BritIn - how to start the ball rolling

[Darat]

(Not as a mod for the sake of clarity.)

Folks - some of you seem to have forgotten we left the EU just over a year ago.

The topic of this thread is not a history topic i.e. about “Brexit’, this is about how we manage to rejoin the EU as quickly as possible.


If

[dann]

Apply for citizenship in an EU country?!

[Darat]

Originally Posted by dann

Apply for citizenship in an EU country?!

Not eligible for any unless I emigrate.

[RolandRat]

I think it is inevitable we will re-join. It's not going to happen soon, as in the next couple of years but I can see it starting to happen within 10.

The younger generations mostly don't think the same as the pack of dinosaurs that voted to leave. They want closer integration with the rest of the world. They want the options. They will demand their voices are heard. They are our best option. Oh and getting the Tories out of course.

Brexit was simply the last pyrrhic victory of the boomers. It's now just a waiting game.

[Jack by the hedge]

I don't think a decade is nearly long enough for the other members to forget what a pain in the arse we were about leaving, and to start to believe we're really serious and committed about rejoining. Give it 20-30 years and maybe.

[RolandRat]

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

I don't think a decade is nearly long enough for the other members to forget what a pain in the arse we were about leaving, and to start to believe we're really serious and committed about rejoining. Give it 20-30 years and maybe.

Yeah I don't actually expect us back in within 10 years but I think the clamouring will be pretty loud by that stage.

[Airfix]

Recognise what has happened instead of insulting people.

You couldn't convince the UK to remain with the rebate and opt outs.

Time will tell if you can convince the UK to rejoin, without, and with a requirement to join the Euro.

Meanwhile, we are where we are.

Get behind this, start supporting democracy and try to make this work.

[RolandRat]

Originally Posted by Airfix

Recognise what has happened instead of insulting people.

You couldn't convince the UK to remain with the rebate and opt outs.

Time will tell if you can convince the UK to rejoin, without, and with a requirement to join the Euro.

Meanwhile, we are where we are.

Get behind this, start supporting democracy and try to make this work.

I thought we where entering the era of honey and rainbows, why does anyone have to do anything to "try (interesting word there btw) and make this work"?

I'm glad to see you acknowledge the UK had opt-outs. Kinda makes a mess of your sovereignty argument.

[ceptimus]

Have you asked yourself why Switzerland, completely land locked by the EU, doesn't want to join?

The Swiss have a long tradition of democracy, freedom, and personal responsibility - and they don't want to lose those things. A referendum on joining the EEA was held in December 1992, and the Swiss voted 50.3% to 49.7% against joining.

With such a narrow margin against joining, it was obvious that as the older people died there would be soon be a.... Oh no! Wait. The Swiss gave up on the idea, and a recent opinion poll in 2018 found that only 3% of Swiss now believe that joining the EU is a feasible option.

Have you asked yourself why Norway hasn't joined the EU? Perhaps because they don't want to hand over control of their oil, fish, and hydroelectric power?

[Darat]

Are we meant to be ruled by other countries, why do we care what the Swiss want. We are a sovereign nation and make our own decisions!

[RolandRat]

"From the perspective of the EU, the treaties contain largely the same content as the EEA treaties, making Switzerland a virtual member of the EEA. Most EU law applies universally throughout the EU, the EEA and Switzerland, providing most of the conditions of the free movement of people, goods, services and capital that apply to the member states. Switzerland pays into the EU budget. Switzerland has extended the bilateral treaties to new EU member states; each extension required the approval of Swiss voters in a referendum"

In 2009, Switzerland became a participant in the Schengen Area with the acceptance of an association agreement by popular referendum in 2005.[15] This means that there are no passport controls on Switzerland's borders with its neighbours though customs controls continue to apply.

Prior to 2014, the bilateral approach, as it is called in Switzerland, was consistently supported by the Swiss people in referendums. It allows the Swiss to keep a sense of sovereignty, due to arrangements when changes in EU law will only apply after the EU–Swiss Joint Committee decides so in consensus.

