To ask if anyone in the country is actually happy with the EU withdrawal agreement?

[Bearbehind]

Is anyone pleased with it?

its so ambiguous and wishy-washy, it barely actually says anything.

if this criteria is possibly met .....if this might/possibly happen then that might happen...... and possibly .... Are you actually ever going to be able to leave the EU? Probably not? They clearly don't know. So how is Joe Bloggs supposed to understand?

BBC linked : their analysis of what the 585 document actually says, re transition period:

"The transition period is also designed to allow time for the UK and the EU to reach a trade deal. The draft agreement says both sides will use their "best endeavours" to ensure that a long term trade deal is in place by the end of 2020. Significantly, if more time is needed, the option of extending the transition appears in the document (although, it makes it clear that the UK would have to pay for it).

The document doesn't say how long the transition could be extended for (in fact they've left the date blank), only that the Joint Committee may take a decision "extending the transition period up to [31 December 20XX]." UK officials hope that the date will be clarified by the time of the proposed EU summit on 25 November."

So, what does that paragraph actually mean? Its very vague.

{As a leaver no I'm not happy with it.
May needs to resign she doesn't have a clue how to negotiate a good deal}
If you leave a 'club' you do not make a deal, by definition you are LEAVING.
The problem is that the UK wants to eat and a market for anything it might make so the UK NEEDS a deal.
The EU could just say 'bye, close the door on the way out' which is pretty close to what a 'no deal' would look like. This would of course be disastrous as the intrepid Mr Fox and others 'oversold' the idea of becoming a massive trading nation on the world stage and the possibility of trade on 'good deals' for months or even years is slim.
Even the USA has poured cold water on the idea of the UK getting a decent 'deal' and then the UK would have to accept food down to US standards and be dictated to by the USA.

Well it's a compromise so, almost by definition, no one really likes it. Leavers would like a harder Brexit, Remainers would like to stay in EU and not Brexit at all. This could be described as quite a pragmatic soft Brexit. But no, you're right, most people don't like that.

But it is still Brexit without us falling off a cliff on day one so maybe we should all get behind it (unless you would prefer a second referendum).

You must be furious surfer because your beloved TM has sold you out.

It’s a fudge deal just to bide a reasonable amount of time until another referendum. Remainers should be happy.
For once, I hope Surfer is right.

Although, the most likely outcome is that nobody is happy, which I suppose it's fair, but hardly great.
Brexiters would probably be disappointed with the outcome of a hard Brexit, so at least if the UK remained, at least half (more?) of the population would be happy.

Yes I am. It's a compromise of course, both sides have given though I feel. To those who say it is worse than what we have now, well of course it is, how on earth was it ever going to be better?! I haven't heard an alternative that will be any less divisive in the country.

I voted leave not because I believed in 2019 we could walk away and all would be brilliant. I believe financially we are screwed for a decade probably. I wouldn't have chosen this time to leave the EU but the referendum was called when it was. I voted leave because of those words 'ever closer union'. People seem quick to forget of ignore that Le Pen had a real chance in the French election that Germany has voted in far Right politicians. An EU with status quo of how close we are tied, no further eastward expansion until the economies of all countries are more balanced and a strong Merkel at the helm is definitely better than what's being offered. So yes even with bad times ahead I believe this deal is better than crashing out or finding ourselves 5 years down the line even more closely bound to an organisation that has a risk of being dominated Far Right at worst or a battle ground of polarizing views at best (we are seeing what that is like on a smaller scale playing out as I type).
An EU without Merkel scares me and I see Brexit as like jumping from the Titanic, scary and risky but that ship is going down and the further we can get away less likely we'll get sucked down with it.

Heard this afternoon that two of my clients at work are pulling out of the UK and relocating to mainland Europe. All the UK employees will be made redundant next year.

I voted leave because of those words 'ever closer union'.

One of the concessions granted to David Cameron before the referendum was that the UK would be exempt from any closer union and this would be written into treaties.

itsstillgood very good points. It is so ironic how many of the moderate left were tipped into a remain vote because of the ugly spectre of nationalism which tainted the Leave campaign, with no eye on the bigger picture. As it happens, I took the opposite but equally cautious view to you, preferring radical surgery to amputation as it were. BUT what today's hoohas strike home for me is that we havent learned ANYTHING since the Referendum have we? Lots and lots of coverage and focus on the internecine party politics, and no clear communication or focus on what is happening in Europe and beyond right now, in the context of globalisation. In or out of the EU we cant seem to shake our island mentality. Ok there is some informed commentary out there, but not stuff thats reaching the general electorate, we barely scrape beyond slagging off politicians. (I fear a lot of people do actually think Theresa did the paperwork 🙄.) PS I am no fan of the lady or her politics but I would happily pour her a huge gin, run her a hot bath, demand that she throw a sickie tomorrow and change her answerphone to say Fuck Off.

Ironically itsstill, the leave vote has opened the door to the far right in the UK. I speak as someone who has had friends move abroad after being told to “f* off back home” and showered with abuse for speaking their native language following the referendum.
The leave vote has split the country in two and I expect to see a slow creep in of far right parties as they will take advantage of dissatisfaction with the main parties in the wake of brexit. I hope you’re right that you have saved us from far right politics by voting leave but I sadly think the opposite will be true. You have made this country more vulnerable than it’s been in along time.

If Chris Grayling resigns because of it there will be a lot of happy employees at the Department of Transport, as he has been the worst since Ernest Marples who was verging on the corrupt.

