LEAVERS - update on the 'invoke A50 now' petition. I have the reply.

[Surferjet]

You’re receiving this email because you signed this petition: “Invoke Article 50 of The Lisbon Treaty immediately.”.

To unsubscribe from this petition: petition.parliament.uk/signatures/23408528/unsubscribe?token=N5XWEqj08juvvjUWe76

Dear xxxxxx

The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Invoke Article 50 of The Lisbon Treaty immediately.”.

Government responded:

The British people have voted to leave the EU and their will must be respected and delivered. We should not trigger Article 50 until we have a UK approach and objectives.

The British people have voted to leave the EU and their will must be respected and delivered. The process for leaving the EU and determining our future relationship will be a complex one, so we need to take time to think through our objectives and approach. We want to ensure the best possible outcome for Britain and the future UK-EU relationship. As part of this, the government will of course work closely with the devolved administrations to ensure we get the best deal for the UK as a whole. We should not trigger Article 50 until we have a UK approach and objectives, so Article 50 should not be invoked before the end of this year.

Department for Exiting the European Union

Click this link to view the response online:

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/133618?reveal_response=yes

This petition has over 100,000 signatures. The Petitions Committee will consider it for a debate. They can also gather further evidence and press the government for action.

The Committee is made up of 11 MPs, from political parties in government and in opposition. It is entirely independent of the Government. Find out more about the Committee: petition.parliament.uk/help#petitions-committee

Thanks,
The Petitions team
UK Government and Parliament

You’re receiving this email because you signed this petition: “Invoke Article 50 of The Lisbon Treaty immediately.”.

To unsubscribe from this petition: petition.parliament.uk/signatures/23408528/unsubscribe?token=N5XWEqj08juvvjUWe76

Well, here is what Michael Gove wants, extracted from his leadership bid speech:

End the supremacy of EU law and take back control of our democracy.
The promise to take back control of our borders. I will end free movement, introduce an Australian-style points-based system for immigration, and bring numbers down
The promise to use the money we currently send to Brussels and invest it instead on the priorities of the British people – principally in the NHS – and to cut VAT on domestic fuel.

Since he didn't get very far with his Leadership bid, and has no place in the Cabinet, I think it would be fair to guess that the other Tories didn't agree with this.

I do suspect that 'points based immigration systems' are a way of trying to say 'whites prefered' but that would be hard to prove.

As I said, freedom of movement hasn't affected me, but it has had an impact on other people in terms of jobs. housing & schools. 4 other countries are applying to join the EU ( & I'm not including Turkey) so things will only get worse. I know freedom of movement works both ways, but I doubt many of us will be applying to live in Albania or Serbia

So where does the 'greater good' come in to it then surfer?

TM has said the rights of EU citizens in the UK and reciprocally won't change so how do you see movement being curtailed.

corcory I'm actually disgusted that you've stooped so low that you've felt the need to mention the fact your children are disabled in an attempt to deflect from answering a very simple question.

Unless your next post states your reason for voting Leave and your vision for the future, I'll assume you had no fucking clue what you were voting for and, like the best reason I've heard yet, it was a roll of the dice, which if true was absolute lunacy.

Do we just have to assume then that a majority of Leave voters thought that the EU was so bad, that they preferred to take a complete gamble on what happens to this country for the foreseeable future?

It certainly looks that way peregrina

I would be most annoying if the 27 decided to make reforms in a way that we would have found acceptable, but because Brexit means Brexit, we found we had excluded ourselves. It would definitely be a case then of cutting off our nose to spite our face.

Corcory - you've clearly got time to keep coming back to the thread, just not to answer the question.

Way to lose credibility.

Surferjet on immigration, it's a binary choice of having economic prosperity with immigration or having less economic success (so giving up our 5th place in the world) vs not allowing immigration into this country. Like I said I want to explain this one day to my own mixed race children - that more people in this country were willing to make this country poorer if it meant we could pull up the drawbridges and not have any more 'outsiders'

I wonder just which parts of the totally incompatible demands of Brexit Theresa May will be ready to ditch. At a guess I think she would be prepared to take a gamble on annoying Scotland, and expecting that either Nicola Sturgeon either won't have another Referendum or will lose. Northern Ireland is a much more thorny problem I think, and I wouldn't like to guess.

More money for the NHS - I doubt it.

4 other countries are applying to join the EU ( & I'm not including Turkey) so things will only get worse. I know freedom of movement works both ways, but I doubt many of us will be applying to live in Albania or Serbia

Pre-Coup Turkey really wasn't going to join the EU anytime before the year 3000.

