If you think leaving the EU was a bad idea, what are you doing about it?

[Woj]

Change doesn't just happen, it's made...

I am a huge Remainer. Stay Out (currently!). The EU recently met up with the Taliban which has put me off rejoining. We would also never vote to rejoin with accepting the Euro and also joining the Schengen area so I don't think it is really a go-er. Also the EU reminds me a bit of FIFA. The idea of the EU is wonderful , I just don't believe in the current model.

How can a document .... not be in the public interest?

I didn't say that it wasn't in the public interest. Your statement was that May hid it which is incorrect, the attorney general was the one who didn't want it published.

Signing without parliamentary approval

She didn't sign it though. She tried to get parliamentary approval, but couldn't. As you say, they are entitled to know what they are voting for, and she did go through due process.

Those who voted Leave won. Remain lost. Except for the very few, we all suffer the consequences.

It wasn' t as bad as the worst case scenario is a great win. Enjoy it brexiteers.

@HappiestSleeping

It was Theresa May that resigned, not Geoffrey Cox. Presenting the same proposal three times consecutively is what bad loser kids in the playground do.

Your idea, this is what EU are prepared to give. So, we either accept or no deal as per Article 50 was the correct way forward. However, Theresa May was not brave enough to say no deal. Also, the parties who did not want Brexit thought if they opposed every deal, Brexit would fizzle out.

@Smeuse

Watch the BBC documentary, Brexit-A very British civil war. It demonstrates the scaremongering spread by remain campaign.

The US president, Obama, was prompted by David Cameron to say the UK would be at the back of queue for a deal with the US if they left the EU. When that failed to swing the polls, George Osborne announced on 15 June 2016 (8 days before the referendum) that if the UK left the EU there would be an emergency budget to increase taxes and lower spending to compensate.

Neither happened.

It was Theresa May that resigned, not Geoffrey Cox. Presenting the same proposal three times consecutively is what bad loser kids in the playground do.

You are conflating two different points. You said that Theresa May tried toto hide the legal advice. She didn't, Geoffrey Cox did.

Her trying to get the same deal through multiple times is a different point entirely. I agree that this was not fruitful, despite it being a better deal than we ended up with.

Neither happened

This demonstrates my point about the quality of the campaigning. If you read Rory Stewart's book, Cameron had no contingency plan at all for the eventuality of losing the referendum. What a prize, arrogant plum.

Your idea, this is what EU are prepared to give. So, we either accept or no deal as per Article 50 was the correct way forward.

That wasn't quite what I meant. My point was that we should have let them open the negotiation as opposed to us running around like headless chickens proving that neither the leave campaign or the remain campaign had a credible plan. In any negotiation, the will that weakens first strengthens the other. We handed the EU all the cards by having no plan. We could have taken some back with the approach of seeing what they offered first, however as you say, May did not have the resolve. None of them did.

"There was no plan"

That is basically it.

Stay out. We are the grit in the shoe to the EU. If we had been in, the UK would not have been able to arm Ukraine ahead of the Russian invasion. With a constitution that allows countries like Hungary to stop what the majority democratically want to do we are better off out of it. Hence the war drags on. BY not being in we have the ability to do what others can't.

@Smeuse

"There was no plan"
That is basically it.

That’s down to David Cameron, a Remain supporter and prime minister, who was the person who put the referendum on the table. He offered a leave option with the statement in a booklet sent to each household in the UK:

The is your decision. The government will implement what you decide.

Like a coward he resigned the day after the referendum result was known

A plan to leave is the responsibility of the person making the offer. Not the persons who chose to accept the offer.

Move forward to 2017. 498 MPs vote to leave the EU. This was all conservative MPs, bar one I remember, Kenneth Clarke. The balance was mostly Labour MPs and a small number of Liberal Democrat’s. Why did they not make a plan before voting?

Taim

the UK would not have been able to arm Ukraine ahead of the Russian invasion

Yes it would. There is no EU rule preventing that.

We are the grit in the shoe to the EU.

More like the butt of the joke.

@HappiestSleeping

In any negotiation, the will that weakens first strengthens the other.

This was raised on BBC question time several times. Take no deal off the table and you will get a bad deal.

