Membership of the single market is integral to the EU, and leaders of Remain and Leave made it clear before the referendum that Brexit meant losing membership of the single market. You don't sell a car, and then take the engine out before handing over to the buyer, on the basis that "engine" wasn't referred to in the advert.
I won't post the video again, but leading Leave campaigners (Farage, Johnson, Hannan) were saying 'nobody is talking about leaving the single market' and pointing to Norway and Switzerland as the way forward. If it had been explicit on the ballot paper that the vote meant leaving the single market, the customs union and all other EU institutions, Leave would have lost heavily.
But there's no need to leave the Single Market if we prioritise that. No amount of foot stomping will stop that being true.
We can't remain in the single market and have control over our borders from the EU. A large proportion of leave voters (it wasn't my priority, although I have concerns over levels of immigration) voted to regain control of our borders. This must be respected imo. If the political hard liners in the EU hadn't pushed Europe down the road of a United States of Europe we could have happily continued with just a trading agreement. The biggest mistake in our Country's recent history was to continue along the path of continued political integration with the EU. This has led us to where we are today. The British people were always extremely sceptical about political integration and poll after poll always suggested that we would vote to leave if given the chance. That's why successive governments shied away from a referendum, until Cameron signed his own resignation letter by finally granting one. The combined might of the ruling elite, government, opposition parties, the President of the United States and business leaders and executives peddling scare story after scare story couldn't stop the British people from doing what they've always threatened to do...........leave!
How can we know that more people want 'control' than single market access? We already have 'control' over immigration from the vast majority of the world. EU immigration has been proven to be hugely beneficial to the country. As the baby boomers get older and our birth rates remain low as you'd expect from any developed economy, we are going to need a continuous influx of young, healthy people. We will be totally ****ed without high levels of immigration. Immigration isn't the problem- lack of investment in infrastructure is but that's expensive and not sexy enough to win votes. Better just to blame Pawel and Omar for your kids being in a class of 35 or waiting two years for an operation.
Given the choice of that rock and hard place, I'd rather May but that's not the point. She's being given an exceptionally easy ride by the press, isn't putting herself in a position to be questioned at all unless it's staged and planned. I'd like to see her challenged and analysed by the press as much as Corbyn is.
Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC's political editor, is embarrassingly sycophantic towards May whilst being shamelessly antagonistic towards Corbyn.
There is a limited amount of space and with all the financial input possible, open borders will lead to over-crowding. Do you favour limitless immigration?
From the current countries we have freedom of movement with, yes. I appreciate it's not perfect but we've got a ticking time bomb of an ageing population, as many countries do, and we need to keep bringing young people in. There is capacity for people if the economy is managed properly with proper investment in the necessary infrastructure and sufficient housing being built. There also needs to some sort of incentive or reason in place to spread people around the country better. Parts of Scotland are terribly under-populated and pretty much everywhere outside the South-East would benefit from more immigration, from what I know.
The problem all the parties face nowadays is that the whole process is media-driven, everything is analysed in minute detail and any gaffes are magnified in every detail as with Diane Abbott this week. Tony Blair was the first to use media to project himself and then subsequently controlling the media through Campbell and Co which has eventually created government by 'soundbite'. Cameron was from a PR and media background and was the natural Blair successor until he shot himself in the foot by offering the referendum. May has somewhat kept her head down both in the referendum and since becoming PM. She can't hide from hard questioning for the full seven weeks but she'll make sure she faces as little as possible. With Corbyn offering so many open goals to his opponents Labour really are in an impossible situation and the LibDems are little better with the awkward Farron not having any great appeal. Sadly, British politics is in a very bad way at present and a failure of any viable 'SDP' type centre ground alternative to the tired, worn-out and somewhat discredited batch we have to choose from is deeply depressing. I'm actually very unlikely to vote this time round...
I discussed the upcoming election last night with a mate who, like me is a Tory voter. We concluded that ANY government (blue, red, yellow, green, whatever) needs strong opposition and I think most would agree. What we have at the moment is one party united (generally) behind its leader and a half dozen parties in disarray. There is no need for UKIP, they got their job done last year. There MUST be some middle ground between the others (Lib Lab pact) that could unite them to make that strong opposition. As I said, I do and will vote Tory, but I do not want a one party state. Perhaps, if the predicted landslide occurs, the other parties will be galvanised into some action.
I think you're wrong there, Col. The EU wants the softest Brexit possible, for things to change as little as possible. After all this, they still don't want the UK to leave. Everything else is just pre-negoiation hardball for the local voters in their own countries - here and in the other 27.