It seems like the best of a bad job. It cant be that bad if all the Brexiters hate it and its seen off Mr Raab who's going off, to buy himself an atlas. Michael Gove is slithering around on the periphery though, that's not reassuring to me. Surely May won't appoint him Brexit Secretary? Completely untrustworthy and as slippery as Boris.

You are right that the country is more vulnerable than ever. It was a borderline decision for me and possibly with Trump in the White House I may have gone the other way. I never thought that Brexit would be anything but extremely painful and risky. However regardless of whether UK had concessions or not I believed and still do that the future for the EU is bleak and that imploding will be even worse. Of course that has probably been hastened and Brexit will be blamed as a cause rather than seen as a symptom of issues that run deep.
I didn't celebrate the result. This whole mess doesn't make me happy, and it is far from ideal but there isn't a right answer to how to solve this and heal this country but the draft offers a plaster and a bit of time and that has to be better than scratching the wound or leaving it to fester.

It was not a negotiation! A negotiation is when each party has something the other one wants: I have a car to sell, you want a car, I want some money, we negotiate a price. With Brexit, we want to leave and the EU don't want us to leave. They hold all the cards. We wanted to have our cake and eat it - stop immigration from EU member states whilst continuing to enjoy all the economic benefits of membership. We were NEVER going to get that. It's not because Teresa May was rubbish at negotiating, it's because the EU were never going to allow us to be better off out than in.

There was never going to be a good deal. A good deal is impossible. That’s why Boris Johnson and his gang have buggered off, because they finally discovered that no matter how much they stamp their feet and how many tantrums they throw, there is no good deal possible. So like toddlers, they threw it on the floor and stamped on it and ran away screaming. Leaving Theresa May to pick up the pieces.

This deal isn’t a done deal yet anyway. I suspect the tantruming leave politicians will try and stop it getting through parliament. Because they’re rich enough not to care how much the rest of the country is fucked over by their actions.

Seargent.

Blunket page Hall.
Solvakia roma Community moved to the area in large numbers causing major problems with Pakistani and Somali people there.

Many countries from the old iron curtain have not had same level of integration, other western countries have had and can be a little less.... What's the word...

Well we have seen it with oban in Hungary.. Etc over refugees.

It's literally not a black and white issue. Many UK minorities voted leave because of incoming rasicm, because of the threat of racism from the eu.

I do belive if the government had all accepted brexit instead of trying to undermine it, played total hard ball.
We would be in a far far far situation than now. Brexit was hobbled by divided government, many mps fighting it not accepting it.. Slowing process down, praying we could reverse it.

So we have a limbo situation where we don't have enough of a good deal...

I think tm stepping into the breach after the ref result chaos was right but now we need a leaver to lead is through this tumultuous time

The concept of leaving might be fine but the realities are that small countries (as the UK is) cannot survive without allegiance to a much bigger country. Manufacturing (and service industries) are global and many of the massive corporations hold more 'cash' than a lot of the 'smaller' countries total wealth. TATA, the 'parent' of Jaguar LandRover is vast, with hotel chains, Tetley (the tea) and loads more companies in it's portfolio. As part of the EU, the UK did very well, especially as it had a lot of 'opt outs' and rebates, something that irks many other EU countries.
On it's own the UK will become 'just' the 52nd (lost count) state of the USA, a cute little island plaything for the Chinese or I am not sure what for Russia. The days of power, where we could stomp around the globe killing people have gone.
The UK said it wanted to leave the EU. The EU is not stopping it, but the issue of the NI border needs resolving and there is a £20 Billion 'bar bill' to be paid for work in progress when it leaves (£39 Billion with the transition to 2020). The EU would prefer the UK not to leave but it is not stopping it. Unfortunately the UK is trying to rip out the carpets and steal the cutlery as it leaves and obviously the EU would prefer it not to, hence the WA. There is also the matter of those in the UK wanting to eat and as over 50% of food comes from or through the EU that needs negotiating too.

The eu is OK with UK leaving it but not stopping it.

😂.

Unfortunately Brexiteers don’t care all they are interested in is “getting their country back”

LeClerc, perfect description.

Is that really correct Maldives? After many years of advocating the plusses of the EU and explaining that the UK Govt tends to blame the EU for many 'ills' of it's own making. I voted to Leave.

Why? Because the EU has, and is, evolving into behemoth I can no longer fully support. It has done its job and done it well for the past 40-odd years - unified Europe for long enough that most of its member states couldn't imagine going to war against each other.

Obviously the EU don't want us to Leave and whilst I appreciate that the Institution would make it difficult, I do find it a bit 'below the belt' to use the GFA as a 'sticking point' or indeed as a 'stick' to beat the UK inc NI and also Ireland. It wasn't because of the EU that GFA was reached - in fact the EU were trying to undermine the long-standing existing 'special arrangements' between the ROI and UK prior to the Referendum.

The EU attitude towards the GFA, completely blase to the Peace it created, reinforces my belief that my Leave vote was the right thing to do. And now they want to form an Army too?

So, the Agreement hasn't been reached but at least we now have a Document to work off. So, maybe Parliament rejects it, so then May and Negotiators go back to EU and say, we need to revisit some points and it goes on.

And on and on, for years. Meanwhile the EU erodes and possibly implodes and eventually they won't have 'the power' to enforce anything against the UK.

I'd rather stay in the EU but the agreement is alot better than no deal.

The GFA is an international agreement. The EU are signatories to it. Undermining it has countless political, legal and economic effects on Ireland, an EU member state. Northern Ireland citizens are free to choose Irish as well as or instead of British citizenship, meaning a good proportion of the residents of Northern Ireland will still be EU citizens. Of course they are not using it as a stick to beat us with.