Brexit Negotiations

[SydneyRover]

100% + we can do better than this, are we brave enough to test the waters? We can start a "Reverse Brexit Now" petition, we just need 5 people to kick it off.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/check

[bpoolrover]

Brexit for most people was never about money for the nhs it's about immigration, it's about if you say something about someone foreign your a racist, this country has gone mad,you have lawyers for Muslims lawyers for blacks which in it's self is racist, nothing is for the white British( it shouldn't be everyone should be equal) but there not everyone has rights bar the British white person, no doubt my post is racist but it's how I feel

[SydneyRover]

Reverse Brexit Now

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/remembrance-sunday-ww1-ww2-government-whitewash-indian-polish-french-soldiers-a8035521.html

"So on Remembrance Sunday the same military contingents will play the same tunes as ever, as we rightly remember the sacrifices British people made in successive conflicts, while ignoring the contributions made by others. And the public will go home or switch off their televisions, secure in their beliefs that Poles are taking our jobs, Belgians have never fought for anything, the French left us alone in 1940, and Indians are unwelcome immigrants – and that none of them have played a positive part in Britain’s island story. No wonder that popular euroscepticism, and belief in the uniqueness of British sovereignty, are so entrenched. That’s the message that our unchanging national ceremony conveys"

[hoolahoop]

Sad Sydney but so very true - how we remain so deeply entrenched in our " exceptional  " past is the undoing of this country and prevents us from addressing the needs of our future ; we simply gloss over our weaknesses with our past deeds of daring do .

How we must be painting a sorry picture of our nation to the rest of the world with our penchant for both our  isolationist and pseudo-nationalistic tendencies. Basically we are painting ourselves into a corner on the international stage and becoming more and more ridiculous . Time we woke up and smelled the coffee before it ends up bubbling over and scalding us completely.
We are going the way of all '' lost ''  empires slowly and inexorably into decay unless of course we can wake up from our slumbers , be realistic and look for a national usp more befitting of our resources and our current not past influence in the world.

The list of lost empires is endless and rarely do they recover - Mongol, Assyrian, Mesopotamian,  Roman, Ottoman, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, Austro- Hungarian etc. Rarely if ever do their people manage to keep a strong economy going notable exceptions are possibly The Netherlands and Austria who have managed against the odds to keep the incomes of their populations relatively intact with GDP of £ 41,485 and 39,985 respectively . Some will be astounded now to see the wealth of our Irish neighbours  at £56,674. So much for the basket case neighbours with their ' bail out ' from the EU  !

Above us in terms of living standards in Europe are : Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland , Sweden, Ireland, Germany , Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands ........is there a common thread here perhaps ? France and Finland are due to overtake us too this year.
Seemingly we are due to join the basket cases ( Spain, Italy , Portugal and Greece ) of the EU at least in the short term

[Donnywolf]

100% + we can do better than this, are we brave enough to test the waters? We can start a "Reverse Brexit Now" petition, we just need 5 people to kick it off.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/check

Agreed - but there must be such a move underway - surely ?

[hoolahoop]

100% + we can do better than this, are we brave enough to test the waters? We can start a "Reverse Brexit Now" petition, we just need 5 people to kick it off.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/check

Agreed - but there must be such a move underway - surely ?

I think that's about to happen the current UK Government can be likened to an old , shaky table - a small tug on one of the legs and it's gone completely,

[SydneyRover]

100% + we can do better than this, are we brave enough to test the waters? We can start a "Reverse Brexit Now" petition, we just need 5 people to kick it off.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/check

Agreed - but there must be such a move underway - surely ?

A petition has to be unique to be accepted and although my quick search found there are some that want to take certain paths if negotiations break down I couldn't find one that just stated "Reverse Brexit" without any conditions

[hoolahoop]

A reversed Brexit with all our UNIQUE opt-outs intact  from an obviously intransigent EU. 

Which other club do you know with rules for all that allow some ( I. E. US ) to break them with impunity . A " no jeans " policy in the dining room of the golf club we walk in dressed head to toe in denim . A " no smoking " policy and we walk around  blowing smoke into other member's faces etc........no wonder they didn't offer Cameron a further deal

[BillyStubbsTears]

Brexit for most people was never about money for the nhs it's about immigration, it's about if you say something about someone foreign your a racist, this country has gone mad,you have lawyers for Muslims lawyers for blacks which in it's self is racist, nothing is for the white British( it shouldn't be everyone should be equal) but there not everyone has rights bar the British white person, no doubt my post is racist but it's how I feel

Alright. I'll take your grievances on as honest and firmly held ones.

But what Brexit does is to make you and your kids and your grandkids poorer into the foreseeable future, whilst doing nothing about black lawyers. Or about your ability to say what you want about someone of a different ethnicity.

[BillyStubbsTears]

100% + we can do better than this, are we brave enough to test the waters? We can start a "Reverse Brexit Now" petition, we just need 5 people to kick it off.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/check

Agreed - but there must be such a move underway - surely ?

