To think that there must be very few people who voted to leave the EU and thought we’d be in this position now

[Butterflyfluff]

No deal deadline is tomorrow and Johnson is now spinning that as the best jolly jape ever

That’s a far cry from his referendum and subsequent promises of getting the best deal ever

Are there many leavers who actually wanted and thought we’d end up with no deal?

YANBU - but most of them will pretend this is exactly what they wanted.

Or they will blame anyone but themselves. Mainly the EU for being nasty bullies of course.

I thought we’d have here much sooner.

DS, MIL & FIL all believe that the predicted problems of trading on WTO terms are "exaggerated". And even if they turn out to be real, they are "worth it" to endure, to be away from the corrupt EU. MIL&FIL: UK doesn't need EU & should never have become dependent on EU; UK should learn to stand on own feet again. DS: hardship is nothing to be afraid of and a pure promised land is in the future. They won't be moved in their perspectives.

btw, I heard a great podcast last night from the Irish Times that went thru a lot of the current status of negotiation deadlock, if anyone else is trying to understand what the specific sticking points are.

I agree with @lavenderlou

Very few people who voted to leave the EU can think at all.

I don't know, I think this is what a lot of the flag waving Leave evangelists wanted. I'm not sure they understood what it meant (who does/did?)but any kind of deal would have been considered Brexit lite. They wanted a hard Brexit and to cut all ties, at least on an emotional level. That will change when they find out the impact it will have on their lives

Ardent Remainer here in a county that is staunchly Leave. Most Leavers here did not vote Leave because they blindly assumed there would be a deal. They voted leave because they wanted us to leave. They see that an acceptable trade deal would be better than no deal but they do not consider this to be an acceptable deal and they are not concerned about WTO rules. I think that's a mistake and I also think that the EU position on level playing field is being persistently misrepresented but I don't know any Leavers who would have voted to stay if they had thought we wouldn't get a deal.

Yes, I hate it too.

No deal was supposed to be a million to one according to Johnson.

We’ve become the Millwall of nations - “no one likes us, we don’t care!!” all shouted with the same swagger and hint of violence while decent people grab their children and go the other way. It’s an absolute tragedy what has happened to this country. To go from being a gateway to to Europe and a powerful voice in one of the wealthiest trading blocks on the planet, to a mismanaged outcast, riddles with division, self loathing and completely lacking in a coherent vision for our future. The best we can do now apparently is “survive”. It makes me feel sick.

Vote Leave promised that we wouldn't be leaving the single market, that no deal was never going to happen, that we hold all the cards, it'd be the easiest deal in history.

They lied.

And people fell for the lies. After years of austerity people were offered a chance to vote for change, with people promising that it would be good for the country.

We're now looking at a generation of hardship, endemic unemployment, massive lowering of living standards and employment rights.

I'm lucky in a way, mortgage free and with a skill set that means I should be able to stay in work. But this is going to be hugely damaging for my children. I am furious that my family's rights have been taken off them.

To go from being a gateway to to Europe and a powerful voice in one of the wealthiest trading blocks on the planet, to a mismanaged outcast, riddles with division, self loathing and completely lacking in a coherent vision for our future.

Yet we are still a NATO ally; we have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council; the UK is hardly an international pariah for voting to leave the EU.

Other EU member states (Belgium for example) is riddled with division, and arguably lacking in a coherent vision for the future, as it cannot stand alone without the monies it gets from having the EU and NATO HQs there.

If the EU could be reformed from the inside, it would have happened by now. It hasn't, and won't.

I don't think the UK is self loathing, and I think the vision for our future will become clearer once we are out with No Deal. The dust can settle, both sides can take stock, and decide what we want without the drumbeat of the MSM and pressure of deadlines.

In my experience Brexiteers do one of three things, or a mixture of these depending on who they’re talking to:
(a) pretend that it will be absolutely fine and that the ill effects are vastly exaggerated (because we had an empire once, you know)
(b) accept it’s going to be awful but maintain that it’s a price worth paying for leaving the evil EU (I saw some lunatic on here yesterday proclaiming that they’ll happily eat beans for the rest of their days to be rid of the forriners); and/or
(c) admit it’s a terrible outcome but blame someone else (the EU, Remainers, or both).

unfortunately there are definitely some leavers who wanted no deal - and they are in parliament making it happen.

Why do people insist on writing foreigners as forriners or furriners? Is it an inside joke?

Thegcatsmother - I think it is the way we have conducted urselves since the vote that has done the most damage, we haven’t missed an opportunity to shoot ourselves in the face and generally leave the impression that we are not to be trusted (see willingness to break international law).

