The Last Days of Mrs May?

– How rude of Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, to put on Instagram that there were “no cherries” for Mrs May. How completely contradictory of EU behaviour too.
The 1992 Maastricht Treaty set out the financial principles for eurozone members, and the subsequent Stability Pact enjoined fines for members who break them. Budget deficits should have been no greater than 3 per cent of GDP, and total government debt no more than 60 per cent. Another provision permitted no bailouts of member states. Just about every member state broke these debt rules, and no fines were levied. There have been six individual bailouts.
The Schengen Agreement, which supports free movement of people, is currently suspended by six member states.
“Core” principles, apparently inviolate when it comes to Brexit, are ripely cherry-picked when it suits the EU.

I don't think Brexit will happen, but if it does it will be the young, the vulnerable, the expats that will be most affected, because the future will be very uncertain. I really don't see any end to austerity if we leave, and it may get tighter due to less money in the economy.

A lot will depend on what Corbyn hatches up next week, if as has been mooted he gets a mandate for a second referendum, that will be a real problem for TM.

MargaretX
Well all those continental lorries are going to have a problem 'when' they shut Calais.

There is a lot which will be missed when Great Britain leaves and it is often discussed in Germany but it does not alter the situation that it is the wish of Britain to leave and that has been accepted here. Most people I meet at Bridge Club etc just shake their heads and ask me why they are leaving to which I reply I am not for Brexit - no way!

I am back in the Uk soon for a family visit and am not meeting up with an old school friend, because I dont want to sit over lunch and listen to all this Brexit nonsense.
My DD2 who works in science says they have several UK PhD students who are so anxious to get their thesis finished and face a dismal future which they did not vote for.

Most of the expats I know have applied for German citizenship but need to have been in Germany several years.
There is a strange unreal feeling about it all, alot of us travel via Calais by car when we visit the Uk and wonder if that is going to be still possible. I have renewed my passport and DD1 also and she has applied for my grandson as well. Better do it now before chaos breaks out.

^ No country in the EU is going to go against the Brexit line, not when their financial wellbeing depends on the goodwill of those who distribute the cash! They deviate at their financial peril^

Where do you get this nonsense from, nellie?

As paddy points out, who in their right minds passes up a market of 500million people? Countries stay in the EU because it offers them a huge market on their doorstep which is easy to trade in. (In our case it is reckoned that for every £1 we pay to the EU we get £10 back in trade). Plus advantageous trade deals with non EU countries because that enormous market is very attractive to them.

and there are still people here who believe all the "Great" Britain nonsense,Britain isn't and hasn't been a major player for decades and its time some understood that.The Westminster government are making a total mess of the whole Brexit situation.TWO years plus and no further forward!!.Couldn't run a piss up in a brewery .I am fizzing at this farce .This will destroy the Scottish economy ,not to mention the rest of the disunited "kingdom" who in their right minds walks away from 500MILLION potential customers?

niggly No country in the EU is going to go against the Brexit line, not when their financial wellbeing depends on the goodwill of those who distribute the cash! They deviate at their financial peril
I think you will find that they are queuing up to take over the financial sector and some will be delighted to see the back of us. Do you really think financial services are going to stay here and we will still be the financial centre once we are Brexited? The money will go where the financiers see the best return and sadly that won't be here. We will be a tiny country, trading with small economies whilst just across the water the EU countries continue to prosper.

She certainly is Jalima I envy her figure.I expect she barely has time to eat, mind you.

Yes, niggly make some effort to understand things when posters you have never even met tell you do so!

It ain't over till the fat lady sings
However, Mrs May is very slim.

Pay attention and keep up at the back Nellie!

Pipers and tunes! No country in the EU is going to go against the Brexit line, not when their financial wellbeing depends on the goodwill of those who distribute the cash! They deviate at their financial peril! Leave? of course they don't want to, financially they can't, it's as simple as that!

So the title of this thread is somewhat premature, TM has come out fighting, good for her, we soldier on. Just what rabbits will be pulled out of the hat to get agreement on Ireland I have no idea, we will see.

She gets to stay PM until at least November when the final position will be clear, no challenge - I guess nobody wanted the job. In her interview today she gave great weight to the referendum result, at the end of the day will Parliament do the same. It's not just Ireland that's at issue its the trade and finance agreements, the EU s hard line does not inspire optimism and I don't give agreement that parliament will accept a snowballs chance in h!!!.

What is the purpose of article 50 if it's impossible to implement?!

It's not impossible, nellie. It's just difficult; for the reasons I gave earlier and you didn't bother to read.

