E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

That's the spirit, all you Europhiles need to adopt the same positivity towards Brexit as the Eurosceptics showed towards the EU, with all this negativity it's almost like you want Brexit to fail like we wanted the EU to fail.

 

Seems silly to ask a question if you already have the answer. Leavers instructed the government to take the UK out of the EU and both of you should be looking to the government for the plan, not each other.

The objective is to leave the EU, that's always been pretty clear. It was even written on the ballot paper.

 

The government's plan is for Brexit to mean Brexit. I'm good with that.

 

Whilst it is unfortunate to kick off the job as prime minister with one of the most vacuous statements ever uttered by politician, one thing is for sure; Brexit doesn't mean remain.

 

"Brexit means Bremain."

Everyone's a winner.

 

It will not mean what some Leavers think it means either. The UK simply lacks the skills and the will to make it work, and that is not because of the Remainers.

 

No of course it won't be what they think. I'm not sure why you are so concerned with what leavers think though.

 

In the context of this debate, because one keeps asking me for a positive constructive view without ever sharing his. Which makes me suspect that he does not have one. Which makes me think that many Leavers in general don't have one.

This certainly seems to be a problem for the government, trying to second-guess what sort of Brexit people would find acceptable, although personally I think the government should just decide for itself what it means. If it's left up to them, it should be their choice.

Never gonna give EU up, never gonna let EU down...

 

Well his positive view is that immigration will be controlled. His main points have always been the Roma from Slovakia are ruining his town. He thought that the EU was a sinking ship, so another positive view is that the UK will no longer be involved with it thus avoiding being taken down with it.

 

Something like that also went through the heads of those Swiss people who voted for Free Movement to be curtailed in their relationship with the EU. Unfortunately after two years it turned out that 'no' means 'no' and while Switzerland can beg all it want, it really won't get that cookie.

Switzerland isn't getting rid of freedom of movement without also kicking itself out of the single market. Britain can go WTO or finally act like a grown-up member of the EU. It's quite simple, really.

 

There's no way the EU will budge on that for any country.

 

'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it'

Unless the UK economy radically restructures itself to become a high-skills manufacturing and service economy it will continue relying on cheap factory and services fodder labour from abroad. This is something it could have done just as easily while in the EU, but the electorate never demanded it and isn't now, because it basically doesn't understand that the problem with the UK economy is the UK. So we can assume that those Slovakians will simply be replaced in due time by Nigerians. Plus ca change...

And if the EU goes down the UK will go down with it. As the 2008 Credit Crunch demonstrated, in a global economy there is no "out".

Brexit is magical thinking, not a rational analytic approach to the problem.

 

Indeed. So the UK will have to drop into the WTO. Problem is, although it has its own WTO membership, it does not have its own WTO tariff schedule, without which it cannot trade. So Britain first needs to:

• draw up a tariff schedule for tens of thousands of products and services that it wishes to import and export. Because this schedule is bilateral, there will be lots of lobbying of various UK businesses for lower tariffs on stuff they want to export, and higher tariffs on imports that could compete with their stuff. Of course conflicts (and hilarity) ensues. And it can't simply keep the same tariffs it had as an EU member as they are linked to EU import/export quotas.
• Then it needs to have that tariff schedule unanimously ratified by all the 164 other WTO members. This may take a while... and let's hope that Argentina doesn't suddenly wish to exploit this as a lever to get its hands on the Falklands, for instance.
• Only then can it trade with other countries.

Turns out that WTO is not a default option that you can simply drop into if all else fails. If I were Liam Fox, I would be prancing about less around the US and China and working my ass off to draw up a tariff schedule now, so the UK has a safety net in place in case those EU negotiations go south.

 

Does the UK have any negotiators yet? Proper ones, ones that aren't Boris...

 

Nope, still hiring. At last count David Davis had about 110 of the 250 experts he needed (I thought Gove said they had enough of them?), and Liam Fox has about 100 of the 1000 trade negotiators that he needs.

One civil servant stated that he thinks there is little prospect of the UK leaving the EU before 2020.

 

Then why are you asking them what Brexit should look like or whatever, if you already have the answer.

 

I like to corroborate my view. Disequilibria for instance presented a rational view on what he would like a Brexit to mean. We may not agree on Brexit but there is a rationale behind his opinion and he has measured and realistic expectations of what can be achieved, and how, and on what timescale.

TheGreatPretender however asked me my opinion on a positive constructive way forward but when I asked his in turn, I got a defensive rage in reply. It was most instructive and I have drawn my conclusions and moved on.

 

So is your conclusion that it's magical thinking except when it's not magical thinking as per disequilibria

 

The only conclusion you can draw Nexxo is that I'm fed up of conversing with you. No matter what I would have said you would have continued with the condescending attitude that you have shown everyone who has dared to state they voted leave. Why get myself roped into that yet again? Bigger fish to fry than to allow you to keep attempting to feed your overblown ego

 

The more extreme and unfounded the expectations, the more magical the thinking.

Anyway, as you say it doesn't really matter what we think --it is the government's problem now.

Why are we still talking? Let's agree to disagree and move our separate ways.