EU Elections

And breath.... in your opinion of course

I’ve yet to see your explanation of the benefits of what leaving (at all) but in your case with no deal will bring you, you seem convinced it’s the best way ahead, there must be a logical reason for you to formulate that based on the facts and research at hand, the facts that have been presented. there must be.

 

Depends on the definition of socialism, but you could start with:

Portugal, Croatia, Denmark.

Some Asian countries - I think Vietnam has been socialist for a fair few years. Yugoslavia was for 40 years until Tito died, but there were underlying resentments.

Its arguable that Venezuela is more of an authoritarian communist than true socialist - more like the USSR, North Korea and Mao-era China than true socialism.

 

Seems to me that it's your side that are throwing all the tantrums. The will of the people being betrayed and all that. Trouble is you can't decide between yourselves what you want.
There's an easy way out. The EU offer is there. Take it. Except its not what you want.
Again, and I'll keep repeating it, you have no mandate for a no deal brexit. Even less so after your single issue party failed to garner more than 31% of the vote yesterday.
Your leaders have been making empty, almost criminally negligent promises from day one and still can't deliver on them because they were a load of rubbish.
Go find a deal all your lot will be happy with. You promised everyone it was there.

 

These Leave people are getting a bit angsty aren't they. To go all Kevin Keegan for a minute, "I'd love it if article 50 got revoked...love it".

 

Whilst I am for leaving, I'm not going to dispute much of what you have said...apart from the final paragraph, but that's been argued to death on here.
For what it's worth...I seem to be in very much a minority in that I would have signed up to May's deal, although I'm not keen on the one way backstop, when push came to shove I could (probably) live with it.
The backstop itself is very much Leo Varadkar's attempt to appear tough on the Brits...but is a political gamble that runs a great risk, according to the article below in the Irish Independent.

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/...nd-save-our-state-from-crashout-38149002.html
The simple answer to the border question is a Free Trade Agreement as put forward on Question Time by Ireland's EU Commisioner Mairead McGuinness...I'm at a loss to know why May didn't take that as a starting point and build a Withdrawal Agreement round it.

No one on either side though has really explained in depth why May's deal ( for all her apparent incompetence) is a bad deal, to me it seems to offer leaving the political side of the EU but maintaining a reasonably close relationship on many other subjects...and at the end of the day it is purely a withdrawal agreement that gives time to sort out a long term future relationship.
It has fallen foul of a Parliament which many on one side will not vote for anything that entails leaving, and on the other will not vote for anything ( particularly in the ERG's case) unless it involves leaving under the most difficult and uncompromising circumstances.
It seems to me that those on the Labour side who respect the result of the referendum may at the next general election regret not following Caroline Flint and supporting the deal, particularly if we leave with no deal, and on the other side of the coin the ERG contingent may well have thrown away the opportunity to leave at all....and destroyed the Tory Party in doing it.

 

Well reasoned, I’m on the other side but too see a free trade agreement as a very simple way of solving the issue. The problem being I believe it also entails free movement of people as an EU standpoint. Something Teresa’s red lines weren’t having nor the ERG or Nigel’s lot.

 

SB, as usual I respect your views.
I think there was a massive black hole re Northern Ireland in the run up to the referendum. On both sides. It was barely mentioned yet here in Ireland they were non plussed.
The only way to avoid a hard border or making the North separate to the UK in significant ways is free trade and movement.
People have massively underestimated how fragile the Good Friday Agreement is.
I don't understand for a second how anyone could contemplate a return to violence and it irritates me that the threat of it interferes with how the country is run.
Unfortunately though, it does.
Anyway, I'm wandering off.
I could just about swallow Brexit if it included remaining in the customs Union, free movement and a retention of workplace, food protections etc. Unfortunately that's not what a lot of leavers voted for.

 

To be correct, the Allied Forces, of which Britain were a small part, fought and died to stop the onslaught of the Axis powers, including Nazi Germany (and Italy, Japan, etc). Over 40 times as many Russians died as British, 30 times as many Chinese, and 10 times as many Poles and Indians on our side alone.

The Allied forces did not fight the forces of fascism for their grandchildren to embrace it either.

 

May's trumpeting of her red lines was undoubtedly stupid...you may think you have them, but in any negotiation you may have to bend or even break them...telling the world first makes it rather difficult to do that.
Undoubtedly the UK attempt at negotiating has been farcical from moment one...Article 50 explicitly states that the withdrawal deal and the future arrangements take place simultaneously...I would think Barnier must have split his side's laughing when we didn't insist on it, ( I wish he had been negotiating for us tbh) and we've been playing catch up ever since.
Personally speaking the free movement red line could have been sacrificed, a rigid enforcement of the currently available rules would have satisfied me...and opened up a lot of avenues.( I accept others might disagree)....if it came down to Free movement or Customs Union, I would go for FM.

