OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[Andy_Faber]

All the time in the world for you Andy but that stance would be ridiculous.
You may not like it but it’s a factor that can’t be ignored.
The thread has approaching 4,000 posts...the tone has been largely civil...act in the way you’re describing and you won’t be moderating you’ll be censoring.

Ram59...to the best of my knowledge the Leave campaign has been fined on four separate counts of breaking the rules and has been referred to the police. If I’m wrong I’ll withdraw that suggestion but, although, again you may not like it, that is what I understand.

Just joshing RA, if I haven't deleted a post containing the C word I'm not likely to be tampering with any reasoned arguments, however boring or futile. I still can't get over Jack Taylor giving David Nish offside in the '76 cup semi, so who am I to censor your similarly unlikely desire

[MadAmster]

1. Yes...because all referenda in the UK are.
2. Yes...but he was in no position to do so because of the above and in any case he didn’t...he ‘walked’ immediately.
3. Yes...but that does not equate to a democratic decision in a two horse race and I was never aware that ‘winning’, in the terms you suggest, meant anything more than ’here are the feelings of a percentage of the British people’.

The 37% factor is crucial imo, as are the facts that people were lied to and electoral law was broken.
I value you highly as a poster and a person MA, but to follow the decision of a vote that was taken in such circumstances over something so important is both ludicrous and suicidal imo. I second every word of Swales’ post #3550.

I also posted these 3 questions on Facebook. Just the one answer on there. The answers he gave were Yes, Yes and Yes. Just like the answers given on here.

These, very consistent, answers have me confused.

It seems that:

1. People understood that the referendum was advisory prior to the vote.
2. People understood that the PM would accept whatever the vote decided and carry it out.
3. People understood that the "side" gaining 50% +1 or more of THE VOTES CAST would carry the day.

So, people understood that although the referendum was advisory, whichever action gained 50% + 1 or more of the votes cast, leave or remain, that is what would happen.

That begs the question, if you understood all of the above, why all the use of "stats" and %'s to try and show the result to be "invalid". The government carrying out the result was always going to happen. It happened to be leave that got the necessary number of votes. (whether there should have been a qualification requiring 2/3 of votes cast or another caveat to render the vote valid is another discussion topic but there wasn't such a prereq)

12 million didn't bother to vote. In UK voting, those votes don't count. If 11% of those had voted remain, the UK would be remaining. They didn't so the UK is leaving.

..... and that is exactly what, it seems, everybody understood would happen if leave got 1 or more votes more than remain.

That is the point I was hoping the answers to my questions would make. Those complaining knew the score beforehand and I don't recall anybody, anywhere on the internet or in the press arguing the 50% +1 until remain had lost. Many of those didn't bother to vote. They should look, long and hard, in the mirror.

[ramAnag]

Just joshing RA, if I haven't deleted a post containing the C word I'm not likely to be tampering with any reasoned arguments, however boring or futile. I still can't get over Jack Taylor giving David Nish offside in the '76 cup semi, so who am I to censor your similarly unlikely desire

Sorry...bit of a sense of humour bypass at present.

I don’t understand your confusion MA. Speaking personally...I always believed that having a referendum over such a complex issue was totally wrong but Cameron insisted on using it to try and resolve his Party differences. Within that context the 37% is highly relevant.

Beyond that...virtually everyone accepts that the result was only ‘advisory’. That you have established...so why do we believe that we have to leave as a result of this tiny ‘majority’?
Virtually everything that has been discovered since would suggest that leaving will be massively complicated and possibly disastrous for our economy.
Let’s take on the ‘advice’ of the ill informed British people and fight for change. Even Swale and I would probably agree with MoP and Ram59 that there are ways the EU should change but to just keep stubbornly ploughing on in the misplaced name of the ‘voice of the people’ is insane.
It was ‘advisory’, you have established that...it was NOT a mandate for economic hardship and short term (at least) decline.

[Geoff Parkstone]

I sort of agree that the change route would be the best answer - after all I did vote remain, but, unlike you, accepted the voting majority decision. problem is that the EU will never change - it will keep on insisting it is right as it walks right off the cliff, and indeed will die screaming the fact that "we're right - everyone else is wrong".

