The Brexit referendum thread: potential consequences for GB, EU and the Brits in CH

[Biro]

	Quote:	marton
	When you are at the bottom then every direction is up.

Especially if there are only 3 countries competing !!

[JackieH]

The boss of ASDA (just one of the so many currently who say the same)- disagrees


https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/stuart-ro...-catastrophic/

[John William]

	Quote:	marton
	They wrote after the UK left the EU it shifted to a points-based immigration system that allows skilled workers earning more than £25,600 per year or £10.10 per hour to obtain work visas, but the researchers found the system was “not liberal enough” to compensate for the loss of EU workers.

Which is why the UK has a skills shortage because British bosses ( like bosses the world over ) prefer to hire people ( on the cheap ) on less than £25,000 a year.
Also the NHS being the biggest 'public employer' & biggest problem recruiting staff in the UK, also prefers to hire on the cheap - as they know
that HMG who hold the purse strings, as far as wage demands are concerned although British Govt disguise that they are miserly with wages by hidding it under a 3rd party called The Pay Review Body )

[John William]

	Quote:	Biro
	Especially if there are only 3 countries competing !!

So which of the 3 Countries are doing well again ?? is it England, Scotland or Wales ??? Lol.

[JackieH]

All polls show very clearly that the vast majority has changed its mind over Brexit. The Referendum was won by a tiny minority anyhow- most of it wiped out by demographics alone.

https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=482228677237632


and moreover, evidence of Russian interference raises its ugly head again

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/.....alls-on-uk.../

[JackieH]

From the Telegraph, no less. Behind a paywall- but the gist is there


'Britain is going to rejoin the EU far sooner than anyone now imagines

It is the Tories’ greatest betrayal: they have made such a hash of the project it is probably unsalvageable '

[Biro]

	Quote:	JackieH
	From the Telegraph, no less. Behind a paywall- but the gist is there 'Britain is going to rejoin the EU far sooner than anyone now imagines It is the Tories’ greatest betrayal: they have made such a hash of the project it is probably unsalvageable '

Give it a rest, it won't happen in your lifetime or mine

[Belgianmum]

	Quote:	JackieH
	From the Telegraph, no less. Behind a paywall- but the gist is there 'Britain is going to rejoin the EU far sooner than anyone now imagines It is the Tories’ greatest betrayal: they have made such a hash of the project it is probably unsalvageable '

I don’t think that’s very likely personally. The EU is not going to welcome the UK back any time soon.
What’s done is done and we have to make tte best of what we’ve got.

[roegner]

	Quote:	JackieH
	From the Telegraph, no less. Behind a paywall- but the gist is there 'Britain is going to rejoin the EU far sooner than anyone now imagines It is the Tories’ greatest betrayal: they have made such a hash of the project it is probably unsalvageable '

Dream on, that is not going to happen.

[k_and_e]

	Quote:	Belgianmum
	The EU is not going to welcome the UK back any time soon.

Why not? It's a great candidate (much better than any other candidate) and apart from a handful of politicians that hold a grudge, nobody in the EU really cares about Brexit.

[JackieH]

	Quote:	roegner
	Dream on, that is not going to happen.

It is not me saying it, it is that massively left wing rag, the Telegragh.

You sound like Starmer, BM- but Brexit can't be made to work.
At least re-join the Single Market, and Free Movement.

Full text:

Full text of this article:
Let’s not beat about the bush. Brexit has become the madwoman in the country’s attic. Demonised, its spirit crushed, it looms over the UK like Mr Rochester’s wife, Bertha Mason, in Jane Eyre. Of course, Bertha – who sets fire to her husband’s bed and rips up Jane’s wedding veil – cannot be blamed for all the chaos that she causes. A rebellious force of nature, she is driven to insanity by repression and neglect. So, too, has Brexit been turned into a national psychodrama. With no plan to unleash its potential, it can only fester, stoking tensions in Northern Ireland and strangling small firms with red tape.
It is time for the Leave camp to start saying the unsayable: the Tories have made such a hash of Brexit that the project is probably now unsalvageable. Given Labour’s Europhile disposition, the window to lay the foundations for Brexit Britain was always limited to the Conservatives’ current reign. Now the end is nigh, and almost nothing has been achieved.
Nowhere is this clearer than in Northern Ireland. The EU and UK may have agreed this week to continue “scoping work” to solve the dispute over the protocol, even if the UK camp has admitted that “gaps remain”. Privately, however, it is acknowledged that Brussels has no intention of making anything more than the most cosmetic tweaks. Its strategy is to play for time until Labour – which it calculates to be an even softer touch – comes to power.
The amount of political energy that continues to be expended on the Northern Ireland impasse underlines the painful fact that Brexit failed at the first hurdle: the political class never got beyond treating it as a damage limitation exercise. Almost seven years after the referendum vote, the focus is still not on exploiting its benefits, but on intractable technical deliberations – in which, frankly, most people on the UK mainland long ago lost interest.
Indeed, the clock has totally run down on what were always half-baked efforts to set out a tangible long-term vision for Britain post-Brexit. And a Westminster system still dominated by people who were never all that enthused about leaving the EU in the first place is only partly to blame. The grave reality is that even those ostensibly committed to making the most of our new freedoms never really worked out how to do so.
In particular, the Brexit debate has fixated too much on questions of trade – with Remainers endlessly outraged at new barriers between the UK and the EU, and the government responding with performative (and often sloppily negotiated) deals with countries such as Australia. In contrast, almost no attention has been paid to opportunities around innovation – the chance to reinvent the country as a science superpower, for example, and to create a world-leading regulatory environment for tech firms – that would have, over time, demolished Remainers’ narrow assumptions about the economic impact of leaving.
Take the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill set to replace the EU’s innovation-crushing GDPR. It was only set out last May and, after endless delays and distractions, there is little hope of getting anything workable passed before the next election. With two years at most until the next election, it would be next to impossible now for the Tories to launch a wholesale review of regulation to jump-start ground-breaking research, or exploit our freedom from state aid rules to channel funding to specific projects – even if they were minded to.
Where are the Brexit Spartans? They don’t seem to be interested in this big picture stuff. They are too busy down in the trenches, fighting their last heroic battle – an attempt to force through a bill which aims to scrap 4,000 EU-derived laws by the end of the year. By failing to explain how specific sectors would benefit from divergence, however, many voters will be wondering what the point is.
This is how Brexit dies. The received wisdom in Westminster is that it will none the less live on, not as a material thing, but as a political phantom – a subject that both parties avoid discussing at all costs, as the referendum’s legacy stalks Parliament, deformed, inviolable, forgotten.
I fear that it is more likely that we end up rejoining the EU – and sooner than many people think. Not for the reasons the alt-Remainers believe, best expressed through their favourite cliche: nobody voted to be poorer. Brexit has not been an economic disaster, GDP growth has not collapsed compared to our European peers, while foreign direct investment has remained strong. The real problem is that nobody voted for nothing to change. And Brexit has not brought about the kind of national reset that millions of people expected. Instead, it is beginning to look slightly rubbish, even pointless.
If anything, the country is moving in a polar-opposite direction to what Brexit was supposed to entail. Leaving the EU was meant to result in the UK taking back control of immigration policy. Instead, the Government flees from a frank national conversation about the trade-offs between the economy’s insatiable appetite for cheap labour and the popular desire to limit numbers. Brexit was meant to make our economy more competitive. And yet the Government has increased taxes to a peacetime high as the big business lobby obstructs deregulation efforts lest it increase competition. Brexit’s only major achievement to date is that it has scathingly exposed the ineptitude of this country’s political class.
Unsurprisingly, the polls have shifted significantly in favour of Remain: while 54 per cent now think that it was wrong to leave the EU, only 35 per cent maintain that it was the right decision.
This may not mean that voters have any appetite for rejoining yet. But if we do so, it will not be as the result of an elaborate elite conspiracy. Sir Keir Starmer’s insistence that the matter is settled may well be genuine. But the political sands are shifting in ways that make a closer relationship with the EU inevitable. The Labour Party, to secure its longevity over the next generation, still has to win back Scottish – largely Remain – votes with a big political gesture. Should support for Brexit continue to plummet in the Red Wall, a policy change may become irresistible.
What of the Tories – the party that little over three years ago received a historic mandate to “get Brexit done”? If the first elephant in the room is that Brexit’s days are numbered, then the second is that the Conservative brand cannot possibly survive such an ignominious outcome. Could we finally see the emergence of a new centre-Right party that genuinely has a chance of taking power? As the revolution goes up in flames, this may be the only thing that can save it.