I think that's about to happen the current UK Government can be likened to an old , shaky table - a small tug on one of the legs and it's gone completely,

Hoola
Given the recent news about Damian Green, I'd rather not think about anything old and shaky in the Tory party getting a tug.

[GazLaz]

Wolf

I'd guess you're disenchanted for the same reason I am. That holding a referendum in this topic was stupid beyond description. It is a fiendishly complex topic and the "debate" that we had last summer barely sharpened the knife, let alone scratched the surface.

The problem was (and it was criminal stupidity of Cameron not to understand this) once you accept that it is impossible to properly analyse the overwhelming complexity of the issues in a referendum, you have to accept that the decision will be made, more or less on gut instinct. And the Leave side had a far stronger hand there.

The Leave side coined a brilliant phrase: Take Our Country Back! That chimed with people on an instinctive level. Underneath that, they had this line that the worst consequences wouldn't happen because we are a big economy that can trade with the rest of the world, and that the EU would want to give us a decent deal anyway. And finally, the money. Leave had the simple fact that, on basic accounting, we pay more than we directly received back.

Those were powerful arguments. Grossly over-simplistic, but that's what you need in a referendum.

Reamisn's case had to be much more complex. Less instinctively appealing. It had to accept that the EU wasn't perfect. That the decision to remain should be one on balance between two less than perfect alternatives. That the economic case to remain (which is utterly overwhelming) required complex analysis to understand.

The Remain campaign never developed its equivalent of Take Our Country Back! Corbyn took thisto an extreme, openly criticising the EU and saying the case to remain was 7/10. As though that would inspire people to vote Remain.

That's why I'm so f**ked off with the whole process. A decision that was way too complex to have a referendum over. That's not being condescending. It's backed up by evidence. An opinion poll in the week after the vote found that 47% of people believed that the £350m a week claim was true. THAT was the environment in which we made the biggest decision in 3 generations.

I said at the time that I wouldn’t be voting because it’s far too complex of a process to be able to make an informed decision.

[Bentley Bullet]

I voted remain because of the risk involved in leaving because it meant going into unknown territory. It's still unknown territory as far as I know, but the negativity of other remain voters seems to be relentless.

I wonder if that negativity is actually making matters worse?

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

Aye. I'm sure the heads of multinational firms read this blog and think: f**k! Maybe it really IS going to be bad. Maybe we shouldn't make that investment we were planning.

I'm sure that within hours of the vote, the international currency markets decided that the Poud had lost 15% of its value because Hoola and me would be a bit upset.

What is making matters bad is plain, simple, textbook econcomics. If you deliberately choose to make it much harder to trade with a market of 450million, mostly relatively well off people, right on your doorstep, no amount of positive thinking is going to stop you being significantly poorer in future.

You keep saying its unknown territory. But its becoming far clearer now, 18 months on.

The currency dropped in value. Just as was predicted.
Inflation has jumped as a result. Just as was predicted.
Our economic growth has slowed significantly, when the rest of the developed world is picking up speed. Just as was predicted.

At what point does the territory become known and the consequences clear? When we've had 2 years of doing worse than the rest of the OECD? 5? 10?

[Bentley Bullet]

So what do we do then? Have another vote? Go about our business telling each other we're doomed? Lay down and die? 

[BillyStubbsTears]

We could start by pressurising our representatives in Parliament to account for why the Govt has decided to withdraw us from the Customs Union and the Single Market, when we were expressly told during the referendum campaign that "Leave" didn't mean doing that.

That decision has been made by May because she fears that if she doesn't go down that route, there'll be a rebellion on the Hard Brexit wing of the Tory Party. But that outcome was not remotely supported by a majority last June. And it's not supported by anywhere near a majority of elected MPs. We've been stitched up by the Hard Brexit side of the Tory Party. Some of them genuinely believe that its the right thing to do (Rees-Mogg, Fox). Some of them don't really give a damn because its not about the country, its about their careers (Johnson, Gove). But whatever the driver, the simple fact is that there is no democratic mandate for the direction that we're heading in. This is a effectively a cabal of maybe 30% of MPs, supported by maybe 30% of the electorate (judging by opinion polls) who have hijacked the result of a stupidly called referendum and are driving us along a very destructive path. And they are doing it in the name of "The Will of the People".

If you genuinely care about democracy and the future of the country, you should be supporting anyone who is trying to stop this crazy plan.

[Bentley Bullet]

Doesn't Corbyn also want to leave the single market? Who would represent the argument for us?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yes. He does. He always has done for ideological reasons. He voted against the Single Market when it was first created and he now throws up red herrings like the "fact" (sic) that the Single Market would prevent us from taking the railways into private ownership. (It won't: SNCF is 100% owned by the French Govt. Deutsch Bahn is 100% owned by the German Govt.)

But Corbyn's personal ideological position isn't really the point here. The Labour PARTY doesn't share his ideology.

