To wonder how many of you are ready for hard Brexit, after today's Common's vote?

[flibbertyfive]

Because that's what's now happening, very soon.

PS According to the civil servants I know, it will be utter chaos - there has been literally basically no preparation for this at all. Because the bloody politicians can't make up their minds for what they want/expect to happen. So there are no contingency plans whatsoever.

Hope you're happy and looking forward to the chaos if you voted for Leave.

Wouldn't it be terrible if we were really like Norway and Switzerland? Really? They're rich. They're happy. They're self-governing"

Being (sort of) from one of these countries... I've never understood this comment.

These countries did not have the benefits of a full membership (for better and worse) and actually spent a lot of money (political campaigns, treaties, subsidies etc....) To be where they're at. Partially due to the understanding that joining the EU is rather permanent.

If countries could join, reap the benefits and then still be in the same situation as countries that had never joined the EU?

That would seem like a somewhat broken system (and a very bad signal for other countries...)

GardenGeek

"you can be upset the vote for brexit and want for a hard brexit but to be also upset when the government don't prepare and then do start to prepare is just getting upset about it all IYSWIM. Its not objective.

Would you prefer they prepare or not?"

I think that's obvious. I would prepare Brexit didn't happen at all. But if it has to happen, I would prefer it was at least planned for properly.

Sorry, should read "I would prefer Brexit didn't happen"...

Well Brexit is happening. And I for one hope it happens properly and we cut as many ties with the EU as possible.

The people spoke and voted for us to leave the EU. The majority of the UK do not want to be part of it. We want out. We want to be in control of our own destiny. And we are getting it.

If it had to happen I would like it to happen properly as well. Given the total confusion in both of the main parties, the lack of anything more than disputed sound bites from the government and the total absence of any coherent plan I am assuming that our spell abroad is going to be a long one.

I don’t think we will leave, ever.

May is saying things but not doing them. Delaying delaying.

She has to be seen to be honouring the vote, but there is nothing of any substance actually happening.

I agree I wish things were more clear cut, it’s getting to the point where I think I don’t care if we’re in or out just decide and announce it.

truckdrive - but surely evenif you want Brexit, you don't want chaos?

I don't think you grasp quite how unprepared we actually are. As I said, my friends who are civil servants are just in despair at how nothing has been done or can be done until politicians make up their minds about what needs to be done.

For example, it sounds great to leave the customs union. But then you have to have people man all the new customs checks. You can't just recruit and train thousands of people overnight. No-one is recruited. There are no plans in place to do so. There is no infrastructure in place or any plans for this.

And that's just one tiny part of what needs doing.

Even if you believe it is beneficial in the long term - which I don't - it is not in anyone's interest (maybe Putin's?) for it to be a major fuck up for several years first.

May is just astonishingly gutless and indecisive. Make a bloody decision, woman.

I am petrified of a hard Brexit. I work for a field that will suffer very badly and am infuriated that the government can't seem to get a grip.
For those who voted leave because they had nothing to lose.. Well I think you're about to find out what exactly that means. No social welfare because tax receipts will be down, no NHS for the same reason. The rich will leave and so will all the linked jobs. We are screwed.

May is just astonishingly gutless and indecisive. Make a bloody decision, woman.
Quite honestly, however bad she is, imagine a Corbyn government. Privatise railways, energy firms etc. With what exactly? We will be a third world country very soon if Corbyn comes to power.

I have read (perhaps in the leaked gvt doument? I don't recall) that without some sort of prepatory work, British driving licences won't be valid in EU after March. So our hauliers won't be working overseas. And there's the Open Skies Agreement we fall out of then, too, no flights outside of the UK.

As to why I think Brexit is, on balance, a terrible idea:

1. Countries have trade deals to make them richer. That's why they're good things. Being part of the EU makes us part of the world's richest free trade area. It also gives us access to dozens of trade agreements negotiated from a position of strength with loads of other important economies round he world. If we leave, we will trade with the rest of Europe, or biggest market, on less favourable terms and also have to renegotiate all our agreements with countries outside the EU on less favourable terms than we have currently. It is madness.

1. Without the EU backing us up, we will have to accept whatever shit deal we can get from the likes of Trump (who makes no secret that he has no interest in any trade deal that doesn't benefit America) and places like China. And to make those trade deals, we will have to accept what they want from us - eg India will demand rights to immigrate to the UK and there are far more poor Indians wishing to come to the UK than there are Bulgarians or Poles or whatever! No-one is going to give us something for nothing.

1. We will likely lose all our environmental and food hygeine protections in a no deal scenario (because America won't accept them)and all our worker protection (because without the EU to enforce them, Tories will enjoy removing our rights to paid holidays, redundancy, maternity pay etc, on the grounds of making us internationally competitive with workers in countries like India or China.