When you have a government that's made it even more difficult by have no clear plan when they invoked it and squabbling about just what they do want to do in the two years following its invocation then it was bound to be problematical.

At least make some effort to try to understand how very closely we have willingly and voluntarily become involved in a complex regulatory framework over 40+ years and that disentangling ourselves is not at all an easy job.

One problem, possibly the biggest problem we have, is the Irish Border. Other EU countries may not have this type of problem and troubled history, only settled by the Good Friday Agreement which could so easily be wrecked by brexit.

If another EU country wanted to leave, they may invoke Article 50 and leave - but of course none of them want to - and neither do most folk in this country.

Theresa May has spent many months touring European Union states in an attempt to find divisions among those governments that Britain could exploit in its leave negotiations. However, at every turn, TM has found no government willing to even contemplate creating division in the joint European nations approach to the UK leaving the Union.

So, the wished for other countries supporting Britain and perhaps join Britain in leaving the EU sometime in the future has not transpired. That has left Britain totally isolated and not knowing how to deal with the situation it finds itself in with the withdraw negotiations.

Yes, the European Union does not wish to lose the money that Britain pays as its contribution to the Union. However, as stated earlier in this thread, that loss will be shared between all the twenty-seven remaining member states. The loss that Britain faces on leaving the EU will be placed on the British population alone.

They do need our money though!!
What is the purpose of article 50 if it's impossible to implement?!

Well they don’t need us enough to compromise their union despite what we were told.

The EU leaders have to look tough to deter the other countries who might be wavering in their faith in EU.
Yes we'll lose by leaving but so will the EU. This will cost them too.
Damn David Cameron!

They do want something from the UK, or rather, they don't want to lose something, namely our money! I agree they don't want anything else! Yes we did vote to leave, but surely the EU instead of feeling furious, might, just might ask themselves why some of us feel the way we do, or, even ask us!! but if course they are too arrogant for that question to even occur to them!! Of course no one else is even going to contemplate leaving this wonderful union, but as its so wonderful, why would they?!!!

Smileless2012 quote[snip>>>You cannot negotiateGrandadwith those who don't want to negotiate.<<<snip] End quote

Smileless2012, all the EU negotiators have stated would be for the UK to come forward with a prospective leave agreement that respects the European Union rules that Britain freely signed up to under the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties.

The above Britain has failed to do. Therefore, it is not the EU failing to negotiate; it is Britains negotiators failing to come up with any prospective leave agreement that accommodates those EU treaty rules.

Does anyone in Britain believe that the other twenty-seven remaining member nations will or should change those treaty obligations just to accommodate the UK leaving?

The EU have stated time and time again since the referendum result, that "there will be no cherry picking" meaning no changes to EU treaty rules.

If half her cabinet members told her it wouldn’t work, I assume the other half said it would work.

I feel sorry for her moaning about not being treated with respect, but feel she should pull herself together and get over it.
The EU has worked very hard indeed to achieve a kind of harmony that enables trade with each other and she just goes on and on about wanting all the benefits and none of the disadvantages, should they arise.

I knew this would happen and she should have been warned to tread carefully after half her own cabinet members have told her it won't work.
Just because the EU members stuck to their opinion thats called bullying, when they all said the same thing it just happens that they are agreed on the rules and after all the UK made these rules as well and signed everything off.

I did not notice anyone being disrespectful, and they all spoke English to her, is that not enough for her? Where were her aides who speak three languages like most of other members do. Speaking a foreign language it is sometimes difficult to get the tone right. She should understsnd that.

I was impressed too Jane. I thought she chose her words very carefully as IMO the EU are treating the UK with contempt.

They don't want a deal, they never have. What they've wanted from the outset IMO is to push for a second referendum in the hope that the majority will vote remain.

You cannot negotiate Grandad with those who don't want to negotiate.

I am also losing sympathy with Brussels, they seem determined to make this as hard and humiliating as possible, acting both arrogantly and spitefully. Beginning to wonder whether like Groucho Marx we actually want to belong to any club that would have us a a member.

They have been telling May that the Chequers plan wasn't any good ever since it was announced. What was arrogant and spiteful about telling her, basically, to stop pushing it because it isn't going to work? May painted herself into this corner, she came out all guns blazing wanting a total separation from all things EU; apart, of course from this deep and special relationship and a deal which gave us all the cherries. It's been utter madness all the time.

And it isn't a bl**dy club, MawBroon, it's a far more intricate and entwined relationship which all the experts in EU law, diplomacy, trade etc. said would take a long time to carefully disentangle ourselves. Meaning more than two years. There was no plan when May rushed to invoke A50 and she's been struggling ever since to reconcile the factions in the tory party.