Is a Gerneral Election the only way to break the Brexit gridlock?

@Scribbles Why do think a no deal exit would be entirely disastrous? Many people say it would, but few explain why they think that, except to say that trade would have to be under WTO rules with no privileged access to or from the EU. That would be a disadvantage in the short term but not, in my opinion, in the medium term, and certainly not a disaster.

No offense but that sounds like elitist Monday morning quarterbacking. @Scribbles

There is also some Northern Ireland border issue. However that can be negotiated on its own and is simply being used as an EXCUSE not a reason. @MartinII

@jackjjackson Sorry, but what does elitist monday morning quarterbacking mean?

Maybe. But I tend to think People in general will take an excuse and run a 100 miles on it-as the saying goes. Look at what people have used excuses for over here in America to accomplish. I think the Ireland situation is even more touchy and more likely to incite violence. Some People still run on old fears and those fears are still relatively recent fears. I don't blame them for being concerned. Change of any sort but especially uncertain change and temporary measures wit no further solution freaks people out. I have heard that there are few different ideas floating around to solve the Ireland border issue and other border issues, not to mention immigration control, and customs, but I haven't found any news in which people seem to really favor one or the other that doesn't either screw themselves, or screws the EU, which wouldn't be beneficial to try to do long term. idk

Anyway that's just one issue out of many.

@MartinII I'm not an expert on brexit, so feel free to debate with me, or give me any info I may have missed that you've heard...

From what I've been able to find out, staying with the EU may be bad, but brexit looks worse right now. Perhaps brexit won't be worse in the longterm like 20 years or more down the road but that seems almost fatally optimistic to me when there are few to no plans in place to insure things like true economic success. The reality is that a no-deal would rip up 45-50 years of legal arrangements with the continent, right? Britain would have set the precedent of refusing to pay for exiting, etc as well. Even if the reasoning is that they didn't want a bad deal after paying the exit price. The idea that Britain can prosper and make a "clean" break by screwing its biggest allies and then the EU trying to screw'em back seems really really foolish and would ruin Britain's credibility, and everyone's economy right?
Seems like an irresponsible way to treat your own country, your allies and your own people.

In a No-deal, The UK will be stuck either on their own, or spending alot of time negotiating, right? This means suffering chaos and expensive and stressful temporary measures for who knows how long until it gets bad enough that people will take whatever deal is available or they get "used to it" or politicians stop squabbling. What if all that ends up worse then Theresa May's deal ? of course...what if it's better, right? Sorry, but I'm also HUGE skeptic when it seems like the majority of politicians in a country are waiting for what amounts to a national emergency (a no-deal brexit qualifies I think) and then afterwards try to handle the situation. Even Theresa May seems to be doing that now after her deal was voted out. Such behavior is irresponsible, powergrubby, and hard on the people, and stressful on their own country and the EU, expensive, etc, They predict alot of businesses withering, etc, etc, etc. There are stories of politicians and others stockpiling fridges to store medicine for UK citizens and deal with medical regulation, and other emergency like measures. If they expect a disaster and prepare like its going to be a disaster....well...its probably going to be a disaster for little while. Why approve of such a disaster if you can try to prevent it in tue first place and leave with some kind of new deal? idk.

Trade is a big deal I imagine. Operating under WTO trade rules probably means big economic losses for the UK and EU for at least a decade. Perhaps other trade agreements can be made as well but that takes time. In a decade, alot can happen to a country. Hoping for Gold out of a dead goose-aka (a no deal) just doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand why some feel a no-deal brexit has amazing benefits. If you see huge benefits to it, please explain it to me. If you think I'm just talking crap, please educate me. I'm willing to change my mind if facts support that change. Like I said...I'm no expert. I only read up on brexit once a month maybe.

Bottom line is: I'm skeptic that if the UK couldn't navigate a brexit deal successfully, why should anyone think they can navigate a no-deal any better?

