We're going to have to call a halt to Brexit aren't we?

[Hufflepug]

Lukewarm Remain voter here. Understand that the Government has to listen to 'the will of the people' and all that.

But for the love of God, now that it's clear what absolute economic suicide we're committing surely we've got to put a halt to it whilst the govt and the opposition work out what the fuck's going on!

AIBU

I wish I had your faith though. It's touching.

It's not blind faith, it's blooming common sense.
We are leaving, therefore someone is working to make it happen, and yes it does involve one heck of a lot of budgets and tax implications, being an Accountant myself I don't see how it involves anything else when we are talking about money and numbers.
Still expect a no deal, as getting 27 of you lot too agree on something is hard, let alone 27 countries with different agenda's.

Brexit is like a gym membership.
We said we were spending too much on it and would stop spending money on the gym. We agreed with ourselves and resolved to cancel the gym in future to save money. We work out this would save us £600 a year.
We still go to the gym though, because we've already paid.
So we still have a contract with the gym, and are still going.
In order to get out of the contract we have to talk to the gym managers in person. They aren't always available.
Everytime we meet the managers, we use the gym.
After 6 months we still haven't finalised the end of the contract. We will be liable for the rest of the 12 months unless we negotiate the end of the contract. We have to meet the terms of the contract to terminate the contract, so in order to negotiate the end of the contract, we pay for another 6 months.
During that time we get very used to using the gym.
At the end we like the gym, but we have insisted we won't be members, as signing up is too restrictive so instead we pay each time we use the gym. This is more expensive than being a member, but we tell our friends 'oh I never pay unless I use it' and your bank 'oh i' ve cancelled my membership so I'm no longer committed to £5000 spending over five years, so I've saved £5000.
After 5 years you've spent £20,000 on individual services, but have never been committed to spending.
You tell the no commitment story, but never reveal how much you've spent.
Your lifestyle budget is a lot lower than you expected given you are sure you've saved £1000 a year...

In the event of no deal the EU will take the blame as it will be claimed you can't possibly deal with 27 countries. The fact UK chose to leave will be overlooked, you'd think that leavers would have had some sort of plan after 40 years of complaining.

m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/uk_587caa2ae4b074eb45ce108e

Mummy how many such articles do you have to read before you think that, maybe, just maybe, it's not going to all unicorns and rainbows? How long can you just stick your fingers in your ears and go 'la la la, not listening, it's always been ok before, it will be ok this time?'
And as for your analogy about putting a man on the moon - there were actually a lot fewer problems to solve with putting a man on the moon than there are with Brexit. But you stay there in your little bubble.

So according to the way your all acting NO ONE at all is working on trade deals, or anything similarly. We are not employing highly trained people capable of doing this work

I haven't seen a single person in this thread say nobody at all is working on trade deals. We're just wondering why you assume we must also be employing highly trained people capable of doing that work, given that we know there's a shortage. Your view seems to be that because the UK government and civil service contain people who are good at certain things, they must also be good at others. With no evidence for that at all.

Basically, there's no evidence for assuming that because point one is true, so must point two be!

being an Accountant myself I don't see how it involves anything else when we are talking about money and numbers

Ah. This might be the problem.

The UK leaving the EU and negotiating trade deals doesn't involve solely money and numbers. It also involves politics. Much more complicated and not necessarily so logical, sadly.

Why do you think I see this in a Rose coloured Bubble, I don't.
I think we will get no deal, and it will be very hard going , BUT we will find a way through it all, and things will change because they have to. This is a realist view, we are coming out of the EU, it is happening, nothing can stop it, Even the EU think that. It's not a day dream or a nightmare you can wake up from, no it's real life.
We prospered after the 1990's boom and bust, and Black Wednesday and all the other set back, I don't see why you can't see that this is the cycle of finance. You fly high, you fall you rebuild. This has always happened and always will. This is the point I keep making, Long term.