Serbia and Albania, perhaps are closer to joining than Turkey, but I can assure you both have a very long way to go on that front.

There are still massive issues with corruption, issues remaining from the legacy of the Balkans and the unresolved status of Kosovo which Serbia still fails to recognise as an independent nation (you can't enter Kosovo from certain routes and leave by Serbia, because they treat it as if you have entered Serbia illegally. If you enter you have to return via the same route. If you fly direct into Pristina, you get a special stamp in your passport - if memory serves I think its a UN one but this might have changed and my memory might not be quite right.)

Croatia only just managed the criteria. Serbia is miles behind that point. It also has a very sizeable nationalist/pro Russian section of the population that it would need to persuade to ultimately give that up and choose the EU itself. Whilst the incentive of joining the EU is a carrot to progress and is helped along by EU investment, it still is very much not a forgone conclusion that Serbia would actually want to join the EU in the end.

That said, having seen with my own eyes a pretty speculator level of struggling from Bulgaria to Serbia of every day goods (think anything from aerosols to counterfeit tshirts to cheese) with the border guards taking backhanders (on both sides of the border) a couple of years ago (prior to the migrant crisis) and what was in the shops, its pretty clear there is a massive demand to have access to tariff free trade (unless of course you are a smuggler or a border guard making a killing out of it).

And having seen this myself, I find it difficult to comprehend why we would even consider the reinstatement of such trade barriers.

I found my time travelling through Serbia an interesting experience in how the UK is treated to its own good dose of propaganda. I was told that I would be treated with hostility and as if I was a spy before going. A lot of people asked if we were scared to go.

The reality: it was one of the friendliest places I've ever been. (Though Belgrade is a bit of a dump, but then that's what being part if Yugoslavia, facing a war and then sanctions tends to do to a place) People bent over backwards to make us feel welcome in a way I've never experienced anywhere else, inviting us to friends and showing us around. Why? Because we were British and they were so amazingly proud of their country that they wanted to show us the 'real Serbia'. They were used to German tourists, but Brits were really unusual.

It was a trip that really opened my eyes to my own preconceptions and prejudices.

I also saw a lot of neo Nazis and love for Hitler which was at the time, really rather alarming, but it seems now that Serbia really isn't alone in these attitudes is it? There was also a lot of 'anti-western sentiment' and support for figures like Gaddafi, Mao and Stalin which was scary - but then what do you expect from a town that was bombed by NATO in living memory?

So to say that Serbia (and Albania) are about to join the EU makes for a nice little scaremongering story that appeals to certain people but completely bares no resemblance to the reality. It shows up people who quite happily live in their own bubble and don't question anything, rather than looking at the actual progress of EU membership (its completed 0 out of the 35 chapters - Turkey has/had 1 out of 35 though the work needed to change that is/was considerably less for Serbia than it is for Turkey).

As is always the case, never let the truth get in the way of a good Daily Mail headline.

How many countries have joined the EU since we joined in '73?

Come on Red, I know I'm not in your league but I'm not completely stupid. It's bleedin' obvious more countries will sign up - & it will be the Albania's & the Serbia's - countries who will see the UK as very appealing.

Surferjet again still writing posts picking at semantics whilst avoiding the bigger question, do you not care about the consequences of your vote or are you very confident that you'll be happy with whatever deal we get, even if it's worse than what we have now?

And is your view that you would like zero immigration?

I'm confident we'll be better off out of the EU yes, no question about it.
& zero immigration is not something I have ever said I want. We just need to limit the numbers.

The immigration issue. What's the actual problem? Is it genuinely to do with an increase of non-british migrants contributing to our workforce, or is it unskilled migrants entering the UK and claiming benefits?

If it's the latter then what you should actually be campaigning and voting for is welfare reforms. Post-brexit Britain will rely heavily on migrants for economic stability.

What's how many countries have joined the EU since 1973 got to do with Serbia's ability to meet the criteria and join?

Talk about trying to make an argument that's not there.

In terms of geography, there are only so many countries in Europe. And even if we do start talking about North Africa etc and widening the scope of the EU, do you think that's a real possibility given the political climate in the rest of Europe in terms of how the migrant crisis is shaping the debate and how other countries are reacting to it.

You aren't stupid. I really don't believe you are. But don't act like you are by making daft comments just to try and win the argument and suggest that perhaps there are loads of countries out there about to join the EU in addition to the 4 who are currently first in the queue (and are frankly decades away from satisfying the criteria) as that's just talking utter bollocks. You are just to trying to make a point that isn't there to be made.

