For the Brits: When will BREXIT referendum happen ?

[Stavros]

Is rehashing the referendum result worth our time? You guys voted to leave.
Yanks voted for Trump. For better or worse (certainly worse) we need to accept these outcomes and move on.

I understand your point but what leaving the EU means in practical terms is no clearer now than it was during the debate as the government team negotiating Brexit is made up for the most part of Tories who wanted to remain. Their attempt to both leave the EU and retain certain privileges of EU membership is causing some confusion in Barnier's team as to what it is the UK wants and what the EU believes leaving the EU to mean. The hard brexit camp clarify their position by saying leave means a clean break, but there are companies all over the UK which have binding contracts with companies in the EU; we have no clarity on what the legal status of EU citizens in the UK will be or UK citizens in the EU, the border with Ireland remains unresolved, a 'clean break' is a fantasy. All these issues during the campaign were wished away by Leave as minor details that it would be easy to deal with but they are not. Some politicians even think that when it comes down to the final vote on Article 50 the Commons will vote against it, so that we are still unable to state with absolute certainty that the UK will leave the EU and if it does, on what terms. This time next year we could have a Labour government whose position on the EU is no clearer than the Tories.
I guess you would have to imagine what in practical terms it would mean if California or Texas, or Alaska left the Union with regard to tax arrangements, contracts, pensions, defence, science and so on. When Slovakia parted from the Czech Republic most of their arrangements were dealt with in the first year, it appeared to be a relatively easy split, but on some issues they were still negotiating ten years after the date of their independence. There are many miles to go in this dark wood before anyone can get a good night's sleep.

[filghy2]

Is rehashing the referendum result worth our time? You guys voted to leave.
Yanks voted for Trump. For better or worse (certainly worse) we need to accept these outcomes and move on.

"Democracy is the worst form of government.....except for all the others"
Winston Churchill, London 1944

Democracy does not mean that the losing side must shut up and allow the winners to do as they like. Democracy would be much the worse if government policies were not subject to continual scrutiny and criticism. Even if the policy is settled (unclear in this case) it remains relevant to discuss what the effects will be.

[peejaye]

Peejaye if you voted to Leave the EU, why did you vote that way? Was it because you wanted to attack the establishment or because you genuinely think the UK will be better off outside the EU?

-Take back control of our borders: we have never lost control, the UK can deny entry to anyone from the EU, and it often has.
-Take back control of our laws: we have never lost control, the UK Parliament has had the right to veto all and any EU law.
-Take back control of immigration: the UK govt can pass laws to halt immigration to zero any time it wants to.
-Sign trade deals with anyone it wants to: true, but inside the EU UK firms have signed trade deals with all of the major economies that the UK outside the EU would want to trade with. We don't need to be outside the EU to trade with the world, because the world wants to trade with the EU.

We are giving up access to a market of 500 million that most of the world wants entry to, and all of the deals we have made in the last 40 years were an integral part of the UK's membership of the EU. It works. And it works to our benefit.

We are not giving up access to anything. All these things are negotiable. We have representatives there who don't want to negotiate!

The reason I voted to leave the EU was the phenomenal amount of money the UK was sending there every week, the BBC estimated it at £161m per week, after grants etc were taken out. Unfortunately, I didn't realise this far-right, corrupt Government we have will just embezzle that money in further privatisation schemes & launder it to their friends within the private sector instead of bridging gaps left by leaving the market & investing it in public services.
On immigration, I do believe too many overseas people are living here, this Government cannot look after it's own people, let alone look after immigrants coming here.
A 9 year waiting list for a council property in London is an outrage! I know all previous Governments should of built more housing instigated by Thatcher selling them of in the 1980's.
I know you're going to say if you reply to this; £161m per week is nothing compared to what we will lose, I'm afraid all re-moaners are just speculating, you cannot possibly know.

[peejaye]

Democracy does not mean that the losing side must shut up and allow the winners to do as they like. Democracy would be much the worse if government policies were not subject to continual scrutiny and criticism. Even if the policy is settled (unclear in this case) it remains relevant to discuss what the effects will be.