@Scribbles Many thanks for your response. A few quick points in reply.

I think your argument places too much emphasis on the need for legal frameworks governing relations between different countries. Of course there is such a framework for trade relations - the WTO - and plenty of countries get on fine without anything else. Tighter frameworks, such as the EU, have pros and cons.

The idea that we would be ripping up 45-50 years of legal arrangements is an over-simplification. The arrangements have been changing constantly since the ECSC and the EEC were formed in the 1950s and since the UK joined in 1973, and will continue to change. The EU itself has only existed for 17 years. And no deal wouldn’t mean no new arrangements. It would just mean that they would have to be agreed after we had left rather than before.

I think the UK’s approach to the negotiations has been incompetent, the EU’s disgraceful. They have tried, successfully, to screw us, we just want out on reasonable terms.

Whether no deal is better or worse than May’s deal is debatable. I don’t think either would be a disaster.

@MartinII Thanks for your reply. You made some points that I need to think about/learn more about. I hope you are right that neither would be a disaster...because brexit is coming.

The politicians have had plenty of time. @MartinII @Scribbles

@jackjjackson And have nothing much to show for it, thus the problem.

I wonder if you'd approve of the same thing you are saying when applied to Trump. "Too bad, you had plenty of time..you didn't get funding for your wall twice...move along now"...

Do you still think a "Time's up" is great advice?
Or perhaps do you think It's never too late- at least when its something you care about?

I think anybody who cares won't back down because "time is up"
I think the wall is a crappy idea, but its obvious many people care deeply about getting a wall. I will disagree with them and fight against it, but I would try not to crap on their right to fight as long as they want regarding their own side of it regardless of if I personally want time to be up or not

Back to Brexit....the UK still has time. Looks like they are delaying brexit. So there it is. They have some more time.

Unless the politicians change their philosophies time won’t help them. Re the President and the border, you do know thst nrcessary parts of barriers have never stopped being built right? The British people voted to achieve a certain result regarding a foreign entity. The American people voted to support a policy yo enforce existing border laws to protect Americans. Apples and Oranges.

@Scribbles There's quite a lot that you've said here which isn't wholly accurate and needs a little clarification. I'll try to keep it simple and brief.

[i]"it was a mistake for the uk to vote remain or leave without a plan already in place"[/i]

In essence, nobody has left the EU before* which means that it is almost impossible to plan for leaving the EU until you actually start to do it. Nobody knows how the EU will react. Nobody knows what sort of future relationship, with the EU, the leaving nation may or may not want.

And then human nature comes into play where people underestimate the opposition and are overly optimistic about an outcome.

David Cameron, the Remain campaign and the general population as whole didn't expect the Leave campaign to be so visceral and to target peoples fears and weaknesses so much. I don't recall anything like it in British politics before.

So yeah, the government didn't prepare a plan should the result be to leave. Because:
a) it was impossible to plan for something so full of unknowns.
b) very few of us expected a Leave result. And even fewer Parliamentarians expected a Leave result.

*three countries have in fact left the EU before. Two of them (French Algeria and Saint Barthélemy) became Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union. In other words, they are still in the EU. Sort of. The third was Greenland in 1985. The EU was very different back then and nowhere near as complex or as far reaching.

[i]"Because Theresa May's deal didn't go over well"[/i]

Strictly speaking, it's not Theresa May's deal. The EU drafted the Withdrawal Agreement and Theresa May sought to negotiate changes etc to what they had drafted. After a lot of backwards and forwards, after a lot of squabbles within our Parliament, the EU said, "That's it. That's all you're going to get. There is no other deal to be had."

That's when the shitshow really started.

[i]"Much info is how many brits are now completely regretting their vote now"[/i]

Actually, the polls have consistently shown that Brexit would be voted for again. In fact, many who voted for Brexit have become even more entrenched in their views. This is partly because, in their eyes, all of the warnings about economic collapse etc have not come to pass. What they fail to realise is that we haven't left the EU yet. So, if those warnings are accurate, they are still to happen. Also, all of the talk of a second referendum has resulted in making those who voted for Brexit feel betrayed.

