If we just cancelled Brexit....

[GraceGrape]

...do you think there would really be that much fuss?

I posted on the id card thread that it would be much less hassle if we could just cancel Brexit. It got me wishful thinking that this could actually be possible!

Even the most ardent leavers are starting to downplay its likelihood of success. Key figures like Gisela Stuart have admitted it's all been handled disastrously. The economy is starting to look a bit shit before we've even left. According to the pro- leave camp, we all apparently knew there would be a recession but it would still be "worth it" if you're independently wealthy like Garage, IDS or Bojo maybe.

Anyway, I think it would be typically British if we just harrumphed a bit and said "Well, maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. The referendum was only advisory y'know."

As a nation, we don't tend to like big changes so I think a lot of people would be secretly relieved. There might be a bit of grumbling, and maybe Farage would leave the country in disgust as an added bonus. We could then sweep it under the carpet and pretend it never happened, as the Brits tend to do with some of the more unsavoury parts of our history anyway. It would also save us the humiliation of seeing David Davis try to do any more negotiating.

you can't just opt out of freedom of movement on its own. You lose the single market and the customs union too

This is the nub of the matter. The "cake and eat it" approach isn't going to happen. So the question the government doesn't want to answer is, is it worth sacrificing the economy (as leaving the single market will inevitably do) to reduce levels of immigration?

Maybe in 20 years, we can have built our economy outside the EU to the levels we are at now, or perhaps we will have headed into terminal decline. Maybe we will have lower levels of immigration, but that's not going to happen in the short term. We are completely dependent on foreign labour. I saw this myself yesterday when I had to take my DD to A&E. 3 of the 4 wonderful staff that saw us, including the surgeon, were European. We've already seen lots of them start to leave and applications fall. It will be years before the UK can train the necessary numbers of people, if ever based on the government's lack of training bursaries. In the meantime, EU labour will have to be replaced by immigration from elsewhere. The mass migration from Africa that is causing some people concern at the moment won't be resolved by leaving the EU as we aren't part of Schengen and illegal migrants will continue to find their way here as they do now. It's not like we have done anything as members of the EU to lighten the burden on countries like Italy anyway. We have not been compelled to do anything (whether we should have done so on a moral basis is another argument).

I don't see who are supposed to be the winners here. Only the most hardcore Brexit fans will be happy to accept waiting 10-20 years to see the results they want (if they ever do). There will be a worsening of the economy in the meantime, even most leavers accept this, which is never a vote-winner. I don't see how the May government thinks that appeasing the extremists in the Conservative party in the short-term is going to lead to long-term electoral success.

David Cameron really is the one at fault here. The best thing to do after the narrow margins of the referendum would have been to acknowledge we would leave the EU but remain part of EFTA. Most leavers were expecting this option anyway.

Shoes You don't seem very impressed with democracy.

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others"

What I don't understand about the EU haters is the fact that we are and have been in the EU for 40 odd years . During that time successive UK governments have been instrumental in shaping EU policy , law and decisions on a variety of issues . So if the EU is rubbish , does it then follow that the UK government /parliament have been rubbish for the last 40 odd years too

Exactly Frumpety , well said! I can't bear the way "the EU has imposed all these laws on us" rhetoric constantly goes unchallenged, you hear it being spouted constantly by politicians on news programmes and journalists just let it slide. We have been part of a consensual process for forty years and have had as much say in the legislation process as any other Member State. Yes, some votes we have lost, but some we have won - that is how consensual politics works - same as for all the other 27 members - but it could be argued that for the majority of the big ones; the UK has very much got it's own way!

The irony now, to take the vacuum cleaner example among many, is that once Brexit goes ahead, manufacturers here, when selling in to Europe, will still have to ensure that products conform to EU rules; we just won't have any power or influence over their formation.

We can have BRITISH hoovers for BRITISH homes (made by Brexiteer James Dyson in Malaysia...)

Yes we can twofingers and they will cost five times the price because of the small market and the unique specifications!

Yes we can twofingers and they will cost five times the price because of the small market and the unique specifications!

But surely this is a price worth paying? We are out of the hated EU, and Malaysians, being part of the Commonwealth, are our new best mates again.

Peregrina

I wish people would accept that globalisation has happened - there is no going back - however much people want to.

It is a fact that the EU has been at the forefront of setting production and environmental standards for products that have been so successful that other countries have adopted ( or are in the process of adopting) them ie India.

Yes we can twofingers and they will cost five times the price because of the small market and the unique specifications!

No pain, no gain (tries to channel inner-Brexiteer...)
It will all be worth it
Blah blah dictatorship...
Blah blah sovereignty...

"If Norway wanted to join the EU, they could, but obviously they don't."

They are able to finance a great welfare state because they saved and invested their oil wealth. We don't have that and depend on trade to a much greater extent.

some votes we have lost, but some we have won

I fact-checked this for someone before the referendum. IIRC, the UK had been outvoted 56 times in the European Parliament, and had voted with the motion something like 2,300 times.

