Brexit

[phat_chris]

I find the whole situation hilarious. The people who voted to stay are unhappy because we are leaving. Equally, though, the people who voted to leave are unhappy because they aren't getting the Brexit they had envisioned.

In the end I suppose it has turned out to be the fairest result possible as we are all equally unhappy with the situation and we are all equally screwed.

[New Forester]

I hate this sort of thread. I cannot resist seeing how people respond. Then I get depressed at what I read. We are heading for a mess. But surely it cannot be as bad as what we Pompey fans have been through these past few years. And we are on the up. Dark clouds are always eventually followed by sunshine.

[Selsey Bill]

The whole thing is a bl**dy great car crash.

That it is.

You can't have a Canada deal (Free Trade Agreement) without having something different in place for the Island of Ireland.
You can't have something different for the Island of Ireland because the Unionists will object (rightly).
You can't screw over the Unionists and vote for an FTA because the Irish government will veto it (rightly) because an FTA or No Deal inflicts similar levels of economic harm as well as social harm so where's their incentive?

So Canada is dead in the water no matter now many pluses you add to Canada.

The next possibilities are the Norway variations. Norway is in the Single Market but not the Customs Union so that's your basic Norway. You then have Norway+ which is being members of both the Single Market and Custom Union. The third option is an Inverse Norway which is membership of the Customs Union but not the Single Market.

Any membership of the Single Market requires accepting the rules of the club including the Four Pillars of Freedom of Movement. There aren't enough MPs in Parliament willing to vote for that so Norway and Norway+ are not doable.
The Labour Party kind of supports an Inverse Norway but there's a problem here. In reality, you would have to accept a lot of Single Market rules in order to make Inverse Norway work as the Single Market and the Customs Union work together. An Inverse Norway would effectively mean Norway+.

So then there's No Deal which will create hard borders and frictional trade.

MPs don't want to vote for frictional trade as it will destroy the supply chains of companies and mean significant economic dislocation and increased costs for companies that use Just In Time methods to maximise efficiencies.

So of the three possible Brexit strategies, there is not sufficient support for any of them. Round and round we go. When we stop nobody knows.

You're wasted on this MB LiT - great post mate

[Milkins]

Given the referendum was simply an attempt by the tories to kill off ukip I reckon we should be given a second vote purely on the basis that the first one was not based on a valid proposition. It was based on party infighting. Which is quite amusing when you consider it's actually split the tories even further.

On a further point, I vote every few years to return an mp to parliament. Then Parliament run the country and I'm happy for them to just get on with it. Parliament is the decision making body - we shouldn't have referendums.

[past memories]

Given the referendum was simply an attempt by the tories to kill off ukip I reckon we should be given a second vote purely on the basis that the first one was not based on a valid proposition. It was based on party infighting. Which is quite amusing when you consider it's actually split the tories even further.

On a further point, I vote every few years to return an mp to parliament. Then Parliament run the country and I'm happy for them to just get on with it. Parliament is the decision making body - we shouldn't have referendums.

Don`t forget the government put the referendum to the public after having decided by a parliamentary vote, which indicated that the whole house was afraid to tackle the problem themselves, carried with a large majority. Since, the result has been voted on affecting the outcome, which has turned out, as we know, accept a deal or not. This is against their instructions on the ballot paper, remain or leave. Look up the dictionary definition of leave. So you trust the government ? Because I do not. Unlimited immigration for the last 18 years, starting with Bliars lot, and carrying on even more so under May`s instructions, after her saying that immigration would be bought down. No wonder the NHS and housing are suffering, they`re not short of cash, they`re overwhelmed with incoming bodies, plus the health tourists.

[BlueinPLtwenty]

I voted to leave. We had a democratic vote which determined that we will leave. Everything else is a hypothesis. The Stock Market has risen considerably. Exchange Rates are volatile anyway, what no-one is saying is that certainly the Pound to Euro rate has been a lot lower as well as a lot higher than today. The Europeans sell more to us than we sell to them. Many European Countries depend on our Tourists visiting them. So we shall see whether the EU will shoot themselves in the foot. My guess is that over time things will sort themselves out, commonsense will prevail and little will change in the long run.