But you people aren't doing that. You want another referendum! It's not leaving the EU what's the problem, it's the people negotiating it!

[filghy2]

We are not giving up access to anything. All these things are negotiable. We have representatives there who don't want to negotiate!

But how do you think negotiation works? Bargaining power depends on the extent to which each side has something that the other side needs. The fact is that the UK needs an agreement with the EU more than the EU needs an agreement with the UK, simply because the EU is a much larger market. The idea that you can leave the club and then demand to have all the previous benefits without paying the membership costs is just naive.

[Aticus100]

Is rehashing the referendum result worth our time? You guys voted to leave.
Yanks voted for Trump. For better or worse (certainly worse) we need to accept these outcomes and move on.

"Democracy is the worst form of government.....except for all the others"
Winston Churchill, London 1944

But with Trump our American friends get to vote again in four years. Brexit will last far longer than that.

We need a vote once we see what Brexit looks like.

Essentially we voted on wether to continue with our European buffet or just have good old fashioned fish and chips (like they used to have in the old days) and enough people had rose tinted glasses and voted for fish and chips.

Fair enough, it's a democracy and a vote is a vote so fish and chips for 65 million people it is.

The thing is though, if it turns out not to be fish and chips but a dog shit sandwich, I'd quite like a I say in wether we all have to tuck in or not!

[flabbybody]

so you want the right to re-vote on Brexit subject to final exit agreement? Why in god's name would EU sit down to negotiate in good faith under those terms?
Sorry, you can't buy a pair of new shoes, wear'em for a year and then return them for a refund because you decide they hurt your feet.

[Stavros]

The government last night won the second reading of the Bill that will be the formal, legal mechanism whereby the UK leaves the EU. Just as in 1972 Parliament approved the European Communities Act which was the legal basis on which the UK joined the European Economic Community (as it was then) on 1st January 1973, so the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill will repeal that Act of Parliament and is in Parliamentary language

A Bill to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and make other provision in connection with the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU.
http://services.parliament.uk/bills/...ithdrawal.html

The passing of the Second Reading was immediately followed with a raft of proposed Amendments to the Bill which will be considered in Committee and at some time on the floor of the House, because many -most?- MPs seem to agree that the Bill was right in principle but misguided in many of the details which the government wants to pass without debate or vote using the prerogative acquired when Henry VIII was the (unelected) King of England. There are estimated to be 12,000 pieces of EU legislation that the Repeal Bill will, over time, have to re-write as English law or discard, so without the right of debate, there is a fear, notably in the Labour Party, that the Bill, if passed without amendments giving MPs the right to challenge laws, will enable a Tory Government -if there is one- to repeal and then discard aspects of European law that protects worker's rights, the regulation of industry and so on, and thus undermine the UK's quality of working conditions among other things.

In other words, the Withdrawal Bill takes the UK out of the EU, whereas a vote on Article 50 -a vote the Goverment did not want and tried to prevent in the Courts- will focus on the terms of the Exit and will presumably take place after the negotiations in Brussels have concluded and at some point before the proposed date of Exit in March 2019.

On the one hand, this means there is now no clear legal mechanism to prevent Brexit from happening. But on the other hand, we still do not know what that will mean in practice, but if viewed in terms of 'hard' or 'soft' Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn at a speech he is due to give today will continue to argue for a 'soft' Brexit:

“Labour respects the referendum result but we want a jobs-first Brexit that guarantees full access to the European single market as part of a new trade agreement and relationship with the EU.
“A jobs-first Brexit that maintains and develops workers’ rights, and consumer and environmental protections and uses powers returned from Brussels to support a new industrial strategy. A jobs-first Brexit where work pays, employees have security and decent conditions and prosperity is shared by the true wealth creators – that means all of us.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-single-market

This proposal would appear to mean that the UK if it were to negotiate access to the Single Market on such terms would be liable for annual payments, which the hard brexiteers oppose; be liable to the judgement of the European Court of Justice in cases involving commerce and rights, to which the hard brexiteers are opposed; and may also include some form of 'free movement' of people into the UK from the EU which the hard brexiteers are opposed to. It would be, in effect, membership of the EU under different terms, similar to the relationship Norway and Switzerland have to which the hard brexiteers are opposed.

