That last paragraph is just such a silly point, even if one were to grant you that you honestly believe this.

Following that argument, I assume you will also consider it to be racist to give e.g. Scottish people preferential access to the entire UK labor market over some high skilled African/Asian?

If not, what's the conceptual difference between these scenarios?

I would agree if Scotland wasn't part of the UK.

So Scotland being part of the UK makes it OK to give Scottish people preferential access to the UK labor market, but Belgium being part of the EU is no reason to give Belgians preferential access to the EU labor market?

Please, elaborate on the difference a bit.

ugh the fishing is great and the cap is terrible. why cant people see that?

the euro is optional and only partly the eu. i dont think that counts.

the fishing is obv great, but try telling people who live on the coast who don't have a job any more

They all work in oil now earning multiples of their previous take home.

Scotland and England are currently to all intents and purposes part of the same sovereign state. When they are not, then no prefential access should happen either way, unless both nations agree to it by mutual and ongoing consent.

I think you have a Scottish bias in your thinking.

How does your racism claim fit into this argument again?

Scottish people getting preferential access to the UK market is fine if it is consensual, but Belgium getting preferential access to the EU labor market is racist.

You realize that entering the single market was also a consensual process, right? And countries can leave the single market if they no longer want it. I'm inclined to believe that you feel like there may be a difference, so please go ahead and spell out a clear distinction how one case is racist but the other isn't.

omg do I just have to keep repeating this over and over? Nah.

You'll work it out eventually. I have faith on you.

I am happy we are leaving because of this ridiculous 'consensual' arrangement which was in reality the EU using the carrot of free trade to allow it to apply its stick of idelogically driven federalism.

You just have put forward one clear argument.

You said in your last post that is ok for Scotland/England to grant preferential access to each others labor markets, even if they are no longer part of the same sovereign state, just as long as it is consensual.

But when Belgium/Germany grant each other preferential access to their labor markets by choosing to stay in the single market it is somehow racist?

You can repeat again and again that you feel like there is a difference, but that's not an actual argument.

If Germany could say we don't want Belgians or vice versa, and that was OK by EU rules, and they could then say who they wanted from where without hindrance, that's fine in my book. That's Germany or Belgium's right, IMO. The issue for me is their loss of power to ze EU.

A policy which is any European is by default better than anyone else in the world by virtue of being a European.... Well... If you cant see the issue, I've nothing more to say to you.

So, basically:
"If people from the UK agree on granting each other preferential treatment that is fine, if some European framework does exactly the same it is racist."

Yeah, well done.

If you can't see your exact argument is "any Brit is by default better than anyone else in the world by virtue of being a Brit"... Well...

I think you're missing the point. The EU impose this package to keep people in line - it is constantly trying to sap powers from individual states with the threat of losing a major part of their economy - and most (but thankfully not all) have to bend to that by being part of a system they now find inescapable. See Switzerland.

It's its club mentality ('if you're in, we love you, if you're out, we hate you') that I find racist.

If nations could freely move out of this without threat (and make no mistake, that's what it is), I'd be much more tolerant of the EU. To sum up: If nations could decide to make changes unilaterally without terrible punitive threat, I'd be much happier with the EU.

Everything the EU seems to do confirms what I say, imo.

It seems less and less people in the EU want this. Thank goodness. Join the EU ostriches if you want, but I think nation states are the seat of democracy, not multinational impositions that grow out of necessity into a parasitical agent of control.

Brexit is wonderful. It will hurt, but it is a glorious retaking of control that you obviously have no truck with.

Keep supporting the EU as if it's flawless if you wish - and even if you see flaws in it, surely you must see if has zero mechanisms for actually addressing its flaws other than 'more EU'.

Yeah, lets not get into the random rambling and please stick to the disussion of the racism claim. You still didn't make any argument about that.

You and richdog(?) have used that silly talking point for months and no one wanted to engage because the argument is just plain ridiculous. Now, after repeating it for months, please make at least some effort in defending it.

OMG it can be any 2 countries. The point is that both maintain full control. They do not cede control to another body.

Incredible. I take it you don't encounter Scots much.

What are you talking about? I support compelety the right to Scottish independence. The sooner the better, if that's what the majority of Scots want.

Without going back through all the pages I believe my point was that if the EU truely believes in the 4 freedoms then it should not be excluding freedom of movement when it set up trade agreements (goods AND services) with African nations.

To do so is either:

1) Racially Discriminatory

2) An acknowledgement of the foolishness of allowing such between nations of vastly different economies when the outcome (i.e a mass flow of persons to the more developed nation) is inevitable.

So the EU is either run by racists or fools. Either way we are far better of out of it.

Not seen much discussion on these boards of the recent Italian banking crises, the potentially fatal fine to DB in Germany or the IMF head being convicted of criminal negligence in awarding her high society friend E400M of French taxpayers money. I presume Brexit is to blame for all that too.......

The EU does not "believe" in the four freedoms and as it does not have a common market, but trade agreements with non-EU nations I don't really see the hipocrisy.
Those trade agreements exclude loads of other agreements the EU has, too - mostly they don't even include completely free trade (e.g. concerning agricultural products, the EU is rather protectionist).

@richdog:
The "four freedoms" are considered the pillars of the single market, not some basic human right. This isn't primarily about human rights, their purpose is to create a big homogeneous market. The idea is that once you start to compromise on those pillars then you risk to corrupt the integrity of the single market in the long run because you lose homogeneity when everyone starts to cherry pick.

African nations are not negotiating to be part of the single market, so those conditions don't apply there.

Where some people earn <€2 an hour, and some >€9 an hour.

Somehow, no one thought this might cause problems.

except for the "people really dont like foreigners" part it's been a fantastic succes. the problems are all political.