If you voted leave, what relationship do you want Britain to have with the EU?

[DamsonJam]

So first up, this is not supposed to be a leave bashing thread or trying to question why you voted as you did. I (as a remain voter) may not like the result, but I'm trying to respect it.

What I'm trying to grapple with is what happens next. 52% of voters indicated they want to leave the EU, but what is that a mandate for exactly?

• an EEA style arrangement (like Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland)
• an EFTA style arrangement (like Switzerland)
• WTO arrangements (like the rest of the world)
• something else (and if so what? (and please something remotely viable, not the Boris Johnson line of full access to the single market without obeying any of the rules we don't like)).

And why is that choice the best option? I'm genuinely curious and trying to understand. Please be kind.

What mollie123 said.

I voted remain and think the Swiss or Norwegian model is the route we should go down for the short term. We need to protect our financial services market whilst having a long term plan to grow other industry so we don't have the current over reliance on this and can become less London centric.
The more I have read the more I don't think this is such a bad thing. There is unrest in a lot of European countries. The Swiss voted in a referendum to stop the free movement of people. Germany have their general election next year and Merkel's seat is far from guaranteed. I think the calls for reform in the EU will start to gain momentum.
I do however have a very basic understanding of a lot of this!

The ideal scenario for me would be for the EU to listen to our concerns, show some flexibility and for us to remain. I desperately want to stay in the EU, but I recognise that there are huge problems. The majority of leave voters are concerned about immigration (maybe not on MN, but generally this issue is a huge factor for leave supporters). Now many other member states are voicing concerns and highlighting the need for a sensible debate about freedom of movement of people. I do not believe that any deal which includes freedom of movement of people would ever be acceptable to those who voted leave.

Mollie

Because the Uk is in the EU, its financial institutions can operate across the EU whilst being regulated by the FCA/PRA in the uk. This is passporting.

In the event of Brexit, this feature may disappear, meaning global financial companies prefer to locate in Dublin/Frankfurt to retain such a benefit.

I don't mind movement of people but I think that a nation should be able to decide who comes in. I don't want total freedom over the numbers involved (in theory 500 million people could descend on us!) and I don't want freedom over the sort of work they do (importing ready-made Polish plumbers [to use a cliche] instead of training our own de-skills us as a nation).
I want my elected Government to protect the best interests of me and mine. I do not believe that the EU cares about me or has any loyalty to me. They do things to us, not for us.

I voted remain. This a good thread as I want to know what the leavers felt they were voting for.
Many of them would be happy with much less money as they voted for principle not for money so if they destroy our financial services industry and they have to pay say 35% basic rate tax not 20% they can live with that. Fair enough.

I don't think any of them want to be in the EEA/ EFTA subject to Eu rules with no say in them and subject to free movement of people and mass immigration however. They want the WTO option and tariffs when we export and import to the EU, higher prices for most goods in our shops and lower living standards for all.

The leave campaign never offered any clear options regarding trading or a continued relationship with the EU, so I don't think the majority of leave voters have any idea what model the leave campaign will be pushing for and whether they should support it. That is absolutely not meant in a patronising way, just that I think we are all in the dark. The majority of leavers were probably voting to control immigration and I expect a significant number voted leave as a protest against the austerity measures rather than any real desire to leave (let's face it,we all expected remain to win). I suspect an awful lot didn't like being bullied by the remain campaign and being told that they would be idiots to vote leave. The remain campaign was appalling, but the leave campaign didn't offer any real alternatives. Now we seem to be heading for a deal which will offer us pretty much what we had before and neither side will be happy.

This is the important question, isn't it?

What do the Leave voters want? What is the aim here?

I suspect we're looking down the barrel of EEA which will not touch the sides of immigration.

I certainly don't want EEA. I think the argument that leave didn't have a 'plan' is wrong as many of the leave campaigners talked about what type of 'deal' they wanted to see. However none of them are in a position to tell us about any planning at the moment it is for the government to do that. We will have to wait to hear from the government what they intend doing until a new PM is in place and until article 50 is invoked. I do hope they tell us soon as all this uncertainty isn't good at all but really has nothing to do with the leave camp.

all this uncertainty isn't good at all but really has nothing to do with the leave camp

So if I understand you correctly, the Leave campaign campaigned for people to vote to leave the EU but gave no thought as to the impact of the outcome? Gosh.

bearded summed it up very well above - she wants the Swiss EFTA option and she says the Swiss voted against free movement. So she voted thinking you could have EFTA with no free movement which is wrong. The Swiss can vote all they like but if they want to stay in EFTA they have to accept free movement of people.
The post encapsulates all you need to know about the brexiters' positions.

