Remainers - What do you want? When do you want it?

[optionalrationale]

We had the referendum, we had the legal challenge, we had the Supreme Court ruling, Article 50 has been triggered. The United Kingdom will no longer be part of the European Union.

So my questions to Remainers are
What do you want? When do you want it?

Here's what I want..

I want the negotiations to go well. I want future relations with our neighbours to be cordial. I want a good deal for UK and the EU. I want us to walk away if their demands are unacceptable (and stem from vindictiveness and to deter other members from following our lead). I want the UK to be free to make good trade deals with any country it wants. I want the UK to lead in creating a new model of trade without excessive interference in each partner's social and political arena.

I like Theresa May & think she's doing well.

Copper - her predictions weren't completely correct on Maastricht, they just happen to tie into your (and many other Leavers') narrative on the subject of the EU. Like many Remainers, I don't buy into the idea that the UK gave away too much power to the EU.

I suspect we won't agree on this - or how well TM is doing .

Copper - tell us why you think May is doing well. I have heard others express the same opinion and wish I had asked them why, because I cannot see anything in her behaviour myself which suggests that.

I suspect we won't agree on this - or how well TM is doing

yes, you're probably right!

Copper May has no plan for a post Brexit economy, moreover she is not listening to anyone, business, economists, or even people with the slightest iota of common sense about what she needs to do to build one. She was clinging to the hope she can hang on to Maggie's service and science / tech based economy by having sector deals with the etc EU but they are already damaged by past immigration policies, the sentiment post vote and by domestic policy towards the higher education sector, and neither the EU or its components countries are going to allow a chance to build their own competitive advantage at our expense go, given that this is a deliberate act of self harm. She has now acknowledged this but has offered no plan for the economy in its place. How on earth can you regard that culpable neglect of our economy and future prosperity as doing well?

I am quite sure that the Thatcher whose rule I lived through, before she lost power and her faculties would be turning in her grave and that she would give May repeated swipes around her ears for such blind incompetence.

she would give May repeated swipes around her ears with her handbag for such blind incompetence.

I am quite sure that the Thatcher whose rule I lived through, before she lost power and her faculties would be turning in her grave and that she would give May repeated swipes around her ears for such blind incompetence.

Hear hear (actually if you are of a certain generation and you listen carefully with your inner ear, you can actually hear her doing this!)

May is no thatcher
I loathed thatcher but she had brains
May does not

So Thatcher by the sound of it, had something of a plan. In global terms we were well educated so we could add value to Service industries, but couldn't complete with countries of e.g. South Asia with large populations who could undercut our labour on industries like textiles. Hence all the stuff now being made in Bangladesh and wherever, when in the late sixties, the local textile industry kept me regularly employed in holiday jobs and others permanently employed. (Oh the days of ironing kipper ties, and bagging y-fronts for M & S. An M & S contract paid good piece rates.)

Now, with the Services and scientific research being hobbled by Brexit, the plan is to turn the clock back so that we have a poorly educated workforce who will work for a pittance? Hmm, I don't think we are going to get the high birth rates back which are necessary for this model to work.

Copper has resurfaced on another thread, so why not come back here and tell us what she likes about May? People must do because she gets high poll ratings. I imagine that it depends on the question asked. Who do you think is best? Corbyn or May? Rate these PMs in order of ability, would get a different response.

Mother I agree with you on lots of things. (RNMW I took as Remain no matter what? But I could be wrong)

Yes, no one expected the result. Including the leave voters. That doesnt however default into 'well you only voted expecting to lose, so didnt give it much thought really'. Not expecting the win, doesnt mean the question shouldnt have been asked, or that voters voted 'tactically' instead ....because they werent expecting to win... the question shouldnt have been asked etc etc

Yes, those in office didnt have a clue what to do. Yes, DC took an utterly despicable course of action. He resigned. He was paid by the peoples of this country to act as our Prime Minister, and the first sign that he may have to manage something a little bit 'hard', he was off. He turned his back on every single one of us. This has been the theme of our politicians for over a decade, that doing something a little bit hard, isnt in their job description. (By the way, thats my reason for liking TM, someone asked someone up thread. TM was fully aware of the implications of the role she was taking on, unlike others who saw a moments limelight, and she stepped up, with the full gravity of the situation squarely on her shoulders.)

Yes, the campaigns on both sides were shams. Should the question still have been asked? Yes.

I dont agree that the vast majority, havent a clue about the EU. The vast majority do. The vast majority have been living in a member state of the EU for over 20 years. Living in one. What other qualifications would you like to have seen to therefore make their view legitimate to you?

Re the continuos argument that a referendum shouldnt have been held in the first place, I (as I think youve twigged by now) fundamentally disagree. Not wishing to to and fro over an issue that I think will have to remain an agreement to disagree, can I ask you;

if Parliament, without any reference to their constituents and the peoples they represent, decided to quit the Europen Union claiming their right in a representative democracy gave them authority to do so, which it does, what would be your reaction to that be? I feel the very points that you make, that this was such a huge decision, that impacted so many on such a personal level, warranted asking the electorate directly. Anything short of asking the question, to then subsequently leave the EU via some other parliamentary process, would have been utterly unacceptable.

