Look at India.
Look at India's growth.
Look at our "growth".
And then think of who has the manpower.
I know who out of those has the advantage.
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Look at India.
Look at India's growth.
Look at our "growth".
And then think of who has the manpower.
I know who out of those has the advantage.
I agree 100% that the UK will be completely unprepared for Brexit and that the process of leaving the EU will be a shambles but I don't think it will carry much political risk for Theresa May herself.
Any problems with the process can be blamed on some combination of Johnson, Fox and Davis and any problem with the result can be blamed on the intransigence of the EU (and not the UK's failure to negotiate well) and any trade deal outside the EU - no matter how bad - will be paraded as a huge victory.
The Labour Party's ambivalent attitude towards the EU means that it cannot be a "pro-EU" opposition, the Lib Dems are likely to be damaged from the coalition for a few years yet, the SNP will continue to sweep Scotland but are a regional party - the Conservatives are IMO certain to be the largest party in the event of an out-out-out decision because they will sweep up a lot of UKIP supporters.
In the event of an out-out-out Brexit, IMO Theresa May will emerge from the subsequent election in a strong position with a fractured opposition and a largely united Conservative Party.
Mind you, I have serious doubts that Brexit will be complete by 2020, in which case May might have to face an election with negotiations up in the air and her party in a state of turmoil.
At which point one can ask a very reasonable question - why the hell did she put them in charge in the first place? Why didn't she replace them when it was clear they're incompetent?
It's not all that easy explaining why the utter failure of the biggest political project of a generation (at least) is a failure of the people you put in charge of the transition and not your failure, so you deserve no blame. Politicians will try to pass it as such, no doubt, but ... I wouldn't count on it being a particularly great strategy.
This is assuming lib-dems don't realize that if they adopt a pro-EU stance, they have half of electorate up for grabs. This is hardly irrelevant, the referendum was a very narrow victory for the leavers as it was, and such by two factors: high participation of old voters (who tend to die) and low participation by young voters (who tend to sober up). By adopting a pro-EU stance, the lib-dems have a shot at grabbing the Parliament. Another upside for them is that the post-referendum behavior of Brexitards probably put off many who bought their BS. One poll from a couple of months ago showed 7% would change their vote, making a pro-EU stance something that could reasonably win the Parliament by itself. This is before we consider what May is doing is the best way of putting UK in as bad a situation as possible.
They have a few years to figure it out. Relying on a strategy that is sure to be bad for the country and that also hinges on your opposition remaining weak, divided and incompetent in the face of your own incompetence and weakness isn't your typical recipe for success.
McHrozni
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abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
A better measure. UK is 9th India is 3rd by a long stretch.
If May is really an out-out-out Brexitard it is absolutely necessary for the Brexit to be finished before the next British general election, or at least that the whole process is well underway and looking very good for UK. The latter part faces two ... the usual phrase is headwind, but I think headtsunami is more appropriate here ... first that her team in charge of Brexit is made of incompetent baboons, and the second is that the EU can't afford Brexit to be particularly great for UK. I suppose I could add a third headtsunami: the EU team of handling Brexit will be composed of skilled experts.
So yeah. Either Brexit is complete by 2020, or Theresa needs to start looking for alternatives to being gibbeted. Maybe Putler would take her in as a refugee?
McHrozni
Airfix
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She can't ignore it, her declarations have made it binding.
Not an "end" to EU immigration "control" that was what they advocated.
They argued for the sort of points based system used by countries including Canada Australia and the USA.
The costly monthly moves between Brussels and Strasbourg, the block grant system for MEPs expenses that is wide open to fraud, the growing EU military programme, the massive advertising budget larger than that of Coca Cola, the lavish art collection, the lavish half empty buildings, the 10m Euro visitors centre in Brussels, the CAP the CFP and the EU's bungling in the refugee crisis and the excellent arguments from Daniel Hannan were also factors.
Which you correctly identify that she can't do.
She's not doing "nothing", she's putting a team of negotiators together and having David Davis draw up a plan.
There's no point blundering into negotiations without a plan, that really would shoot the country in the foot.
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I have always had difficulty accepting this thesis, and a recent event convinces me that it is false. Sky News.
An extension of grammar schools looks to be her first big policy announcement as PM, and while she will pitch it as extending more opportunity to more children, there is a healthy dose of political calculation in her enthusiasm for their reintroduction.
May is evidently at ease with extremely reactionary policies. She likes them, and she is in sympathy with the minds who propose them. She wants Brexit to succeed, and she wants its supporters to vote for her in 2020: she is now offering them "good" schools, where they will secure selective education for their childrenIf she is making a mess of Brexit, it's not because she wants it to fail, but because it is intrinsically intractable, and may well fail of its own accord despite May's best efforts to make it succeed.
Airfix
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Three months is nothing. Decades of Britain's future are to be decided.
Recruitment has had to take place, strategy drawn up (as David Cameron's administration had forbidden the civil service from coming up with written plans for Brexit pre referendum as he feared that he'd have to publish the plan and it would influence the referendum).
