Getting brexit done!

[Kopfkino]

13 hours ago, Strokes said:

It’s pretty damning from the Italians, that when the chips are down they feel a distinct distrust and sense of abandonment of the EU.

 

Right I’m so bored of corona talk, I’m hoping we can re-spark former debates.

 

Taking all the past 4 years and putting them in a box, what would any of the leavers on this forum, that claimed reformation of the EU may have made them vote remain.

What reforms would have made you vote remain and why?

@Webbo @MattP @Darkon84 
Similar for sceptics too, what reforms would you like to see in  a united Europe @Kopfkino @bovril 

For me a complete Democratic overall would possibly tip the balance, or a massive scale back of the EUs duties and obligations.

If Europe is to act as state power, which it currently does. We should as the citizens should have full democratic reach over all of it.

The fact that the commission are appointed by leaders of the countries doesn’t sit well with me and European votes here are for our own parties, Lib Dem’s, the tories, Labour and snp etc. When European Parliament  is set up into groups that can swap about and you could easily have never had the opportunity to vote for a group that is to your ideals. I would like to see European Parliament be completely separate from domestic parties, and every party should be represented/available in each country if they are to stand any chance of controlling Parliament.

Freedom of movement should be tapered to give a minor advantage to natives but on a whole retained.

Legal powers should be stripped back and the ecj should only rule supreme on matters of trade.

 

Virus is well boring for sure, bring back Brexit.

 

It'd be more interesting to hear the remain and reform folk talk about what reforms they want and the roadmap to achieving them cos I don't think I've ever heard anything coherent on this front, personally think it's just a way of pretending to be intellectual or at least have some idea what they're on about to mask the fact they're just more heavily risk averse. I can deal with the proper European federalists because they actually have a position and argument, I can deal with the folk that are only arsed about GDP or 'the right to live and work in 27 other countries' because they're not pretending to be engaged, they're quite happy reducing it to tangibles in their life. I can just about deal with the FBPE types that have dived feet first into Euro nationalism and a quasi religious view of the EU as a deity of wonderfulness against satanic Englishness. But the remain and reform position is just vapid crap. 

 

Fundamentally, for me, in an ideal world, we'd have layers or tiers of Europe as was envisaged early and as Macron has tried to revive. Tbh I cbf with this idea of 'reform', I think it's a nonsense, it needs rebuilding not reforming. Let Germany, France, Belgium etc dive in as deep as they want to with a looser common market type of relationship for the UK, Sweden, Denmark and drag Norway etc into that, but that those countries would have some freedom to diverge if they chose but they'd end up in an outer sphere. It's a shame that no UK PM since Thatcher has publicly tried to lead on Europe. Had Major been at least slightly more useful than a wet kipper, you could have got a UK at a different vantage point and more passionate about its role in Europe as a result. The problem with the EU is it's too Franco.

 

But yeah it's always going to be sub-optimal so I'm happy enough that we're out on the basis of me being uncomfortable about getting balls deep into a federal system but also I wasn't personally too unhappy with the situation the UK had before leaving. I think it's naive to think you can have even a deep common market without significant influence from a 'European' court so I accept a significant role for an ECJ type institution. I like the AFSJ as well. I think you're right on reforms to the parliament but I don't actually believe the EU can ever be particularly democratic but I think that's down to my personal idea of democracy (influenced by Popper I guess) rather than because there's some qualifiable absolute of democracy.

 

Nothing useful can happen because instead of a vision for Europe that utilises national differences to its advantage they're treated as an inconvenience. Abstractly it'd be great to actually build a framework of something useful which lets any country use its strengths to the benefit of Europe and I think that's more likely to work with layers rather than shoe-horning everyone into the same thing. The Euro was a start on that front but it grew too quickly and didn't fit into a broader fiscal and monetary framework. 

 

Oh also yeah the Hungary situation makes a joke of the EU. Completely powerless to do much about a member state going rogue dictator and not even interested in saying anything about it (tho I realise people are otherwise engaged). The UK will be treated 'worse' for democratically deciding to change its relationship with 27 countries than a member of the club moving towards the antithesis of what the European dream should be about. 

 

 

Edited 6 April 2020 by Kopfkino

[WigstonWanderer]

Whatever happens now with Brexit, we’ll never know the true cost or benefit. If it all goes sour it will be blamed on Covid 19, and to be fair, the lasting economic effects of the disease are likely to completely swamp any good or bad that Brexit might have brought.

 

It reminds me of the scene at the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. After an exhaustive search, the Grail is thought be in the French castle. Forces are assembled to storm the castle and we’ll finally see if the Grail is there...

 

Then the police come in and break up the whole thing.

[Sly]

To be honest, a European Union would have worked better, if it was treated like a single state, like the US. 
 

Ultimately, I believe Europe is too diverse to accommodate this. 
 

