EU. In or out?

[scutty]

The problem, as I see it, is that she has backed herself into a corner of her own building. She is pinned on one side by the DUP (who keep her in No.10) and the hard line Leave element in her own party (who also keep her in No.10).

I look at the current situation and I just can't see a way out without serious damage. I do think the country could eventually build successful trade agreements, as other countries do, but that takes a LOT of time but what is the economic damage in the meantime? Would those deals give us anything better than we currently have? Will we still have to accept some free movement, from China? India? USA? We would have multiple standards we would need to adhere to to trade so still a lot of red tape.
If we crash out, withhold the settlement of our EU bill and break the Good Friday Agreement, who is going to trust us in future deals? Our international credibility will be shot and, I suspect, our Moody's rating will also go down, making it very expensive to service our significant deficit.
The other alternative is to go to a 2nd referendum or MPs vote against Brexit - both of which will call into question the basis of our democracy. I seriously don't believe there will be rioting in the streets and massive civil unrest, but there will be a whole section of our population that will feel even more disenfranchised, more powerless than they did in 2016. They spoke, they were heard and then they get ignored? How would you feel?

Personally I am frankly embarrassed and angry that we have let ourselves get in this situation, that large sections of our population feel so aggrieved and powerless and that a really ugly underside of the UK psyche has been given validation. I really wish someone would come forward with a strong valid alternative to fixing the UK problems, dealing with immigration and wealth gap, re-addressing the power vortex that is Westminster all whilst trying to fix the EU from the inside.
I know, people are repeatedly told that the EU is unchangeable, they just wouldn't listen but now there are rumblings all across the 27 countries that change is needed. The Brexit vote has really opened eyes and it could just be the thing needed to get changes made. Maybe.

My last point is I am done with hearing about "The Will of the People" like it's some solid time-immemorial declaration that is unwavering. We all know that the will of the people changes all the time and always has (ask Julius Caesar about the will of the people!). That's why no democracy on the planet is run by the will of the people, there are representatives to temper that will into a government with mandates.

[Trev]

[/quote]

Totally agree. Whilst she is doing the best job possible in an impossible situation, the Tory twats who created this mess are circling her like vultures, criticising, picking bits off whilst not having the spine to kill her off- at least not until after she's finished the job.

She must have immense personal strength to withstand the situation.

(and don't even mention that invertebrate Corbyn.........)
[/quote]

Brexit is the political poison chalice to top them all as, whatever deal is done, it is likely to piss off at least half the country and similar ratio of politicians. It makes sense for Corbyn to sit back and let May get on with it as whoever finally 'delivers' Brexit is going to be blamed for the consequences so if Corbyn and his deluded cronies do get in they can cock up as many things as they like and point the bony finger at May and Brexit as the reason we're all using oil lamps and the trains are even shittier.

Same goes for the Brexiter politicians in her party, if it all goes to hell in a hand cart they'll also be bleating they could have done better while we all know they're a bunch of self centred dickwads who are the epitomy of 'couldn't give a shit as I'm insulated from any consequnces' and don't have, or give, a scooby about how to actually deliver it.

I would love to stop thinking about the whole sorry mess but unfortunately it's already had negative consequences for our business and we're frantically actioning plans to try and minimise the effects of a 'no deal' even though we know that anything we do is either a} a massive waste of time, effort and money or b} likely to be almost inneffectual - depending on whether a last mintue deal is pulled out of the bag or not. Not great timing, we run wage reviews every April and guess how likely it is that there will be spare cash around this year after we've bought extra material, laid on temporary storage and extended payment terms for some customers? After we factor in the reduced sales we're actually running a little high in headcount to cover our actual requirements but at the moment we're hanging back in changing that aspect of costs in the hope that a deal is done and we start to see a reverse in sales drop off as we go into the Summer.

[daveuprite]

Don't get sucked in by this 'feel sorry for May' thing. She is where she is due to her own intransigence, her poor negotiating tactics and her willingness to appease the extreme right of her own party. She chose this route and got to the point where all she could do is keep digging.

Contrast with the EU's technique. First of all appoint a head negotiator for Brexit, immediately after the 2016 referendum, whose first and most important job was to go round all 27 countries and find out exactly what they would all be willing to concede and what they could not. Then openly and transparently publish and announce that the core EU values (the four freedoms) were the limit of any concessions but that all other means of achieving as smooth a brexit as possible were on the table open for discussion. This enabled the EU to speak with one voice and entrust the negotiating job to one small executive group, led by Michel Barnier, working on their behalf. May (and Johnson, Davis, Raab etc) did the exact opposite, never seeking an acceptable compromise in the commons - indeed she had to be dragged kicking and screaming into any debate within the commons by virtue of a court case brought by a private individual, remember!?

The EU then waited, and waited some more, while the tory party argued amongst itself as to how to execute something it had decades to plan for. May herself then squandered a further 4 months holding an unnecessary election designed to humiliate and crush the opposition but which actually crippled herself and her ability to wield any power. She then wasted more time forming an unholy pact with DUP extremists and thereby began the process of breaking up the Good Friday Agreement (she's supposed to be a neutral honest broker and guarantor of that treaty, but now can't be).

The EU waited again, all the time wondering when the government would actually present a plan for the UK's withdrawal. May could have faced up to her extreme wing at any time and acted like a statesman. But she remained dogged. The british always seem to see that as some kind of virtue, but when it's based on a mistake it's just foolhardiness. She never reached out across the floor of the commons, and is now being reluctantly forced to talk to others way too late in the day. With such a slim majority, only held together by a small and very odd group of NI extremists, she could never command commons support without involving everyone from the outset (as the EU did).