Its simply not true and you know it.

There is not the political will to expand the programme and there won't be any time so. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to have noticed that the agenda of the EU is now to save the project and consolidate what they already have as the huge number of countries in it, is starting to show cracks as it is. Plenty has been written about all the other EU nations who have their own UKIPs eager to do the same as us. Hell, Farage made the point in his epic gloat in the European Parliament.

He is also a big fan of The Five Star Party, Le Pen is making lots of mileage out of anti-Islamic feeling (largely rooted in its Algerian history - a country which fought bitterly for its Independence from France, so the idea that they or their near neighbours might sometime in the near future join the EU is frankly laughable), Germany is facing the emergence of modern day Nazis, Austria has a re-election later in the year after irregularities in the previous one in which the far right very nearly got in, the Dutch have Geert Wilders... I could carry on.

As I said before, never let the truth get in the way of a good Daily Mail headline.

Surfer and this is controlling EU immigrant numbers right? Because half of those who do come are not EU immigrants so this would only impact EU immigrants? So if the price for that is no access to the single market that is worth paying in your book?

Also out of interest is it that immigrants putting too much strain on our services you have an issue with or just there are too many immigrants in the UK full stop?

Crikey Red, I thought you'd switched sides for a minute there, that's not a great write up for the EU is it? - would you want to join a union that has the far right gaining more support by the minute? - that was a question put to us wasn't it, if the referendum had been about joining the EU would you have voted yes?

TooTiredToTidy - immigration in general needs controlling.
Personally, I wouldn't let anyone in unless they were capable of contributing & not going to be a massive drain on us.

Actually, I think it will go the other way in the end surfer.

Asking if the referendum had been about joining the EU, would be something fundamentally different. One that would contain a plan. Not a void. And not tied up in 40 years of history, law and constitutional issues.

The answer might well be no I would not choice to join at this moment in time. But then we would have a secure future in terms of knowing what our trading partners and trading barriers would be too.

Once again, the point you are making is one that exists in a parallel dimension rather than in the reality we are stuck with.

I never have said that the EU is great. Its in need of reform. It has issues, which haven't been addressed and have directly contributed to the rise of the right in the first place.

With the UK gone, the rest of the EU is going to have to confront some of those underlying issues ironically.

The argument FOR Remain was always about it being the least worst option rather than it being a massively positive vote for an European utopia. You can have voted for Remain, but have major reservations about the EU and be critical of it.

I have stated on MN that the number one reason I voted to Remain was due to the incompatibility of Brexit with Scotland and NI's position constitutionally. It wasn't my only reason, but it was the one that concerned me most as I want the UK to stay the UNITED Kingdom.

An issue that was consistently overlooked.

The lack of plan was part of that reasoning and my wider concerns, but Scotland and NI, highlighted the lack of thought by all parties more than anything else.

But still...

Surfer so is giving up access to the single market worth it to end immigration? The immigration thing is your priority? Even if say we would economically be worse off (from having no access to the single market)

Or say if every EU immigrant had to have a job offer before they came that would be enough of a control for you?

I would just like to point out that the average immigrant is a net contributor to the UK, better educated and 52% less likely to claim benefits than Britons.

So I've been asked to expand on what my expectations are of Brexit but first of all I think I need to explain some of my reasons for wanting to leave the EU and then how I think this would impact on the UK post Brexit.
First of all I do not like the idea of freedom of movement from the EU. I would like to see everyone in the world given the same chance to come to the UK . I feel that we should have the right to decide ourselves what our border controls are and who comes in. To this end I do not see that this would have any detrimental effect on the UK. I feel existing EU nationals should be able to stay but that from Brexit on people from all over the world should be able to come if we need their skills.
I am not keen on the way politics is going in the EU with the surge in the right wing in many countries. I would like to keep us as far removed from that as possible. I feel that more and more of the politics in the EU parliament will be dominated by right wing views and that our views will become even more marginalised. I do not like the anti Islamic views in French for instance - the ban on the burka simply removes any freedom many Islamic women may have had in the past. I dislike the idea of the banning of the burkini and fining wearers. I really truly do not understand this attitude at all. I feel these types of institutional differences show just how far removed we in the UK are in our ideals from parts of the EU. I really do not understand why so many people feel more European than British.