Why do we have to find a way through it? History is littered with examples of countries, cities and empires who were doing really well then went to shit. If you've some actual reason to think it's impossible for that to happen again, I'd love to hear it. I would. I'd much rather you were right than wrong.

So much to do, so little time.

End of 2017 beckons when agreement on NI/ROI border (biggie), ex pats in and out of UK/EU, and UK financial obligations to EU should be decided.

I can see all that being finished in a week from today no problem. huh.

But if it is not sorted sharpish, there may be trouble ahead.

And then the next two phases. Too little time IMV for anything to be decided. But maybe that's just me.

TBH though a remain voter mainly because I didn't really understand either sides arguments, I'm curious how things will pan out. We have a trade deficit with the EU that is growing at the same time as the EU share of the world economy is shrinking. The other thing is while we are required to meet our obligations so should the EU and most remainers seem to think we get more from the EU than pay in! Finally as a partner in the EU we should be entitled to 1/28th of their assets?

I honestly think if you did the vote again you would stil get the same split. Or an either closer one.

We haven't got the immediate riches or the immediate doom of either sides oredictions.

And then we go our merry way and argue on social media,down the pub etc etc.

NO singular party addresses WHY we have this split, we pit the young (labour) and the old (conservative) and then wrestle for the in between.

I honesty think politics has gone too far. We are not in a democracy any more, just a state of propaganda, vote buying and general fuckery.

An independent large scale, almost, mandatory opinion survey needs to happen. The results heat mapped on the economic democratic of the country and VERY VERY carefully analysed. They each party should respond with a manifesto.

There has been so much shite in the media, mud slinging etc etc, it not helpful.

AND I say this as a Tory voter

Where to start with mummy2017's comments?

At one stage, I worked for the Inland Revenue. I think I was pretty good at my job. We had shelves full of books to tell us how to work out tax. We didn't have shelves full of books on how to negotiate trade deals. No doubt some skills would have been transferable, but it would have been a steep learning curve, and not one accomplished in 12 months.

Yes, 'it will work out in the end'. Will it? Cast your mind back to your history lessons. Did the Irish potato famine work out well? For some individuals forced to emigrate who then did well, then yes. For others, who starved to death, no. It caused huge depopulation which has taken decades if not a century to recover from. Cast your mind back further - where now are the Roman, Spanish, Austo-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires? All lasted a few hundred years - all overreached themselves or were destroyed by war.

Some people recovered after the 1990s bust. Others didn't. If you have a business and it goes down the pan, it's one thing to start again in your thirties, not so easy to do at 60.

As has been said, what about the RoI/NI border? I don't see any constructive plans there yet. This is something which makes me angry - the Good Friday Agreement was hard won, and to be in danger of squandering it, appalls me.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

Mummy Black Wednesday is estimated to have cost the economy approximately £3.4 billion. The conservative estimate for settling what we owe the EU is £34 billion. And then we have to pay 10's of billions to set up all the regulatory bodies that we used to pay the EU to do. So it could cost us £50 billion just to get back to where we started.
Most recessions last for a couple of years at the most.
Even some of the most ardent Brexiters on these threads have more or less admitted that it will take 20-30 years to see a benefit from Brexit. Taking the 30 year figure, my oldest child will be 47 and I will be 79 if I'm not dead. Are we supposed to be grateful for that?
Digby Jones, one of the most enthusiastic Brexiters, recently admitted that it could take 100 years before we see any benefit.
I am tired of saying that we're not allowed to criticise Leavers for being thick because I just don't know any way to describe people who believe this shit. David Cameron (a multi millionaire via an inheritance married to the daughter of an aristocrat) called this Referendum to shut up a cat fight in his party. It had nothing to do with the good of the country. And then, as soon as he lost, he fucked off to leave everyone else to clean up his mess while he waltzed off to coin it in on the After Dinner Circuit and splash photos of him and his wife in their lovely home to the Sunday supplements.
I have been a CPN for 20 years and I simply cannot describe how different my job is compared to when I started.
I see 6 or 7 families a week of 4 or 5 people living in one room with cockroaches and mice running around and damp everywhere who are told that they should basically be grateful that they are not on the streets. It wasn't like this when I started this job.
I really need to take a break from these threads. I simply can't just sit here and listen to the likes of mummy and just keep quiet because I'm supposed to see their opinion as as valid as anyone else's.

