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

[Phil_MCR]

	Quote:	Medea Fleecestealer
	Of course she can. 4 mil is what? Around 1% (maths dunce here so don't yell at me if it's wrong ) of the total 33,551,983 people that voted in the referendum. If she can ignore the 16mil+ that voted Remain she can certainly ignore the much smaller number.

So you're saying that 99% of the people who took part in the referendum are basically in agreement with the result?

	Quote:	marton
	You do not do much research do you? Membership in EFTA also stipulates the Primacy of European Union Law. The aim of the EEA Agreement is to guarantee the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital; to provide equal conditions of competition and to abolish discrimination on grounds of nationality in all 31 EEA States – the 28 EU States and 3 of the EFTA States. EEA law originates from EU law. As a matter of principle, the EU law rules concerning the single market have been transposed and are being transposed to the EEA legal order.

You have selective attention, don't you? EFTA Court only concerns itself with those relating to free movement, and its interpretation of the agreement. It can't overrule every UK Law and Court decision that way ECJ can.

	Quote:	marton
	Seems Javid has been fired; I am sure somebody else will take his flight ticket!

Where do you see that? That would be silly. It is the gloom and doom moaners that need to be cleared out of the system.

[marton]

	Quote:	Phos
	You have selective attention, don't you? EFTA Court only concerns itself with those relating to free movement, and its interpretation of the agreement. It can't overrule every UK Law and Court decision that way ECJ can.

Of course it cannot overrule every UK Law, UK is not (yet) an EFTA member.

"EFTA Court only concerns itself with those relating to free movement"
Not true, you can read examples of decided EFTA Court cases in the Internet.

Anyway the EFTA Court can and has referred cases to the ECJ so there is no easy "get-out".

BTW the ECJ is in Luxembourg.
You mentioned Strasbourg so maybe you are thinking of the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) which is in Strasbourg rather than the ECJ?

The EFTA Surveillance Authority and the EFTA Court have to comply with the ECHR
Source

[marton]

	Quote:	Phos
	Where do you see that? That would be silly. It is the gloom and doom moaners that need to be cleared out of the system.

Javid is no longer Business Secretary; new job yet to be announced

	Quote:	marton
	Of course it cannot overrule every UK Law, UK is not (yet) an EFTA member.

I think you are mixing up your acronyms and are chasing your own tail. I'll let you do your circling thing on your own. Have fun, don't get dizzy.

[marton]

	Quote:	Phos
	I think you are mixing up your acronyms and are chasing your own tail. I'll let you do your circling thing on your own. Have fun, don't get dizzy.

I don't have a tail

Well I for one can't wait for Boris' first meeting with Turkey...

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/05...y-competition/

[Faltrad]

	Quote:	Loz1983
	Boris foreign secretary, David Davis Secretary of State for Brexit. Anyone still think that Article 50 won't be invoked? Good that May has put this one to bed straight away. Brexit is happening. Phew.

May's strategy is rather to make the Brexit happen while evoking article 50 as late as possible. By playing the clock, she will force the Europeans to discussions of some kind, it be Merkel makes a public statement that May is dishonest to not play by the rules. But Merkel doesn't have this kind of political courage, so don't expect an open war between Merkel and May.

May has already evoked this week the possible delay of the invocation of article 50 to 2017, it was "end of the year" in her words last week. She is very prompt to change her calendar and will infuriate the EU with it as much as she can. I can't tell you whether the EU will be strong enough to refuse negotiation before the evocation of the article 50, but I can assure you that the UK will use and misuse any division of the EU. The UK will also be used and misused by some EU countries to undermine unity for internal political reasons. Who will be more isolated: May or Merkel? We'll see.

Brexit only equals article 50 in the fair play legal sense of the term. Nobody is fair in politics and nobody cares about legality outside of Germany.

	Quote:
	Works for me as of a few seconds ago and I sure as hell don't have a Torygraph subscription.

Yes, it tracks numbers of articles and limits you to a certain number, used to be ten per month, not sure now.

Easy to get around though, just open the link in a new private session. Closer the private session periodically to reset the counter.

[greenmount]

	Quote:	Faltrad
	May's strategy is rather to make the Brexit happen while evoking article 50 as late as possible. By playing the clock, she will force the Europeans to discussions of some kind, it be Merkel makes a public statement that May is dishonest to not play by the rules. But Merkel doesn't have this kind of political courage, so don't expect an open war between Merkel and May. May has already evoked this week the possible delay of the invocation of article 50 to 2017, it was "end of the year" in her words last week. She is very prompt to change her calendar and will infuriate the EU with it as much as she can. I can't tell you whether the EU will be strong enough to refuse negotiation before the evocation of the article 50, but I can assure you that the UK will use and misuse any division of the EU. The UK will also be used and misused by some EU countries to undermine unity for internal political reasons. Who will be more isolated: May or Merkel? We'll see. Brexit only equals article 50 in the fair play legal sense of the term. Nobody is fair in politics and nobody cares about legality outside of Germany.

