Brexit Penny Dropping?

[John Wright]

24 minutes ago, manxman1980 said:

Cameron could never have overseen Brexit, he would have suffered in the same way May did.  Both were in the remain camp so anything they did wouldn't have been good enough for you or other brexit nuts 

I don’t think Cameron would have gambled on the 2017 election. That’s what did for May.

The problem is, no one had a plan for a leave vote. They all just assumed the EU would ignore the fact that UK had chosen to become a third country and trade and movement of capital and fixing of divergent standards could just carry on, just without freedom of movement. Wrong assumption.

Even the likes of the lunatics in the asylum, Rees Mogg, Francois, and dozens of others, had expected a gradual withdrawal with a loosening of ties over years, or decades. Not a cliff edge.

However, the departure of Cameron, the dithering and lost gamble of May, meant they saw, and seized, an opportunity.

As for the reason for calling the referendum in the first place, to protect the Tory party from Farage and the UKIP ultra right, has back fired spectacularly.

[John Wright]

On 6/15/2024 at 9:17 PM, Cambon said:

Please tell me, apart from potentially meaning a little disruption to your holibobs, how has Brexit been negative!

From later this year the Visa waiver biometrics

Roaming charges

Additional paperwork and regulation for importers and exporters.

Recurrent prescription medication supply shortages.

Shortages of food supply/restrictions in the supply chain that have devastated, for instance, sale into the EU of catches by UK inshore fishermen, especially of shellfish. There are lots of other examples.

Labour shortages, having to bring in workers from thousands of miles away on expensive visas, issues with families joining them, expensive health contributions, all of which increase labour cost and make the UK a less attractive place.

As a result immigration totally out of control ( even although we could always have controlled non EU immigration before Brexit ). And as for EU immigration we could have limited a great deal of it by introducing proper ID, border control, and enforcing the freedom of movement only for 6 months while looking for work. 

[woolley]

On 6/15/2024 at 5:39 AM, P.K. said:

Just another opinion piece that you've dug up from somewhere. So what?

Maybe you could remember this sage intervention next time you feel the urge to do similar?

[woolley]

14 hours ago, RecklessAbandon said:

Then you say some nonsense about sovereignty and then Woolley gets involved banging the sovereignty drum despite us always having it, etc

Yes, indeed we did. It was locked in a vault in Brussels, in a box marked "UK Sovereignty. Not to be used unless you leave, and you never will." 

Of course, you already know this.

[woolley]

13 hours ago, P.K. said:

The point is that had the EU put forward something unpalatable to the UK

No. This is not the way you approach your own self-determination. Snivelling subserviency.

[woolley]

11 hours ago, P.K. said:

You mean like your response to the £ exchange rate which was to claim "you have to look at the long term trend" to do what exactly? The long term trend has nothing whatever to do with the UK risking it's economic future with brexit, a global pandemic in which the UK suffered grievously thanks to the worst government in living memory and (hopefully) forever and Russian tanks rolling west intent on conquest which actually benefitted the UK by tripling our gas exports to Europe.

This cobblers again? The long term trend has everything to do with it because otherwise there is no context to the part of the spectrum you are focussing on.

[John Wright]

14 minutes ago, woolley said:

Yes, indeed we did. It was locked in a vault in Brussels, in a box marked "UK Sovereignty. Not to be used unless you leave, and you never will." 

That’s just so at odds with the facts. 

The UK always retained its sovereignty. It never gave it away. It certainly wasn’t locked in a box anywhere.

Yes, in a very few, limited, areas sovereignty was pooled or shared. And in most of those the UK had a veto. And as you observe, there was always the option to leave. There was nothing subservient in the UK’s position or role.

And leave was predicated by bluster, sleight go hand and smoke and mirror distortion of the truth. Take immigration, nothing to do with the EU if from outside, always a sovereign matter, and as for EU migration under freedom of movement, well appropriate ID and border controls and limits on non employed stays over 6 months with no benefits, could, and would have solved that.

And yet, even with sovereignty out of the mythical box, UK is still tied in to not just EU rules, but the rules of dozens of other organisations and treaties, including the WTO and the Oz and NZ trade agreements.

It’s like the current nonsense about the ECHR. There are 68,000 outstanding complaints. 0.2% of them are by/about UK. Say 130. And the UK successfully defends most of them. It’s a very important safeguard.

The only 2 European countries which have opted out are Russia and Belarus. Do you really want to join them? I don’t feel safe with populism and Farage’s “contract”.

[woolley]

9 hours ago, manxman1980 said:

The return of roaming charges when using a UK mobile phone in the EU despite assurances that this would not happen.

The absolute shambolic state of the UK Government following the resignations of the last two (reasonably) competent PM's in David Cameron & Theresa May.  Both left because of Brexit albeit for different reasons. 

 

So this is the price we attach to the self-determination of the country? Mobile roaming. Very good equivalence there. No Doubt Ukrainians will soon have free roaming across Russia.

