Can anybody explain Brexit please?

Good to see the 'Brexit' debate is still alive and well.

Is it time to rename it though? After all, it was only England & Wales that voted to leave.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland they voted by a significant margin to remain in the EU.

Is the democratic votes Scotland and NI to be ignored? On what grounds?

Well said crystal.

To all those who just want to 'get on with it' and don't care how it goes, if you have grandchildren think of them. Just give it some thought, don't leave it to others. People fought for the right to vote, you have a responsibility to take a view on the most important issue in our time in this country.

missdeke, for our own sanity we have to get on with our lives as best we can.

Day6
Brilliant answer- well said

All you need to know is that it's a Catastromess and getting worse by the minute.

MaizieD,

Why then did Labour promise an EU Referendum in 2005 if the people were so disinterested?

This promise helped win them re-election.

Got a couple of years to spare, Lily65?

I can't even get a grip on this darned Irish Backstop. It could be a celtic medieval herbal laxative for all I can understand about it.

Bored solid, so I am!

Its time to stop the humiliation and leave. We have the potential to be the vanguard to the other EU countries teetering on the edge and offer an alternative EU that represents the ideals that a large concensus of the populations of these nations desire. I.e. a cooperation of independant teading nations rather. How many other trading blocs within the world are trying to impose federalisation?

It’s a Brexit myth that the whole of Europe is envious of the UK . Yes the EU will take a financial hit, but they have 27 countries to mitigate that. We’ll take a greater financial hit but have only ourselves to blame.( though of course Leavers will blame the EU for “intransigence “ when they are only sticking what they have said all along)

My take on brexit is that is the biggest longest suicide note any country has taken part in..
A govt of donkeys led by greedy oafs ..
I dread the future for our children and grandchildren... we will go down as wreckers ...

Well TM goes back to Brussels to get another ass kicking I don't think the EU are going to welcome her with open arms and we are fast running out of options looking more and more like a no deal

Well done, Day6. Nice overview. I would also add that the EU, far from being a benign and harmonious group of like minded countries, was something of a mess when we voted in the referendum - which has only got worse since then.

Germany's dominance of the EU financially disadvantaged Greece and, in general, the Southern states have suffered greatly from the Euro. The eastern states' concern with unchecked immigration has led to a rightwing swing. At the moment France is experiencing rioting in the streets and Germany is now in recession. Corruption is rife and an undemocratic, unelected elite rule from Strasbourg. The signs are that the EU ruling elite wish for fiscal harmony which is tied inextricably to political harmony, and to top it all, they want an EU army.

The UK was heading to become an EU 'region'.

Who wants that?

It'll never be finished, missdeke. Whichever way it ends up it will rumble on for decades. So, whichever way you voted you'd better get used to the idea; it aint going away...

I cheered today when an EU representitive admitted that North Europe would be worse off if the UK left the EU without a deal! They are arguing over the backstop to keep the deal the deal they have already made.

I still want to stay in the EU and the whole thing to be cancelled but it was good to hear the EU admit they also had a motive for trying to keep us in.

Nobody can explain Brexit!!! Everybody who has something to say sees it from their own point of view whether they are leavers or remainers. The only thing that is certain is that it is a proposal for us to no longer be in the European Union.

Personally I no longer give a **, I am sick to death of the whole thing, it's caused dissension and bad feeling between so many. Just finish the damn thing one way or another, I'm past caring........

Completely disagree with your analysis there, Grampie.

Polling showed that only about 10% of the population thought the EU was an important issue until Cameron's attempt to kill the warring factions in the tory party brought it to the fore.

The public was so uninterested that most of it hadn't a clue about the EU, how it worked and what it did for them. They just believed the lies put out in the right wing media and had a vague idea that the EU was continually doing things to them that they didn't like.

Here you are; all the lies told in the media since 1992, hundreds and hundreds of them. The EU got so fed up with them that it's been monitoring them since then. But then, a lie is halfway round the world before the truth gets its running shoes on. And who is going to bother to check when 'the papers' say it's true.

blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

They couldn't even be bothered to go and vote for MEPs. Then let themselves be persuaded that the EU is 'undemocratic! Mind you, large numbers of them couldn't even be bothered to vote in UK elections..

