An open letter to leavers

[LoveInTokyo]

Dear Leavers

I’m sorry that David Cameron offered us a referendum and promised to respect the outcome, whatever it was.

Unfortunately, he was fucking with you.

He promised that referendum when he didn’t think he stood a cat’s chance in hell of getting a majority, and never thought he’d actually have to deliver on it. When he got his surprise majority, he made a big show of going to Brussels and pretending to negotiate with the EU to get us a “better deal”. Unfortunately, he already knew perfectly well that the UK already had a better deal than any other country in the EU, and that they were not going to bend over backwards to get us to stay. So he made a big show of negotiating and then tried to pretend that he had done something meaningful. He then went through the motions of holding a referendum, half-heartedly campaigning to remain. He did absolutely no contingency planning, partly because he never believed that leave would actually win, and partly because he already knew that he had no intention of staying to deal with the fallout if they did. That’s why he resigned the day after the referendum and waltzed off, whistling a merry tune.

He played a high risk game of poker with our money, and lost.

I understand that many of you feel defensive about your decision and dislike being labelled “thick” by angry remainers. As a remainer myself, I feel saddened and frustrated that none of you seem able to articulate any benefits that will actually come out of Brexit. But at this stage, I would quite happily accept that there will be no benefits, and settle for damage limitation. Unfortunately none of you seem able to explain how we limit the damage either.

We cannot leave the single market and customs union without there being a hard border in Ireland, which will put people’s lives at risk. We cannot leave the single market and customs union without severely damaging most sectors of the economy, which would cause untold hardship for millions of people living in the UK. I realise that remaining in the single market and customs union would make leaving the EU pointless, but it is the only way to limit the damage.

The government has made almost no progress towards getting a workable deal in place, and time is running out. We don’t have the infrastructure in place to ensure that supply chains of essential food and medicine will not be disrupted after Brexit day. We don’t have a plan to ensure that planes will still be able to take off and land, or that satnav will still work. We do not have any trade deals lined up. We simply do not have time to do any of these things.

Dear leavers, you do not have solutions to any of these problems, and more importantly, neither do Theresa May, Boris Johnson, David Davis, Liam Fox, Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrea Leadsom, Daniel Hannan, Jeremy Corbyn, Kate Hoey or any of the people who claim to think Brexit is the right choice for the UK.

A no-deal Brexit is unthinkable. It is not an option.

I realise that many of you will feel betrayed if we do not get the kind of Brexit you want. But to be honest, you’re going to feel betrayed even if you do get the kind of Brexit you want, because it will be unimaginably shit. This is not "project fear", it is "project reality".

The government has a duty to act in the best interests of the country as a whole. It’s not good enough to lay the blame at David Cameron’s door and say he held the referendum so we have to respect the vote. David Cameron has been out of office for two years. It is now plainer than ever that leaving the EU is a terrible idea, and there is still time to put the brakes on and not go through with it. If the government goes through with this when they could put a stop to it, they cannot continue to blame David Cameron and claim that their hands were tied. They are not.

It is time for Theresa May to do the decent thing and say, “I’m sorry, I know it’s what the people voted for, but it simply can’t be done without causing a totally unacceptable amount of harm to the country. And I have a duty of care towards everyone, not just the 51.8% who voted leave.”

If people are daft enough to decide their political views from social media, gov spin doctors and news reports, alone, then they shouldn't be allowed a vote as obviously not intelligent enough.
Same goes for those who believe the GE campaigns and promises.

We did not have uncontrolled immigration because of the EU rosstac. Take Belgium - you have to register within 10 days of arrival there, and if you have found no job within 3 months of arrival and/ or cannot prove that you have the means of supporting yourself (and your family if need be) then you are out. We could have done the same, except the Home office in the UK could never be arsed to register people. Not the fault of the EU. (And immigration produces net benefits anyway, but if you were concerned about controls, we already had them, as the EU pointed out to David Cameron.)