It's not even something you can't avoid:

https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/guides/best-network-for-international-roaming/

[woolley]

2 hours ago, manxman1980 said:

 Both were in the remain camp so anything they did wouldn't have been good enough for you or other brexit nuts 

It would if they'd stuck to their word. Cameron said he would give effect to the result. He lied because he was only anticipating the result he wanted.

[John Wright]

Just now, woolley said:

It would if they'd stuck to their word. Cameron said he would give effect to the result. He lied because he was only anticipating the result he wanted.

The problem was no one knew or explained what Brexit would be like, they didn’t give their word on what the post Brexit position would be on anything, they had nothing to give effect to. And that’s not just Cameron or remainders, it the whole asylum full of Brexiteers. They had nothing, no idea, no plan.

[woolley]

7 minutes ago, John Wright said:

That’s just so at odds with the facts. 

The UK always retained its sovereignty. It never gave it away. It certainly wasn’t locked in a box anywhere.

Yes, in a very few, limited, areas sovereignty was pooled or shared. And in most of those the UK had a veto. And as you observe, there was always the option to leave. There was nothing subservient in the UK’s position or role.

And leave was predicated by bluster, sleight go hand and smoke and mirror distortion of the truth. Take immigration, nothing to do with the EU if from outside, always a sovereign matter, and as for EU migration under freedom of movement, well appropriate ID and border controls and limits on non employed stays over 6 months with no benefits, could, and would have solved that.

And yet, even with sovereignty out of the mythical box, UK is still tied in to not just EU rules, but the rules of dozens of other organisations and treaties, including the WTO and the Oz and NZ trade agreements.

It’s like the current nonsense about the ECHR. There are 68,000 outstanding complaints. 0.2% of them are by/about UK. Say 130. And the UK successfully defends most of them. It’s a very important safeguard.

The only 2 European countries which have opted out are Russia and Belarus. Do you really want to join them? I don’t feel safe with populism and Farage’s “contract”.

You cannot pool sovereignty any more than you can pool virginity. You either have it or you don't. Everything else follows from that. Speaking of the right, you have noticed the trend in the EU recently, I assume? Big changes loom.

[woolley]

4 minutes ago, John Wright said:

The problem was no one knew or explained what Brexit would be like, they didn’t give their word on what the post Brexit position would be on anything, they had nothing to give effect to. And that’s not just Cameron or remainders, it the whole asylum full of Brexiteers. They had nothing, no idea, no plan.

Because they never for one moment believed that the populace would rebel against "The Project". It was extremely fortunate that we got the right result in the face of "Project Fear". The world was going to fall in on day 1 after a Leave vote, if I remember rightly. Here we are 8 years later still buggering on as we always did.

[John Wright]

7 hours ago, woolley said:

You cannot pool sovereignty any more than you can pool virginity. You either have it or you don't. Everything else follows from that

That’s a non analogy, if ever there was. Virginity is a one off. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Of course sovereignty can be pooled, shared, merged, de merged, ( wholly or in part ) or you can suspend it, or agree to only exercise it in certain ways, or to not exercise it in certain ways, or have different, competing,  sovereignties delivering in relation to different things within the same geographic entity. History, English, British, Uk, European and worldwide is full of examples. Neither is it unusual for there being two, or more, competing sovereignties, in one country, or territory.

7 hours ago, woolley said:

Speaking of the right, you have noticed the trend in the EU recently, I assume? Big changes loom.

Yes, I follow it closely. And to me it’s interesting, but at the same time concerning. Some of the things the right wing populists stand for seem to be the very antithesis of liberal western democracy. I’d be as worried if it was a populism of the extreme left. But watching a possible restructuring or realignment  in British right of centre politics is interesting. 

And here’s a pooled, shared, competing sovereignty;  sovereignty of the electorate, of Parliament and the country have, for quite a while, been out of alignment. That’s given rise to distrust and feelings of being left behind, dispossessed. 

[John Wright]

6 hours ago, woolley said:

Because they never for one moment believed that the populace would rebel against "The Project". It was extremely fortunate that we got the right result in the face of "Project Fear". The world was going to fall in on day 1 after a Leave vote, if I remember rightly. Here we are 8 years later still buggering on as we always did.

Totally agree project fear was stupid, and was never going be an overnight reality.

On the other hand, if we are “still buggering on as we always did” it does raise the question “Why did we do it?” . All that wasted effort, money and the divisions it’s created.

[manxman1980]

7 hours ago, woolley said:

So this is the price we attach to the self-determination of the country? Mobile roaming. Very good equivalence there. No Doubt Ukrainians will soon have free roaming across Russia.

It's not even something you can't avoid:

https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/guides/best-network-for-international-roaming/

It was one example and it was a topic on which people were told not to worry as roaming charges wouldn't be reintroduced.

Sure, you can shop for a plan that covers international roaming but you didn't need to before Brexit unless you were travelling outside the EU.

In the meantime I have seen no benefit to the UK "reclaiming" it's sovereignty.  When do we see that?