Signs of desperation here I feel!
3 Likes
We can all have pipe dreams?
2 Likes
Well the remainers certainly do Ted!
I’ll happily concede that a full blown EEA agreement within 10 years from Brexit might be me being optimistic. Nonetheless it seems certain that more cooperation and alignment with the EU is going to be the story over the coming years. Even minor aberrations such as Gove’s cutting environmental rules over building sites are simple to reverse. The fifth (five in 2 years) postponement of the food & animal checks for imports from the EU is more likely to end up in the UK confirming food production regulation alignment to avoid the need for these checks - not introducing the checks to enable regulation change.
1 Like
Nothing concrete then, just possibilities that you, as a remainer, would like to happen?
2 Likes
Why wouldn’t we want an agreement with the EU (providing it survives) on terms that are beneficial to both sides? Much the same as we’d enter into an agreement with any other part of the World. We’re free to do whatever we can.
5 Likes
Hi
I voted Leave, I still would if the EU stays in it’s current form.
The benefit to me was really quite simple, no further integration.
Unfortunately, as usual, our politicians have made aa right mess of it.
2 Likes
We are having a bit of a problem with our concrete at the moment but don’t tell the EU, this has only come to light post Brexit 
2 Likes
Absolutely. Its a prediction of the future based on current events and discussions. So its not going to be concrete, is it? Duh.
But I notice that the pro-Brexit predictions are lacking. Where are your predictions of how things will unfold with a new government next year?
The UK will never rejoin the EU. We would have to adopt the Euro, Schengen and abolish all other trade deals we have.
The appetite for EU membership is a ship that sailed back in 2016.
3 Likes
Interesting question Lincolnshire. The red wall don’t trust Starmer as they know he will reverse their decision to leave the EU. Starmer has u-turned on every promise and pledge he as ever made, including voting every time to overturn the democratic decision to leave the EU in the commons. He simply can’t be trusted (well, trusted more than Sunak and Hunt anyway).
If you remember in 2019, it was between Johnson and Corbyn. Both these leaders were in favour of leaving the EU and even though Corbynism was hugely popular with the young voters, the country handed Boris Johnson the biggest majority since Thatcher. The election was won on a “Get Brexit Done” ticket, with Farage standing down candidates to allow Johnson some clear air.
The next election will be the Lib Dems gaining, labour gaining and the conservatives getting a small majority win if Sunak stays. Starmer doesn’t have the polling numbers like Blair did when he won in 1997 but with 54 letters going into the 1922 Committee soon, the next election could well be between Starmer and someone like Lee Anderson, an ex-miner, ex-labour supporter and an ex-unionist. He has a lot of appeal in the North and gaining visibility because of his show on GB News. He is also a straight talker and as far from woke culture as can be. He also knows what a woman is.
Unless Farage comes back to lead Reform I think Lee Anderson could well maintain a majority government, especially as he is so keen to stop the boats, unlike Sunak and Starmer.
2 Likes
I don’t make predictions, I’m not Mystic Meg. Duh.
I need to see what shape a new government will take before I even begin to consider the implications. I now know which party will get my vote based on past events but I can no way see into the future. After all, wasn’t it Remainers who predicted high unemployment etc. before the Brexit vote? Yet they didn’t forsee the Covid pandemic … or maybe you did? 
3 Likes
Personally, I predict that there will be the usual number of promisies, each destined to be forgotten when whoever gets the power.
I hope that the Tories will get the idea of a mass clear out & a change in the way MPs operate in relation to Public wishes. (Look at The Civil Service!!! (Ugh!)
As for Labour and “the also rans”, they are out there, in plain sight and not highly respected, in my view, which is good for the Tories, at least.
Getting back to Brexit, it looks like the naysayers are turning towards staying the way we, now, are.
And, as said, the benefits are growing.
Why should we enumerate the benefits, they are there for all to experience.
3 Likes
Starmer just appointed Hilary Benn as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. That should seal it for the red wall.
Don’t trust Starmer, he will reverse Brexit.
During the campaign, I was torn in two. While I saw the benefits of the single market and easy European travel, I feared free movement was driving down wages and preferred Parliament to set our laws rather than Brussels.
