(January 15, 2020 at 9:39 am)Mr Greene Wrote: They weren't exactly falling over themselves to assist at the time.
The buyers of the French Exocet stock were us, we paid top whack to ensure we were highest bidder on every missile on the market, the French had their best sales period ever because we knew they weren't keeping their word.
Of course it would have helped if the French hadn't sent the launch data the missiles as promised, but hey can't get that sort of advertising every day.

Yes but the French weren't the ones doing the fighting were they. My point was that they're not going to sell weapons to countries while simultaneously sending their own troops in, which would be the case with an EU army.

(January 15, 2020 at 9:39 am)Mr Greene Wrote: We could barely mount the op with what we had if we'd been forking out for an EU force it would have been a no-go.

It wouldn't work that way. It's not like the UK would be funding two armies, their own and an EU force. In the same way we don't have a UK army and a NATO army.

If an EU army were set up, either all EU countries and their territories would be defended, or a country would be free to use their army to defend their own territories instead of being part of an EU army. There's no other way an EU army would get set up otherwise.

(January 15, 2020 at 9:52 am)Mathilda Wrote:

(January 15, 2020 at 9:39 am)Mr Greene Wrote: They weren't exactly falling over themselves to assist at the time.
The buyers of the French Exocet stock were us, we paid top whack to ensure we were highest bidder on every missile on the market, the French had their best sales period ever because we knew they weren't keeping their word.
Of course it would have helped if the French hadn't sent the launch data the missiles as promised, but hey can't get that sort of advertising every day.

Yes but the French weren't the ones doing the fighting were they. My point was that they're not going to sell weapons to countries while simultaneously sending their own troops in, which would be the case with an EU army.

(January 15, 2020 at 9:39 am)Mr Greene Wrote: We could barely mount the op with what we had if we'd been forking out for an EU force it would have been a no-go.

It wouldn't work that way. It's not like the UK would be funding two armies, their own and an EU force. In the same way we don't have a UK army and a NATO army.

If an EU army were set up, either all EU countries and their territories would be defended, or a country would be free to use their army to defend their own territories instead of being part of an EU army. There's no other way an EU army would get set up otherwise.

So what we should have done is take a few French personnel and spread them around the Task Force.

(January 15, 2020 at 10:18 am)Mr Greene Wrote: So what we should have done is take a few French personnel and spread them around the Task Force.

A human shield made up of French people

(January 15, 2020 at 10:43 am)Mathilda Wrote:

(January 15, 2020 at 10:18 am)Mr Greene Wrote: So what we should have done is take a few French personnel and spread them around the Task Force.

A human shield made up of French people

Just stop off at Cherbourg and press gang a bunch. Yay European cooperation! 

(January 14, 2020 at 3:18 pm)Mr Greene Wrote: Yep, really feeling the friendship and cooperation from Brussels there, no hint of anglophobia at all.
Such a welcoming organisation, not immediately resorting to threats and insults.

Good luck with the command economy, you don't want any of that supply and demand stuff, best to push on with 'decoupling' you can just product-dump any excess on the developing world...

Hey, it's not my fault that your government has decided on a 40 year strategy of being idiotic bullies. What's next, ye'll ignore the GFA to give Leo the cowardly a bloody nose?

Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

(January 16, 2020 at 4:10 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

False dichotomy

(January 16, 2020 at 3:38 pm)Nomad Wrote:

(January 14, 2020 at 3:18 pm)Mr Greene Wrote: Yep, really feeling the friendship and cooperation from Brussels there, no hint of anglophobia at all.
Such a welcoming organisation, not immediately resorting to threats and insults.

Good luck with the command economy, you don't want any of that supply and demand stuff, best to push on with 'decoupling' you can just product-dump any excess on the developing world...

Hey, it's not my fault that your government has decided on a 40 year strategy of being idiotic bullies.  What's next, ye'll ignore the GFA to give Leo the cowardly a bloody nose?

They don't exactly have a monopoly on that.
So you want competent honest politicians who would accurately represent your views?
Join the queue princess...

(January 17, 2020 at 12:11 am)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(January 16, 2020 at 4:10 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

False dichotomy

No. Everything we do is cheered by some folk, booed by others.

(January 15, 2020 at 8:19 am)Gae Bolga Wrote: Given your stated ideological preferences and deep well of cynicism - what do you expect will be different under an independent UK when it comes to agricultural subsidy?  Will they stop subsidizing wool?  I gather that you think they should, but do you expect that they will?

Well they might stop subsidizing sugar beet and remove tariffs from importing sugar cane and sugar palm which are both vastly more efficient to the point that they effectively drove sugar beet out of production in the Free World and only clung on in the Warsaw Pact. 
Brussels would never have subsidized failure to the point that it overran the continent and imposed tariffs to create the illusion of a market... 
Oh wait...