If Labour get in, will they reverse Brexit?

[VeryGoodVeryNiceChickenNugget]

I have no idea, so is it possible/likely?

I'm specifically thinking about free movement within Europe. At the moment its very hard to get a visa to move, permanently move, anywhere in the EU.

Yes but the way post was written comes across as Labour taking up office on 4th July and them announcing that we are rejoining the EU on 5th July
There would have to be a second referendum

I would be against any more referendums ever.....

Important decisions and plans should be in a manifesto or via free votes in the House of Commons.

Very few members of the public know enough about things like the EU, Trident, HS2, Nuclear power, NATO and UN membership.

We ve a representative democracy, shouldn't try and undermine that.

What we need now, as promised, is to get out of the ECHR, and make our own bill of rights

Why do "you" need this??

It’s a lot harder though now to move to EU countries, as you need to have certain skills, experience, qualifications- or a lot of dosh. I am sad at our loss of freedom of movement within EU, I hate Brexit.

Hoping Labour will start to look at and talk about closer alignment with EU over the coming years. Our economy needs it. Hoping they have not discussed it yet as don’t want this election fought on Brexit again.

Even if Labour was campaigning all-out for a 2nd Ref, championing rejoining the EU, and a 2nd ref was held in August 2024, it wouldn't make the blindest bit of difference, because there is another UK election in 2029 at the latest, the Tory party is still chock-full of swivel-eyed Europhobic lunatics, and the EU will not entertain any overtures from the UK about rejoining while there exists the possibility that the Tory Party will campaign against it and regain control of the UK Parliament in 5 years time.

For the UK to have any prospect of rejoining the EU, it will take such overwhelming public demand that every significant UK political party adopts the policy wholeheartedly (usual fringe xenophobes, UKIP/Reform etc excepted).

I would be v against U.K. leaving EHCR.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2023/03/uk-must-not-sleepwalk-leaving-echr

I disagree. We could have had a very different outcome, aligned on standards across the board. A customs union could have mitigated a lot of the hassle business has faced. We got ideological bullshit instead of proper grown up policy that would have worked for both sides. We could have spent a few years like this with a door open to going back in if both sides wanted it because we hadn’t changed that much in the first place. Brexit is not to blame for this country’s woes, it’s 45 years of neoliberalism and the EU didn’t save us from any of it. It allowed us to put a sticking plaster on an arterial bleed.

Thanks to the utterly hopeless Theresa May being consumed with pandering to the ERG rather than actually showing any leadership. The biggest single reason why I'm always bemused as to how she appears to get an easy ride in the "best/worst PM's" topics.

She could have had any "sensible" Brexit she wanted because the HoC was more than willing to consider just about anything once they came to terms with the fact the UK leaving was, indeed, going to happen, but no. Instead she dithered, paralysed with fear at what the ERG would do if she compromised in any way, and then finally went down the utterly moronic path of passively sitting and waiting for a no deal, harshest exit possible.

Every bit as hopeless as Truss, Johnson, Sunak, she just got away with it for longer.

you need to move to Nirvana

Staying in the CU = “not really leaving” to Brexiters. See also staying in the SM. Two things that would have massively helped our economy and saved a lot of money. (Notably £5 billion on border control).

May could have crafted a soft Brexit if she’d wanted to - she was given the option by civil servants and her advisors, indeed she was given the option of rowing back on the whole thing.

Instead she listened to Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy and nailed her colours to the mast with her “citizens of nowhere” speech from which it was very difficult to navigate anywhere but hard Brexit. A big mistake, I think we can agree with Philip Hammond.

Hard right by that point were in control of the party. And May knew that her days were numbered and she was tolerated only as long as she delivered what the swivel-eyed loons wanted or could work with. That’s why she couldn’t get her original deal through - it wasn’t hard enough.

There was no “sensible” Brexit. It’s not a thing. People who didn’t realise how much it would mess up the country pretend that it was to make themselves feel better. There was no option that would have worked.

That was always an option from the EU's point of view. It wasn't an option for Theresa May because of what she decided her red lines were.

Imagine for a second that Northern Ireland was not part of the UK.

