Hi,
In light of many Brits now voicing their regret about having voted to leave the EU, does Britain have any wiggle room/options to keep at least one foot in the EU, a little like Norway?
I look forward to your feedback.
There’s already a movement for a re-vote.
There will be a treaty between Britain and the EU. It is in both parties’ interests that there be substantial cooperation in trade and other issues between the two. On the other hand some of the EU members want to strongly discourage other EU members from following Britain out. So it is hard to say how it will end up.
Britain hasn’t even started the process of leaving the EU, and the referendum is non-binding. It’s possible for Britain to entirely reverse course at this point, or to use the threat of leaving as a negotiating tool without formally announcing that they are leaving the EU. It’s also possible for popular opinion to change enough that the next British government can simply ignore the referendum. If Britain does start the process, they have two years to work on the terms of exit before they are actually out.
Thanks Pantastic for that very cogent summary.
It would be interesting to know from which part of the UK the highest proportion of naysayers are from. Northeast? Scotland?
Here are the maps of the vote:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36616028
The only places that voted solidly to stay was London and the more urbanized portions of Scotland. (Well, plus bits of Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, and the university areas.)
So “leave” was very broadly popular, meaning across many regions, but “stay” was very strong in the biggest urban centers, which of course have a large population.
Here are two articles from Washington Post, suggesting that the people who most wanted Brexit will be the very ones who are hurt most by it:
Why people who really wanted Brexit will regret it most
This second article focuses on the county of Cornwall, an impoverished county that receives big [del]bucks[/del] pounds of E. U. anti-poverty subsidies (if I read that right), and they stand to lose that now. Yet this county voted heavily to leave. It seems that Nigel Farage, the very vocal leader of the Leave movement, has promised all kinds of things will be just hunky-dory that maybe won’t be.
The leave people specifically don’t want what Norway has. We’re members of Schengen, which GB rejected, and we get to follow all EU regulations without even the convoluted democratic influence on the process enjoyed by EU member states.
The million or so signatures petitioning for a new referendum are meaningless compared to the 17 million that voted to leave. With a committed Brexit administration in charge it’s a racing certainty that the UK will leave the EU.
The Remain side just have to grit their teeth and bear it.
The may have to deal with it I agree, but 17 million isn’t the number they need to convince. It is only about 1.5 million that would need to change their vote to change the results.
Now that the Brexit leaders have let it slip that most of their promises during the campaign are actually all fluff and bullshit, I think 1.5 million+ may say they have been hoodwinked.
And it’s not “a million or so” on the petition, it is almost 3 million, and growing so fast the website is having trouble staying up.
This Britons Express Serious #Regrexit As Reality Of Brexit Becomes Clear | HuffPost The WorldPost suggests that there were a lot of people fooled by the polls, or otherwise, who were really in favor of staying but voted “leave” as a protest, not imagining it would matter. Since Cameron is PM for the moment, I don’t think a revote is at all unlikely. Stay tuned.
There are also people that are aware of what they have done and publicly admit that the nearest future will be difficult.
But why promote dependance? Surely what they need is all moral support they can to find a way to stand on their own feet. Maybe they can pull it off, maybe they can’t. But why be defeatist?
After all, why did we leave our parents home?
Thanks naita.
Although the United Kingdom is not part of the Schengen passport-free area,[80] it still uses the Schengen Information System, a governmental database used by European countries to store and disseminate information on individuals and property. This allows the UK to exchange information with countries that are a part of the Schengen agreement, often for the sake of liaising over law enforcement.[81]
In contrast while Ireland initially submitted a request to participate in the Schengen acquis in 2002, which was approved by the Council of the European Union,[82] that decision has not yet been put into effect. In February 2010 the Irish Minister for Justice, in response to a parliamentary question, said that: “[t]he measures which will enable Ireland to meet its Schengen requirements are currently being progressed”.[83]"
There isn’t currently a committed Brexit administration in charge, and it’s far from certain there will be in the future.
What the Norway model offers:
The biggest reason Britain voted for Brexit was migration–and the Norway model requires signing parties agree to EU migration. So I don’t see how Britain could possibly agree to this.
The most important reason is that real Britons don’t want Belgian bureaucrats telling them how bendy their bloody cucumbers can be!*
*This never happened.
The UK has a much stronger bargaining position than Norway or Switzerland: It has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and it has a special relationship with the United States and other important English speaking countries in all corners of the globe. I don’t think the POTUS or other policy makers in Washington take clowns like Jean-Claude Juncker or Martin Schulz seriously but the UK was and always will be a tier-one global player.
The UK also is an important export market for the German industry (German car makers to give just one example), that alone should be enough to predict that the UK will be able to negotiate a pretty good deal with the EU.