E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

The relevance is that the idea that Brexit is not going to happen --or at least not in a meaningful way-- may not be as much denial as you think.

For starters, it is the government that is doing all the bargaining. If it was happy to go WTO, it would have pulled the trigger on Article 50 by now. David Davis would be shouting for it, but he has gone rather quiet (I suspect his civil servants have given him a much-needed reality check). All the government's busy manoeuvring for negotiating position with EU member states tells me that it is not prepared to just walk into Mordor the WTO. Even Brexiteers clinging onto the fantasy of passporting and tariff-free access to the single market despite repeated messages from the EU that this is not going to happen tell me that, despite their big talk, they are not actually prepared to go WTO. The denial is theirs.

And then there are the practical problems: the border between Ireland and N. Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement, keeping Scotland on side (it may not go independent, but the Tories will never get a majority vote in Hollyrood ever again), key EU member states having their own general elections to deal with next year, which means that there is now talk of delaying Article 50 until end 2017, and most significantly, nobody has worked out how to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act yet without causing a massive vacuum in British law for the next decade.*

The Brexit campaign was a fantasy, and a fantasy is what people voted for. And fantasies cannot be delivered.


* Let's not even talk about the likes of John Redwood MP, who advocates simply repealing the 1972 ECA without going through the Article 50 process --thus not only creating the aforementioned legal vacuum, but also seriously pissing off the EU with which Britain wants continued political and economic relations, alienating all Britain's international allies and acting pretty much like a rogue state. That'll be good for striking new trade agreements with the world. Frankly that an MP of all people could seriously suggest this and not realise the profound implications just shows the level of reality many Brexiteers are operating on.

 

I'm talking about denial and bargaining that this or that marvellous political feat can come from exactly the opposite place recent marvellous political feats have been coming from. This idea of voting Brexit out at a general election, I think, is a fantasy brought about by loss.

I totally agree that brexit might not happen in a "meaningful way" by which I assume you mean EEA.

However that is still a meaningful division away from the EU and would get consent of the majority of the population, enough I think, to win 60% + in a referendum of Join EEA Vs No EEA.

From what I've seen will remain the same as it was before the EU and while in. Ireland has always been a special case in that regard.

To me this seems like the same case with the Calais border controls, which were near immediately backed by the french after the vote. (oh a remain lie)

The Tories were unlikely to get that regardless.

Besides scotland is just turning into NI lite: nationalist VS unionist. That has been happening ever since they gave them that parliament without thinking it through.

Other countries have become independent from other institutions you know, without immediately having to repeal all laws and exist in a legal vacuum.

From something I found the other day:

Linky

Not saying some people's version isn't; as I said in the previous post

However even if all forms of leaving the EU (the EEA is leaving) were a fantasy that would mean that joining the european union is a kind of political event horizon that once crossed can never be left. Which if that were the case, is not a good thing.

 

Not a lie; the position of the French government on the Touquet agreement has been unclear, with the mayor of Calais very much wanting to rip it up. The current French government wants to keep the agreement in place, but if --as many Leavers are hoping-- Marie Le Pen gets in (unlikely), that would change... if Sarkozy gets in (more likely), don't expect him to keep it either.

The problem is that if the 1972 ECA is repealed, many associated laws, even if kept on for the time being, suddenly are referring to a non-existent legal framework. So the 1972 ECA cannot be repealed until there is something else to replace it, and that could take a while.

There are other problems too, e.g. with harmonisation of regulations on goods exported to the EU in the future. Between the UK leaving the EU and striking a new trade agreement with it, there is a hiatus in which there is no harmonisation of UK and EU regulations on goods. That creates problems for export.

I think that people misunderstand the process of 'joining the EU'. They think that accession was a simple process that took perhaps a year, so consequently it should take no more than a year to leave. The reality is more like this: the UK has been 'acceding to' the EU for over 40 years, as it evolved from a common market to the political union it is now and the mutual relationship grew deeper and more complex (people also don't realise how much the UK was a shaping force in that). As such it is likely that it will take decades to secede from the EU and disentangle this complex relationship.

 

Unsubstantiated much?

Some .........ok........

but many?

And that hasn't happened to any other nation that gained independence.

If the current legislation is to remain in place then I'd imagine it would be the easier task to repeal and replace or amend the ECA act to bind together all the legislation that the ECA is required to enable.

Simply repealing and going f*** it is obviously silly and wont happen but it wont be much of a challenge to write an act to continue with the legislation in place until repeal.

Obviously however that depends on how much the EU actually manages to pass in the intervening time, if any, and how amenable our governments are to maintaining EU standards in our exports to them.

Countries without an agreement still trade with them.