I do not feel that we would have been able to change the EU from within as some remainers think. I feel we have had many many years of trying to change things and really haven't got very far. Even with the threat of holding a referendum on leaving made very little difference in what DC managed to negotiate. How on earth would we have faired if we had voted to stay. How would the EU have treated us then? Would we have been at the back of the queue be given little or no concessions. I really feel strongly that many remainers have not fully understood that the EU will not stay the same as it is now. I don't expect countries to join in the next year or two but this was a 'once in a life time vote' so we should have been thinking about what the EU would be like in 40 years not just the immediate future. I am one of the leave voters who is old enough to remember before we joined. We have been roundly chastised for that but I think we have a much greater insight into what it can be like out of the EU.

I disagree with the forming of an EU army. I feel we in the UK do more than our fair share in helping out in the trouble spots of the world. We already contribute fully to NATO unlike many. And now I discover there could have been conscription! With more and more right wing views in Europe no no no.
All the above really makes me want to feel much more independent of the rest of Europe in a political sense.
When, after 2020 we no longer have to pay into the EU we will then be able to make our own decisions as to how we distribute the money and I expect areas like agriculture to have a much better tailored subsidy system that will suit our types of farming. I expect other areas like scientific research to continue to receive funding. I expect deprived areas to continue to receive funding. I expect us to keep the employment laws and environmental regulations we currently have but that there may well be some regulations that industry may not need to adhere to if not trading with the EU ( I would not expect however that any health and safety standards would be compromised).
I do not want to see us having access to the free market at the expense of no regulation on free movement.
I do not feel that we will loose the financial centre that is London. The alternatives are really not tenable. Paris is a no go as the corporation tax in France is 33% as apposed to our 20%. The others are far too small and just don't have the infrastructure. Over 550k people work in the city every day. there is only a population of 700k in Frankfurt for instance and it really couldn't cope. Dublin similarly as is Luxemburg. Then of course there is the next largest financial centre in Europe but of course that is in Switzerland so not in the EU.
I would like to see us have much more control of negotiating trade deals with countries all over the world. I am well aware that the % of trade done with many of these countries is quite small at the moment but I am sure we could increase it, slowly but surely.

That's all I can think of at the moment but if I think of anything else I'll let you know!

.

"I am not keen on the way politics is going in the EU with the surge in the right wing in many countries. I would like to keep us as far removed from that as possible"

So you voted for something backed by the right wing of the Tory party and UKIP? We now have a far more right wing government that we had before, which was always going to be the case if we voted leave.

"I do not feel that we would have been able to change the EU from within as some remainers think. I feel we have had many many years of trying to change things and really haven't got very far."

Despite the rebate, the numerous exemptions, and the deal DC cut for us which no other EU country would be allowed to? You can feel it all you like, don't make it factually correct.

EU army argument is absolutely untrue. Sorry. Conscription?

"I do not feel that we will loose the financial centre that is London. "

We certainly will if EU passporting is taken out of our hands.
You might cite the Paris 33% corporation tax thing, but that is the same level of corporation tax in the US. Go look at how much corporation tax our big 6 banks paid on their profits last year and tell me that there won't be a way round it. It doesn't have to be in one location either, Paris, Dublin, Frankfurt, your delusion that "it couldn't take it " is a frightening misunderstanding of how things would actually work.

" I am well aware that the % of trade done with many of these countries is quite small at the moment but I am sure we could increase it, slowly but surely. "

Great, so we instantly take a hit on trade with the EU, through with nearly 60% of our trade going through it? So we'll build up trade slowly but surely with the BRICS who currently take 5% combined? What are we going to sell them? Certainly not financial services cause we'll have just shot ourselves in the foot.

Your entire premise operates on the fact, as many other leavers does, that the UK is far more important and influential than it is, don't accept EU terms? Kiss goodbye the the EU passporting for the banks, they can move, London can't. London btw which pays 30% of the entire tax of the country, exculding corporation tax.

Sorry Cocory, your arguments don't stand up to scrutiny, at all.

"First of all I do not like the idea of freedom of movement from the EU. I would like to see everyone in the world given the same chance to come to the UK . I feel that we should have the right to decide ourselves what our border controls are and who comes in. "

Oh wow, an appeal to reasonableness that shows that its not really about immigration. But it is, further more, you fail to demonstrate why you feel so strongly about freedom of movement.

we have been at the back of the queue be given little or no concessions.

The UK has spent the best part of 43 years getting concessions.

But Crossroads why do you really think the EU would bother to give us any more concessions if we had voted to remain? We got little or nothing from DC's negotiations when he used the threat of leaving. Had we remained we would have had little or no negotiating powers at all.