They got it right here in Wales
MedEwok wrote:
There is no economic war between the EU and the UK.
Not yet. But the EU’s idea of what the UK should pay as severance compensation is very similar to the ideas of the Versailles contracts after WW1 and you certainly remember what that ultimately caused. There is talk of 60 billion Euros that the EU is demanding. If you remember what the arguments pro Bexit were, one of the most prominent ones was to spend the money spent on the EU domestically. Severance pay of this magnitude is simply silly and it is, in my view, a clear sign of the EU not only towards Britain but certainly towards it’s other wayward states that if they want to leave, it will ruin their economy.
The question is what will happen if the UK pais up. IMHO the “Leave” camp will go berserk and rightly so. They are waging a war of liberation and will not look kindly on sums like this being given to an organisation whom they consider to be an opressor. The big question would be what the UK gets in return and if that is what the Brexiteers want. Whether they want continuation of trade and customs union is very doubtful, because that is what many regard as one of main reasons they wanted to leave.
If the UK does not pay up it will be a hard brexit without agreement most likely, which means each side will make up its own interpretation of how to deal with the other. For the EU it would be a disaster, because it would show to their wayward memberstates that yes, you can leave the EU without being fleeced. In that event, the EU would have to retaliate massively to maintain the threat against their own members. Most likely this would indeed happen via a blockade policy and therefore economic war. In which case Britain would have to find their trade partners outside of the EU, with the US already being the largest one. Economically, both have a lot of bullets in their guns and can inflict massive damage to each other, but if e.g. the EU decides on punitive import and export duties for trade with Britain, it may well mean that Britain will retaliate and make EU manufactured and produced goods sufficiently expensive that nobody will be able to buy them in the UK, e.t.c. Which, of course, would mean Britain would have to get it’s own industries up to speed in order to meet demand and that instead of EU produce they will buy US or Russian and from their own Commonwealth e.tc which again is in part what the Brexiteers have demanded. There are other things like Airlines access to the EU market e.t.c. right now, British airlines can fly freely between any EU memberstate, which will most definitly change. If the EU starts to exercise pressure there, Britain might introduce punitive overflight charges on EU carriers and vice versa.
Then there is the question of British Expats in the EU and EU Expats in Britain. Their right to stay will evaporate with a hard Brexit. But it is naive to think that the EU would tolerate 3 million EU citizens being expelled or loosing their right of work e.t.c. without retaliation. Again, this is something the voting public demanded. Any settlement which would allow all the EU immigration and settlement to continue, will not be acceptable to them.
So my personal bet is on a very hard brexit with a war of secession of sorts (not a bullet flying war but probably economical and social). There were not many unilateral secessions without one and I doubt that the UK will get away without a fight. There is way too much at stake for the EU as if the Brits leave and become a success story, then there will be quite a few other countries which will not walk, but RUN.
Peter wrote:
It is a long way from reality in the UK.
I am sitting in Wales right now :)
Let’s say it is a long way from what those who advocated exit promised and what the citizens who gave them their vote now expect!
Particularly in Wales but also in other places people expect to get their industries back which they felt were killed off by the EU, people all over will want to see the monies spent to the EU now being spent domestically (NHS comes to mind and others), people all over will want to see a stop of immigration of EU citizens into Britain and quite a few would wish for those there to be expelled too. All of those who said yes to Brexit will DEMAND that order taking from Brussels will stop totally.
None of the above mentioned folks will accept if Britain has to pay tens or hundreds of Billions severance pay, none will accept a trade contract which will continue present practice particularly regarding immigration, none of them will accept if all EU citizens presently there will be given unconditional residence status beyond Brexit and there will be the demand for heads rolling if the promises of monies spent domestically instead of to the EU and elsewhere will not materialize.
Heaven knows what will happen when some folks find out that quite some of the Brexiteers have been telling fairytales on what really caused some of the misgivings which past governments have blamed on the EU when they only had themselfs to blame? “Behold the head of a traitor!”? I would not be surprised. The way that exit campaign has been fought, some folks should be very worried indeed and might well find out the hard way what it means to deceive a voting public.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Heaven knows what will happen when some folks find out that quite some of the Brexiteers have been telling fairytales on what really caused some of the misgivings which past governments have blamed on the EU when they only had themselfs to blame? “Behold the head of a traitor!”? I would not be surprised. The way that exit campaign has been fought, some folks should be very worried indeed and might well find out the hard way what it means to deceive a voting public.
If we forget the rest of the bull this is probably the nub of the problem. And to think the EU will let the UK go without fulfilling current fiscal obligations is jus daydreaming.
