Macron's behaviour is despicable

[Snowymountainsalways]

I am a moderate remainer, I say that because I do feel we should respect the vote. I am not a remainer who think a second ref will help. A second ref won't help regardless of the outcome, because the other side will simply demand another one, and another and so it would go on indefinitely and it is utterly futile and pointless.

I had come to the conclusion that a good deal would be the best outcome in the end. However I am just appalled at the behaviour and language coming out of the EU, and particularly Macron.

I am now even thinking what is the point? What is the point in continuing with any 'deal'? They are clearly not remotely interested.

May (for all her faults, and she has many) should gather her dignity and call it a day. We were there in good faith, the chequers plan is not perfect but it was a starting point. I had hoped it would work. It would have offered a solution of sorts.

I have cancelled our holiday next year to France. I don't want to go anywhere so openly hostile, despite the fact we have been holidaying there for my entire living life. I can't support Macron's comments that were both needlessly humiliating and rude to our prime minister.

Thoughts?

But Bojo, Gove & JRM were at best economical with the truth - they sold an idea on utterly baseless bullsh*t and a vast number of people believed them thereby plunging this country into a downward spiral. Macron is just calling a spade a spade. I feel desperately sorry for Teresa - I don’t like what she’s doing but tbh she has very little choice. I liked the analogy someone gave yesterday - 52% say they want to jump off a cliff....isn’t the right thing to do to try and stop it and help them see it won’t solve many of their issues?...eventually many will say “but no one told us it would be like this”☹️

I definitely don't think it will be just the UK that will feel pain, it will be the whole of the EU.

The EU have made themselves look even worse, they do actually look like bullies now. I say that as a remainer, but as an honest decent person I don't think it is on.

The tories now have their perfect excuse to execute plan B.

What if the UK decided to kick out all the EU citizens who choose to make the UK their home?

What if it did? Why would that massively hurt the EU? People from countries like Poland, previously 'poor men' of Europe, are seeing huge numbers of people going back now that their own economies are on the up. They'll do perfectly fine. Other EU citizens will (some are already doing so) go to e.g. Canada, Australia where their skills and their tax revenue are welcomed.

Macron was just stating what we alo know to be true. The leave campaign pedalled lies that were believed by enough people to sway the referendum. The £350m on the bus lie and "nothing will change" were only the most obvious but frankly a good proportion of the population don't understand enough about government budgets or have enough time to read up on their constitutional law, what with having jobs/raising families to take much interest.

I'm not sure what a "moderate remainer" is, either you want to remain or you want to leave. If you want to leave then attempting to rush the thing through in 2 years was always lunacy. Article 50 should be revoked accordingly to allow the government to put this back to the people via a second referendum. I'm not sure what a general election would achieve given neither of the main parties are giving the option to remain in EU as one of their manifesto promises. I actually think the politicians should do their jobs and act in the country's best interests by voting to consign the outcome of the 2016 referendum to history and work on changing aspects of the EU that the UK is unhappy with from within.

Establishment leavers want the economy to go down the pan so they have a countryful of powerless automata who will do whatever they are told.

Don't forget the pile of money they will make from disaster capitalism and savings from escaping the EU's incoming tax avoidance rules coming in 2019. It's almost as if this was planned.

I just find it incredulous that the Brexiteers lobbied for a 'leave' vote, using all the scare-mongering tactics (IMO it was an anti-immigration vote) they could muster, without having any clue as to how the act of leaving was going to take place. They're all a bunch of incompetents and I'm fed up to the back teeth of it all. I think our government, in the main, has been extremely arrogant - expecting to 'have our cake and eat it' then getting upset when the rest of the EU won't play ball.
And for all the Europeans working here we never seem to acknowledge that we were afforded the same privelege - which I personally thought was brilliant.

I think that Mrs May is stuck, she is doing something she must well know is a non-starter. Anyone with any sense will be abandoning her so that are not tarred with the same brush later on when all the fallout comes. The only reason she is still the PM today is because the job is so poisoned with Brexit no-one else really wants it because then it will become 'their' problem. She should do the decent thing and try to win a vote without the DUP support upon failing that then call a general election. When she loses that she can resign with dignity but saying it was everyone else out to 'get her'.

Poor person.

DarlingNikita If you are one of those EU citizens who wanted to live in the UK and were prevented from doing so because we've left the EU, you may feel very differently.

Bullying behaviour by a load of white privileged men.

The UK was in a club, which didn't suit it.
The UK decided to leave the club, as is its right.
The UK wants to keep the benefits of being in the club.
The club says no.