 

And I’d like to see your benefits of remaining...

Facts? You mean forecasts... forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster, they tell you nothing about the future.

 

I disagree ( from what I've read) that the Irish border was considered a major problem in 2016, Enda Kenny was apparently quite relaxed about it, it is Leo Varadkar, when he took over in mid 2017 who has made it an issue...so much of an issue that it may have unwittingly forced the worst outcome for all concerned of no deal.....one from The Irish Mirror below

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/news-opinion/lord-henry-mountcharles-column-taoiseach-13487244

 

Given half a chance, there would have been a better deal. But it is screwed at every turn by “your lot”.

 

I

I’ve seen the movies you forgot the Yanks!!

 

I certainly agree up the free movement bit, our own government could have enforced the current rules far more visibly, I almost wanted to say robustly but that’s not quite where I’m at, they basically needed to make sure everyone knew they were already rules to manage free movement, our own government could and should have managed what leavers wanted to leave the EU for. But then the scare stories start like turkey etc and the ball rolls fast downhill

 

Blair of course decided not to implement the available rules, I would think that a lot of people would not have had an issue if he had, but what is done is done.
As to the Turkey issue, Turkey were on the list for accession (and still are)...in fact the UK Govt under Cameron gave them £100m (if I remember rightly) to hasten Turkish accession...it is only Erdogan's regime that is preventing it...when he's gone it could well be back on the cards, my own view is that if they return to democratic ways I would see no reason not to consider them again.
Just going back to the Free Trade deal that Mairead McGuinness spoke about, that wouldn't have been dependent on free movement more akin to the Canada/EU deal...it wouldn't have satisfied everyone but its infinitely superior to no deal at all....at the very least its a good starting point.

 

And there you have it. I voted leave - and you covered pretty much those things I would want to see. Just add: not wanting to be part of a body that increasingly adopted neo liberal economics; a club that increasingly accepted Members who shouldn’t have been allowed in because they didn’t adhere to Liberal Democratic principles; and an issue that would lead to the end of the UK concept (massive central control from London/ South East) that would ultimately be a good thing for the North of England. Voila.

 

Well I'm reliably told that the problems relating to the border were widely discussed in the media here prior to the referendum SB.
Unsurprisingly because the implications of a hard border are extremely serious here both economically and politically.
One other thing I would say SB is that the Irish border question seems unsolvable at the moment.
You either have a hard border an risk the Good Friday Agreement or treat the north different to the rest of the UK and stir up the loyalists. Varadkar didn't invent either of those problems, they're nothing to do with him or Ireland in general.

 

How has my lot screwed it up?
May went away to get the perfect deal your "lot" promised and couldn't. Now you can't decide between yourselves what you want.
I'll tell you what, I fully agree that it would be wrong to have three options on a second referendum. It would split the leave vote. So how about this. Once you leavers have decided which option to leave you actually DO want come back to us and we'll put that option on a referendum paper against remain.
The thing is you know full well you'd lose.

 

I get what you're saying about the membership of the EU. However, the scare tactics of a country like Turkey being touted as members were just that. Turkey is way off meeting criteria set for membership and getting further away with every undemocratic stroke of Erdogan's pen.
I'm of the opinion that a union led by the major democratic powers of europe is more likely to tame the populism and fascism currently in vogue the further east you go. It's a worrying trend we have to face whether we're in or out of the EU.
Nothing in life is perfect. The EU certainly isn't. We're a long way off it being in our best interests to be out rather than in in my opinion though.

 

I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if this has already been mentioned.

There appears to be the assumption that everyone who wants to leave Europe voted for the Brexit Party and everyone who wants to remain voted for the others.
While you'd have to be double stupid to want to remain in Europe and vote for a political party whose raison d'être is an EU exit I don't think the same can be said of the opposite.
These were elections to vote in a representative to the European Parliament, it wasn't a referendum, or a poll to see where we all stand on the issue. There are many people who believe strongly that we should leave Europe, but wouldn't dream of voting for a political party headed by Nigel Farage, who believe that democracy is much more important than a single policy sound bite party whose only aim is to destroy the institution in which it operates. But given a repeat referendum they'd vote to leave just the same as the first time.
Until a deal is agreed, we're still in the EU, the results of this election will not change our direction in that in any way, so why not vote for someone that will represent us well for the time we do remain. Policies are still being debated and voted upon, policies that affect us for as long as Brexit stalls.

Just for clarity, I firmly believe that we should remain, voted that way and would again.