Capeesh

Hmmm, I seem to remember that it was a National vote. Rather than being ignored, Scotlands voters were in the minority and, therefore, Lost. Don't worry to much about it. There are enough lickspittle turncoats in Westminster to completely screw the democratic leave vote. Yep you're right, we have to accept whatever England votes for, so much for the UK being a union of equals. Maybe there should be a EU wide democratic vote to see if the UK should remain, if the UK votes to leave but the majority of Europe votes for us to stay, tough luck, that's democracy.

Can't blame Holyrood for this Brexit fiasco, this is Westminsters turd, the majority in Scotland (including Shetland) voted to remain, not a single local authority area in Scotland voted to leave. The views of the "devolved" government and the majority of people they represent have been frozen out and ignored.

As we all know, when the North boats are cancelled for a day or two our supermarket shelves empty rapidly, we know better than most what the result of shipping delays can mean. The UK has a huge network of 'just in time" supply chains from the continent where we get a large proportion of our food, medicine and other goods seamlessly, so what do we all think will happen when we turn Kent into the worlds biggest car park?

^Infinitely worse and you've just partially explained why in your post...with Serco all the ships, seamen, support staff, ports and sailing schedule were already in place, they're a 90 year old multi national, multi million pound company with 50k employees fulfilling a staggering amount of government contracts. Seaborne Freight are nobodies with a tiny handful of employees formed little more than a year ago who haven't a pot to pee in or any clue or experience in doing anything, they copied and pasted terms and conditions from a pizza takeaway and a boutique jewellery shop, the ports they were going to use weren't capable of taking the ferries they didn't have on time, their website was non functional and the contract hadn't been properly put out to tender, they were awarded it behind closed doors. On top of that Seaborne's founder had been jailed for 2 months for firearm offences and the Chief executive's previous company had been forced into liquidation.

Good job it's not the Tory government in Westminster in charge of our ferry contract. Chris Grayling the Secretary of State for Transport awarded a £13.8 million ferry contract for a no deal Brexit to a firm with no history, no money, no ships, no employees, no ports, no sailing schedule, one telephone line and terms & conditions copied from a pizza takeaway

For a bit of perspective, between 1845 and 1849 when Ireland was an integral part of the UK 1,000,000 people starved to death and 2,000,000 people emigrated.

^^ Contrary to the stereotype the Irish have more sense. They've flourished since leaving.

Nah nah, we have already voted, we’ve had all the clarity we need. That’s democracy. This ‘lets keep going until they get the answer they want’ attitude is certainly not democracy. I voted to stay in both the UK and the EU but I fully accept the results of the vote. Now that’s democracy. Democracy doesn't stand still, if it did we'd always be stuck with the same government, democrats aren't afraid of votes.

Democratic conundrum right there, Scotland voted to remain in both unions, it's now impossible to remain in both. A democrat would surely want to go to the polls to get clarity.

Couldn’t agree more Capeesh, but we voted to remain part of the uk and the uk as a whole voted to leave. But why care about democracy, the snp has ignored the wishes of the majority ever since where Scottish independence is concerned and are doing the same with the EU vote. As I’ve said previously, what’s the sense in voting anymore if our “elected” government, who are supposed to represent the people and democracy just put their fingers in their ears and go la la la la la la.

Slow to load, poor layout and full of annoying pop up ads, sorry Shetlink but I preferred the classifieds the way they were.

We are an international laughing stock.

Quote from the link... "AROUND 40 angry people, mostly women born in the 1950s, turned up at Islesburgh on Friday afternoon for a public meeting organised by Isles MP Alistair Carmichael on state pension changes that have “ruined” the retirement plans of thousands of women and couples approaching pension age." Did anyone mention the fact that meeting organiser Alistair Carmichael MP was part of the government that introduced these changes, moreover as a government whip he personally would've made sure his colleagues voted for it? Brass neck springs to mind!

