They've been doing it for 30 years. If Boris knew how much he's been listened to on the continent (while lying about it), he'd never even think of visiting. Let alone try negotiate, or claim anything about "my friends".
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They've been doing it for 30 years. If Boris knew how much he's been listened to on the continent (while lying about it), he'd never even think of visiting. Let alone try negotiate, or claim anything about "my friends".
Agree with that. The British problem is that they allowed the EU to dictate the terms of negotiation from the start, so the EU could draw their red lines and push the UK more and more into the position of plaintiff having to do all the asking.
What May should have done is declare Britain was planning for a hard brexit, but was more than willing to consider any proposal for trade or cooperation that the EU might make.
I know it seems strange for the weaker party in a negotiation to take the stronger line, but I believe we would have got more at the end of it, and by more I just mean less bad of course.
I suppose such a line was never going to come from this divided government with it's weak leader though.
Instead of the UK government stating that they won't be part of any custom's union why not just say that they want a hard border, customs checks in Ireland and the Channel ports , they want to lose a large chunk of the City and they want to have WTO rules because that's what it means and anyone thinking otherwise is living in cake and eat it dreamworld.
The four freedoms are non-negotiable, how many times does the EU have to say it.
The four freedoms are non-negotiable, how many times does the EU have to say it.
It's very repetitive all round ain't it?
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Has there ever been a Redcafe Brexit poll?
I think there was, I'd imagine it was in favour of staying.
Barnier's gone to meet Davis today, they'll probably announce something else after the meeting then a couple of days later, the UK government will state something completely different, in the meantime the UK have got around eight months to negotiate something.
Remain got about 72%
Wow. I didn’t pay it much (any) attention at the time, but I vaguely recall thinking well I don’t live there so it would be unfair to vote. Wonder how sentiment would go now? Even stronger, probably.
I'm not convinced that too many people would change their mind, they may well do when reality smacks them in the face but it's really too late anyway unless May, the hardliners and Corbyn disappear.
Yes - sorry I meant in the Caf. In the real world I suspect Remain would shade it now; just. I guess the Redcafe lean towards Remain is explained by the numbers of non UK Caftards?
I don't think the EU is dictating anything tbh. In my opinion they have no clue what the UK wants.
If you ask me, I see two parties here. On one hand there's a unified EU whose willing to negotiate (the degree to that is, by all means, debatable) with the UK and on the other hand there's a government whose too busy negotiating internally to come out with a realistic option. It reminds me of that steriotype South American player SAF would occasionaly moan about. He would be interested to sign a player only to find out that he had multiple agents each with different ideas about the deal. Most of the time it ended up with United switching to other targets leaving the player and his 101 agents arguing whose fault it was for losing such unique opportunity in playing with the best team in the world.
And its the UK whose leaving and its the one whose obsessed with this 'close colaboration and frictionless trade' between the two. If the UK does what you're saying than there's a hell of a chance that the EU will come back with a simply good bye and good luck. What happens then?
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I think the Caf generally leans towards the left even amongst Brits on here.
Even those on here I don't see changing their mind, no-one seems to have suddenly "seen the light" as it were. The Caf is generally youngish and leftish but some of them were pro-Leave but even some of us older and rightish were pro-Remain.
You only ever hear the hardliners comment and ramble. I can guarantee you those in the middle, the ones who were genuinely duped into seeing "the benefits" of Brexit like the £350m for the NHS as an example, have changed their minds. In fact I would go as far as to say the vast majority of those who didn't see immigration as the reason for their vote have probably changed their minds.
I was/am a Remainer / Remoaner.
But all this talk about being half in-half out worries me. I think this is one of those instances where a compromise wont be able to deliver the best of both worlds. It will only deliver the worst. So if the choice is between cancel the whole thing, pretend it never happened and remain as a full EU member, I would vote for that. But if its between a "hard" and a "soft" Brexit, I am coming round to the view that maybe hard, while being potentially damaging, would be preferable to the alternative.