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/aug/26/labour-calls-for-lengthy-transitional-period-post-brexit

Labour's official position is that we should have a long "transition" period where nothing much changes on the Signle Market and Customs Union front. Labour's unofficial position (but the most sensible one of anyone who stops and thinks about this) is that the "transition" period could just go on and on into the hazy future. In other words, in March 2019, we say we have left the EU formally, but to avoid the worst economic consequences, we're going to remain in the SM and CU for as long as it takes to sort out a future arrangement where we could leave and not have economic disaster. And it might just turn out that we find it impossible to sort out that future arrangement. So the "transition" becomes permanent.

I'd say that's the least damaging situation we can hope to end up with. It'll make Boris Johnson and Liam Fox and Jacob Rees-Mogg howl that we're not carrying out the democratic will of the people. But f**k them, frankly.

[wilts rover]

There is an interesting series of tweets on what the EU officials think of the UK's negotiations and objectives here:
https://twitter.com/jonlis1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2Fblog%2Flive%2F2017%2Fnov%2F06%2Fcbi-tells-may-that-business-needs-clarity-over-brexit-transition-by-christmas-politics-live%3Fpage%3Dwith%253Ablock-5a005a3ef1498906b779dfd4

[wilts rover]

Doesn't Corbyn also want to leave the single market? Who would represent the argument for us?

Thanks Bentley - thats a perfect opening for me to post this.

Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May both spoke to the CBI today. Which one of them said:

“Like you .... I want the certainty of the customs union and the single market.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/06/jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may-cbi-conference-brexit

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts

You are being rather disingenuous there, as I'm sure you know.

[Bentley Bullet]

Careful Billy, his mate will be along soon!

[SydneyRover]

If there was any good news at all in the Brexit assessments you would think the government would release them with urgency, no?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/06/speaker-gives-government-until-tuesday-to-publish-brexit-assessments

[MachoMadness]

Donning the old tinfoil hat, I wonder if the latest bout of leaks surrounding offshore tax havens sheds any light as to why certain very wealthy, influential figures ploughed so much into the Leave campaign, considering the EU's talk of clamping down on tax havens?

[BillyStubbsTears]

MM
I don't doubt it. It's never been about "Taking our Country Back" for them bas**rds. It's always been about them being able to do what the hell they want, without anyone reeling them in. It needs a strong international effort to make them pay what they should.

BB. How old are you?

[Bentley Bullet]

That's rather ageist of you, BST.

[wilts rover]

Wilts

You are being rather disingenuous there, as I'm sure you know.

I know - I took the 'he said' bit out.

Marxists these days aren't what they used to be. I remember when it used to be the dictatorship of the proletariat and nationalising your front garden - now its canapes at the CBI and common ground with big business interests.

Its a funny old world.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yes. And now you're dissembling.

As you well know, Corbyn's position is that he wants us OUT of the Single Market but with tariff-free access to it.

Which won't happen.

Period.

He's walking a bit of a tightrope. He has to reconcile two fundamentally opposed positions.

His own ideological stance which demands that we leave the Single Market for all the reasons that he's preached for 30 years.

And the position of the overwhelming majority of the Labour Party, which wants us to stay in.

It's this tightrope act that led to Corbyn, the principled democrat that he is, preventing there being a vote on the Single Market at the Labour Conference.

But then, you know all that because you're a clever lad.

[hoolahoop]

100% + we can do better than this, are we brave enough to test the waters? We can start a "Reverse Brexit Now" petition, we just need 5 people to kick it off.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/check

Agreed - but there must be such a move underway - surely ?

I think that's about to happen the current UK Government can be likened to an old , shaky table - a small tug on one of the legs and it's gone completely,

Hoola
Given the recent news about Damian Green, I'd rather not think about anything old and shaky in the Tory party getting a tug.

Nice one  how very true .....

[hoolahoop]

Brexit for most people was never about money for the nhs it's about immigration, it's about if you say something about someone foreign your a racist, this country has gone mad,you have lawyers for Muslims lawyers for blacks which in it's self is racist, nothing is for the white British( it shouldn't be everyone should be equal) but there not everyone has rights bar the British white person, no doubt my post is racist but it's how I feel

I am sorry to read your post but do hope you find the time to meet some of these people in their environment too. It seems you would deny black immigrants a lawyer from the same ethnic background should they need it - I hope you never find yourself in a tricky position when abroad and hope you would get access to a British lawyer versed in both the local customs and the ability to converse in the necessary foreign language.

Incidentally , we have been able to control the numbers of 'extra' EU immigrants since we have been members of the Common Market / EU........expect more of them to replace the individuals that are leaving this country back to their respective countries . You see basically we are going to get a different type of immigrant whilst losing all the socio- economic benefits that our membership gave us .
So much for sovereignty eh .........? Yes it is racist but get used to it , it will be part of what you voted for !

[Bentley Bullet]

Hoola, I don't know anybody who is against immigrants coming into the country to work and not rip the system off. Not wanting immigrants who are here to rip the system off isn't racism. The same people don't want British people ripping the system off either.

In my humble, and unqualified opinion, I reckon that's the main reason why the vote went tits up.