Can you imagine some of the stuff you’d need to change, to accord are that, in Britain alone. 

 

 

[Kopfkino]

Scenes

https://www.ft.com/content/f94725c8-e038-4841-a5f6-2e046ae78e95

 

[bmt]

6 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

Scenes

https://www.ft.com/content/f94725c8-e038-4841-a5f6-2e046ae78e95

 

Works as an argument both for the end of the EU and the closer integration of it too!

[Guest MattP]

2 minutes ago, bmt said:

Works as an argument both for the end of the EU and the closer integration of it too!

I think this whole thing has shown how fragile the EU is in the event of something like this, the borders have gone back up, individual nation states are taking their own decisions, supply chains broken, state aid laws being walked over and cap it off it's even got itself a dictatorship in the East.

 

The European Union is existing in name only at the minute.

 

The future might be less globalism, less travel and more localism. If so it blows the EU project apart.

[Kopfkino]

5 minutes ago, bmt said:

Works as an argument both for the end of the EU and the closer integration of it too!

"though the ideals of international collaboration I continue to support with enthusiasm.” This is the key point for me. You can believe in the ideals of the EU but be anti-EU. It's an argument I wish I saw more of, integrationists opposed to the EU and showing some imagination for an alternative rather than supporting the EU cos it does a bit of what they want and not very well. The future prospects of European integration for me rest on realising the EU is flawed and reimagining it rather than being stuck in a sunk cost fallacy and papering over the cracks each time.

 

So for me it's an argument for both as a package.

[bmt]

7 minutes ago, MattP said:

I think this whole thing has shown how fragile the EU is in the event of something like this, the borders have gone back up, individual nation states are taking their own decisions, supply chains broken, state aid laws being walked over and cap it off it's even got itself a dictatorship in the East.

 

The European Union is existing in name only at the minute.

 

The future might be less globalism, less travel and more localism. If so it blows the EU project apart.

Completely agree. It's not fit for purpose. I am a believer in a European project, but this isn't it.

 

1 minute ago, Kopfkino said:

"though the ideals of international collaboration I continue to support with enthusiasm.” This is the key point for me. You can believe in the ideals of the EU but be anti-EU. It's an argument I wish I saw more of, integrationists opposed to the EU and showing some imagination for an alternative rather than supporting the EU cos it does a bit of what they want and not very well. The future prospects of European integration for me rest on realising the EU is flawed and reimagining it rather than being stuck in a sunk cost fallacy and papering over the cracks each time.

 

So for me it's an argument for both as a package.

Also agree with this

[leicsmac]

12 minutes ago, MattP said:

I think this whole thing has shown how fragile the EU is in the event of something like this, the borders have gone back up, individual nation states are taking their own decisions, supply chains broken, state aid laws being walked over and cap it off it's even got itself a dictatorship in the East.

 

The European Union is existing in name only at the minute.

 

The future might be less globalism, less travel and more localism. If so it blows the EU project apart.

"X country first" nationalism is most often an outcome in times of crisis - that's reasonably obvious and it's reasonably clear things are on a knife-edge, as you say.

 

That doesn't mean that such localism when it comes to all policy decisions (as opposed to those that merely affect the nation involved) is a desirous outcome for the future, though.

Edited 8 April 2020 by leicsmac

[Guest MattP]

Does the EU actually have a policy, process or article for expelling a nation from it?

 

It genuinely wouldn't surprise me if they didn't.

[Gordon the Great]

4 hours ago, MattP said:

I think this whole thing has shown how fragile the EU is in the event of something like this, the borders have gone back up, individual nation states are taking their own decisions, supply chains broken, state aid laws being walked over and cap it off it's even got itself a dictatorship in the East.

 

The European Union is existing in name only at the minute.

 

The future might be less globalism, less travel and more localism. If so it blows the EU project apart.

Good!

[Nick]

I’m not sure it’s true that the EU are functioning only in name - they’ve just put financial packages together for struggling countries haven’t they?

 

Anyway I didn’t come In to the thread to rise to Uncle Provocateur comments... 😝 

 

What I was going to say is that weirdly, due to the pandemic I’m actually quite hopeful now for Brexit. There’s going to be a much more level playing field as the downturn of multiple economies should mean a willingness to compromise and get trade moving as quickly as possible - not just with the EU but the US and others likely won’t have us bent over such a large barrel.

 

I’m also hoping that Brexiteers banging on about immigrants now recognise the sacrifices this group have made and what value they bring to our nation - and how screwed we’d be right now without them. Hopefully when it comes to deciding the format for residency that becomes a factor. To hear Piers Morgan say it out loud the other day - well I thought it was a spoof parody to begin with.

 

 

 

 

[Guest MattP]

Kinky.

[Strokes]

6 minutes ago, MattP said:

Kinky.

