Random government monkeys accidentally do something useful?

I would go with "less". No-one could arrive at an accurate number, so it's uncountable.

You have to bear in mind that Parliament was stuffed with members who were totally against Brexit, and they had to pass the Brexit deal into law. The plan was to have the deal sufficiently close to what they had been forced to permit in order to deliver the outcome of the Referendum, and there were clauses in the draft agreement allowing the agreement to be modified later as necessary. That should have provided a smooth evolution away from EU control, but somehow the negotiations since never achieved that.

Can you remember what came through the letterboxes to advise on what the Referendum was about? It was effectively a political statement on how wonderful the EU membership had been and why it was important to keep it like that. Cameron spent £9Million of taxpayers money on Remain propaganda leaving the Leave campaign stuck with publicity stunts to get their message across. And the Leavers still quote the bus claiming leaving would provide £350Million for the NHS, when the actual sign didn't say that.

We are still stuck with a Parliament that wants closer ties to the EU. All the Lib Dems and Most of the Labour Party would be delighted if that was achieved. If the next General Election replaces enough of them with MPs who want to put Britain first, that would be enormously beneficial.

It is an interesting observation that the UK was the only EU member state to make it illegal to sell products to be weighed by the pound. If you go to France and ask for "une livre" of something they will happily sell you half a kilo.

Remain spent about £20m; Leave about £19m - notwithstanding the unaccounted spending of Leave, some of which they were caught and fined for. Some, presumably, not.

The sign said "We send the EU £350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead". Draw your own conclusion about what that was intended to mean . . .

And true of most shops that sold by weight in the UK. Or indeed volume. How many people do you know that think in terms of litres of petrol?

Up there with bendy bananas and Cornish pasties.

And the option to renegotiate later was subsequently removed. No wonder people are voting Reform...

Exactly what it said.

It never said the whole sum would be hypothecated for the NHS.

Only remainers were stupid enough to think it did.

In fact the increased spending on the NHS was £710 million.

The bananas were:

COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) No 1333/2011

Available online:

Of course it didn't. It simply juxtaposed two lines of text in 18 inch high letters, without any punctuation. Everyone was supposed to take them as a single proposition, but the authors just left themselves just enough wriggle room to be able to deny the linkage - if forced to do so.

On 10/12/2025 20:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote: .

People will vote for the lesser of the evils!

People are not necessarily voting for the Reform party but to make sure that the Tories, labour and the Liberals don't get power. All three of these parties have leadership that has proved to be morally and/or financial corrupt.

Well yes, given the record of the last three, people will naturally assume Reform could not possibly be worse..

For once they may be right.

I can understand why people might think that about Labour and the Conservatives, but how in the name of $%^&* does anyone imagine Reform would not be a huge leap into a much deeper gutter?

Oh things are bad - so let's make them 400% worse!

They dont have to imagine. Reform is out there talking to people. Listening to people.

The other parties talk at you and don't listen

No, that was voting Laber

Yes, OK :-)

Some regulation of bananas. And why not? It's the way the regulation was weaponised - by social and news media - as a dig at the EU that I was getting at.

Plenty of other, substantial, reasons to criticise the EU.

Sometimes absurdity is the best weapon.

Would you expect anything different from Turnip, a typical gammon right whinger?

Are you so naive that you didn't see that coming?

Shocked? Really?

Who is this "we" you refer to?

The demise of the Nasty Party was the only positive aspect of Brexit. The rest has been an absolute train wreck, just as sensible people knew it would be.