Notably, the accord would facilitate EU law in these fields to be readily transposed into Swiss law, and the European Court of Justice would be the final and binding arbiter on disputes in these fields."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switze...nion_relations

They're not a member but they accept and abide by all main EU legislation, pay into the EU and the EU court is the final arbiter.

[ceptimus]

So, again, why have they decided NOT to join the EU?

[RolandRat]

Originally Posted by ceptimus

So, again, why have they decided NOT to join the EU?

Perhaps you should ask their citizens that. They are members in all but name.

[Airfix]

Members are in customs union with the EU, Switzerland is not.
Switzerland can negotiate FTAs and decide it's own tariffs, members of the EU cannot.

The Swiss can set and change at will any tariff they wish to providing they comply with WTO most favoured nation rules.

Members of the EU, even if they need to raise or lower a tariff because of their own unique economic needs, have to convince the other 26.

The Swiss have no passporting of financial services either.

[RolandRat]

Let's put it this way. If the UK had left the EU with the same terms and conditions the Swiss currently have, would you be happy? Would you consider that to be outside the EU?

Oh and there is this:

"In addition, Switzerland unilaterally adopted the Cassis de Dijon principle, to which the EU members adhere internally. This means that Switzerland accepts rules unilaterally that have been set to the market in an EU member state if there is no Swiss law explicitly governing the same issue.

Naturally, a drawback of this unilateral approach is the lack of reciprocity: the EU does not extend the Cassis de Dijon principle to include Switzerland."

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-swiss-appr...e-with-the-eu/

[Norman Alexander]

Switzerland is not a financial basket-case like the UK, and not on the verge of having cantons hive off to form new countries attached to the EU or joining surrounding countries.

[ceptimus]

My question was not, "Why should the UK be more like Switzerland?" or "How is the UK different to Switzerland?" It was, "Why doesn't Switzerland want to join the EU?"

So far, only Airfix has offered answers.

If you attempt to understand why Switzerland and Norway don't wish to join the EU, you may begin to understand why a majority of Brits voted to leave. But based on past performance, you'd rather just say that the Swiss and Norwegians are all idiot racist xenophobes - that requires less thought.

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

Okay; what independent policies should we enact to stop the motor industry, aerospace and banking services drifting away from the UK to relocate inside the EU over the next decade?

Give them lots of money. Of course then their products won't be allowed to be sols anywhere but hey...

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by Airfix

All the majority had to do was vote Lib Dem last year and you'd have got your wish.

But there should be another membership referendum in time.
I would hold it in the year 2036, 16 years from now.

If you think that's a long time, pause for a moment and consider something.

Your side didn't even want us to have the choice of a referendum on the Maastricht treaty.
It took 24 years from ratifying that treaty, to us having a membership referendum.

You lost.
You're going through the five stages of grief and acting like an extremist too I might add.

DENIAL.
ANGER.
BARGAINING.
DEPRESSION.
You need to move to ACCEPTANCE.

You twist and turn like a ... twisty-turny thing.

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by RolandRat

I missed this. Of course the EU will still exist. It's one of the most powerful trading blocs on the planet. One that is powerful enough that countries like the USA cannot just throw terms at it and expect it to agree.

It's part of the Brexiteer fantasy; without the UK the EU must collapse.
Part of the noxious sense of special entitlement endemic among a certain type of Brit. Back in '73 Rook said:

Quote:

....of all that we have to offer Europe, what finer than contact with our short-tongued, stiff-necked, straight-backed, brave, bloody-minded and absolutely beautiful selves? To know the British (it takes about 15 years to get on nodding terms) will be Europe’s privilege.

Ceptimus and the Brexiteers epitomise this kind of bollocks.


Of course the reality is that it will be the UK that will suffer; even the hardcore Brexiteers actually know this, hence their jumping ship from the UK (often with their "British" businesses) or their attempts to obtain non-UK nationality for themselves and their families. It's rather pathetic how easily the Brexiteers are fooled.