There is certainly an argument romany for including a basic question about the EU on the ballot paper and binning the votes of those who can't answer it. Maybe: 'What is the name of your MEP and which MEP candidate did you put first when you voted in the European elections?'

akerman as a EU member coming into this country, please can you tell me how the government know you are here and where you are living ?

Nothing anyone does or says is going to prevent this shower of shit, OP. We reap what we sow, so best get on with sowing some seeds of trying to make the best of Brexshit because it's gonna happen.

yy, it was high risk poker with our money. In the words of Danny Dyer, twat.

LeftRightCent that’s the sprit, let’s all work together and we can all enjoy the new world together, if The EU want to play hard ball let’s boycott all things European,

@LouiseCollins28

I genuinely appreciate your taking the time to respond in a thoughtful way. This makes you a rare breed of Brexiter.

I would respond on the following points:

Money: Yes, we have been a net contributor the EU budget. However, I believe that the money we "save" by no longer contributing to that budget will be offset many times over by the economic damage the country will sustain as a result of Brexit. We have not even left the EU yet and we have already had to finance two brand new government departments to deal with leaving the EU and negotiating future trading relationships (neither of which have achieved anything of note in the last two years), and our credit rating has been downgraded, meaning that our national debt interest (which was already a much greater cost to taxpayers than our EU contributions) has become more expensive. It all goes into and comes out of the same pot at the end of the day, and I believe that, regardless of any "saving" we make, there will be less money in that pot to spend on the things we need. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg has said that it is likely to be 50 years before we see any benefit.

Trade: The EU has taken on the responsibility of negotiating our trade policy for us. There are both positives and negatives to this. The negative is that we have had to compromise, and that not every aspect of every trade deal is exactly as we would want it. The positive is that we have been negotiating from inside a market of 500 million people, rather than a market of 60 million. This means that the EU's influence in trade negotiations with third countries is bigger and more important than the UK's would be alone. This was one of the main reasons why the EU was set up in the first place - to enable small European countries to compete globally with larger countries such as the USA. After we leave the EU we will indeed be able to negotiate our own free trade agreements. But there is no guarantee that they will be any better than the agreements we are party to as a member of the EU (most likely worse given our smaller market and weaker negotiating position), and any trade agreement we sign will necessarily compel us to comply with requirements imposed by another country. These agreements will need to take account of what is on offer by other, often bigger and more powerful countries, not simply the UK's priorities and interests. That is the nature of international trade. You mention the CAP, and I agree it is far from perfect. But a trade deal with the USA (which we will be in no position to refuse) is likely to result in a flood of cheap and lower quality imports into the UK, which will be bad for both British farmers and consumers. There is also the issue that we will have no trade agreements at all for some time, and it is likely to take our economy a long time to recover from that. Even outside the EU, our ability to set our own tariffs is quite significantly hampered by the WTO rules, notably the "most favoured nation" principle. We cannot unilaterally decide to lower or abolish tariffs for certain countries without this having knock on consequences on what we can do - or are indeed obliged to do - regarding other countries. Many trade agreements also contain a clause providing that the parties cannot give more favourable terms to another third country without offering the other party the same terms. This means that many countries will be unable to offer is preferential terms to what they have already agreed with the EU. In my opinion, the benefits of being able to negotiate our own trade agreements have been vastly overstated.

Law: Yes, the CJEU is the supreme court in relation to matters of EU law and this does necessarily restrict ourown sovereignty. As you correctly point out, this will continue to apply in relation to areas where we have to continue to accept EU jurisdiction if we want to participate in EU projects. However, we will no longer have British judges sitting in that court or British commissioners or MEPs involved in making the rules that apply to those projects. We will also continue to be subject to other "foreign" courts and tribunals, such as the European Court of Human Rights, and secret arbitrations which are commonly used to decide trade disputes. At least the CJEU is open, transparent and accessible. Regardless of all that, the CJEU only has jurisdiction in matters of EU law, and although there is a lot of EU law, in reality, the vast majority of legal proceedings affecting UK citizens or our laws and way of life are not matters of EU law, and so are decided in UK courts. In my view, the sovereignty argument has also been grossly overstated. In reality, neither you nor I will see any benefit.

