who will be the Nexit?

[springflowers11]

France? will there even be an Eu in 5 years?

We have been trying to 'punch above our weight' for years, since we had an Empire, but we haven't come to terms with losing that yet. We also kid ourselves that we have a Special relationship with the USA, which is IMO a nonsense and is only one way. Hence all the twaddle talked about the 'Anglosphere' which is really a polite way of saying the White countries of the Commonwealth plus the USA. All of which are a long way away from us.

How will we do? It depends how soon we can put someone sensible in charge who appears to be considering the issues in detail, instead of people who give the appearance of planning on the back of an envelope.

BTW quite a few EU laws were sponsored by the UK, and article 50 itself was drafted by us, which some Tory arch eurosceptics might to well to remember. If they ever bother to think, that is.

I live in Spain, in the aforementioned Basque Country whose economy is closer to the UK than the rest of Spain.

The only Basque I've encountered who thought Brexit was good was at a lecture I went to about Brexit. He stood up and started ranting and raving in Spanish about autonomy, self determination etc. He then went on to say how he was old enough to remember Franco and how Franco would never have allowed Spain to be shackled to the EU, and Britain now had the freedom to govern itself as well as Franco did. The UK is a fascist's dream.

brick, I see things in reverse to you. Following the collapse of communism, Eastern Europe was incredibly unstable, which is why it was in the EUs interest to try and bring these countries within their remit. Economically, huge structural changes have already been made. Yes, they remain generally "poorer" than the Western European nations, which is why migration from East to West is currently disproportionate. However, I (and I imagine the EU), see it as a long game. Membership of the EU will provide increased prosperity over the long-term. I imagine in 20 years or so, it will be a much more level playing field.

M brother and SIL have a house in France and they have come across quite a few 'pro-brexiters'amongst their neigbours.
This is out in the suburbs.
I think we get a skewed version of what people really think as they tend to only interview people in the main cities, so we don't get to hear what the 'ordinary' (for want of a better word) person in the burbs thinks.

I bet there are a lot of Germans and French who want out.
We don't get to hear their voices.

I'm in rural holland at the moment. Our exit is not big news and if I'm asked about it, it's usually wry bewilderment.

My German friend, living in this country says that nearly all his relations back home are disgusted with Angela Merkel and you would be hard pressed to find anybody who thinks it was a good idea what she did.

Once again, we only see what the press chooses to show.

But he assures me that it's definitely not a case of 'people waiting with open, welcoming arms at train stations'
It might have been like that right at the beginning.
But now here's growing resentment and contrary to popular belief, it's not all the far right.

brick there is resentment here as well in Italy - towards Merkel, towards the EU, towards the huge increase of immigrants here, towards other EU countries including the UK for not assisting with this in any meaningful way, towards Polish builders undercutting Italian ones etc etc - all familiar arguments. And my experience of this is in the capital city, where jobs are scarce, youth unemployment is dire and potholes and uncollected rubbish define every street. And yet there is still no real desire to leave the EU on any meaningful scale outside the heartlands of the Lega Nord in the North. So if its like that here with all our problems I really can't imagine that an overwhelming shift is taking place in Germany! I dont think there is another country in the EU which has been subjected to the steady drip-drip of apportioning blame for successive governmental failures in the way that has happened for decades in the UK. Don't assume that disatisfaction with the status quo or current governments will lead to 2+2 equalling 5 in the same way as it did in the UK, especially with the large, core members of the union.

I think that's right - there is a lot of dissatisfaction but it is less unidirectional than in the UK, mainly because there is more diverse media ownership (ie it's not run by a handful of EU-hating press barons).

In France, there seems to have been some post-brexit increase in pro-EU sentiment (or at least a more cautious sentiment towards frexit). And there are some signs that support for Le Pen is slipping - not because she's a racist with no credible policies, unfortunately, but because people are worried about the very public Putin arse-licking.

I suspect that it will be very difficult for any European party to run a credible leave campaign until it's clear how brexit will turn out. That's the main reason why I'm sceptical about any "next to leave" prognostications (especially by journalists and others with limited understanding of the cultural and political context).