[Pompey1985]

Given the referendum was simply an attempt by the tories to kill off ukip I reckon we should be given a second vote purely on the basis that the first one was not based on a valid proposition. It was based on party infighting. Which is quite amusing when you consider it's actually split the tories even further.

On a further point, I vote every few years to return an mp to parliament. Then Parliament run the country and I'm happy for them to just get on with it. Parliament is the decision making body - we shouldn't have referendums.

Don`t forget the government put the referendum to the public after having decided by a parliamentary vote, which indicated that the whole house was afraid to tackle the problem themselves, carried with a large majority. Since, the result has been voted on affecting the outcome, which has turned out, as we know, accept a deal or not. This is against their instructions on the ballot paper, remain or leave. Look up the dictionary definition of leave. So you trust the government ? Because I do not. Unlimited immigration for the last 18 years, starting with Bliars lot, and carrying on even more so under May`s instructions, after her saying that immigration would be bought down. No wonder the NHS and housing are suffering, they`re not short of cash, they`re overwhelmed with incoming bodies, plus the health tourists.

Did you know that with the exception of Poland most of our immigrants comes from non EU counties, Australia, China, India etc..

Equally among the younger migrants to arrive in the UK are less likely to claim benefits and significantly less likely to claim social housing, because they are on average better educated than the native population.

So what do we do then hold a referendum to leave the planet?

[Milton End]

Given the referendum was simply an attempt by the tories to kill off ukip I reckon we should be given a second vote purely on the basis that the first one was not based on a valid proposition. It was based on party infighting. Which is quite amusing when you consider it's actually split the tories even further.

On a further point, I vote every few years to return an mp to parliament. Then Parliament run the country and I'm happy for them to just get on with it. Parliament is the decision making body - we shouldn't have referendums.

Don`t forget the government put the referendum to the public after having decided by a parliamentary vote, which indicated that the whole house was afraid to tackle the problem themselves, carried with a large majority. Since, the result has been voted on affecting the outcome, which has turned out, as we know, accept a deal or not. This is against their instructions on the ballot paper, remain or leave. Look up the dictionary definition of leave. So you trust the government ? Because I do not. Unlimited immigration for the last 18 years, starting with Bliars lot, and carrying on even more so under May`s instructions, after her saying that immigration would be bought down. No wonder the NHS and housing are suffering, they`re not short of cash, they`re overwhelmed with incoming bodies, plus the health tourists.

Did you know that with the exception of Poland most of our immigrants comes from non EU counties, Australia, China, India etc..

Equally among the younger migrants to arrive in the UK are less likely to claim benefits and significantly less likely to claim social housing, because they are on average better educated than the native population.

So what do we do then hold a referendum to leave the planet?

You make a great point.

I would simply add that the bargaining price of the UK doing the "World Beating" trade deals with countries like India could easily be a further relaxation in migration from those countries to the UK. So much for the Brexit claim of taking back control of our borders!

[Milton End]

I voted to leave. We had a democratic vote which determined that we will leave. Everything else is a hypothesis. The Stock Market has risen considerably. Exchange Rates are volatile anyway, what no-one is saying is that certainly the Pound to Euro rate has been a lot lower as well as a lot higher than today. The Europeans sell more to us than we sell to them. Many European Countries depend on our Tourists visiting them. So we shall see whether the EU will shoot themselves in the foot. My guess is that over time things will sort themselves out, commonsense will prevail and little will change in the long run.

First, I respect that fact that you voted to leave along with the majority. But I would also respectfully point out that it was a small majority - 52/48.

Moreover, the vote was based on false information. For example, some Brexiteers claimed that "the Europeans sell more to us than we sell to them." This is not correct.

The facts are that 44% of our manufacturing output is exported to the rest of the European Union. In turn, European Union exports to the UK are only 9% of the EU total.

This means that nearly all (91%) of EU exports go to other countries. We need them far more than they need us.

Now, I accept that some specific export categories like premium cars from Germany would suffer if we left the EU without a deal. But more broadly, the EU would hardly notice our departure.

Against this, we have the confident claims by the highly ambitious journalist Boris Johnson, the former banker Jacob Rees-Mogg and the medical doctor, Liam Fox - all clearly experts in the field of world business. They all want a 'Canada Style' deal for the UK after we leave. Without going into all the details, this agreement is 1,400 pages long and has over 700 exemptions from free trade demanded by either side.

