Brexit means Brexit?

[kevin3]

    I'll leave you to get over your loss, life is too short.   

[villain]

Still clueless about the detail, I see. Why do Brexiters go all quiet on the subject of detail?

COME ON. Roll up! Roll up! Now you Brexiters have "taken back control", what do you want to do with it? None of you seem to either have an opinion, nor a clue! You should be all PM's, cos she's just like you.

Some of you (not all!) are xenophobic and want to "do something" in a very scary way with migrants/asylum seekers etc (look how the racists are newly emboldened and hate crime has spiked), some of you believe in the bendy bananas stories. Some of you will want to have access to the single market, some of you want to leave completely, some people don't believe experts, some of you believed the £350m NHS bus double-lie. Some of you hate EU laws but can't seen to cite a single offending example, or get mixed up with the European Court of Human Rights "meddling"(nothing to do with EU).

Fact is, you all wanted something a bit different. Whichever form Brexit takes, only the minority of you will be happy. You want the Single Market? Well, then be prepared to 1. Pay the EU for access and, probably 2. Some form of Freedom of Movement. Some won't mind, some will. You want to end immigration? Well, you probably won't. Most immigration is actually non-EU already. Why do you think the will wasn't there to cut down non-EU immigration before? Could it be 1. You were being lied to (yes, again, you mugs) and 2. The UK probably does actually need these people?

You lot as a block just can't decide between yourselves what you want and most will carry on moaning regardless. You'll probably continue to blame the EU for your woes. It's easy to do that (more pesky foreigners) but it's actually your UK politician's fault. Their fault that we as a nation are so dependent on the banks (who WILL bugger off across La Manche at the first opportunity to chase the filthy lucre), it's also their policies that helped  decimate our manufacturing and promoted so much foreign ownership of what was left (Nissan, Toyota, Honda will also be buggering off in a hurry too). By the time we have exited the EU (2022?) and secured some trade deals with Norway  and Pakistan (2026?), will we still have anything left that we can make to export?

Asylum Seekers? There were 25000 in 2015 in total the UK, of which 2200 were from Syria. Sweden received 13000 applications from just Syrians in October of that year and 163000 of all nationalities in 2015 in total. Our gallant response? Pull the drawbridge up! (P.S. Lebanon, population 4m, has 1m Syrian refugees, Turkey has 2m+)

The UK is retreating into its shell. Small minded, navel-gazing Ignoreland. Details. Boring.

But hey-ho, Brexit in haste, Regrexit at your leisure. Enjoy your victory and good luck to the good ship HMS United Kingdom of England and Wales. (assuming Wales doesn't flee in the opposite direction like the other two will).

Finally The view from the US There. It's not just me.

[Colwyn]

If you think the UK will sink jump ship. I'm staying in the wheelhouse and sailing for adventures new. onward's and upwards.

Not quite got the grasp of this sea-faring lark, Kevin.

[villain]

Goodness knows how we managed before we joined the E.U.   I am not worried at all.

Actually...



"The UK used to be the sick man of Europe. Its annual growth in prosperity improved from bottom of the league among the G7 leading economies before it joined the European Economic Community to top spot in the 43 years after 1973. This does not prove that becoming a member improved Britain’s international performance. It does, however, allow the Remain campaign to argue that membership did not prevent UK national renewal.

Alternative explanation
Economists from the Leave side would point out that the absolute growth rates were lower after 1973 than before and that the main reason for Britain’s improved performance was Margaret Thatcher’s reforms, not EU membership.

Assessment
Splitting correlation from causation is difficult. All countries’ growth slowed after the postwar surge petered out. But, given the dramatic improvement in Britain’s position, it is nearly impossible to argue that the EU stood in the way of Britain pulling up its socks. In the most detailed assessment to date, professor Nick Crafts of Warwick university, Britain’s leading economic historian, estimates that the EU directly raised UK prosperity by about 10 per cent, largely due to increased competition and better access to the single European market.

From that well known "pinko" pamphlet, the Financial Times

Lots of other fun charts on that link, including:




...and...







As I said, Brexiters are really short on detail and really just haven't thought it through.

So, do you want a Soft or a Hard Brexit? Do you even KNOW what I'm talking about? Anyone?

[madmart]

The three spivs Blair, Brown and Mandelson were all for the EU. That is three good reasons to leave.

[Colwyn]

So far there are 31 people who say they voted to leave and would repeat the mistake if they had the chance. None of these 31 has come up with a single suggestion of what sort of Brexit they want. I suspect that they didn't know what they were voting for: only what they were voting against. Thus ... I think Villain has completely established his view.

But, perhaps we can move on. If the Leavers don't know what they want it is up to the rest of us to attempt some kind of damage limitation. Villain asks, as so many others do, whether we want a hard or soft Brexit. "Soft Brexit" implies that we come to some sort of accommodation that gives the UK privileged access to the Single Market (and not out in the cold, facing tariff walls). Trouble is ... what is the Single Market? Some people seem to think that it is that all member countries can freely sell their goods and services inside the EU. Unfortunately this is not what Single Market means inside the EU; it means a free market for the exchange of goods&services and capital and labour. You don't get one without the other two. Now, I'd happily settle for that but I can't imagine that Brexiteers will. So is entry to the Single Market and so a Soft Brexit realistically a possibility? Even if all of the EU countries accepted a deal with the UK (and how unlikely is that?) Brexiteers would almost certainly reject it anyway.

[villain]

The three spivs Blair, Brown and Mandelson were all for the EU. That is three good reasons to leave.

Putin, Trump, Nigel Fromage.

I win with a straight flush.

[Colwyn]

The three spivs Blair, Brown and Mandelson were all for the EU. That is three good reasons to leave.

Putin, Trump, Nigel Fromage.

I win with a straight flush.

Good to see that the debate has moved on to serious, mature discussion.

[Stuart T]

I've said it before - I didn't know enough to make a 100% certain decision.

The politicians are the ones to whom we pay the big bucks in order that they can make these decisions on behalf of the nation - for the short, medium and long term.

As for being one of Villain's "mugs" - maybe so, but there's millions of us.

Perhaps, if Cameron et al had emphasised the positives about remaining, rather than trying to scare us about the consequences of leaving, we would have felt more confident about staying in.

Scare tactics have never worked with "us" and probably never will. Must be the "island mentality".

We've never really been part of the European "whole" and probably never will.

It seems that trade and the free movement of people are now inseparable under EU membership.

EFTA - way back when, seemed pretty good to me at the time.

[Stuart T]

Kevin 3 -

That's two of us.

In "British Bulldog" that's all it takes!

As you say - "onwards and upwards".

Cool Britannia - oh yeah.