Whinge whinge whinge whinge whinge

Brexiteers seem incapable of grasping the fact that the EU is working for its own citizens, and doesn't have a duty to suit the UK. Constant whinging about "they're so mean, they won't negotiate". Their terms have been clear from the beginning, and the mood of the rest of the EU leaders hasn't been softened by Boris's boasting about cherry-picking and cake-having. Now the EU are saying "don't let the door hit your arse on your way out" and it's all shock horror and amazement from the same people who've been insulting them for years.

I imagined a friendly nation, a key ally of the UK would not have put the boot in. I expected Macron to be a statesman, a gentleman and to acknowledge the efforts on both side and not sink to the levels of calling other nations 'liars'.

It is disturbing to see that no effort whatsoever was made. And so, now we will all sit back and watch as a leadership contest starts.

Those looking for a civilised and professional debate, decision and deal are left aghast.

Tomorrow your husband divorces you

The next day he wants to negotiate with you about post divorce sex with you (twice a week as before and a birthday bj), you doing his washing(im going on a date on friday, i need a fresh ironed shirt), cooking, (i like fry ups on a weekend and only made from scratch evening meals) cleaning, seeing the kids etc but not paying a penny for any of it

How much time would you spend negotiating and what counter offer would you make?

I just wish both sides would stop posturing, stop wasting time and get to work on a solution.

No deal will hurt the EU. It will hurt the UK a lot more. And the 3 million EU citizens who live here.

It's time for both sides to put people first and their stupid dogmatic viewpoints a very distant last.

And of course Macron is playing hardball. He's French. He couldn't be happier to see the perfidious Anglo-Saxons suffer.

But he's forgetting his own people will suffer too especially around coastal ports, and I don't see why people who had nothing to do with the vote in the UK should be collateral damage.

And while NI is incredibly important, everyone is forgetting Gibraltar. They voted to stay in the EU almost unanimously and their views are being completed ignored by everyone.

I think that after 2½ years there is a huge frustration among EU leaders that they have never had a coherent policy from the UK on what it actually sees as the deal. They are getting different messages from different parts of the UK government because the Conservative Party are not in agreement regarding what they actually want. All there seems to be is some vague platitudes about how this will be solved "creatively" but little detail on how it is going to work in practice.

The EU leaders are also frustrated that May thought she could circumvent the negotiating process by ignoring the negotiator and going direct to the leaders. A Dane asked me yesterday why Theresa May keeps pushing the Chequers Plan when it has little support among her own party and it was rejected by Barnier in July?

It really seems to be the new strong and stable mantra for repeating the same statement that no one believes. I think she gambled that by pushing them to the brink she would get the deal she wanted - but I think that Europe is now planning for a no deal crash out.

As an aside - the UK news is concentrating on its own ratification process - but constitutionally many EU states will have to ratify the final Brexit agreement in their own parliaments. The UK either doesn't know or doesn't care about this process. I don't think there is time to conclude Brexit in less than 6 months

He did not call the country 'liars'. He said that that those pushing the leave vote had lied and all buggered off the day after the vote so as not to have to deal with the consequences of their actions. I think he is quite right.

I applaud Macron for spelling it out, and in fact I wonder why more senior politicians here don't spend more time saying it, instead of pandering to "what the people wanted". If they wanted something because they were lied to about what it entailed - which they were - then that needs to be addressed. It wasn't the only lie either - vox pop interviews show a lot of people voted leave because they believed it would reduce immigration. The truth is we need that immigration and we're still going to have it, just with a lot more expense and hassle.

Immediately after the referendum result there was a load of buck-passing and shrugging about the NHS bus claim. It was quite clear it wasn't true and the shit was going to hit the fan when it turned out the UK was going to be financially shafted, rather than richer.

Politicians lie, or make promises they later go back on, during election campaigns. And for this they aren't penalised, except possibly by being voted out next time (like Nick Clegg).

But the referendum campaign was different because we weren't voting about a 5-year-max parlimentary term, but a massive, permanent change. The fact that we're in this situation because of lies is actually really important.

Yes, it's rude and not politically usual to publicly accuse people of lying, but, they did lie, and it does matter.

I'm really sorry for Theresa May, though I'm far from a Tory. She didn't vote for this shit show and she's doing everything she can, according to her determined code of trying to get the best for the UK. But it's impossible - the whole leaving project is too complex, gordian and unworkable for there to be any useful, prosperous outcome.