The reason I wouldn't have put the UK as the first to leave the EU club, is that I'd assumed it would be a country like Greece, where it got to the stage where the nasty EU (and those horrid Germans!) had been blamed so much for all the austerity that the country needs to balance it books, the idea of leaving would become popular. It does seem when I speak to family friend living in Greece, everything "bad" the government choses to do is blamed on the EU, anything positive/"good", even if it's come from the EU, the local politicians are taking the credit. Short term that works for politicians, long term it creates the feeling that there's no 'upside' to EU membership. A dangerous game to play if you want your people to want to stay in! A similar 'game' is played in many other EU countries - bad things blamed on EU, good things on local government.

Also agree that Germans might get sick of being expected to pay for everything and blamed for every shitty decision that has to be taken, but can't see them going.

I do believe that the fact that Britain was never occupied during the war has led to people distancing themselves from this ideal.

I've often thought this. Continent-dweller here and my experience has been that while many people are irritated by EU bureaucracy at times (as indeed by all bureaucracy), the memory of the Occupation is alive and well in just the same way as Londoners still refer to the spirit of the Blitz. The EU still looks like our best bet for avoiding a return to those very dark times, and for that reason most people are not keen to scrap it.

I do believe that the fact that Britain was never occupied during the war has led to people distancing themselves from this ideal.

Also agree with this.

Think it's going to be interesting to see how things turn out on the other side of the pond as well regarding future direction support of the EU takes. At the moment the view here seems to be bemusement at the degree to which Trump is out-Berlusconi-ing Berlusconi rather than a desire to emulate. And I think if the Russian connection really comes to the fore then that is going to damage the chances of populism and anti EU feeling here in Europe as parallels are drawn.

Britain was never occupied during the war? I assume you mean the Second World War. Try telling the Channel Islanders they weren't occupied.

The Channel Islands didn't get a chance to vote in the EU referendum. Channel Islanders may carry the cultural memory of occupation, but most of Britain doesn't.

The Channel Islands are not in the EU, so it's not unreasonable that they didn't get a vote.

I agree that Italy doesn't really want to leave. Even if Italy had a referendum on leaving it would not be a valid legal path to leaving because it would be unconstitutional to let voters vote themselves out of their own rights. Shame the UK didn't think of that!

What? Like The right to not be able to report criminals?

The Channel Islands are Crown dependencies isitjustme, they're not actually part of the UK. I take your point about them having been occupied (read a book about it actually) but it's a bit of a red herring in this case.

I think a more pertinent question right now is which part of the uk will be the first to leave the union. Scotland, NI, Gibraltar? All three? What a sad and sorry state of affairs we're in, I very much doubt that any EU country wants to emulate this utter shambles.

It's an interesting theory about the Second World War being a factor in mainland Europe wanting a closer union to avoid any repetition and that being occupied might be some kind of collective subconscious memory. However my mother was born after the war so real memories of occupation must be quite unusual?

I've lived in Germany and my mother also worked there. She said she met an old German army officer and he said they had a saying that (loose translation) the allies slew the wrong pig...meaning the Russians were worse than the nazis. Can't say mum agreed with it but I think there is a long running issue in Europe (especially now ex USSR countries are in the EU) with fear over Russia. I think that's all a big factor with keeping the EU linked. Don't forget there was talk of an EU army.

Being physically separate from mainland Europe has maybe given us a mental 'seperateness'? Maybe playing a part in our wish not to be sucked into a huge amphorous state?

Just musing 😀

This, with gold plated knobs on
Or Grootbrexitknops as we say in the Netherlands.

I think a more pertinent question right now is which part of the uk will be the first to leave the union. Scotland, NI, Gibraltar? All three? What a sad and sorry state of affairs we're in, I very much doubt that any EU country wants to emulate this utter shambles.

This is my opinon. No sane politician is going to jump out of the airplane until they can see whether the brexit parachute has a bloody great hole in it or not. Even Le Pen, for all her rhetoric.

Incidentally almost all recent polls show Le Pen losing some ground (Macron is now ahead of her, by a nose, in polling for the first round) and Melenchon and Fillon picking up voters.

However my mother was born after the war so real memories of occupation must be quite unusual?

In the early seventies when I was a student, I shared a house with a Channel Islander. She said that all those years later, a neighbour was still shunned by many in the community because she had slept with the Germans. Realistically, it's only going to be people who are now 80 plus, who will have first hand memories.

Moved to Dublin after Brexit. Over 80% approval rating for EU.

Quite like that.