Recruitment has had to take place, strategy drawn up (as David Cameron's administration had forbidden the civil service from coming up with written plans for Brexit pre referendum as he feared that he'd have to publish the plan and it would influence the referendum).
ddt
Mafia Penguin
Yes, those were the two speeches I intended to link to. No idea what went wrong; thanks for putting up the right links!
Yeah. And they will be decided within the next 18 months.
Unless you consider the period of 1642-1651 to be the heyday of Britannia, when the country was at it best ever, I have bad news for you.
McHrozni
He does seem to be ignoring India in his "let's go back to the 70s" drive...
Lothian
should be banned
What plan could civil servants draw up without knowing what relationship with Europe Uk Politicians want?
Take VAT, if the UK is to part of the single market there is very little that realistically can be down with VAT. Part of the single market is the prevention of non or double taxation and fairness of completion between member states so we would be fairly limited in what we could do and there would be little change.
If we are not to be part of the single market, something Nigel Farage, who brought a large number of votes to the party, wants, we coan do what we wanted with VAT, including abolishing it.
While it is easy to slag off the government for not being fully prepared to leave the EU the day after the vote it is not that simple. We first need to work out what we want to be part of and what we don't. Only at that point can the civil service can start planning changes.
The idea that the civil service has the resources to prepare multiple options papers is not one anyone, who has followed the contraction of the public sector over the last few years, takes seriously.
Archie Gemmill Goal
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I'm going to make an attempt at keeping you on track and not jumping off to another topic so here goes
She can ignore if she wants to. It might be the best thing for the country to do that. However I would agree it seems unlikely from her statements
'Control' has an always been a euphemism for 'significantly less'. It's not as if they wanted more immigrants to come in, was it? A points based immigration system was a nonsense talking point from a few of the campaign to camouflage the real message which was clear to the hoardes.
AND IN ANY CASE (this is where we stay on track) you cannot have a points based immigration system or any kind of 'control' on the free movement of people and be in the EEA. So if you want to join the EEA you have to completely change the rules of that organisation or accept that this is against what the people voted for - just like not leaving would be.
The details are irrelevant. The point is that the per capita contributions of EEA members to the EU coffers are pretty much equivalent to being in the EU. So if the reason for voting leave is to reduce the money paid to Europe then again joining the EEA would be against what the people voted for.
So we can't join the EEA either then? Or do we just ignore the people when it suits and we can wiggle out of it?
Having David Davis drawing up a plan may, in fact, be worse than nothing. But a plan is just words. A definition of what she means when she keeps repeating Brexit means Brexit might be a good start.
She can ignore if she wants to. It might be the best thing for the country to do that. However I would agree it seems unlikely from her statements
'Control' has an always been a euphemism for 'significantly less'. It's not as if they wanted more immigrants to come in, was it? A points based immigration system was a nonsense talking point from a few of the campaign to camouflage the real message which was clear to the hoardes.
AND IN ANY CASE (this is where we stay on track) you cannot have a points based immigration system or any kind of 'control' on the free movement of people and be in the EEA. So if you want to join the EEA you have to completely change the rules of that organisation or accept that this is against what the people voted for - just like not leaving would be.
The details are irrelevant. The point is that the per capita contributions of EEA members to the EU coffers are pretty much equivalent to being in the EU. So if the reason for voting leave is to reduce the money paid to Europe then again joining the EEA would be against what the people voted for.
So we can't join the EEA either then? Or do we just ignore the people when it suits and we can wiggle out of it?
Having David Davis drawing up a plan may, in fact, be worse than nothing. But a plan is just words. A definition of what she means when she keeps repeating Brexit means Brexit might be a good start.
Airfix
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I have already stated that I did not vote leave because of the official "Vote Leave" campaign.
But as you said "end EU immigration" I pointed out that that was not the policy the official "Vote Leave" or the UK Independence Party had advocated.
Now as for what is next, there are three options.
WTO MFN rules.
Free trade agreement.
EEA Agreement.
Theresa May seems to have ruled out the EEA agreement.
But as you said "end EU immigration" I pointed out that that was not the policy the official "Vote Leave" or the UK Independence Party had advocated.
Now as for what is next, there are three options.
WTO MFN rules.
Free trade agreement.
EEA Agreement.
Theresa May seems to have ruled out the EEA agreement.
Are you just talking about the relationship with the EU or relationships worldwide ?
Even if you're only talking about the EU relationship there are more than those options and each of those options have many, many versions.
We could end up with a trade agreement where, although we do not have free trade, we have trade on much better terms than the baseline. Of course anything less than a full EEA Agreement would be painful for the UK economy (especially the services sector which currently has a large trade surplus with Europe - the EU will want to address that).
Not in the least.
Archie Gemmill Goal
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You are only one of the voters though. Your opinion is quite probably not reflective of the majority
Close to it. But in any case their immigration policy (whichever one of us is right) is at odds with joining the EEA. So we agree that joining the EEA is not in line with the vote.
If you include the EEA option you should include the 'stay in the EU option' for completeness.
Her party seem to be ruling out just about every option depending on what parts of what particular people say you want to listen to.
Airfix
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In your opinion.
However, Iain Mansfield has other ideas and he's a diplomat.
https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Brexit Entry 170_final_bio_web.pdf
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