Fantastic article. Thank you.
I particularly like the explanation of the analogy wrt. treaty vs. merger. A treaty is what is wanted and needed, a merger is what they got. Starting to not blame the Brexiters for what they need to do.
Why Hasn’t Brexit Happened?
11–16 of 16 posts
Re: Why Hasn’t Brexit Happened?
#12> The 1973 vote to enter the EEC was the first the United Kingdom ever had. Nope. The first referendum was in 1975, after we had joined in 1973. It was about if we should remain, or leave; not about if we should join.
He mentions that right above though
> The Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath brought the United Kingdom into the European Economic Community (EEC)in 1973, and voters ratified the decision in a referendum two years later.
I think it's just a typo, and he meant 1975
Re: Why Hasn’t Brexit Happened?
#13Fantastic article. Thank you. I particularly like the explanation of the analogy wrt. treaty vs. merger. A treaty is what is wanted and needed, a merger is what they got. Starting to not blame the Brexiters for what they need to do.
The stuff on Northern Ireland is incredibly biased and inaccurate.
Re: Why Hasn’t Brexit Happened?
#14> And while such borders might present new challenges after Brexit, there were proven solutions: non-E.U. Switzerland, for example, keeps its borders, travel, and trade open with four major E.U. countries. These problems only became “insoluble” when E.U. diplomats discovered they might be used to tangle up the Brexit negotiations.
Complete nonsense, just like the rest of the article. Switzerland (and Norway) are both Schengen countries, and even so, the borders are hardly "open". More importantly, the shape of the border is completely incomparable to that between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The Irish border is the only blocking issue, all else heard from brexiteers is just misdirection.
Re: Why Hasn’t Brexit Happened?
#15Brexit is a word that seems to have many meanings. Brexit to Brexiteers means a clean break. Brexit to remainers (remoaners?) means the end of a trade regime that Britain was doing fairly well out of despite the large dues. After Brexit, whenever or if ever it happens, Britain will have to sit down with Europe to negotiate trade deals. This is not mentioned by Brexiteers. The complication of the Anglo-Irish Agreement…
Brexit to some Brexiteers means what they rather fancifully believe is the 'clean break' of no-deal. To some other Brexiteers, Brexit means continued membership of the customs union, but not the single market. No doubt that there are numerous other configurations of Brexit that various people thought they were voting for, including staying in the single market.
These different Brexits would result in very different futures for the UK, and yet they were all aggregated into one vote, 'Leave'.
There has yet to be any evidence that there is greater support from the public for any particular Brexit than there is to remain.
Re: Why Hasn’t Brexit Happened?
#16"The final negotiated Withdrawal Agreement that May unveiled to Parliament last November caused the whole country, Brexiteers and Remainers alike, to gasp in horror. May’s team had been sent away to declare British independence and had returned with a document of surrender. The agreement not only contained (as expected) a £39 billion ($50 billion) “divorce” fee, but also left E.U. courts free to top that fee up. It l…
"Brexit was not an “outburst” or a cry of despair or a message to the European Commission. It was an eviction notice. It was an explicit withdrawal of the legal sanction under which Brussels had governed Europe’s most important country. If it is really Britain’s wish to see its old constitutional arrangements restored, then this notice is open to emendation and reconsideration. But as things stand now, the Leave vote…
Repudiating the deal that was made with the EU makes it impossible to negotiate a better one. The first rule of negotiating anything is that you have to establish trust that you are willing and able to fulfill what you agree to. It's not a rule that is imposed by the other party, but by logic, which means there is nothing that the EU can concede that would help.