To wish the EU would stop being so arsey with us!

[GreatAuntPrudish]

Juncker is an utter prick - leaking details of the dinner at No.10.
Then there's Barnier, Hollande and other EU officials warning us how ugly it's going to get.

Poland and France wanting to extract every last billion out of us!

They're playing into May's hands - giving her the opportunity to look like the Boudicca of the 21st century when she is actually an utterly useless PM.

I wish they'd show some consideration for the 48%

I'm a Remainer - still want to stay in EU - but it's starting to piss me off so there's little chance the leavers who were starting to wobble will want to stay now.

The Daily Mail are relishing it

And before a riot starts, yes, "In the Republic of Ireland, under the Constitution of Ireland, both languages [Irish and English] have official status, with Irish being the national and first official language."

But surely it must be embarrassing for Junker - they all speak English as main Language and yet we are now departing....if I was him I wouldn't have mentioned it.

Just shows however what a personal pet project this has been for some of the men involved. Rather than an open - group.

I asked what language other than English would all remaining members be comfortable communicating in. You replied about people knowing languages other than English (which I do actually know!)

Some gasp don't know English at all and others not fluently.

How very dare they want to do politics in an organisation where simultaneous translation and salles d'écoute are a thing.

But you'd have to be a real ideologue to think they are the same (the welfare of europeans and the continued existence of the EU).

I disagree - or at least I disageee that you'd have to be an ideologue to believe there is a strong link. I think it's a sign of how differently people in different countries see this and how little we sometimes understand each other. Most Europeans I know think that the welfare of Europeans is enhanced by the continued existence of EU and their membership in it (and to be fair, 48% of referendum voters here felt the same).

Why not take the neutral view: we will negotiate in good faith, find the best deal for both parties, and if the people of the EU feel the EU should disintegrate, well then that's fine.

Why? Britain isn't taking that view. We aren't seeking the best deal for both parties. We want the best dea for Britain. We are not going in saying 'it's ok, we're willing to get a less good deal for us if it makes things easier for the EU.'

We are clear about our goal. Why isn't it similarly ok for the EU to say 'we want the best deal for the EU, we want to minimise harm to us and our people from this process'.

Most Europeans I know think that the welfare of Europeans is enhanced by the continued existence of EU and their membership in it (and to be fair, 48% of referendum voters here felt the same)

well I dont know the ones you know but the ones I know are totally mixed like here ..some love it but many do not.

There was excellent documentary on recently and the ones she interviewed cant wait to get out of the EU. Italy being first in line apparently.

well I dont know the ones you know but the ones I know are totally mixed like here ..some love it but many do not

Not even remotely suggesting anything to the contrary. Just taking issue with the 'total ideologue' comment which I thought was pretty baseless.

There was excellent documentary on recently and the ones she interviewed cant wait to get out of the EU. Italy being first in line apparently.
Was that the misleading pile of crap by the BBC and Adler? And from the point of view of someone living in Italy I am yet to encounter the majority of Italians who can't wait to leave the EU that ardent Brexiteers insist are the norm here.

Italy is so not the first in line to want to leave. Absolute rubbish.

Theresa May is handling negotiations appallingly. Her whole 'Iron Lady Mark II' schtick gets old.

What vanguard said. Am so sick of reading such ill informed bullshit. People spouting it are either thick, willfully ignorant or have an agenda to promote.

I was looking at the comments of a poster on another board who lives in Italy Bananagio and his take was that where he is, people want out of the EU, the young are leaving in droves as there is no future for them any more, there is political and economic crisis, and personal finances are on the brink for many people. Perhaps it's like the UK, it all depends where you live and who you mix with as to what points of view you will get.

Italy's political and economic problems are entirely self-inflicted. They were happy to repeatedly vote for a corrupt snake oil salesman who turned his Italian media empire into a state propaganda engine. And the population is committed to not paying tax, for example. How they expect their government to function without full tax receipts, I don't know.

Even after measures to force people to pay tax, restricting the amount of cash you can take from cashpoints monthly among other things, it's still standard to pay people half into their bank account, half in cash. They won't actually accept the full amount into their account.

In Italy as UK, people are inclined to blame the EU for the fall out of the financial crisis and the failings of national governments. As here, the tendency is very dependent on education and employment level. However euroscepticism is far less widespread there than here.

