How do we resolve the Brexit mess?

blueparrot said:
What do we have to give up to get access that’s so bad ?
Or put another way what did we gain when we left the single market ?
By the way my parents both regret / regretted ( in my late fathers case)their leave vote quite a while back realising they bought the lies and accepted they should have listened to their children and grandchildren. Not Johnson / Farage/ Daily Mail
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I guess what rankles for them was having the UK supreme court as the final vote on the application of UK law, arranging trade with other (in particular commonwealth countries), stopping EU criminals from entering the UK under free movement, ending gross EU contributions, concerns over Turkey joining and what that would mean.

I'm happy to remain but I could definitely see some benefits if I'm not blinkered. From my side, stupid things like not being able to remove VAT on women's sanitary products (now removed as of January 2021).. this control of domestic VAT policy is just bonkers considering the strength of feeling that this was wrong in the UK. We can make those decisions quickly, without having to enact change in a huge bureaucratic machine.
Also - farming subsidies are completely broken and massively damaging to the environment. We now have the option to (and are looking at) how we repurpose those to reward farmers for doing the right thing, rewilding, growing the crops a low carbon economy needs etc.

These are small in the grand scheme of the benefits of EU membership, but I can understand why frustration builds.
 
RabidCity said:
Unfettered? Who would oppose?
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You said ‘everyone’ is happy with access to the single market. That is plainly incorrect, hence why we are no longer in it. Plenty of militant Brexiteers were, and remain opposed to us being associated with the SM, for ideological, if not economic grounds. Some people are instinctively opposed to being tied to the EU by any means.

They are, of course, mad cunts.
 
RabidCity said:
I think everyone is happy with access to the single market. It's what we have to give up to get that access that will cause a problem. Perhaps after enough thinking (and the older generations like my parents who feel betrayed by the 70's vote) not being around, we will come back to it as a nation. I don't think my generation are as patriotic.

Slow steady change in that direction is okay with me.
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Isn't the patriotic thing to want the best for your country? That was being on the EU.
 
RabidCity said:
I guess what rankles for them was having the UK supreme court as the final vote on the application of UK law, arranging trade with other (in particular commonwealth countries), stopping EU criminals from entering the UK under free movement, ending gross EU contributions, concerns over Turkey joining and what that would mean.

I'm happy to remain but I could definitely see some benefits if I'm not blinkered. From my side, stupid things like not being able to remove VAT on women's sanitary products (now removed as of January 2021).. this control of domestic VAT policy is just bonkers considering the strength of feeling that this was wrong in the UK. We can make those decisions quickly, without having to enact change in a huge bureaucratic machine.
Also - farming subsidies are completely broken and massively damaging to the environment. We now have the option to (and are looking at) how we repurpose those to reward farmers for doing the right thing, rewilding, growing the crops a low carbon economy needs etc.

These are small in the grand scheme of the benefits of EU membership, but I can understand why frustration builds.
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No doubt why we're not following EU rules on putting shit in rivers.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
tbf, if May’s exit proposal had passed with a majority in the Commons then there would have been a FTZ so to characterise it as a lie is applying some mental gymnastics.

That said, that vote should not and cannot provide any excuse for the hard Brexit we ended up with. I would say that was far more contrary to our national interest than the vote to leave itself - not just because of the associated economic damage, but also because it divided the nation further, which was the last thing the country needed.
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No, it was a specific promise that if we left we would still be in a free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border. It wasn't conditional on a deal.

"WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE VOTE LEAVE?....

"There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals."
 
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Vic said:
No, it was a specific promise that if we left we would still be in a free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border. It wasn't conditional on a deal.

"WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE VOTE LEAVE?....

"There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals."
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Specific promise where?
 
blueinsa said:
In a thread of constant bad news, let’s celebrate BMW announcing a multi million investment into its Oxford plant with news that 4000 jobs will be secured building its next ten mini.

Great news for the British car industry I’m sure everyone will agree?
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It is good news and half a billion investment in the UK motoring industry is a big thing. However, I seem to remember this being reported in Feb/March this year with the government giving a decent incentive for them the stay after it being reported that they were moving production to China.

Is this a separate/bigger deal?
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
Specific promise where?
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How much more do you need?

