This is what keeps me warm at night.

Let them vent... at the end of the day we won and we will be out of the EU in the not too distant future.

You really are out of touch with real world. Never mind in your little world the sun always shines and you at least must be perfect.
Enjoy, you deserve yourself.

Did you pinch that poster from the Jehovah's Witnesses?

Oh joy, the "In the future when all's well" line.

So in your cosy nest of joy, do you think we're heading for Hard Brexit?

Why do people panic about Brexit? The overreaction is embarrassing. Only 27 countries are in it, its if which are small and economically weak, Britain managed to get by for centuries before we joined the wretched thing, People need some sense of proportion and self-respect.








weak.

And your 'real world' consists of what?

A world where an unelected and untouchable body decides non-negotiable laws and policy for the UK?
A world where the utterly fookin stoopid concept of 'freedom of movement' between hugely uneven economies is a good idea?
A world where bananas are too bent?


A world where getting all 28 countries to ratify anything is only marginally more successful than Warrington winning a Grand Final?
A world where the UK sends £13 billion a year to Brussels and receives only £4.5 billion in return?
A world where the great experiment of the Euro has brought nothing but economic misery?
A world where the creeping entry of Turkey into EU is anything but a looming disaster?
A world where the snowflake loony left have grown far too accustomed to this bonkers ideology and can't see it for the idiocy it is?

If that's your world you're welcome to it.





The bottom line is we would never have joined the EU in its current form. Yes, some tough times are ahead but extricating ourselves from this mire was always going to be a rocky road.

Yes, we've all heard that, many, many times. Very few people genuinely doubt most EU immigrants seek work. But it's not quite as simple as that. Millions of immigrants in such a short space of time was always going to be a strain, both on our infrastructure and our communities.

The crux of the issue is that we can't control the numbers. If you can't control the numbers, you can't plan effectively. If you can't plan effectively, how do you know how many schools, hospitals, roads and houses to build? How many doctors and nurses do we need? How many police? How many assets do local councils need to invest in?

Some of these projects take years, even decades to bring to fruition and it's no wonder our infrastructure hasn't been able to expand in line with the incoming numbers. Simple as that.

The fact is that too many people from smaller, weaker and failing countries are heading to the UK (and other more successful economies). I don't blame them for that, I blame the EU. Sensible, structured immigration can be a wonderful asset to any country. Uncontrolled freedom of movement is just plain idiotic, especially amongst such uneven economies.

Of course we got by prior to joining the EU.
For many of the centuries that you speak about, the world was somewhat less developed than it is today and it was easy for the British poeple to sail around the world and colonise some of these countries and we were a major player in the world.
Thankfully, the world has moved on and many of the Commonwealth nationa are ridding themselves of our rule, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc.

The Brexit vote was born out of fear and wanting to put 2 fingers up to the state and Farage in some respects had an easy "sell".

Following the Banking crisis we have had the best part of 7 years of austerity, which was down to the Financial sector running wild and gambling with the futures of most of the population.
Ironically, this sector will become more important as we go it alone as we put our trust in the very people that nearly bankrupt half of the nation.

In difficult times, it's usually wise to stick with your friends and allies but we are doing the opposite.





Foolish

Hard Brexit / Soft Brexit are just woolly phrases made up remainers because of the negative connotations associated with the former.

There is no 'hard' or 'soft' brexit. There is just brexit and everything that comes with that.

I think the hard or soft has more to do with the style of negotiations and just where our "red lines" are.
For instance, we could allow some free movement in return for free access to the single market or we could just say "we're out" and go with the full consequences of this.
Send all the immigrants home, return all of our ex pats, refuse any NHS treatment for "johnny foreigner" so, of course there are many options.
Call them hard, soft or, whatever you like but there are plenty of different ways for this to play out.

There was me thinking a "soft" Brexit would be akin to Norway, not part of the European Union but a member of the European Economic Area.