Without Northern Ireland, the Brexit options on the table would have been the following:

Soft Brexit
Hard Brexit

Soft Brexit means more or less full access to the single market and customs union, more or less full adherence to EU law in all areas affecting trade, continued free movement of goods, services, people and capital. This is the Norway model or to a lesser extent the Swiss model. This would be an interesting option for a Europe-adjacent country which does not wish to join the Euro. It was not particularly interesting for the UK because we had a legally binding opt out from ever joining the euro.

Hard Brexit means basically none of the above as your starting point, and you negotiate a free trade deal as any other non EU country would with better access to the single market the more rules you are willing to accept, and less good access to the single market the fewer rules you are willing to accept.

Those are the two options, everything else is window dressing.

What complicated matters with Brexit is that Northern Ireland is part of the UK. The Good Friday Agreement requires there to be an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and EU law requires there to be a hard border between countries inside the SM/CU and countries outside of it. There was never any way of squaring that circle that wasn't going to be a horrible bodge job.

It is a problem from a democratic point of view. Ireland and the UK both joined the EU at the same time, so we were both outside the EU with our common travel area beforehand, and then we were both inside the EU with our common travel area afterwards. Brexit was the first time in history that one of us has been inside the EU and the other has been outside it, so it was completely uncharted territory.

That meant that for the UK, the options really on the table were Soft Brexit or Complicated Crap Version of Hard Brexit Which Pleases No One.

People did raise this as a potential issue before the referendum but it was dismissed as Project Fear.

The timing of triggering Article 50 made no difference because the options on the table never changed at any point in the negotiations.

Brexit was about immigration for many voters so FOM isn’t really what can be done if your side wins

I had wondered why the CU wasn’t more of a possibility then or now and found this piece of writing which covers it well

https://www.cer.eu/insights/customs-union-membership-no-way-out-brexit-trap

No as it can’t be done so simply and even if it could they will absolutely not risk losing the red wall again (if they win the majority back)

they also won’t offer another referendum it’s too much of a risk but I do believe they shall work closer and create closer ties with the EU

Yeah, unfortunately, because of Brexit, it is much more difficult to do. As you say, I wouldn't say impossible, but quite close to.

I don’t think so, they lost major support in their northern wall because of brexit. My home town and surrounding areas were staunchly brexit and former striking miners voted Tory rather than Labour because they were that into brexit.

I didn’t support Brexit at the time and was (just) too young to vote but do not support rejoining the EU. That being said, I’m not against the idea of another referendum about rejoining.

Unfortunately large areas of northern England have entrenched racism / xenophobia, I always knew it was there but didn’t realise how badly until I moved away to Scotland. This will always be weaponised in any EU referendum.

I do ultimately feel it is time to move on, work on fostering good relations with the EU yes but not rejoining. Most EU countries have routes for work permits etc for people with applicable skills, I don’t really think ease of UK people living elsewhere is enough reason.

I think there is a big divide on opinion on brexit still and the UK has definitely lost and is feeling the loss of the many EU workers we benefited from and the initial loss of EU protection for workers rights but ultimately workers rights in the UK have been poor since Thatcher and is more a reflection of the individualistic nature of the UK.

I live in (west coast) Scotland which is definitely more pro EU than the part of northern England I’m from but even then it’s not most people’s biggest issue.

Life in northern England since 2010 has been shit for the working class, it has remained shit post brexit. Despite all these issues there’s been a strong Tory support (or strong enough to elect them) and if Labour do get in (I really hope they do) they really need to tread carefully on Brexit if they wish to be re-elected.

If we can’t or won’t do SM or CU what’s left in terms of trade deals? What is it specifically

Also on FOM which I’m not sure we’ll see that back, interested in views though, on visas I think controlled maybe but we have working visas so possibly an extension of that

Heh at the wishful thinking here. Mega heh in fact

I mean you may as well say you think they’ll turn water into wine and cause manna to descend from heaven. About as realistic

Dearie me.

You've been reading the Daily Mail too much.

On the subject of FOM, which I still think is what swung it for leave, I read a great quote from some professor whose speciality was Europe and although he was pro EU, his take on FOM was that it was overall a bad thing because you’re giving people residency rights but they get to maintain a tourist mentality. It doesn’t work. FOM with countries that don’t share economic parity was always a stupid idea because the working class in the richer country end up being the biggest losers. And with a country like the UK, who refuse ID cards, it’s a bloody disaster.

What? No it did not take us 20 years to join it?

De Gaulle kept saying non. Let’s face it, he had a point.

What do you reckon petit Manu would say now😣