Off Topic Brexit

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This is one of the problems though. No-one was asked on what terms would they like to leave the EU. Your version of a "soft" brexit more than likely doesn't match many others version of a "soft" brexit.

Technically, "soft" brexit is simply a term thought up by either spin doctors, politicians and/or the media. It means nothing.

Leave the EU means leave. It doesn't mean leave in name only. Whether that decision was sensible or not is irrelevant the underlining message was to leave.

 

But leave what ? The single market ? The customs union ? The reciprocal security and law enforcement arrangements ?

If you think you know the answer to any of those questions, what is the basis for your opinion ?

 

The ballot paper which we had to answer is the answer.

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It only asks about remaining as a member of the EU or leaving. We chose to leave.

My interpretation would say you leave it lock stock and barrel. Nothing on the ballot paper asked if we wanted to keep any part of the arrangement. Anything you had and any arrangement that existed as a consequence of being a member of the EU we decided to leave. Therefore we leave all of it. No such thing as a "soft" brexit.

If we want to be part of a single market or customs union or indeed anything else that was part of being a member of the EU that should be sorted out separately. We should leave and then take it from there. But I wouldn't want to be in a customs union or a single market if that meant I couldn't look to negotiate other trade deals without consent from the EU.

And to avoid doubt this is from someone who voted to remain.

 

That said to leave the EU. It didn't say anything about the questions I asked. Ever since the referendum, people have been announcing their personal opinion about what should be done about these and other matters and calling it the "will of the people". It's like saying that a vote to leave Newcastle was a vote to go to Edinburgh or London or Morocco, whichever place the speaker particularly fancies. Any attempt to actually ask the people where they'd like to go is regarded as an affront to democracy.

Complete bollocks.

 

I don't buy this. It's not just about what was on the ballot paper - it's about what was said in the campaign beforehand. You don't just vote for the name on the ballot paper in a general election - you vote for that person's manifesto. If they start putting in place something very different to what they promised, you turf them out at the next election. That's why representative democracy is better than direct democracy - someone can be held accountable.

There are plenty of examples of Leave campaigners promising a completely incompatible range of options on Brexit. Almost the only consistent point was that they promised that there would not be a no deal Brexit.

If the margin had gone 48-52 the other way, and the government had taken this as a mandate to adopt the Euro and join Schengen, people would be similarly up in arms, and rightly so.

The real culprit here is David Cameron. Arrogant sod was so sure he'd win he allowed this ambiguous question on the ballot paper. If the first question had been "should we open negotiations to leave the EU" and then had given the people the final say on two REAL options (rather than status quo vs nebulous fantasy) then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

 

I occasionally negotiate deals for companies. If a company voted to sell a valuable asset on the basis of valuations ranging from, say, £4 - £12 million and put me in charge of the negotiations, I'd invite bids, play one off against another, twist arms, etc. Let's say after I did my best, the best offer I could get was £6 million. Not as bad as the doomsayers feared, not as good as the optimists hoped.

At that point, anyone who doesn't want to be sued goes back to the company and asks whether they want to accept. Maybe they think £6 million looks good, maybe they don't, maybe in the last 3 years they've decided they don't want to sell at all. What you don't do is tell your client that their only choices are to accept £6 million or let the asset be seized by the bank and sold at auction because they've already voted to sell and can't change their mind,

 

Can't agree except for last para.

How could anyone know or promise on what terms we would leave when that could only be negotiated when we said we were leaving. If people believed the promises, which I have no doubt some did but have no idea as to how many,then they only have themselves to blame if those promises are not being delivered upon Some of it was simple pie in the sky stuff. Those people should have their voting rights removed as they are too stupid to vote.

On this occasion it was all on the question on the ballot paper. Do we stay or do we leave. We voted leave, let's just do it.For me, the only fair and proper interpretation of leave means everything, the whole kiboodle.

 

But that wasn't what was asked.

 

I'd love to think the idea of a second vote has been put to bed now. The so called "Peoples Vote" (the very name sums up the arrogance of the bitter remainers) was trounced with only 88 MPs of 650 showing appetite for a new vote. I would hope that is the end of it but that would be extremely doubtful.

I find some of the remainers full of the arrogance to be honest. They like to peddle the notion that the vote would change because of lots of reasons and there are a lot of reasons for doing another vote: remain would have won but the remain vote was complacent; Ireland had several votes; deaths of older people; new eligible voters; people didn't know what they were voting on; and a multitude of other weird and wonderful reasons. There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence, statistical or otherwise, to back a lot of this up. Indeed many of the polls seem to suggest it is still a really tight call. It seems to mirror the poll results before the vote with a slight swing towards remain (we all know how that went).

