So there is going to be an Act of Parliament to trigger Article 50.
Now that’s all sorted out, why don’t we make absolutely sure that this is what we want to do by having a Second referendum? It’s important – we need to be sure. If the Leave vote prevails again, then fair enough, I promise to shut up forever on the subject.
It’s just that th 52:48 doesn’t seem like enough of a mandate to me. People voted without really knowing what was going to happen next. We do have some idea now – so let the people do it again. This time the vote can be within parliamentary constituencies so that when the MPs vote on it, they know exactly what their constituents want. If the people vote to leave, then the PM can get on with her negotiations with confidence.
We are making this up as we go along – no one will lose face. This was done so that David Cameron could keep control of his party. He failed. Now that this is water under the bridge – let’s just do it again.
The PM and Leader of the Opposition will make out that the parliamentary vote will be a serene process of calm ratification. Don’t think so! There’s plenty of room for mischief there. MPs are famous for making the most of whatever leverage they might have, Both main parties are so divided on the matter that the idea of a three line whip is laughable. Remember all those Shadow Cabinet members resigning? They are not going to toe the line because Jez tells them to.
Forget all this rubbish, as a member of the shadowy elite I am about to hijack the sovereignty of the people of the UK and declare that, like Hotel California, they can never leave the EU.
Ops, hang on – better run that past the 4th Viscount Rothermere, Paul Dacre, and Rupert Murdoch first…. mmm maybe DT and VP as well?
I first read that as DLT…perhaps the loveable hairy cornflake is behind all of this…
Shhh They will be knocking at your door if you carry on.
You may not like it but 52-48, while not a landslide, is a mandate. How much is enough?
I think if we do it again, the same simple majority rule should apply. If it’s 51:49 to leave then, hey ho, let’s go – we’ve had two votes.
One vote is enough.
” We” lost. Tough.
Nope. Since when did an advisory plebiscite become capable of bestowing a mandate?
Brexiteers got what they were asking for, a sovereign parliament. What’s the problem?
The PM has the air of someone driving straight for the cliff edge whilst manically laughing “I told you this was the wrong thing to do , but you asked for it!”.
At least now she will have to justify her decisions.
We’d be out of our minds to have another referendum, and I’d probably vote Leave if we did.
At some stage we need to accept this is happening and start to think about our platform for negotiation with the EU.
I also don’t relish the idea of doing anything that could bring down the current PM – all the likely alternatives look a lot worse from where I’m sat.
We voted for Brexit. We should proceed with Brexit unless a truly compelling new reason arises not to do so. Referendums settle nothing and only divide people further. Now is the time for political leadership.
You saved me some typing.
Well, the compelling reason is that there now needs to be an Act of Parliament to ratify it and the MP’s don’t know what their specific constituents voted for – because the June referendum was divided into non-parliamentary constituency areas.
A second referendum reduces the risk of MPs playing games.
There are various estimates of how constituencies voted in the referendum. Over 400 of 574 English and Welsh constituencies are thought to have voted Leave, including 70% of Labour ones. So a second referendum on that basis wouldn’t help – the result would be a more convincing Leave. It also makes it almost impossible that A50 won’t go through the Commons.
So be it.
Although I wanted to remain, I am totally OK about a Brexit as long as we, as a nation, are sure that this is what we want to do. The first 52:48 vote – and what happened next – makes me think that the electorate are not behind this move. A second “are you sure?” vote based on constituencies some time in early March would effectively instruct the MPs what to vote. This will make them less likely to mess around and go against the will of their electorate.
No, that was the second vote. The first was 67:33 to go in – and what happened next? A vocal minority moaned until they got their way.
The first vote was on a common market. No one voted to be part of a unified superstate Europe.
What happened was laid out. We haven’t got a superstate. And anyway the last vote was simply “stay or leave” with no details. So no one voted to remove access to the free market.
The intent of the EU is ever greater integration. One currency, institutions, travel area, etc. It’s currently failing because it’s half finished but that’s the destination.
See below. It was clear all the way through and repeated by both sides that ending freedom of movement and EU law supremacy would mean leaving the single market. You didn’t know this? It was obvious to me.
Well some of the Brexit key players didn’t think it was obvious to them:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1359094/boris-johnson-and-michael-gove-will-honour-their-promise-to-sun-readers/
http://uk.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-italy-will-keep-uk-in-single-market-because-of-prosecco-2016-11
Also the superstate? It is not happening
https://www.ft.com/content/7a057084-65fc-11e6-8310-ecf0bddad227
I didn’t base my opinion on Boris and Gove. I based it on what sensible people were saying, including the voices from the EU.
Twang, I am not saying you did. But this “information” was out there and, as you can see from The Sun piece, well circulated.
Re the EU, the problem is they can’t stop. Currently the Euro is causing unemployment rates north of 40% in some countries because they can’t balance their economies. There needs to be one European government making decisions across the whole region. Good luck with that. But how can the Euro continue as it is? It’s destroying the whole project. Junker is right, the answer is ever closer union. In the campaign I listened to an interesting debate between two economists and the one thing they agreed on most strongly was the need to unify fiscal policy under one central authority to make the Euro work properly. The point they made which stayed with me was that we don’t know have a “two speed” Europe – we have a two destinations Europe.
I agree with you on the Euro, but that is a separate argument.
I think the point is we can’t continually be an exception. At some point we have to be in – Schengen, EU central bank, the whole deal. And in what…?
We don’t have to be “in” in the way you mean. The rest of the EU were happy with us as it is. In fact the EU showed signs of going towards our view. Now, post the vote and the pissing contest the present government is starting up, opinions are hardening and – if we are outside – we have lost our influence entirely.
We have no influence over decisions concerning the Euro. Plenty of examples if you look for them but here’s one…
“The European Commission has repeatedly expressed its opposition to so called ‘a la carte’ membership of the EU. It argues allowing the freedom to pick and choose policies would lead to the negation of the European project.”
http://www.euractiv.com/section/uk-europe/linksdossier/europe-a-la-carte-the-whats-and-whys-behind-uk-opt-outs/#ea-accordion-positions
Blair gave the rebate back after massive pressure. More will come, you can be sure, as further integration takes place.
I don’t see anything that say anything that means further integration was inevitable in the article it just says this is all part of a discussion
So there are some problems. But then there are in any system. Now we will will have no influence at all.