Moreover, just as an example, the Canada deal still involves Canadian car makers providing detailed source information on each part of the car. There are 186,000 direct employees in the British car industry. We have had repeated warnings that the crucial just-in-time delivery is not possible with such bureaucracy. If you saw the ITV News interview last night between Boris and Robert Peston, you will have seen how Boris blustered but had no answer to this point.

Both the leaders of the two major political parties - May and Corbin - want a tariff free deal with the EU. Surely it is in our best interests to agree such a deal?

[Earl Grey]

Don't think it really helps if Leavers continually harp on about having 'won' and it was democratic.....thing is, if we hold another referendum, it'll still be democratic.

When did holding a referendum become undemocratic?

Indeed if 'Leave' result is clearer.....say 58%/42% then surely it's also a clearer mandate for the government to get on with it. If it's just as clear but the other way then we know people have reacted to much better information on the consequences and decided 'Remain' is the better option.

It's not unprecedented either. Ireland held another referendum on the Lisbon Treaty....the first one came out 53% for not signing up to it.....the second came out as 67% in favour of signing up to it. Given the turn out was similar, that's a massive turn around...... so why did it happen? Could it be people felt better informed as to the consequences of not signing up because the negatives weren't discussed openly and clearly enough?

On the first referendum I didn't vote because I didn't really know who was telling the truth and also the consequences of leaving hadn't all been discussed. Now I know a great deal more I'm still in a quandary.

My personal belief is that the EU is way too big. It'll eventually be a project that becomes a single country like the USA....but bigger....and I'm nervous that it could lead to a tyrannical leadership that could well go down the path of Nazi Germany or Maoist China...all creepingly done by a thousand cuts....all unnoticed at first until it's too late. It'd be better if the EU was in 2 or 3 completely independent bits just so you could see how the other bits are doing and maybe modify what you're doing as a result.

But in the medium term it's clearly better to see if reversing Article 50 is possible and that may depend on whether anyone can veto it.....not sure if that's the case.

So going back to the original question on this thread, I'd vote Remain on a second referendum but be on the lookout for the chance to opt out at some future date.....maybe the Irish border won't be such an issue then and it'll be easier.....or maybe we won't want to leave because the EU has changed for the better.

[The Cincinnati Kid]

I'll stand by what I said last time this issue arose on the board.
Too many wealthy and powerful people have a vested interest in staying....all the bankers and finance people centered in Londinium for starters...…. and they (those guys) are never going to let you leave. They will find a way to get any deal voted down in parliament. They will find a way for a 2nd vote.
It aint happening imo. Just today I hear on the BBC world service how Toyota will be threatening to say "see
y'all later" to manufacturing in UK without some sore of customs deal, which y'all aint gonna get because they (those guys) will make sure any leave deal on the table is as smelly a pile of pooh as possible....thus getting a second vote.
Just in case I'm wrong we can still tow y'all to a sunny spot in the gulf of Mexico or maybe just off Long Island for a more temperate climate.

[Purbrook Chimes]

why did we have a vote in the first place , we didn't need one, but Cameron put his party before his country, the party was split with UKIP etc and all the eurosceptics so he went for a vote, however, he never expected to lose, didn't set out what you needed to achieve to win, and the question was badly worded. As Macron said recently to leave is the will of the British people, who were told to leave would be easy and we'd get everything we wanted, those people were liars. In any situation its easier to campaign to change something than to keep doing what you're already doing. The Leave campaigners could tell us anything they wanted about the benefits because we didn't know what to leave really meant (yes leave means leave but how and what are the consequences) I voted remain because I believe it is economically to our advantage but there are many Federalist aims the EU have which I disagree with so a different question or emphasis would have made me vote differently ( as discussed above).
Personally now I can't wait for it to end, I'm all for Brexit lets do it and be damned. If I'm wrong about the economic aspect and it turns out to be the land of milk and honey fine , but if as I suspect it will be a disaster which affects our standards of living, destroys businesses, increases inflation, leads to the destruction of the United Kingdom (Wales , Scotland and NI all voted remain) and even brings back violence to Ireland (or maybe just some of these) then at least it will lead to the alienation of self important **** like Johnson & Farage , the unelectability of the out of touch Conservative Party (not that Labour in its current form is much to shout about) and hopefully, the marginalisation of dangerous bigots like Rees Mogg - Either way its a win win

[HappyHour@TheBreweryOfLife]

Lots of ifs and clearly written by a remainer, assuming you can't possibly be wrong and that those scenarios have to occur. In the end, nobody knows. If it was clear and obvious, then the so called experts would all agree - which they don't.

