E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

The UK government is finally waking up to the reality that being in a customs union means ceding so much control to the EU that the idea violates the promise of taking back control and since it wouldn't be a customs union at all if the EU allowed us to do whatever we want in it, the idea is effectively dead.
Essentially it comes down to the same problem as the Norway / Switzerland options, which is that it would mean following EU rules, but not having any say in what those rules are.
In other words: UK in a Customs Union with the EU is fundamentally incompatible with the promise of taking back control.

And when it comes to doing it under the guise of an FTA, some casual reading will tell anyone who cares to find out that no FTA has ever come close to leaving the border as open for trade as any of the three dead options above.

In summary:

Option 1, stay in the EU:
Allows us a say in EU rules
Have to follow EU rules
Near frictionless trade
Allows to deliver on the promise of no border in Ireland
Breaks promise of leaving EU
Breaks promise of taking back control

Option 2, Norway option:
Allows us no say in EU rules
Have to follow EU rules
Near frictionless trade
Allows to deliver on the promise of no border in Ireland
Delivers on promise of leaving EU
Breaks promise of taking back control

Option 3, Switzerland option:
Its just the Norway option in drag

Option 4, Customs union / Turkey option:
Allows us no say in EU rules
Have to follow some EU rules due to explicit subservience to regulations for sectors included in customs agreement
Near frictionless trade
Doesn't allow to deliver on the promise of no border in Ireland
Delivers on promise of leaving EU
Breaks promise of taking back control

Option 5, FTA:
Allows us no say in EU rules
Have to follow some EU rules due to non explicit subservience to regulations for sectors included in FTA
Reduced trade friction, but breaks promise of frictionless trade
Doesn't allow to deliver on the promise of no border in Ireland
Delivers on promise of leaving EU
Delivers on promise of taking back control

Option 6, No deal:
Allows us no say in EU rules
Have to follow WTO rules
Maximum friction in trade
Doesn't allow to deliver on the promise of no border in Ireland
Delivers on promise of leaving EU
Delivers on promise of taking back control

Damn it, I should have sent that list of options to the government

 

The EC already did, with this -

 

@Anfield, It seems you know more than most of our MPs, even more than our prime minister as she seems thinks we can have an agreement without having to enter into a union, under no circumstance are we going to enter a union as that seems to be dirty word these days.

Maybe if they changed their name to the United Europe it would have been more palatable to the United Kingdom and none of this would've happened.

 

Naah, too many options to choose from and too much use of bigly words. You'll have to dumb it down to:

Cake or death?

And even then the UK government will choose death. QED.

I think we're dealing with three camps in government:
- the ministers for who the coin has dropped that Brexit is going to hurt economically.
- the hard-line zealots who will profit from Brexit
- the useful idiots who still don't understand the EU but are (like the electorate) persuaded by the zealots to believe that Brexit will be a good thing.

Therefore:
- the first group is working hard to abdicate responsibility for expected negative outcomes to the electorate by reminding them that they are obeying the "will of the people";
- the hard-line zealots are whipping up the electorate in a frenzy by proclaiming the government must obey the "will of the people";
- the useful idiots are going along with it because it's always politically safe to go with the "will of the people".

And when the pain hits, it will be the people who pay. Democracy!

EDIT: maybe the next cabinet meeting should be chaired by this guy:



COME ON!!! MAKE A DECISION!!!

 

Personally i blame the media or perhaps us as there's undoubtedly some sort of feedback loop between what and how the media reports things and the audience who receive it.

It seems if something can't be boiled down to a punch line people just ain't interested and trying to explain complex issues to them just leads to disparagement and ridicule as no one has the time to learn why there is actually a magic money tree it's just you have to be really careful how you use it, EU immigrants contribute more financially than any other group of people but you have to put measures in place to combat downward pressure on the lower deciles income, and that profligacy didn't lead to the financial crisis of 08.

 

You can blame the electorate. average IQ of 100, average reading age of 9, emotional development of a 16 year-old. Dunning-Kruger effect, and then some. Every bloody day there's some bright spark commenting that leaving the EU is "simple"; avoiding a hard border in Ireland is "simple", running the NHS is "simple", global politics is "simple", everything is simple. An army of multiple-degree-holding civil servants are obviously totally outsmarted and outclassed by any dude who habitually comments on the Sun, Express or the Daily Mail.

Here's how one EU observer sees it in response to a suggestion that the electorate needs to be better informed by the government (posted in comments in the FT):

 

I think whoever posted that is being very optimistic, 1 in 100? I think 1 in 1k is probably more accurate, if not more, i mean most people still seem to believe the EU is an undemocratic organisation and while that may have been true of the EU of old to some extent it's now more democratic than the UK by a long way.

The question is whose job is it to educate the electorate, the electorate themselves? the media? or our politicians? One doesn't have the time because their too busy trying to make ends meet, the other seems more interested in tearing people down and playing the blame game, and the other normally has an agenda.

EDIT: Once we reach Brexit nirvana i wonder how long it will take to pay this back.