I dont agree that the vast majority, havent a clue about the EU. The vast majority do. The vast majority have been living in a member state of the EU for over 20 years. Living in one. What other qualifications would you like to have seen to therefore make their view legitimate to you?

That's stretching it. I've been driving for 20-odd years, it doesn't make me an expert on cars/traffic system/highway code/road infrastructure. Nor could you say that because I eat, I therefore instinctively understand food production, preparation and hygiene. I may have picked up some information along the way but I don't have anything approaching expertise in these matters.

Likewise, I consider myself reasonably well-informed, I have dual nationality and have lived in another EU country and travelled widely within the EU, I voted Remain but I am amazed still by what benefits we will be losing when we leave. They were things that were almost invisible because I took them so much for granted (membership of certain international bodies that require the jurisdiction of the ECJ, for example).

if Parliament, without any reference to their constituents and the peoples they represent, decided to quit the Europen Union claiming their right in a representative democracy gave them authority to do so, which it does, what would be your reaction to that be?

That's our Parliamentary system. They are voted in, when their party has published a manifesto stating what they intend to do (even if they subsequently try to rip it up, as the current Government is trying to do with certain parts of their Manifesto). They have the time and opportunity to find out the facts and talk to experts (dirty word now) in the way that most of us don't. They also have a duty to act in accordance with what they think is in the best interests of their constituents and the country. Decent MPs can and do listen to their constituents. Sadly there are a number who don't seem to feel that this is necessary, and that Westminster is a nice cosy club for them. At that point it's up to us, if we are dissatisfied with them we vote them out. Personally, I don't have a problem with that, although I think the First past the post system is outdated and we should move to PR.

But effectively, Theresa May has done exactly what you talked about. She doesn't have her own mandate - no Referendum ballot paper asked what sort of Brexit was acceptable. Which has angered a good many of us, and made us politically active, with the intention of getting rid of quite a few of the current bunch of MPs, if we are able to.

Nobody should ever forget that without the EU, France woulda invaded Germany.
FACT

"I've been driving for 20-odd years, it doesn't make me an expert on cars/traffic system/highway code/road infrastructure."

I dont quite get your analogy Lala, but Ill try. Is it the car or the right to drive? If its the car, if a decision was required as to whether cars were abolished or not (? I think thats the analogy youre drawing), surely its the user, and the purpose of use, thats being questioned, not the view of the car manufacturer or a traffic light technician thats relevant? A car manufacturer, whilst the ultimate expert in making cars, is not the person to ask if cars should be abolished? Is this what youre saying? Is a road infrastructure expert the person to ask?

If your analogy is 'driving', then you have had to show a level of understanding and a level of competance to drive. (Which does include a competant understanding of all of the above expert areas mentioned). I have to show a level of understanding regards my obligations (competance as it were) as an EU citizenship. A defence of 'ignorance' wouldnt save me for example, from prosecution under EU legislation. But is this analogy one of removing a nations right to drive? Do you ask the car manufacturer to answer that question?

I am struggling with your analogy, can you explain a bit more.

French General: "Monsieur Le President. Ahh sink we should show zose Germans ooo ees boss. Ah ave neveŕrrrr forgeeeeven zem for World Waaarrr Un or World Waaarrrr Deux. Zeees time, ah sink we should attack zem for once!!"

French President: "Hmmn, you might be right, mon cher General....Zat does sound like une idee tres formidable! Mais, ang on a minute, Claude! Aren't you forgetting somesing? Le EU!!!"

French General: "Zut alors!!! Mais oui, mon cher Preseident. I ad completely forgotten about zat! Please forgive me."

A distant church bell
Howling wind
A tumble weed rolls across the vista

Have you been drinking?

I've reported that post for "really unpleasant national stereotyping on a part of MN where many EU citizens post".

Of course Brexit wasn't about xenophobia. Sure it wasn't.

Oh please.

I am highlighting some of the ridiculous positions of the Remain crowd snd why Project Fear was an abject failure

"That's our Parliamentary system". Ok Peregrina, rolling with that, Its clear from the referendum that half our MPs should indeed be pressing to leave the EU. (Theres a reason MPs havent previously asked their constituents view on this...but thats a whole other issue)

But half our MPs would be Brexit. Half our MPs would be remain. In this, the scenario I asked earlier, would indeed be a very real prospect. I still would argue, that such an important question should again be put directly to the peoples it affects, but yes, I would agree, that in a representative system, Id be accepting for Parliament to decide. The situation we have, is that clearly, our parliament, wasnt representative. Do you believe it was, and why do you believe that?

Thankfully Junkers has pledged to make sarcasm on tinterweb a criminal offence

Peregrina
Your words
"I'd really like now to get rid of May as PM and the hard-line Tory right, and have someone in power who knows that the country is severely divided and that the first task must be to find a way to unite us."

You have more opportunity and power to make this happen than I have to get rid of Junkers