[Biro]

Even if the UK did get the possibility to rejoin, and it's a very big if, the EU will not trust the UK and things will certainly not be anything like they were, that train has left.

Rejoining will be fraught with as many, if not more problem than now and at very best the UK will be a vessel state

[John William]

	Quote:	JackieH
	and moreover, evidence of Russian interference raises its ugly head again https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/.....alls-on-uk.../

Suffice to say the Ruskies and in particular the KGB ( & its successor ) are to blame for all our Brexit woes. . . . .

Sky News - TV report on Landmark ruling in Strasbourg as UK MP's challenge the British Govt over failure to investigate russian interference in Brexit

[Aeneas]

	Quote:	JackieH
	It is the Tories’ greatest betrayal: they have made such a hash of the project it is probably unsalvageable '

Well, reality is that any decoupling from the EU was never going to be easy. There was never any 'oven ready' deal on the table. But Brexit needed to be sold as such, otherwise it was never going to get passed.

Given this could it have been handled better after the fact? Yes and no; the only option open to the UK, where she remained in the single market, was a relationship similar to Norway, but that would have meant being out of the union in name only and the British public didn't want that. Yet neither did the British public particularly want to be cut loose economically. So ultimately neither May nor Johnston were able to deliver on that and both had to tell lots of porkies to give the electorate the impression they were going to get their cake and eat it.

There was an interesting survey about a year after the referendum, where people were asked whether EU citizens should have freedom of movement in the UK, to which around 70% said 'no'. When asked whether UK citizens should have freedom of movement in the EU, about the the same percentage answered 'yes'. How do you realistically reconcile the two?

So while the UK government did handle the entire transition badly, there was not much they could do and keep people happy at the same time. Ultimately the buck stops with the electorate in a democracy and until that's recognised and people stop blaming everyone else, I doubt anything is going to get better for the UK.

[Biro]

It was never the "leavers" who lost this referendum, it was the remainers who lost it by being too complacent.

[Aeneas]

	Quote:	Biro
	It was never the "leavers" who lost this referendum, it was the remainders who lost it by being too complacent.

How so? I've heard a lot about things that could have been done, about technology that would have made trade 'friction-less' and trade deals that would turn the UK into a global powerhouse, but from what I can see it's all magical thinking, where the solution is vague, something that will happen as long as people put their backs into it, despite no plan ever being proffered.

What could have been done? Without being vague about it, mind you - I think we've all heard enough magical thinking.

[TonyClifton]

	Quote:	Aeneas
	There was an interesting survey about a year after the referendum, where people were asked whether EU citizens should have freedom of movement in the UK, to which around 70% said 'no'. When asked whether UK citizens should have freedom of movement in the EU, about the the same percentage answered 'yes'. How do you realistically reconcile the two? So while the UK government did handle the entire transition badly, there was not much they could do and keep people happy at the same time. Ultimately the buck stops with the electorate in a democracy and until that's recognised and people stop blaming everyone else, I doubt anything is going to get better for the UK.

This is exactly the point, and why the UK is currently stuck in the position which she currently finds herself in. Whilst there was a narrow majority for Brexit, there is no majority for the new necessary socio-economic system for the country to take. It's why even a government with a majority of 80 finds itself unable to govern effectively.