 

If the electorate wants a functioning democracy, it is down to them to learn how to use it correctly. With power comes hot bitches responsibility.

 

It's not just here that needs educating on the EU, europe does too. Even Macron said France would probably vote to leave if they had a vote. (They're currently 10/1 to leave next, Greece and Italy both 3/1).

So somewhere the EU's message has been lost. It's down to the MEPs and MPs to convey that message. Or maybe some people just don't like that message (I imagine the EU isn't top of the 'favourite things of the Greeks' list)

It's all good and well implying people are stupid, ignorant or whatever but that's not going to solve the problem and other countries in europe should learn quickly from the sh!tfest that's going on here.

 

The EU sure was top of Greece's favourite list when it got to use Germany's credit card to go on a spending spree.

That's what basically happened. It lied on its application form about its finances to get hold of that sweet low interest credit card, and then went on a spending bonanza. Successive governments threw money at the electorate in the form of subsidies, perks, doubled public service wages and fat early retirement state pensions to win their votes. And of course the electorate went along with it. Paying tax meanwhile was almost an optional lifestyle choice. Then the 2008 credit crunch happened, credit dried up and Greece realised it couldn't even make the minimal monthly repayments by doing the credit card conga (borrowing from one source to repay the other). Was the EU pissed? You betcha. So yeah, it didn't give Greece an easy ride. Varoufakis may complain about a lack of adults in the room, but it was Greece that acted like a teenager with a credit card.

My (adult) British niece voted Leave. She admitted that she did it because she "just wanted change" and besides, she "didn't think Leave was going to win". Her younger brother just stared at her open-mouthed. (No, it didn't occur to her for a moment that the husband of her favourite aunt is an EU immigrant. Yes, she is really, really sorry).

A client one asked me why people seem to prefer to believe lies to the truth. I explained that the truth is often complex, and messy, and ugly; and hard to understand. Lies are simple and often appealingly nice and easily digestible. It's wholegrain porridge vs ice cream. Truth tells you what is; lies often tell you what you want to hear.

Cicero, in his treatise On the good life expounds on moral virtue. The first duty, he says, is to separate truth from fiction, to understand phenomena and their relationship and their causes and consequences. The second duty is to restrain one's passions. The third duty is to treat all people with consideration and respect (he also says that the first duty of the statesman must be to preserve stability within a regime, so there's that). Note that he basically equates moral virtue with wisdom.

I'm not sure that you can inform stupidity. You first have to teach stupidity to think curiously, rationally and compassionately. People have to be wise and then they'll inform themselves. It's the difference between teaching someone what to think, and teaching them how to think. Unfortunately we simply don't have a society that teaches its children that.

 

You'd *think having so many ministers with private education that they'd at least be up to the task, but apparently not.

*That's a thought based on no evidence whatsoever as IDK how many went to private school but i wanted to weave education into it somehow.

 

The potential to? I think that has already fully actualised.

Another projection of the Brexit sunny uplands by UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex:



It is strikingly similar to the projections of DexEU, which allegedly were 'fiddled'. Pretty much everything will tank, but there will be a boost for macaroni cheese manufacturing (seriously). The food of Depression-era America.

 

Don't forget the wood, paper, and printing.

We'll need to burn the wood to keep warm, have plenty of paper to send messages in bottles, and the presses will be kept busy churning out mail drops telling us great it feels to be back in control.

 

The press will still be foaming at the mouth at everything that the EU does --without the UK. You can't live right next to the biggest economic bloc in the world and not be affected by its economic and political actions. Moreover it will surge ahead economically while the UK falls further behind. The EU will be the tabloids' favourite hate subject for decades. It will only get worse, more hysterical, more bizarre, more propagandaist. It will be an entire industry of its own. Two-minute Hate, brought to you by the Ministry of Love.

What can I say? People hate others because fundamentally, they don't love themselves.

 

So much for Brexit being a way to stick it to the elites, according to treasury figures London, where i guess most elites live, will be least effected regardless of what's negotiated.

 

And the North East and the Midlands, where most of the Leave voters are, will be most adversely affected. Karma, she's a bitch.

I am now pretty convinced that in the next three months one of two things will happen:
1. The UK will crash out without a deal.
2. The UK government will fall.

 

Until Nissan announce they're upping and ****ing off, I don't think any of the locals will take any notice.

The North east will get ****ed over either way, as in the EU or not, neither major party cares about the region...

Tories think 'The North' ends at Leeds [see 'Northern Powerhouse'], that and/or we're 'Desolate areas perfect for fracking'.

to Labour it's just a bunch of safe seats that will vote for them whatever happens.

 

I think Nissan ****ing off will be pretty likely, actually.

 

As do I, but it's all 'Project Fear from the Remoaners' until they [Renault Nissan] actually come out and say 'we're closing/scaling back our Washington plant'.

 

I'd say that will depend on what is in the secret agreement between the UK government and Nissan, of course the cost to keep them here could very well be high, not even to mention the precedent it sets for other companies to demand the same handouts which will of course be funded by taxing us...