Besides which, how can it change? Will it really throw out all the eastern european bankrupt countries that the EU are propping up in the hope of future trading opening up? Will it abolish the plans for a pan european army? Will it abandon plans to create a european superstate? Will it implement changes so as to make it a democratic entity, rather than a pan-national bureaucracy? Will to go back to what we joined - ie a trading bloc of similar economic strength nations? Will it ****.

The EU has evolved into something that it was not designed for by its founders, or indeed its subsequent joiners up to "10". thereafter it has slowly gone off the rails, allowing admission of weakling economies who are simply a drain on the centre. Introducing plans to reinvent itself as something it was not designed to be by seeking political and full fiscal union.

Change, you're having a laugh. the only thing more difficult than getting the EU to change would be to get the UK trains to run on time

[ramAnag]

I sort of agree that the change route would be the best answer - after all I did vote remain, but, unlike you, accepted the voting majority decision. problem is that the EU will never change - it will keep on insisting it is right as it walks right off the cliff, and indeed will die screaming the fact that "we're right - everyone else is wrong".

Besides which, how can it change? Will it really throw out all the eastern european bankrupt countries that the EU are propping up in the hope of future trading opening up? Will it abolish the plans for a pan european army? Will it abandon plans to create a european superstate? Will it implement changes so as to make it a democratic entity, rather than a pan-national bureaucracy? Will to go back to what we joined - ie a trading bloc of similar economic strength nations? Will it ****.

The EU has evolved into something that it was not designed for by its founders, or indeed its subsequent joiners up to "10". thereafter it has slowly gone off the rails, allowing admission of weakling economies who are simply a drain on the centre. Introducing plans to reinvent itself as something it was not designed to be by seeking political and full fiscal union.

Change, you're having a laugh. the only thing more difficult than getting the EU to change would be to get the UK trains to run on time

The obvious answer to your first paragraph is...’and you know that, how’?

You and I agree that the EU is essentially a force for good...otherwise you wouldn’t have voted ‘Remain’.

We also agree that it has become too ‘all powerful’ although you probably feel this more strongly than me because I do still believe that, politically it has done more good than harm but has become too bureaucratic and possibly unanswerable at times.

We are constantly being told by the most fervent Brexiteers that change is imminent in countries such as France, Italy, Holland and Germany...so far that hasn’t come to pass but how can you sincerely hold the view that, in the light of the UK referendum vote, the alleged changes in outlook from the aforementioned countries and the message from Scandinavia that as for changing the EU...’you’re having a laugh’. The EU will not destroy itself...it will change but at the moment we are on the path to unhelpful exclusion whatever happens. We need to stay in, help bring about certain change and develop accordingly and the notion that we are big enough and strong enough to go it alone but not apparently to instigate change from within is, imo, total nonsense.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Chamberlain was convince he could change Hitler too. Appeasement of Eurobureaucracy will only allow it to flourish still more. cut of the funding of the £ 10 billion or so which the others will now have to stump up might be the only route forward as they dont seem to be willing to compromise on our leaving despite (or perhaps because of) all the rumblings in other countries

[MadAmster]

It was ‘advisory’, you have established that...it was NOT a mandate for economic hardship and short term (at least) decline.

I knew, way before voting day that......

a) the referendum was advisory and
b) that the sitting Prime Minister stated, many a time and oft, that whichever "side" polled the most votes, is what he would carry out.

As we all know he was appalled at the Leave vote, felt he couldn't do the country justice working towards something he didn't believe in so he took the "honourable" route and walked. Problem is, his successor couldn't plan the proverbial pee up in a brewery.

Leaving the EU, like it or not, is what the vote told the, then sitting, Prime Minster to do. He couldn't/wouldn't so he left it someone else.

Everybody that has answered part 3 knew it was 50% +1, knew Cameron would accept whichever vote got the 50% + 1.

That is it. Plain and simple.

It could have worked too. However, to do that, Mayhem would have had to have been working tirelessly towards thrashing out the best possible deal for the past 2 and a bit years insetad of pontificating and procrastinating as she has. The fact that it was only 3 or 4 weeks ago that the "Chequers deal" was agreed upon by (most of) the Cabinet. A mere 7 and a bit months before Brexit date.