I voted to remain, I lost, a bit pissed off because of the lies (on both sides) and now we have to get on with it. There is no other sensible alternative and I am irritated by the remainers and their mealy mouthed words about having to accept the mandate BUT. Of course Parliament have to be consulted and they have to approve the process and I am naive enough to think that most mps won’t be stupid enough to vote against constituent wishes where a large majority voted for out. We should realise that the EU is probably shitting itself with the traumas going on in France, Italy and Germany and it’s not wrong to use this as leverage in our negotiations. Thus far i think Teresa May has done o.k and I wish her well because this has the potential to get a lot uglier than it currently is. Oh, and Nicola Sturgeon can piss off. I quite liked her, but her threats are becoming tiresome and actually if she thought about it, being controlled by Westminster might just be better than being controlled by Brussels.
Your comment is more or less what I think Dodger. I also go along with much of Bingos comment above.
I voted remain, my side lost. We ARE leaving the EU, all the stamping of feet, gnashing of teeth wont change that.
There may be problems along the way, but I believe our (UK) best interests are met by trying to get the best deal we can rather than Huffing & puffing trying to delay the inevitable.
OOAA.
Sturgeon’s position seems increasingly bizarre. She bangs on about staying in the ‘single market’ which accounts for less than 15% of Scottish trade while wanting to leave the UK which accounts for 70%.
And she must know that the economics of independence look much shakier now than they did first time around.
Whatever TM said, conceded, wore or wrote on her forehead with a biro, Nichola Sturgeon would announce triumphantly as yet more evidence of the need for a further referendum on independence. She should just call one and stop mouthing empty threats because people are starting to ignore them.
In time, both Scotland and England will be just normal nation/states. I agree that there is little enthusiasm for indyref2 right now. We’re all puggled and thought of doing it again is quite a thought. But it’ll come, it’ll happen. It’s the normal way to be.
It seems to me that there is a very genuine issue about the terms of our departure. The notion that everyone who voted to leave – or those that voted to stay but have conceded the overall point – all share the same view is highly questionable.
I’m related news, perhaps it is unrepresentative, but where I kive I read and hear all manner of comments suggesting that people voted to leave because they wanted a Hard Brexit. One local opinion poll revealed that 50% of leave voters claimed that the single biggest driver for voting for Brexit was leaving the Single Market and Customs Union. Ending free movement and restoring the primacy of UK courts and parliament were a very.y distant.second and third. This surprised me given how few mentioned it at the time. One of the wonders of the modern age, of course, is that online conversations and the like are captured for ever. The mentions of the single market pre vote are few and far between. Mention of the customs union non-existent. How odd.
I think that a lot of leavers (not all, but a lot) did not know a thing about the Single Market and Customs Union & are using it post referendum so they don’t have to say “Get rid of the darkies”.
Obviously I am being a bit simplistic/broad brush with that comment/view, but I remember in the immediate aftermath a lot of vox pops saying that it WAS about immigration & I genuinely believe that a lot of people are trying to rein back on the racist rhetoric & say it is about economic reasons.I also believe that a huge majority are like me & unschooled in economic/political theory, but whereas I happily admit that I dont understand it, so many people think they do.
I would not trust an amatuer surgeon dentist or vet, but for some reason everyone (big generalisation I know, but I am sure you all understand) is allowed to be an expert on the economics/politics of brexit.
“Expert”! “Expert”! Miss! Miss! He used the “E” word! Send him out of the class, Miss!
Shut up Michael, go back into the corner and put your cone hat back on.
This is very true. We have delved a lot more into the consequences of leaving and what it means since last June. Now that we “know what we don’t know” – shouldn’t we vote again?
Let’s not pretend that anyone knows what they are doing. There’s nothing sacrosanct about the June 2016 referendum. I am looking at it from the perspective of a PM deciding what to do next.
If I was Prime Minister, I would hold another referendum but make sure it was properly drafted to also make the result binding and not advisory. To be honest, if either side thinks we shouldn’t do so given how much clearer the options are now against the bollocks presented during the referendum, I suspect it would be because they feared the result of a more informed public.
It would certainly be clear. But having voted once and been through that whole business my concern would be that lots of people would stay home. Leave would win, which is what the polls show (mind you, what do they know), so then it would be “WHAT – leave on this turnout? Undemocratic, our children’s futures at stake”, etc etc. I voted for remain and wish we’d never had the damn thing but no one can suggest it didn’t catch the public mood, and once asked, everyone was engaged. Which is a good thing, unless you don’t like the result and think asking again might get a different answer. You see, I think people knew perfectly well, because it was repeated over and again, that ending freedom of movement would mean leaving the single market. This is hardly news.
I think that there are two significant flaws in the first referendum. The first is that the referendum itself was both poorly drafted and even more poorly communicated. Its almost like Dave was expecting a handsome remain win so there didn’t need to be any thought given to how to manage a leave vote.
The second is that much of the facts used in the leave campaign have been seen to be, in the current vernacular, alternative facts. Whilst this alone isn’t enough (lots of votes have been won on lies), combined with the first issue, it is just daft not to do it properly this time.
I wouldn’t disagree but I can’t think of a better way of telling people their vote doesn’t count. Repeatedly people say they knew why they were voting the way they did and suggesting they didn’t pisses them off.
Thing is, although “people knew perfectly well, because it was repeated over and again, that ending freedom of movement would mean leaving the single market”, I reckon very few of the same people had even the foggiest clue what the feck the term “single market” meant.
I suspect you are right. Along similar lines, I posted something on another site last week mulling the pros and cons of leaving the Customs Union. Someone replied that they were fed up with all the different customs people brought with them into the UK. I thought they were being ironic, or making a pun of some sort, but sadly not. Now, I wouldn’t condemn anyone for not knowing much, if anything, about customs unions. But it does concern me that people are influencing decision making without, it would seem, having a clue.
To be honest, the result is immaterial now. What we have discovered, is that our political infrastructure couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. We are now suffering the consequences of poorly drafted referendums, poorly advised governments and opportunistic politicians trying to make personal and political gain from the very mess they created. It so bad that Nick Clegg sounds like the sensible one.
Yep.
It’s so bad that I’m thinking of voting Lib Dem next time round.
I’m a card carrying Lib Dem but I can’t abide Tim Farron. What a weasley little man.
Ah! Tim Farron. That’s his name.
I honestly don’t mind TF. People are always on about what a twat he seems but I don’t see it.
I much prefer Nick Clegg I must say.
I think he may have learned a lot from his mistakes in coalition. I hope so anyway. I think the idea that politicians should never be forgiven for errors of judgement leaves us with the teflon plated management speak robots we have now. I’d give Clegg a chance if he was brave enough to talk admit his mistakes and what he’d learned.
I think he has, at some length, not least in his book. But even after he’d gone people were bleating about student fees, propping up the Tories etc. I agree with you about moving on but vast numbers of people don’t, unfortunately.
