Brexit - or Article 50: the Phoenix!

[User62651]

After the Referendum result I went over to Brussels as per usual to a number of meetings with the Commission and other Member States - was told by plenty of them in the margins "well, the UK has never really been seen as true Europeans and fully bought into the European project".

The one major reason why the EU wants us to stay ££££. The first meeting I attended that was actually the first question from the Romanian delegate "who's going to make up the UK contribution to x when they leave the EU".

A fair question, if any nett contributor opted to leave the same question would get asked. Older generations perhaps haven't integrated so well for whatever reason but younger ones have and are 7 to 1 in favour of remaining. We have our opts outs from full integration as do other member states. This 'us and them' approach is a thing of the past.

 

[Deleted member 1418]

A fair question, if any nett contributor opted to leave the same question would get asked. Older generations perhaps haven't integrated so well for whatever reason but younger ones have and are 7 to 1 in favour of remaining. We have our opts outs from full integration as do other member states. This 'us and them' approach is a thing of the past.

But the 'us and them' approach is very much alive and well in the EU directed towards the UK! Has been for a long time and always when we've tried to be the voice of reason in EU negotiations. In my first hand experience it's actually worse coming from the EU!

But there you go, as long as the younger generation are happy that's the main thing (actually all I've ever known is being in the EU - been offered numerous opportunities to work in Brussels - so still class myself as being part of that generation). Will be generally interested to know how many of them are keen to go off and live and work in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and the poorer Member States where wages etc aren't as good as the UK.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

Farage's bus tour not going very smoothie after bloody sundae.
He is afraid to leave his bus.

 

[Slime]

Will anything actually change if she does resign ? What difference will it make - Johnson won’t do anything - hasn’t got the guts

I don't think it'll make any difference, no matter who replaces May.
No MP would be able to get a majority to get any kind of Brexit vote through.
There are too many just hell bent on causing as much chaos as possible rather than exacting the will of the voting public.

 

[IanM]

If we we leaving, we wouldn't be voting for the Pretend Parliament today, would we. Guess how long ago the prep to hold this was made?

I think the majority of Remain Voters voted to stay in "a trading bloc" not for Federalism. But the EU leaders are fairly clear on what they are doing.

 

[jp5]

I don't think it'll make any difference, no matter who replaces May.
No MP would be able to get a majority to get any kind of Brexit vote through.
There are too many just hell bent on causing as much chaos as possible rather than exacting the will of the voting public.

Mrs May tried to enact the will of the voting public, and she was blocked predominantly by the likes of the ERG. Whoever follows her will have the same problem. This will drag for years, probably decades.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

Not 100% on this but I think the whole Gina Millar case was settled in court that Govt had to let Commons have the final say on the leaving agreement or else May would've forced through her unpopular deal as an executive decision some time ago. So no a new PM can't do that (ignore parliament), needs Commons agreement by majority. With a hung parliament very difficult ........ as May has found out.
Saying that if we get to Oct31 with no change to where we are now and EU say no more extensions then maybe we will be forced out with No Deal, must come a time EU will say enough's enough. In that case EU has kicked us out rather than us opting to leave with No Deal. Suppose a new Brexiteer PM may try and Brexit like that, run clock down and make EU kick us out.

Re.Hung Parliament.
I actually heard May using that as an excuse the other day.
Conveniently forgetting that it was not a hung Parliament when she was elected as Tory leader.

 

[IanM]

Doon old chap, are you one of the people Mr Juncker was referring too today?

And, Max, the EU has no intention of "forcing us out" without a Deal. The current impasse and step were agreed some time back.

 

[Deleted member 18645]

Someone here just made a great follow-up comment to the view of the SNP leader in the Commons. Imagine the Scottish Independence vote had been 52% in favour of leaving and after a year of discussions in Parliament, no agreement had been reached. Would their view have been "OK we can't agree so let's just forget the whole thing"

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

 

[Grant85]

Someone here just made a great follow-up comment to the view of the SNP leader in the Commons. Imagine the Scottish Independence vote had been 52% in favour of leaving and after a year of discussions in Parliament, no agreement had been reached. Would their view have been "OK we can't agree so let's just forget the whole thing"

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Answer is that the reason Brexit has been so much of a catastrophe is that the UK Government want the following;
* (close to) Frictionless trade with Europe as possible
* no free movement
* NI to have the exact same arrangements as rUK

These 3 things are just not compatible. You can have a version of 1 and 2, but that would throw NI under the bus (i.e. what the UK Gov wanted to do and would have done if they had gotten a majority in 2017).
You can have 1 and 3, but would have to include free movement.