Peter_Mundy wrote:
And to think the EU will let the UK go without fulfilling current fiscal obligations is jus daydreaming.
The alternative of which will be?
Keep it polite. Usual rules apply.
The alternative of which will be?
I don’t follow. The alternative will be that we pay the cost of our fiscal obligations on the day of the Brexit vote.
I never really understand why some Brexiteers feel the U.K. can legally just walk off into the sunset, without any obligation.
It’s quite a novel idea. If you were in a business partnership, and decided to leave, would you expect to just walk away, when colossal financial commitments that you’d agreed previously became due after you left? Would you not be surprised if the other partners didn’t come looking for your contribution?
This is a little old, but…
Fenland_Flyer wrote:
I think sir you do a great disservice to the people of this amazing country with your view. We are not sheep and we do have the power of independant thought
I am not so sure the great unwashed masses do have the power of independent thought. Quite the opposite. The Brexit lies and the Trump election do demonstrate that the electorate can be totally manipulated.
Here is an example for you at 1:23 of this video.
Aviathor wrote:
I think sir you do a great disservice to the people of this amazing country with your view. We are not sheep and we do have the power of independant thought
I lifted this from the above but it was Fenland that stated it. Sorry but we are a nation of total sheeple and the masses actually do not have any independent thought. It is a major reason that the UK finds itself in this mess. Tescopoly where the masses trundle down to the megastore to fill up on processed junk, sold as nutritious protien. You can tell them it is horsemeat, you can tell them that it will kill them years earlier due to cancer, you can tell them that sugar is bad, you can tell them that the chicken has 3% protein content, the rest artificial meat goo made from ethanol, but do they stop? No. Like Brexit, fed lies about the true state of affairs but the politicians knew that they, the masses, do not care. Confuse them even more and they will gladly walk right over the cliff edge. This is Brexit. I watched in awe this week as Europe threatened that time was running out, and I paused. Actually T. May, a remainer, does not know what to do. The poor woman is now in such a mess, dammed if she does, dammed if she does not, that the promised white paper will probably contain a giant question mark. About 18 months ago in a thread on here about the Brexit vote I actually questioned, would it happen? Got a couple of negative shouts from certain quarters and told of course it will. We are already in the financial wilderness, how far we walk into it we will find out very soon.
Yea Beech… I reckon you got the situation pretty much figured out…
For the record, I never thought much of the actual idea of the UK leaving the EU, primarily because often enough the UK was the voice of reason in the jungle there. For once I thought it would have been better for Europe if they stayed on board… I am not clear on what it will mean for the UK itself, as this is unproven territory but as you probably figured out, I am concerned.
Whereas your assessment of the UK people is concerned, I am not so sure whether that is adequate. Quite a lot of other populations have fallen for demagogues and liers in the past, I don’t need to list them. And it’s ongoing. Primarily, I think you can not expect a population to take an educated decision if they have been kept out of the political process for far too long. That goes for most of the European republics btw. You can’t TREAT them as sheeple for decades regardless what they are and then expect that they will see through this unparallelled campaign. There were enough valid reasons to campaign for Brexit, instead the pro campaign lied and told rubbish which will come back to haunt them, only where will they be then?
BeechBaby wrote:
You can tell them it is horsemeat, you can tell them that it will kill them years earlier due to cancer, you can tell them that sugar is bad, you can tell them that the chicken has 3% protein content, the rest artificial meat goo made from ethanol, but do they stop? No
That I think is a different problem.
People usually resent being treated as being unable to think for themselfs. And people do get bombarded by scientists and lobbyists telling them what is bad for them. If you note it all down and add up, it is so much that in the end leading a normal life is rocket science in their views. There are so many warning sings, conflicting sensational “findings” about what is gonna kill you next that people at some point simply stop listening. That has nothing to do with sheeple but with “information” overload. The normal next door guy can’t simply absorb it all and figure out whether it is this weeks thing about eggs or last weeks blurb about beef poisoned and so on. Add to that that most of the “latest cures” get revoked and disproven a few months later and the opposite is “true”, not even doctors sometimes can make head or toe out of it.
Add to it the constant bitching about how “dangerous” life is. Don’t drive on motorcycles, wear a helmet every time you walk out of the house, everywhere warning signs and doom messages, don’t we see them in aviation as well? I wonder how our generation who grew up in the 1960-70ties ever survived…
I think many people will eventually get the gist of those things and then start thinking for themselfs what of all this they want to do and what not. Smokers are way down, many people are at least concious of what they eat and decide if they are willing to take the risk or not. But a lot of people also are simply sick and tired of being told how to live as if they were still living at home with mummy who forbids them all the “intersting” stuff.
