Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[teuchter]

'I can no longer vote Labour because of the Iraq war.'

'Well how does letting the Tories in help Iraqis?'

What's this example supposed to demonstrate?

 

[Santino]

What's this example supposed to demonstrate?

The fallacy in a specious argument.

 

[mojo pixy]

I (marginally) voted Remain because all the reasons I was hearing for voting Leave (eg unelected bureaucrats making unaccountable decisions that fuck the poor and favour the rich) applied equally to the UK as the EU, so I asked myself how life was going to be different for us after Brexit. Couldn't see anything. Wake me up when we stop having neoliberalist arseholes in charge etc.

Greece never played a part in my decision. Nor immigration, mainly because I can see "my" govt doing the same anti-poor, anti-immigration shit as the EU. I don't see any difference between those policies coming from London or Brussels.

I also don't think Brexit is going to hurt the EU, and it reminds me of old-fashioned British chauvinism to think it will.

 

[SpookyFrank]

One doesn't necessarily follow from the other. The treatment of Greece by the EU can be a reason to vote Leave, without there being any need to argue that leaving helps Greece.

You don't even need to give a tinker's toss about the Greeks. 'If they did this to Greece, they could do it to us' is reason enough to be anti-EU, it doesn't require any moral judgement.

 

[gosub]

I love the idea that the EU can be reformed from within. Pig-Fucker asked for the teensiest little splodge of reform to appease the UK away from Brexit.

"Allez vous en."

I agree on reformed from within....very much inline with Albert Einstein's definition of insanity. But 'teenisest little spolodge': his earlier "veto" had led to a fuck youi work around, and he was prepared to formalise this, handing the whole shebang to the EUrozone as part of his final, final we really mean it offer

 

[gosub]

It's part of why I was in favour of remain despite wanting drastic reform of the EU. Same, really, as how I feel about the UK. You don't solve these problems through fragmentation itself - the fragmentation needs to be for something. Currently, Brexit is for what?

Id lay the blame for that on remainers, who never got past stage 2 of grief. And the stage 1 period has been pretty nasty. Had they got to stage 3 in non snowflake time, there was bargaining to be done prior to the referendum EVERY household was sent literature saying Leave could be one of three things. Mind you that what have meant a bit of sunlight on how much the remain establishment bent the rules itself.

 

[andysays]

Id lay the blame for that on remainers, who never got past stage 2 of grief. And the stage 1 period has been pretty nasty. Had they got to stage 3 in non snowflake time, there was bargaining to be done rior to the referendum EVERY household was sent literature saying Leave could be one of three things. Mind you that what have meant a bit of sunlight on how much the remain estlushment bent the rules itself.

And as if to demonstrate the point...

Sir Vince Cable: Brexit not inevitable and must be stopped

"Brexit is not inevitable - it can and it must be stopped," Sir Vince Cable has told his party's annual conference. The Lib Dem leader said 29 March next year - the date the UK is set to leave the EU - was "only a maybe".

 

[agricola]

I agree on reformed from within....very much inline with Albert Einstein's definition of insanity. But 'teenisest little spolodge': his earlier "veto" had led to a fuck youi work around, and he was prepared to formalise this, handing the whole shebang to the EUrozone as part of his final, final we really mean it offer

TBH the question of whether the EU can be reformed from within never really came up, given that Cameron was awful anyway and was working to an awful plan with the end goal being awfulness.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

TBH the question of whether the EU can be reformed from within never really came up, given that Cameron was awful anyway and was working to an awful plan with the end goal being awfulness.

Sure. We're a very long way from reform of the EU. It would require a lot of work, although I reject the portrayal of the EU as a monolith of evil that some would like to make it out to be. And from a narrow UK perspective, rather a moot point for as long as there is a tory govt.

But can things get worse for the UK outside the EU wrt jobs, housing, worker rights, percentage of wealth held by the richest, etc, etc? Of course they can, and those that support brexit on the tory right want brexit so that they can bring that to pass. And my view that things probably will get worse remains unchanged from two years ago. That's the bottom line here, in the absence of any coherent plan for anything better, either within the EU or outside it.

 

[Pickman's model]

TBH the question of whether the EU can be reformed from within never really came up, given that Cameron was awful anyway and was working to an awful plan with the end goal being awfulness.

Bring as so much of the the eu's senior bodies are composed of delegates from national governments, eg council of ministers the chances of the eu ever being nicer than the national governments are zero

 

[gosub]

TBH the question of whether the EU can be reformed from within never really came up, given that Cameron was awful anyway and was working to an awful plan with the end goal being awfulness.

