EU referendum are you in or out

[Little stoned kiwi]

Who are you each voting for this Christmas? Double-dare write-ins for Santa.

Crashing out of the EU would have been a better option than this ongoing perpetual bullshit that seems more disruptive.

That’s a bold claim

Yeah, it is and deliberately provocative. I thought May's deal was a generous option and good compromise for everyone. My main point is the limbo can't be good. If Brexit had happened already, deal or no deal, at least people could get on with it. If Brexit isn't going to happen then it needs to be clear it isn't going to happen so people can get on with it.
It seems no one knows what's going on or what's going to happen. Perhaps it's all business as usual for now but that will surely grind to a halt as time goes on.

[Harlequin]

… My main point is the limbo can't be good. If Brexit had happened already, deal or no deal, at least people could get on with it. If Brexit isn't going to happen then it needs to be clear it isn't going to happen so people can get on with it.
It seems no one knows what's going on or what's going to happen. Perhaps it's all business as usual for now but that will surely grind to a halt as time goes on.

Officially ending our membership of the EU would not be the end of the Brexit process; it would be the beginning. Even with an agreement in place we would face many years, perhaps decades, negotiating trade deals around the world (not least with our largest market – the EU) from a position of desperation. Without an agreement, just about everything else would still be chaotically uncertain, including the likelihood of a full re-ignition of the Troubles while we attempt to sort out treaties with our neighbours on the continent.

[Little stoned kiwi]

That line of thinking implies other countries, including the EU, won't want to buy and sell stuff or will hold the UK to ransom. Well, the EU might try to hold you to ransom but that will weaken their position in the long term as other countries will be happy to increase their exports.
It's a market of 66 million people that exporters will compete with each other to supply, without the EU in the way. There are good reasons the EU was willing to provide a deal.

[Rhythm]

That line of thinking implies other countries, including the EU, won't want to buy and sell stuff or will hold the UK to ransom. Well, the EU might try to hold you to ransom but that will weaken their position in the long term as other countries will be happy to increase their exports.
It's a market of 66 million people that exporters will compete with each other to supply, without the EU in the way. There are good reasons the EU was willing to provide a deal.

People will want to deal with us, sure. But we won’t have the same clout to get the best deals, and the process of striking a deal is lengthy as fuck.

[Little stoned kiwi]

Does the UK have the clout to get the best deals when they are done through the EU?
Sure, the EU is a market of half a billion. Deals have to suit the interests of all the members though. That must be limiting when it comes to getting what's best for the UK.

[Harlequin]

Does the UK have the clout to get the best deals when they are done through the EU?
Sure, the EU is a market of half a billion. Deals have to suit the interests of all the members though. That must be limiting when it comes to getting what's best for the UK.

It seems fairly obvious that a single country with a population of under seventy million people and a GDP of less than two and a half trillion pounds has very little clout in trade negotiations compared to a trading block with a population of well over five hundred million people and a GDP of over fourteen and a half trillion pounds. I am not aware of any goods that British consumers in general would like to purchase domestically that our continental equivalents would not. What the EU rejects tends to be either of low quality (particularly in terms of health risk) or incompatible with our existing standardisations. Stories about our not being permitted curvy bananas or proper tea are fictions spread by tabloid newspapers and self-serving politicians.

Our London-based Government (which is partially unelected, as is most of the U.K. Parliament) exercises far more control over the separate countries and principalities of the U.K. than the EU could dream of, and not just by negotiating all of the U.K.'s international treaties.

[gravy]

Who are you each voting for this Christmas? Double-dare write-ins for Santa.

Crashing out of the EU would have been a better option than this ongoing perpetual bullshit that seems more disruptive.

That’s a bold claim

Yeah, it is and deliberately provocative. I thought May's deal was a generous option and good compromise for everyone. My main point is the limbo can't be good. If Brexit had happened already, deal or no deal, at least people could get on with it. If Brexit isn't going to happen then it needs to be clear it isn't going to happen so people can get on with it.
It seems no one knows what's going on or what's going to happen. Perhaps it's all business as usual for now but that will surely grind to a halt as time goes on.

The only way any of those assertions make any sense is if they come with quantifiable outcomes you can compare

Why metric would you use to show the current situation is worse for the country than Johnson’s deal, May’s deal or no deal?

I’m getting a strong feeling that people are mistaking the undianable tedious annoyance of no firm brexit outcome with a re

[Little stoned kiwi]

You're missing out the no Brexit option, if that is an option. Is the current situation better or worse than a clear no Brexit? The political process seems to be dominated by it when there must be other issues that need to be taken care of and economic decisions will be affected as well.
To people who don't want Brexit the current situation is probably better than any Brexit option.

In the upcoming election is there any likelyhood of sinking Brexit, or is it just shuffling deck chairs to see who's in charge of it?

[gravy]

Well you’re still weighing this up in terms of personal preference rather than judgeable outcomes.

There is argument that a zombie government isn’t necessarily bad, it didn’t seem to do Belgium a lot of harm.

Anyways, my gut feel is there’s a low probability that Brexit can be avoided, likely 20% or less and I think the only realistic path to that is a second referendum with a binding outcome.

[Ollie]

That line of thinking implies other countries, including the EU, won't want to buy and sell stuff or will hold the UK to ransom. Well, the EU might try to hold you to ransom but that will weaken their position in the long term as other countries will be happy to increase their exports.
It's a market of 66 million people that exporters will compete with each other to supply, without the EU in the way. There are good reasons the EU was willing to provide a deal.

If we go about the trade negotiations the same way we've gone about the withdrawal negotiations, I wouldn't blame the EU at all for deciding we're more trouble than our trade is worth. Still, doubtless we'll be bending over backwards to lower our standards and sell off our NHS so we can get deals with the US.

[gravy]

The direction of bend is more likely forwards

[tufty]

There has been much fantasy about being able to trade freely with the world after a no deal crash out, we'll finally be out from under the iron fist of the EU that's been stifling British industry, etc etc. But that's bollocks. If we wish to sell to the EU post Brexit, with a deal or not, we must *at least* meet EU standards on everything we sell. We will have no say in those standards, it will be comply or no trade. All a deal will do is set the level of tariffs that the EU levy on imports from the UK.

The UK has always been able to set *higher* standards than the lowest minimal standards the EU imposes, so the only possible direction we would be pushing our standards, again, deal or no deal, is down. Not on services and products we want to sell elsewhere, obviously, because nobody is going to want (or even be allowed) to buy our now inferior goods at a higher price, but on the services and products we bring in. And, of course, worker's rights. Slash and burn on the welfare state, goodbye to pensions, minimum wage, holiday entitlements, anything you think you have as a "right" now, it's going.

No deal, of course, simply makes everything much, much, worse,but is desirable because it will make a lot of money for the disaster capitalists who've been pushing Brexit since the beginning. Doesn't really mater to them whether it happens now because we can't get an agreement, or in 2 or 3 years time because we can't work out a deal, but sooner is better.

[skab]

Want to know how bad Brexit really is? Just look at all those right-wingers elsewhere in the EU, like our very own AfD here in Germany. Most of them have "the EU sucks, let's leave" in their manifesto, all of them have been conspicuously quiet about that matter for the last two years. If Brexit was a good idea, they would be praising it to no end. But nothing.

[F-ZeroOne]

Seeing the replies above got me thinking about why more consideration isn't given to turning around the question: if Brexit is such a brilliant idea, why is no-one else doing it?

[zip accident]

Seeing the replies above got me thinking about why more consideration isn't given to turning around the question: if Brexit is such a brilliant idea, why is no-one else doing it?

Who said it was a brilliant idea?