In Scotland the situation would be a bit more straightforward as the Scottish Government wouldn't put up these contradictory red lines.

The negotiation would be more about the assets / debts and what share each party would retain post split. I'm sure Scotland would hold a fairly big Trident shaped card in the former and an equally big balance of payments shaped card in the latter.

Not saying it would be easy, and might still roll into years rather than months - but it would at least be something that could realistically come to a conclusion on a much easier basis than the current Brexit omnishambles

 

[Hacker Khan]

I see the 1922 committee want to change the rules and have another vote on TMays competence as they didn't like the result of the first one, so they can get Bojo in, thus probably leading to a no deal Brexit.

I expect those who are so fond of democracy will be up in arms about this....

 

[SocketRocket]

Answer is that the reason Brexit has been so much of a catastrophe is that the UK Government want the following;
* (close to) Frictionless trade with Europe as possible
* no free movement
* NI to have the exact same arrangements as rUK

These 3 things are just not compatible. You can have a version of 1 and 2, but that would throw NI under the bus (i.e. what the UK Gov wanted to do and would have done if they had gotten a majority in 2017).
You can have 1 and 3, but would have to include free movement.

In Scotland the situation would be a bit more straightforward as the Scottish Government wouldn't put up these contradictory red lines.

The negotiation would be more about the assets / debts and what share each party would retain post split. I'm sure Scotland would hold a fairly big Trident shaped card in the former and an equally big balance of payments shaped card in the latter.

Not saying it would be easy, and might still roll into years rather than months - but it would at least be something that could realistically come to a conclusion on a much easier basis than the current Brexit omnishambles

I think the problem with Brexit is due to the withdrawal agreement being separated from a free trade agreement. If both had been negotiated together the Irish Border would no longer be a major issue. Our Government was stupid to agree the two issues being separated

 

[Fade and Die]

I see the 1922 committee want to change the rules and have another vote on TMays competence as they didn't like the result of the first one, so they can get Bojo in, thus probably leading to a no deal Brexit.

I expect those who are so fond of democracy will be up in arms about this....

Think that was yesterday’s news... and they voted against changing the rules.
Boom!.... democracy in action!😄

 

[chrisd]

Someone here just made a great follow-up comment to the view of the SNP leader in the Commons. Imagine the Scottish Independence vote had been 52% in favour of leaving and after a year of discussions in Parliament, no agreement had been reached. Would their view have been "OK we can't agree so let's just forget the whole thing"

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

I wish you would treat this whole matter with the seriousness that it deserv .............. fair enough., seems you have 😁

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Well I might well be in Cambodia at the moment - typing this from my hotel room in Phnom Penh to be precise - but I made sure that I had my daughter sorted to vote for me by proxy. And so Lib Dem’s got my vote in SE England region.

 

[chrisd]

Well I might well be in Cambodia at the moment - typing this from my hotel room in Phnom Penh to be precise - but I made sure that I had my daughter sorted to vote for me by proxy. And so Lib Dem’s got my vote in SE England region.

Whoopie, so you vote for the biggest liars of a generation 👍

 

[patricks148]

Whoopie, so you vote for the biggest liars of a generation 👍

i thought he just said he voted Lib Dem, not Tory

 

[chrisd]

i thought he just said he voted Lib Dem, not Tory

Correct!

 

[IanM]

Guy Verhofstadt has just issued a tweet citing Putin at the root of the dissent against Europe. Arrogant knob!

But his own propaganda machine is working, we've got people here talking about potential shortages of bog-roll rather than Federalism!

 

[Dando]

Well I might well be in Cambodia at the moment - typing this from my hotel room in Phnom Penh to be precise - but I made sure that I had my daughter sorted to vote for me by proxy. And so Lib Dem’s got my vote in SE England region.

that was a complete waste of good paper