To absolutely not want closer ties to Europe

[Viviennemary]

What is the matter with Stammer toadying up to the EU. We voted Out. Has he forgotten. I switched the TV off when I heard the word contribution and free movement. Here we go again. Shafted and ripped off at every turn and following their dumb rules. It's groundhog day. I'm furious.

Hansard - House of Commons Wednesday 15 June 2016
[David Cameron] The Prime Minister
I am very happy to agree with my hon. Friend. “In” means we remain in a reformed EU; “out” means we come out. As the leave campaigners and others have said, “out” means out of the EU, out of the European single market, out of the Council of Ministers - out of all those things -

The prime minister said: “What the British public will be voting for is to leave the EU and leave the single market.”

Thos is like so many threads on politics - just that mind numbing repetition of thought stopping phrases.

You don't even know why you don't like Starmers deal.

So? I know you bend yourself out of shape defending the Tories and Brexit, copy and pasting with the vigour of someone with ample time on their hands

But the damage done to our country is very very well documented. Our lives are demonstrably worse and poorer.

I usually scroll past your posts. I shall go back to doing so.

Freedom of movement is one of the four parts of the single market. It’s literally part of its definition

I'm hoping Starmer is doing a lot of pro-EU relations work behind the headlines. I think he is. He obviously gets on very well with Van Der Leyen and she knows full well he would want to us rejoin the EU were it possible. So hopefully this is the first of many steps in that direction. Nobody will object (except for about 4 loons on MN) because even people who voted Brexit now realise they got nothing out of it.

@MasterBeth indeed- we were told ‘we too could be like Norway or Switzerland’ and plenty voted on that premise too - even though it wasn’t on the paper - because that seed had been planted- that is why there should have been a second referendum to say this is effectively ‘the deal’ - yay or nay - and it’s precisely why one wasn’t done because by then Johnson and his cronies were in - any remainers in the Tory’s ( or most) had been booted out or left of their own accord and I am pretty confident it would have tipped the other way by around the same margin -

People don't like it because it wasn't their "side" that negotiated it. If Johnson had come back with this exact agreement half the people complaining would be hailing it as a triumph.

Though equally half the people singing it's praises now would be moaning about it.

It's all rather depressing really.

The UK is also negotiating to rejoin the Erasmus+ programme, which allows students to study or do an internship abroad

The last government didn't join Erasmus mainly because the EU wanted £2bn - when the scheme benefitted twice as many EU students as UK students. How much is Starmer willing to pay?

Thank you, that’s a very good way of looking at it. I hope we get a better deal under the next government because this one is disastrous.

This is quite possibly the most stupid post I've ever seen in my life. I completely agree with everyone who has given lots of reasons why this is a very good thing for the UK.

The only thing we have a binding agreement on with the EU regarding these things is to have more meetings to see if we can come to a final agreement. FFS! 🤦‍♀️

Isn't that sort of how negotiations tend to work ?

Pretty good deal, a good friend of mine who had to sack people following Brexit as he lost EU export market, will now look to expand work force, obviously needs to see the details but he is very pleased.

Defence, fishing, Erasmus? youth mobility... all good! food standards too... means we wont get US rubbish now.

You just seem bitter because your side didn't negotiate this.

I would actually dispute that we have ever had a pro Brexit government in this country. 2019 maybe but then the agenda was taken over by the Covid debacle and all that followed.

What’s this irrelevant Hansard excerpt supposed to be telling us ?

We left the EU. We left ths single market. We still have Brexit.

Doesn’t stop us from making trade with the EU more efficient through whatever bilateral agreements we choose to sign.

Are you against foreign students coming then? Do you ever wonder why the UK has sooo many European scientists working in our life sciences or engineers in construction? yet people like you want to reverse this & go back in some period of time, probably the 1860s.

What Cameron said about leaving the SM, is irrelevant, it wasn't on the ballot paper, anyone who voted Leave, had no idea what version of Leave they would get...

@Clavinova we may in theory have tariff free access for goods but that isn’t quite as it sounds which if you are in business dealing in logistics and goods - you will of course know. It means paying considerable amounts in for VAT harmony certificates which basically killed off any small scale people based on price , who couldn’t just stump up £30k upfront for the appropriate approvals - it means anyone doing a lot of D2C mail order has endless queries and rejects due to paperwork not being 100% ( often is)! or customers being charged £15 ‘handling/custom’ fees by other EU post offices on items that can be worth£5 etc - we actually were living in Copenhagen at time of Brexit from late 2020 , so tested it from our own UK mail order - yep - postie ringing bell every time wanting ‘handling fees’ - our parent company has had to bring in 2 staff dealing purely with customs to our EU distributors - so tariff free really really isn’t without cost to administer or access - and any business that dealt in food related exports clearly was stuffed- overnight in Copenhagen it was suddenly impossible to buy next to any British produce - all were replaced with Irish butter, Irish cheese, Irish meat etc . The only gainers have been Eire and other EU country’s taking our business .

The EU has agreed to have further meetings to negotiate a number of agreements including on trade and movement of goods and people.

In order to get the EU to agree to consider (no binding requirement to implement - they could refuse to allow an agreement if they want) the UK has had to give a binding and non-reversible agreement that EU fishermen have access to UK waters and fish until 2038.

How is this a balanced negotiation?

@Alexandra2001 Soft power is a complicated concept.

Do you think you’d pass? When I implied upthread that Starmer thought we were dumb, I wasn’t limiting it to me and people who think like me. Starmer and his ilk think that none of us, you included, are clever enough to decide our own future.
He may of course be right but I wish we had someone cleverer than him making the decisions for us.

ECHR (ECtHR) is nothing to do with employment law.

So what do you want then @Viviennemary? glorious isolation? Maybe return to the 6th century. That was surely the last time we knew about keeping ourselves to ourselves?

..in your not-so-humble opinion

Defence, fishing, Erasmus? youth mobility... all good! food standards too... means we wont get US rubbish now.

@Alexandra2001 We don’t have an agreed deal on Erasmus or youth mobility! 🤦‍♀️

We have secured a binding agreement on Defence and to allow EU fishermen continued access to UK waters until 2038.

Everything else will be discussed at some point in the future. There is no binding timeline and not even a binding agenda on what will be up for discussion!

I want us to rejoin the EU. I want us to have mutually beneficial binding agreements on movement and trade.

I don’t want us to pay the EU loads just to sit at table and have endless meetings with no guarantee of a deal ever being secured.