Brexit

Well no one thought that the Leavers would win the Referendum and no planning had been done, David Cameron quit and went off to make his fortune.

We trade goods to other countries outside of the EU and have done for years, EU countries trade with America etc, just look to follow those rules. The referendum was 27 months plus ago all sides have had time to prepare.

First of all. Your use of the term ‘remoaners’ indicates you are the type of person to denegrate anyone who has a different opinion to you. Ie narrow minded.
Second of all. We don’t put more money into the EU than we get out. Do some research. The whole leave campaign was based on lies. If you’re cool with increased tariffs, job losses, increased difficulties going abroad, food and fuel shortages, and price increases, crack on. But hey, at least you’ll have your country back and Johnny Foreigner isn’t gonna come over and steal your job! (Or clean your office, or look after you in hospital, or serve you in restaurants)

Brexit is a sh*t show and if we crash out of the EU in March with no deal, EVERYONE in this country is going to suffer, no matter how you voted.

love, a Remoaner x 

....including millions of people who came here decades ago from other EU nations to live and work, and who made their homes here, contributed to society, fell in love, raised children, and who in the event of a no-deal brexit face the prospect of losing their status overnight. As it is they have already had 2 and a half years of anxiety and uncertainty and even with a deal, have to contemplate paying for the privilege of applying to remain here. 'Applying' bringing with it all the implications that applications aren't always accepted.

Oh and, of course, they weren't allowed to vote, so weren't given any say over their own future status in the UK, along with all the UK citizens resident in the rest of the EU who will be significantly affected especially by a no-deal brexit.

That there are those who seem comfortable with the idea we might do this to milions of people is deeply saddening, and on its own highlights the unreason and lack of compassion that brexit has exposed.

I've had this discussion with brexiters who are very open about their belief that brexit must happen at literally ANY cost, regardless of its impact, no matter how impoverished it might make us, which they accept might happen, but they don't care about that.

Most companies simply can’t weather losing a chunk of revenue for months at a time. It doesn’t matter to them if they were to get double the revenue from the change in a year’s time - they’ll have gone bust by then. Cash flow is everything.

This degree of uncertainty is already depressing our economy, is the truth, because businesses have had to contingency plan for no-deal brexit instead of investing in their business. Even if they manage to come out with the best possible solution tomorrow, it has already been a colossal waste.

Question - if Scotland had voted to leave the UK a few years back, would the EU have allowed it? Spain would surely have blocked Scotland from becoming an EU member in its own right. And if Scotland tries again now, what?

I echo everything you said. It underlines how, certainly for most of the brexiters I've spoken with or whose comments I've read, brexit is more an ideology, a belief system like a religion, than a practical real-life solution to anything in particular. This is emphasised by their lack of interest in or knowledge of any of the pertinent details, as typified by the earlier "we'll just trade with other countries, what's the problem?" comments. Ditto, "we can just walk away." "Don't bother paying the divorce bill, see how they like that." When in fact it's not a divorce bill, it's a set of legal financial obligations. If we renege on that, our financial reputation and standing will be badly tarnished and our credit rating will plummet. Yes, that'll facilitate all this booming trade we're apparently going to be doing, won't it.

Amid a clutch of major unresolved issues that collectively make my knees shake, this is possibly the biggest for me. The technology you refer to hasn't even been invented yet as far as I know. Meanwhile, there's about 3300 hours to go...

Another question I've repeatedly asked brexiters, and received no answer to, is how in tangible practical terms will brexit help the poorest and most vulnerable people in the UK?

All I've ever got in reply is silence and tumbleweed, except one or two who've said "Why should I answer you?"

I keep telling myself that actually falling off the cliff is *so* politically unacceptable that they will *have* to buckle under and agree to a deal to avoid it - but it does scare me that there are people capable of blocking it who won’t get the blame, and so won’t face political consequences for doing so, and are ideologically committed to principles that are incompatible to any NI solution that has been proposed thus far.

I've been told I need to "Believe in Britain", but I don't see how that is going to help. My opinion isn't going to change a thing. The only opinions that matter are those of people who (a) run foreign companies that might choose to trade with us, or (b) have billions of dollars/euros/whatever to invest and might choose to invest it here. I could believe in Britain as much as I liked, but unless I suddenly become a multibillionaire that belief isn't going to mean squat.

The reason for that, of course, is that the Leave side has consistently failed to grasp the simple fact that this is not a negotiation. The EU is a treaty-based organisation, the single market and the customs union only function if all participants follow all the rules, and we have chosen to leave (well, I didn't, but that's the road the country is on at the moment). It's not a case of "bullying" by Brussels; there is nothing to negotiate. There is simply a sliding scale: the amount of access we'll get depends on how many of the rules we're prepared to follow. The rules are not going to change simply because Liam Fox would like them to, or because unscrupulous politicians sold voters a fantasy package that bears no resemblance whatsoever to what is going to be possible in the real world.

This was LOUDLY obvious before the vote. It's been loudly obvious ever since. No amount of wishful thinking will make it go away. And since there is also no credible solution to the Irish border that doesn't involve full membership in the single market and the customs union, all Mrs. May achieved in setting out her red lines in her ridiculous Mansion House speech was to box herself into a corner.

I blame Noel Edmonds.

Bear with me.

I hadn’t watched the afternoon TV staple ‘Deal or no Deal’ until I visited my parents and they watched it every day. I couldn’t get my head around the idea of the show - ‘so there is no element of skill! It’s just luck?’ ‘So why do they believe that they can magically overcome the natural outcome of random failure?’ ‘Why do they gamble away what they have had the good luck to win, in the hope of some fantasy outcome, given the long odds of success?. I still can’t understand what made it into a ratings hit, with its unholy alliance of ‘greed ‘and that relentless nemesis known as ‘reality’. Was it the idea of beating fate in a random universe? Give me games of skill any day, you are in control of those (or at least you can try and improve through practice).

Anyway, even without the audience’s constant exhortations for the contestants to go for ‘no deal’ (seriously, the whole setup was like an ERG fantasy), I thought it revealed a lot about the country’s psyche here and now. It even had as its hate figure a banker thus cementing a populist political message for the whole unsettling farrago.

So I blame Noel Edmonds.

Just a bit.

To be fair, some days that's my default for nearly everything.