AIBU to ask why you for Brexit?

[BillySmut56]

I'm politically neautral on Brexit, it's a complicated issue, but I'm interested in the consequences that are coming out now. If you voted for Brexit, what were your reasons?

I do not necessarily think we will get as good a trade deal (initially) as we have now with the EU, but there will be be some sort of deal. And we will build upon that with the rest of the world to eventually make it a better deal.

This is no more than wishful thinking and no way to run an economy.

Your right to say sovereignty is more important than the benefits of the EU to many in the UK

Sovereignty was never lost, see the governments Brexit white paper. Wish they'd put it on the side of a bus tbh.

The big drop in the pound was triggered by the vote but it was probably overvalued and the drop is helping our exports. Also the surprise of a leave vote and the way 'Project Fear' had described the economy meant a lot of the fall was also based on fear rather than real opinion. Either way a bit of turbulence was expected by leavers and not a big worry for us.

Increased exports will be shortlived. Imports meant increased costs including food. Given that the leave vote was supposed to help the poorest I doubt they welcomed higher grocery bills.

Disagree about the latter being a disaster. eg Yes we might lose the ability to work in the EU, but how many of us will that affect, a few of the wealthy liberal elite?

No it will affect millions of ordinary people. The liberal elite sold you Brexit.

politicians have no credibility and they wont be around in 10 or 20 years as it happens bit by bit.

Including the ones who sold you Brexit? You know it will be politicians that will decide on the Brexit deal right?

Moussemoose
People are prepared to put up with financial discomfort because they will be 'free' But no one is saying we want to isolate ourselves from the world. We want to have close trading ties with everyone, which is different to being controlled by the EU.

Johnson, Gove, JRM all wealthy, public school educated, white men on the right, do you think they have your (or anyone's) best interests at heart Agree, so happy for the UK to elect them or not.

GhostofFrankGrimes
This is no more than wishful thinking and no way to run an economy. Nope, its a likely outcome with the alternative being acceptable as well.

Sovereignty was never lost Agree to disagree, its not some word to people its an everyday reality, and we have chosen to reclaim it.

You know it will be politicians that will decide on the Brexit deal right? And if we dont like the deal in five years time we can elect different ones to negotiate a different deal. That the beauty of having sovereignty again, we can dictate our own futures.

Julie as Theresa May said , all trade deals and alliances mean a loss of sovereignty in some part , although I guess that very much depends on how you perceive what that word means because she also said that the UK hadn't lost its sovereignty as a result of being a member of the EU .
Can I ask what your definition of sovereignty is ? , I appreciate there is a standard dictionary definition , but this seems to be at odds with what people often feel it means and how that translates into the UK and how it interacts with the rest of the world .

I am intrigued by the term ' Liberal elite ' , Julie can you tell me who you are referring to when using this term ? What is worse about them in comparison to the common or garden elite ?

FYI I am neither

I don't know much about these grand ideas.

But why not have a plan? Just anything?

They didn't bother to sketch out a few ideas on an old envelope or anything?

Me too frumpety! usually combined with liberal left wing elite or liberal loony lefties ... cos it's ok being a right wing authoritarian 😬

Absolutely recommend people read 'how corrupt is Britain'.
'liberal elite' is a way of throwing stones at people who don't agree with you and othering.
Brexit, for me, is a not very subtle way of shoving through a British version of a neoliberal agenda so the liberal elite name calling is hilarious as it is the neoliberal elite who are pushing their agenda.

Myrnafoy yep loony leftwingers wanting things to be better for the majority , tsk !

I am curious as to how you define this liberal elite though , do they have to have gone to University ? live in London ? what areas do they work in or are they part of the political system ? I imagine if you get down to the nitty gritty they will tick as many boxes as the rest of the elite , possibly will not have been Eton educated or have been born into the traditional ruling class .

Julie8008, thanks for responding to my post.
On the trade deal, I agree that the UK can build trade deals over time, but I fundamentally disagree that either France or Germany will put their financial interests in exporting to the UK above their interests in preserving the EU. That's the single biggest disconnect I see between what's being reported in the UK and the mood in e.g. Germany.

