E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Only slightly? I think it says something when 64% say the government is mishandling the Brexit negotiations but there's only a 5% difference between those who think leaving was a right or wrong decision.

 

The British political elite, particularly the Tory party have made the UK a laughing stock with their patently obvious inability to handle major issues in particular Brexit.
I doubt the Labour party would have done any better.
God help us all.

 

God won't help us; God hates idiots who don't use the brains that He gave them.

People tend to rationalise their decisions and resist changing them after the fact (the human brain strives for consistency over accuracy*) --just see Peter North's piece: "Brexit will be bad, bad, bad --but I still believe I made the right decision, it's just them that are screwing it up!". Men tend to do this more than women, and it is interesting to see that it is amongst women where there is a biggest swing towards Remaining.

* This is because our senses are basically inaccurate, and our processing powers limited. We often have big gaping holes in our perception, interpretation and memory which our brain fills in with what --based on previous knowledge and experience-- it expects should be there. If we had to live with the holes, and keep updating our heuristic models of How the World Works every time they are challenged by experience, we'd live in a constant state of uncertainty and chaos.

 

Bear with me on this one...

...but focusing on the bumbling Tories supposedly trying to deliver a Utopian Brexit is rather missing the point. When (not if) Brexit is a complete cluster****, it will not be because Davis/Fox/Johnson didn't get the right deal or because May could not control them. It will be because the majority of the country ignored the most informed people/organisations we had, and instead listened to their own baser instincts, and voted for something that could never be successful.

To blame these (worst of) Tories means that we think that if Labour were in charge, things would be any better. Whilst there was an outside possibility the current Labour leadership would go against their own beliefs and resist the referendum result, I don't think that would have happened. Instead, we would have had a different bunch of clueless politicians fighting an unwinnable battle with the EU.

I think most would now agree that the vote for Brexit was a mistake, but voting for it on the understanding that Davis/Johnson/Fox (or their Old Labour counterparts) would be left to implement it was criminally reckless.

We collectively voted for Brexit and now we will reap what we have sown.

 

Should have voted LibDem like most mature democracies across Europe

 

I get what you're saying and i agree that if Labour were in charge it would still be a car crash, however i get the impression they're just going along with the general consensus that the people have spoken and no matter what you must not go against the will of the people.

We've already seen how the mostly right-wing press react to any threats to Brexit so you can probably imagine how they'd react to a left-wing political party who dared to do anything other than deliver on the promises of Brexit nirvana.

Although i feel whether Labour or the Conservatives do, or don't, deliver a good, or bad, Brexit sort of misses the bigger picture, that being how we had 40+ years of a majority eurosceptic right-wing press in the UK drip feeding people with often false stories about how awful the EU is and that our problems weren't caused by our own government but by that evil EU.

I also feel whose in charge or how Brexit turns out misses the fact that it was the Conservatives who choose to call a referendum in the first place, a referendum that was called IMO for purely selfish party political gain.

 

Oh look, more cake and eat it...

 

If you think that's bad you should read about Mr Cummings latest judgment of how we're handling the negotiations, and while you're at it how about the revised ONS figures that show Britain’s global investments have collapsed by £490bn.

Added to that is how a recent BBC analysis of NHS digital data shows how EU staff levels have fallen since the vote.

We've not even left yet, but it's OK because it's just more project fear.

 

The ONS figures are new to me... I guess that explains why May and Davis are suddenly making a mercy dash to Brussels today.

 

May admitted the Norway option (EEA) would mean us following EU rules and having no say in them.
And here comes the fun fact: The Switzerland option would have the exact same result.

 

Yup, but at the same time she wants more than a Canadian CETA deal: cake and eat it.

Then again, the voters want their cake and eat it to. While the majority of voters state that they are not prepared to sacrifice a single penny of income for Brexit, a majority also states that no deal (going WTO) is better than a bad deal. As if those positions were remotely in the same probability universe. And as I type this, Fuchs is just being interviewed, and again states that the four freedoms are indivisible. Like, he is still having to point this out.

And it will be a bitter harvest.

 

https://www.thelocal.ch/20170626/svp-calls-for-an-end-to-free-movement-of-people-deal-with-eu

SVP will try next month to get another referendum overturning, what they see, as the government ignoring the will of the people from 2014. Given the current problems in some areas , they have a reasonable chance at doing it.

 

If Switzerland is happy to drop out of EFTA, sure. But last time around the government clearly wasn't.

Switzerland has an account surplus and a strong manufacturing base. It certainly stands a much better chance outside of EFTA than the UK does.

 

The media reports discontent over the small detail that constitutional referendum are being ignored, which does not bode well for those wishing to keep their jobs....

of course that could simply be the narrative the media is trying to push

 

Nothing to do with media narratives and everything to do with freedom of movement being part of a package deal, its take it or leave it to all of it, not whatever parts they currently feel like.

 

It is really simple: cake or death. With the cake of being in the single market come the obligations of the four freedoms. They come as a package deal. So if Switzerland wants to end free movement of people, it will drop out of the single market. That will have all sorts of economic consequences, whether people choose to acknowledge that or not.

 

You are missing my point in regards to narrative.

Nexxo , the swiss are in a unique position in that they already have free trade agreement (1972) , and left the EEA and withdrew an application to the EU.

 

The Swiss never left the EEA because they never entered it. They stuck with a complex set of EFTA agreements that amount to something very close to the EEA --so close that as part of this they subscribe to the four freedoms. The reason why the most recent 2014 referendum on limiting free movement was not implemented was because in retaliation the European Commission suspended Switzerland's participation in the EU research and student programmes, Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+.

Since then, Switzerland and the EU have been negotiating how legislation to implement the constitutional amendment could respect both the outcome of the referendum and EU free movement, and in December 2016 the Swiss parliament adopted a bill that gives priority to Swiss-based job seekers - Swiss nationals and foreigners registered in Swiss job agencies - but which avoids quotas on EU citizens.

Keep in mind that Switzerland is in a far better economic position to leave EFTA and go it alone than the UK is, and it still balked at doing so; instead it chose to compromise on its referendum which, in Switzerland, have a near sacred status. That should tell you something.

You can respect democracy and the "will of the people"; you can choose maximum sovereignty and immigration control. If that's how you want to roll, have at it. But be under no illusions whatsoever that this won't mean leaving the single market, and that there won't be serious economic consequences.

 

It seems everyone wants the free movement of money and other resources but don't want to deal with the free movement one of the trickiest resources to deal with, humans.

 

People don't understand how they are all necessarily connected. But then again, people seem to understand sweet Fanny Adams about the EU, the economy or the world and what's more they show no inclination to learn. They positively don't give a **** and they're proud of their ignorance. At the same time they believe that their political will should be respected and listened to.