1. We don't have enough UK workers to do a lot of jobs as we've got used to having cheap foreign labour to do the dirty jobs, so our fruit will go unpicked and our streets uncleaned. We don't have enough teachers or doctors but won't be able to afford to pay them more or train more as the crash in the economy due to the points above means that the tax take will fall.

1. We can expect years of chaos as eg the planes can't fly because we have no agreements with the airports, huge queues at ports, etc.

1. We can expect the end of the UK. N Ireland doesn't want to leave the EU and nor does Scotland so we ca expect to wave goodbye to them too. Wales might stay, though how it will react when it discovers that many of its towns owe their economies to EU funding - which Westminster is highly unlikely to replace - is anyone's guess.

1. Our once-great industries will fall as we can no longer recruit top academics, scientists, creative people, tech or finance people etc. And our own home-grown talent will flee abroad to places where they are still allowed to collaborate internationally.

1. There may be fewer Eastern Europeans coming but the millions already here have been guaranteed they can stay. Meanwhile, the only way we will be able to get new trade deals is by allowing more immigrants from eg India to come. So even May has now admitted immigration won't fall under Brexit and may rise. So those like truckdrive who voted Leave in order to get less immigration are not going to get their wish anyway.

Should add that I am not anti-immigration personally but understand that fears over immigration were what drove many Brexiters, such as truckdrive.

But yes, house prices will fall. Because so many will be out of work.

truckdrive

I understand what you are saying within the UK but surely brexit will make you less employable if you want to drive in the EU, you may need some form of licence/insurance to move within the EU that EU nationals do not need.

I now you said you have driven in Europe but was that before 1973?

The problem with truckdrive's argument is that you're only looking at one detail of a huge picture. Leaving the EU may seem like it will benefit your own job but it will definitely not benefit great swathes of industries that the UK relies on to generate tax receipts. Financial services, automotive, air, health, life sciences, higher education, creative, high-end research industries are all in big trouble if we leave, especially in any kind of hard Brexit scenario. We send over 40% of our exports to the EU; even a small reduction is going to hit us hard. When tax receipts fall at the same time that living costs and social costs rise (due to business failure or retrenchment), everyone is going to feel the pinch. The government is going to struggle to keep the already pretty crap status quo limping along let alone improve things. (Not that anyone's thinking about that because so many man hours are squandered on Brexit).

As it happens, I suspect a reduction in trade with the EU (due to higher prices and barriers to trade with UK that don't exist elsewhere in the bloc), coupled with the fact the millions of Poles etc already here have leave to stay indefinitely, means the benefits trickdrive hopes for in her industry will never materialise. Most likely, voting Leave is no more than a protest vote against a decision taken back in Blair's day to allow unrestricted immigration from new EU accession countries (which by the way the EU did not make us do, we chose to ) You can't put the horse back in the stable when it's already galloped over the horizon.

Back to the original post though, I think the rebels did win some substantive concessions. Will post a link to the Guardian article below but here's a quote from it:

At the very least, Grieve and his colleagues have succeeded in throwing up a series of new parliamentary barriers to a no-deal Brexit.
The government would have to give MPs a vote on the next steps, if parliament rejects the Brexit deal – or if no deal has been reached by the end of November.
Since there is certainly no majority among MPs for no deal, which all but a hard core of Brexit ultras believe would be disastrous, that now makes no deal extremely unlikely.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/12/theresa-may-is-a-hostage-to-her-own-party-after-brexit-non-rebellion?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

W0rried Mum - Nationalize. You mean nationalize. (Puts head in hands).

Dear old Ken Clarke, though. Makes me remember the days when there was a smattering of intellect and humanity in the Tory party.

If for one am looking forward to us stopping having to go cap-in hand to the EU . . . and instead prostrating ourselves at the feet of a brain-dead, pussy-grabbing, day-glo monster. That’s going to be so much better, begging for the scraps from his table. That’ll show people how impressive on the world stage, we are.

I think there are comparatively few posts for the scale of the issue that is Brexit because people use mn for escapism/distraction and don't want to think about it. Others are in denial that it's going to happen at all.

Absolutely, Kitty.

Because nothing says sovereignty more than bowing and scraping to a brain-dead far right misogynist in order to get a far worse trade deal than we have already.

@flibbertyfive Yep.

Well, it's not going to go away if we don't think about it.

It was ignoring the issue because it was boring that got us into this mess in the first place.

We as a country need to talk about what we actually do and as importantly don't want to happen, as otherwise what will happen will likely be what few people want but the shit compromise that cold be agreed on at the last minute or that the few who shouted loudest demanded.