I'm dumbfounded that the UK Government is taking the stance it has on this issue - it's just another example of how they really haven't thought Brexit through. This is an EU project, we're leaving the EU and our Government has made it clear that this also means that we won't accept a Norway style deal that includes us remaining part of the EEA, that we won't be rejoining EFTA and we certainly aren't intending to apply to rejoin the EU in the foreseeable future. Having flounced out of a group, does anybody in their right mind really expect to continue to receive invites to future parties?

I know people involved in the Dundee bid and I feel sorry for them that all their hard work has gone to waste but it is only to be expected given that our Government has resolutely set its face against the things that would have kept the bid alive. If you announce that you are intending to leave a club and baulk at paying the outstanding subscription costs you committed to, then it really shouldn't come as a surpise when you are told that you won't be able to participate in events that are due to take place 4 years after you'll have left!

I agree, if your not a member of the club you can't play in it's games !

I don't feel sorry for them because as soon as the Prime Minister announced that the UK would not be part of the single market or customs union, the organisers of the city bids should have sought a cast-iron guarantee from the Commission that they would remain eligible. If such a guarantee were not forthcoming, preparation for the bids should have been stopped.

There was a bulletin /guidance put out by the Government in December 2016 stating the consequences of the UK's decision to leave the EU with respect to this competition... So, who didn't bother to read it, especially the last bit.?



If I was a resident of one of the cities bidding for this EU vanity project, I'd be furious that money has been wasted and the organisers couldn't display reasonable caution in the spending of public money, which could have been put to better uses, such as funding social care and emptying bins.

And when I see Labour pontificating on this, their hypocrisy make me sick when Corbyn whipped the MPs to vote with the Tories against an amendment that would have kept us in the single market and the customs union.
Sturgeon should 'wind her neck in' too and stop blaming TM for taking us out of the EU.We had a legal referendum and it was the 17.4 million people who voted to leave.

Brexit means Brexit.
Please kick us out of the Eurovision song contest too, because we've been humiliated year after year, irrespective of the quality of our singers/songs, because of the rigged European political voting system.

I doubt any of the people who voted to leave will care one iota, I know that I don't.

I find it ironic that a scheme run by the EU which aims to highlight 'the richness and diversity of cultures in Europe', is itself doing a very good job of destroying such richness, diversity and cultures.



Sanji x

I think it's just another example of the UK Government trying to face two ways at once. What the bulletin above makes clear is that they were both encouraging the cities to keep alive their bids whilst at the same time covering their backs and telling them they'd be on their own when it went pearshaped as a result of the Government making sure that the UK would become inelegible for further consideration. The people who should have been both seeking and and only acting on cast-iron guarantees is our Government. And of course the costs were beginning to be accumulated before anybody even knew that Cameron was going to try and buy off the anti-EU faction within his own party.

It will be interesting to see how they get themselves out of the even more complex situation they've created re the Eire/NI border. They've made a set of promises to the various different sides of the debate that are mutually incompatible - it's as if they forgot that as long the Republic of Ireland is in the EU we are always going to have a land border with the EU. I await with interest to see how they manage to have both an open border whilst also taking back control of our borders. We have a Government that really does seem to think that it can have its cake and eat it by withdrawing from things like the EEA and the Customs Union whilst at the same time retaining all the benefits that come with being parting of them.

And by the way, the Eurovision Song Contest has nothing to do with the EU - it's organised by the European Broadcasting Union which pre-dates the EU and has always had a much wider membership.

I can't speak for the Leeds bid but the work on the Dundee one started in 2013 building on the work already done as part of the bid for this year's UK City of Culture competition. Whether you think it's worth competing for these events probably depends on whether you think it's worth taking the risk in investing a relatively small amount on the bid in the hope of generating the much bigger return that will be gained if the bid is successful. Having seen the positive results gained by Liverpool and Glasgow in the past and the revitalising effect it is currently having on Hull I can see the attraction. Even in December of last year Karen Bradley, the Culture Secretary was encouraging the interested cities to continue working on their bids.

This thread was removed temporarily to have a few inappropriate posts deleted.