Brexit

How can remain supporters be so sure that Brexit will end in long term disaster?!!. Because it has become so very obvious to the ever growing numbers in the remain camp just what Brexit will really mean especially if we leave with not so much as a customs agreement.

Only the Daily Mail and Sun toting brigade cannot see that, or is it the old adage come true once again that states "there are none so blind as those that do not wish to see".

Jalima
we want the least damaging brexit
Talk about stating the bleeding obvious

Do you have a crystal ball that the rest of us are not privy to? Else, how can you be SO sure that Brexit will end in long term disaster?!! You seem so adamant, you must have inside info!!

Prepare yourselves for a shock, leavers.
We're all leavers, varian, whether we like it or not.

Prepare yourselves for a shock, leavers. The new editor of the Daily Mail editor says " we want the least damaging Brexit"

www.theguardian.com/media/2018/aug/11/new-daily-mail-editor-will-strike-tolerant-brexit-note

What an admission - any kind of brexit will without doubt damage the UK, so the best we can hope for is "the least damaging brexit"

There are millions of patriotic Britons who do not accept that we should just acquiesce in anything which involves willfully damaging our country. Surely the best we can hope for is to forget brexit and remain in the European Union?

Exactly Nicenanny3!!

Nigglynellie agree with you, David Cameron was made to look a fool by the EU with his begging bowl and the few crumbs he came back with.
Nigel Farage is back now to try and save Brexit.

With hindsight we should never have joined in the first place and if I regret anything it's my yes vote in 1975! But then we thought it was, and would remain a trading block, not a European version of the USSR where the unelected rich and powerful run everything from their ivory tower and the rest of us are grateful for their benevolence. How wrong we were, and what fools we were to believe what we were told and to remain blinkered for so long. You can keep your federal state, your European army and all else that goes with it.

Niggly this is not true about DC. He was on German TV talking to Angela Merkel and what he discussed was in German newspapers. Yes we still do have decent newspapers here in Germany, not rightwing rags.
DC had only proposals to offer but he knew that parliament was not 100% behind him. That is what weakened his position
he had Nigel Farage sounding off at the back of him
When it came to a vote you Leavers didn't back him.

The European Union is what it says in his title. In that, it is a union which any single member has to gather the support of other members to gain a majority to bring about change.

Britain has never recognised the above, and in that has "charged about" with an almost imperialist attitude over the years of its membership just demanding what we say should be accepted by all the other nations. That is not the way that the European Union has ever worked and will ever work.

David Cameron never recognised the above, and that is why Britain is now where we are in facing a huge crisis situation of its own making.

Simple as that

Grandad is right. It is like a golf Club. If you follow the rules you can pay and play but if not you leave.

The freedoms that come with being a full member of the EU cannot be dispensed with but they could be amended and for that the UK must still be a member.

The EU is a force for good. New this year is that farmers who plant a long row of sunflowers alongside their crops to help bees, will be recompensed for the work and the loss of crops.
Not a lot of money but something for their effort and to help keep bees alive.
If a Rumanian farmer plants more sunflowers than wheat then why not? A bit of generosity of heart towards others is what has always been missing in statements from the UK.

Thank you Luckygirl, a very constructive contribution.
I am utterly sick of the deceit around Brexit and the incredible lack of clarity at the referendum of what we were really voting about and what it would mean.

I don’t believe our politicians are now capable of reaching a decision that will be universally accepted. Therefore, a one off legal binding People’s Vote, once we know the true facts on what Brexit really will mean, is for me the only possible way of getting the majority of the Nation to accept a progressive way forward.

Since when, over the years,has the EU taken a blind bit of notice what the UK has to say. D.C was treated with barely concealed contempt at his feeble efforts to even suggest any changes in the vain hope of avoiding the referendum. The EU has got weaker countries by their financial throats which they are just about waking up to, so how can we influence anyone when for decades we've been treated as an insignificant little island off the northern coast of Europe? Presumably our money WAS important! Pity they didn't think of that before treating us so rudely and arrogantly then the chances are we wouldn't be where we are!

