I think the British people stopped listening to Blair’s advice a long time ago. Once bitten twice shy.
I’ve just ceased caring. It’s the only way to cope. The UK’s going to break up, the economy will tank, and my only bittersweet comfort will be seeing Brexiters laid off work and not understanding why the NHS has been sold off.
I’m pretty much there too. Crumbs of comfort: Scotland has a few more possible futures and, eh, I own my own home so there’s that limit to the economic downside for me. But it’s grim 
Are you two a double-act?
Quartz: It is insulting the intelligence of Leave voters to suggest that they believed that because there was no plan put forward by Leave in June 2016 that this meant there never would be a plan. You’d have to be stupid to think that. Likewise, insisting that the absence of a plan in June 2016 means that Leave voters signed a blank cheque assenting to even bad, stupid, costly plans with no take-backs shows a pretty strong contempt for voters.
UTJ: As you may have gathered from post 15, I am very far from believing that leaving the EU is like organising a day trip to Calais. On that theme, however, saying the plan is to negotiate an exit is like saying the plan for D-Day was to “invade Normandy”. It’s true as far as it goes, but the *actual *plan was considerably more detailed and for good reason. “Negotiate an exit” covers a enormous range of possible outcomes, some a lot worse than others. Saying that we are inevitably bound to accept any possible outcome of negotations is a) a shit plan and b) a shit negotiating position.
Let’s not forget that our negotiations are being led by Johnson, Fox and Davis, a group I wouldn’t trust to negotiate the purchase of a used car. Here’s a hypothetical: those three go off to Europe, negotiate with all the subtlety and mastery of detail for which they are justly famed, and come back with the following:
- UK to pay EU £60bn to cover existing commitments
- All EU residents in the UK at the time of Brexit to have rights equivalent to UK citizenship
- All EU citizens to maintain same rights to work in the UK as previously, and to use the NHS
- British courts to recognise and reflect ECJ rulings during the transition
- A hard border between ROI and NI
- During the 5-year transition phase the UK must abide by all EU rules - except that there will be no financial passporting for the city.
Now this is the shittest deal for the UK I can come up with, and I don’t expect it would actually be that bad. But run with the hypothetical for a second: is anyone really arguing that, faced with the prospect of that deal or the even more drastic alternative of immediate, cliff-edge, reversion to WTO rules, the British people have no right to say “Fuck that noise, we’d rather stay”? If they don’t, what the hell kind of democracy is this?
About to buy my own home too, so hopefully will be insulated from the worst of it.
I will gratefully accept correction if I’m mistaken, but my impression of Quartz’s statement is that he believes the Leave voters intended exactly that.
Don’t put words into my mouth. I did not say or suggest that.
That doesn’t seem like something to be pleased about. “Do this - I don’t care how, just do it.” doesn’t strike me as a wise basis for future policy or even something I’d say to people I work with, to be honest.
But that is what umpteen million of my fellow Britons decided.
Please do not appear to call other posters stupid. If you feel you must the Pit is right around the corner.
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In post #20 I was responding to the poster immediately above in #19.
I agree with your point; this is a process, and a unique one.
I’m not sure how better the referendum question could have phrased without adding innumerable conditionals which would make it an unreasonable proposition to consider for the average voter.
As far as I’m concerned, the referendum and Brexit are an opportunity for Germany to consider it’s utterly ruthless brand of financial imperialism.
For the EU it’s an opportunity to consider it’s numerous institutional flaws, flaws on which the people of Europe have never had a voice - until now.
If Germany and the EU institutions reconsider their current direction of travel and accept fundamental flaws, then there is hope for a better, redefined union.
Sorry - I absolutely didn’t meant to appear to call anyone stupid, and I apologise to Quartz if it seemed like I did so.
I’m not following something though. Per this, Quartz doesn’t think that Leave voters thought there never would be a plan, which is fair enough:
But he does believe that Leave voters don’t care what the plan is:
In which case: how can you possibly conclude that this is what people believe? The fact that there wasn’t a plan in 2016 doesn’t preclude people from being able to decide in 2018 that the plan that emerges from the negotiations is a bad plan they want no part of. Nothing on the ballot paper said that voting Leave meant surrendering their judgement in future.
I simply don’t get this claim that Europeans never had a ‘voice’ in the creation of the EU or the reforming treaties before. It simply doesn’t stand up to history. I’ve got as much influence in framing an EU treaty (by writing to my MP, my MEP, committees, demonstrating, voting etc) as I do over a Bill in Parliament.
I’d have some sympathy with that view if a) those who claim it can precisely say what they think is missing from the EU that would make them like it, and b) if they were consistent and applied that criticism to the UK’s constitution.
My experience is they don’t - they assume the UK’s system is inherently more democratic without much inquiry into it. It’s just a given.
Gotcha, sorry.
I think it would have been a lot better to have constructed it from the start as a two-stage process:
In 2016: Do you, in principle, think we should leave the EU?
In 2018: Right, here’s the deal we’ve negotiated. Now, would you rather leave the EU under this specific deal, or stay?
In theory, we could still revert to this approach. We got a narrow majority in favour of the principle of leaving; how people will feel about the specific deal is still to be seen. It would be perfecty sensible to get as much information as possible about what leaving the EU actually means before making a final decision, and perfectly democratic to put that question to the people. But political momentum means that’s very unlikely right now.
I agree that would be a good outcome - but it works better on the threat of Brexit rather than the reality. If we had a two stage decision process then we could hold out for a better deal. But as we’re apparently committed to Brexit under any circumstances, we’ve completely abandoned our negotiating leverage.
Again, you are putting words into my mouth. At the time of the referendum, it was known that there was no plan for Brexit and, to my surprise, the majority of voters were okay with that.
This is complete nonsense. We have plenty of leverage. Trade with the UK benefits the EU more than the UK, for instance. There are more Europeans in the UK than Britons in the EU for another instance. And so on.
We are committed, right now, to taking whatever deal the EU offers us by the two year deadline or jumping over the WTO cliff-edge - an arrangement the EU can cope with much better than we can. When you have no good alternative, you have to take the deal you are offered. We don’t have a good alternative.
The rEU has a trade surplus with the UK, but that doesn’t mean they benefit more. It means we want their stuff more than they want our stuff. 44% of UK trade is with the rEU. 12% of rEU trade is with the UK. We benefit more than they do. But if we move to WTO, the 44% of trade we do with the EU *plus *all the other trade we do through EU level trade deals will revert to new tariffs and new non-customs barriers. There is an enormous amount of administration required to get that working smoothly and it is vanishingly unlikely that we’ll be ready on Day 1. The impact on exporters of not having certification is enormous. For the EU, only 12% of their trade will be affected. It’s not great for them, but it’s worse for us.
That is completely wrong. There are other markets than the EU, and the EU knows this.
But not readily accessible on similar or better terms, nor so easily tradeable into (in terms of geography, never mind regulatory standards and all the rest of it). WTO rules are simply not as favourable. And the fact remains that once Article 50 is triggered, we’re out in two years with or without any follow-on trade agreement. There is no way back, unless every single member state government agrees to some other arrangement. That puts all the pressure on us, and we don’t have the trade negotiators nor (yet) the information base on which to negotiate a comprehensive replacement agreement.