Question for this mostly Remain audience on MN

[7salmonswimming]

If you’re a remainer and are also in favour of a second referendum and assume the outcome will be Remain, what sort of future do you envisage for the UK inside the EU? What negotiating power do you think the UK would have? I ask this in light of the increasing intransigence of Tusk and other major figures inside the EU (with the exception of Angela Merkel) in Brexit negotiations.

Disclaimer: I’m a UK citizen but live outside the UK and no longer have the vote

Ok, I'll bite.

If we reversed A50 technically we'd still be one of the most influential members of the EU, although an awful lot of goodwill has been lost.

We'd be able to shape the future of the EU from the inside.

We'd have a veto on decisions and the government could still blame all the things they claim not to want on the EU.

Instead we're heading for a fucking cliff edge with no plans in place, all because some people believe in their feelings over every single fact put in front of them.

In that scenario, the UK would have all the rights and terms it's enjoyed until now. No change. Sure, it would be a bit unpopular for a while ; so what?

I am also a Brit outside the UK, watching my homeland implode on TV.

The UK is screwed either way, if it stays it will never be the same, all trust has been lost.

I think we would have done ourselves a lot of damage, and we could kiss goodbye to any future special deals. Those firms which have already left won't come back in a hurry and industries already looking for alternative suppliers to UK ones will probably not be rush to do business with the UK if the alternatives are satisfactory.

It is just possible that the EU realises that the migrant issue is a problem and makes an attempt to tackle it, but this has been much more of a problem for southern Europe and Germany.

What Bear said.
I don’t think we would go back straightaway to the progressive and tolerant country we were. However, our country will be a lot easier to fix if we haven’t jumped over the cliff of economic catastrophe.
Get rid of the current shambles of a government and show honest regret and I think we will be ok.

I am a remainer.
I don't know if I want a referendum.
I think a narrow remain result would be disaster. I don't want that.

So don't think I'm your target audience. But my tuppence anyway on the other comments is...

UK influence in EU is damaged, true, but not zero and would recover if A50 was revoked.

EU has been clear about not separating the 4 freedoms from beginning and having a seamless solution on the British border in Ireland. I don't call that intransigence, I call it level-headed clarity and consistency.

I can't say that I want a Referendum, either, but how do we get out of the current impasse?

I plan to march in October, and I hope the march has a turn out twice as big or more as last time, and then at least I will be able to look my grandchildren in the eye and say that I didn't go along with Brexit.

It's a bit like the huge anti-Iraq war demonstration - it didn't stop the war, but those who marched were eventually vindicated and Blair trashed his reputation, whereas he would otherwise have gone down positively in history as one of the architects of the GFA.

Get rid of the current shambles of a government and show honest regret and I think we will be ok.

That's part of the problem though isn't it?

There's literally no alternative.

On any other planet Labour should be wiping the floor now but they refuse to oust JC as leader and I wouldn't vote for him if my life depended on it.

Well a few months ago, I would have said exactly the same.
Nowdays, the UK has managed to make all the mistake spossible in the world to ooose a lot of his diplomatic power.
In the eu or outside of it, the uk will struggle to get heard aging and be taken seriously.
Because t(e U.K. has just spent two years proving to everyone in the world (remember the trade deals we were also supposed to sign and therefore all the costs we have done with our foreign secretary managing to not remember his own wife country???) thatbthe uk is basically incompetent.

Nothing to do with the Eu or Tusk been this if that. The U.K. has managed to do that it itself all on its own.

I don’t think we would go back straightaway to the progressive and tolerant country we were.

Well tbh it feels like the ‘tolerant and progressive country’ was just an upper coating masking the intolerance, xenophobia and the racism that have always been there.

If Article 50 was to be revoked, the UK would retain all the special deals and exemptions it has presently (ie no Schengen, no Euro), would retain its veto and would continue to be at the 'top table' with the same decision-making powers it always had.

However, yes, undoubtedly we would have lost a great deal of goodwill and trust, which will damage us.

The EU are not being 'intransigent'. They are a rules-based organisation. Those rules are clear (we wrote many of them), and always have been, and they are simply sticking to them.

The sooner the UK realises that it is no more entitled to special treatment than anyone else, the better for all of us, imo. I am sick and embarrassed by the way my government has behaved on the world stage and I have a great deal of sympathy for those EU members whose irritation with us is finally starting to show.

The "EU" have been consistent with what's it's been saying. As usual May has refused to listen.

My DFIL (leave voter) has said all along that we wouldn't leave as it would be a disaster and the aim has always been to get some changes within the EU. I am hoping that he proves to be right. (Although it's looking less and less likely)

Personally not sure a second referendum is the right course of action.

Did find May's headteacher speech today very funny. Did she seriously think the other are going to change their stance because she is cross!

We have pissed away so much goodwill we would be on the backfoot for years. Our own fucking fault.

We have lost influence and respect. Our own fucking fault.

We will not have the ear of key players. Our own fucking fault.

We will lose out in negotiations. Our own fucking fault.

We are better in than out but we have lost so much. Our own fucking fault.

Oh and btw the EU is not being 'intransigent' or 'unfair' their expert negotiators are negotiating the deal best for them because that's their job. It was their job to negotiate the best deal for us until we told them to fuck off.

As a country we need to grow up and take responsibility for our actions. The mess we are in is our own fucking fault. Stop blaming others for our mess.