Any vote is a snapshot in time of the make up of the population who have shown enough interest to vote. There does seem to be a notion gathering pace in some parts that the young vote is more relevant because its their future and they have to deal with the consequences of the decision. I've never heard such rubbish in all my life. Every vote is equal.

I also don't like the notion that the leavers reasons for leaving are to be ridiculed, while the remainers are obviously more intelligent and had sound reasons for voting to stay. Its just rubbish. I do think there are a multitude of people on both sides who perhaps voted the way they did for hollow reasons. That again is the same in any vote/democracy. This notion which is peddled by remainers is not only arrogant, its just plain disrespectful at times, and I think its one of the things actually hardening the leave stance. Not least in that is their feeling the majority who voted to leave did so because they are racist etc. I don't know about others but that is not my experience. A lot of leave voters did so for their own very genuine reasons.For instance I don't think the fisherman who badly wanted to leave did so for racism or xenophobia.

As you say we voted to leave we should do so, with or without a deal. Due to the incompetence of us not preparing for a no deal Brexit, mainly because Hammond didn't want to fund it because he thought they'd take it, it would seem very likely we will have an extension. If that is the case I'd hope some think tanks are put together to plot our way out. The knowledge is there waiting to be utilised.

 

Agreed.
We leave.. then review all the add ons later.
The MPs are a disgrace. Can’t wait for the snivelling pricks to be out of work at the next general election. ****ers.

 

Succinctly put.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the naked deceit of the leave campaigners (Farage, Johnson, Lilley, Rees-Mogg, et al), as well as the nebulous and simplistic Brexit on offer for the Referendum, and the increasing economic evidence of terrible long-term harm to the economy, people and reputation, and the crass incompetence, vainglory and venality of the government (as well as the Labour leadership), should mean that the Referendum is called off. No second referendum. Just end this whole debacle. In 3 years, I can say that I haven't heard one well-reasoned argument, backed up with real facts, for leaving the E.U.

 

Said it well before that happened to be fair.

 

We democratically voted to leave the EU. Only arguement required.

 

Agreed. No matter how many legal weasel words some of the politicians throw around... the people voted and the MP’s had one job to do and ****ed it up.

He’ll I’d Even accept Pardew leading us through Brexit over this mob. Even if his negotiation team may be filled with left (wing) backs.

 

Referendums should clearly only be used when the people are accurately and well on the subject. Surely we now know that very few understood much about the E.U or the ramifications of leaving (even our MPs). We are pig-ignorant and have been fed negative propaganda re all things E.U, in press and Commons for decades.
Three years down the line we can reverse the result of the referendum. Our politiciams, of course, never would. Too much to lose for the individual and party. And too many shouty mobs with pitchforks..

 

An interesting concept, however, one that Parliament are already trialling, although to be fair they've taken it too extremes and just ignored everyone, no matter there age.

 

**** Brexit, **** the doom mongers, when the dust settles life will go on as it always has done. People will sell, people will buy, people will do well, people will struggle. The vast majority of us will still have to work long hours to make a living. There will be short term pain, and then probably long term gain. But hang on, that's not what most of us voted Leave for. It was successive governments who failed to get a grip on numbers of people coming into the country....which has been pushed to the backbenches. As it happens, those who thought the British 'way of life' was under threat from mass immigration should realise that that is a thing of the past, and they had better get used to it.

 

So who decides if people are accurately informed? Isn’t it somewhat presumptuous to decide those who voted to leave only did so because they were ill informed?

Information was out there to become informed if people were prepared to look and think.

Also not everyone voted leave for purely economic reasons.

My father voted to leave partly because he wanted an independent country again. Also partly because he never actually voted to join the EU. Nobody did. That was a political decision which the British Public were never asked as to whether we wanted or agreed to. In 1976 (?) we voted to join a “common market” not a political union.

It’s a tremendous pity that so many people are prepared to try and reverse a democratically reached decision and fail to comprehend the simple basics of how a democracy works. If the referendum result were to be over turned what do you say to the majority of people who voted to leave? How do you tell the majority that democracy doesn’t count when you don’t get what you want? What precedent does that set for any vote on anything, including General Elections, in the future?

Why can’t a significant number of people not just accept that they lost the vote which happens in a democracy and honour the wishes of the majority?

In all honesty we are a Nation which has managed to manufacture a new job which should take 100,000’s of the unemployment register, namely “dummy picker upper”.