It'll take years to a decade to secede from the EU itself.

But to replace the laws themselves will be an as and when necessary process and like stated in the article quoted, India still has pre independence statutes today.

But it's not just some bums rush that people of dougans ilk say.

 

Yes, many, because she is a Frexiteer. The hope is that if sufficient Eurosceptic parties get elected into power, more countries will leave the EU and it will collapse. And then it will be one happy family of countries doing free trade with each other.

Again denial. First it is not going to happen. Second Marie le Pen as a hard-core nationalist would not be in any way inclined to be nice to the UK in bilateral trade negotiations.

Anyway, we agree then that the 1972 ECA cannot be repealed for quite some time yet.

 

I really doubt that. Maybe hardcore nationalists and swivel eyed loons but I doubt anyone but a minority hope for a victory for her.

People might feel vindicated by her rise because they'll be able to say "look look, that's the crazy s*** that happens because of europe, bet you're glad we got you out of that one"

I could say many remainers are wishing the UK has a big a recession as possible for the same reasons.

But in reality many would feel vindicated by the prospect/it happening not glad that it does.

Like turkey wasn't a lie. They were in the process of joining it could be said, doesn't make it any less of a lie.

not the same size of issue as that.

The current government can be in favour of something in any country and then not.

They could have got rid of it regardless of brexit, it's a separate bilateral agreement. Also immediately agreed to stay by the government afterwards

The threat that that agreement would be torn up in revenge didn't go down well in the referendum and looks like blackmail. One of the many ways the remain camp and EU interventions ballsed it up.

Against that remain camp, leave could have won even without the outright lies and misrepresntation. Either camp could have if the other was engaged in lies, exaggeration and misrepresentation. Project fear was much better marketing for the leave side than the quasi bigotted and/or crazy looking things they said, which just appealed to a nationalist core not enough of a plurality.

Brexit or no that's what he wanted anyway.

 

I think you'll find that the Touquet agreement is likely to be torn up well before Turkey accedes to the EU.

But a Brexit makes it more possible.

 

Now it definitely is with turkey going nuts straight after.

The fact is that the agreement isn't something that is directly related to brexit, only a threat, a punishment and gave people the impression that the EU actually rules like the brexiteers believe it does: with the cane and not with consent.

But that makes it more likely for brexiteers to double down and possibly status quo and hold their nose remainers to join them.

It's the type of thing that moved some to vote for brexit. People don't take well to blackmail and are very unlikely comply with it unless it means losing their spouse and/or familiy.

 

That viewpoint came from an overinflated sense of self-importance. Why should the EU accommodate at cost to itself a country that after a prolonged period of acting only in self-interest and demanding opt-outs is turning its back on the EU? Seriously, the UK has been demanding special treatment for decades and when other countries finally get fed up it's 'blackmail' and 'punishment'? This idea that the UK is a special little flower seems to run through many Leavers' thinking.

 

Tearing up unrelated agreements is and threats are.

Blackmail is specifically trying to coerce someone into doing something you want with the threat of negative consequences that someone will purposefully cause if you don't.

And those opt outs?

From what?

The CAP rebate: CAP merely there to protect inefficient french agriculture.
Blair reduction in CAP: see above

Schengen: yeah that's working out reeeeaaaaaaaaaallly well for them now isn't it?

The euro: A currency union that like its predecessor the ERM only really benefits Germany (for now, if it breaks it wont) and any economist could see that a mile off. The kind of productivity differentials and lack of completion that guaranteed its failure.

It's rich to say we run Europe for our own self interest any more than anyone else did.
It's just a false holier than thou attitude that doesn't match reality.


The main most famous opt outs we got have turned out to be totally sensible.


And god help us if we had joined the Euro, trading at a 1 for 1 rate with the rest of europe, would have brought that euro zone crisis back to 2008.

I mean the thing couldn't last 8 years before coming to crisis it was that badly designed.

So what we didn't join up to the most stupid of their ideologically driven terrible policies and that's a bad thing or something to be held against us.

 

I disagree that the Touquet agreement is unrelated (politically, at least).

As for opt-outs: just look at Cameron's deal for instance. The UK has had concessions that no other member state has had. Whether you think that they make sense or not is beside the point; the point is that it got them.

 

Politically it can be made to be related doesn't mean it should be, especially if one desires to pontificate about how nasty the brexiteers are.

The fact is most of the important things which we got opt outs on were foreseeable train wrecks.

The EMU was objectively so, an entire well established economic framework started in at least the 1950s predicted it in optimal currency areas.

Just because we opted out of going full retard doesn't mean we should be punished for it.