This cluster fuck is our fault.

I didn't initially want another referendum, but because of the Government carry on, I'd like anyway possible to stay in, as its unveiled their total incompetence.

I must admit, I howled laughing and simultaneously died cringing at Mays last line and stern look into the Camera 'And we are ready'...

I voted Remain.

If Brexit goes as tits up as it could with medicine and food shortages we could see serious civil disobedience

If we succeed, outside the EU properly succeed, which doesn't seem likely right now it will spur nationalist movements in France and Spain to follow suit with exits.

The EU doesn't want that so they have a vested interest in ensuring a post Brexit
Britain in absolute chaos is seen

I think if it had been this close a vote in favour of Remain, Farage would have insisted on a 2nd vote. But we're all Remoaners for wanting one.

It should never have been put to the public vote in the first place and Vote Leave lying adverts should have been banned but we can all blame Gammon Faced Cameron for that because he was scared of losing Tory seats to UKIP and would have still won without making that pledge anyway.

I not sure if I want to post on here, but here goes.
No to another referendum, we will just either end up with a similar result or the rise of UKIP again and be back to square one.

But if we stay or rejoin, yes we may look foolish, but most EU governments really would rather we stayed, and many of the likes of Poland, Austria, Slovakia and the Baltic Countries would happily take us back.
It won't happen.

Our local BBC radio station and TV news have been doing different Brexit street for last few weeks, whilst we are still a divide nation.
One thing united all asked, that all Politian's of all colours where bloody useless, and completely failing the population
I couldn't agree more.

I notice the sensible supporters of leaving, the likes of DR North and a few Tory/Labour MP's are calling for us to join EFTA and then slowly, like over a decade using the EFTA umbrella for economic protection, divorce ourselves from the EU. Even this is classed as treason by the harden(Nutters) Tory backbenchers.

IF it happened, we d be back in our usual position (not sure where that is though!!!!) because the current lot would be gone and all would be forgotten, they'd be around at Chequers or Brussels quaffing champers and giggling together at what a close shave that was!

They don't blame the British, but our ham fisted politicians.

Its not like we ve gone to war is it? though listening to May, perhaps someone should tell her that?

It's an odd premise. In what way is Tusk in particular being intransigent while Merkel is not? The EU27 are all on the same page here, even if they have different presentational styles. There is also some good cop bad cop going on (EU27 leaders taking it in turns to make encouraging noises even though clearly Chequers in its current form is not workable).

If A50 is cancelled, nothing changes versus pre-Brexit except that the UK has trashed its soft power and influence. If the EU can work with Orbán it can work with May or Corbyn, or even Johnson, but it may find that it has fewer close friends in the club than before.

I also live outside the UK. Out of interest, do you follow brexit though the lens of the UK press, or do you read the foreign press?

Both, and I try to read liberal and conservative views. It’s an interesting comparison.

To this outsider, it is intransigence. The club makes the rules and the club can change them. There’s no divine intervention. But yes, the EU has to and has to be seen to take the hardest of lines with the UK, which has often been a pita (Maastricht and the ERM spring to mind just from my time in the UK). Tusk is openly federalist, and national political polarisation in Greece, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany and so forth pose an existential threat.

Going back to the original question, my understanding is that polls indicate that in a second referendum Remain would win 52-48, so a similar sort of margin by which it lost. It’s hardly a ringing endorsement if the UK were to stay in. It seems to me that the UK needs to sort itself out internally, before going back to the EU, pretty much cap in hand.

It always was thus between the UK and the EU. Hate each other, but need each other.

The fact that deGaulle didn't want the UK to join will smart a bit.

Hate each other, but need each other

What makes you say the E.U. has always hated the U.K.??

I try to read liberal and conservative views

But Brexit isn't primarily a political question but a legal one, and this is what the UK press doesn't understand.

There are a range of possible outcomes that are practically and legally possible, and these were laid out by Barnier very early in the process in the famous "staircase" chart. The problem is that UK red lines basically rule out all of these outcomes.

The club makes the rules and the club can change them.

And they do. Ever-closer-union anyone? There is perpetual mission creep. That's why people wanted out. We weren't just voting on what the EU is now but on what it might be in decades to come.

I had not heard of the staircase chart before.

Perhaps hate isn’t the right word. Germany, France, Spain, Italy - the original contenders - have always viewed the UK as being arrogant in wanting special treatment. The UK has received special treatment, largely because it suited these countries to appease the UK in the context of the original purpose of the European project.

Brexit is technically a legal event. But just as the ECJ, the EC, the EEA etc and their functions and rights/responsibilities are legally enshrined, they only exist because of the political will of the people. Again, there’s no divine law, no immutable European constitution (much as the federalists would like one, I think). The law is what the people vote it to be (very high level, of course). Exiting the EU is a novel thing. Brexit will set a precedent that will last for decades, and be relevant perhaps not just to the EU.

De Gaulle had the English (don’t know of his grasp of the Scots, the Welsh or the Irish contingent in the 50s) down right, evidently.

It’s funny how the population was largely sceptical of the EC (as then was) at the time of full accession, how fervently the riposte was about loss of sovereignty and independence. There was all manner of references to Churchill and the war, still echoed by the majority of the Leave contingent. Fast forward 25-odd years and reading anything but the right/far right press, you’d never believe it.