What would you do if we decided not to leave the EU?

Paddyann.Well it may be hunky dory for you and yours but
for sure life has hardly been a doddle for many Brits in the past thirty years.Young families in particular now attempting to get on the housing ladder is becoming harder if not totally unattainable by the minute.
NHS like fish out of water.
The sooner, fingers are out and all done and dusted, the better.
Freedom of travel? A passport gave me this freedom of travel and never stopped me from going around the world when and where I wanted and it was a b-----y sight safer world..

Your argument sarah has everything to do with the economy but nothing at all to do with Brexit.

Absolutely nothing in your life will change for the better if we leave the EU. In fact it will be a disaster for people like yourself. Don't believe the siren songs - they are there to deceive.

By all means vote for change but do not even remotely think that Brexit will bring about that change. It wont

The safer world had nothing to do with the EU - we are safer now because of it and all the countries co operating with each other and sharing information etc The fact that life is not 'hunky dory' for many of us has nothing to do with the EU but a lot to do with the U.K. govt and in the last few years the bankers also - but they are still managing to do well out of us. For a few years when Maggie was PM and started the programme of everyone being selfish many people did do well but lots did not and much of that came at the expense of selling off the nation's assets.
If you think your life is not good now just wait for another couple of years when we have left the EU and see how you are faring then. The U.K. Cannot feed itself - it relies on imports - if agreements are not made fast the country will be at the mercy of the places producing food to charge what they want!!

There are a lot of people in the remain camp who are determined to undermine all our negotiations as well as stirring up doubts about the whole process. This is to be expected even though most remainers have already decided they lost and we are getting out. So far our government has not set out arguements for negotiations - how can they when they want to start the talks without the other side getting inside information.

What many people have yet to be told and to understand is that the EU has more at stake than we do. Just consider trade, a very important matter for both sides. The EU sells much more to us than we do to them. We are their largest trade partner. Neither side would want to take action against that. There has to be an accommodation on trade that suits both sides.

All the poliktical waffle on both sides will dissipate when the discussions get down to brass tacks. Therefore we need to ignore all the efforts by some remainers to destabilise our efforts.

The EU sells much more to us than we do to them.

So in other words, the UK imports more goods from the EU than it sells to the EU....! Therefore, the UK is far from self sufficient in terms of essential goods, food etc.

I know I'd rather buy a German made washing machine than a Chinese one, lol.

Also, the EU selling more goods to the UK than it buys from the UK doesn't automatically make the UK it's biggest market. You do understand how economics work, don't you?

If Brexit fails, I'll be cheering.

Not sure that is correct about trade Cardiff - the EU is a far larger area and the goods they sell to us is a much smaller percentage of their trade than we sell to them - about 50% of UK goods go to the EU - for the UK to make up lost EU trade it will need to up trade elsewhere by an enormous amount which is likely to take years to organise.
The Remainers are far from trying to undermine the talks and I have no idea what you are talking about 'inside information' - could you enlighten me please. No one is trying to destabilise any efforts - the Govt are doing well on that front themselves by annoying the EU!

The reason government say they are keeping things to themselves is because they don't know what to do.

Are those who cannot wait to leave the EU happy about all the jobs that UK will lose? Some will not be for a few years until current contracts run out and are not renewed. Car engine plants are at risk after a few years as are the Airbus factories - both employing thousands of people. The City will lose tens of thousands of jobs as they are relocated to the Continent. Then we have the Pharma industry and the regulatory bodies --- the list goes on and on. Are you happy with this or just delighted that your grandchildren are unlikely to be able to get the sort of job they want in the UK and will need to trawl the world looking for work?

Regardless of how I voted I would lose all trust in our politicians, and would not bother to vote again.What would be the point, as they all promise things they don't fulfill. They don't seem to be in touch with the people they represent, and all do u.turns when it suits them.

Ah, but at least they will have taken back control of .......

I could provide a similar list qq to show how much leaving the EU will cost this country, and believe me it will amount to much more than your shouty list.

While I really didn't start this thread with the intention of it becoming a rerun of lots of other EU threads, I think that it would be really helpful if you could do that list whitewave. Then we could put the two into one post (perhaps on a new thread?) for a direct comparison.

And perhaps clarify that we don't pay £50 million a day to the EU. Never trust figures you get from the side of a bus!

starlily Nobody made any specific promises about what leaving the EU would mean. They couldn't because they didn't know. If you followed the pre-referendum debates, you will know that politicians were "promising" all sorts of things and contradicing themselves. Voters believed what they wanted to hear - nothing more.