Moreover, Italy has done authoritarianism before in living memory so knows where it leads.

The fact that Italy can't devalue the currency doesn't help though does it? Neither does paying for the migrant crisis. Agree that Italy has always been a bit of a political basket case, but I think certain interests are just too entrenched to ever get rid of them.

Again, the poster who was writing about Italy is an hour away from Naples, so maybe the demographic is different.

You might like to note that tax evasion is also a national sport in Belgium.

I am in Italy and pay all my taxes thank you very much! I also don't know anybody who wants out of the EU although I know a few deluded souls who want to bring back Berlusconi.

I voted remain but the EU's willingness to throw the 48% under the big red bus has surprised me.

Unfortunately, it's the will of the 52% that the EU has to follow.

Irish citizens were asked to vote twice on passing an EU Treaty (only because it is written into our constitution). Why in the name of all that is good didn't the 48% mobilise and demand another referendum when so many of the 52% had changed their minds when the true extent of what they had voted for became and is still becoming obvious??? If it's a question of cost of having a referendum then there shouldn't need to be a second election so closely after the first one. As someone who follows the UK news relatively closely, I really can't get my head around this. It seems so obvious.
I'm not even going to get into the discussion about a hard/soft border in Ireland or a hard/soft Brexit. I don't think it should be happening at all.
I get that 52% of the UK citizens were (and probably are) pissed at how much control the EU has over daily living. However, the EU has done a huge amount to improve daily living too.

I'd be banging on the doors of my councillors and elected officials demanding another referendum.

Apologies Allegretto, I'm sure you do, as indeed do my friends. But the people who work for me, lovely as they are, will not accept full pay into a bank account.

I don't know anyone personally who wants to leave the EU, I think the sentiment is generally focused on the Euro rather than the EU itself, but there are clowns like Bepe Grillo around.

A taxi drive once told me in all sincerity that he supported Berlusconi because of all his women.

but there are clowns like Bepe Grillo around.

That should say and not but.

oh bless you, are the nasty grown ups upsetting you by spoiling your fun? Reminding your about the boring reality of what leaving the EU actually means.
Really wish the people who voted leave would quit whining and brace for the fact that it was never scare mongering and The EU are not being mean. This is exactly what was expected and if you don't like tough it's too late.

Whatcha, some of us have tried demanding a second referendum but, short of taking up pitchforks and marching on Downing Street, it isn't that easy. Particularly not when the so-called opposition have just nodded along to everything the PM has said.

Brexit means Brexit
Why the surprise ?

The EU has always said that a country is either in the EU or out of the EU, no special deals.

"Out" means the UK is treated like any other non-EU country
Until now, many Brexiters have assumed the special UK will get a special deal
Being treated like any other country is not "punishment"

Trade deals, whether with the EU or anyone else, typically take several years to negotiate.
Unforunately for the Uk, there are only 18 months left and any deal can be vetoesd by 38 national and regional parliaments.

A Norway-type deal could be done in time and would be a good compromise, which the EU would welcome:
The problem is that it crosses some of Theresa May's red lines, so she currently finds this compromise unacceptable.
In end, it's either Norway or WTO. Her choice.

Do you get mad if businesses refuse to give you special terms ?
Then don't take it as a national insult if other countries won't give the UK a special deal.

Theresa May's psychotic divorce strategy

Isn't it strange how it's possible for bad situations to escalate gradually so that people don't actually realise how extreme things are getting until its far too late?

Watching Theresa May's approach to the Brexit negotiations become ever more deranged is a perfect example of the way social groups tends to accept a slow buildup of erratic behaviour until it reaches a crescendo of insanity, when an immediate outburst of insanity from the beginning would have shocked people out of their indifference and forced them to put a stop to it.

