win (again). Polls swing one way one week and another the next. Most people ignore them. At the time of the referendum the biggest pollsters forecast Remain to win. Hey ho."

I wouldn't trust any of those polls . I know that when they were polling remain to win, I actually kept my opinion and what I would vote close to my heart and promised I would not speak. I did that mainly because even then the vocal remainers were throwing insults and intimidations.

I knew what I was going to do but I was not going to tell anyone. I think the reason you got sucked under so badly was that Leave voters may well have all done what I did. We did not discuss our vews , we just got to the ballot box and put the cross in there and came home.

Lots of us did it, that's why the polls were wrong. That's why Leave won. The polls are probably wrong again for the same reasons.

So it was Anglicans who tipped the Brexit vote.

Staunch Anglicans? Practising Anglicans? or those who write 'C of E' when asked in hospital what religion they are, having never been inside a church since they were christened?

I think I've heard it all now.

I wouldn't trust any of those polls
I don't trust them that much either.

ps have you heard the one about the Anglicans?

As it was written in the article it seemed it was those who actually put their bottoms on the seats in C of E churches most Sundays. Not a large number of them around now, but it seems they believe in democracy and they also believed in using their votes and they were thinking outside of what their esteemed leaders told them

Remember I was reading an academic journal not the Daily Express, Mail, or Telegraph and not even the Guardian.

I guess its exactly why the government is so hell bent on destroying Christianity in this country if indeed it was the Anglicans who voted Leave in the referendum.

There was also an article along the same lies in " The Economist" in August or September I think

abbey I strongly object to your suggestion (11.51) that it was those of us who are still having to work that voted to leave - I still work full time and voted remain, and would do so again without a second thought; the bigotry of leavers makes me despair, what about being citizens of Europe instead of only citizens of Britain? Leavers have robbed me of half my identity. I hope you listed to Donal Tusk's closing words today and feel less anti-EU.

Leftlinks for You Gove abbey? that's a bit odd-even wiki says
Shakespeare, the firm's CEO, once stood as a Conservative Party candidate for Colchester; he was also a Conservative Party pollster.

Co-founder Nadhim Zahawi has been the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon since 2010, after the retirement of previous MP John Maples. He joined the Conservative government in 2010.[9]

Roger Parry was commissioned in 2009 by the Conservative Party to write a report on the future of local media.[10][11] His proposals on local TV were subsequently adopted as Government policy by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.[12][13]
Mmm I'm sensing propaganda or Fake news!

The Gove was a Freudian slip I think -YouGov of course!

"the bigotry of leavers makes me despair",

Ditto Humptydumpty. For leavers put remain and you know how I feel too.