I don't see how there can ever be a good Brexit. We might get some kind of agreement which limits damage, but it won't be better than we have now. May and her band of Brexiteers are on a fool's errand. If the UK abandons the whole Brexit project, I shall breathe a big sigh of relief and hope "lessons will be learnt".

We are caught between a rock and a hard place - if it all goes through and is a disaster as looks likely, people will moan about having a bad life and if it is stopped the Leavers will moan on again for evermore - or the end of their days - about how great it would have been!

Welshwife, you talk so much sense! Can I come and run round your garden too, if I bring a bottle?!
I feel so sad about the political situation and like others I blame the press and the TV journalists in large part, along with those who promulgated the lies about what Brexit would achieve. If you have ever visited the Menin Gate at dusk or visited some of the heartbreaking cemeteries in Flanders, you would fight tooth and nail for the EU, whatever its faults.
I sat in our school chapel on Friday and read the names of the dead on the walls - so many sets of brothers. Remember that there has not been a war in Europe since the EU was created.Please God, Brexit is overruled.

I am convinced some people would moan even if they lived in paradise! They might even moan about lack of opportunities to moan if they did!

I shall be delighted if a fairy comes along with a magic wand and makes Brexit a success. I would have no problems with admitting I was wrong.

However, I can't see it. I don't believe the most astute negotiator in the world could make a success of it - and we have David Davis.

I've given up moaning about it, because there's nothing I can do, but it's fun to watch them tying themselves up in knots. Give them more rope, I say! There'll be even more knots and then, pragmatists that we are, we can all admit what a nightmare it is - and have a cup of tea (and get on the phone to Barnier & Co and say "Sorry chaps").

One of the people on a Facebook group translated this article which appeared in a Swiss paper written in German. This is what Europe thinks of the U.K.

This article in a Swiss newspaper today is so ruthlessly clear-sighted in its assessment of just how screwed we are that I just had to translate it for the non-German speakers. Hold on to your hats:

THE LAUGHING STOCK OF EUROPE
[Translation by Paula Kirby]
If it weren't so serious, the situation in Great Britain would almost be comical. The country is being governed by a talking robot, nicknamed the Maybot, that somehow managed to visit the burned-out tower block in the west of London without speaking to a single survivor or voluntary helper. Negotiations for the country’s exit from the EU are due to begin on Monday, but no one has even a hint of a plan. The government is dependent on a small party that provides a cozy home for climate change deniers and creationists. Boris Johnson is Foreign Secretary. What in the world has happened to this country?

Two years ago David Cameron emerged from the parliamentary election as the shining victor. He had secured an absolute majority, and as a result it looked as if the career of this cheerful lightweight was headed for surprisingly dizzy heights. The economy was growing faster than in any other industrialised country in the world. Scottish independence and, with it, the break-up of the United Kingdom had been averted. For the first time since 1992, there was a Conservative majority in the House of Commons. Great Britain saw itself as a universally respected actor on the international stage. This was the starting point.

In order to get from this comfortable position to the chaos of the present in the shortest possible time, two things were necessary: first, the Conservative right wingers’ obsessive hatred of the EU, and second, Cameron’s irresponsibility in putting the whole future of the country on the line with his referendum, just to satisfy a few fanatics in his party. It is becoming ever clearer just how extraordinarily bad a decision that was. The fact that Great Britain has become the laughing stock of Europe is directly linked to its vote for Brexit.

The ones who will suffer most will be the British people, who were lied to by the Brexit campaign during the referendum and betrayed and treated like idiots by elements of their press. The shamelessness still knows no bounds: the Daily Express has asked in all seriousness whether the inferno in the tower block was due to the cladding having been designed to meet EU standards. It is a simple matter to discover that the answer to this question is No, but by failing to check it, the newspaper has planted the suspicion that the EU might be to blame for this too. As an aside: a country in which parts of the press are so demonstrably uninterested in truth and exploit a disaster like the fire in Grenfell Tower for their own tasteless ends has a very serious problem.

Already prices are rising in the shops, already inflation is on the up. Investors are holding back. Economic growth has slowed. And that’s before the Brexit negotiations have even begun. With her unnecessary general election, Prime Minister Theresa May has already squandered an eighth of the time available for them. How on earth an undertaking as complex as Brexit is supposed to be agreed in the time remaining is a mystery.

