EU referendum are you in or out

[zip accident]

But that's not what will happen. UKIP will blame everyone else, the people who didn't want to leave and broke it for them. Any bad deals out of the negotiation will be all the fault of the weak-minded people who didn't want to go and sabotaged their beautiful future.

That's what they will try to sell, but government gets the blame for the economy as is, usually, and other people will be selling "it's their fault". If there as many floating Ukippers as there seem to be, when it all turns to rubbish most of those will go elsewhere. May well be further right I suppose, which could be natzi.

[Dio]

My point is that Brexit will likely be a mess and UKIP will - probably successfully - try to leverage that into more support, not less, by blaming wishy-washy Tories (and everyone else) for making a mess of it. They have teflon armour against Brexit being bad because they're not the ones doing it and will blame the ones that are. Even though it's their stupid idea in the first place.

It's a no-lose situation for them. They will claim all the credit of anything that hints of working and slide any blame off onto May and her ilk.

[tufty]

Depressingly, I can see the only party coming out of this *not* smelling of shit being UKIP.

[Absolute_Zero]

LDs can't help but benefit... even with tiny Tim at the helm.

[venusian]

The LDs can benefit only as long as they don't get what they want.

[Absolute_Zero]

They are unlikely to get what they want.

[venusian]

There's a good number of media types casting Brexit as a choice between Trump and Europe today.

Whilst it's easy to see why this might look like a good ploy, one has to wonder how much support Trump's actions have among the UK public. If a good chunk of them are prepared to welcome Farage's approach to the immigration "problem" I don't see why they'd choose to loose Brexit to avoid association with Trump's travel ban. We've already discovered economic arguments don't work so protectionist Trump isn't going to hurt either.

[gumboot]

They are unlikely to get what they want.

What do they want?

[Absolute_Zero]

They are unlikely to get what they want.

What do they want?

A referendum on the final deal between the UK and EU.

It's not clear that [once invoked] Article 50 allows us to bailout if we don't like the offer. In which case we'd be trading under default WTO rules with none of the presumably mutually beneficial provisions and trade-offs the deal would have included. AKA stuffed.

[KlaxonCow]

As far as I'm aware, it's perfectly clear.

Once Article 50 is invoked, it's an irreversible action. From the moment of formally informing the EU of your desire to leave, the clock starts ticking and the treaties will expire in 2 years from that point. Whether or not a deal is agreed or not.

There is no provision for changing your mind. Once Parliament invokes Article 50, we're out. No going back.

The only way to get back into the EU would be to formally re-apply for entry, just as new members do. We would also be obliged, as a newly joined member, to adopt the Euro. Maggie's rebate will be gone. All the special deals and exemptions that the UK previously enjoyed won't ever be coming back.

It's purposefully designed this way. The treaties force it to be such an "all or nothing" affair so that no country would ever be so fucking stupid as to leave the EU for trivial transient reasons. It's made a hard and irreversible decision like this, as a means to put off anyone from ever being so dumb as to actually do it.

There is nothing in Article 50 about changing your mind. There is something about how all treaties will automatically expire 2 years from the Article being invoked, come hell or high water. If no useful deal has been sorted out by then, then no useful deal has been sorted out by then and we're out of the EU anyway.

Ethically, it would have been an incumbent duty of both "Leave" and "Remain" to have, you know, properly informed people of exactly what the decision entailed, so that it was an informed decision.

But, no, it was all mythical "straight bananas", outright lies printed on the side of a bus and vacuous detail-less slogans like "take back control", which is amazingly even more meaningless and vague than "Make America Great Again".

(Hell is other people.)

[Absolute_Zero]

As far as I'm aware, it's perfectly clear.

Once Article 50 is invoked, it's an irreversible action. From the moment of formally informing the EU of your desire to leave, the clock starts ticking and the treaties will expire in 2 years from that point. Whether or not a deal is agreed or not.

Agreed. And that is how it should be, in principle. However, there may be some scope for a not uncharacteristic EU fix*, as discussed here:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolic ... eferendum/

[*] e.g. the Irish referendum that reincarnated to achieve the desired result.

[Absolute_Zero]

[addendum]

If it came to a [very unlikely] second referendum, I would flip my vote from Remain to Leave.

[Dio]

Any reason you think we're actually better off out (other than e.g. bloody-mindedness)?

[Absolute_Zero]

Any reason you think we're actually better off out (other than e.g. bloody-mindedness)?

Well, first, I will be staggered if it became any more than an academic question.

Principally, principle.

Worse off for a while, certainly. In the longer-term [say 10 - 20] I'm not so sure.

[tufty]

Principally, principle.

What principle? The principle that we already had a referendum, "you lost, get over it"?