For the Brits: When will BREXIT referendum happen ?

[peejaye]

I can assure you VAT will NOT be abolished Stavros! It just won't be, it's another form of tax on us all!
As for the issue on Trade, I've heard nothing else for the last 16 months! We should just wait & see!
Food prices will/are rising, it doesn't help when German firms like LIDL are buying British produce to sell in British stores in Euros, if they can't pay in Sterling then get out!
I was prepared to pay more to live with Br-exit but this Government & everything about them are NOT what I wanted.
I can only wait & see what happens but with these people in charge we're in for a rough ride for a while.
I am also of the opinion we don't need Brussels to sort out our border with Ireland & the fees talked about.

[filghy2]

I've actually just rated your post by mistake!
That's my frustration!
What don't you understand about people voting leave? What would you like to debate or discuss? I am at a loss?
Listen to Nigel Farage, I don't like him but everything he says about that "Tax office" in Brussels I agree with.
Hopefully you will stop bothering me now?
This debate is pointless, there WON'T be any deal, they won't give us anything because they are behaving like wounded bullies!

No I don't think I'll stop bothering you. I'm enjoying the mental image of you getting purple-faced with rage (which doesn't seem to take much).

To extend my analogy, you are like a man who decides to divorce his wife and then has a big sook when she refuses to give him whatever he wants in the divorce settlement.

[flabbybody]

I can assure you VAT will NOT be abolished Stavros! It just won't be, it's another form of tax on us all!
As for the issue on Trade, I've heard nothing else for the last 16 months! We should just wait & see!
Food prices will/are rising, it doesn't help when German firms like LIDL are buying British produce to sell in British stores in Euros, if they can't pay in Sterling then get out!
I was prepared to pay more to live with Br-exit but this Government & everything about them are NOT what I wanted.
I can only wait & see what happens but with these people in charge we're in for a rough ride for a while.
I am also of the opinion we don't need Brussels to sort out our border with Ireland & the fees talked about.

I honestly can’t follow your line of thought. Do you regret the Leave decision or just the way your government is navigating a post-Brexit UK ?

[Stavros]

I honestly can’t follow your line of thought. Do you regret the Leave decision or just the way your government is navigating a post-Brexit UK ?

This has become the central core of the debate at the moment: not so much regret at the decision as confusion and anxiety over what, in practical terms, it may actually mean when it happens, and a sense that the politicians in charge of the process -on both sides- are struggling to reconcile each side's demands. This paradox has come about because of the irony that the very thing which motivated the Leavers -an opposition to increased integration in the EU- can be seen in the fact that over 45 years the UK did not have a static relationship with the EU, but a dynamic and an intricate relationship that has in that time developed multiple layers of mutual responsibility. In some areas the UK wants a complete severance but in others it does not. The UK thus wants to be detached from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, but does not really want to detach itself from the EU's intelligence and security agencies, but it cannot have both, as Angela Merkel has said, one is either in the EU or not in the EU.

In practical terms, it would not be difficult for the UK to leave the European Union Intelligence and Situation Centre, and and for the UK and the EU to then agree the terms of mutual co-operation, though it is not clear if this would involve any financial contribution to the organization, and if it did, the benefits of protection from potential terrorist acts would outweigh the costs, though I can foresee some hard liner arguing that the UK can achieve these cooperative exchanges in security and intelligence through NATO and not the EU, another example of how a simple solution can become a complex problem.

At the moment, money is a key to unlocking the exit process. The UK is a major source of funding in the EU, that loss will be felt over time as even in the cases of Romania, Bulgaria and Poland, to name just three, their continuing economic growth (somewhat inflated in Romania's case) is not going to compensate for the loss of the UK's contribution, and their economies are not as diverse and well grounded as the UK. Understandably from the EU's perspective, the more money it can extract from the UK as it leaves, the better, but they argue the sums they indicate they want are based on commitments the UK has made, and would apply in the transition period which is the preferred option of both the UK and the EU. May for her part is looking over her shoulder at a phalanx of Tory MPs already furious with her dismal election campaign, ready to throw her under the bus over some infantile quibble about 30 billion or 60 billion as if it mattered, when they could just admit they will pay any price to leave the EU.