'The will of the people'? My backside! It's the will of some billionaire newspaper owners and some rich capitalists who see the opportunity to make some money out of the ensuing disaster.

I certainly don't understand what exactly is going on. When the referendum took place I think the majority of people thought it was a case of "vote " then stay or leave.
If it comes to another referendum I will be talking to all the younger generation of friends and family to get their views. They will be the ones that are affected as I will probably be long gone by the time it's sorted out!!!

Agree HM999

From the Today programme this morning - Irish and German commented that they don't get why we are doing this (they were rather more forthright than this). Nick Robinson asked the Brexit Minister "which part of no, non, niet don't you understand? Does anyone really think the EU will back down? What message would that send out in any future EU negotiations about anything? All the suggestion such as 'technological solutions' have already been suggested and failed. Has something new been invented?

Seems to me it is just delaying tactics but I can't work out whether it is to make us crash out or to remain.

I keep trying to imagine TM & JC in 'negotiations', doesn't bear thinking about! Just hope the civil servants who actually did the negotiation are in the room to stop it getting out of hand and bring in the reality.

My brother has a friend in Holland who told him the EU is terrified of us leaving as the money we are currently paying in will have to be made up by the other countries.

We knew EU would make it difficult. In the hope we would give up. Knew what I voted for and happy I did so.

Nobody knew what they were voting for by leaving. Plenty just voted for keeping things the way they were.
Would 17m people have voted for the worries we currently have of big companies (employers) moving abroad, not knowing what's going to be available in the shops in April? I'm told it's currently affecting the housing market because people don't know what they will be able to afford in the future.
And I haven't mentioned the issues regarding European travel (health insurance, mobile phone cost, air travel delays)

By dancing around the EU Constitution and then signing it in the dead of night when the cover page was changed to Treaty of Lisbon both Blair and Brown realized they had exhausted the goodwill of their electorate in favour of just under half the population who could benefit from freedom of movement.

So concerned were they that Labour promised a referendum in their 2005 manifesto. Then Brown called that woman a bigot for wanting to discuss immigration.

Cameron saw his opportunity heal a rift in his party and to win decisively in 2015 by promising to keep Labour's promise of a referendum.

He too underestimated the rebellion against the loss of sovereignty in promptly extraditing murderers and in limiting immigration to genuine asylum seekers and people who have the qualifications we need.

Cameron lost as the country voted to Leave the EU. So he resigned and May, another Remainer, became PM leading Brexit.

Since then the EU27, and most MPs have fought against Brexit in all sorts of underhand ways such as holding a second referendum before implementing the first one. Some of us also suspected that May was engineering no Brexit.

Finally, our Parliament seized control from our Government and devised a lot of proposals with votes to determine the way ahead.

All but one of the six meaningful votes failed to pass.

Parliament has now instructed May to return to the EU27 with a mandate for a better Withdrawal Agreement (being as their WA had been rejected by 230 votes).

EU27 say it's done and dusted but no one really believes this. We now have to wait and see.

Mabon1
You get nowhere in life by being a shrinking violet.
Watching scenes from inside parliament is akin to watching kids in a playground or, more pertinently, a fire in a zoo with all the noise that would generate.
Mrs May needs to be assertive and yes...sometimes arrogant, after all, Cameron left his successor a mess of pottage.

Really, there is so much information out there! Did you watch the program at 9pm last Monday on BBC? Your choice is... do you want your country to be an independent one which makes all its own decisions by a government elected democratically, which can be changed if the majority don't like it, or do you want to pay for a corrupt and demanding foreign body to do it.

Macron is the troublemaker.
TM will wring out the best deal as it it affects her too. No-one willingly stabs themself in the back.
As I said in the beginning. Brexit will happen and it won't have the 'massive negative impact on our ability to eat and keep our jobs.
For sure, there will be a period of adjustment but those EU countries with whom we currently do business will still need to trade with us, else who will take their surplus or make up their lost revenue?
We'll do just fine.