I think it is all bollocks. We had a referendum – the people voted. We voted to leave. Not what I wanted but I live in a democracy so have to accept the will of the people. Yesterdays ruling was important because it adds checks and balances to the process which has likely pissed off the likes of IDS and his cronies but that is a good thing.
Yes but…there’s such a cloud of uncertainty over what the ‘people’ (the 52% of 70%) were actually voting for, uncertainty which extends to the highest reaches of government, that you can’t blame people for feeling that they’ve been sold down the river (sorry about the mixed metaphors). The people who voted remain knew exactly what they were voting for.
I’m not entirely sure about this Mike. In general elections, there is a lot of misinformation, negative campaigning and downright lies. The electorate in general still allow themselves to be convinced by politicians and believe in them. I don’t blame us for this because not to trust, to believe that all politicians are on the make or dishonest is corrosive, and most people want stability. Was the referendum so different last year ? I didn’t like the result, still don’t and believe that the angry first time voters who voted leave will be the first to suffer if things go badly. But we elect a government every 5 years to go ahead and govern and part of that this term was the referendum which was badly handled and lost. Now the government has to manage the process and then our elected representatives have to vote on it. I do understand why some people might think a new referendum might be a good idea but at that stage, the issues are not going to be black & white, there’s going to be a lot of grey and I suspect the opportunities for mis-information and lies will be all the greater. Also the EU have to be made aware of how our process works because, let’s be frank, they have a history of bullying countries (step forward Ireland and Greece) into acceptance, and there are senior people there who are still so bloody complacent and don’t fully appreciate how a parliamentary democracy works.
For the record I think there was a significant number of voters on both sides who didn’t know what they were voting for. I suspect a lot of remainers voted remain without considering what the EU was about, being confused or not understanding what being part of Europe means. Likewise all those Daily Express readers who voted out are going to wake up and find that that the 1950s haven’t returned.
You’re right of course, Dodger – although the difference between an election and a this referendum is that if we don’t like the result of an election we get a chance to reverse it, even if we have to wait 5 years. That’s not on offer for this ‘purely advisory’ referendum. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that everybody who voted in the referendum knew what they weren’t voting for….
True. I think the Lib Dems may well stand on a new referendum platform/bring us back into the EU. If they do it would be interesting to see how they do. At least they could be sure of at least one vote ?!
I reckon Nuttall must be delighted. About to stand in a Labour seat that voted more than 3 to 1 to leave. He’s going to get in at the first attempt, which at least has the benefit of being something our self appointed special envoy to Trump was 7 a multiple failure at doing.
“The people who voted remain knew exactly what they were voting for.”
I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Between the Eurozone debt, the migrant crisis and eurosceptic feelings in other countries, the EU could be very different in a few years time. I reckon there’s a good chance we’ll look back in future and see leaving now as having been a smart move.
I have to agree with that. I was a Remainer, but as matters have moved on, it looks more and more like we have got out ahead of the possible implosion of the EU. The various elections in Europe over the next 18 months or so are going to paralyse serious decision making within the EU, which will mean little is done to alleviate the various economic and social problems besetting its member states. We, at least, can see a way ahead where we are able to act more readily in our own interests – whatever they may be. Being tethered to a failing enterprise is never a happy prospect.
That’s pretty much my view. I voted remain but with some reluctance, as I suspect the whole EU enterprise may be moribund, and that is largely the fault of trying to reconcile a single currency with massively varying fiscal policies. If it’s doomed it won’t go under without a lot of people throwing a lot of money into attempts to save it, despite knowing in advance that it’s likely to be a waste.
A very close vote, is being used to justify a very extreme form of Brexit, which – judging by this amateurish attempt at wooing German business by some of the key Brexiteers – is not going to end well:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38707997
There isn’t going to be a 2nd Referendum. I think it is probably the only thing we can be certain of at this stage of the glorious clusterf*ck.
May was essentially the character in the Spaghetti Western who emerges from the boulder they were cringing behind when the massed gunfight broke out to discover as the smoke clears a huge heap of bodies leaving them the beneficiary. She stood back from the fray of the contest & the ensuing back stabbing of Johnson, Gove et al left her in charge.
At the time even non Tories breathed a sigh of relief that we’d avoided a worse PM & as a result she’s been cut a lot of slack, purely on the basis she’s an ‘adult’.
It’s now clear she has nothing in the way of conviction & very little in the way of competency. Rembember, she’s a remainer who’s now driving us towards a worse/ more fractious & incoherent exit than even hard Brexiters wanted.
There was a definitely a case to be made for continuing a viable commercial arrangement with the EU bloc while extracting the UK from any super state notion.
This has been wrecked by May’s weakness ( appointing Boris to the cabinet instead of ending his political career) & the buffoonery of the UK team who seem to get their savvy from Daily Mail editorials.
I’m pretty sure a 2nd Referendum now would be a resounding ‘Stay’ vote, but it ain’t going to happen, leaving us now in the isolated position of having no option but to kow-tow to the Oompah Loompah over the pond for a trade deal.
Great.
But isn’t she saying we want a commercial arrangement with the EU, but not subject to the EU court and freedom of movement? Given the alternatives I’m delighted TM is PM at the moment.
That’s a very funny summing up of TM, but I don’t entirely agree. I certainly share your disgust with her bringing in Johnson. The scumbag was on the floor, she should have kicked him into the gutter, but reasoned that having him in the tent pissing out was the better option. She is, I think, trying to follow Thatcher’s trajectory in having her enemies close until such time that she can discard them. One could argue that she was/is being smart in not over-playing her hand, so I’m prepared to give here the benefit of the doubt for now (largely because the current alternatives are too horrendous for me to contemplate).
If she’d destroyed Johnson he would’ve joined UKIP because if the last year has taught us anything it’s that he’s got no principles at all. He’d join the Communist Party if he thought it might give him an iota more power or glory. Then UKIP would’ve had more of a parliamentary power base and an even stronger platform for their Keep Royalty White Rat Catching And Safe Sewage Residents Party issues. Plus an MP who an upsettingly large proportion of the electorate for some reason like. Probably because he’s got a funny haircut and says stuff in Latin ho ho ho. You still hear people saying “oh I like Boris”. Less than before but you do hear it. She’s wise to keep the stupid twat where she can see him.
She wasn’t in a position to destroy him. She could have not given him a job, leaving him on the back benches surrounded by acolytes causing trouble. Making him Foreign Sec but not responsible for Brexit gets him out of the country, making speeches about how great the UK is, which he is good at. She probably thinks he might make a decent job of it (good) or say something stupid in which case she can fire him (also good). The last think she wanted was him rattling around Westminster.