Whereas a "hard" Brexit would require negotiations similar to the Canadian model in order to trade with Europe, which only took seven years to broker.

Regarding woolly phrases, I would say on that topic Brexiters have the upper hand with quotes like

"It'll all be o.k. - in the long run".

Yet another top post , yes we will have problems to deal with , but it will be our decisions , yet no doubt we will see somebody suggesting we should have stayed in and used our influence , knowing full well we had no influence

We have a fair bit more influence on the inside than on the outside

Do we ?

Wrencat ! , pick the bones out of this ? , don't just go for the easy single points from me

Non negotiable laws is certainly mis leading.
We (the UK) still make our own laws through Westminster.
Freedom of Movement needs dealing with and there is little doubt that there will be a change to this ideal, which was ok at the outset of The EU but, is now totally impractical.
28 countries do ratify certain things but, I agree, it's too many voices to make decisions quickly.
The £8.5 billion figure, whilst being a huge figure, will be chicken feed compared to the cost of trading with the EU, when a new agreement is reached to trade with the EU - notice the black picture that is being painted of the UK economic forecasts since Brexit, not to mention the poor value of sterling, which will cost the UK far more than £8.5 billion over the next couple of years.
I'll ignore the economic misery, largely brought about by the banking sector, which affected countries like the US, who are not in the EU.
(having said that, The Greeks would have a different view).
Turkey is an extremely delicate situation and whether or not the EU exists this isnt going to change anytime soon.

There are plenty of faults with the EU and only a fool would try and say it was ideal, however, the timing of the referendum could hardly be worse economically and changes on freedom of movement will have to happen, whether the UK is a member or not.
Equally, the EU has been largely trouble free for the last 40 years and it's ability to work together on issues like the Environment and Peace are critical.

As I said, far from perfect but, which nation is ?

With the UK having voted out, it would suit us for the whole EU situation to fail and then there would be the chance to have free trade agreements etc.
However, if anyone thinks that the UK will be able to import goods tariff free from other countries and use them to gain a competetive edge to sell back into our largest export market, they are clearly deluded.

Btw, I quite like my Bananas bent

Brilliant post. How can someone who claims to be so clever come across as being so stupid. I'd love to pick each point apart but I really can't be bothered as it will just cause an argument and there is nothing more annoying than losing an argument with someone who is too stupid to understand your points
Regards

King james

Yes, we still make our own laws...and the EU Commission and Council make others we can do nothing (or very little) about. The main point being...we have an elected government, where is the sense in turning law-making powers over to an unelected body? Crazy.
Freedom of movement will NEVER be dealt with. It's a core pillar of EU policy and those in power believe in it utterly. Their refusal to compromise was another reason I chose my vote. Freedom of movement is great news for Poland and Hungary and Greece and Spain and Italy...and I'll give you one guess where they're all heading? The UK, Germany, France, some Scandinavian nations. No-one is heading the other way. No-one.
Black economic picture? All I'm seeing is good news...investment, growth, etc. Yes, inflation is up ad the pound is on a rollercoaster but for the umpteenth time (getting boring now), we all knew Brexit would deliver tough times. Long term, however, we will reap the benefits. Most of the naysayers are revising their forecasts - though of course we all accept Article 50 has yet to be triggered.
The Euro has been an unmitigated disaster. Tying in so many countries with vastly different economic and social structures simply means any single country facing economic crisis cannot deal with it effectively independently. They can't twiddle their exchange and/or interest rates, or print notes - they can only come begging to the EU. Economic policy delivered from (and largely for) Brussels and Germany has plunged other nations into oblivion.
Turkey has us by the knackers. They can open the floodgates and allow millions more refugees and immigrants across the border unless the EU bends to its will. Turkey's membership (or part-membership) is creeping closer every day. The EU is trapped between rising anti-immigrant, anti-open border sentiment across the bloc and a need to satisfy Turkey.