UK companies shouldn't have the same rights within EU anymore. Starting with referendum result day... That would be fair. Now, is Germany going to let them have their way...again? It did, so far.

[Faltrad]

	Quote:	greenmount
	UK companies shouldn't have the same rights within EU anymore. Starting with referendum result day... That would be fair.

Legally, the UK is member of the union as long as article 50 has not been invoked as the referendum was legally purely consultative. In other words, May wants to negotiate the Brexit as a full member of the EU, while the EU wants to do what is in EU treaty. However, if May wants to be a full member of the EU for a while she is disregarding the referendum results for a while too, then there is no Brexit to negotiate in the first place. From a German perspective, May wants to be a EU state free from EU law. Yep, that's what it will be like in the coming years....

	Quote:	Faltrad
	May's strategy is rather to make the Brexit happen while evoking article 50 as late as possible. By playing the clock, she will force the Europeans to discussions of some kind, it be Merkel makes a public statement that May is dishonest to not play by the rules. But Merkel doesn't have this kind of political courage, so don't expect an open war between Merkel and May. May has already evoked this week the possible delay of the invocation of article 50 to 2017, it was "end of the year" in her words last week. She is very prompt to change her calendar and will infuriate the EU with it as much as she can. I can't tell you whether the EU will be strong enough to refuse negotiation before the evocation of the article 50, but I can assure you that the UK will use and misuse any division of the EU. The UK will also be used and misused by some EU countries to undermine unity for internal political reasons. Who will be more isolated: May or Merkel? We'll see. Brexit only equals article 50 in the fair play legal sense of the term. Nobody is fair in politics and nobody cares about legality outside of Germany.

The point is this, the EU is helpless until Article 50 is invoked. They can't do anything. May will know this and could try and maintain the uncertainty over when Art. 50 will be invoked in order to give Britain the upper hand in negotiations.

Likewise, the EU will not be able to stop any informal negotiations taking place before Art. 50 is invoked as this will be in interest of both UK and EU.

It should only take a few months for the UK to re-enter EFTA. Exiting the EU is completed two years after invoking Article 50. Renegotiating a bilateral may take many, many years if ever as it requires approval by all 27 members, because this is an extremely dysfunctional bunch we are talking about.

The EU MUST cooperate with the UK, as there are articles in its charter on how it is to cooperate with neighbouring countries.

Plotting this course should only take until the end of the year. All that is needed here for now is stability and certainty in the process to offset overreactions and the Project Fear caused by Brexit.

The EU needs this stability with the UK more than the UK needs it.

	Quote:	Faltrad
	May wants to be a EU state free from EU law.

May was the only major candidate for Conservative leadership who supported remaining.

[Faltrad]

	Quote:	Loz1983
	The point is this, the EU is helpless until Article 50 is invoked. They can't do anything. May will know this and could try and maintain the uncertainty over when Art. 50 will be invoked in order to give Britain the upper hand in negotiations.

This is exactly what I was explaining. However, if Merkel is not only righteous German but also courageous German, she could say that there is no upper hand in an imaginary negotiation. Legally, by EU law, which Germany takes very seriously, there is nothing to discuss before the invocation of article 50. May can come and drink tea in Brussel as much as she wants, Merkel could in theory let her drink her tea alone and discuss Brexit with herself. I don't know whether the word "courage" belongs to the vocabulary of any politician since Harvey Milk.

	Quote:
	May was the only major candidate for Conservative leadership who supported remaining.

Nobody cares about that anymore, not even May herself. If she doesn't get Britten out of the EU, whether she likes it or not, her political career is dead. She clearly decided for career oven conviction by running for PM after Brexit.

[dodgyken]

With May as PM and Hammond in as Chancellor I was disappointed to hear there was no place for me in the cabinet

So glad that David Davis is Minister for Brexit. He speaks so much sense, furthermore he's a man of principle. If only he'd won the Tory leadership way back when, I might have considered voting for them.

http://www.conservativehome.com/plat...r-britain.html

	Quote:	Faltrad
	Nobody cares about that anymore

Apart from lots of Tory and non-Tory voters back in Blighty.

[Faltrad]

	Quote:
	Apart from lots of Tory and non-Tory voters back in Blighty.

Britten is divided, we got that. But a government facing the result of a referendum won't come back to the division issues before the next elections. If I remember right, it's 2020, so May might care AGAIN about it later, but not now. She is obviously convinced that she can keep the common market without any contribution to anything else and close the borders to her liking. We'll see what happen. From a French perspective, this is *mauvaise foi, from German perspective, this is dishonest, and seen from Eastern and south Europe, this is just a country that can pay but doesn't want to.

* disclaimer: there is no equivalent in English for mauvaise foi, one finds "in bad faith, dishonesty, two-faced". It's all of that a a bit more.