I don't know how it is going to work.
But WE are leaving. It's happening, We can't stop it.
We are a chatroom, not a political party.

Why do you think we can't stop it, then?

Because all that's happened so far is a non binding, advisory referendum attracting a Leave vote from a minority of the population, and the start of a process that does not lead to an automatic departure and may well be reversible. Personally I can't see how anyone can be certain in this climate.

I agree with Vince Cable that older people who voted for Brexit have "comprehensively shafted the young"
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40842017

I think mummy's arguments beautifully exemplify brexiteers reasoning.

"I don't actually have any idea how it will work but someone is working on it now and they'll sort it out. We've gone through worse like the recession in the 80s, or ww2 when 65 million people died but hey it's swings and roundabouts.
Oh well, it's the will of the people get over it."

Perfect.

Why do you think we can't stop it, then?

It could be stopped if the political will was there. If the Tory party thought that Brexit was going to destroy them totally, for all time, they would suddenly find a way to call a halt to it.

Yes, precisely. The issue isn't whether it could be stopped, it's whether it will be. It's not inevitable by any means. That's not to say it will be stopped either, of course. We are in very uncertain times.

Azure I posted that Vince Cable article on one of the Referendum threads and I totally agree with him. My parents are in their 70's and voted Leave. They are absolute typical baby boomers- my DP went to university for free, as newly qualified teachers they were given a council house for 3 years which allowed them to save for a deposit. They bought their first house for a pittance and then saw the price go through the roof which meant they could buy a bigger one. They both got to retire at 60 on generous pensions.
And they had to contribute very little towards their DC's university education because it was still free.
My parents are decent people but just completely blind to the privilege their generation had. They talk about young people and their phones as though getting rid of your phone would give you the deposit for a house and pay off your £50,000 student loan.
They trot out the 'we've worked hard all our lives' line. Yes, they did but millions of people throughout history have worked hard all their lives and people will continue to work hard all their lives but they will never get the benefits of working hard that my parent's generation got.
The voting breakdown on age is really stark. The reality is that older people who massively voted in favour of Brexit will gradually begin to die off whilst more and more young people, who are massively pro Remain, become of voting age.
By the time Brexit happens (if it happens), I reckon that less than 40% of people will still be in favour of it.

DF not DP.

I'm of the same demographic as your parents, MsHoolies, but thankfully, neither me, DH nor DB voted Leave. I think we are aware how lucky we were. The thing is, that sort of comfortable existence is something of an aberration historically. For most people in the past, and indeed in the world today, life is 'nasty, brutish and short'.

So mad. The whole thing is just insane.

One of the things which I find most crazy is the attitude that it was a vote, just like any other, and one side won and that is that - that's what should happen because it's 'the will of the people'. 'Ho ho, so you think just because you don't like the Tories shall we overturn the results of the general election too!' Um, no, one of the main things about an election is that the parties have a manifesto that they campaign on, and it's actually (or at least mainly) REAL. And expected to be followed, with 'breaking a manifesto promise' a big deal. Here you had total fantasy peddled, both sides could basically say what they wanted with no more being held to account than an episode of x-factor. And the decisions were made based on that. And here we are. And that's all ok. That in itself is insanity.

I personally don't believe 'Brexit' is even really possible. Hence where we are now. I have no idea what the frantic level of discussion completely behind the scenes is currently like to find a way in which the outcome of this can be presented as us 'leaving the EU' while still finding a way for the UK to basically continue to function, but I am sure it's happening. Just the maddest, maddest series of events ever.