I think we can all agree the referendum was not “I want to leave the EU in the most chaotic and economically dangerous way possible, preferably with no plan for what to do next”
> The day after nothing changes legally. There is no legal obligation on the British Government to take Britain out of the EU immediately. There will be three stages of creating a new UK-EU deal - informal negotiations, formal negotiations, and implementation including both a new Treaty and domestic legal changes. There is no need to rush. We must take our time and get it right.
The pathologically EU-loyal British establishment is now trying to destroy the vote via the following simple trick:
1. Declare that there's no way to leave without a "deal"
2. Make it clear to the EU they can dictate any terms they want whatsoever because the UK will under no circumstances walk away from the table.
3. EU dictates terms that are essentially the same as not leaving, or actually even worse.
4. Establishment declares that this "deal" is the same thing as leaving and tries to ram it through, or failing that, to cancel the whole thing by claiming that the UK can't leave unless the EU agrees due to <generic chaos>. Both outcomes are fine by them because it establishes for good the principle that leaving the EU should be as impossible as an American State seceding from the Union, which is what they want.
What we see at the moment are people actually working in the real economy, like port operators, saying they're prepared for no deal and there'd be no disruption at all. The EU has also quietly agreed various unrelated agreements to e.g. keep planes flying and even granting London a financial passport, the thing they said they'd never actually do. The fact that "no deal" actually means already "a bunch of small continuity deals" has gone largely unnoticed in the UK.
But ultimately now it's gone far beyond port disruption, mobile roaming costs or other trivial things. The British people are receiving a message loud and clear that the entire ruling class simply will not let the UK leave unless the EU agrees, despite it being a theoretically self-governing nation. If the UK doesn't leave without the EU's agreement then many will conclude it's actually a dictatorship.
Leaving the EU is pretty easy. There's a raft of existing models to base the new relationship on - Norway, Switzerland etc. Pick one, maybe tweak it slightly to make sure you don't start a war in NI, done.
The problem is that the entire process is being run by isolationist extremists who see the UK's largest trading partner as Beelzebub and reject any form of broad agreement with the EU.
I think that the real issue here is that there doesn't appear to be a majority in Parliament for anything (witness the indicative votes earlier this year, which found no majority for any form of deal).
I think that the reason many MP's are unwilling to let the UK leave without a deal are as follows:
1) It doesn't solve anything. You still need to agree what to do for a future relationship, from a much, much weaker position (only Council of Ministers agreeement for Article 50 deal, versus Council, EU Parliament and all national regional parliaments required for a future trade deal).
2) The EU will not allow any trade deals to happen unless the Irish border, the rights of EU citizens and the money issues are resolved.
3) The UK imports the majority of their food, and WTO tariffs are really high on food, leading to potential problems with food supply (remember that it's November, when not much grows in the UK).
Like, I don't doubt that some MP's want to remain in the EU, but for my money most of them have voted for some form of Brexit deal, with the exception of the rabidly fanatical members of the European Research Group.
Additionally, with respect to the terms offered by the EU: Yes, they will be worse than staying in the EU. By definition, if you leave a club, you no longer have access to the facilities of the club. It would make zero sense for the EU to do a deal for the UK that was better or the same as membership, because no-one would remain in the EU then.
I think that the citizens of the UK have been let down by many of their political representatives, but i don't believe that their desire to remain in the EU is the cause.
If all the Eurosceptics had voted for May's deal, it still wouldn't have had the numbers to pass. I think its fairer to lay the blame on the opposition parties who voted against it largely to try to create chaos which they thought would lead them to an election they could win.
To the contrary, May’s government only tried to appease the hard-liners in her own party. Johnson has taken it even further in the same direction.
Like, the first vote definitely wouldn't have passed with them, but the third definitely would have.
Now personally, I think the Opposition should have voted for the deal, but the primary respionsibility falls on the government.
May’s majority including the DUP at the time was 7 (I think - this was after the defections to the Independent Group) so those 6 would have tipped it into a loss on their own.
Otherwise you don't have an opposition, and then you don't have much of a democracy.
It's the job of the government to secure the votes it needs for its policies, and conversely to propose policies for which it can secure the necessary votes.
That's democracy.
> In fact it was. It was a simple vote between leaving and remaining
So... do you mean "In fact it was", or do you mean "It was a simple vote between leaving and remaining"?
That's a nice strawman you're building...
> EU dictates terms that are essentially the same as not leaving, or actually even worse.
Yes. I mean, what else would you expect? They're not going to treat a random country better than EU partners.
> working in the real economy, like port operators, saying they're prepared for no deal and there'd be no disruption at all
Real people already have to apply for residency and not everybody gets it. Disruption has already happened.
For example...?
> It's being treated as a special case, like no other country anywhere in the world.
It is a special case, like no other country anywhere in the world.
While the referendum was yes or no, the framing was radically different. The "leavers" ran on a platform of, essentially, we have a plan, the EU will co-operate and there will hundreds of millions of pounds of savings. Then, post-referendum, some of the leaders (including Boris) promptly resigned because they had no plan, others negotiated badly (and one could say, in bad faith), and it became clear there was not going to be millions of pounds in savings.
"Vote yes! There'll be ice cream, cake, and unicorns."
"I vote yes!"
"Thanks! Now, there's no ice cream, the cake is Pineapple Upside-Down Cake and unicorns don't exist you bloody git."