Personally on such an issue, as with the UK. I still think larger sample sizes are needed.

[Nicolo Barella]

To be honest, there's two main things that still annoy me about Brexit.

 

The fact that an extremely complicated decision was boiled down to "stay or go" when its many permutations were bound to complicate it being put into practice, and nobody even knowing what staying or going would entail. And the fact that the EU's environmental regulations were much stronger and will undoubtedly be much stronger than whatever half-assed measures designed solely for profit that the Tories cook up. 

 

At this point though, whatever, its happened, I just hope to live in a world without collapsing ecosystems in 30 years.

[Dahnsouff]

6 hours ago, Nicolo Barella said:

To be honest, there's two main things that still annoy me about Brexit.

 

The fact that an extremely complicated decision was boiled down to "stay or go" when its many permutations were bound to complicate it being put into practice, and nobody even knowing what staying or going would entail. And the fact that the EU's environmental regulations were much stronger and will undoubtedly be much stronger than whatever half-assed measures designed solely for profit that the Tories cook up. 

 

At this point though, whatever, its happened, I just hope to live in a world without collapsing ecosystems in 30 years.

This is why I will forever think David Cameron is a few kin coward. If he could not stand up to the ERG then he has not fit to lead the party.

[Spudulike]

So have I got this right? 

 

Barnier is saying that we can't negotiate as Sovereign equals as the EU is bigger than the UK?

 

Its not going well, is it? Or perhaps it is from the UK side so we can leave without an FTA and blame it on Brussels? 

[Nick]

On 24/04/2020 at 17:47, Spudulike said:

So have I got this right? 

 

Barnier is saying that we can't negotiate as Sovereign equals as the EU is bigger than the UK?

 

Its not going well, is it? Or perhaps it is from the UK side so we can leave without an FTA and blame it on Brussels? 

I hope there’s a deal - a good one.

 

But my twitchy arse wonders if it’s always been the Boris plan to leave on WTO rules.

[oxford blue]

I think it reasonable to think Barnier's comments are just trying to put pressure on the UK; he is used to dictating terms as happened with the initial agreement. It's reported he is bemanding the same access to UK waters for EU fishermen; unsurprisingly the UK will not agree to that. 

 

I still think there will be a deal; there is now more pressure on both sides to avoid the disruption and economic hit to all economies.

[l444ry]

Brexiters should be over the moon. Freedom of movement is what they wanted stopped and Covid-19 has done it for them. 

[Spudulike]

Not sure that we've seen Barnier that stressed out before. Almost starting to feel like the tide has turned (pun intended). 

[Toddybad]

20 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Not sure that we've seen Barnier that stressed out before. Almost starting to feel like the tide has turned (pun intended). 

Haven't seen any clip of him but the EU previously published its 350 page negotiating position. Where's ours? No doubt some Cummings game is at work. It's like we're being run by a secondary school level student council.

 

35 minutes ago, oxford blue said:

I think it reasonable to think Barnier's comments are just trying to put pressure on the UK; he is used to dictating terms as happened with the initial agreement. It's reported he is bemanding the same access to UK waters for EU fishermen; unsurprisingly the UK will not agree to that. 

 

I still think there will be a deal; there is now more pressure on both sides to avoid the disruption and economic hit to all economies.

Biggest concern at the moment is how the UK can get supplies it badly needs if the current crisis keeps running into next year and we end up competing with a much bigger market for access to medical equipment etc.

 

I mean, we've left the EU, it's done. I can't understand why anybody would think it beneficial to not put off trade competition Vs the EU until after the Covid situation has played out. The idea it's remainders trying to keep us tied to the EU is stupid, we're already out, but this is a pretty stupid time to be trying to play hardball when you're the weaker team. 

[bovril]

23 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Not sure that we've seen Barnier that stressed out before. Almost starting to feel like the tide has turned (pun intended). 

It's not a zero-sum game though, despite what a lot of Brexiters think. We can both lose, and covid-19 will make that loss worse for both sides. Our loss will probably hit more but theirs will be bad too. I guess Barnier realises this. 

[Spudulike]

1 hour ago, bovril said:

It's not a zero-sum game though, despite what a lot of Brexiters think. We can both lose, and covid-19 will make that loss worse for both sides. Our loss will probably hit more but theirs will be bad too. I guess Barnier realises this. 

The fishing card being held by the UK appears to be bigger than it seemed. 

 

If Barnier's mandate is to secure equivalent CFP rights then something has to give. The cost of moving frozen fish from elsewhere is not going to be popular (or desirable) on the continent. Not sure what % of the EU's fish comes from UK waters but it must be quite high. 

[bovril]

11 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

The fishing card being held by the UK appears to be bigger than it seemed. 

 

Shame we're involved in a high stakes game of poker during the worst crisis the world has seen since the war. Doesn't do much credit to the country.