Brexit round two?

Theres quite a lot of noises being made about what sort of deal we could have, like a Swiss style one, I'm not sure everyne would like the freedom of movement that goes with that deal though.

We are being included in the Made In Europe Scheme provided we stick to EU standards for those items, mostly cars, but I can't see that being a problem, unless some nutter actually want unsafe cars on our roads?

I am trying not to bite on such contentious threads but this one is too close to my heart to remain silent on.

My considered view is that voting for Brexit was an egregious act of economic, security, cultural and social self-harm by the UK. I campaigned and marched against it repeatedly and suspected we would regret it fairly quickly.

Not only has the effectiveness of our domestic politics and our business sector been damaged by it but those who seek to sow division, othering, hatred and violence in our beautiful set of nations have had a field day.

It is breaking my heart to witness this. I am the son of an immigrant woman, and proud to be an internationalist, an antiracist and an ally for other minorities and out-groups.

Geopolitics has moved on disturbingly and more of us have learned painfully who our friends now are not. The US is no longer reliable. It is time for us to reconsider our relationship with our neighbours in Europe in the light of a substantive body of fresh evidence and in the face of multiple hybrid acts of aggression and risks of military conflict.

I would recommend that our Government first continues at pace on its fresh course of helping people's standard of living as it is inequality that lies at the heart of social division, dissent and othering. A healed UK, with incipient fascism starved of oxygen, would prove a more attractive partner for our allies.

That's me out of words now.

You missed out Wales from your assessment, its still a contentious issue here.

I think whether we rejoin the EU in some way or not, Britain as we know will not survive and any attempt to remove autonomy from our assemblies and parliaments will be met with outrage and discontent.

I totally agree with your last paragraph, America has hown its true colours and its not really our friend and I dont' think has been for a very long time, its friendship has always seemed conditional, like we've got to buy weapons for Ukraine from America as part of some deal.

We can only hope the maddness stops with a different president, but I think it will take a long time for people to trust America again

I think it does risk causing further division in this country (England) and equally pulling Scotland away from the UK and also causing more issues in Northern Ireland, which already seem to have the potential to return due to the orange order's adamance on er, walking down a road (funny how I grew up getting called a re**** and yet that's never questioned). On the topic of Scotland I honestly think brexit 2 will be like IndyRef2, as in it's a flight of fancy often discussed yet not actually really thought of seriously by a majority of people. 

That said the UK does really and truly need better relations with Europe, it needs them yesterday. Former "allies" USA and Israel are just as trustworthy as Iran and Russia at this point. 

The EU is definitely an imperfect system, to put it mildly. I'm ½ Italian on my mother's side, and Italy along with most of southern Europe were strong-armed into the Euro when they weren't ready, they're still dealing with the results of that. 

I voted to Remain because despite its flaws I could see that EU membership was a good thing overall. But you're right that that side wasn't put forward as vigorously as the claims that leaving would magically fix all Britain's woes. And we've been living with the result of that ever since…

My cousin left the UK to live in France as he was fed up with all the foreigners coming here and refusing to integrate, but he never tried to integrate in France, you can't make it up!

As I used to travel around diferent parts of the UK it was really noticable how many places were supported by the EU, few in the south of England, but loads in Scotland and here in Wales too. I think a lot of farmers were fed up with EU red tape and wanted something easier to deal with, many changed their tune when they realised all the subsidies they had from the EU weren't going to be replaced or be replaced by something less generous and with more forms to fill in that before. Especially small farmers they've been really walloped.

I don't know why anyone believed Boris Johnson anyway he was a known liar and as for Cameron well words just fail me.

The amount of racism was terrible, my DiL got pushed into a lampost and cut her face and was badly bruised because she hadn't gone "home" the day after Brexit. I really think a lot of people thought they'd wake up back in the 1970's or even 1940's the day after Brexit the way they carried on, a country can't just chuck some clothes in a bag and go and sleep on someones sofa when it gets fed up with a treaty. My reservations about rejoining are about the terms under which we'd rejoin, we won't get the same advantages as we had before, they could well insist that we become part of the Shengen agreement and that we have the Euro, which I'm not so sure about. 

Of coourse Europe itself has changed in the last 10 years and is likely to change more, European governments may decide they want a looser union than now. But I certainly think trade and security would benefit and I'd like to see us rejoin the Erasmus scheme and the joint scientific reaseach projects, I think leaving those caused a reall brain drain and have done us no favours at all.

The whole thing is just obscuring a more important point. I was a reluctant remainer in that I thought the EU sucked but we were better off in that out. However the official remain campaign was an absolute waste of space. I heard plenty of arguments about how great things were going to be when we left but I never heard a single argument about why we should stay. Lets be absurdly generous and say Putin's intervention skewed things by 2% why was the result so close in the first place. But the truth is that David Cameron and pals failed to convince 50~% that staying was better for us and then rather than owning their defeat Cameron walked away and everyone in the remain camp tried to pin the blame on Jeremy Corbyn for their own failure to argue successfully in favour of the EU. Everything else since then has been downhill of that failure. 

Like you, I became very tired of our government seizing up for years when it was nothing but Brexit and really don't want that to happen again, as it destroys the normal governing process and filled the media. I was shaken and devastated when the vote was to leave. However, there's nothing I would welcome more than rejoining the EU.

For years after we left, so many businesses suddenly realised the negative impact it had on their business. You know the sort of thing - "I thought it would mean I would gain business from other parts of the world *as well as* having all my European sales! This will destroy me!". Or the people living permanently in Spain or other European countries who voted for Brexit for the UK and suddenly found it applied to them, and they couldn't continue their British isolationist existence in someone else's country. Or even those in depressed parts of northern England and Wales who thought things couldn't get worse and wanted to stick two fingers up to the government.

I was working in Wales at the time and my job meant I knew how much money went into parts of the country from the EU to help the economy. I remember that some members of the Welsh Assembly were tearing their hair out because they knew all that money was lost. And not just to Wales - every deprived area of England suffered. The PM at the time (Boris) had promised that they would all have even more money after we left - another broken promise.

And don't even get me started on the rise in racism that began on the run up to the vote, let alone afterwards.

Brexit has been the elephant in the room ever since the fall of Boris 'moral vacuum' Johnson. I am happy that Burnham has reopened the issue. It has been a nasty experience since 2016, but perhaps, perhaps, the UK electorate has learned a valuable lesson about the difference between wishful thinking, nostalgia and believing lies, and the hard truths of political and economic reality. 

One thing that's different now is that people are (I hope) more clued up about what Brexit has done to the UK economy. That will make it harder for those opposed to us rejoining the EU in some form, but I've no doubt they'll throw everything they can at either blocking any movement towards closer relations or using the debate to damage the current government and force them out of power. And yes, I expect there will be outside interference and disinformation, though Russia has more pressing problems at the moment closer to home, as does the USA.