Gove set out to address that challenge, saying: “There is a free-trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in our out of the euro or EU. After we vote to leave we will remain in the zone."

blogstest.lse.ac.uk

Michael Gove’s problem is that a single market is more than just a tariff-free zone

One of the key ideas in Michael Gove’s recent, much-publicised Brexit speech was that the UK could rely on membership of a European free trade zone. This idea constitutes a bizarre historical thro…
blogstest.lse.ac.uk blogstest.lse.ac.uk

And Gove himself cited that promise when the possibility of No Deal was real so he couldn't support No Deal.
 
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The Future’s Blue! said:
It is good news and half a billion investment in the UK motoring industry is a big thing. However, I seem to remember this being reported in Feb/March this year with the government giving a decent incentive for them the stay after it being reported that they were moving production to China.

Is this a separate/bigger deal?
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£75m from the taxpayer (reportedly). Badenoch claiming we can give this state aid because we're not in the EU but complaining about the rules of origin rules in the deal we've got with the EU.
 
blueinsa said:
In a thread of constant bad news, let’s celebrate BMW announcing a multi million investment into its Oxford plant with news that 4000 jobs will be secured building its next ten mini.

Great news for the British car industry I’m sure everyone will agree?
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Yes in terms of people will not lose their jobs, and no because it highlights we are not in control. We are subject to EU leverage. It is laughable that a ‘Brexit boost’ is when the German car industry comes out in support of delaying implementation of Rules of Origin on electric vehicles and the EU ponders whether to do so or not - ie what is in their best interests.

It is the old truism that if you are not at the table you are on the menu. The UK is reduced to pleading its case, throwing taxpayer money into the mix and hoping EU interests align with our own.

We no longer have a voice in Europe. We used to shape and decide EU policy. Now we are subject to it. The strategic harm the Brexit vote has done to the UK will last for decades.
 
And the reality is that the only viable alternative to joining the EU is to become some sort of associate, bound by their rules but not having any say in formulating them. (Or at best, very minimal say as a consultee.) This would be a better place than we are now, and if anyone starts getting prickly with national pride, remember that it was the hubris of nationalism that brought us here.

Indescribable folly. Words fucking fail me.
 
in days of yore, big factories meant big workforce, often involving shift work-premium wages. Those days will never come back, robotic manufacuring and now AI leaves human involvement/jobs a dying relic of the past. No trade or profession is safe, whilst unrestrained, unaccountable capitalism rules. The figures quoted, of how big the bribes of tax-payer money are meaningless, like most figures in the media. No-one sees the "books", apart from the very top tier who have a deeply vested interest in keeping them secret. The case in point, the BMW factory, is classic "presenting old news as good news" is just another blatant attempt to stem the tide of disastrous forecasts of voter intentions for the GE. Hopefully, it's a sign that the crucially important faction of the electorate, the dis-affected and politically inert, have been angered enough to get off their collective arse, go through the deliberate chicane at the ballot box, realise they have been lied to, led down the garden path by a corrupt mass media intent on a return to victorian levels of mass poverty. Even without them, tactical voting could be enough to put an end to this democracy-hating gang of fascists posing as a government......
 
yerwot? said:
in days of yore, big factories meant big workforce, often involving shift work-premium wages. Those days will never come back, robotic manufacuring and now AI leaves human involvement/jobs a dying relic of the past. No trade or profession is safe, whilst unrestrained, unaccountable capitalism rules. The figures quoted, of how big the bribes of tax-payer money are meaningless, like most figures in the media. No-one sees the "books", apart from the very top tier who have a deeply vested interest in keeping them secret. The case in point, the BMW factory, is classic "presenting old news as good news" is just another blatant attempt to stem the tide of disastrous forecasts of voter intentions for the GE. Hopefully, it's a sign that the crucially important faction of the electorate, the dis-affected and politically inert, have been angered enough to get off their collective arse, go through the deliberate chicane at the ballot box, realise they have been lied to, led down the garden path by a corrupt mass media intent on a return to victorian levels of mass poverty. Even without them, tactical voting could be enough to put an end to this democracy-hating gang of fascists posing as government.
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So we give state aid.
Then we subsidise wages with taxpayers' money through Universal Credit.

Socialism for the rich. Hard-nosed capitalism for the workers.

Can this model be sustained? Or is it destined to an inevitable collapse? The injustice of the arrangement is obvious.
 
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