One of the core issues with the EU is the nature of its leaders. An elite far removed from the poor streets of Greece and Portugal, who cling to the deluded and failing dream. I work with many Europeans (mainly Germans and Germanics), and their stubbornness can be astounding. Don't expect them to back down and offer compromise or ever, ever, ever admit the great EU experiment is riddled with critical faults.

The original concept of free trade was wonderful. What a shame it was hijacked. Mr Delors has a lot to answer for, the deluded Socialist fool.

Come back when the adults have finished talking.

If the RFL put me in charge of the England team we'd be beating the Aussies in the 4 nations/World cup , but I can't be bothered applying for the job
Regards

King Ste

Excellent post.

On freedom of movement, you are bang on.
A superb ideal and worked well with the original incumbents of the EU. However, I agree that in it's current guise, it's no longer realistic.
It clearly needs changing and with the current feeling among the key players within the EU, if this "pillar" is not amended, this alone will see the EU crumble, it clearly needs dealing with.
The economic situation and timing of the referendum were the key reasons why I voted remain and unless there is a "soft Brexit", the UK is in grave danger of entering a further recession and having barely begun to recover from the Banking crisis, I think that it is/was reckless to put the economy in jeopardy again so soon and I just dont understand the benefits of becoming a stand alone trading nation, who relies very heavily on
the EU market, which, following the vote, simply has to make life difficult for the UK, if only to prevent the complete collapse of the EU.
Of course there have been positive words from the Bank of England but, we are balancing on a knife edge and an impotent government, without direction, could very well see us crash and burn.
Time will tell which one of us is right, let's just hope its you.

David Davis has been today on about paying for access to the EU single market (which means accepting the rules, so much for "takng back control" ) along with saying he expects to see “pretty free access” to the UK for skilled labour as he doesn't want to create labour shortages.

Apparently according to him the government's focus is controlling immigration when we just had immigration figures out for the year to June showing 289,000 migrants arriving from outside of the EU, 284,000 from within plus 77,000 returning Brits. Net figure is 355,000 so he could in theory more than halve that figure and even exceed the government's own target of 100,000 net without going to the trouble of leaving the EU just by tackling non-EU immigration.

You could not make this stuff up.

The point being you clearly don't know what you are talking about. The EU commission is made up of 1 President , 7 Vice Presidents and 28 members, one from each state. The president is [uelected[/u by the European Parliament which is of course made up of [uelected[/u M.E.P's. The president then chooses the 28 commissioners based on nominations of the [uelected[/u national governments of the member states but the final makeup of the commission must be approved by the Council - which is made up of 28 ministers from national governments who are of course [uelected[/u and it must also approved by the European Parliament which as I said is of course made up of [uelected[/u M.E.P's.

Law making in the EU is now undertaken by what is known as the "ordinary legislative procedure" which works on the principle that consent from both the Council and European Parliament are required before a law may be adopted. The EU Commission may propose a new law but it must go through this process to become law.

So to summarise neither the EU Commission nor Council are unelected, the EU commission cannot pass laws only propose them (EU parliament can and does also propose laws) and laws can't be passed without the agreement of the [uelected[/u representatives of the Council and EU Parliament.

So your suggestion we turned law making over to an unelected body is complete and utter hogwash. It's also ironic since we in the UK have an unelected House of Lords and government often does appoint unelected Lords as government ministers. The EU is far more democratic than our own government.



So what do you expect to happen? We close the borders? Well you were told today by Davis he expects to see “pretty free access” to the UK for skilled labour and also that we allowed in 289,000 migrants from [uoutside the EU[/u. The government's own target is 100,000 net.

Unless you naively think the UK can function with closed borders you are going to have to accept some migration to the UK. How many will you accept? Do you think all EU migrants are low skilled fruit pickers (they aren't) and don't bring skills we need?




The latest OBR prediction of the cost is based on less pessimistic assumptions than all the other economic bodies. It is still a disaster waiting to happen. On what do you base your prediction that "Long term, however, we will reap the benefits"?