The things that upset people (not me, but Leave voters) about the EU would be 100x worse if we were a "vassal state" as JRM put it. We did used to have significant influence on the EU, despite what people may have thought. Yes we had to implement legislation developed elsewhere, but we had a lot of influence over it. We wouldnt if we were forced to live by EU rules without being a member. Then we really would have a democratic deficit. Being part of the customs union would mean limited opportunity to make these fabled trade deals. I dont really believe in these trade deals anyway, unless what is being offered is a regulatory race to the bottom - chemically washed meat etc. But at the end of the day, if we "leave" but are then unable to even pursue the deals, that is going to stir up a lot of resentment among the slim majority of people who want out.
Im not sure. I do feel a hard Brexit could be really, really bad, economically. So maybe anything is better than that. But part of me thinks maybe the best thing is to give Brexiters what they want, see if they can make it work. If not, and they have no excuses, maybe we can reapply - even if we get no more special entitlements, as we had before. At least then there will be no sniping and no "what ifs" about the opportunities that the Remainer establishment denied them.
The bottom line is I dont think there is any way forward that doesnt leave the country worse off than it was. Even if we Remain as full members, which I think would be best economically, I think the political damage from that would be incalculable. As I said, the half way option suits nobody and would end up being the worst of both worlds. So maybe the best thing is to just cut ties and see what happens. Endure the damage and pick up the pieces when the dust settles, make the best of whatever the situation ends up being.
But all this talk about being half in-half out worries me. I think this is one of those instances where a compromise wont be able to deliver the best of both worlds. It will only deliver the worst. So if the choice is between cancel the whole thing, pretend it never happened and remain as a full EU member, I would vote for that. But if its between a "hard" and a "soft" Brexit, I am coming round to the view that maybe hard, while being potentially damaging, would be preferable to the alternative.
The things that upset people (not me, but Leave voters) about the EU would be 100x worse if we were a "vassal state" as JRM put it. We did used to have significant influence on the EU, despite what people may have thought. Yes we had to implement legislation developed elsewhere, but we had a lot of influence over it. We wouldnt if we were forced to live by EU rules without being a member. Then we really would have a democratic deficit. Being part of the customs union would mean limited opportunity to make these fabled trade deals. I dont really believe in these trade deals anyway, unless what is being offered is a regulatory race to the bottom - chemically washed meat etc. But at the end of the day, if we "leave" but are then unable to even pursue the deals, that is going to stir up a lot of resentment among the slim majority of people who want out.
Im not sure. I do feel a hard Brexit could be really, really bad, economically. So maybe anything is better than that. But part of me thinks maybe the best thing is to give Brexiters what they want, see if they can make it work. If not, and they have no excuses, maybe we can reapply - even if we get no more special entitlements, as we had before. At least then there will be no sniping and no "what ifs" about the opportunities that the Remainer establishment denied them.
The bottom line is I dont think there is any way forward that doesnt leave the country worse off than it was. Even if we Remain as full members, which I think would be best economically, I think the political damage from that would be incalculable. As I said, the half way option suits nobody and would end up being the worst of both worlds. So maybe the best thing is to just cut ties and see what happens. Endure the damage and pick up the pieces when the dust settles, make the best of whatever the situation ends up being.
I dont get the impression this is the case, but it would be interesting if there was another referendum and Remain won it convincingly. Contrary to what I said above, that would be the one relatively pain-free way out. I suspect it would still be close, which would solve nothing. And I think Leave might well win by even more than last time. I think Brexiters would paint the EU side as obstructionist, trying to thwart the will of the UK people, not negotiating in good faith etc. I think a lot of people who were on the fence would feel the UK has been treated badly - that is how the media in this country would present it.
We would probably be in the same situation either way, just a slim chance EU exporters might have some influence. Slim being better than none.
I think comparing South American agents to May, Boris & Co is a bit harsh on the agents by the way.
Listen love I want leave you but I want to keep having sex with you because I think it benefits us both. Why won't you accept that? You're being totally unreasonable.
Brexiteers and their demands of the EU in a nutshell.
We would probably be in the same situation either way, just a slim chance EU exporters might have some influence. Slim being better than none.
I think comparing South American agents to May, Boris & Co is a bit harsh on the agents by the way.
Well I can't really debate about that since no one has any idea of what the government wants. They keep forwarding the 'have the cake and eat it' strategy in a different wrapping only to be explained to them that can't be possible, then there's a discussion about that, a sort of strategy comes up out of that discussion, the EU start evaluating that plan only to be shot down by the government once who would then forward the original 'have the cake and eat it' again.