Just imagine for a moment that during the Tory leadership contest Theresa May would have outlined her Brexit strategy along the following lines:
We fob the electorate off with utterly vacuous "Brexit means Brexit" platitudes for around six months while we desperately try to cobble together some kind of plan.
As we are trying to botch together our plan we will fight two futile court battles trying to scrap parliamentary sovereignty while our supporters in the right-wing press will whip up an unprecedented wave of public hatred towards the judiciary and the legal system.
After six months of sitting on our hands we will finally announce that the centrepiece of our negotiating strategy will be a ridiculously juvenile threat to severely damage both the UK and the EU economies by walking away from the negotiations with "no deal".
Our Brexit minister will then make it clear that we did no impact assessment of the damage a "no deal" strop away from the negotiating table would actually cause to the UK economy before we decided to make it the centrepiece of our negotiating strategy!
Another important step in the process of securing a "good deal" will be to throw away the Single Market and Customs Union bargaining chips before the negotiations have even started.
We will announce a Great Repeal Bill that will give government ministers the ability to rewrite thousands of UK with no democratic oversight whatever.
We will send a very clear message to the EU that we intend to use the lives of EU citizens in the UK as disposable bargaining chips by stripping out a simple amendment to the Article 50 bill that would have obliged us to at least begin working on our proposals to protect their rights.
We will attempt to blackmail the EU by implying in our Article 50 notification letter that the UK would turn a blind eye to terrorism and security threats in Europe if they don't give us the kind of deal we're demanding.
Immediately after setting the clock ticking on the most complex negotiations the UK has ever faced we'll take a two month holiday by calling a snap election, ensuring that the focus of our attention is on that rather than the diplomatic process.
We will make the impossible demand that all of the Brexit negotiations are done in secret, while the supposedly "undemocratic and unaccountable" EU want the negotiations conducted in an open and transparent way so that the 27 member states can understand what is being negotiated on their behalf.
We will have a disastrous meeting with EU representatives where we make it clear that we have no conception of the complexity of the task we're facing, then when details of this dinner are leaked to the German press I won't react with a "poker face", I'll deliberately poison UK-EU relations even further by spouting a load of paranoid anti-EU conspiracy theories about how there's some kind of sinister personal vendetta against me going on.
The next important step in my Brexit strategy will be to double down on our "no deal" nuclear Brexit threats by drawing up and publishing a plan of action for how we would attack and undermine the EU economy if they don't give us the kind of deal we're demanding.
A psychotic divorce strategy

To get a perspective on how mad this last point in Theresa May's descent into diplomatic insanity is, maybe try thinking about it in terms of a divorce: Your former partner wants to sit down and negotiate in a calm and open manner, putting the needs of the children (EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in Europe) above all else.

However you decide that this kind of approach is a sinister plot to undermine you, and instead of dealing with things calmly and in a sensible order, you're going to write them a furious letter going into great detail about all of the depraved schemes you've dreamt up to make them and the children suffer if you don't get what you what you want!

Do you honestly think that kind of approach would work? Do you honestly think that in real life you wouldn't get arrested if you tried sending a letter full of threats to your ex during the divorce process?

anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/

A union of 27 countries, refusing to give one country a special deal, is neither evil nor good -just different views and interests to the UK.
Like any union, they chose negotiators to represent them and maximise their bargaining power as a union, rather than 27 individual countries.

It is a comforting delusion after deciding to leave that everyone else wants to follow

Many countries - not just in the EU - are indeed unhappy with their own (incompetent) governments, who have far more effect on their lives than the EU.
Fascist parties benefit from this. So do the far left.

Greece's problem is they kept electing their version of Jeremy Corbyn in the belief that the rest of the EU would give in and foot the bill for his risky policies.
German politicians have been suggesting for some time that Greece leave the Euro (and the EU if they wish) but Greece refuses. Despite all their grumbles, they prefer to remain.

In fact, over 60 % of the citizens of member countries want to stay in the EU
(WIN/Gallup International polled 14,969 people in 15 EU countries between November 25 and December 7)

WIN/Gallup International polled 14,969 people in 15 EU countries between November 25 and December 7

Wow what a large sample of people

Most UK polls are around 1000 people
For sampling 15 countries to the same standard, the numbers sound correct.

The Uk is mostly regarded as a laughing stock, not just in the EU.
I live in Germany and listened to a couple of AfD supporter (AfD, the German EU-sceptic party, now down to 8% in the polls)
They said of course they weren't suggesting leaving the EU in the stupid, chaotic way the Brits had chosen
They would plan very carefully in advance

The polls are done every few months and are consistently heavily against leaving the EU
Most people recognize that it's their own govt that has chosen e.g. austerity, or bombing other countries, or chosen tax cuts over benefits

They don't laugh at the decision to Brexit, just the total lack of planning by the Uk govt and knowledge of what is involved
The headless chicken mode of Brexit
The Uk used to be considered as good in a crisis
No more