The anxiety about what leaving the EU might actually mean, something that during the referendum campaign became known, and ridiculed by the leavers, as 'Project Fear' is now very real because some of those fears are based in reality even if, as I have suggested, they are temporary, but where temporary could mean 10-15 years. The US Department of Commerce tariff bombshell on Bombardier and Canada, a partner in NAFTA, has been a rude awakening for the Leavers and a sign that the independent UK's dreamland of free trade with the rest of the world may turn out to be a nightmare -these people adore the USA and see it as the saviour of a post-Brexit economy, oblivious to the current administration's almost permanent ridicule and abuse of the UK and its politicians, the latest being the President's tweet -taken from the One America conspiracy site- about rising crime in the UK and its links to 'radical Islamic terrorism' even though crime rates in general are falling not rising.

The frustration is with the process, what May would describe as the 'line by line' examination of the exit agreements, but it has to be done, and much tedious reporting will continue to fund reporters as they commute between London and Brussels with deadlines approaching. I think at the moment it looks like the UK and the EU will reach a provisional agreement on the three issues of citizen's rights, finances and the Irish border, but that these will be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny where internal divisions in May's own party could crash this car at the same time as the trade talks are underway.

Do not underestimate the Tory party's ability to self-destruct over Brexit, the spectre of the Corn Laws in the 1840s and Tariff Reform in the 1900s haunts the Palace of Westminster.

[peejaye]

I honestly can’t follow your line of thought. Do you regret the Leave decision or just the way your government is navigating a post-Brexit UK ?

& Neo-liberals like you beggar belief thinking people who voted Br-exit were just thick & ignorant!

[peejaye]

I honestly can’t follow your line of thought. Do you regret the Leave decision or just the way your government is navigating a post-Brexit UK ?

The latter, people assuming another referendum would overturn the result is just "spin", a lot of this is about austerity. It's no coincidence the poorer areas of the UK voted leave compared to influential areas voting remain. You also have to look where large groups of immigrants have been located, this also had a big effect.

[peejaye]

& Neo-liberals like you beggar belief thinking people who voted Br-exit were just thick & ignorant!

Sorry Flabbybody, this message was meant for that neo-liberal filghy2, not yourself.

[filghy2]

& Neo-liberals like you beggar belief thinking people who voted Br-exit were just thick & ignorant!

Why do you assume I'm a neo-liberal? You complain about typecasting and in the same sentence do exactly the same thing. Fyi, I'm actually left of centre, though I know enough about economics to know that economic nationalism is generally a bad idea.

Why do you equate opposition to Brexit with neo-liberalism? I'm pretty sure the 'no' campaign argued that Brexit would result in a reduction in regulation and freer trade with the rest of the world. Does that sound like a rejection of neo-liberalism?

I'm also puzzled why you say in your response to flabbybody that the result had a lot to do with austerity. Austerity has nothing to do with the UK being a member of the EU. If the economy is adversely affected then Brexit will actually result in more austerity.

If you voted for Brexit because you thought it would lead to a rejection of neo-liberalism or an end to austerity then I'm afraid you are bound to be disappointed.

[peejaye]

I was talking about the result of the referendum being linked to austerity, not being a member.
This country is divided into two halves, half of it living in poverty because of austerity, the other half giving them two fingers from their "Ivory Towers".
If you fall into the latter you won't know what the fuck I'm talking about, a bit like the Government!
Austerity is designed to dismantle the welfare state, drive down wages and marketise the economy, nothing else & it's only happening in the certain areas. These BASTARDS doing it know exactly what they're doing, good riddance David Cameron, take your frustrations out on that man, not the poorest in society!

[Jericho]

Read this quote from some froggy on twitter today:

Maybe I am too cartesian but leaving the largest free trade area in the world and 53 free trade agreements on behalf of free trade is weird.

If i didn't laugh I'd fukkin cry!