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Hard Brexit (no deal confirmed before March 29th) would be my highest possibility
Extension of Article 50 >>then there will be>> 2nd referendum >>then they will>> Remain
The EU has absolutely no incentive to extend the deadline. If the UK remains after pulling article 50, there is nothing to stop other countries from doing the same or similar in order to improve on their deal. That way lies chaos. A far better outcome for the EU is if the UK is economically ####ed for the next ten years because they couldn't agree to the deal the EU gave them.
They're the 2nd largest economy in the EU, a hard Brexit, while obviously causing more pain in Britain than other places, is certainly no picnic for the EU either.
And the UK helped set up these rules as one of the drivers of the union, the idea being the Slovakia’s of the world might be unstable so make exiting painful and thus resistant to regime changes. No one ever thought the UK especially not one led by a string of conservative leadership would be confronting this.
The EU will somehow have to replace what is lost of the 2% of goods/services that go to the UK.
The British bookmakers have the odds of them leaving on 3/29 with no deal at 3-1...
Approaching a 100% chance for hard brexit.
Also, the FTSE is only down .47%, doesn’t seem that they agree with your odds either or it would be down more like 4.7% today.
Approaching a 100% chance for hard brexit.
I don't think that's right.msommer said:
Good insight. In your opinion, do you think this is also the best outcome for the UK?
There's a very easy way to remove them if the constituents are unhappy with the job they're doing.
I voted to leave because the EU is not democratic in nature. For a political institution to be democratic, its constituents must understand how to remove those in power. That is entirely unclear. In the USA, you guys would understand, if you don't want Trump, then there is the process of impeachment or the next presidential election to remove him. But who is Jean Claude Juncker? What party does he represent? How can we remove him? How can we vote for or against him? These are not questions 99% of the UK population could answer.
See that's just the problem. What's the easy way? I don't see one; you'd have to wait until the next election which would be too late. On your no sane person point - you're describing me as insane there along with 51.8% of people who voted in the election. About a third of MPs backed leave before the referendum so that isn't right from what I can see.
First, apologies for that word choice. I immediately went back and edited, but apparently that wasn't quick enough.
*51.8%, or 52% if we're rounding, and I'd edit out the word immediate there. I mean, they've had 2 and a half years and there isn't a consensus among MPs for anything, leave or remain. I don't see the harm in having a system where if in any constituency, 50% of voters signed a petition to remove their MP did exactly that, triggering a by-election. Put some kind of limit on it like once per year and at least one year since the last election and at least one year until the next one. But some kind of system where MPs feel some kind of pressure to actually inact what their constituents want ahead of their own political beliefs or financial interests sounds great to me.
I think they clearly do feel pressure to do something -- it's just that the choices seem to boil down to...
Bolded I agree with, after the UK has spent ten years outside. That is the best outcome for the EU, politically, if not economically
It is easily forgotten by the Brexiteers that the rest of EU consists of 27 countries, each of which will take a lot smaller hit than the UK will.
Absolutely. In the short term. Which is why the preparations would have been so important, and it was such a huge mistake not to make them on the scale and timings that they should have been made.
I could pick and choose at small pieces of this, but overall, I agree much more than disagree with most of this.
Wouldn't it have been a much smarter approach for them to have a two phased approach? First, submit to a vote a proposal to explore what leaving the EU would look like, then present all the realities to the people and have a second vote to leave/not leave? I don't know enough about politics over there, but I can't help but think there is a good bit of "we didn't know what we didn't know" in terms of what "leaving the EU" meant. I can't imagine why they would put to a vote something so large without knowing the details and presenting them to the people prior to the vote.
The million dollar question! The issue of the EU was tearing apart the ruling conservative party, so they put a brexit vote in their manifesto. Then there was just plain arrogance on behalf of then prime minister David Cameron that his remain argument would win that he didn't think those leave options needed exploring or fleshing out because they were irrelevant. He thought he could run the referendum, get remain, and his eurosceptic members in the conservative party would have to shut up about it for another 40 years.
ah....a piece of info I was not aware of. Clever by the EU I suppose. However, it feels like this could be used by those wanting to stay in the EU in a much smarter way. How? I'm not sure....just seems that way as an outsider looking in.
Another is the breakdown on the vote - in the rural Midlands and Yorkshire - Brexit was winning nearly 60% in some places and around the major cities it was remain 60%. It's nearly impossible to make everyone happy on this one. Just like in America the cities are growing and thriving, relying on Foreign trade and commerce. The rural areas - South and Mid West are struggling to stay relevant in that kind of world.
that very argument is part of why I wanted to leave the EU. How can one parliament serve both the interests of Greece and Germany? The last 10 years says it absolutely can't. I believe though that through compromise the same parliament can potentially fairly represent the whole of the UK (it fails to do so now though - clearly!)
This is IMO very clearly wrong, and seems like an error owed to recency bias. The vast majority of general election candidates in our lifetimes have been fairly moderate, especially as compared with their party base, and mostly likable. This is clearly true with respect to the two general elections that preceded 2016.
That's fair enough. That was a bad example and may well show to be a one-off, but I don't think it's unfair to say that republicans and democrats act too much in the interests of their parties rather than the nation, from time to time.
I didn't read all your posts in this thread. Would you still vote to leave? I would guess yes because of the original reason seemed you gave to vote leave was quite fundamental.
Yes. But at this point probably for different selfish reasons that apply specifically to our situation (that's why everyone gets a vote, right?!). The democracy thing is less important to me now that the UK parliament has also exposed itself to be undemocratic. That said, at least it tries (or pretends to try). The EU doesn't even bother to hide its self serving globalist bureaucracy.
Two main groups. Group 1 is the traditional conservative (center-right) voter. I originally was probably more part of this group. They want democracy but they also have a sense of national pride in the UK that they don't have in Europe (a lot in this group will remember being at war with half of it!). Some can see opportunity in not being shackled politically and economically to a failing union (and want out before Italy has a financial meltdown).
I don't think the French run a first past the poll per constituency election system for the legislative seats. This (British system) has stymied new parties cropping up in recent times, quite possibly will again.
The presidency is a majority vote, eliminating contenders until someone gets > 50%. But it was followed immediately by a constituency election system where Macron's party, in a coalition, won a majority (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_French_legislative_election)