There is so much to be done nd so little time left. The final draft of the agreement is scheduled for December if I remember correctly. Not enough time between now and then to address it all.

What terms will expats, both EU in the UK and UK in the EU be under? That item alone affects about 20M EU citizens. They haven't even starting discussing that yet (yes, it does affect me personally, more on that in a minute). There is so much more to discuss as well. Police forces swapping information proactively? It affects everybody's security. MI5 and 6 and all their EU counterparts. Will they still freely pass on all intelligence? As the supplier of the most hardware, manpower and money to NATO from within the EU, I would hope so and fervently believe the EU should hope so. Information on Patents from the EU Patent Office in the Hague? Will the UK still have access? Probably so as there are some countries not even geographically in Europe that share Patent data.

You glean snippets here and there. One I received last week from a friend of a friend is about pensions and bank accounts. The person in question had had her bank account closed by her bank as she doesn't have a UK address. Not a problem you might think but she has been told that all bank a/c's held by ex pats with no UK address (me included) will be having their accounts closed. She has also been informed that the Tories are planning to introduce a new rule that state pensions can only be paid into UK bank accounts. That leaves people like her, and probably me in a spot of bother. No UK address so no UK bank account which equals no OAP for me. If I have calculated correctly, I will be entitled to 43% of the OAP when I hit the current pensionable age as of July 6th 2019. Several months after I reach 65. There seems a good likelihood that I will not be getting the pension to which I am entitled following 15 years of paying contributions.

I wonder if the same will happen to EU citizens currently working in the UK and planning on retiring there as well. Will they lose what they accrued before they moved to the UK? My thoughts are, more than likely, yes! If they move back will they keep their Dutch/German entitlement but lose their UK one?

Que sera, sera. But the government is to blame for sitting on their bums and twiddling their fingers for 2 years. Whether Brexit is a failure or a success, I can say, without fear of contradiction, that any failure would have been far less and any success far greater if those "Jodrells" in Westminster had pulled their collective fingers out and not wasted the first year and a bit simply goading Juncker and Barnier.

[MadAmster]

1. Besides which, how can it change? Will it really throw out all the eastern european bankrupt countries that the EU are propping up in the hope of future trading opening up?

2. Will it abolish the plans for a pan european army?

3. Will it abandon plans to create a european superstate?

4. Will it implement changes so as to make it a democratic entity, rather than a pan-national bureaucracy?

5. Will to go back to what we joined - ie a trading bloc of similar economic strength nations? Will it ****.

6. The EU has evolved into something that it was not designed for by its founders, or indeed its subsequent joiners up to "10". thereafter it has slowly gone off the rails, allowing admission of weakling economies who are simply a drain on the centre. Introducing plans to reinvent itself as something it was not designed to be by seeking political and full fiscal union.

1. No. I don't believe it will. If they tried the Eastern bloc would probably stick together to veto such a move anyway

2. Not in a month of Sundays. It was part of the plan 60 odd years ago and still is

3. No. That was always the plan. They merely told everybody it wasn't

4. No way in Hell. The entire apparatus doesn't work. Billions goes missing every year and they have no idea where it went. That is the reason EU accounts have never been audited as they are supposed to be under EU Law. I had a discussion with the Dutch right of centre groupof MEPs last year about this, and other issues. Their take was "don't worry about it, the losses are currently less than they were....". Very reassuring...... NOT!

5. Pre the Treaty of Maastricht, signed in 1991 and implemented a year later. I would love to see it go back to 1991. It aint going to happen.

6. EU. Working as designed 60 odd years ago. It is a Monolith that needs taking down.

[Geoff Parkstone]

" That is the reason EU accounts have never been audited as they are supposed to be under EU Law. "

Actually they have been audited, just never signed off, which is even worse than not being audited. All those fees pissed up against the wall and no "clearance"......

[Andy_Faber]

Feeling a bit bad for Ramanag The lone wolf (excepting the occasional input from Swaledale), I'll indulge him with a theoretical second referendum. What would the questions be?

My take

I want UK to leave EU under the terms agreed by HM Govt (so broadly the chequers proposal plus or minus further tweakage)

I want UK to remain in EU under existing terms

I want UK to leave EU without agreeing terms

Anyone?