The EU can’t kick the UK out without its consent or some overt breach of the current agreements. It can - and will - make things very difficult for the UK in the meantime; in fact it already is. Without a backing away from the referendum result, the UK is likely to be made an ugly example of pour encourager les autres.
We’ve definitely got the donkey up the minaret this time. A major change in the leadership of the two main parties - currently in the works - would help in this regard, but what would really need to happen would be a significant enough change in the public mood to signal that a refusal by Parliament to trigger Article 50 wouldn’t have massive political repercussions.
Thanks for that. I can’t help noticing though that a different tune is sung when it is a bank or a big corporation in need of help. In those circumstances, why, you damn well better believe there is a society, it is all of us on the hook for the costs of bailing them out!
But of a course a miserable prole like me probably can’t understand the relevant distinctions that cause things to be so one-sided. Yeah, probably best to just shut up and mind my betters…
“On the contrary”? Heath took us in, and two years later supported us staying in. It was the left wing (knuckle draggers/Little Englanders/insert your own insult here…) that were opposed to it at that time.
Scotland and Northern Ireland were the most opposed to it. How times have changed…
When I first commented on this, I thought you were saying that there was no referendum whatsoever at the time that Britain joined the EEC some forty years ago.
Upon doing some further reading, this is apparently true–no referendum was held when Britain joined the EEC in 1973 under Heath’s government. The referendum wasn’t held until 1975, and was actually called by Wilson’s Labour government (and supported by Heath).
I am grateful for your response, but you never offered a reason for a perspective. Once again, you have no responsibility to respond, but I am seriously wondering what the exact, specific points were.
what is exactly the pro-brexit position and what it is the pro-stay position.
Shades of this referendum really. Labour scraped in as a minority government in early 1974 and got a small majority in another election later that year. At the time, the main opposition to the EEC was from the left of the Labour party (a lot of the left still oppose it, despite the fact that Brexiters tend to be painted as Fascists/Racists by the more moderate/Blairite sections of the party) so Wilson put the vote to the country and, with almost all the press and the opposition parties on his side, sailed through with an almost 2/1 majority.
If you dislike the EU now, just wait until Brussels takes you to town during Article 50 negotiations and your politicians get down on their groveling, sniveling knees and beg for leniency.
Make no mistake - Brussels knows damn well that there are plenty of other countries waiting in the wings, observing the Brexit situation closely. If Article 50 is invoked, the UK will not receive a deal on favourable terms - in fact, I would expect Brussels to attempt to make it an impossibly onerous one so as to make an example of the UK to any other would-be leavers.
I don’t even particularly like the way the EU is run, but anyone that thinks the EU is going to play nice in the upcoming negotiations is naive. Anyone who thinks the UK won’t have to choose between observing EU labour regulations and being ejected from the internal market, doubly so.
And as I said earlier, fuck the UK. And I’m saying that as a Brit. The country deserves to go down the toilet after such an irrational decision.
Alas, I can’t look forward to the day when I get to wag my finger and say I told you so, as I’ll probably be queuing up outside a crumbling hospital, somehow devoid of the millions of extra pounds that would be lying around post-Brexit.
Don’t be so dramatic. You are still dealing with the global market as part of the Commonwealth, which is smaller yet a trillion times more stable than the Eurozone. Aside from a period of slight upheaval, particularly in The City, nothing will happen to the UK.
You are adorable. Tell us about the rabbits again, George.
Major financial firms are already looking into moving jobs elsewhere and we haven’t even invoked Article 50 yet. Economically challenged areas of the country (such as Cornwall) have been propped up by the EU for decades; despite what Boris said (and what Cornwall are demanding) the UK government will never be willing or able to cover what all those areas will be losing. The EU represents a HUGE proportion of the UK’s export market; if it was so easy to pick up all those lucrative trade deals from elsewhere in the world, why hasn’t it been done already?
Nope, Brexit will be an economic disaster (and is already a political and social one). Well done, Leavers. You fucked it all up.
The country deserves to go down the toilet with all these overreacting fannies. I can’t imagine what they would be like if they had to live through actual hard times.
where the hell did that come from? It is still possible for two people to have conflicting opinions without it descending into a death or rape threat on twatface.
My discussions with my wife, my family and circle of friends and colleagues were calm and rational, and very, very undecided. Many could have swung one way or t’other.
I can only speak from my own experience. I saw frothing mania on both sides in the media representation of the debate but then of course that is what makes for good news.
For me? it was nothing of the kind. Was my wife typical of the average “leave” voter and me the typical “remain”? I have no idea. All I do know is the tone and type of arguments we had were pretty typical of the arguments I heard in person.
Sorry if my rather mundane experience doesn’t fit with how the media want to portray it or you want to perceive it.
In what way is your picture of the E.U. above an argument for staying?
It sounds like telling a battered wife that at least she has money in her pocket and food in her belly and just imagine what he’d do to if you actually dared to leave!
The above perception of the vindictive nature of the E.U. is either true (in which case it becomes a viable reason for leaving) or not, in which case an amicable arrangement can be reached, or a third possibility is that it is true but they are willing to change their ways.
My own hope is that it is the latter and the sharp kick in the nuts from the UK triggers a serious re-think on their part and a different E.U. emerges.
Well I guess we’re about to find out, as leaving the EU will teach us again to “keep calm and carry on”. We can sing war songs and wave…whatever flag we have after Scotland leaves. Who needs an economy?
The only problem I have with laying out all the arguments is that it then becomes a shopping list of further argument and debate on here, because other than a short term dip in the value of the pound and a short term freeze on investment, no-one really knows what will happen long-term and so all the points are infinitely debateable.
A few simple key points we did agree on.
an exit vote meant market turmoil in theshort term at least
a strong remain vote gave Europe permission to carry on as before
Both of us are emotionally attached to Europe as a region but not as political entity
The structure of the E.U. does not work efficiently and is riddled with corruption and back-door deals
The E.U. is an additional level of bureaucracy over and above our own
A common market is a good thing
freedom of movement is a good thing
political union is a bad thing
our semi-retirement plans could be hit by an exit
friendly relationships with neighbours can be maintained regarldless of status
a close remain vote might prompt change in europe
the end goal of europe is expansion of size, power and greater political union.
there is greater influence over the E.U. by being in it
The E.U. will still want to trade with a market the size of the UK if they leave
There were plenty of other points and variations on a theme for the above but ultimately is was by weighing up the pros and cons that each of us came to our own decision.
Just to add to my earlier response because I also should have said: I have lived through hard times; growing up on a council estate in a single-parent family. And after living in a developing country now for more than 3 years, I’ve also seen poverty on a larger scale. Funnily-enough, I don’t want to see the same happen to the UK.
So what point are you trying to make?