How do we resolve the Brexit mess?

[Mr Kobayashi]

I completely understand why it never happened. My point was pointing out to say 'we didn't want EFTA' is wrong because voters were never asked and at least a proportion of those that voted leave will have listened to Gove and Farage and others and believed them when they implied a version of EFTA was on the table,and possible.

Semantically, you are right. But not in reality, Brexit was meant to be a vague idea and mean different things to different people in order to drive through the most extreme version.

It was the wet dream of spoilt rich people who felt they didn't have enough money and power already and had to hark back to the golden age of empire.

I don't see how it would have ever played out differently. All the politicians involved were jostling for their positions, their prosperity was decoupled from the prosperity of their country or even the success of their policies in government.

If Maggie May had been willing to sacrifice her party for the good of the country then it might have been different, but the government would have collapsed and she'd have been immediately out of a job.

A "grand coalition" type of Brexit Government would have been necessary to push through EFTA or any other freedom of movement betrayal. Such a coalition has never happened before in our parliamentary system.

 

[inbetween]

Wasn't it the lack of regulatory standards that led to the Global Financial Crash?

By tearing up the rules, you give organisations carte blanche to mis-treat staff, ignore safety standards, basically whatever the product, the public will have no idea how it is produced. Most "rules" are there to protect the end user.

Are you actually advocating the way China goes about doing things?

I'm not arguing to reduce workers rights, I'm talking about market rules and frictions. If the EU was in favour of reducing those frictions then the UK would have a free trade deal today but we haven't. The EU prefers to instead protect its internal domestic market despite the fact that quite clearly it is dying.

The other things you have mentioned such as worker rights have no relevance whatsoever. We can have strong worker rights without relying upon a political juggernaut to do it all for us. We have very decent worker rights today and Labour are strengthening those rights, plainly the EU need to exist for this to happen.

The financial crisis was nearly 20 years ago. Has the EU reacted and recovered rapidly from it? Of course not, the Eurozone still hasn't recovered from it. Spain and Italy have not returned their economy to its equivalent size to pre-2008, it's unbelievably bad. The US economy has doubled in size in that time period, China has quadrupled in size! Europe is being swallowed alive, the market is dead!

 

[Vic]

But we didn’t want EFTA!

As next best thing, it was the obvious way to deal with a 52/48 vote, but the mad Brexiteers wanted their mad 100% outcome (or even madder, they wanted unicorns and cakeism).

Whether the other EFTA members wanted us throwing our weight around in EFTA (with mad Brexiteers saying "this isn't the Brexit we voted for") is another matter.

 

[Vic]

If you're talking about the,likes of Norway in terms of a relationship, unfortunately Johnson and his cronies ruled that out and so it became a non starter.

We never did "give all the money" as we had a significant rebate that was exclusive to the UK.

Norway? "We could be like Norway..." (Nigel Farage)

 

[The perfect fumble]

That's a logical argument based on reason. Do you think that would have cut through with people who are of average or below average intelligence that vote was mostly influenced by emotion?

I happen to live in the archetypal southern market town that voted as a majority for Brexit for racist reasons that now has noticeably more African immigrants working in health and social care.

Labour has to find a way for reason to cut through, they really have no choice. If they don't we all have to dance to Farage and the Daily Mail.

The west has fallen prey to shysters and hucksters at both ends of the political spectrum, for far too long the centre left has not created a consensus around the real problems faced by men and women in the street and without that broad mutual understanding, no solution can be found, and why? Because in the absence of a consensus the centre left can't sell it.

The centre right is in a worse state, compassionate capitalism was always a hard sell, fundamentally because it was bollocks. But historically the conservatives have done well, at least electorally, because a kind of patrician, civic duty, make it up as you go along fudge sufficed, it was kind of where post-war Britain was anyways.

But that came to an end in the 80s, the nail in the coffin of the post-war social contract

Thatcher kicked out the wets and Reagan did the same across the Atlantic, and in doing so they started a revolution, the outcome of which they couldn't imagine. Now the Thatcherites and Reaganites are the new wets and they've either lost control of their respective parties, or in the process of doing so, and why? Because they opened a window to the mad and the bad to their right, fantasists and crooks who've now outflanked them.

A reality based, class centred and ruthlessly honest centre left is the only hope, Labour isn't there yet and the odds are it'll never get there, but if it doesn't we're fucked. Reform won't replace the Tories, but that's not their mission, they want the Conservatives to be Reform in all but name and as for the left? When folk like you and I are ostensibly on the left, the idea we could build a consensus around tea or coffee is a stretch.

 

[Vic]

It was, though it was Gove that spoke of a free trade area from Iceland to Russia, it was Farage that advocated the Norway or Swiss models. I think both were to stupid to realise what it meant for free movement hence their back pedalling into a hard brexit. It fooled many voters though including sorry to say my parents who went on to regret their vote.

Hey, that's my line...

Not just Gove though - a deeply dishonest bit of the official Leave campaign. "Some claim we will not get a trade deal but there is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. The idea that Britain will be the only country in Europe not to be part of this zone is silly."