Politics at these moments is often about keeping one’s nerve & not blinking (as well as calculating whether to have them in the tent pissing out or outside pissing in) – Johnson ( in particular) & Gove were ashen at the result – which they clearly hadn’t anticipated & probably didn’t actually want – & were clearly exposed as the gutless bullshitters they are – THAT was the moment to wreck them but TM didn’t – her decision obviously – I think BJ may well have done a Portillo & effed off into lucrative private life at that point, we’ll never know.
The fact is by pandering to the hard brexit crew, she’s now leading the charge for an outcome far beyond what she purported to want or even most of the leave outfit wanted.
The result was close, but her hesitancy – probably attributable to a lack of genuine conviction about any of it – has allowed the hard line leavers – who palpably had/have no actual plan at all & are mostly politically & strategically idiotic to dictate the course.
From a position of ‘ we see it this way & you see it that way , so we’ll agree to part company’ the UK’s stance is now more akin to ‘ f*ck off, garlic noshers, give us EVERYTHING we want or you’ll be sorry’ pushing an increasing number of EU types to respond ‘ Don’t get the doorknob up your arse on your way out’.
Most if not all of this mess was avoidable, but it seems with every turn the protaganists manage to stagger further into the swamp thay still don’t acknowledge exists.
How would she ” wreck them”?
210Po would have worked. Vlad would not have hesitated.
Wot? No sup tags?
Michael Howard once aspired to be PM. Anne Widdicombe essentially scuppered his chances with her ‘something of the night about him’ speech.
May had the opportunity to achieve something similar re : BJ at the time by articulating publicly what the majority of the electorate were feeling i.e. ‘ Can you believe the brass neck of this cowardly bullshitter?’ (in marginally more parliamentary lingo of course), thus making his postion demonstrably untenable & very hard to recover from. But she didn’t, & now he’s repositioned fairly centrally to the whole matter. BJ watchers know he’s a Machiavellian schemer, but he was also shown to be utterly gutless at a pivotal moment. She let him off the hook.
Gove was never a threat as he has all the public appeal of a slow dance with Jimmy Savile.
LOL
BoJo’s rehabilitation was a sop to the rest of the party where he remains popular with many, and calculated to be of the most benefit to her. Which is why Gove and Osborne are nowhere to be seen. But as IDS has proven, even with the charm and intellect of a cracked paving slab, persistence is often rewarded.
Not sure a second referendum would result in a massive stay vote unless you extended the voting to include 16 year olds as per the Scottish referendum. The truth is we have seen a strengthening of the FTSE, continued (albeit slow) growth in our economy and none of the scare stories predicted by the remain campaigners. Add to this fatuous promises of trade deals with the USA and bloody Australia and it is easy to see that the hand of the Brexiters has if anything been strengthened. The real pain will be when we actually leave and this is what people either can’t or don’t want to see.
I think the not sure aspect of who would win a second referendum makes having a second referendum a really good idea.
PS can we stop calling him by his first name? I hate that. It makes him sound like some sort of national treasure instead of the cold blooded venal stupid shit that he is. People always used to say about Boris that he’s got a mind like a razor blade beneath that bumbling exterior, he doesn’t. He hasn’t got the sense he was born with, he’s a highly educated idiot, but he does have a core of pure self interest that’s colder than the surface of Pluto and he has quite obviously never cared one jot about any human being who’s name wasn’t Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. You know when people say MPs are all bastards out for themselves? They’re mostly not, but Johnson bloody is. He’d do anything.
I understand your point but Johnson could be any Johnson, where Boris is unavoidably your mate. 😊
I think we could describe him as a massive Johnson.
Arf.
“she’s a remainer who’s now driving us towards a worse/ more fractious & incoherent exit than even hard Brexiters wanted”
You don’t know what she’s driving us towards. None of us do. Last week’s speeches were about dressing the table for a tough negotiation, not necessarily identifying the final destination of that negotiation. If you look at the rhetoric coming from the EU member states it’s similarly harsh, for the same reasons.
It may be that May’s Brexit proves to be a complete disaster, but it’s too early to tell, and I really struggle to see how she could be playing the shitty hand she’s been dealt any better than she has done at this stage. I don’t agree with everything she’s said and done, but she really is caught between a rock and a hard place.
Without wishing to sound overly trite, TM got her dream job & ‘shitty hands’ go with the territory.
She’s without doubt a hostage to the hard line leavers – who it rapidly transpired had no plan whatsover in the event of winning – & as a consequence this has caused relations to become polarised with EU negotiators who are inevitably charged with shoring up an institution that fears implosion.
A more statesmanlike PM would seek, beyond all else, to ensure that matters were conducted on a rational & adult basis. Her head has been turned by more immediate calculations of advantage & thus the UK position is taking on the flavour of blinkered dumkopfs whose starting point is akin to ‘ the wogs start at Dover’.
Gawd help us.
If you remove all the lies, the nonsense, the hows, the whys and the wherefores the question on the ballot was very simple. When I ticked “Leave” it meant exactly that. My old fashioned view that I fully believe in Britain and it’s ability to stand alone but with proper trade deals, controlled borders, protection of those places in the UK that require foodbanks, investment in business, manufacturing and construction, protecting the NHS would all be better done on our own.
Theresa May has taken her time but it is clear now she understands that. The only question that needs parliaments ratification is when we leave, actually remove ourselves from all EU laws, controls and policy. I thank John Major that we don’t have the euro and that when Greece, Spain or Italy do implode we won’t be expected to bail them out.
A simple white paper vote on the schedule to leave is al that is required now so we can get on with it. Very few MP’s will have the will to go against the leave result. Yesterdays kerfuffle was a storm in a tea cup. Article 50 will be triggered by the end of March. Oh and Nicola Sturgeon can fuck right off put up or shut up……..
Agreed on the Euro, but don’t thank John Major. Thank Gordon Brown. There was no way the tories would ever have gone for it, but it was a real possibility under Labour and he blocked it utterly.
What are “proper trade deals”? That implies there’s something improper about the ones we have now.
Supplementary question: who wants to do business with Britain but can’t because of our EU membership?
Why does the EU mean that areas of the UK requiring food banks aren’t protected? What do you mean by “protected”?
What investment in business is currently not possible because of the EU?
How is NHS spending disadvantaged by our EU membership?
Why does EU membership mean we don’t have border controls given that we’re not in Schengen?
What laws do you want to see on the statute book which EU membership prevented us having?
What laws did you not want on the statute book which EU membership forced us to have?