I went with the status quo and voted Remain, only to watch, astonished, as the status quo switched to Leave.
My view was “Well there’s a turn-up now let’s deal with it”. I turned out to be in a minority as my fellow Remainers screamed and spat and swore we’d ruined the UK.
Many have taken cruel delight in all the troubles that have affected the UK since, pinning most of them on Brexit.
Brexit certainly hasn’t been easy, as pulling out of the single market and customs union has placed barriers in front of £550billion of trade.
We’ve struck a heap of trade deals although most replicate what was there before, while Australian and New Zealand agreements are quite small and may threaten our farmers.
However, joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership could be a biggie, and a trade deal with India could be a blockbuster.
With Covid and the cost-of-living crisis coming hard on the heels of Brexit, it’s hard to work out how much damage leaving the EU has done.
But there’s one figure that Remainers have ardently clung to, just as they cling to hopes of rejoining the EU one day.
They repeatedly pointed out that the UK was the only G7 economy that was still smaller than before Covid, and Brexit was naturally to blame.
Turns out it wasn’t true.
On Friday, official data from the Office for National Statistics showed that Britain had recovered its pandemic losses. Not last month, or last year, but almost two years ago in the final quarter of 2021.
Britain’s economy in the fourth quarter of 2021 was 0.6 percent larger than the final quarter of 2019, rather than 1.2 percent smaller as thought.
It means the UK economy is no longer a global outlier. We’re just as big a basket case as everyone else.
But at least we’re not worse.
Some might argue that without Brexit, the UK economy may have outstripped the G7.
I can’t see that, though, given all the problems we face. The major European countries – and I include the UK in that – tend to rise or fall broadly in line with each other, and that’s continued since Brexit.
Which makes me wonder what all the fuss was about.
Naturally, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt leapt on the good news, while my Remainer friends have done their best to ignore it. Not that I discuss Brexit with them. It can still ruin friendships.
As you can probably see I’m not hugely dogmatic about Brexit (someone has to not care) but I am pretty hardcore on one point.
I want the UK to do well, whether inside or outside of the EU. I want the economy to boom, I want people to have jobs, and I want dear old Blighty to be happy and secure.
Which means I’d like us to make a go of Brexit, since that’s what we voted for. I certainly don’t want us to rejoin the EU, as that will take years more wrangling, and maybe decades, when we’ve got better things to do.
I wish the EU the best of British, too. If its economy thrives, the UK will benefit, too. This will help us stand up to all the nasty dictators out there.
But I’m worried for it.
I think the European single currency remains a disaster waiting to happen.
I never liked it. I vividly remember Black Wednesday 1992, when the pound collapsed, forcing the UK to withdraw from Europe’s Exchange Rate Mechanism.
Why anybody thought it would be a good idea for the UK to join the euro (and some still do) always baffled me.
Corralling countries as diverse as Germany and Greece into the same currency was never a good idea, as we’ve seen. It could still collapse.
I’m glad we dodged that bullet, and I’m glad we’re free of current wrangling over the European Commission budget. It wants to spend an extra €86bn (£74bn) and many EU members don’t want to foot the bill.
We’re already throwing enough money away and don’t need anything else, thank you.
The UK has plenty of problems but it’s down to us to solve them. Now that we know Brexit hasn’t sunk the economy, we need to throw everything at making it start growing again.
2 Likes
Excellent post, Wendeey!
Shows what is good about democracy and the right of people to vote for what they want - without being called names, preached at, or told to go back and do it again, because they “got it wrong”.
2 Likes
The Express .
The paper of old right wingers of the Alf Garnett persuasion .
2 Likes
https://www.express.co.uk/journalist/123053/Harvey-Jones
Harvey Jones is the personal finance editor of the Daily Express and Sunday Express. He has been writing about finance for 30 years, regularly contributing to the Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the FT.He specialises in pensions, investing, savings, insurance and the property market.In 2018, Harvey was voted best personal finance journalist in the ADVFN International Financial Rewards.He has also won the Headline Money Protection Journalist of the Year on three separate occasions in the last 10 years.
I was just fed up to the back teeth, thankfully the back teeth are still intact 
What could such an agreement look like? Switzerland: computer says no, Norway: same. What then?