 

[Vic]

They could point out that the loss of free movement has not brought down the number of people arriving, and those folk arriving now tend to stay, whereas under free movement large numbers went back home or to pastures new over time.

And even the most ignorant racist must've noticed that all those Poles, Romanians, Estonians with their orthodox Christianity, Catholicism and white skin, have now been replaced with Nigerians, Asians and various other folk whose skin colour and religion they've always detested.

Don't forget the Bloviator made a point of saying the EU was racist because it favoured white people (most of the EU citizenry).

 

[bluethrunthru]

Hey, that's my line...

Not just Gove though - a deeply dishonest bit of the official Leave campaign. "Some claim we will not get a trade deal but there is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. The idea that Britain will be the only country in Europe not to be part of this zone is silly."

and there in a nutshell was the "they need us more than we need them" attitude. They thought we could leave and nothing would change it would just allow them to get around the coming EU tax changes.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

Labour has to find a way for reason to cut through, they really have no choice. If they don't we all have to dance to Farage and the Daily Mail.

The west has fallen prey to shysters and hucksters at both ends of the political spectrum, for far too long the centre left has not created a consensus around the real problems faced by men and women in the street and without that broad mutual understanding, no solution can be found, and why? Because in the absence of a consensus the centre left can't sell it.

The centre right is in a worse state, compassionate capitalism was always a hard sell, fundamentally because it was bollocks. But historically the conservatives have done well, at least electorally, because a kind of patrician, civic duty, make it up as you go along fudge sufficed, it was kind of where post-war Britain was anyways.

But that came to an end in the 80s, the nail in the coffin of the post-war social contract

Thatcher kicked out the wets and Reagan did the same across the Atlantic, and in doing so they started a revolution, the outcome of which they couldn't imagine. Now the Thatcherites and Reaganites are the new wets and they've either lost control of their respective parties, or in the process of doing so, and why? Because they opened a window to the mad and the bad to their right, fantasists and crooks who've now outflanked them.

A reality based, class centred and ruthlessly honest centre left is the only hope, Labour isn't there yet and the odds are it'll never get there, but if it doesn't we're fucked. Reform won't replace the Tories, but that's not their mission, they want the Conservatives to be Reform in all but name and as for the left? When folk like you and I are ostensibly on the left, the idea we could build a consensus around tea or coffee is a stretch.

Or maybe save yourself the paragraphs and accept the obvious. Labour doesn't need to sell reason, it needs to sell a narrative.

The way of telling people why the country is the way it is and how they will make it better. They did a very mild and timid version of this in order to get in to government.

All that money spent on advertising consumer products doesn't appeal to people's logic but to their emotions, who they are, who they see themselves as, who they want to be.

That's how a referendum will be won in the future.

Not by the prospects of a rise in x% in GDP or cost of foreign holidays.

 

[bluethrunthru]

lucky buggers

 

[The perfect fumble]

Or maybe save yourself the paragraphs and accept the obvious. Labour doesn't need to sell reason, it needs to sell a narrative.

Yeah right...

Sell a fucking narrative! We've been sold nothing but fucking narratives....

A narrative that is not tethered in reason is tethered in emotion, it appeals not to facts but to fantasy, a confected nostalgia, to bigotry, to ignorance or to guilt and shame...

You use your absolute certainty to mask your lack of intellectual honesty.

 

[Brewster's millions]

As next best thing, it was the obvious way to deal with a 52/48 vote, but the mad Brexiteers wanted their mad 100% outcome (or even madder, they wanted unicorns and cakeism).

Whether the other EFTA members wanted us throwing our weight around in EFTA (with mad Brexiteers saying "this isn't the Brexit we voted for") is another matter.

There’s no such thing as an EFTA solution, so it couldn’t have offered a way forward for the UK post-Brexit. EFTA is just a loose association of countries which have a diverse range of trade relationships with the EU.

The key question for the UK post-Brexit was whether membership of the EEA offered a way forward. But it isn’t appropriate for a country as large as the UK, because membership would leave the UK without a formal vote on its range of trade and commercial regulations. And membership of the EEA doesn’t not necessarily lead to membership of the EU customs union, so frictions in UK-EU trade in general would still exist, as would the problems around the Irish border.

Once we voted to leave the EU, we were always going to end up in a situation like we find ourselves today. An extensive free trade deal with some concessions around certain industries, and limited potential to secure additional bilateral agreements where there’s a common benefit.

For all Labour’s (disingenuous) talk of a reset of relations with the EU, that reality isn’t changing anytime soon.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

Yeah right...

Sell a fucking narrative! We've been sold nothing but fucking narratives....

A narrative that is not tethered in reason is tethered in emotion, it appeals not to facts but to fantasy, a confected nostalgia, to bigotry, to ignorance or to guilt and shame...

You use your absolute certainty to mask your lack of intellectual honesty.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that get the impression that your frustrations go far beyond brexit.

They all worked didn't they?

Trump and Reagan's narratives were established long before the won. As Mark Blyth points out Reagan was rambling the same stuff during the summer of love.

Trump was rambling about America "not winning" when they'd just before and after they'd won the Cold War.