She hoped (gambled) that the EU would split internally and fight amongst itself over future tariffs, the impact on the German car industry etc - but that never happened - and all she got was even worse dissent in her own party. Any rational person could have told her (and they did) that the UK would never be anything but a supplicant in the negotiation (with a massive imbalance of trade and influence compared to a market of over 400 million people). This was the time to say "I put the country ahead of my party" and try to form a cross-party government of national interest, regardless of the temporary damage to her own party.

But she doubled down on her own incompetence and has now painted herself, and the country, into a corner. She is left disgracefully holding the country, and the NI peace agreement, to ransom - basically saying it's my dogs-dinner of a plan or a disastrous crash out no-deal. How dare she put a gun to the head of a nation, threatening the futures of millions of children, workers, travellers and the future of the environment, agriculture, fishing, manufacturing etc etc etc...?

She's not a heroic patriot battling against the odds for the good of the country. She's an incompetent who has mismanaged the whole bloody thing for tory party self-interest and her own day-to-day survival.

[Brenhden]

She's not a heroic patriot battling against the odds for the good of the country. She's an incompetent who has mismanaged the whole bloody thing for tory party self-interest and her own day-to-day survival.

Totally agree. I don't feel sorry for her (especially after windrush) just glad I'm not doing her job.

[Crossrutted]

She's not a heroic patriot battling against the odds for the good of the country. She's an incompetent who has mismanaged the whole bloody thing for tory party self-interest and her own day-to-day survival.

Quite possibly.

However the sad fact is that there is nobody in parliament WILLING or ABLE to do a better job.

What a sad and worrying indictment of this country's current political class.

Or put it a different way- they are all a crock of shite!

[Crossrutted]

And for all you Brexiteers, leaving the EU (deal or no deal) will cost this country jobs.

My employers business is already being affected by uncertainty present in our overseas customer base, the potential imposition of export tariffs will reduce our profitability, which in turn may force relocation and loss of UK jobs.

It doesn't matter that things might improve after a few years, the site, equipment and jobs will have already been lost.

This is not an opinion, it is happening now, money is being spent.......

[daveuprite]

She's not a heroic patriot battling against the odds for the good of the country. She's an incompetent who has mismanaged the whole bloody thing for tory party self-interest and her own day-to-day survival.

Totally agree. I don't feel sorry for her (especially after windrush) just glad I'm not doing her job.

God yeah. PM is one of those jobs where those who badly want it are almost certainly the worst people to actually carry it out!

Obviously in a few years time, there will be some kind of lengthy national inquiry into the brexit crisis and how it was managed. May, Cameron, Corbyn and many others will probably publish their autobiographies. And in thirty years, various government internal documents will enter the public domain in the Public Records Office. Perhaps then we will finally get some kind of idea of how the whole mess really came about. It might be completely academic by then as far more vital nightmares occupy us - namely global warming.

The crazy thing is that all these hindsights are currently available and pored over by historians with regard to previous crises in UK history. And yet the british psyche seems to conspire against learning lessons from the past. All the lessons are there - Suez, Falklands, the 1980s recession, the ERM crisis and many more. But the structure of british government never changed. It's largely the same organism that it was during those times of crisis - so sure enough the same old mistakes keep cropping up. Theresa May is just the latest symptom of a wider cause.

[qcnr]

And for all you Brexiteers, leaving the EU (deal or no deal) will cost this country jobs.

My employers business is already being affected by uncertainty present in our overseas customer base, the potential imposition of export tariffs will reduce our profitability, which in turn may force relocation and loss of UK jobs.

It doesn't matter that things might improve after a few years, the site, equipment and jobs will have already been lost.

This is not an opinion, it is happening now, money is being spent.......

But you are wrong.
It will affect everyone in the UK, whether you voted Exit, Remain, or None of the Above.
Your vote will have no effect on the consequences of Brexit, hard or soft boiled.

[jinna1961]

She's not a heroic patriot battling against the odds for the good of the country. She's an incompetent who has mismanaged the whole bloody thing for tory party self-interest and her own day-to-day survival.

Quite possibly.

However the sad fact is that there is nobody in parliament WILLING or ABLE to do a better job.

What a sad and worrying indictment of this country's current political class.

Or put it a different way- they are all a crock of shite!

Which surprises me, given the amount of experts on Brexit on every forum on the Internet

[Trev]

She's not a heroic patriot battling against the odds for the good of the country. She's an incompetent who has mismanaged the whole bloody thing for tory party self-interest and her own day-to-day survival.

Quite possibly.

However the sad fact is that there is nobody in parliament WILLING or ABLE to do a better job.

What a sad and worrying indictment of this country's current political class.

Or put it a different way- they are all a crock of shite!

Which surprises me, given the amount of experts on Brexit on every forum on the Internet

yup the world is full of people who can do a better job but just can't be arsed, England footie manager is another along with running a business, policing the streets and running the Bank of England.

I for one don't feel sorry for Mrs May, for whatever reason she has chosen to do the job, I do however feel at least somewhat grateful that she is sticking to it as there seems no one better equipped (or who even wants to). It's pretty easy to wish we didn't have politicians but if no one takes the lead in anything then pretty much nothing ever gets done, whether it be running a country, a company, a football team or your local lottery syndicate. We're fortunate in this country in that if you're passionate (and thick skinned) enough to do something about it then there is always an option to get involved and step up to the mark and help your fellow citizens.
Like most (all?) on here I can't be bothered so am more than happy to let others run councils, governements and other public organisations and allow me to plough my furrow in the structure they maintain. We live in one of the best countries in the world, Brexit is making it a bit worse but it will still be okay and once all the dust settles I'll be able to carry on with the safe knowledge that I'm free to make my own way in life.