@Friar You’ve got me at the detail, it’s more a general feeling that we would be better off on our own. It might come from my old fashioned up bringing and background it might be part of my DNA but I’m proud to be British while not being a zealot. I want us to produce cars, where’s our Nissan Juke or Fiat 500, ship, we’re an island nation for fucks sake and we don’t build boats, technology where’s our silicon valley? Our farmers need us to buy their milk, their lamb, their beef. I want our government to be free to help us to do all those things. Immigration is a problem, there I’ve said it. Come to Hayes or Northolt and see if it isn’t. I just don’t think it’s unreasonable to be selective and have the ability to say no. If it’s controlled we can help those who genuinely need it while helping those already here by finding homes and work while we try and sort out our infrastructure. I haven’t got time now for any more and it may well be the The EU was never the problem but their is something in my DNA that says Britain is best on it’s own. This thread is about the out vote, I’m all for us now just getting in with it and believing in Britain and its ability to stand on its own two feet.
Dave, obviously I don’t know you. But judging from your comments you are a good man, so I don’t know where to start on this post, It has so many contradictions in it.
It’s that pesky “detail” again.
@BigJimBob and @Vulpes-Vulpes The thing is I realise that every time I post on these threads I set myself up for a fall. My view is not always The Afterword view. I try and be polite despite some attempts to rile me. I’m not an idiot but I am a heart over mind kind of bloke and sometimes that does lead to some “issues” when I try and put things into words. I can however be made to look an idiot by those with a better understanding of politics and a better education. This is something Farage and Trump have tapped into and I would suggest is another factor in both votes. “I’m going with the bloke who talks to me, not at me and understands me”, maybe…. To try and answer the kind of questions @Friar asked would only lead me further up the garden path. What I would say is that I trust my instinct and I am often proved right in the end, who knows if I will be over Brexit but I will continue to poke the status quo here not because I want to be a troll but because I love this place and as I said on another thread there is a risk of it disappearing up it’s own cleverness and insularity.
Please feel free to poke back I will never ever take it personally it’s a music blog and we should all remember that. I have learned more from exchanges here than any newspaper or TV broadcast.
Have a song
Those great Europeans the Scottish Parliament came unstuck when they passed a law requiring anyone tendering for government contracts to commit to pay the minimum wage. This was instantly disallowed by Brussels under EU law as being contrary to common EU procurement law and had to be rescinded. Woops.
Dave, you seem like a good guy but do you really think that’s worthy of you? An opinion based on your *instinct*, on something as complex and vital as this?
Well I did ask to poke back…. You know what? I do think it’s worthy. It’s become clear that getting out of the EU is like untangling the worst kind of ball of wool that’s knotted, useless and would take forever to undo. So my instinct says throw it away and get a new one that you can start knitting a nice new comfy blanket with straight away. Why waste any more time on it?
Out of interest were you pro Europe before the referendum? Did you feel it was working for you and yours? Did you feel that it was of real benefit to the UK? I ask because there are some on here that moaned about how shit everything was under Cameron and by definition The EU and now look back on it as some kind of utopia. There does seem to have been some shifting of opinion….
I was yeah. I’m no Tory but not a left winger either and I was very happy with the country I lived in before 2008.
And sorry, but happily admitting you don’t understand the facts but are trusting your feelings on something this big? I can’t respect that. I know you don’t know me and I don’t know you so what the hell does my view matter but I’m here to tell you: all opinions are not equal and opinions which refuse to engage with the facts because you don’t like being talked down to by educated people – that’s just crap. Facts are important. I can respect a Leaver with answers to my questions above that I disagree with. But to just act like not answering the questions is ok because FEELINGS? How is that ok?
What about in 2014?
I suspect there isn’t anyone bar the most ingrained civil servants who truly understand it all. I watch the news, sometimes, I read the newspapers sport first, I engage here and that’s it. It may be crap, it may be that I have other things to do. My instinct based on a world view taken over my 51 years lower middle – middle class has lead me here. I’m comfortable with my decision and look forward to a brighter future for my sons who as it stands have next to no chance of buying their own house, can’t get an appointment at the Dr, have low paid menial office work as a job choice and before the referendum only a chance that it would get worse.
I look forward to engaging with you again, where do you stand on Ronaldo or Messi?
You too. I’m West Country, mate. Ask me about the fortunes of Bath and we’ll talk. 😉
Sorry Friar, but these posts about Dave using his instinct to guide his view just come across as bullying. There’s quite a lot of academic work to say that one’s instincts are usually spot on – and many people merely use selective facts to reinforce their opinions anyway (see almost all research on job interviews). The book ‘Blink’ by Malcolm Gladwell is spot on wrt initial impressions and following one’s instincts.
You can drown yourself in facts. It’s one’s core value system and beliefs that will apportion those facts accordingly. My values are almost entirely the same as they ever were. My beliefs about how to best further those values have changed dramatically. Do I now no longer respect others who haven’t undertaken the sort of empirical economic studies that I have? Do I bollocks. Facts rarely support one political view.
Sorry one last thing, Columbo style:
“no chance of buying their own house, can’t get an appointment at the Dr, have low paid menial office work as a job choice”.
What’s any of that got to do with the EU?
@bartleby Bullying? What? What nonsense.
It’s how it comes across F. You’ve shown open contempt for a fellow poster daring to reach conclusions in a different way to you.
Dave, why can this all these complex problems be the fault of the EU? Many of them have nothing to do with it. Look, here is one of the UK’s leading economist explaining how the single market has had a massisve positive effect on our economy here:
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/the-single-market-was-mrs-thatchers.html
And here is an extended quote from anothe economist on the effect of “taking back control” on a visit to India
Read it all here:
http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/2016/11/30/brexit-may-trump-the-dangerous-illusion-of-taking-back-control/
Thanks @Bartleby I do kind of ask for it but @Friar and I have kind of agreed to disagree. The rugby loving, fancy shoe wearing, thinker that he is 🙂
@BigJimBob picture me now as Homer Simpson singing a happy song in his head while someone explains how the nuclear plant works…….
okay – at that point I leave…not in a strop or anything. Just in case people get the wrong end of the stick!
well my instincts say that Brexit was a mistake. So, I must be right, eh?
Time will tell, time will tell……….
Just to say @dave-amitri I really hope it didn’t come across as bullying, I sure didn’t mean it that way. I’m also not in any kind of a strop but do feel strongly about this and since you’ve said you don’t mind the odd hard tackle I did dive straight for your knees. Like I’ve said you seem like a mensch and I hope we will have many productive conversations in future.