It did, about every 5 minutes for the last 20 years, and to be fair reforms did happen ....just in a direction our politicians won elections by giving assurances wouldn't happen. But at the time, the issue of EU dry and complex as it is,was very much niche and largely dismissed as of little interest to anyone but nutters. Quite a large plank of significant politics swept away from public scrutiny - just the way the powers that be like it.

To be honest with you, if we'd have had the level of discourse we've had in the last 2 years: specialist papers now in circulation (not that I've actually read the European), wider coverage on the News (though its all through the prism of the personal rather than policy), and actual discussion down the pub (however heated)....then I might have been more comfortable staying in, but no, at the time EUro was being discussed that was just 'xenophobia' rather than the real technical difficulties such a currency causes (as well as solves); a constitution that isn't a constitution anymore coz we'vre removed mention of a flag and anthem; 'its just about the shape of bananas' nonsense, right up to Juncker claiming a democratic mandate when no one in the UK could have voted for him and the only one of the debates he took part in to get the job was shown on UK tv, and even then that was on the Parliamentary Channel.


I get that politics isn't everyone's cup of tea, and we have busy lives to get on with; but the system we were under, we were sleepwalking away from democratic involvement (maybe we still are). But it was alarming enough that it needed a stick in the spokes.

 

[CRI]

Oh, goody goody gumdrops!

Rightwing thinktanks unveil radical plan for US-UK Brexit trade deal

A radical blueprint for a free trade deal between the UK and the US that would see the NHS opened to foreign competition, a bonfire of consumer and environmental regulations and freedom of movement between the two countries for workers, is to be launched by prominent Brexiters.

The blueprint will be seen as significant because of the close links between the organisations behind it and the UK secretary for international trade, Liam Fox, and the US president, Donald Trump.

The “ideal UK-US free trade deal” was due to be launched later on Tuesday in both London and Washington but the Cato Institute appears to have accidentally posted it online early.

The same US thinktanks have been behind developing off-the-shelf policies favoured by big business that were adopted by the Trump administration when it took office. Several policies and staff from the Heritage Foundation were taken into the Trump transition team.

In the UK, the researchers behind the blueprint have had exceptional access to ministers in both the Department for International Trade and the Department for Exiting the European Union, with IEA staff and its head of trade policy, Shanker Singham, meeting Liam Fox, David Davis, Steve Baker and other ministers and special advisers on numerous occasions . . .

 

[SpackleFrog]

The UK is not in the euro.

Why do you think that would alter the EU's attitude to a left government in Britain? The UK is in the EU.

 

[SpackleFrog]

The Greek government (and by extension the Greek people) were pretty much fucked and were faced with a choice of the devil or the deep blue sea so they had very little room to maneuver and pretty much had to take what was offered.

This isn't true, just by the way. Thatcher was wrong - there is an alternative.

 

[SpackleFrog]

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT I have had a few and discovered the bold text function.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Why do you think that would alter the EU's attitude to a left government in Britain? The UK is in the EU.

cos it means that the uk controls its own monetary policy - interest rates and wot not - not the ECB. It means the EU cant force on the uk the austerity they forced on ireland, portugal, greece, spain etc (but - it being the tories - they chose to have the austerity anyway) .

 

[SpackleFrog]

cos it means that the uk controls its own monetary policy - interest rates and wot not - not the ECB. It means the EU cant force on the uk the austerity they forced on ireland, portugal, greece, spain etc (but - it being the tories - they chose to have the austerity anyway) .

So, you're correct that because the UK is not in the Eurozone the EU would not have the structural power to dictate the terms of austerity, absolutely. But - depending on how you define monetary policy I am not able to guess what you include in your "wot not" - membership of the single market means you cannot control capital flows which call me old fashioned I think is part of monetary policy.

My point wasn't that we would be in the same situation as Greece but it was suggested a left leaning government would have more autonomy within the EU than outside it - it would not.

 

[Kaka Tim]

a left leaning government would likely have less freedom of action outside the EU because it would be more isolated, weaker and forced to take worse conditions on things like trade deals and international investment.
the uk economy is meshed into the system of international capitalism weather we are inside or outside the EU. Without a much stronger manufacturing base and/or a much higher degree of self sufficiency in things like energy and food the uk will be very vulnerable. And the EU would likely be at the front of the queue to fuck us over.

 

[kebabking]

...My point wasn't that we would be in the same situation as Greece but it was suggested a left leaning government would have more autonomy within the EU than outside it - it would not.