There are those that wish to paint a picture of a European Union which is full of nothing else but infighting and fractionalisation. Well, through many last minute late night meetings the EU has continued to survive and become the world's largest multi-nation trading block.

Doubtless, there will be many more late night crisis meetings in the future, but I and many more have no doubts that the European Union will continue with that market growing well into the future.

The same cannot be said for Britain however if it leaves the above trading block without a Customs agreement. Doubtless, those reading and toting the Daily Mail and Sun newspapers will tell us that Britain can thrive in such an environment, but more and more people now realise the huge damage that will occur in Britain's economy for many years to come should such a situation come about.

Quite agree Jura and grandad. We are no longer a big influential country in our own right. The world has changed. A powerful European bloc on our doorstop is not the same as being a member.

Working together is the way forward in an ever changing world while Britain on its own would be just a minnow.

Exactly jura2. Once we leave the EU we can change nothing, but only watch from the outside while the 27 member states make decisions that will affect Britain in any number of ways.

It's called "taking back control".

Jura2
Because the EU has now become so big that no equitable decision can be made expediently.
It is evident that more countries recognise that their own economies are being damaged by the restrictive practices and are becoming fractionist so rather than reaching concensus, they continue to infight and get nowhere.
It reminds me of a large badly managed board meeting where everyone shouts, no-one gets heard and nothing gets done.

So let's be strong partners in the EU- and advance reform together. It would be much much more efficacious, and without losing all the massive advantages we have now.

We can't solve medical research, environmental issues, security, be they chemical, medical, criminal, nuclear, military, etc, etc, on our own. Science and technology have gone far beyond 1973 - and no country can do this on their own- those who try will just be swallowed by the USA, China and Russia.

From Nick Clegg writing in the FT on 18 June 2018.
Re free movement of people.
"Brussels should stop seeing the controversial policy as an untouchable principle "
He called on European leaders to reform the rules
" Recent election results on the continent show millions of people believe the eu's collective approach to immigration is serving them poorly"

Grandad1943
I think you may see a different perspective if you research other countries within the EU. Those who only base their assumptions based upon the UK and its actions are missing a major part if why some people based their referendum decisions.
There are a number of countries having problems with the four freedoms. However we know that there are some countries who will veto a customs agreement that modified the four freedoms not because they agree it, but because it would open the flood gates to the other countries who want to renegotiate terms more appropriate to their economies, this effectively would destroy the Geneva treaty.

The four freedoms of the EU treaty are the very basis of the European Union and all the twenty-eight member states freely signed up to those obligations. Therefore, as no other country but Britain has decided to leave, obviously those "freedoms cannot be a major problem to them. Equally none of the other 27 member states has supported Britain being allowed to have a customs agreement on leaving without fully complying with those four freedoms.

Perhaps if the UK believes that the current treaty rules are a problem to other member states, we should remain in the European Union and fight for change from that position, for we will not get change any other way.

Grandad1943
I wonder why, when it is evident that the 'four freedoms' are problematic not only to the UK but to other members that they do not allow a major discussion and potential modification to suit each countries concerns, or would this be problematic to such as Germany who'se economy is thriving and the Eastern European countries who are receiving inward remittences from their diaspora this as a result of the Maastricht and Geneva Treaties.

All the EU commission can do is to insist it's members follow the four freedoms that are laid out in the European Charter. That is what the EU is all about nothing else can be insisted on from its members other than following the agreed various directives that support those four freedoms

If Britain wants a customs agreement on leaving the European Union, then that agreement will have to accomdate those four freedoms.

Simple as that.

Have you any evidence for your statements about the Commission, nellie?

(And, I'm sorry but the expression is 'toe the line' and it's referring to the starting line in a race)

The Comission have made it perfectly clear to countries in the EU that if they fail to tow the brexit line or show even remote sympathy for Britain, they seriously risk losing their funding! Same for all those recipients of large over inflated pensions, support the EU 100% or risk financial ruin!! Well, ruin by their standards!! What would you do?!! After all money is king, particularly on the pension front!!