For what it’s worth Dave although I disagree with pretty much all of what you’ve said re Trump and Brexit, I understand where you are coming from. The Leavers that I know gave similar explanations. It’s an alien approach to decision making from where I sit (Myers Briggs ISTP in case you wondered) but not everyone sees the world the same.
I see a world of difference between your comments and the trolls that used to piss all over threads like this one.
Thanks @fortuneight that means a lot. There’s a lot of us about…………. Where are you? (Myers Briggs ISTP in case you wondered) means nothing to me.
Myers Briggs is a diagnostic for looking at individual preferences around interacting, processing information and tackling tasks. Lots of people think it’s bull but I’ve used it a lot to help understand how people I work with / for tend to deal with things and found it to be accurate. I’m all about facts and logic, the hear and now. Others see patterns, possibilities and opportunities for the future.
Your posts seemed very much aligned to the latter – what might come to be. It resonated with some other Leavers I know (although it won’t be true for all) and what they hoped their vote will bring. As someone who is tied to wanting to see proof of concept in the here and now, the people I’m most prone to clash with are the intuitives because where they see opportunity I see rose tinted denial or wishful thinking. It’s not that intuitives don’t use data – they just need less of it to reach a conclusion than logical block builders like me. On one side there’s a risk of jumping to conclusions from inufficent evidence whilst on the other analysis paralysis or erroneously excluding relevant data.
So I’d cheerfully have a second referendum tomorrow, in the hope that with what we’ve seen since the first referendum we be better informed and vote to stay. However, experience tells me that it probably won’t change much at all.
Big fan of Myers Briggs too. Was a huge relief to discover that I was a ‘type’ and not a freak. And the fit was pretty spot on too. Most post Brexit polls seem to show a slight increase in Leavers, despite the best efforts of the BBC and co.
Love Myers Briggs.
I’m ENTJ, which apparently puts me in the same personality bracket as Steve Jobs, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Soprano. Great.
I’m an INTJ. Inspired by Bingo, I thought I’d look up some famous INTJs. The first one that came up was Arnold Schwarzenegger. I was not expecting that.
You lucky dog. Extramarital affairs aside, Arnie is known for being a righteous dude. Smart cookie too.
It’s almost like there are controls available to curb immigration and freedom of movement and Theresa May failed to implement them. Almost like they wanted it to be a big issue they could leverage to drive an exit.
Almost. I mean, that would somewhat duplicitous. A bit like wrecking the NHS so privatization seems to be the only option. The Tories have been in power for 10 years more or less don’t forget.
But yeah. Details. Why let information get in the way of emotion?
@bartleby You said:”The book ‘Blink’ by Malcolm Gladwell is spot on wrt initial impressions and following one’s instincts.”
Others are less in agreement with you:
In Think!: Why Crucial Decisions Can’t Be Made in the Blink of an Eye (Simon and Schuster, 2006), Michael LeGault argues that “Blinklike” judgements are not a substitute for critical thinking. He criticises Gladwell for propagating unscientific notions:
As naturopathic medicine taps into a deep mystical yearning to be healed by nature, Blink exploits popular new-age beliefs about the power of the subconscious, intuition, even the paranormal. Blink devotes a significant number of pages to the so-called theory of mind reading. While allowing that mind-reading can “sometimes” go wrong, the book enthusiastically celebrates the apparent success of the practice, despite hosts of scientific tests showing that claims of clairvoyance rarely beat the odds of random chance guessing.[8]
Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow which speaks to rationality’s advantages over intuition, says:
“Malcolm Gladwell does not believe that intuition is magic. He really doesn’t…But here his story has helped people, in a belief that they want to have, which is that intuition works magically; and that belief, is false.”[9]
In an article titled “Understanding Unconscious Intelligence and Intuition: Blink and Beyond”, Lois Isenman agrees with Gladwell that the unconscious mind has a surprising knack for ‘thinking without thinking’ but argues that its ability to integrate many pieces of information simultaneously provides a much more inclusive explanation than thin-slicing. She writes:
Gladwell often speaks of the importance of holism to unconscious intelligence, meaning that it considers the situation as a whole. At the same time, he stresses that unconscious intelligence relies on finding simple underlying patterns. However, only when a situation is overwhelmingly determined by one or a few interacting factors is holism consistent with simple underlying signatures. In many situations, holism and simple underlying signatures pull in different directions.[10]
My expert is better than your expert so ner.
Hey less of that or I’ll press Deepak Chopra into service. 😉
Just an opinion Si. Like arseholes, we’ve all got ’em. I wouldn’t defend everything Glad well believes merely the broad statement that instinctive judgements are often correct.
So now we have, considered opinion, instinct or copy ‘n’ paste…………
To be honest, I though those sources would give a better rebuttal of Gladwell than I could in the time that I had available.
he make some interesting points. Part of his problem is that there’s very little hard data to test the validity of his assertions. His divorce case guy, for example, is referenced using his post hoc predictions. Hindsight, rather than foresight.
I’m a far bigger fan of Kahneman, who won a Nobel prize for producing research with actual data and numbers and stuff. His use of various heuristics, and the data showing that people often go for the irrational choice that defies rational process is illuminating.
You shoudl read it. “Thinking, Fast and Slow”.
By the way, I sort of agree with you about Sturgeon but you can’t blame her for milking the situation. It seems pretty clear that Scotland would be massively economically screwed if they voted for independence now and I doubt she really wants it, but she can shore up the SNP’s already enormous power base by playing the Big Bad Westminster card as often as possible. She’s a very savvy politician.
Let the go, maybe we can build a wall….. 🙂
Who’s going to pay for it?
Italy. Their ancestors started it.
I want Mel Gibson to contribute as well.
Just going to reply to @bartleby down here.
I couldn’t disagree with you more. The idea that asking someone to show their working amounts to bullying is incredible, for a start – this is how we got to this whole post-truth Trump nightmare, this kind of relativism, this idea that “you can’t tell me I’m wrong, I’ve got a right to think what I like”. Well sure, I do have the right to think what I like, but if you spot a weakness in it you’re equally allowed to say so and to call bullshit if you see it. Facts are far more important than you give them credit for and that kind of thinking really scares me.
You can’t start a debate then whine about bullying when someone asks you to back up your view. And note that Dave absolutely didn’t, he was a mensch throughout and fought his corner. Seems pretty patronising to defend him in those terms.
I’d be interested to see, by the way, the academic writings that “say that one’s instincts are usually spot on”. I’m sure there are situations in which that’s true, but I’m sure they’re pretty sensitive to context. Steve Jobs went with his instincts when he got sick, for example. Have you written to him to ask how that went? 😉
We can’t hope to know all the facts but we can at least try to inform ourselves as much as possible, is what I’m saying.
