June 2015: Parliament votes for EU referendum

[Ash]

That's because you wont tell us what leaving looks like. We are left to leap around in the dark.

That is because your hat has fallen down over your eyes, my friend.

[Peter]

Nit picking. Straw nits, too. I doubt those who sought to establish what bacame the Irish Free State cared whether they were extricating themselves from the UK or the British Empire. My point is about the concept of sovereignty, rather than trying to draw exact parallels between voluntary and involuntary supra-national constructs.

The point being that UK was not, and is not, a supra-national construct. Its a nation state.

I think the IRA was concerned with a little more than sovereignty.....

[Peter]

That is because your hat has fallen down over your eyes, my friend.

No, its because the political elite are buying time until they work out how to do what is best for them.

[Ash]

The point being that UK was not, and is not, a supra-national construct. Its a nation state.

I think the IRA was concerned with a little more than sovereignty.....

Lexical sophistry to pretend that Ireland was not subject to foreign rule imo.

And the UK is surely a multi-national state. However much of Ireland it includes.

[Peter]

Lexical sophistry to pretend that Ireland was not subject to foreign rule imo.

And the UK is surely a multi-national state. However much of Ireland it includes.

No, no, no. It is a nation state by both definition and design. Even if it is multi-national, it remains a nation state.

There is one interesting parallel. Ireland held an election in 1922 which focused entirely on the Free State treaty. The pro-treaty factions won and De Valera refused to accept it. Civil war followed.

Note to remainers- respect the public vote.

[Alberto Balsam Rodriguez]

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:

I'm sorry, I haven't read every post on this subject. I dip in and out and often see nonsense like Monty's leading post in this thread so I choose not to participate.

I'm saying that I see lots of leavers telling everyone words to the effect of.....

It seems that many remainers desperately want this to be true, and hope that if they keep repeating it it will come true, rather than using their energies to work out the best future outside the EU.

and

Brexit means Brexit

Do you not see the irony here?

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?

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.

Our government seem to be putting all the blame on the EU for their stance and the EU is doing visa versa. No surprises there but the opening positions are going to be unrealistic from both sides. The EU will want to protect the EU. We want a fair (preferential) deal but what is a fair deal?
- Is it a deal that is better than what we had when we were in the EU? That seems totally unrealistic from the EU perspective as that will probably be the beginning of the end of the EU. Not a bad position when you are leaving it, we would probably want it to fall apart.
- Is it a deal that is worse than the terms of WTO terms? Clearly we wouldn't take that deal and default to WTO terms.
- Is it a deal that is somewhere in between? What does this mean. I don't know this.

Then we move on to how will we be in a better position once we are out of it?
- Control of our borders? Apparently, and I have not done the research, we can already impose restrictions on immigration while within the EU. If this is the case, why have we not. Is it just cost of policing the borders?
- Sovereignty? Ok, there is that. One could argue that the EU makes laws designed to protect the likes of you and me from being exploited. I'm not saying it is perfect. Is this such a bad thing to lose? What is the cost of giving this up?

Then there is the financial impact. What do we have in our pockets at the end of the day. Who stands to gain most from this and who will be worse off?