This thread sucks it's too much to follow.
As Monty said, Brexit means leaving the European institutions that comprise the EU. Pro-remain politicians (which is most of them) and pro-remain media (which is most of it) are muddying the water by pretending that it might mean something else (fakebrexit, basically), which encourages others to follow their lead.
As to the difficulties and complexities of this, well yes, it is both of those things but then radical political change like revolution and extraction from supranational entities is never easy. The difficulty of a task should not preclude the option of persuing it even if it is a challenging obstacle. Indeed, the 'technical' argument against attempting it which you are making is cut from the very cloth of the unassailable EU technocracy, where government is seen as a machine that humble voters can never attempt to understand, and can only be operated by the high priests of the machinery who should not be accountable to the odious masses (which the current, left-of-centre ruling class despise as much as their right-wing predecessors).
Welcome to the machine!
I have been suggesting things in detailed conversations here with many people for the last year and a half. Which is why I get exasperated when I feel I am being asked to start from the very beginning when confronted with statements like:
Are you saying that no leaver has come up with any advantages of being independent from the EU? Or is it that there is no path to achieve those benefits?No leaver has actually come up with a path that actually leads to leaving being of genuine benefit.
If it is the latter, then for a start see my reply to Peter about the technical challenges, to which I would add that if the difficulty of that path is partly seen as the reluctance of the EU and/or some of its constituents elements to give us a fair deal then that only reinforces the critique of the institition in the first place. Put bluntly, if they are being cùnts then that is why we wanted to leave in the first place.
Ultimately we put more money into the EU than we get out, and we buy more stuff from it than we sell. If those countries who we are subsidising, while our own people go short of services we cannot afford, want to play hardball, then ultimately they will have to seek their free monies from elsewhere while Britain can continue to trade with the EU like every other country under WTO rules. Is China in the EU? Nope.
The worst possible path is the 'soft' (fake) brexit that sees Britain still paying in about the same amount, still have no control over its borders and laws and courts, but has no say in the EU either.
I'm just thoroughly sick of the 'it's too complicated' argument (which is pathetic); the 'It was too binary'/'Leavers didn't know what they were voting for' (which is disingenuous - they were voting to Leave the EU because they don't like it - everything else is just detail).
The fact is that, in 40 years of membership, the political class has utterly failed to convince the wider British public of the merits of EU membership - as evidenced by the fact that those who voted In in 1975 overwhelmingly voted Leave in 2016.
Ultimately, if you take away the minority of us with specific ideological reasons for voting either way, the split actually came down to a very simple dichotomy between those who feel they have benefited from the EU and those who feel they both have not and have actually suffered as a result of membership.
That's it. Nothing more complex than that. The ascribing of base motives to either side is both incorrect and unhelpful.
Why does it not make sense to be an independent country outside of a supranational entity? National sovereignty has been the standard unit of geopolitical organisation for hundreds of years. Self-determination was considered the key element of post-imperial Europe after WW1 and more globally after WW2 when Britain's own empire was disbanded, along with others.
Was the concept of self-rule for Ireland merely the 'rejection of an idea' or was it the rejection of a specific supranational entity - the British Empire? Likewise, the rejection of the EU is not the rejection of an 'idea' of Europe, but an actual powerful political contruct. There was probably far less confusion in the minds of thise who voted to leave than of those who are desperately trying to avoid leaving while making it look as if they are.
As for the concerted campaign by pretty much the entire ruling class to persuade voters that the sky would fall on our heads the moment we voted leave, let alone after we actually left, well, call it what you like. Project Fear is not such a bad description imo.
So leaving the EU and remaining in the EEA is not Brexit then? Despite the leaving the EU bit? And this was absolutely clear to everyone who voted leave, was it?
As Peter said, no one was looking for all the details but something like 'we will leave the single market, customs union and have complete control of our borders with no qualifications' wouldn't have been that difficult to communicate and voting for it without any supporting proposal of any kind baffles me. Unless, like Burney, you voted Leave for ideological reasons and let the consequences be damned.
It doesn't mean nothing. It means leaving the EU.
It has also been regularly qualified by the key Leave players, including May herself.
“Brexit does not mean partial membership of the European Union, associate membership of the European Union, or anything that leaves us half-in, half-out. We do not seek to adopt a model already enjoyed by other countries. We do not seek to hold on to bits of membership as we leave.
“The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union."
Theresa May, January 2017