I also didn't say it shouldn't based on reason and logic just that if you want to persuade people primarily with reason and logic you'll never win.

 

[hampshireblue]

I'm not arguing to reduce workers rights, I'm talking about market rules and frictions. If the EU was in favour of reducing those frictions then the UK would have a free trade deal today but we haven't. The EU prefers to instead protect its internal domestic market despite the fact that quite clearly it is dying.

The other things you have mentioned such as worker rights have no relevance whatsoever. We can have strong worker rights without relying upon a political juggernaut to do it all for us. We have very decent worker rights today and Labour are strengthening those rights, plainly the EU need to exist for this to happen.

The financial crisis was nearly 20 years ago. Has the EU reacted and recovered rapidly from it? Of course not, the Eurozone still hasn't recovered from it. Spain and Italy have not returned their economy to its equivalent size to pre-2008, it's unbelievably bad. The US economy has doubled in size in that time period, China has quadrupled in size! Europe is being swallowed alive, the market is dead!

The UK, maybe even you, voted to introduce more friction, paperwork and businesses struggling to now conform with what is required legislatively and subsequently having increased costs. You get pissed off at us leaving the club and the club then refusing to allow us a FTA when we have made it clear we only want one on our terms. Well we had that to a degree that no other nation had and it still wasn't enough for 52%.

You keep going on about China. Whether we are in or out China would have continued to grow but I'd still rather be in a FTA of 500m people than one of 68m, lots of whom are struggling to get by.

 

[The perfect fumble]

I'm sure I'm not the only one that get the impression that your frustrations go far beyond brexit.

They all worked didn't they?

Trump and Reagan's narratives were established long before the won. As Mark Blyth points out Reagan was rambling the same stuff during the summer of love.

Trump was rambling about America "not winning" when they'd just before and after they'd won the Cold War.

I also didn't say it shouldn't based on reason and logic just that if you want to persuade people primarily with reason and logic you'll never win.

You always ascribe ulterior motives to everything I post, it serves two purposes, one, it insults me, and two it gives you cover to never address anything I post.

The fact Reagan and Trump were saying in the sixties and seventies stuff that eventually found traction decades later says precisely nothing about anything.

A narrative that is not anchored in reason might get you elected but it won't solve any problems. Labour have already been elected, it now says it's in the problem solving business, and one of those is Brexit. It cannot fashion a narrative based on bullshit and lies, coz the mainstream media won't go along with it as it does with the Tories, so it has to build a consensus over and above the right wing press, and that consensus will only be built if it is anchored in honesty and facts, because the sustainability of such a consensus will be wholly contingent on positive results, and you won't get positive results if your narrative is based on lies. Go take a tour of Boris's forty new hospitals and tell me I'm wrong.

I don't know why I bother, you are the most dogmatic poster here, just go pester someone else for a while.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

An extensive free trade deal with some concessions around certain industries, and limited potential to secure additional bilateral agreements where there’s a common benefit.

They should have stuck that on the side of that bus.

 

[bluethrunthru]

 

[inbetween]

The UK, maybe even you, voted to introduce more friction, paperwork and businesses struggling to now conform with what is required legislatively and subsequently having increased costs. You get pissed off at us leaving the club and the club then refusing to allow us a FTA when we have made it clear we only want one on our terms. Well we had that to a degree that no other nation had and it still wasn't enough for 52%.

You keep going on about China. Whether we are in or out China would have continued to grow but I'd still rather be in a FTA of 500m people than one of 68m, lots of whom are struggling to get by.

Nobody voted to introduce more friction, that new friction exists as a result of a political construct that we were part of and now we're not. The same friction already exists with the rest of the world so how on earth does the rest of the world cope? The fact is they do cope and they cope much better than anybody in Europe does. Around 50% of our trade was already conducted on these terms anyway so it isn't anything new or controversial.

Again, what you're arguing for is to be part of a protectionist bloc, why when the growth is elsewhere? If we consider where the growth is going to be then those trading frictions are going to become more relevant to trade outside the EU than inside the EU. However, whilst in the EU we had zero control over outside trade policy but now we have 100% control.

If the EU decided to drive off a cliff to protect its internal market then we would drive over with them, that's what has happened to European countries on Brexit. Brexit hasn't greatly affected them but by every measure they've lost more than they've gained. The EU then sleeps soundly at night because it has protected itself but what about European citizens?

I know many on here will regurgitate the same olds that you can't leave a club and have all the benefits of it and yes I agree but it's a very illogical statement when the benefits of that club are eroding. The EU would for example benefit massively from loosening trade frictions with the rest of the world (incl. the UK) so why is it a good thing that it preaches the opposite? Or are we just arguing that it would be better to die on the bonfire with them?

Btw, I didn't vote to leave but the result was nearly 9 years ago... It's time to get over it.

 

[The perfect fumble]

If memory serves this was rendered moot, as all parties in the run up to the referendum agreed to honour the outcome.

Happy to be corrected if wrong.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

why when the growth is elsewhere?

Because trade follows geography, and a small increase in a small number is far less relevant than a large decrease in a large number.

This is not complicated.