Your points are valid, but I remain unconvinced. And they still do not address the seemingly insurmountable issue of Northern Ireland, or the practical reality that in order to achieve the benefits you suggest without bringing the country to its knees, we need to be a lot further along in this process than we are now. Even without the Northern Ireland problem, we would need to have built infrastructure that we have not built in order to deal with customs issues. We would need to have negotiated new aviation agreements to ensure that planes can still fly (or negotiated remaining within the existing Open Skies Agreement as a third country). Maybe there could have been a way to achieve Brexit successfully, but this is not the situation we find ourselves in today.

So I respectfully disagree with you, but I do appreciate your taking the time to reply properly.

rosstac - they don't. That's the point. That's what we managed so badly in contrast to other EU countries. They might find out via a census every so often, but they do not systematically register people and so they don't know. They have some idea from people asking for National Insurance numbers, but it's possible not everybody works with employers who ask for them.

Ross Thomson has given the benefits of leaving with no deal as opposed to the Chequers deal.

Using new technology as well as extending schemes such as the Authorised Economic Operator Scheme means any post Brexit customs checks can be done without a hard border. The EU insists on customs checks (on its external borders) but in reality no U.K. or Irish govt would ever accept a hard border. this technology does not exist yet

Brexit means taking back control of our borders.

The prize of Brexit is regaining our ability to sign new trade deals. However, being aligned to the EU’s regulations makes a fee trade deal with the US difficult. The US will expect mutual recognition of each other’s regulatory standards which we won’t be able to offer

Brexit should mean the supremacy of our Parliament. It’s scope won’t be limited to the EU rule book but to environment, climate change, employment and consumer protection.

Get rid of ECJ

We will not be tied to bad regulations such as the EU ban on hoovers with motors more powerful than 900w

We will get rid of the EU’s rule book on goods and agri-products

Great we can have flammable baby toys and chlorinated chicken. twitter.com/RossThomson_MP/status/1023879606003290112

I've seen many leavers post good reasoning for leaving and possible solutions that could work. I don't understand all the name calling and grouping every leaver as 'stupid' when a lot of them aren't, they just don't feel they have to justify their reasons on a public forum/at all.

(FYI I voted remain, I just don't understand the viciousness going on)

But the majority did vote to leave the EU, LEAVE THE EU, what is hard to understand about that, how it is achieved is up to the government, The same government that gave the vote to the people by 5-1 majority, voted to invoke A50, etc How many more majority votes to you want to overturn till a tiny majority get what they want?

But Rosstac, the government has not achieved this.

And - to be brutally honest with you - it is not possible to "take control" (either in terms of sovereignty or immigration) without there being a hard border in Ireland. Which we promised would never happen.

Nobody has come up with a solution to this problem. Unless you count the proposal to rely on technology which does not yet exist.

So on the basis that the government has not achieved a workable Brexit, and is showing no signs of being able to achieve one in the next six months, are you really saying that you would rather leave the EU with no deal, regardless of the cost and how much chaos it causes?

And if so, can you be absolutely sure that if we were asked to vote on that question tomorrow, a majority of the electorate would also vote for no deal?

downinthejunglee

Have you seen anyone post a workable solution to the Northern Ireland issue?

What I can't fathom is why people don't want 'unelected bureaucrats in Brussels' to decide important policies on our behalf but are happy to let the DUP (swivel eyed fuck-nuggets who can't manage money) decide such important things. And we should all trust our 'elected' representatives to sort all this out. Have you seen what the DUP thinks?

It's like handing an unexploded bomb to a toddler.

MrsTerryPratchett To be fair, I don't think anybody predicted that particular outcome to the general election.

True, but what I mean is all the people who appear to be saying that we should just trust in a good outcome. The 'it'll all be fine, insulin will flow, planes will fly and goods will move' because our fine politicians are on the case. They seem completely incompetent to me.