By the way, saying “I can’t respect your thinking” isn’t the same as contempt.
I think a lot of people’s decisions were made by how they feel rather than on a dry assessment of the facts leading to a logical answer. Arguments like “I hate Boris Johnson so I’m voting remain” or “it pisses off IDS therefore it must be a good thing” or “all our laws are made in Brussels”. I saw “I don’t trust this Tory government with the NHS so I’m voting remain” on Facebook. None bear much factual scrutiny but unfortuntely giving the vote means accepting people vote in different ways and for different reasons and accepting that.
It doesn’t mean not calling out glaring misconceptions though.
PS, I’ve just apologised to Dave above if I did go in too hard. I don’t think he needs it though.
I’ve got mates at home who are really pro Leave and I worry about them because I think they’ve misunderstood a lot of stuff. I grew up mostly around Somerset farmers and I’m concerned that they have just voted to entirely screw themselves. Our area has so much EU regeneration money poured into it and I’m scared for my hometown and all the people who didn’t ask the detailed questions. I can’t believe we’re in a state now where it’s actually considered somehow “arrogant” or “lecturing” to have a grasp of the detail or to encourage others to. Especially given that the people who are most vehemently Leave or pro-Trump or whatever are also so anti-PC. For people who are forever calling lefties snowflakes, they seem very sensitive to that.
I couldn’t agree more. I like to know the facts. But some of these things are not factual – they are interpretations of whichever facts you chose to look at. Why do you suppose the EU is going to fund the West Country better than our own government would once free of Brussels? The CAP is an absolute abomination enriching wealthy agro industrialists and we are well off out of it. You’ll find plenty of facts supporting this view. For example, we contribute twice what we get back to the CAP.
I suppose my thing around the CAP is that I don’t trust the current govt to administer things any better. I totally agree that there are many crackers things about it, but I worry that the government will slash subsidies anyway and use the savings for tax cuts for corporations etc.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to bully Friar, it just read that way – to me at least.
Statements like “admitting you don’t understand the facts but are trusting your feelings on something this big? I can’t respect that…I’m here to tell you: all opinions are not equal and opinions which refuse to engage with the facts because you don’t like being talked down to by educated people – that’s just crap. “, “do you really think that’s worthy of you? and “Facts are important. I can respect a Leaver with answers to my questions above that I disagree with. But to just act like not answering the questions is ok because FEELINGS? How is that ok?”
They seem laced with contempt and disrespect: You’ve said that his viewpoint is crap, that you don’t respect him trusting his own feelings and that you can’t respect him because he arrives at his judgments in a different way to you. It comes across like you’re the ref on the validity of his approach and that your respect is somehow something he should endeavour to attain. Despite the fact that you talk down to him and openly disrespect the guy.
I get that you think you’re right, but I do think we can show respect for those we disagree with.
For a start I actually don’t think that’s particularly disrespectful, but you’ve also decontextualised it from the part where I said “you don’t know me so there’s no reason you should care what I think”. The “unworthy” part is actively respectful: it’s saying I can see you’re a thoughtful dude so I don’t get how you’re taking that position.
Reason is the greatest human activity and inviting people to be OK with turning their critical faculties off and just be content with their feelings isn’t something I’m going to sit back and accept. I was pretty clear with Dave that I think he’s a good guy but I don’t respect that element of what he seemed to be saying. That’s only bullying if we stretch the term into legit snowflake territory.
^^^ Yes.
I think it is a question of probabilities. Yes, future Conservative or Labour governments might continue to spend large amounts of money on Cornwall. Do I think that is probable, given the focus on the north and the limited contribution Cornwall is likely to make to the national economy ? No, I don’t.
Will a future Labour government continue to spend as much on agriculture. Well that migh, but is it probable when faced with competting calls to support steel, take rail back into public ownership or whatever? We shall see.
And will agriculture do well out of the future trade deals. I don’t know, but again one can look at the probabilities. Will Australia agree to any deal that doesn’t give a better deal to their lamb exporters ? Will Donald Trump agree to a deal that doesn’t open up the UK to US agricultural exports ? Again, we shall see.
Well Hammond says he will…
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-philip-hammond-guarantees-eu-funding-beyond-date-uk-leaves-the-eu
He bloody should do anyway…
I think part of your post is largely irrelevant Ernie because I don’t think Labour will be forming a government for a long time to come – If at all.
“Somerset farmers … screw themselves”
*snort*
Along with the Devonians and the Cornish (my lot), not to mention swathes of the Welsh.
Indeed yes…Cornwall, which was an economic basket case on a par with Albania, got gazillions in Objective One EU funding. They voted 56%-44% Leave, largely because a lot of the money was spent on projects which did nothing directly to alleviate poverty, homelessness, or even unemployment, but which reflected a metropolitan view of what Cornwall needed – arts centres, an airport, a university, superfast broadband, an offshore wave hub, even (whisper it not because I still work for them) the Eden Project. Figures are produced which shows how much the local economy has benefited, as indeed it has, but what the hoi polloi wanted was better roads, more buses and trains, more schools and hospitals, more social housing, etc etc. Probably the only thing they really felt they could get behind was funding for the air ambulance.
For me, it’s not about facts vs instincts. It’s about depth of thought.
We’ve already seen that you cannot “win” the Brexit debate with empirical facts, because – as others rightly point out above – the facts here are insufficient to predict the future with enormous certainty. That much, I understand.
What I don’t get is the notion, touched on by Friar above, that strength of feeling is somehow equivalent to depth of thought. You cannot have a debate with someone who simply “feels it in their bones”, can you? There’s an almost wilful ignorance afoot these days that is legitimately scary; you may have PHD in the subject, but I’ve spent five minutes thinking about it, Googled up a couple of articles that support my existing position AND I’M TWEETING IN ALL CAPS, SO DON’T TALK DOWN TO ME.
We should be thoughtful, and challenge our prejudices, not elevate them. We should exchange views with others, and change what we think when better arguments are made. We should be open minded (in both directions – I’ve spoken to some people on here who have dramatically changed my thinking on Brexit, Bartleby included), and allow that we can be wrong. If we just go on instinct and nothing more, then we deny ourselves all of that, and we shut down dialogue, because instinct is impervious to reason.
Funnily enough, I think what Dave’s been doing the last few days is exactly what I describe above – he’s saying “this is what I think, now tell me if I’m wrong”. Not necessarily reversing his view, but listening to the other side of the argument. I think that’s incredibly healthy, and I take my hat off to him.
