Would you vote to re-join the EU in another referendum?

[GorgeousSpringtime]

Simple question. If there is another referendum to re-join the EU, will you be voting to re-join?

This isn't to have a go at anyone who supported Brexit, or who supported Remain, it's just a quick straw poll. Thank you.

If anyone is wondering, (or cares!) I think I will vote to re-join. (I won't say at this point what I voted for last time...)

Rejoining the single market is an economic positive. I don’t think any serious economists would debate this. We would have less debt, not more.

Even within the Euro, countries are not, in theory, responsible for one another’s debts. However, there doesn’t seem to be any meaningful discussion as to what happens if a country’s borrowing cost gets prohibitive. There was the fudge over Greece. But Greece is a tiny country and the problem can easily be absorbed; not so France for instance.

Even were we to rejoin the EU and be obliged to eventually join the Euro, there is no mechanism to force a country, so it is only a theoretical obligation. In any event, to do so, we would have to meet the criteria (3% and 60%), which is vanishingly unlikely.

Yes but a closer tie would be suffice. America has proved itself again and again to be an unreliable “ally”, and I would much rather align myself with the European countries and Canada than America

Yep this is being missed.

Yes - from someone who has to deal with shipping in and out of the EU as part of their job, the whole thing has been a massive waste of time, money and stress.

I agree with this. I would have preferred to remain but I would always have been dubious about joining the Euro. I wouldn’t vote yes to rejoining without details of what that entailed.

Stupid vote question, it depends upon the terms of the rejoin.
Will we be required to join the Euro?
Will we get our previous ‘generous’ voting and veto rights back?
What will we have to give up?

if we could rejoin on the same T&Cs we left on then maybe, but I’d want to know the ‘walkaway’ cost and implications of giving up our independence.

The way the referendum was connived and orchestrated was scary. It was the project of some powerful men who had an agenda they forced through manipulation. Leave “won” by using a series of lies and appeals to base fears. Remain lost because of an inability to understand and explain the consequences.

Well that's certainly a view. Not one I share. Ive been suspicious of the EU/EEC ever since listening to the Today programme as a child in the 80s when the BBC was very euro sceptic. And I'm sure many other people were too. Bendy bananas always struck me as odd a child.

@SevenYellowHammers ,

Leave won mainly due to Blair. Firstly he promised a referendum on the Paris (?) treaty that every other nation had but then reneged. Then he decided to allow free immigration from Romania and Poland, something only the UK did, with significant consequences.

As for the campaigns, ‘leave’ was a bit of a joke, as you said mendacious and based on fear. The ‘remain’ campaign, however, didn’t target people’s genuine concerns at all and didn’t sell a positive vision. It was all about things that appealed to the metropolitan wealthy left wing, who were always going to vote remain anyway.

It was a total shambles.

What has reversed people’s opinion on the EU? One thing only-money. This should always have been what the remain campaign was about.

No. I wouldn't like taking orders from Brussels again. The EU waste too much money. If we rejoined we'd have to adopt the Euro. The EU as a block is not doing well. I'd rather be out and make our own rules.

I agree with this - it is ridiculous to have a referendum without knowing what you are voting for, as otherwise the side advocating the change can just promise the moon on a stick, ignoring political & economic realities (as the leave campaign did).

If Andy Burnham is sensible, he will get a rejoining package agreed in principle with the EU before the referendum, so we know what we are voting for. Then I doubt the EU will insist on Euro entry as they must know they'd never get majority support for that.

Why are people so sceptic about the EU? I think about this a lot. Frictionless trade and the single market seems like amazing things.

@Grower37 ,

‘Why are people so sceptic about the EU? I think about this a lot. Frictionless trade and the single market seems like amazing things.’

They are amazing things and just joining the single market gets you both of them. And that is pretty much what the EU was thought of for a long time. When we joined, I think it was still the European Coal and Steel Community.

However, the EU is a lot more than that now. It is kind of a half way house between that and the United States of Europe. There is still a fair bit of friction about where it is going in terms of federating or moving back more towards being a trading community.

The laws and rules are insanely complex (I am sure there are some experts around, but I am not one of them). I do think the commission seems to have to much power relative to the European Parliament, which is often termed the democratic deficit. And there is the Euro project. No single currency has ever survived over countries with different fiscal policies. So, I think it will either collapse or the EU will federate. Do we want to be in it for either of those outcomes?

Finally, it is questionable whether some countries in the EU embrace the same values as the rest of it. What does being European feel like? Being French or being Latvian? I am not sure that they are the same. You could argue the same over the states within the U.S I guess….

its a sinking ship whi wants to join a sinking ship??? Oh wait..... labour voters obviously

Voted and canvassed for Remain at the time, & regarded it as one of the biggest acts of self-harm this country has done in my lifetime.

HOWEVER - since 2016, the EU has become much more institutionally committed to gender identity ideology than it was when we were in it.

So rejoining might give the genderists another bite at getting gender self-ID established in law, as for instance in Germany, Malta, Ireland & other countries.

So if those are the terms of rejoining - and I wonder how publicised it would be - it would be a greater act of self harm than leaving.

At least, for the 51% of the population who are female (and I think the small group of young people who claim a trans identity).

Bendy bananas were indeed odd, because the EU never banned them.

Logic would dictate bendy bananas can’t be banned, as the only bananas that don’t bend are the tiny little “thumb bananas” you see in Southeast Asia & which I’ve never seen anywhere in Europe (they have very thin skins so don’t travel well).

it was a joke based on a (playful or deliberate) misreading of Commission Regulation (EC) No. 2257/94 which classifies fruit quality, & was used repeatedly by Boris Johnson in his columns about the EU.

Yes: of course anyone reading that would be sceptical about the EU: that’s what it was intended to do.

The first para definitely. No way on an open issue like re-join.

The second is a good point, the issue I suppose is there’d be a huge amount of political time spent negotiating and without a mandate first that’s tricky.