That the Conservative government could fail to hang on to power in the next 18 months is quite possible, as is an election that returns a Labour government, but in neither case does the current situation help us understand what the UK's relationship with the EU is going to be like, but in some form the UK will no longer be a full member and there is now nothing that can be done to stop it unless the government fails to get the Third Reading of the Withdrawal Bill through when it comes up for a vote whenever that is probably in the next 6 months depending on how much time is allotted for the Committee Stage.

[Jericho]

I am a European and this shit saddens me!

[Stavros]

The conflict inside the Tory party over Brexit has taken a new, possibly dramatic turn this week as Boris Johnson revives his ambition to be both leader of the party and Prime Minister.

It is clear that what has motivated him is not so much his anxiety that the UK is negotiating a transitional arrangement with the EU which will mean the UK retaining some form of membership for 2-5 years with all that implies with regard to things 'staying the same' and thus not marking a clean break with the EU - but the feeling Johnson has that if he doesn't step forward now, he will miss the bus and the opportunity to be leader at a time when Theresa May's days as PM are drawing to a close (are they?).

Johnson was seething with rage when David Cameron became leader of the party, as he regarded Cameron when they were both at Eton as a half-baked twit who could never match the intellectual brilliance of a man destined to replace Churchill as the greatest (half-American) Briton who ever lived. Even worse, the campaign that has been growing around Jacob Rees-Mogg as the alternative to Theresa May must have rung alarm bells for Johnson.

And not only did he see this as the moment to strike, he did so knowing that his Prime Minister's team has flagged in advance an important speech on Brexit Mrs May is due to give in Florence next week. So up pops Johnson with a 4,000 word manifesto published in the Tories own Telegraph, a paper that is owned by two tax-dodging millionaire brothers who live in splendid seclusion on the island of Sark, and only too happy to see the back of the woman who almost lost them the election. Johnson revives the claim that by 'taking back control' of finances and immigration, the UK will be able to channel that money into the NHS -

Once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly £350m per week. It would be a fine thing as many of us have pointed out if a lot of that money went on the NHS, provided we use that cash injection to modernise and make the most of new technology... "One of the advantages of investing in the NHS - if we combine that investment with reform - is that we can turbo charge the role of our health service in driving bioscience."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7949806.html

But is Johnson a believer in free markets? He claims that

"Outside the EU there are obvious opportunities - in agriculture, fisheries, in the setting of indirect taxation," he said.
"At the stroke of a pen, the Chancellor will be able to cut VAT on tampons; often demanded by Parliament but - absurdly - legally impossible to deliver."

What he doesn't tell us is why we should pay VAT on anything as VAT was introduced when the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973 and if it wanted to, the UK govt once out of the EU could simply abolish it. As for agriculture and fisheries, they are subsidized by the EU and, it seems, be protected from the harsh reality of free markets by being subsidized after it. As for the NHS, how much it gets will always depend on how successful ministers are in extracting money for it from the Treasury, but if the country becomes poorer in the aftermath of Brexit, there will be cuts to the NHS as with other departments, and most free marketeers want to abolish a publicly funded health service and move to a private insurance-based system.

So in this incoherent vision based on wishful thinking there is really just a commitment to a hard Brexit and an appeal to Tories to back him against Theresa May and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The man is desperate to be recognized as the most important man in Britain, and may even get his chance to prove it. But will May sack him for his disloyalty? Either way it exposes the deep divisions in the Conservative Party that have existed ever since the UK became part of the European Community in 1973, divisions that Brexit is deepening, with no sign of where this party is taking the country other than the sign marked 'Exit'.