Have you tried Shetland Home Co Cope ltd? They deliver anywhere on the Shetland mainland for a small fee. Don't know if they have a washing machine but the website says they have second hand white goods.

Losing access to the EU single markets frictionless, tariff free trade is the whopping great big fat elephant in the room, nearly half our exports go through it, leave that and we've just handed all our competitors on the continent a huge competitive advantage. These are all advanced economies we're talking about, they'll be rubbing their hands in glee and swooping into the gap in the market like vultures.

My understanding is Theresa May and her Tory government have been acting like tin pot dictators using every sleazy, underhand method to sidestep and undermine parliament throughout the Brexit process. The speaker of the house decided enough was enough and used his own underhand method to put a stop to it.Doesn't help our archaic parliament's rulebook is a series of vague unwritten customs from a time when MP's were expected to act honourably.

On a similar vein to Trumps "blame the Mexicans for our ills" mantra I remember Farage and the likes of the Daily Mail/Express etc peddling the myth that the free movement of people from the EU were some kind of burden, facts prove that on average they contribute far more to the economy than us "natives". Heres a quote from the government's own study into the fiscal impact of immigration on the UK... "...In 2016/17, the average adult migrant from the European Economic Area (EEA) contributed approximately £2,300 more to UK public finances than the average adult currently living in the UK..." We should be scrutinising bad government for underinvestment in our public services and lack of housing, not immigrants.

We could introduce a bike road tax and use the proceeds to help pay for cycle lanes.

This is the kind of thing I find hard to grasp with Brexit, are these not sovereign nations? Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Note the time stamp on this.... ^^ The UK government published this white paper nearly a year ago.See the bit where it says "...It is in both our interests to reach a mutually beneficial deal that works for the UK and the EU's fishing communities." This wasn't written by a bullying EU bureaucrat, it was written by our own side. Successive UK governments have been using our fishing industry as little more than a bargaining chip since the 70's. The deal's all but done, the UK government is taking us out the CFP and replacing it with the.......CFP. If Mr UK is selling a car, Mrs EU offers £1000 for it and Mr UK accepts the money and makes the exchange, you can't then blame Mrs EU for leaving poor Mr UK without a car.

Yep, looks like we've been sold a pup......yet again, you would've thought we would've learnt our lesson from the last time they had control over our fisheries in a negotiation.The disaster capitalists involved with the Tory party make loads of money when the country's economy goes down the toilet, they care not a jot about our fishing industry unless, of course, they can pawn access away for a hefty profit for themselves and their multi millionare backers which, going by the fishing federation looks increasingly likely to happen. Thanks to Brexit they're making an absolute fortune, while they're shorting the £ on the financial markets, shifting their operations to Dublin and salivating at the idea of selling our NHS to the highest bidder, (the very last thing of value they've not completely privatised yet), the bills for my monthly essentials are going through the roof. Never mind though, we'll be able to get a blue passport again, shame I won't be able to afford to go anywhere with it... (By the way I remember the old passport as black, not blue.)

... Rather they've shown themselves to be of the opposite attitude, by being petty, vindictive and apparently vengeful. Neighbours like that, anybody is better off without. I don't see pettiness, vindictiveness or vengefulness when I look at the reaction of our neighbours to this Tory government's bizarre, incompetent and downright incomprehensible approach to negotiations, all I see is complete and utter confusion from our European friends.How many years since the vote? How long have negotiations been ongoing? Even now, after all this time, the circus clowns in the Tory party haven't even decided amongst themselves what they want from negotiations! How on earth can anybody negotiate with that? It's as plain as can be our useless representatives in Westminster are desperate to deflect blame for this dogs dinner of a Brexit to hide their own shortcomings.

Are the majority of our fellow Shetlanders who voted to remain in the EU (56.5% of us) also guilty of betraying the memory of family members who fought and died in the wars?

After centuries of almost constant European conflict, including 2 devastating World wars, many people see the closer ties that have developed since 1945 within Europe as a positive force for peace.It could be argued that the EU is the result of European nations desperate to avoid history repeating itself.