Is Brexit A Chance For The People Of Britian To Take Control Of Their Country?

@Tuscan Heres my outsiders take on it, based only on the numbers and trends. First. There will be short term pain for Britain in going. But frankly with the economic and political situation of the EU overall Britain will be better off out of it in the long term. The EU has a series of slow leaks that will require more and more bailing every year and the spirit of compromise that means no hard decisions will be made to fix things.
The ridiculous "deal" the EU offered is just that. Overpriced and overvalued for what Britain gets. It all hinges on the concept that Britain will need the EU and not be able to do anything without it.
I believe once the separation happens individual deals will spring up very quickly and bargain will be had, because Britains consumption will be missed by the EU. In fact I am prepared to bet a lot of those deals already exist at the corporate level, ready to be switch on.
As for the politics. Ireland is not Britains problem. Britain is Irelands problem and they will have to work out a way of handling it to Britains satisfaction or suffer trade difficulties in a number of areas, particularly tourism.
In short. Britain will have a tough run with a hard Brexit. But that still looks like the better option to me.

@Murmurs I agree entirely. There's lots wrong. I think a lot of the perception of the EU comes from two issues. Firstly, the UK press which is largely appalling and has too mhch influence. Secondly, maybe due to our poor language skills, or maybe island mentality, a lot of British people have always had an image of 'Europe' as being some sort of unified group with a common aim against tbe UK. Having lived, worked and travelled extensively throughout Europe I know this isn't true.

@SW-User Europe certainly isn't unified (or have a common aim against the UK, of course; Brexit negotiations notwithstanding, but that's a special case and entirely to be expected!).

Do the institutions of the EU, however, have a common aim for all of Europe? Yes because that's demonstrated in virtually every action.

Do the people of each member state agree with this common aim? Only Britain (with the problems you identify being part of the reason why, for sure), has even asked its citizens.

Don't get me wrong though, Brexit at least as executed is a shambolic fustercluck

@Murmurs I think we can agree on the last point lol.

For openeness I should say that a large part of my job is enforcing EU regulations. I work in the medical devices field and there are new regulations currently being brought in. EU regulations are the ones that apply in all EU countries, so I guess this is an example of the EU controlling our laws. The aim of these is to improve patient safety, but they will have big impact on manufacturers. If UK companies want to sell their products in EU they will have to follow these regulations, regardless of whether the UK is a member. These regulations were largely developed by UK people and organisations. If we developed our own regulations (taking back control) they would be developed by the same people and be largely the same. I know this is a very specific example, but this is what I know. I'm sure there are similar examples in all sorts of areas.

Our government fucks up at times but it's hard for them when they spend most of their time trying to stop awful tory policy from ruining us.

@thatscottishguy Presumably why there are rather more Tory MPs and MSPs than once there were then...

That's nothing to do with Tory policy. That's just constitutional politics. Unionists don't trust Labour to stand firmly against a second referendum so they vote tory. Hardly any of them could tell you Scottish Tory policy. Mainly because Ruth dodges policy questions and just talks about Nicola wanting another referendum. When there is no constitutional issue it is a choice between the SNP and Labour.

@MrMonnyPenny Government needs to be representative of its people and serve them. The EU is too big, too general and too far away to serve Britain.

@patkaren1717

[c=#008099]The future looks all very nice and pretty, but what about right now? What do those people you're referring to, SEE as their future from today's perspective?[/c]

@swirlie 72.2 % of the electorate voted in the EU referendum, narrowly missing the record turnout in general elections, which is 72.3%

@Tuscan

[c=#008099]Excellent! Very happy to hear of such personal commitment from the masses at large![/c]