They voted for something and won. Now the losers want to take that win from them by making them vote again. Personally, I think that a second referendum would result in a much higher vote to leave than the 52% result of the first time around.

[i]"break the gridlock is for your government to decide to go against the vote and commit political suicide and say they have to remain in the EU until there can be some kind of majority vote on a deal that is acceptable to the people."[/i]

Strictly speaking, that's not legally possible. In March 2017 the government triggered Article 50. In order for them to do this, a Bill went through Parliament. It was agreed by both Houses and passed into law. The EU accepted our triggering of Article 50 which means that it basically became legally binding in the EU. Ergo, we cannot cancel Brexit without pushing through new legislation. Something which is far from certain given the fractures within Parliament. Also, the EU has to be willing for us to cancel Brexit. That would be more do'able.

So why did we trigger Article 50? Because we couldn't begin negotiations with the EU until Article 50 was triggered. Until that point, all we had was a referendum result which could be adopted or dropped or messed about with in all manner of ways. Triggering Article 50 made that shit real.

[i]"Britain would have set the precedent of refusing to pay for exiting, etc as well."[/i]

Nope. That hasn't happened. The UK accepts that it has to pay a divorce bill. The argument is about (as is always the case) how much and what we get for our cash. In many ways, we want to pay a divorce bill because that is one way to guarantee access to all manner of projects which have nothing to do with trade. Projects such as the EU version of GPS and projects for military weapons and other types of military equipment such as vehicles etc.

[i]"In a No-deal, The UK will be stuck either on their own, or spending alot of time negotiating, right?"[/i]

erm.......ish. What people don't seem to understand is that the so-called "Theresa May Deal" is simply a withdrawal agreement ie it's what it says on the tin. If and when it is adopted, we still have to negotiate all of the trade deals and all the other technical stuff with the EU. The current wisdom is that that would take at least a further two years. In fact, if I remember correctly, two years is specified in the withdrawal agreement as a minimum.

So, bottom line, we're going to spending a lot of time negotiating whatever happens.

Jeez.....I've just seen how much I've typed and there's still stuff that I would like to say.




OK, I'll stop boring you and anybody else who has been masochistic enough to read all of this 😁

@room101 Good stuff.

@MartinII Thank you 👍

That’s a very good and accurate analysis. Very fairly stated as well. @room101

@jackjjackson I meant it as a hypothetical example, not as an example of reality. ;p

I'm aware of Trump's veto, and collecting of funds, and his latest rally slogan "Finish the Wall" Isn't that proof that Trump and many republicans never gave up that they care? And isn't the fact that no NEW border wall has been constructed yet due to lawsuits, etc proof that democrats don't believe it's "time's up" yet either...even if it's likely that the Supreme court will rule in favor of Trump. To my knowledge, the only border wall that has gone up is replacements of the old barriers.

@room101 Pretty sure I asked for info ;p
Thank you for replying with such specific answers/clarifications...like Martin, you make some very good points that I need to think about and learn more about. Obviously I haven't been getting an accurate view of things from the media here about Brexit.

@Scribbles Remember the good old days of EP and the many discussions that our little group of friends had on the EU?

It's a topic that has interested me for a very long time, long before our referendum. And, it's an issue that I've been more than a little sceptical about for many, many years. Having said that, I voted Remain.

Anyway, feel free to ask me any specific questions and I'll do my best to give you unbiased and clear answers.

🙂

You seem to have missed the fact that border barrier construction is going on as we write and has never stopped. @Scribbles

Do you think Brexit will really happen during our lifetimes? @room101 [@burnley]

@jackjjackson Are we splitting hairs over this? lol

Fine, Perhaps you are right, I just haven't seen any news reports about it yet. 🤷‍♀️

😀 @Scribbles