It would depend on how 'muscular' that government, parliament and its judiciary was with regards to EU punishments - because the EU structures only really have the ability to punish a member state when the structure of that member state agrees to be punished - and what you mean by 'left leaning'.

A Corbynite government - for example - that was prepared to tell the EU to fuck off out of its business would suffer no real world adverse consequences from the EU, the EU structures simply don't have a great deal of leaverage over a large member state that isn't dependant on EU money or is a member of the Eurozone. Having a big blue wobbly thing between that country and the rest of the EU would help, as would having a political culture that isn't overly fussed about being seen as being 'good Europeans'...

 

[philosophical]

From what I can gather Barnier will suggest the backstop/Irish Sea suggestion will be the solution to the Irish land border issue, but that that solution can be technological.
A step forward for those who seek to want a United Ireland, I doubt it will be a runner for the Tories and Unionists if that really is Barnier's suggestion.

 

[Pickman's model]

The UK is not in the euro.

Yeh. Well spotted.

 

[Pickman's model]

And let's not kid ourselves. A UK outside the EU that elects a left-leaning govt and attempts reforms that threaten the interests of international capital can still be horsewhipped into submission by those interests. It may well be more vulnerable to such pressures and have less room to manoeuvre than it might have had inside the EU.

How would you suggest the eu horsewhip a left-leaning UK government which threatens the interests of international capital?

 

[MickiQ]

This isn't true, just by the way. Thatcher was wrong - there is an alternative.

What do you believe the alternative was and why do you believe the Greek goverment didn't take it?

 

[Mrs D]

So when will the UK see a government that is more left-wing than the most left-wing countries currently in the EU?

 

[Teaboy]

So when will the UK see a government that is more left-wing than the most left-wing countries currently in the EU?

Given the way a lot of European countries are heading, not that long.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

My point wasn't that we would be in the same situation as Greece but it was suggested a left leaning government would have more autonomy within the EU than outside it - it would not.

More freedom of action from within the EU, practically rather than in some abstract notion that 'well we could do this, but we won't because various powerful interests would make life very difficult for us if we did'. (And what are bilateral trade deals, those things that nobody gave a fuck about but that are now all the rage? They are a series of agreements between nations in which they agree to certain sets of rules. A trade deal with the US, for instance, would necessarily involve giving US businesses additional legal rights: rights to buy up UK interests and to have those investments protected. Our hypothetical l/w govt, by the time it gets into power, might in such a situation be up against US investors, backed by a US trade deal, who would oppose nationalisation.)

It isn't necessarily a good reflection on the EU, btw, if the larger countries can get away with things that smaller countries probably can't, but France flouted the eurozone's borrowing rules for years and nobody said a thing, cos it's France. Some specific ideas have been floated here such as that the EU would block any UK govt attempt to privatise the railway network that did not follow very specific, restrictive EU rules regarding tenders. It wouldn't. The UK could invoke national interest in taking control of infrastructure and just do it.

 

[Winot]

I'd be interested to know what people think is most likely to happen out of the 3 options in the original poll, which broadly speaking equate to hard Brexit/no deal, soft Brexit and no Brexit.

I still think the ultimate position will be a Norway-style deal, dressed up to look like it's something bespoke and different, but the chances of a hard or no deal Brexit have risen since 2016 I think.

 

[DotCommunist]

It wouldn't.

much like 'I refute the unreformability of the EU' this is an assertion- at no point during the several and long discussions on the rail issue was the matter settled.

 

[DexterTCN]

I'd be interested to know what people think is most likely to happen out of the 3 options in the original poll, which broadly speaking equate to hard Brexit/no deal, soft Brexit and no Brexit.

I still think the ultimate position will be a Norway-style deal, dressed up to look like it's something bespoke and different, but the chances of a hard or no deal Brexit have risen since 2016 I think.

Now?

No deal. I've no faith at all in those dealing with the negotiations on the UK side either in ability or purpose. The whole thing is a galactic fuck up.

 

[Ranbay]

I'd be interested to know what people think is most likely to happen out of the 3 options in the original poll, which broadly speaking equate to hard Brexit/no deal, soft Brexit and no Brexit.

I still think the ultimate position will be a Norway-style deal, dressed up to look like it's something bespoke and different, but the chances of a hard or no deal Brexit have risen since 2016 I think.

£20 on delaying it till end of 2019 and then a deal of some sort, i'm not conviced no deal will happen.

IMO ( which means we will crash out with no deal in March as i'm always wrong)