If I was her I'd throw in the towel make an eye-watering conference speech about how Brexit is and always has been the dumbest idea ever, resign, call for a second referendum and swan off into the sunset.

Mr Macron was quite specific about who he meant, Cameron, Davies and Johnson. Perhaps by extension anyone responsible for slogans on buses. He was not insulting or calling the general public of the UK liars.
You have to read and understand what he actually SAID and not the spin that the press put on it.
The rules of the EU are handily written in 27 or more languages and are available on the internet for anyone on the planet to access. Why get 'arsey' with Mr Macron for pointing out the Mrs May, after 2 years of so called 'negotiations' has failed to read the rules.
The gross stupidity of the UK in mis handling 'Brexit' is costing the EU a lot of money and wasted time and I am surprised the EU negotiators and heads of state have been so polite so far.
The EU is not being a bully, it is looking after the member states. The UK has said it is leaving, fine, OK shut the door on the way out after you have paid the outstanding bill.
If this is too complicated for you. Imagine the countries of the EU are in a bucket. Would you expect a country that is leaving to be allowed to drill a hole in the bucket?
If Mrs May has a plan, she certainly isn't discussing it properly with the EU and there is no evidence that she has read and understood the rules yet.
While the costs of this Brexit fiasco will be less per head for the EU27 compared to the UK, it is still significant. Remember, the UK is forcing 'cash' out of EU27 members pockets due to the UK's stupidity, don't expect too many favours.

I'm going to repost what he actually said

“Those who explain that we can easily live without Europe, that everything is going to be all right, and that it’s going to bring a lot of money home are liars. It’s even more true since they left the day after so as not to have to deal with it.”

That is not calling a nation 'liars'. Read it properly.

According to my friends from various countries around the world, we are a laughing stock. We have all sorts of domestic problems that are being ignored while we are busy committing suicide with Brexit. It’s embarrassing.

My honest response to your post would go so far against Talk guidlines that I would be banned outright, so have my edited version:

You are talking utter rubbish.

The EU have made themselves look even worse, they do actually look like bullies now. I say that as a remainer, but as an honest decent person I don't think it is on.

We are not on a school playground now.

How ignorant do you have to be to think that the EU doing exactly what they always said they would do is bullying us?

I need to hide this thread, for the sake of my sanity.

Establishment leavers want the economy to go down the pan so they have a countryful of powerless automata who will do whatever they are told.

Don't forget the pile of money they will make from disaster capitalism and savings from escaping the EU's incoming tax avoidance rules coming in 2019. It's almost as if this was planned

That may be true but please do not ignore the people who want to leave because they want less centralised government of economics. I can't claim to be an expert but one good thing that would come out of Brexit would be more decisions being made locally, in effect the 'small is beautiful' model of economics as championed by EL Schumacher.

OP - if you still think a good deal would be the best outcome you're sadly mistaken. This is from GQ:
Yes, this government has handled the last 27 months with seemingly unreachable heights of incompetence. But they still managed to effectively prove one thing: there is no workable solution to Brexit that gives us what they promised. Absolute sovereignty, total control of our borders, freedom from the European Court Of Justice, continued frictionless access to our biggest trading partner – the EU – and the ability to make independent trade deals with whomever we choose.

Macron is quite right. We have been lied to. And he is merely restating the EU's position as it has been since a couple of days after the referendum. Do you not see that? It should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.

What if it did? confused Why would that massively hurt the EU? People from countries like Poland, previously 'poor men' of Europe, are seeing huge numbers of people going back now that their own economies are on the up. They'll do perfectly fine. Other EU citizens will (some are already doing so) go to e.g. Canada, Australia where their skills and their tax revenue are welcomed

That is a concern. It will end up a tit for a tat, relations with Europe will sink something more akin to war.

Those saying what do you expect? I expected much more than this actually. Now we are in the situation, we need grown ups at the sitting at the table now not little boys like Marcon.

It’s like resigning from your job and still expecting to use the staff canteen, keep your medical insurance and have access to all the clients.

May has just been demonstrating what I have heard about her from other sources: she doesn’t listen and she doesn’t have a plan B. The snakes in her own party are making the whole process almost impossible. Whoever said about her being a career politician hit the nail on the head. That is the problem with politics in the U.K., it has become completely about power games. I don’t believe any of them listen to how people feel in the country. They don’t have any interest in improving the situation for our nation. All they care about is furthering their own interests. If I had a choice between May and a British Macron running this country, I know who I’d choose.