Brexit will enormously diminish the UK's "soft power" and influence, even more than the last four years of demonstrating abject inability to think straight or negotiate in good faith have done. The US "special relationship" will be much weakened; one of the reasons the US maintained the UK's status was the link it provided to the EU. As Biden (whom even Brexiteers may have noticed assumes the US presidency in a few weeks) said back in '18:

Quote:

If we had any voice in Europe, it was you.

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by ceptimus

Unfortunately, the EU refuses to negotiate any deal with any existing member - and their self-imposed rule continues to apply even after a country has decided to leave, and is in the process of leaving. One can understand why - they don't want to make it easy for a country to leave, because they fear that lots of countries would then leave.

It's one of the many reasons that Brexit was the long drawn out, tedious and frustrating process that it became. If and when other countries vote to leave, then they'll have the benefit of the Brexit example - they'll know that it's a huge waste of time to allow the EU to string out the negotiations for years: far better to just leave as fast as possible.

More pathetic Brexiteer fantasies.

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by Darat

(Not as a mod for the sake of clarity.)

Folks - some of you seem to have forgotten we left the EU just over a year ago.

The topic of this thread is not a history topic i.e. about “Brexit’, this is about how we manage to rejoin the EU as quickly as possible.


If

Allow Covid to spread and kill off marge portions of the over-60s, then hold an election and referendum. Like the young have their voice heard,and kill off the dead wood.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Originally Posted by ceptimus

My question was not, "Why should the UK be more like Switzerland?" or "How is the UK different to Switzerland?" It was, "Why doesn't Switzerland want to join the EU?"

So far, only Airfix has offered answers.

If you attempt to understand why Switzerland and Norway don't wish to join the EU, you may begin to understand why a majority of Brits voted to leave. But based on past performance, you'd rather just say that the Swiss and Norwegians are all idiot racist xenophobes - that requires less thought.

Given that Norway is in the Schengen area, and the Swiss just voted heavily to maintain free movement with the EU, I suspect they are less idiot, racist xenophobes than the brexiteers who insisted that ending free movement was a red line for any brexit agreement.

[Norman Alexander]

As I vaguely recall, Theresa May tried to get a "Norway-like" deal for the UK with the EU a couple of years ago. It got soundly smacked down by the hard-liners, who wanted No Deal, Out-or-Bust. Frankly, I suspect Boris was VERY lucky to get the deal you have now, warts and all. Possibly a measure of pity being shown by the EU...

[RolandRat]

Originally Posted by ceptimus

My question was not, "Why should the UK be more like Switzerland?" or "How is the UK different to Switzerland?" It was, "Why doesn't Switzerland want to join the EU?"

So far, only Airfix has offered answers.

If you attempt to understand why Switzerland and Norway don't wish to join the EU, you may begin to understand why a majority of Brits voted to leave. But based on past performance, you'd rather just say that the Swiss and Norwegians are all idiot racist xenophobes - that requires less thought.

Perhaps you'd like to answer this:

Originally Posted by RolandRat

Let's put it this way. If the UK had left the EU with the same terms and conditions the Swiss currently have, would you be happy? Would you consider that to be outside the EU?

You may also want to consider the majority of Brits DO want to be part of the EU.

[RolandRat]

Originally Posted by catsmate

Allow Covid to spread and kill off marge portions of the over-60s, then hold an election and referendum. Like the young have their voice heard,and kill off the dead wood.

Slightly brutal, but hey it could work

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Airfix

The Swiss can set and change at will any tariff they wish to providing they comply with WTO most favoured nation rules.

Wait, what? The WTO dictates terms now?!? A violation of Sovereigntee, sayth I!

I demand we Free the UK from the World Trade Organization!

FUKWTO!

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by Norman Alexander

As I vaguely recall, Theresa May tried to get a "Norway-like" deal for the UK with the EU a couple of years ago. It got soundly smacked down by the hard-liners, who wanted No Deal, Out-or-Bust. Frankly, I suspect Boris was VERY lucky to get the deal you have now, warts and all. Possibly a measure of pity being shown by the EU...

And by EFTA who don't want the UK screwing things up for them.