Would you vote to Rejoin the EU if there was another referendum? - Part 2

[EEexpat]

Advantages and disadvantages?

I abstained because I opposed freedom of movement, though wanted the common market. I would vote for what we originally signed up for, but not for another 10 million eastern Europeans.
We just need to move on.

Maybe Le Pen will take France out of the EU, and we could have a Canada/France/UK trading block complete with freedom of movement.

The great problem of our time for the west collectively is that the majority of the third world are either here or trying to get here and I honestly can't see the end of it. Poland and Hungary alone seem to have held out for now.

Yes, if they'll have us back. Brexit was supposed to be an ADVISORY referendum and is one of the major reasons our food and medicines are more expensive and all the Europeans left their NHS jobs (for instance) and left for countries where they'd be more welcome.

You can see the knock on effect in hospitals and other areas. I don't care what nationality my doctor or nurse is as long as they're well qualified and we can communicate.

I do, however, care about the fact that the UK continues to recruit from WHO red list countries, leaving them depleted of all their own clinicians.

Yes. I would like my eu citizenship and freedom of movement back, and I would like that for my children too.

I work in the public sector and the economic impact has been huge - parts of the uk are amongst the most deprived in Europe, and were in receipt of millions of pounds of funding.

I miss my friends who were eu migrants and made to feel unwelcome so they left.

I would welcome a well informed debate about the realistic options on the table.

I’m curious how angry and defensive leave voters seem to be on this thread. You won the vote. If you are confident in your decision then can you show us all the upsides of having left the EU?

I didn’t vote leave so no vote to defend. Very much remain at the time.

But the EU political landscape is changing and other factors are relevant, eg AI and tech. And how much their regulation slows them down.

No. We could never rejoin on the same terms. I wouldn't want to adopt the euro. I don't really see any great leadership in Europe atm (but equally I don't in the UK!)

Yes, definitely. Never should have left. Project Fear turned out to be an optimistic take compared to the devastation that actually happened, and is still happening thanks to ShitsIt

Depends on the terms. I voted to remain, but staying and re-joining are very different things with very different conditions in very different times.

Yes, I would vote to rejoin, although I believe that some financial institutions now prefer being outside EU regulation.

But the reality is the EU will never, never let us back in unless every single party supports joining. Why would they let us rejoin? Because in the unlikely event one government negotiated us back in, there would be the eternal 1 foot in, 1 foot out and Nigel’s “we’ll take us back out again if you vote for us“. We would be totally unreliable and no blame to the EU for believing that.

@MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack

The current opinion polls suggest that, right now, the majority of people think it was the wrong decision.

Whether or not people think leaving right or wrong was not the question as it’s already happened. Question was how people would vote if there was another referendum.

I don’t rate polls as being an accurate indicator of how 10s of millions of people will vote. However, last poll I remember regards rejoin was that 59% favoured rejoin WITH THE PREVIOUS opt outs, dropping to 35%? WITHOUT OPT OUTS. Also, only 31% thought their household finances would improve if the UK rejoined.

So, whilst there may be more who think leaving was not the best decision, that does not mean the same number of people think rejoin is correct. They are two separate things. Also, the world has changed significantly since 2016.

Are our human rights good enough? LGBT rights. The state of our prisons. The UK is 22nd for LGBT rights.

I would , happy I have a British , Irish, and Caribbean passport. So luckily my family and I have more options . so we can work and travel more freely.

I agree, we're 10 years on, Europe has changed and there are significant problems now.

@Insecurepanda

You won the vote. If you are confident in your decision then can you show us all the upsides of having left the EU?

There is no such thing as the burden to disprove. However, upsides I see are:

Lower immigration than, Germany, France, Spain and Italy,

Lower tariffs on exports to the US than the EU

Ability to set tariffs on imports with EU controls

UK has grown faster than, France, Germany and Italy since Brexit.

As pointed out by the poster EasternStandard, UK tracked Germany before Brexit and done since Brexit.

So, I don’t see any evidence that the UK is lagging behind the EU since leavings. Add that to other posters comments that UK will not get the same opt outs as before, what would be the benefit of a rejoin which is estimated to be up to £40 billion per year.

Paying massively more in return for massively less does not add up to me.

Yes, because I have geopolitical awareness beyond that of an invertebrate.

You seem to keep responding to arguments that I haven't actually made.

I haven't argued that the majority of people believing that Brexit was a mistake is evidence that the majority would vote to rejoin, so it's rather a waste of your time trying to counter that point.

We obviously don't know what a future referendum would bring, if we had one. I don't even know for sure how I myself would vote in such a referendum, because it's highly unlikely that we would be able to rejoin on the favourable terms that we so stupidly threw away in 2016. I would have to consider exactly what was on the table before making a final decision.

My argument on this thread was against your point that we've had a referendum already, that "we" decided to leave and that we should come to terms with that decision rather than seeking to try to change it.

My point is simply that, if the majority of the population decides that Brexit was a bad idea and that they would like to rejoin the EU, then it would be perfectly reasonable to allow them to make that choice. If you disagree with this, then by all means, set out your reasons why the electorate shouldn't be allowed to change their minds. I would appreciate it, though, if you could argue on this point rather than presenting spurious arguments against points that I haven't actually made.

Many invertebrates have very strong awareness and clever adaptations.

Yes. Brexit has made us poorer and it is therefore a no brainer.

I voted in the original referendum to join the EEC and I voted to remain.
I would not vote to rejoin.
Reasons
We would have to accept poorer terms of membership.
It would tie up government for years again
Europe has changed even in the years since we left with the rise of the far right
The EU should have stayed as a trading group and not tried to homoginise politically.

These are good points, and how I feel.

@MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack

If you disagree with this, then by all means, set out your reasons why the electorate shouldn't be allowed to change their minds

The electorate was presented with the option to have a second referendum or revoke Brexit in the 2019 general election by the Liberal Democrat and Labour Party respectively. Watch the BBC Question Time episode broadcast on 5 September 2019 for confirmation.

Neither Labour nor the Liberal Democrat’s won. So, the electorate did not want either a second referendum or to revoke.

There is nothing to prevent any of the existing parties, or a new party, from including in their manifesto for the next general election that if elected they will trigger Article 49. Manifesto commitments are meant to be adhered to. Whereas MPs seem to think referendums can be ignored if the average person in the street does not the vote the way the elites wanted them to.

Even if a referendum was held and the vote was to rejoin, are the EU obliged to accept? No, they aren’t. Also, as pointed out by several others, the terms on offer will be rubbish compared to the previous and the costs will be higher.

This is how I feel
I can’t think of one thing that was improved by us leaving
I didn’t vote to leave but having left I feel
a) we would be rejoining at a disadvantage- I don’t believe we could go back in and get the same benefits that we had before without it costing us a lot more and
b) Europe is no longer as it was - it’s a whole lot worse- we would need to take on a whole lot of their issues to get the particular things we are missing back

Good points

I agree