You should have realised by now freedom of movement or not, you are not going to see a significant reduction in migration and if we want to retain access to the EU single market we will pay for it and obey its rules (David Davis again) and that the government wants to do this because it knows the alternative is to put it mildly, not good. You have been well and truly conned.




The Euro is complete irrelevance.

We aren't in it because G Brown had the sense not to join and I just can't believe people ignore the outright corruption of Goldman Sachs's fiddling Greek books and Greek incompetence where basically paying tax was voluntary! The mess many of these countries are in (including Italy) is as much their own doing as anyone else's. But like I said we are not in the Euro so it is irrelevant to the Brexit debate.

As to Turkey you are making that up from start to finish. It is nothing more than UKIP inspired lies.



Good grief you must have been watching too many reruns of Dad's Army. Germans are stubborn? Really? What about the rest of the EU nationalities? Do they not have a say in matters (of course they do just as we do). Are we going to start vetting the racial characteristics of the countries we want to make trade deals with outside the EU when we leave?

Perhaps many Europeans like the EU and see it as a positive? Recent polls suggest so. It's probably got a lot to do with their own governments not blaming the EU for everything that goes wrong unlike our own which has always used it as a scapegoat for its own incompetence.



The original concept never was limited to free trade. It was always a political union as well as a free trade association. Very early concepts such as the common agricultural policy were designed to tie its members together and to try and ensure Europe didn't starve (thus avoid promoting unrest) for example. It has always been about cooperation with a view to avoiding rivalry, conflict and wars. Seems to have worked. Did you know 13 of its current members were former dictatorships? You can't be an EU member and a dictatorship so the aim of EU membership and the EU's direct assistance in this process has helped democratise many countries.

Finally what laws/initiatives the EU has had a hand in do you object to and do you think a UK government would have done as much or had the legislative capacity to do so:

What did the EEC/EU ever do for us? Not much, apart from: providing 57% of our trade; structural funding to areas hit by industrial decline; clean beaches and rivers; cleaner air; lead free petrol; restrictions on landfill dumping; a recycling culture; cheaper mobile charges; cheaper air travel; improved consumer protection and food labelling; a ban on growth hormones and other harmful food additives; better product safety; single market competition bringing quality improvements and better industrial performance; break up of monopolies; Europe-wide patent and copyright protection; no paperwork or customs for exports throughout the single market; price transparency and removal of commission on currency exchanges across the eurozone; freedom to travel, live and work across Europe; funded opportunities for young people to undertake study or work placements abroad; access to European health services; labour protection and enhanced social welfare; smoke-free workplaces; equal pay legislation; holiday entitlement; the right not to work more than a 48-hour week without overtime; strongest wildlife protection in the world; improved animal welfare in food production; EU-funded research and industrial collaboration; EU representation in international forums; bloc EEA negotiation at the WTO; EU diplomatic efforts to uphold the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; European arrest warrant; cross border policing to combat human trafficking, arms and drug smuggling; counter terrorism intelligence; European civil and military co-operation in post-conflict zones in Europe and Africa; support for democracy and human rights across Europe and beyond; investment across Europe contributing to better living standards and educational, social and cultural capital.

Wow this European Union sounds really great. So great that more people voted to leave it than have ever voted for anything....ever.......

The saying about "you dont know what you've got till it's gone" may be relevant over the next few years.
With the UK giving up on clearing the national debt and with massive inflationary pressures already in the system (yesterday's news on oil will further add to this), our economy will be severely tested and we will then find out which "side" was right.
The vast majority of people are worse off, in real terms, than they were 10 years ago and things are likely to get worse before they get better. Therefore, rubbing your hands at the thought of being on the outside, may be a little premature.

One of the more worrying aspects of all this, is the popularity of a party (UKIP), who are more right wing than the Tories, who most traditional voters would previously never have even considered voting for.

"People in this country have had enough of experts..."
M.Gove, June 2016