But those who didn't like foreigners two years ago still don't like them now, those that were dumb enough to believe the NHS claim, the wonderful new trade deals etc are still the same dumb people now, those that hate the EU haven't suddenly fallen in love with it and those that had the false hope that their life would miraculously change for the better for no other reason than hope, still will do so.
Yes there'll be a small number of people in the middle which could sway it one way or another but until something really painful affects them,they'll still be swayed by what they want to believe influenced by the media.
People also still have hope that if it does all go wrong they can change their minds later and rejoin, I don't see this either, at least not for many years and in the meantime all the damage will have been done.
True.
I said the below, meaning those who didn't vote because of immigration.
I don't think any of those voting leave even knows what the EU is so I doubt there is anyone that hates it.
Those that voted because were lied to will have seen that now and won't fall for it again. They're not stupid, a lot o people were desperate.
ALSO a very big factor I think was the protest vote of people who didn't really think leave would win.
Maybe I'm biased, maybe I refuse to accept that the majority of this country is racist, xenophobic and downright stupid. All i can say is it is unlikely Brexit will occur, at least in the form that the hardliners wish it would. It might be a Brexit in name or there might not be one at all.
Is it possible to have voted to leave the EU without being a stupid racist xenophobe?
I think it will be a Brexit in name only as I doubt the government really has much choice, no matter how much bluster and cake and eat it rubbish they spout and the people won't be given a chance to change their mind.
Glad you still have faith in the British, any hope I had has died.
Yes there's millions likely. That's why I believe a second referendum will separate the wheat from the chaff. Am I deluded? Maybe.
Of course it is. Looking from the outside just seems the British public in the last decades has been subjected to a lot of confusion between the benefits and disadvantages you have staying there, normally a certain type of press who lets get real, belong to a certain group of people who doesn't want to follow the rules.
Of course you have the reverse situation where the Pro Eu side tried to put the argument between the financial apocalipse and racism and the final result was this.
At least is what I see from the outside, so, no, I don't believe it is solely based on anti foreigner votes, and I suspect there are currently a lot of eastern european countries who have much less democratic and racist tendencies there.
You can walk across it without being checked though
That's because technically EEA is a Custom Union between the EU and EFTA members, the Chapter 3 and protocols 10-11 are about customs.
Not a customs union like we normally would talk about though, if it would ever be talked about as one.
http://www.efta.int/media/documents...t/Main Text of the Agreement/EEAagreement.pdf
http://www.efta.int/media/documents...ent/Protocols to the Agreement/protocol10.pdf
http://www.efta.int/sites/default/f...ent/Protocols to the Agreement/protocol11.pdf
It is a custom union without the name but that's just semantic for political reasons. In the end, it serves the exact same purpose and one of them is literally to facilitate cross border trades which you can read in the article you posted.
This is exactly the compromise the Tory party are after though; Norway style without the single market.
They can strike their free trade deals with the rest of the world, whilst still being aligned with Europe
Obviously the major sticking point is still Northern Ireland. Is this border hard or soft?
Does it make it easier that all the Northern Irish have automatic Irish and therefore EU Citizenship? For the average Irish and Northern Irish Citizen, surely the single market never ceases as they are free to work in both countries?
That's interesting, how does one qualify as Northern Irish? Is it by residence or birth or whatever?
No but no but no but the Germans will want to sell us their cars.
I think if they take the BINO option a movement that is bigger and uglier than UKIP is going to sweep across the country in a few years.
I'm not 100% sure. How and why the Home Office keeps track of these things is confusing but it's definitely related to place of Birth;
(wiki)
Independent
Guardian
The DUP go on about Northern Ireland not having different rules to the rest of the UK... but they already do.
The Customs Border should have been in the Irish Sea
They'll still be free to work in both countries but even a hard border in itself will be problematic - a pain in the arse at best and likely to lead to political strife if things go south.
UKIP is pretty much dead in the water at this point though. We'll maybe see an alternative movement rise in prominence, or perhaps we'll see a very hard-right Tory assume power.
Agree, UKIP is dead. But I think what came next would have an uglier complexion because there would be a bigger anti-establishment, resentful, "we were sold out" element. I think it reach UKIP's high water mark, in terms of popularity and support, quite quickly.
Thanks @rcoobc