Brexit

You know what? I can’t look for solutions. I don’t have the knowledge and I don’t have the influence. I voted to remain and, when the vote was to Leave, I waited to see what the plan was. I’m still waiting. I’d quite like some of the people who got us into this position to “look for solutions”. Otherwise those of us who said there wouldn’t be any easy solutions might feel that they have been proven right. But actually, I take no enjoyment from that. Because I really hoped that there was a plan, somewhere, that avoided a no deal exit. Maybe Monkey is right and “it will all be ok”. But I’d like to hear that from experts involved in trade and business - or, frankly, a politician right now and I’m not hearing it.

If you’d like to suggest how I, a mere voter, can “look for solutions” in a way that can influence May and Barnier I’d love to know.

There's a solution on the table that solves the Ireland/Gibraltar border issues, will preserve nearly all aspects of our current trade relationships, and that will stop us losing most of the rights/privileges/opportunities that will get flushed down the toilet if we adhere to May's red lines: Norway-plus-customs-union. May isn't pursuing it because it doesn't pander sufficiently to the delusions of her racist/foaming-at-the-mouth back-benchers.

Beyond that, it is not my job to find solutions to this mess. The people who campaigned for the Leave side sold the electorate a deliberately nebulous vision that was long on (empty) promises and short - very short - on specific detail, and that was a calculated, cynical choice on their part: since Brexit is essentially about bringing about a regulatory bonfire that will remove at a single stroke most of the rights and protections enshrined in EU law, it would not have served the Leave campaign to define their vision of post-Brexit Britain clearly. What we're seeing now is the inevitable consequence of a campaign whose promises - aside from the £350 million on the side of a bus - were sufficiently vague that they allowed discontented voters to project all their individual (and largely justifiable) grievances onto the same (misplaced) target. "Brexit means Brexit", and the Brexit the nation was sold is undeliverable, because the Leave campaign never articulated a coherent overall vision of what Brexit would look like. That's why we've ended up where we are now.

Since the referendum, instead of coming up with some kind of concrete plan that will offer a constructive way forward and begin to heal the divisions generated by an outcome in which the distance between the leave and remain votes was within the statistical margin of error, the government has consistently chosen the most damaging, muddled, bull-headed way forward possible, frequently insulting the half of the electorate that didn't fall for the Leave campaign's lies. That line about "citizens of nowhere" deserved to end May's career, and if there's any justice it will haunt her for the rest of her life; to those of us who have lived overseas for any length of time, whether in Europe or further afield, it was a kick in the teeth.

We've heard a lot of rhetoric about red lines and bullying and intransigent bureaucrats in Brussels (as if the rules under which the EU operates were somehow passively imposed on the UK, rather than something we helped to write), but the government's negotiating position - if such it may be called - has still, more than two years down the road, yet to enter the orbit of anything even slightly resembling reality. The tone of the national conversation is ugly, divisive, and frequently alarmingly racist, and instead of holding the government to account, which is their job, the front bench of our largest party of opposition has been more or less entirely supine. We've seen a series of revelations about dark money, potential foreign interference, the kind of cheating that in a general election would lead to an immediate rerun (I live in a constituency where that actually happened after the 2010 general election), but electoral law in this country is weak when it comes to dealing with both referendums and technological interference, and the collective response of the government and the opposition to wholesale electoral fraud has been a resounding 'meh'.

You won’t get the surge in public support to change things unless people actually feel the pain. And it would have to be something simple, and directly attributable to Brexit. Something like people being told that their summer holiday is cancelled because planes can’t fly.

All the subtle, complicated, long-term knock-on effects of economic changes will be accepted with a shrug, or ignored, or hand-waved away.

Nobody (well, very few) actively want the chaos option but, given that we are at a complete impasse, it is quite likely going to happen through the failure of anything else.

To me, fudge and delay is the only answer which avoids it. Incremental shifts, just enough to kick the can a bit further ahead without breaking anything. I think (though impossible to tell) that May has been toying with that but her gangster-like demand for respect suggests maybe not.

Sadly there are forces in play that want the chaos, whether that be disaster capitalists like JRM, right wing or left wing agitators looking for a revolution or just plain old anarchists. Amazingly we’ve ended up with a number of them close to the centre of power at just this moment. A perfect confluence of disaster but such is history.

Why might chaos ensue? Because the centre is in trouble and the fringes do not want compromise. Those who do not compromise only ever learn through suffering. Ireland, most recently on these shores, took decades to emerge from that. Again, history teaches us this.

We need, sadly, to be regularly reminded of that history.

I think the GOVERNMENT should be finding a solution, gang, it is after all their job to govern the country in the best interests of its citizens. We can vote for our best candidates, write letters to politicians and newspapers, go on marches, peacefully protest in whatever way we know how, but this "we" is disingenuous. It is not my job to do all the negotiating and planning necessary, nor would I have any authority whatsoever if I did want to take matters into my own hands. Honestly, one person thinks we just sit here and whine without entertaining the possibility that there's a lot of stuff we do away from the board that they don't see, another person thinks we should be stepping away from the board and sorting out the mess ourselves, can you all at least get on the same page as to whether we're completely powerless or all-powerful before telling us we're wrong to be having discussions on a discussion board?

The clock is ticking down and Party Conferences taken up two more weeks - the leaders of all parties are under pressure. The Democratic Unionists are shoring up a Conservative minority government so they have to be kept onside over the Irish Border Deal,

But if no deal is likely it will be as bad for the EU as it is for us and maybe the UK holding firm would make the EU blink first and get back around the table if there was a stalemate.

A general election would be the worse thing to happen too as it would put negotiations on hold for another month or so and if there was no majority government that could take up more crucial time.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion (of course) however, I am London based and as I type this, I have only met one person who voted to leave.

So, now that it's happening, I'm just waiting for the announcement for EU Nations to apply for the Settled Status, which I believe, is happening next month.

Despite being Australian, I hold dual passports and legally am an EU National, so....

I don't want it to fail. Or rather, I don't want the country to fail. If Brexit fails - if (unlikely but far from impossible) it collapses and ends up not happening, or happening in such a watered-down form that it's indistinguishable from the status quo - I will dance on its grave. If it goes ahead according to any of May's red lines, the economy will probably eventually somewhat recover, but it isn't simply about trade and the economy: I want to avoid significant rights - rights that I value - getting flushed down the toilet on the back of a parade of lies and dog-whistle racism.

Yep, point taken. It was an impulsive comment based on the previous few “were all going to DIE” posts. I hope that most people involved in this discussion are fairly robust and that it didn’t distress anyone unduly. 

I think the EU does need Britain as it was a big contributor plus if other countries see the UK gets a decent deal on leaving they might decide to look at doing so.

But we would not be like say US leaving Nato where Trump could say "we'll button down the hatches and don't come running when Putin gets aggressive".

Being very cynical the guy to really blame on this is David Cameron he called the referendum and nobody really thought leave would win. But people hate being told what to do, the polls said Trump wouldn't win and he did and they thought Corbyn would be wiped out at last election but he wasn't and did better than previous two Labour Leaders. Often the ruling class of both parties are tucked away in Westminster hearing what they want to hear and don't get out on the street and talk to the average person of whatever age/race/political persuasion etc.