And some of the motions we have sponsored ourselves. But you would never believe it hearing the Brexiters talk.

The narrative is fixed that the EU will act against the UK whenever possible. They would do this if we'd remained in the EU. They will do this if we leave the EU. Once we're out we'll have years (or decades) of Leavers complaining that all of our country's misfortunes should be laid at the door of the EU. It is going to be a truly dispiriting and childish spectacle.

During that time successive UK governments have been instrumental in shaping EU policy , law and decisions on a variety of issues

This is a wonderful thread but long:

twitter.com/EmporersNewC/status/884474494512975872

I am sure you are aware of the migrants at Calais trying to get into the UK
Again you've mentioned a big problem that will not be solved in any way by Brexit. Of all the arguements to leave, I never heard anyone claim the issue of migrants in Calais would be solved by Brexit.

Don't the French have to take some responsibility for all these people, they are on their soil, and France do have a wealth-fare state as well, with help from the EU funding shouldn't France be supporting this people, as we all agree they need help.

The UK has, at the moment, a unique and highly favourable membership of the EU. Any situation other than the current one will be worse for the UK. Whistle on for the deep and special relationship that Maybot drones on about. Nothing will be deeper or more special that what we have right now and will shortly loose. How depressing...

mummy - France grudgingly rehome asylum seekers. These are people no country in the EU want. France has no legal requirement to take them - they land in Italy, Greece or Spain. Do you think it is right or fair that these three countries should bear all the burden of people escaping war and poverty (a problem often exacerbated by Western countries....including the UK, I'm sorry to say). The EU have decided it would be fairer to spread the burden out. Brexit complicates the issue for sure, and as far as Calais is concerned, the French can't wait to push border controls back to the UK where they belong. Up till now, the entente cordiale has working in the name of EU solidarity. After Brexit, the UK will be a third party so what will encourage the French to take the hit and keep the camps on French soil?

So you admit no EU country want them, so that means we have to take them?
Do we not pay into a fund to help these people, are they not meant to be helped in the first instance in the first port of call.
We all know why these young men try night after night to get to the UK rather than ask for help in how ever many countries they have passed through, and just how many are asylum seekers and not financial migrants.

I worry what happens after Brexit and it is discovered that it wasn't the 'foreigners' at all. Who will be blamed then? Not the government's austerity measures I'm sure..

Do we not pay into a fund to help these people, are they not meant to be helped in the first instance in the first port of call.

Well the first port of call thing is rather convenient given the UK's western geographical location. Of course when the Irish were fleeing Famine (when Ireland was part of the empire) and even up until the 1980's as economic migrants they were given a warm welcome in Britain weren't they? Despitethe UK being the "first port of call" for Irish people.

A pot of cash is a poor substitute for medicine, aid, homes. The UK is no different to the rest of the EU. You see, we're all the same under the skin. Same fears of societal change, fears of new cultures, religions, fears of the other. But we're all signed up to international treaties on asylum seekers. These treaties represent the better angels of our national selves. Even though it comes at a cost, even though there will be changes to our communities, we think it the right thing to welcome the persecuted in our lands. Oddly, the upside is rarely spoken of: if you treat your new citizens with love and respect, they will pay you pack 100 fold. You'd be their saviours, offering them a home and food when they had neither, offering opportunities to them and their children when all was lost. They'd make the best patriots. They'd repay you with their lives.

I noticed you didn't pick up on the widely held belief that the UK (and France and others) are the CAUSE of the conditions asylum seekers are fleeing. Welcoming refugees is a moral imperative.

That's a beautiful post FlatPacker, thank you.

Thanks, Sandy. Posting what I have, mummy may think I'm a pie-in-the-sky sort. I'm not. I am someone who also believes in managing migration, not reacting to it. But I do get sick that just because the UK happens to be an island, they think they can operate in isolation from Europe and just turn their backs. This goes way, way back into UK history, and like the US, we have this national myth of our exceptionality that I find particularly repugnant.

If these people were so desperate for help, why don't they claim it in the first safe country they come too.
Get registrared and get help with in days of arriving, instead of wondering about 1000 miles to try to sneak onto a train or boat to get access to the UK system.
I do not have anything against anyone from any country, and dearly wish we could set up help points so the help could be sort before the harrowing journeys which result in so many deaths. We have caused so many problems to countries in the guise of helping them, the dead and the injured are truly horrifying in numbers.
But in a lot of the interviews the young men on the France - UK boarders are not there for fear of life, and seem to have ulterior movtives, are know to be trouble makers and France seems to turm a blind eye. People don't attack innocent car owners and destroy property unless they have little regard for law and order. France is a Civilized Country not a war zone. Children are hurt, raped or used and yet it still seems to go on, while France seem to let it.