Just to note, I’m not denying that there’s a place in life for instinct (job interviews being one of them – I’m just out now from giving one, and that stuff is at least 50% instinct). I’m just not sure months-long political/economic debates is that place.
The government tried to win the Brexit debate with so-called “empirical facts” Bingo – like how we had to be in the EU to trade with the EU, like how voting to leave would cause an immediate recession (Q3 GDP was to be -0.1 to -0.3% down, requiring emergency tax rises. It was in fact 0.5% up – higher than Germany in fact), like how every household would lose the suspiciously specific figure of £4,300, like how a vote to leave would lead to an “immediate” loss of 500,000 jobs (unemployment fell by 37,000 in Q3), like how house prices would fall on a vote to leave (they’ve naturally risen), like how there’d be no EU army and like how Toblerone would never change shape. All of it bullshit (well, apart from the last one maybe). And what’s more, people rightly saw through these blatant attempts at fear-mongering and chose a different path. Given the pisspoor ‘analysis’ that was done by the mainstream media, you’d have huge difficulty in discerning the likely effects of leaving the EU anyway, absent doing your own research. Which would probably have been as inaccurate as the bullshit fear-mongering exercise undertaken by the Treasury.
They did indeed, and they massively, massively lost the Brexit debate. I think they underestimated their audience.
Sometimes a little moderation goes a long way, and you should never take it for granted that simply being right will suffice – a bit of salesmanship is necessary.
The problem was, they knew they weren’t right to start with. You can’t spend 10+ years trashing the EU, then try and persuade people to stay – you’ve already killed off any chance of a positive argument, so you’re reduced to fear mongering. Fear mongering in a country that hasn’t been invaded for x years and survived the blitz and flares? Not a great recipe I’d say.
It’s true. We survived the Bay City Rollers, we can survive this ; )
“Sometimes a little moderation goes a long way, and you should never take it for granted that simply being right will suffice – a bit of salesmanship is necessary”.
Great comment BL – When she dies Hillary Clinton should have that comment on her gravestone
Part of the reason the forecasts were wrong is that a) Cameron didn’t invoke Article 50 the day after the referendum ( which he had said he would) and b) the Bank of England cut interest rates and embarked on more QE.
As an aside, when it came to fearmongering, I think that claims that, for esample, x million Turks were due any day probably had more of an impact.
Back to the OP – there’s no point in a second referendum at this stage because we are no clearer on what the final deal will actually look like or mean. What should happen is that negotiations now happen, and when there is a proposed deal that comes back to parliament to vote on. End of. The problem is that if parliament voted against the deal, it would immediately be accused of going against the will of the people. The only way then to stop that would be for there to be a second referendum asking specifically whether people wish to accept the deal; instruct the government to seek a different deal, or accept the status quo and stay on the EU. And that way madness lies because, really, a referendum is a blunt instrument completely unsuitable for deciding this kind of complex issue – as we’ve seen.
Having moved to Australia many years ago I don’t have any stake either way in the Brexit move. However, for purely selfish reasons I’d like the UK to remain just so I can maintain my not-very-realistic dream of retiring to somewhere nice in France or Italy.
And as an outsider it does seem a huge step to make on a small majority in an advisory referendum. In 2009 the Tories (Ian Duncan Smith I think) proposed a cooling off period before obtaining a divorce. Would it do any harm to have a binding referendum before a final separation from the EU?
You’ll still be able to retire to France or Italy whether we are in the EU or not. In reality, when I lived there in the 90s I still had a ballache of French bureaucracy to go through with French Carte de Sejour, driving licence etc. It’ll just be a bit more messy. The interior of France is getting hollowed out as the French don’t want to live there. A few more retired Brits with hard currency pensions are just the job.
Friends of mine have a house somewhere near Clermont-Ferrand. In their little village there are no more than a dozen houses, 6 of which are owned by Brits, with at least 2 owned by Parisians.
Yes every time I go to my little French bolt hole another house in the hamlet is empty – they’ve moved away and no one has moved in. There used to be a shop and a bar but no longer. You can drive for 2 hours in central France though a series of villages and towns and not see a single person. Fortunately the nearest town to us is reasonably lively but even there shops are closing at a depressing rate. Mind you, we probably underestimate how dreadful things are in France at the moment. The country is a state of profound depression, it seems to me.
Hollowed-out villages owned by townies who don’t live there?
Pshaw! It can’t happen here, I tell you.
The issues for UK citizens retiring in France ( assuming they aren’t looking to work) would appear to be what, if any, health care they will be able to get and whether any UK state pension will be frozen.
I think the flogging of this dead Second Referendum horse should cease. Time it was taken to the knacker and rendered. Before it stinks the whole place out.
@BigJimBob My Homer Simpson comment has bothered me more than anything else on here today, sorry it was crass. I will find the time to read the article you kindly posted. Cheers Dave
Don’t worry – no problem. We are big boys here….well, until mum comes home.
No-one anywhere seems to be asking of this government what they exactly mean by ‘the best deal for the UK’, which keeps getting quoted. Personally, I would say that would, in an ideal world, be all the good bits of being in the EU and the single market and the customs union but without any sort of payment and, presumably, not necessarily complying with any pesky European laws made in Brussels cos, you know, we want control back and all that. I’m assuming that ain’t gonna happen….so what would be a ‘good deal’..? I know people who think that the best deal is a complete withdrawal from everything, so it’s meaningless unless you define what you think ‘best’ is. I’m in favour of voting on the deal that gets thrashed out as we will then have a much better idea of the consequencies – if Leave still makes so much sense, then what is there to fear?
Problem is, Nigel, that if there’s to be a vote on whether the deal is acceptable, the logical negotiation position of the EU would be to tighten the thumbscrews until the deal is obviously unacceptable, which would lead to rejection and an even greater mess – would we then be voting to stay in? To leave with nothing? The EU would be hoping at that point that we’d reconsider and stay I suspect. In fact, many in the EU don’t really think we will – or can – ultimately leave.
The UK govt would be foolish to set out what it regards as a good deal in detail in public because the actual deal that gets thrashed out between the key players at one minute to midnight just before the deadline arrives will be the best deal that is then possible and no amount of wishful thinking or debate will make that any different – just as it was on our entry. Had there been a public debate on entry terms, I suspect the UK would have vetoed the deal on surrendered fishing rights alone.
Politicians being politicians, whatever deal is reached is likely to be described as a success. And if the govt genuinely walks away from what’s on the table in favour of WTO rules, they’ll want maximum ability to paint the deal offered as woeful rubbish. Successful large scale negotiation (which is what most of my career has been taken up with) does not usually involve prior disclosure, mass debate (oo-er) or an absence of credible threats.