Also having a Prime Minister who voted remain being tasked with negotiating a leave deal was always going to fail. Since 2015, when it was known a referendum on EU membership would take place, the UK has had the following prime ministers:

Cameron - voted remain
May - voted remain
Johnson - leave campaigner who thought remain would win
Liz Truss - voted remain
Sunak - not sure about him
Starmer - voted remain
Burnham - voted remain

The UK would not have armed the Ukraine. There may be no rule however the EU was paralysed as ever as Hungary and Germany stopped them. Germany saw the economic advantage and now supports Ukr and Hungary still does stop them taking affirmative action in respect of the threat from Russia.

My aged parents have both died since 2016. They voted remain.

The bookies were wrong, they were offering 3 - 1 leave and 3 - 1 Trump. I had no spare money at the time. A 100 pound double would have returned a grand.

I think the problem here is that there was nobody who wanted to leave who had either a plan, or the balls to try and form one. Thus it was left to those who didn't think leaving was a good idea to try and make the best fist of it.

A completely dire situation to be in.

Your statement was that the UK would not have been able to. This is not correct.

If you have the view that the UK would have chosen not to, that is a different question. On what do you base that opinion?

I voted remain and think we should stay out. The vote was too close and we would be rejoining on much worse terms that we left on. Also, we can slowly and sneakily reintegrate as is happening to a degree. The biggest issue to me is that if we rejoined it would just reinvigorate the anti eu people and give them something to campaign about and we’d eventually have brexit 2 and it would just be tedious and embarrassing and an insult to our neighbours. Unfortunately the country voted as it did and I just can’t see us staying in for long if we did rejoin.

Bugger all. I haven't got kids and I'm old enough to get a retirement visa for parts of mainland Europe now.
I also think while it was a terrible mistake the to leave, I don't know how much benefit we would really get from going back in now.

The referendum was Cameron's fault. What followed was down to brexiteers without a plan.

You won, the UK left the EU.

That was the vote, remain or leave.

If you voted for Johnso, you voted for a lie. There was no plan, there has never been a plan. Even Farage did not have a clear plan of what Brexit meant.

I think the difference between Johnson and Farage is that Johnson wanted to further his career, and Farage just wanted to be a disruptor. They both succeeded if only temporarily in Johnson's case. Farage's disruption was more permanent, not that he gives a shit as he has money, so the impact is minimal for him personally.

@Smeuse

The referendum was Cameron's fault. What followed was down to brexiteers without a plan.

The question asked in 2016 referendum was the same as that asked in 1975. So, why was it okay to have a referendum in 1975, but not in 2016?

The answer is simple - the government got the answer they wanted to hear.

The offer to leave was made by David Cameron. At the time he was both the UK PM and leader of remain campaign. Hence he was responsible to deliver leave if that option was chosen. He even made the statement:

This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide.

This partly happened on 29 March 2017 when 498 MPs (mostly Labour and conservative) voted to leave the EU.

Move onto the 2017 general election and the vote was:

42% conservative who pledged to honour Brexit
40% Labour who also pledged to honour Brexit

Labour, seeing how close they were to the conservatives, then switched to being a remain party thinking they could force a win a general election. Hence, the two and half years attempt to reverse Brexit was down to remain supporting parties pursing their desire to be in power as opposed to implementing the decision to leave the EU which had been done twice

2016 referendum by the electorate

2017 by parliament

@HappiestSleeping

not that he gives a shit as he has money, so the impact is minimal for him personally.

Net Worth

David Cameron £10-£40 million
Theresa May £3-£5 million
Boris Johnson £4-£10 million
Liz Truss £8 million
Rishi Sunak £563 million
Kier Starmer £3-£8 million

For as long as UK has multi millionaire PMs, who don’t experience the cost of living like the average person in the street, they will always pursue their own agenda regardless of how people vote.

@EEexpat , you got what you wanted, the UK left the EU.

You, like many Brexiteers, now live in an EU country.

Enjoy what you have denied people in the UK and keep voting for parties who don't want closer ties with the EU.

It was all about immigration after all. Not about a plan.

I am not sure what your point is. Mine wasn't whether they have money or not, it was whether they actively tried to fuck up the country knowing that they would not really be personally affected. Farage did this, the others did not (apart from possibly Johnson).

Not doing anything but still feel enormously distressed about all of it. Greatest mistake ever, I said to anyone who would listen at the time and I'll be saying it until the day I die