The whole shit show can hardly be blamed on Theresa May can it

[dawnacorns]

I'm hardly her number one fan but I can't see how getting rid of her is the answer. They just don't seem to know what they're doing. It's an absolute mess whichever way you look at it.

I don't recall a red bus with ' Let's leave the Single Market and Customs Union on it'. I do remember one with ' We send £350 Million a week to the EU, Let's spend it on the NHS'.

It's strange how memories differ (or are conveniently short), and people read what they wanted into a simple Leave or Remain question. This is why there is a problem now, because one Leaver's deal doesn't square with the whole of the other 17 million's views.

in the grand scheme of things it's not that important when the country is teetering on the edge of disaster.

Well, in the really grand scheme of things, the country isn't teetering on the edge of disaster because it won't be as bad as the Black Death, or Mad Max, impact from a 3-mile-long meteorite causing mass-extinction on a global scale, or the Sun going red giant and swallowing the planet in a ball of incandescent plasma. So really we shouldn't complain too much, eh?

With regards to whatever the acceptable medium grand scheme of things is, Leavers on this thread have already explained that they are positively delighted at the prospect of food shortages, job losses, businesses and skilled workers leaving, lack of medicines, and economic downturn resulting in less funding available for actually running the country. So not much to complain about there either.

Meanwhile, in the less grand scheme of things, we can express disgusted astonishment at people who value education, travel, and (rather importantly in many fields of work) the ability to gain wide-ranging experience by working abroad.

These things are not mutually exclusive.

Out of the 52% who voted leave, it's quite possible that a minority imagined a Norway or Switzerland type situation.

I am very confident that most people couldn’t explain the difference and that in June 2016 most people couldn’t define the single market or the customs union, however they voted.

People were just voting for something better, as they do at every election.

The leave campaign leaflets just before the vote specifically mentioned Switzerland as a country successfully trading outside the EU.

Bit of an odd example to use if your campaign was explicitly about leaving the single market.

Leavers on this thread have already explained that they are positively delighted at the prospect of food shortages, job losses, businesses and skilled workers leaving, lack of medicines, and economic downturn resulting in less funding available for actually running the country.

They are delighted of course, because it always happens to the other person. Now if your name is Rees-Mogg, Redwood, Lawson to name three, then you have already stashed your money away, or got yourself a bolt hole in France, so it's indeed so. Most of us are not them, and there will be a rude awakening when it means that yes this does include you , average Leaver - these wealthy white spivs conned you.

It is her fault.

She didn't have to trigger article 50.

She could have sent someone to the EU who actually went to Brussels. She could have made it a cross party issue and had negotaiotiators from other parties to make it a deal for the UK not the conservative party.

She gave a billion to the DUP who are no longer supporting her, she only needed their support because she called a general election.

She could have waited until the negotiations were getting to the point of a plan and then allow the electorate to vote on the deal(s) or options.

But no she put being PM ahead of all this and as a sideline crapped on elderly, disabled and vulnerable people.

I'm more annoyed at David Cameron running off as soon as the vote didn't go his way.

Whoever is in charge it always comes back to deciding whether the U.K. border is in the Irish Sea or Ireland.

Meanwhile, in the less grand scheme of things, we can express disgusted astonishment at people who value education, travel, and (rather importantly in many fields of work) the ability to gain wide-ranging experience by working abroad. I'm raising a quizzical eyebrow at people thinking the Erasmus scheme is major concern of ordinary people.

The Erasmus scheme is the tip of the icenerg when it comes to academic cooperation though isn't it? One of my great sadnesses about Brexit is the lost opportunity for advancement that we will never know about. Introduce friction into the system and suddenly cross European trade on ideas slows down. Watch the ripple effects of this and a collaboration that might have resulted in a cure for cancer or climate change never takes place.

@derxa , everyone had their own reasons. People with university age kids might well have given it a bigger priority. I'm from the generation where poor families were able to get grants for university- I got one. Erasmus was part of our plans back then.
Sadly few people thought about fishing because few people are in that industry. Doesn't mean it's not important whichever way you decided.

I am on both sides of the "is it Theresa May's fault" question. On the one hand I agree with all of Sashh's points. On the other hand no one else on with side of the house was acting any more grown up about it so I don't know if we'd be in any other place whoever was in charge.i feel totally let down by the lot of them. If there was ever a time to out country ahead of personal ambition you'd think this was it.

Isn’t Norway in the Erasmus scheme?

It's not all her fault and, faced with the likes of Bojo, Gove, RM et al as alternative replacements for Cameron, I guess she felt she had little choice but take it on. Please imagine the aforementioned leading the Tories and quail. There is no good solution, there is only a selection of 'least worst' solutions to this appalling mess.

@peregrina

I don't think we'll be waiting 50 years for the EU to collapse. The Euro was very close to collapsing (twice) just four years ago. A very large number of respected economists have said that the EU badly needs to restructure and is unsustainable but Brussels won't listen. They are too busy with their obsession of driving forward a federal EU superstate.

And before I get accused of this being ridiculous leaver clap-trap, see here the EUs official report in 2015 proposing a single EU treasury to replace those of nation states

ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/five-presidents-report-completing-europes-economic-and-monetary-union_en

Your opinion is as good as Rees-Mogg's as far as I am concern tigerroo, or mine for that matter. Just opinions.

The UK will have collapsed first before the EU does IMO. The EU having seen the UK messing around has now become more united. I think there is a real possibility now that the UK in its present form will disintegrate first.

The Euro was very close to collapsing (twice) just four years ago.

Nobody has proposed any option that would protect the UK from the impact of a collapsed Euro.

And before I get accused of this being ridiculous leaver clap-trap, see here the EUs official report in 2015 proposing a single EU treasury to replace those of nation states

Which any EU country has the power to veto.

Nobody has proposed any option that would protect the UK from the impact of a collapsed Euro.

Because the UK isn't an Euro country?
It doesn't need any extra measures.

Like it wasn't a Schengen country?
The UK was already just barely in the EU.

I think you have hit the nail on the head Bluntness100. She has integrity how many politicians can you say that about.... zero I would say. We have be blindsided by the bitterness of ‘the merry men who are consumed by their own self importance and ego. I believe in her integrity. Something rare in politics these days.

Tigeroo

It's an assumption but you dont know since this isnt what was asked in the referendum.

Bearing in mind as well that demographics will have done their thing in the last 2.5 years ..

Also, what was the leavers stand on ireland and the gfa?
I dont remember their proposed solution.

Sweden was in the Erasmus scheme before it joined the EU.

I was told at a university open day last weekend that Erasmus won’t be affected whatever the outcome of Brexit.

I absolutely love the way posters like tigerroo can completely defy logic and discuss the collapsing euro when it is the pound that has collapsed in the last three years.

It serves as a warning to everyone of the dangers of the demon drink and believing The Daily Mail!