If they want no free movement/immigration then they need a WTO model, not the Norwegian and Swiss model. The remainers all knew all these things before hand and it is a pity the leavers do not seem to have understood it all despite the huge amount of information about there on what is EEA, EFTA, WTO etc

Free trade agreements, wherever in the world, are extremely complex, come back up in many elections. I am from Canada and the North American Free Trade Agreement is still controversial despite having started in 94. And it does not include free movement of people as we know it in Europe. It took many years of negotiation and I cannot see any free trade between commonwealth countries, it is not on the political agenda in North America at all.

i think that the Uk is losing credibility on the international political scene by the minute as internal media start to cover race crimes and the anti-immigrant feelings by a minority. And as they cover the political vacuum the referendum has created. Any free trade agreement with other countries as well as the EU will take years to build, and this country will be perceived as unreasonable politically. People from other countries will have seen Farage's speech yesterday!

I don't think we have to have no free movement at all. I think we have to have a stable platform from which to trade from which secures our financial services market. Yes we will have to pay into the EU but there will be a saving (based on Norway's costs). This saving should go into the projects that the EU currently fund and help to make our infrastructure stronger. We would be able to grow other industries, for instance agriculture which is heavily subsidised by the EU because it's restrictions (and not all of them good) mean that we are not able to compete on a global market.
Whilst all this is going on the EU will either reform and we can ask to go back in. If it does nothing then there will be a large degree of unrest and it will implode. I don't think we will get an EU superstate. It is not what people want by reading the European media.
I think the media are creating this hysteria aided by the complete fuckwits that seem to be in charge of this country.
Ultimately we have to believe in good. That we all want for the good of our country and the good of Europe and if we can work together to help each other this transition could be so much easier.

At this point it matters not one jot what people think about the merits of EEA, EFTA, WTO etc. No one is going to ask again. They (whoever it ends up being) will try to get the best deal possible to save the economy.

Rest of world thinks: BAD DECISION. China is actually using it as propaganda for why democracy doesn't work - don't let the masses choose because they make astonishingly stupid choices!

Great post, Mangosteen. Doesn't the UK look silly...

I don't think you can have 'some' free movement. It is either free or it is in some way restricted.

So the question to leave voters is (although I am aware they are not the borg).

If it is
Option 1 : we trade with Europe on the same basis as all other non EU, non EFTA countries, no free movement (works both ways) no EU rules, no european human rights or social policy but we pay tarriffs and deal with bureaucracy and lose the financial passport.

Option 2: we keep the Trade deals including financial passport in return for Freedom of movement, less money than now bit still some and some acquiscence to EU legislation which we cannot vote on but we ditch e.g. workers rights that come from EU.

(I can see why some countries, seeing how lucrative the FInancial.Sector is who really won't want us keeping that though so surely it must come at a high price)

Interesting (though that article presented a bit of a scary future to me Scary).

It seems that people are split between EEA-style deal and WTO options. I wonder is the answer for the UK to negotiate whatever deal they can which is likely to be along Norway EEA lines, and then once that is clear, they put the 3 options on the table for the UK electorate:

1. Deal
2. WTO rules
3. Remain in EU

And ask people to rank them in order of preference (alternative vote). Then the electorate get a REAL choice based on the REAL options available?

Thoughts?

I read a very interesting series of tweets from a journalist today which basically said Europe (France and probably Germany) will allow access to the single market and cap migration but on the basis that financial services get no passports which means no trade with the EU. According to the journalist this will kill the city and they'll relocate to Europe. And there goes our tax base. It's a frightening prospect as the offer will suit the public because they don't care about bankers but obviously they'll care when taxes shoot up because our main industry has gone.

Oh sorry didn't read through, looks like you already know about the risk to our financial services.

But DamsonJam we have no "deal" to put on the table because we can't negotiate until we have triggered Article 51, by which point it will be too late anyway.
Never really had cause to use the word clusterfuck before but think it seems pretty apt now.

Article 50 although maybe 51 is preferable?!

My guess is it will be something like a quasi-EEA, will slightly less access to the Single Market and slightly more control of migration.

Probably not in terms of a cap on numbers, more likely to be in terms of restricting access to EU immigrants who already have a job offer (currently about 70% of EU immigrants)

Apparently that's the idea being floated by both Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

The problem with an EEA deal without full freedom of movement is that it would probably exclude Financial Services (maybe even all services, and allow free trade in goods only). FS make up a huge amount of our tax take - which Frsnce or Germsny would welcome with open arms.

Damson Jam - surely the negotiating should have been done before? It is too late now as beardedladydragon has said. We voted not knowing what we were voting for -and now we wonder why the world thinks we're stupid!