As has been said above, there were predictions of instant collapse of the economy if the vote was leave. I haven't seen that quite yet.

For the 'full stoppers', how bad an impact would Brexit have to make on the economy and society for you change your mind? If there were a million job losses? Food shortages? Problems flying to and from Europe? Shortages of medicine? Less collaboration in national defence? A recession?

For my quadrennial post, I'd just like to add some balance to this particular discussion and humbly submit that the various 'apocalyptic' predictions being attributed to the IMF, OECD, BoE, Treasury et al applied to scenarios where the UK arbitrarily cut off all ties, left the SM/CU without a deal and reverted to WTO membership (something being demanded by a fair number of the Hard Brexit caucus at the time). HMT labelled this the 'severe shock' scenario.:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... eu_web.pdf

This graph shows all the various Govt pre-ref forecasts, alongside the actual outcome. The majority of the forecasts actually turned out to be optimistic, something seldom mentioned by the pro-Brexit lobby:

Pre-ref forecasts

The UK was one of the strongest economies in the EU pre-2008 and also in the four years before the referendum. Today, GDP growth is among the weakest (we ranked 21st out of 28 in the latest reporting quarter). Foreign investment (something the UK was raking in pre-2016, regularly being the no.1 EU choice for investors) has indeed thrown itself over that oft-mentioned cliff.

As for the balance of opinion among experts, it is, nowadays anayway, as balanced as the debates on climate change, vaccinations, moon landings and the shape of the planet. The findings of the lead economist on the pro-Brexit side (Patrick Minford) are routinely challenged by his peers. For example, his recommendations of a mass and unilateral removal of import tariffs on goods (vocally supported by Rees-Mogg) would see the UK domestic market flooded with cheap imports from low wage/low regulation countries, which in turn would lead to a significant loss of our own manufacturing industry. Minford accepts this, considering it desirable as it would "lower prices, increase competition and push up productivity":

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolic ... f-gravity/

Minford also argues for a similar deregulation of import tariffs on food, which would have a similar effect on our agricultural/fisheries sector.

The upsides of Brexit are that it should put the Conservative Party out in the cold for many years (and I say this as a Tory voter up until 2017). Once safely labeled as the party of business, the economy and justice, has now lost all credibility, having been taken over by a bunch of would-never-tire-of-punching-them-in-the-face lunatics. The current Cabinet is a perpetual tantrum of squabbling muppets who wouldn't see a job in Whitehall in more sane times.

And I certainly expect, nay demand, to see our dormant farms soon awash with CAPless crops and livestock, and see rural roadside hedgerows (I'm going to believe they are currently protected by EU law) ripped up and replaced by endless wooden railings so we can all enjoy a very nice view as we drive down country roads instead of being hemmed in by 10ft walls of twigs.

I also predict we will rejoin within five years, this time going full throttle and joining Schengen, the Euro and having speedlimit signs in KM/H. And all pubs open beyond 11pm.

[Lost in Transportation]

I also predict we will rejoin within five years, this time going full throttle and joining Schengen, the Euro and having speedlimit signs in KM/H. And all pubs open beyond 11pm.

Hmmm... from one burning building to another.

[The Cincinnati Kid]

Heard a fascinating report today re a book recently out on the subject of the use of fake news and propaganda via social media.
The numbers quoted on Russian and other interference in the Trump election and in Brexit were staggeringly huge. As 1 brief example it is said that 58% of Trumps facebook followers were from outside the USA and mostly fake accounts.

It's here under the title The Weaponization of social media if you want a listen. Considering the size of this influence and the narrow victories in both cases, it doesn't reflect well for democracy.

https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/