Brexit or Britain Stronger?

[Coin Biter]

Time to revive the mighty "Brexit is Brexit" thread.

I'm cynical as to whether this will result in anything, because of the sticking point of freedom of movement and the obdurate opposition of fanatics like Rees-Mogg and IDS, but there is renewed pressure on Theresa May to try to stay within the single market from Major, Cameron, and most recently apparently, her Chancellor, Philip Hammond:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...t-says-cameron

Will the national interest and rationality prevail and will Britain adopt a sensible approach in negotations?

Not bloomin' likely, I fear - this is the modern Conservative Party, who are prepared to do a deal with the heirs of Rev. Ian Paisley, and not the Conservative Party of Major's administration (which was itself hamstrung by the ominous necromantic forces of the Tory right).

Still, it's nice to hope, even if for only a little while.

[Starter Set]

Problem when talking about Europe, and it's pretty much the same here on the continent, is that people just don't know what Europe do for them, what is financed with European money and what really is the balance between the money invested and the actual things their countries (whatever which one) are getting from that deal.

Europe is a nebulous entity without much form and/or essence in a lot of people minds, with always of course that fantasy that their countries are the docile subordinates of Bruxelles.

[JackDaw]

Problem when talking about Europe, and it's pretty much the same here on the continent, is that people just don't know what Europe do for them, what is financed with European money and what really is the balance between the money invested and the actual things their countries (whatever which one) are getting from that deal.

Europe is a nebulous entity without much form and/or essence in a lot of people minds, with always of course that fantasy that their countries are the docile subordinates of Bruxelles.

Nothing is financed by "European money". All the money is filched off from the poor long suffering tax payers handing over earnings from the sweat of their brow.

Some of that money is spent profoundly wisely, and is a real "bargain" for the aforementioned tax payer. (e.g. Hospitals, public libraries, public transport, etc.)

And a lot is wasted...eg. in EU case moving from one ultra parliamentary HQ to another, and subsidising wealthy farmers.

The trouble is the further away the spend is away from the individual tax payer, and the weaker the democratic control, the greater the waste.

And no surprise the EU is a very wasteful organisation with no intent to roeform, other than award central functionaries bigger wages, and grow without limit or purpose. It's motto might as well be "Public money, one cent a barrow load".

Oh...and it's near hopeless at organising things like European wide response on security issues, and major issues such as Syria.

I sincerely hope UK leaving is treated like a wake up call to improve things for all members...rather than try to treat UK so harshly in exit negotiations to scare other members into staying. The startegies based on scaring your own members never work in the long term.

[Starter Set]

Nothing is financed by "European money"

And that perfectly illustrates what i was saying earlier.

[Abe]

Nothing is financed by "European money". All the money is filched off from the poor long suffering tax payers handing over earnings from the sweat of their brow.

Some of that money is spent profoundly wisely, and is a real "bargain" for the aforementioned tax payer. (e.g. Hospitals, public libraries, public transport, etc.)

And a lot is wasted...eg. in EU case moving from one ultra parliamentary HQ to another, and subsidising wealthy farmers.

The trouble is the further away the spend is away from the individual tax payer, and the weaker the democratic control, the greater the waste.

And no surprise the EU is a very wasteful organisation with no intent to roeform, other than award central functionaries bigger wages, and grow without limit or purpose. It's motto might as well be "Public money, one cent a barrow load".

Oh...and it's near hopeless at organising things like European wide response on security issues, and major issues such as Syria.

I sincerely hope UK leaving is treated like a wake up call to improve things for all members...rather than try to treat UK so harshly in exit negotiations to scare other members into staying. The startegies based on scaring your own members never work in the long term.

I can agree with a lot of things in this post. Truly. Especially the money wisely spent or the part about the wealthy farmers. And, of course, I'm an individual tax payer too. But as a tax payer I think that my money becomes European money (that's the point of taxes, isn't it?) - thus why I want it to be used wisely. I see no contradiction.

About the last paragraph, I think you may be right about the will to scare other members into staying. But I strongly disagree about a will to treat UK that much harshly... It's probably a difference of perception between a UK citizen and one from one the original members of the European Community. The fact is - and I don't think that my perception is totally wrong - that the UK has probably been treated more 'kindly' than many other members during its time as a member. And I sincerely think that it's what explains the difference you may feel in the negociations : much have been given to UK as a member to keep it in the Union. Thus the 'kindness'. But now, what would be its purpose? By leaving I think that UK simply lost a lot of the weight it used to have in the European negociations.