On bias language, by "fudge" I mean that essentially the UK won't leave the EU for all practical intents and purposes for another two years. Biased, yes, but probably towards your view?

Speaking of bias language, I HATE the new Americanism "wealthy liberal elite" - probably because I think it's been propagated by that lazy, workavoiding gobshite Ketamine Hopkins. What's wrong with coming up with a nasty homegrown label? Made in Britain and all... My preference would be for "rabid left wing schizofeminista", if you don't mind.

I agree with you that there is a corrupt ruling class who has totally forgotten about ordinary people / that there are a group of people in Britain who feel "left behind". That ruling class is currently in charge of the UK and has ensured that the UK permits some of the most aggressive consumer-rip off laws in the developed world outside the US (example: the amount of API you can charge on credit card debt is illegal in many countries in Western Europe). One of the current brakes on that type of pro-business anti-consumer rip off is EU law which might be all nannystatish and illogical from your perspective but which is also more pro-consumer than I believe the UK will be left on its own.

When Brexit happens, sorry, but I don't believe in the magical renaissance where the ruling elite (whether liberal or Mogg-esque) suddenly remembers the forgotten and left behind and fairly distributes the sudden wealth and jobs from trade deals amongst all. I don't think ordinary people will get to "take back control". Instead, it'll be exactly the same ruling elite but without the checks and controls the EU imposes on the UK.

Personally, I'm hoping for a hard Brexit so we can get this over and done with and so the Brexiteers can stop blaming the EU for their ills and start blaming those who deserve it, starting with the current UK government.

bista well said

Thanks Theworld!

Julie - one other point I should have responded to - the financial services being lost from London are all going to the EU, not the US - look at Lloyds of London (Brussels), HSBC (Paris), and AIG (Luxembourg), plus the European Medicines Agency (Amsterdam) just to name a few. London serves as the core European hub for most global financial service groups - you can't have a European hub in the US. The additional capital and jobs help the countries to which these institutions are going so again I don't agree that this hurts Europe. On the other hand it directly hurts the UK because those jobs are leaving.
However, it isn't (yet) the Brexodus the doom-mongers promised; most of the companies are setting up a relatively modest outpost in the EU to ensure that they can still trade in March 2019; they are not packing up their London operations to any large extent (other than the EMA). Also, people who live in London usually don't want to move to any of the options like Brussels or Frankfurt. The only city with the power to rival London as a financial services hub and an international city is Paris. So it will be interesting to see what Emmanuel Macron does in the next few months. He's been handed a stonking great anti-Frexit victory and a big parliamentary majority. He stands a real chance of passing meaningful labour and tax reforms in France. He is chasing HARD to take business away from the City of London and he is taking a hardline stance on Brexit. None of it will be weakened by fears on French exports.

More excellent points @bista1.

It is interesting to here a non U.K. perspective.

The EBA moving to Paris will strengthen Macron’s hand too.

I think bista makes some very good points , shows just how complicated the process is in reality and how the UK media are portraying a European mindset that isn't actually factual or true .

Just a few figures

And as always the people who can least afford it will suffer most.

The right wing elite will piss themselves laughing. They will be fine and may have a little more power to manipulate the work environment and the economy to screw over the poor and the disempowered.

I wonder who will get blamed by the Heil once shit starts seriously hitting the fan. Obviously the EU and migrants, probably Remainers for talking Brexit and the economy down. Who else?

The British civil service. It's already started they are going to be the scapegoat. Government would do X but the civil service are stopping them. The will become the London centric, liberal elite.

Yep, great culprit @Moussemoose and what better argument for further savage cuts. There is more of course:

• The French for PUNISHING us by taking away a good chunk of the profitable financial sector, the European agencies, the Airbus contracts etc.
• The Germans for the WWI, WWII, being very difficult, Merkel taking a piss out of Maybot etc.
• The Russians - yes, it's all their fault after all
• The Japanese - for taking their EU business elsewhere
• The Swiss - for confusing British voters into thinking Britain is Switzerland
• The Norwegians - ditto
• The Donald - for screwing us on the trade deal
• The Americans - for voting the Donald in
• The Chinese - for ignoring Liam Fox
• The NHS - for failing to survive until Boris' £350M/wk materialized
• The Brexiters - because they should have worked harder to make the sunlit uplands a reality The non-voters - because they could have prevented this clusterfck from happening
• Everyone else - because it has to be someone else's fault, innit?