Great Britain will end up leaving its most important trading partner and will be left weaker in every respect. It would make economic sense to stay in the single market and the customs union, but that would mean being subject to regulations over which Britain no longer had any say. It would be better to have stayed in the EU in the first place. So the government now needs to develop a plan that is both politically acceptable and brings the fewest possible economic disadvantages. It’s a question of damage limitation, nothing more; yet even now there are still politicians strutting around Westminster smugly trumpeting that it will be the EU that comes off worst if it doesn’t toe the line.

The EU is going to be dealing with a government that has no idea what kind of Brexit it wants, led by an unrealistic politician whose days are numbered; and a party in which old trenches are being opened up again: moderate Tories are currently hoping to be able to bring about a softer exit after all, but the hardliners in the party – among them more than a few pigheadedly obstinate ideologues – are already threatening rebellion. An epic battle lies ahead, and it will paralyse the government.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said that he now expects the Brits to finally set out their position clearly, since he cannot negotiate with himself. The irony of this statement is that it would actually be in Britain’s best interests if he did just that. At least that way they’d have one representative on their side who grasps the scale of the task and is actually capable of securing a deal that will be fair to both sides. The Brits do not have a single negotiator of this stature in their ranks. And quite apart from the Brexit terms, both the debate and the referendum have proven to be toxic in ways that are now making themselves felt.

British society is now more divided than at any time since the English civil war in the 17th century, a fact that was demonstrated anew in the general election, in which a good 80% of the votes were cast for the two largest parties. Neither of these parties was offering a centrist programme: the election was a choice between the hard right and the hard left. The political centre has been abandoned, and that is never a good sign. In a country like Great Britain, that for so long had a reputation for pragmatism and rationality, it is grounds for real concern. The situation is getting decidedly out of hand.

After the loss of its empire, the United Kingdom sought a new place in the world. It finally found it, as a strong, awkward and influential part of a larger union: the EU. Now it has given up this place quite needlessly. The consequence, as is now becoming clear, is a veritable identity crisis from which it will take the country a very long time to recover.

ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/art50-agenda-20170619_en.pdf

Tomorrow's agenda. Doesn't give much hope for anything meaningful.

If I was Brussels my opinion would be that it was hardly worth the bother beginning the talks as looking at the currant British government they are looking so rocky that there will almost certainly be another election, and the talks may have tov start all over again.

Macron had it right. 6months break to see what happens.

I would worry. Not so much for my future but for my kids. They are 30 and 27. Boys. Both with partners/wifes.

One of the reasons I voted out was because it was rumoured Angela Merkle would start the process to form an EU army. Germany is now quietly building this army up and will be in control of it. It would mean conscription for our young men and women now and in the future. No choice. They would have to fight in wars we do not believe in and are not involved in should her and her cronies decide its right.

I beleive in all honestly they only want us for the mega vast amounts of funding we are made to put in. They are now in the process of replacing the building EU building at a cost of £300 millions and rising. We contribute over 15% of the EU budget each year. Fair enough we get some back but when will it stop. We are propping up some of the EU countries that are going bankrupt.

I believe the press ran amok when that election took place, they were biased and fuelled up the fire spouting ill advised information. No one semed to now what they were voting for. So fed up am I with the wrong people running the country, and by that I mean the media, I am lucky enough to afford to move abroad - which I am now in the process of doing. So what would I do..... I have already done it.

Where are you moving to, Daisy?

Lots of opinions, not many facts on here.

I think the thread asks for opinions. We don't know enough facts as our esteemed leader wishes to keep things secret from us. We are not to be trusted with facts.

"EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said that he now expects the Brits to finally set out their position clearly, since he cannot negotiate with himself. The irony of this statement is that it would actually be in Britain’s best interests if he did just that. At least that way they’d have one representative on their side who grasps the scale of the task and is actually capable of securing a deal that will be fair to both sides. The Brits do not have a single negotiator of this stature in their ranks. And quite apart from the Brexit terms, both the debate and the referendum have proven to be toxic in ways that are now making themselves felt."

I love that paragraph, Welshwife. Says it all, really.

I saw Andria Ledsom on Sunday Politics and honestly wondered what planet she was on. The Euro sceptics say that Tory 42% plus Labour 40% infers an 80%+ mandate for Brexit. A lot of Tory and even more Labour voters really do not want Brexit - the UKIP vote all but collapsed even in places where they stood and that must say something about what people think. Like most on this forum I would be relieved if Brexit did not happen.