To be fair I feel much safer within the EU rather than out of it with the Tories in charge, let alone the DUP. JRM and IDS can't wait to get rid of workers' rights. Liam Fox has now decided that anyone worried about selling off the NHS to the USA is 'anti-trade' and Boris Johnson's line is 'Fuck business.'

You're right MrsTerry - they are completely incompetent. And only 6% of MPs bothered to read the impact statements about Brexit.

downinthejunglee the thing is some people don't want to justify their opinions on a public forum and that's fine. However, the kind of people who post on a public forum usually do want to justify their opinions.

Why come on the thread only to announce you don't want to justify yourself - isn't that kind of the whole point of a debate?

Also the pattern is:

Remainer - tell us why
Leaver - well X and Y
Remainer - but X is wrong for this reason and Y doesn't stand up
Leaver - I don't need to justify myself
Remainer - it's because you can't
Leaver - you are calling me stupid I'm going

There is no clarity or rigour to leaver arguments. I've been on threads where posters have begged for a good reason just so they don't feel so shit about the whole process and no one can come up one.

Finally, in desperation leavers say it is about a feeling.....

TL;DR

Had a few minutes of free time to surf MN. Looks like others have way too much free time on their hands. 🤔

@member
I haven’t made any mention of a “pot of gold” at the end of a rainbow.

“How can we leave the EU in a practical, workable way?”

The “off the shelf” options seem to be:

Be like Norway: remain in the EEA, remain subject to rulings from the ECJ and open to free movement of people and all the rest.

Have a similar relationship to that agreed between the EU and Canada: Essentially this is a free trade agreement eliminating tariffs but it does nothing on non-tariff barriers.

The whole argument seems to be about whether we can do better than CETA agreed between the EU and Canada. How much closer can we remain than Canada? Or, put another way, how much further can we stretch away beyond the Norway model? (if we can at all)

The final options are:

Leave with no deal. The UK would at an agreed point simply become a “third country” with no closer relationship to the EU than India, Japan or Australia. We would have to deal with tariff and non tariff trade barriers and have customs checks and. I have to say I think people are playing this up as an act of brinkmanship and it seems pretty unlikely to happen to me.

Don’t leave: Not sure if this is still possible but it would involve rescinding article 50 and erm, not Brexiting. I still think this is a possible outcome but the political fallout would be massive.

How do we leave in a practical, workable way? We will have to choose between the 2 principal “off the shelf” options, e.g. “Norway like”, or “Canada like” and whoever is in government at the time will have to explain that choice to voters in the UK.

@loveintokyo thanks for your in-depth reply and your compliment, will take me a little while to process all you have written there.

I know a lot of leave voters who don't engage with the internet at all. The ire being directed at them bounces off because they don't know about it.

Yes, the whole thing has been a ridiculous cock up from the word go. But aside from the vocal remainers on my Facebook feed insisting that grave peril awaits in a matter of minutes due to Brexit, and the prevailing view I see in the media and online that everyone's decided Brexit must be stopped, everyone else seems to think we voted, it's happening, job done.

I appreciate that remainers will be thrilled at the halting of an effective exit, which I think is probably likely, but I've yet to hear from them how they are going to deal with the fallout from that end. I see lots of berating of all the stupid brexiteers who had no idea they voted for various degrees of Armageddon, but if remainers do stop brexit, how exactly are you going to deal with lots of angry people who probably voted because they felt extremely disenfranchised and will be told that their votes literally meant nothing?

Don't get me wrong, I think the whole stupid referendum was a silly fucking idea and I wish it had never happened, but does anyone actually think there will be no consequences if it's halted?

TL;DR

Had a few minutes of free time to surf MN. Looks like others have way too much free time on their hands.

Soundbites and slogans don't make good policies. Politics is complicated and each action has consequences; intended and unintended. If you just listen to people who say, "Brexit is Brexit, simples" you're not going to understand the complexity.

If you want to read fluff, go to Chat.

I should have added that, of the options I mentioned, I think only "Be like Norway" provides an instant solution to the issue of the Ireland/Northern Ireland border.