The Americans have flat out rejected any such deal with the UK. One of the great ironies is that the lingua franca, both in European politics and European business is English, something that will only intensify and improve in the coming decades.We'd do well to be more wary of greater entanglement with the Anglosphere if that means being a woman to the American agenda rather than be in a largely democratic relationship with our European neighbours even if they do happen to be French or German.
That is more than likely true, yet what is renegotiated has to be better than the current situation.What is clear is that we need some form of trading arrangement with the EU that gives us free(r) access to the EU market. Whatever we negotiate though won't be as good a deal as that which we threw away in our moment of national hubris.
My apologies. I interpreted it as you saying that something is not on offer, and I’m asking who is doing the offering?
I think that many people would now agree that a renegotiated deal along the lines of the Swiss arrangement would be acceptable to a majority of the UK electorate. If the EU were officially asked for such negotiations, then I think it would agree. Ergo, if that, or something approaching that, is not on ‘offer’, then I can only presume that is because the UK politicians don’t want it and won’t hold it out as an offer to their voters.
It negates some of the reasons why the UK left, not all, and Europhobes now have to explain how they are going to make up the lost GDP their decisions have cost.That might ease the economic consequences of Brexit but it negates the very reasons we left. We would be tied to the regulatory framework of the EU and its model of capitalism but powerless to change it.
Europhiles want to rejoin, Europhobes don't, a Swiss solution satisfies neither of them.
It's a non-starter.
Great idea - we can start grazing on the grass in the fields - we will just have to kill all the livestock first. Any suggestions as to how to dispose of all those bodies?
It negates some of the reasons why the UK left, not all, and Europhobes now have to explain how they are going to make up the lost GDP their decisions have cost.
The EU will only expand and consolidate (don’t hear many predicting its imminent disintegration these days), so the UK will soon have an economic entity of around 500 million people (Ukraine plus others) sitting right on its doorstep. It’s powerless to influence it from the outside and weakening itself on the outside, too. Hard to make the best of that either way.
That’s overly simplistic. I’m a Europhile, and I want to rejoin, but recognise that we won’t for the foreseeable. In the meantime we’ve got to do all we can to mitigate this insanity. Being tied to the regulatory framework and being powerless to change it is the price we will need to pay for our arrogance and stupidity.That might ease the economic consequences of Brexit but it negates the very reasons we left. We would be tied to the regulatory framework of the EU and its model of capitalism but powerless to change it.
Europhiles want to rejoin, Europhobes don't, a Swiss solution satisfies neither of them.
It's a non-starter.
‘Arrogance’ sums it up beautifully. Believing that the U.K. is somehow more important than it is on the world stage is why the country is where it is right now. A fucking shambles.That’s overly simplistic. I’m a Europhile, and I want to rejoin, but recognise that we won’t for the foreseeable. In the meantime we’ve got to do all we can to mitigate this insanity. Being tied to the regulatory framework and being powerless to change it is the price we will need to pay for our arrogance and stupidity.
The mental thing is that our membership of the EEC/EU pretty much coincided with a period where our post-WW2 decline as a nation was arrested and reversed. Now that decline has resumed. Funny that.‘Arrogance’ sums it up beautifully. Believing that the U.K. is somehow more important than it is on the world stage is why the country is where it is right now. A fucking shambles.