E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

I feel more like the Jews in 1930-40's Germany. Seriously looking at whether I can retire in about 22 months' time and GTFO.

 

As the leavers always say:
"We knew exactly what we voted for".

 

Between this and the passports, Brexit is looking like a very good deal...

...for the French.

 

There's no animosity between the Brits and the French either. This is absolutely not ironic.

 

"Too late, too late!" said the white rabbit...

 

There's still time for some good Brexit riots. Nigel wanted them after all.

 

All the polls on this subject for the last year or so have shown a shift to a remain majority. Brexit was never a rational course of action and evidence doesn't mean **** when compared to ideology - unless of course the evidence supports your ideology.

 

Yes the polls have shown that, yet the people still voted to hand Mr Brexit the keys to No 10...

 

True enough.

That's the stupidity of the voting system, a majority of people voted for remain/confirmatory referendum parties in the GE and yet it's been claimed as a big win to "get brexit done!" (that line always makes me chuckle).

But you have to work with what you've got which means we're stuffed.

 

Boris Johnson's Brexit trade deal will end frictionless trade, EU says.

I'm shocked. Shocked! Well, not that shocked...

Also:
Brexit already costing more than UK's net contributions to EU over 47 years
No-deal Brexit could set economy back by 10%, warns Tory grandee
Brexit: NI deadline is 'almost impossible' to meet

#winning

 

Senior US officials told British ministers on Monday that using Huawei technology in UK 5G networks would put transatlantic intelligence sharing at risk, warning that allowing the Chinese firm access would be “nothing short of madness”. - "Special" relationship in action. I look forward to the trade negotiations, I suspect it'll be similar to the De Niro & Ricky Gervais negotiation scene in Stardust.

 

I'm thinking more Silence of the Lambs: "It will sign the trade deal and put it in the bucket..."

 

Hey Nexxo, you mad non-native lad. Hope things are well.

I'm late to the party (don't stop in here as often as I'd like) but do you see any potential positives coming from all this? I had an interesting conversation recently - interesting in that it was between two remainers, and we ended up speculating that Brexit might be good for the EU. That is, our predicament, all this mess and fallout and our fortunes in the coming years, might serve as a clear example to the EU that exiting is damaging, while also delivering the message that there is discontent in the ranks and that the EU needs to reform itself and improve its structure to keep its member states happy. Win-win: the EU improves, and everyone in the EU wants to stay in it, for fear of being the next Britain.

Only, not a win-win for the UK, obviously. But might there be some big-picture positivity to be salvaged in this way? Brexit might actually save the EU in the long term.

Apologies if this is a highly unoriginal and tired thought. We surprised ourselves with it.

 

You're pretty much spot on in saying it's good for the EU, since we voted to leave Euroscepticism in member nations of the EU has fallen quiet considerably, i guess the UK is taking one for the team so to speak.

I'm selfish though and only really care about the country i live in.

 

I think it will certainly benefit the EU. As you say, the UK has served as a graphic example of how hubristic and bad an idea leaving the EU is (and if the UK, which was hitherto considered a strong economy with some of the smartest civil servants and diplomats, makes an utter mess of it --and I mean, dada-esque levels of bizarro-world parody levels of mess-- how would other EU member states fare?), it has generated a new-found appreciation of the EU amongst its citizens, and it has been cause for the EU to reflect on its failings as well as its strengths and not take its member states for granted. Moreover it can now veer towards a more socialist direction rather than the liberal free market one that the UK most strongly pushed for.

As for the UK: sometimes you have to lose something to really learn to appreciate it, but I doubt people will learn. They will just keep wondering why things keep getting worse although they keep voting for politicians who keep promising that things will get better.

 

I expect the UK to be back in the EU before my 50th birthday, but this time without any of the fancy rebates, vetos or opt outs we had before.

But then I expect the Irish to be blowing **** up by now, so maybe I'm being overly optimistic.

 

I thought someone had blown something up. I expect that may still happen, depends on the nature of the future relationship IMO.

 

I hope you're in your late 40s.

 

I erm... have some bad news for you buddy.

 

I feel like it has to happen. Nexxo's right - we probably won't learn from our mistakes - but the Brexit sentiment, the isolationist sentiment, is a core part of our cultural memory and isn't going to go away. You can't rationalize it away, you can't silence or ban it, you can't reason with it. Britain really, deeply wants to be an island nation (a 'seat of Mars' and all that Richard II stuff). It will take us a long time to accept that this is unrealistic, and get over ourselves, but we need to explore the idea to achieve any kind of closure on it.

If we hadn't Brexited, there would forever be a huge portion of the nation's collective sentiment pushing for it, yearning for it, idealizing it as the solution to all our problems. I, for one, am - not happy, exactly, but resigned to the necessity of getting it over with.

The only way to teach a kid that sweets for dinner makes them sick is to give them sweets for dinner. If you just patronizingly tell them "no, you can't, it'll make you sick!", they'll disbelieve you and hate you. You're right, but they'll never accept that.

Let's just get the sick over with.

[edit - disclaimer: I am not a parent and this is probably not a valid parenting technique.]