With hindsight now, it's easy to see the reasons for Brexit. The economic model within the EU that the UK had chosen under Margaret Thatcher had simply stopped working for most people around the early 2000s. Productivity fell, inequality rose, particularly wage inequality. GDP still rose, but this was basically driven by mass immigration, which also contributed to the Brexit vote as the character of towns and villages across the country.

This is why so much focus of the negotiation post Brexit was focused on immigration, however politicians still completely miss the point that the current economic model still left over from UK EU membership is predicated on cheap foreign labour.

The biggest issue facing the UK now is that she needs to find a new economic model to adapt to a fast moving global situation. Unfortunately, no government (Labour or Conservative) will be bold enough to make these tough decisions to accept the short to medium term pain for the long term gain that changing model would entail.

[bowlie]

	Quote:	Biro
	Even if the UK did get the possibility to rejoin, and it's a very big if, the EU will not trust the UK and things will certainly not be anything like they were, that train has left. Rejoining will be fraught with as many, if not more problem than now and at very best the UK will be a vessel state

Biro you continue to refer to the EU as if it a single entity. It isn’t and it’s a mistake to think it is.

The European Commission, the executive arm, would allow, even welcome another EU member state as it increases the EU’s stature and power. Some individuals may not be enthusiastic due to perceived wounds they experienced with Brexit.

Member states have more mixed feelings with the Nordics, Benelux,, Mediterranean, ex-yugo, all supportive with Italy, Spain, Portugal somewhere in the middle. France and Germany need convincing.

But the UK rejoining is a win-win for both sides.

Interesting your suggestion that the UK would be a vassal state. I can’t see why that would be, unless they themselves put themselves there. Such as in the decade before Brexit neither of the large political parties supporting Britain’s Membership and allowing the Parliament to be filled with nutters and the council with lightweights. The UK really shot themselves in the foot there.

The UK could be the leader, with support from 15-20 Member States, if it only decided it prefers to lead.

[TonyClifton]

	Quote:	Biro
	Even if the UK did get the possibility to rejoin, and it's a very big if, the EU will not trust the UK and things will certainly not be anything like they were, that train has left. Rejoining will be fraught with as many, if not more problem than now and at very best the UK will be a vessel state

The same EU that accepts Hungary doing what they want, or who is also looking to expand into the Balkans and Ukraine would welcome the UK back with open arms. Not in the least as it would "prove" leaving the EU is a failure and would be warning to others.

Never going to happen in our lifetimes though.

[Jim2007]

	Quote:	bowlie
	Biro you continue to refer to the EU as if it a single entity. It isn’t and it’s a mistake to think it is. The European Commission, the executive arm, would allow, even welcome another EU member state as it increases the EU’s stature and power. Some individuals may not be enthusiastic due to perceived wounds they experienced with Brexit. Member states have more mixed feelings with the Nordics, Benelux,, Mediterranean, ex-yugo, all supportive with Italy, Spain, Portugal somewhere in the middle. France and Germany need convincing. But the UK rejoining is a win-win for both sides. Interesting your suggestion that the UK would be a vassal state. I can’t see why that would be, unless they themselves put themselves there. Such as in the decade before Brexit neither of the large political parties supporting Britain’s Membership and allowing the Parliament to be filled with nutters and the council with lightweights. The UK really shot themselves in the foot there. The UK could be the leader, with support from 15-20 Member States, if it only decided it prefers to lead.

And you make a similar mistake! The member states are not sovereign when it comes to the treaties of Rome. There are 38 regional and national parliaments that must agree plus the peoples of Ireland (all instances), Denmark (most instances), France (some issues) and The Netherlands (rarely). That makes change beyond the treaties extremely difficult. You need both political and public will to do so.

That last major change the Fiscal Compact came in the middle of a recession in which three members were in financial difficulty and more were on the brink and most important the Irish voters were among those impacted.