Cameron's:

Futher EMU opt outs : completely sensible we're not in the EZ

Ever closer union: purely symbolic even under a legal guarantee. Opt outs in other areas already seen to that.

Benefits: Expansion of time to receive in work benefits for migrants if " exceptional pressure on services" can be shown.

Basically next to nothing symbolic deal, we probably compromised much more with the other members in a year than what he was supposed to bring back from europe.

Compared to what other prime ministers secured it were utterly feeble. Also those changes for benefits were to be applied everywhere.

 

I was under the impression that the concessions were conditional on the UK voting to remain in the EU. Since they voted out, the concessions are already off the table, no?

 

Britain wants a divorce, but still expect to have all perks of the relationship. It is being unreasonable but expects others to remain reasonable.

You (Britain) weren't punished for it; you were granted all these opt-outs! You got almost everything you asked for, but it wasn't enough, so now you're deciding to leave the club while loudly calling it retarded. However --and this is the kicker-- you still want to access all its facilities as per usual, and get all flustered and indignant when you're told you can't. Like you weren't expecting that to happen, somehow.

You can't have concessions to a membership that you just ended.


Meanwhile, the House of Lords is considering delaying or even blocking the invocation of Article 50. Am I the only one who sees the delicious irony?

 

If they're not nationally representative then why do all parties put so much faith in them being a good predictor of GE results. Honestly it seems crazy that you're putting so much faith in polling data from less than 1.5k people that show no change in voting intention when you yourself claim there's "so many holes that can be poked into those polls it's untrue, like I said you've taken a very pick-n-mix approach to polling data, your using some polling data to validate your opinion while dismissing other data because it doesn't.

Indeed, but seeing how those polls you linked too use a typical data set of 1-2k people it would take more than "some people" to be aware, like i said maybe it's better to put less weight on polling data and more on actual results where it's more likly that people have been exposed to a particular message.

So are you once again dismissing data because it runs contrary to your opinion, you seem to do a lot of that.

So you've kept saying but as yet you've provided no evidence of that other than the claim that because a parties vote has never fallen bellow a certain level that it must mean that same people always vote for the same party, that's like saying your local corner shop has never sold less than 20 pints of milk each week so it must be the same people buying milk each week.

Again you have no idea that Tory voters voted for them, for all you know millions of people didn't vote for the same party as they did in 2010, for all you know millions of people voted for a party that offered them a referendum despite not agreeing with their policies.

Well based on how the Conservative vote rose in 2015 once they offered a referendum I'd say a good few million are willing to forgo perceived short term risk if it means perceived long term gains.

It's not unionist vs republican platform in nationalist vs unionist, it's an anti establishment feeling, it's the feeling that large swaths of the population have been abandoned, it's the feeling that people want to take back control of a system that's more about economics than politics.

Of course that's nigh on impossible but most people don't know that because politicians keep telling them how they can make their lives better and people keep believing them because there's no viable alternative.

That's not really a forever decision that can't be undone by a successive government, while the war itself can't be undone the effect certainly can, just like after any war things can be rebuilt, the same can't be said of leaving the EU as it's highly likely that doing so will have a permanent negative effect lasting for centuries.

Yes that's how i see it, but that's because that's the effect it's going to have, that's what effect it's already having, just like in any divorce it effects the rest of your life.

That's not how politics works, people vote for who they think is going to give the their unicorns and rainbows, as much as people are risk adverse in their personal lives when it comes to politics or getting someone else to it the same risk adverse nature doesn't hold true, basically people are more willing to take risks if they're not the only one in the firing line.

 

I said there's so many holes that can be poked in polls that have a question that begets an imprecise nuanced answer yet throws people into 2/3 boxes. Whereas voting intention begets a precise answer and puts people into whichever box. It's opinion polling vs intention voting.

Where's the evidence parties think it's a predictor of GE results. I only hear this or that about council by elections from corbynistas and now LDs. never mind whether or not it actually is.

As far as dismissing evidence goes, this is a matter of et tu corky.

You've not addressed any of the weaknesses I highlighted.

Considering they work to get a representative sample and that they'd only need 20-40 remainers to be aware of what the LDs stand for to get a 2% swing to the LDs you'd expect to see something.

You're ignoring the fact that with such low turnouts, in an election that has next to no impact on national politics, you can get a self selecting sample of those who feel aggrieved.

I'm not dismissing it. I use it as if fact throughout the rest of the post.

I'm just stating something to consider when dealing with how the methodology may be affected by the bias of the person that created it for a specific reason. Much the same as how the media questioned his intentions. I'm just saying I'd be much more comfortable with yougov/ipsos etc than someone who set up a polling company as a grudge.