IMHO one country is currently treated really harshly - and just in order to scare other members. Greece. And it's without really sound economical reasons. As a tax payer I want the European money to be used for Greece - wisely of course.

Just my two centimes... my two cents! Pardon!

[Coin Biter]

I'm a bit late in reporting this, but I thought I'd resurrect this thread to briefly mention the Labour opposition's change in stance to Brexit:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...nsitional-deal

They have indicated that they would seek retained single market access throughout the "transitional period" before the UK's full departure from the EU.

It's important not to exaggerate this. It doesn't mean that they have suddenly started advocating Remain. It doesn't mean that they're even advocating membership of the single market long term, given the statements that they've made previously regarding freedom of movement. It certainly doesn't mean that the EU negotiators are going to accept any of the Labour party positions either

That said, it's an important development, in part because it looks like they will be very happy to oppose the goverment in the House of Commons, depending on the deal that is ultimately put forward, which would be a great political risk for the government, as many of their own MPs secretly (or not-so-secretly) oppose "hard Brexit" as well.

In addition, it's a move which is going to be popular with big business, who desperately want to avoid a hard Brexit as well - perhaps an unfamiliar feeling for a Corbyn-led Labour party.

Obviously, it's been denounced in the predictable quarters, such as the Brexiteer press, certain areas of social media, and that thunderous idiot, John Mann MP.

[PaulBullion]

A moving picture of Theresa May surrounded by all of her friends:

[Tugger]

As a Brit living in the UK, I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about this. It's getting so that I don't want to watch a news bulletin now and we still have years of it to go.

[Kirby101]

British fruit left to rot as looming Brexit squeezes seasonal labor

A consequence the idiots who voted for this should have seen coming.

We are going to have the same problem here in the US with Trump's border nonsense.

[wjowski]

Speaking as an oustider, the EU looks like a mess and not for the reasons EU detractors like to go on about.

[PaulBullion]

So now rumor has it that May may be looking at new elections before she does a no-deal Brexit?

[JackDaw]

So now rumor has it that May may be looking at new elections before she does a no-deal Brexit?

As she messed up the easiest election win of all time (yes I know that’s a slight exaggeration!) I doubt she and/or her advisors will have any appetite for an election that would actually be difficult to win.

I think a second referendum is a bit more likely than a general election. And I’d actually put that (2nd referendum) as also unlikely (say 10 to 20 percent shot), but not long ago, I’d rated it as a near zero chance.

Unusually (??) although I was an out voter, I’d welcome a second referendum IF the question was whether to stay in on existing terms or come out on terms negotiated.

That position is for a raft of reasons, but main one is that I have lost all confidence in this government’s ability to negotiate reasonable terms. (I actually quite rate present political lead negotiator, Dominic Raab..but he’s been left in a practically impossible position by being appointed so late in day, and all the unhelpful politicising around the issue.)

[Kirby101]

We can't underestimate how bad a No Deal exit will be. . Britain doesn't seem to understand that they have no leverage for any demands in this negotiation. The whole thing is almost as asinine as the Trump vote here

[JackDaw]

We can't underestimate how bad a No Deal exit will be. . Britain doesn't seem to understand that they have no leverage for any demands in this negotiation. The whole thing is almost as asinine as the Trump vote here

It’s all academic now..because the negotiations have been bollixed from day 1.

But right at start Britain did have a reasonable amount of leverage. It’s world’s sixth biggest economy, and Germany and France nearly always run trading surpluses with Britain.

Germany, France, Italy, Spain will all be losers in “no deal” scenario...they will clearly hurt less than U.K..because loss spread over several countries, rather than one, but their loss will be substantial.

In addition U.K. has consistently contributed useful security info to other European nations..and its in everybodies interest to continue doing that, along with a raft of other areas where continued co-operation helps all.

As soon as vote was known, UK had to convince other party that walking away with no deal was a serious possibility. A dept should have been funded and set up immediately to work out exactly what it would mean to trade on GATT terms, etc.

That would have had two big advantages. First it would have established a floor to determine which deals UK should accept..deals worse than GATT terms could be rejected out of hand. And by convincing EU that U.K. was taking no deal seriously, the EU negotiating team would have approached items in a different spirit.

By leaving serious exploration of “no deal” so late in day, UK fundamentally weakened its own negotiating position.

In general U.K. government has played an admittedly difficult hand really, really badly. That is disappointing..whatever the rights or wrongs of the vote, the government had an obvious responsibilty to implement it with vigour and competence.

[Starter Set]

Pretty laughable really.

They organized a vote without even the beginning of a plan about how to accomplish the result of the said vote.