Our voice on the international stage now carries far less weight as it was previously amplified by our central role as a member of the EU. This is being amply demonstrated by the reality of having to negotiate against a coalition of countries. We have haemorrhaged goodwill with our anti- European rhetoric and continue to show a complete lack of understanding of what the EU actually stands for - seeming to imagine we can persuade them to row back on fundamental tenets that underpin the entire project - like the free movement of goods, services and people.

Whilst the EU is certainly not perfect, what system designed by people is? The US constitution can barely survive the attack it it under. The need to reform the EU seems no more pressing to me than the need to reform our own internal political systems, as the advantages of membership far outweigh the negatives.

The pressure of deadlines that has seen us run headlong into this disaster was entirely a problem of our own making. We crippled our own ability to plan, to agree what we wanted to achieve, to put ourselves in the best possible position before starting negotiations. All that because the hard core Brexiteers spotted an opportunity and were happier to see the whole thing play out in chaos than risk the possibility of the population properly understanding the consequences of leaving. If they had then perhaps, just perhaps, calmer heads would have overruled the overheated jingoistic and emotional rhetoric of the Leave campaign.

They wanted a hard Brexit and to cut all ties, at least on an emotional level.
This. It was always going to be no deal, I'm annoyed this wasn't spelt out.
Plus having a general election to decide on Brexit rather than a second referendum was a huge error.
The whole thing is an epic catastrophe and I'm trying to ignore it

Norman Lamont (he who took us into the European exchange rate mechanism then swiftly had to exit again) made an interesting point yesterday.

He said when we see the direction the EU goes in of undemocratic elite rule and protectionist trading we will be glad we got out when we did.

For my part, I'm glad that we can hold our politicians directly accountable again. I think it's disgusting that we haven't bureaucratically prepared . Chaos was entirely avoidable but I don't think Boris does detail.

There are so many variables and levels to the whole thing, I've noted from long threads on this that people just look at what effects them eg, the people with eu linked jobs worry about that, those with family in eu worry about that etc.

It's a vast massive subject and some things are good, on one level or aspect, many things are terrible and rotten.

Madroid I totally agree about holding politicians to account. In politics we need transparency as much as possible. There are bad things but also good things to come.

What direction is the EU going in in terms of undemocratic elite rule @madroid? Are you talking about individual member states?

Madroid. I sincerely doubt that. The Brexit people promised a reduction in red tape. Instead, there will be a massive increase in bureaucracy as we insert customs barriers and barriers to trade where there were none.

That is a protectionist move.

@ragged

DS, MIL & FIL all believe that the predicted problems of trading on WTO terms are "exaggerated". And even if they turn out to be real, they are "worth it" to endure, to be away from the corrupt EU. MIL&FIL: UK doesn't need EU & should never have become dependent on EU; UK should learn to stand on own feet again. DS: hardship is nothing to be afraid of and a pure promised land is in the future. They won't be moved in their perspectives.

btw, I heard a great podcast last night from the Irish Times that went thru a lot of the current status of negotiation deadlock, if anyone else is trying to understand what the specific sticking points are.

Lol @ your ILs.

My MIL doesn't understand why jobs in the UK car industry are going. She doesn't seem to understand that the extra £2k-£3k that WTO tariffs will put on the price of a car will make them uncompetitive to sell in the EU and that the domestic market isn't big enough to buy all the cars currently built here.

And as for fish, we'll all just have to start eating fish we don't like instead of letting the French have it all, apparently, and it'll be fine, because they got through a war without having anything nice to eat.

I swear she's looking forward to it, and views it as almost as much fun as sleeping in tube stations and having singsongs.

Alarmingly, she's very bright and well educated, very Green, but votes Labour, is not racist or xenophic and is sound on almost every other subject. She's appalled that two of her DGCs are being educated privately and that one of her DDs drives a gas-guzzling 4x4.

I just don't get why she feels like this about leaving the EU.

@whatshalliget the undemocratic ways of the EU are pretty legendary! - no audited accounts, EU commissioners are unelected, as is the leader, it has to ratify the Eu Parliament's laws or they don't pass into law. Only the commission can amend the law. The EU Council with its 27 members can change regulations that the UK does not vote for or want.
The Eu court is v politicised and ignores laws when it suits, eg financial bailouts of certain eu countries after euro failed.
Just the fact that they move the eu parliament between brussels and Strasbourg says it all imho.
If you delve into the detail of spending you'll see huge waste eg 2019 there was an est 4 billion unaccounted for.

@Eyewhisker we need more red tape to be put in place to levy import tariffs. It can be done v smoothly with tech but the tech is untested as yet (of course!) and the govt doesn't have the best track record in implementing new computer systems.

For my part, I'm glad that we can hold our politicians directly accountable again

Chance would be a fine thing with a FPTP voting system.

no audited accounts

Oh fuck not this tripe again

It's a fucking mess of epic proportions. No-one voted for a mess of epic proportions.