Yeah, the Heil have a good number of outs, and the Readership will just gobble the bullshit up as always.

Do you remember the Budget we were going to have the day after the Referendum?
How come that never happened.
We just don't know what will happen, as such a big member has never left before, therefore we just don't know.

The report does not say this will definitely happen. However, based on the information we have these are the likely outcomes. Civil servants model the most likely outcomes.

This is not a political promise like the post Brexit budget. This doesn't come from politicians.

In a sign of the panic gripping the remain campaign, the chancellor plans to say that the hit to the economy will be so large that he will have little choice but to tear apart Conservative manifesto promises in an emergency budget delivered within weeks of an out vote.

mummmy2017 You mean just like the punishment budget that was promised the day after we voted to leave. LOL

Those figures are not about punishment , they are simply figures stating what has been modelled using all the available data . What they show is what most leavers have been complaining has been happening in the UK for years, so shouldn't come as any surprise to those who voted to leave .
People on here keep telling us that they expect there to be a period of years where the economy will be worse , but that it will be worth it for the regaining of the sovereignty which according to the person in charge of Brexit we never lost , it makes regrettable sense that those areas that were worse off prior to Brexit will feel the greatest hit .

The problem with the modelling, available data and any prediction is nobody has a clue what assumptions they should use after March 2017. Model will look completely different depending on whether the UK is in or outside the customs union.
My doom-mongering isn't based on statistics or data or experience (meh) - just a practical view that "a deal" isn't done yet and that a two year period is far too short to be ready. When "a deal" is done, it isn't just wrapped up by Mrs May chuntering a schnapps with Frau Merkel whilst the cameras snap away - there are thousands of underlying pieces of law, treaties, staffing, systems etc. which need to be put into place BEFORE 29 March for the UK to be ready. For example, the UK needs an Open Skies agreement with the US, the EU and everywhere else to be able to fly planes outside of the UK on 30 March. You will argue that everyone will be falling over themselves to do a deal with the UK; I think people are far less fond of the UK than you seem to think, but that a treaty will emerge at some point. However, it won't be a copy paste of the EU agreements and it might not be ready in time, particularly as the UK government doesn't seem to have actually done anything yet. Or take the customs union and assume the EU agrees the broad principles of a deal tomorrow. Whatever that deal is, a whole bunch of detail needs to follow it - be set out and agreed in writing and approved by all 26 member states. Then practical arrangements need to be made on the ground, staff trained, rules implemented, and in the case of a frictionless border, the entire technology needs to be invented, tested, trialled and built prior to 29 March 2019. I don't see it happening.
I agree that many of the doom predictions on day 1 after the vote were overegged to put forward a point of view (just as many of the leave predictions about staying in the EU were). To counter that - the predictions about doom were based on the UK leaving the EU and you haven't actually done that yet. If you look realistically at what needs to be done before 29 March 2019, a lot of hard graft is required - by a bunch of civil servants across the UK/EU who usually get years to implement the changes we're talking about, not months. Much of that graft can only start once the outlines of "a deal" are there.
Instead of getting those outlines in place for the good of the country, the Tories are pissing about with fights about who changes nappies. They are paralysed, inept and incompetent. So I think the doom-mongering is justified, not because a deal can't be done, but because it won't be done in the time remaining.

A great deal of the mood regarding the success or failure of Brexit will be set by what happens (or doesn't happen) on 30 March 2019. So if planes can't take off and borders shut, I think that will be a disaster for the country. And sorry, but based on what's happening now, I don't trust the UK to be ready in time because the Tories regard the vital step in Brexit as agreeing with themselves what should happen - they have forgotten the bit where they need to agree it with the other 26 member states.

Julie8008 / Mummy2017, just on a completely separate topic, I'd be interested to know what you think about renationalising the railways - would you be pro or con?