So there's no one who say's "i've always voted X, my parents always voted X and their parents always voted X"

Never mind those who have just always voted X

You act like people who've not changed party loyalty before in spite of greater upheavals will do so now.

And it's not necessarily the same people but the same percentage of people. Although many will be the same people over 2+ decades.

Maybe they were just tories that weren't voting conservative because of the lack of referendum choice.

Maybe it just took away a fault-line in their base so whilst gaining voters that liked them in government they wouldn't simultaneously lose those that want a referendum.

People who didn't want a referendum voted for them in spite of it being offered.

I.e plenty of reasons that are nothing to do with people not liking a tory platform but entirely to do with people at large sympathising with the platform and if they do voting for them if they offer a referendum not the other way round.

Or it's anti english sentiment driving a nationalist vs unionist split. Your guess of motivations isn't any more likely to be the reality than mine

It's a forever decision for the hundreds of thousands who have died as a result of it and considering no world government has an idea of how to fix it, it is not something that can just be undone.

There are plenty of decisions that while not being de jure permanent are de facto permanent.

Even de jure the EU is reversible but de facto it is near impossible.
Pensions
Income tax
Working age welfare
BoE independence
Grammer schools
Introduction of State schools

If the NHS were abolished by a governement a future government wouldn't just wave a magic wand and reverse the decision. There are decisions that for all intents and purposes might as well be considered permanent.

Thinking your special interest in the EU is the only decision of its kind is absurd.

You think it's going to have.

Others might not agree or think it as much an injury as you do therefor it is not a good assumption to have of all your fellow remainers thinking it is such a devastating injury as you do.

So the whole scaremongering about the idea of an SNP run labour SNP coalition had no effect in 2015 did it?

 

Even if that is the case the touquet agreement has nothing to do with the EU, in that case be unreasonable about the EU but threaten to tear up unrelated agreements in spite no.

And we're not being unreasonable we are trying to negotiate the best exit, with our government aware that not everything can remain the same on both the benefits and the negatives.

And this isn't a divorce, we weren't f***ing europe, declaring our love and then running off.

It shouldn't require the same level of jealousy, hate etc that occur when personal relationships blow up, it is a democratic decision of a nation state to leave a supranational body.

Loudly calling some elements of it that clearly are retarded, retarded.

But this was about the touquet agreement not trying to access elements of the EU. Getting p***ed off that we get threats of punishment outside of EU competencies is not unreasonable.

The point is that your pointing to the previous opt outs like as if they're a reason to be more hostile to us when in reality they shouldn't.

You're just not willing to admit that your oh so superior EU are at least as big a set of d***s as the UK is

 

I was referring to the concessions even before the last suggested stack of new concessions. Include rebates, not being part of Schengen, etc. and you have to wonder what would actually change between the UK's current situation and being in the EEA. The UK can already check the passports of anyone who wishes to enter the UK, they already do not have to stick to all the rules and laws and even pay less than a full EU member would (should?).

The UK's relation with the EU has always seemed one of those 'it's complicated...' types.

 

The EU never threatened to tear up the Touquet agreement. The mayor of Calais and Marie le Pen however have always been in favour of getting rid. Politically speaking there may be a feeling in the French electorate and government that there is no reason to keep it in place for a country that is not even a fellow EU member. What is in it for France?

Is that why David Davis and Boris Johnson keep saying that Britain will get tariff-free access to the common market without free movement?

No, you keep complaining how you were being ****ed by Europe.

You might want to tell Nigel Farage that...

Circular reasoning much?

The EU has not been making any threats about the Touquet agreement. That's a matter between France and the UK. How the French electorate and next government feel about it however may be influenced by Brexit, and that is not spite, but simple balance of interest.

 

It was a threat made by the remain camp and the frence that should have nothing to do with brexit. It's to do with mutually being able to control borders, it's not a one way agreement. Considering the current state of terrorism it might be mutually beneficial for the future.

Taking a negotiating position well I never.......
(Besides it's the non tariff barriers i'd be worrying about)

exactly a purely platonic relationship and they try to f*** us, they should be on some kind of register

Yeah and I'll tell that to the other minor party despots that are worse than him throughout europe.

There's a difference between a right wing leaver and our government much like most in europe would like to think that we think there is a difference between their c***s and their government. Oh wait some of them are in governments.....hungary or very nearly there..... austria.

What arguing that areas that have been objectively proven to be retarded can be called retarded is a logical problem?

I'm talking about the specific threats in the campaign though and acting like in current circumstances that wasn't a lie.

It's the holier than thou attitude taken by remainiacs and europhiles about the EU and themselves in the pretence that leave and eurosceptics are oh so terrible d***s. When they are exactly the same, there is an equivalence and they'd like to pretend that is not the case.