Brexit is weird. Gibraltar in Schengen, a border in the Irish Sea and relations with Scotland weaker than ever. And yet they celebrate. Weird.
I wonder if we'll be lumping Gibraltar Monaco, San Marino Andorra etc together, as 'small associated states of the EU' by the end of the year. And I suspect the next Northern Irish elections will result in losses for hard-line Unionists and gains for parties like Alliance and SDLP, which could just mean a SF First Minister. And as there'll be no Unionist alliance in Scotland the SNP will walk home. Indeed I wonder whether, if the LD's nationally adopt a very pro-EU (not necessarily Rejoin) line they'll have a revival ind Scotland.
I for one would welcome a united Ireland [though hopefully not led into it by SF] possible more so than the Republican government. The north brings with it many deep-rooted, complex and intransigent problems.
The break up of the UK is a catastrophe.
I agree wrt Scotland but the NI anomaly is really just that. If they could get along a single united Irelandis not a catastrophe at all.
We’re in serious danger of ending up with an English state.
Certainly possible and it would make little sense but at least I'm clear that England alone would be a very powerful and viable force, economically, politically, culturally and socially. A Federated outcome of some sort would be preferable certainly.
The danger of England alone is that it will be a country born out of rejection and so angry with itself and with others.
I have rejected England. I cannot stand what we have become, can see no way to turn around the rank stupidity and arrogant exceptionalism, so I'm leaving.
England has turned into an insular we are better fuck you country which would make sense if we were still the industrial powerhouse of the 60s or had a financial sector we hadn't just signed away with a Brexit deal that doesn't protect it. So having become spiteful and nasty towards the countries more prosperous and less cunty than we are, we will slide to being even less prosperous and even nastier.
Or, more accurately, you will. Norniron will be fine, cast off the UK by a government so thick that it didn't realise it was doing it. Gibraltar, cast off to become British in Name Only. And Scotland, who at the very least will want their own slice of freedom and at the most will walk.
People in England want to be free of the forrin? Lets be honest, that includes Paddy and Jock just as much as it does the Hun and the Frogs. Time to accept that and let England do whatever it thinks a country of its stature is entitled to.
TBH I think you need to look in a different mirror.
Brexit is not to do with expelling the "forrin". It is to do with not being controlled by an unaccountable, demonstrably irreformable EU.
Having a headspace dominated by 'EU' (not "Europe") is far more parochial than looking more widely.
Let's see what happens.
The thing that is really odd is that RP voted for Brexit from memory - but now he's as arch a Europhile extremist as Scott or williamglenn.
I am? I remain nonplussed about leaving the EU. My beef is with us leaving things that aren't the EU - the EEA and CU. If that makes me an extremist to you then perhaps you are trolling after all.
I am afraid in that respect, you were one of the Brexiteers’ useful idiots (in good company with, for example, @rcs1000 ). While they were happy to have your vote, the large majority of Brexiteers regard your position as nonsensical, and a downright denial of what they claim the 2016 vote was for.
My views are probably fairly close to yours on the acceptability of the EEA/CU, but I saw no real prospect of that happening in the wake of a leave vote, much as I might have hoped for it.
I must admit I was quite sad as I retired to bed last night.
I "courted" my (also NZ-born) wife when I was living in London and she in Paris. For maybe two years in the mid 2000s I would take the Eurostar to visit her each month (and she likewise, but in reverse).
We fell in love in Shoreditch and Charing Cross Road. But also on Rue Montorgeuil and the Parc Monceau. Together, as young New Zealanders, we developed our love of European culture, food, history and landscape on successive holidays and through the steady accumulation of friends from every corner of the continent.
We have been to the Opera on a snowy night in Vienna. But also, we have stood on the basalt in Staffa, getting damp in the sea spray. Got lost in the Schwarzvald and sailed out of Stockholm. But also, spent long summer days walking - and drinking - in the fields and downs of Sussex, Hampshire and Kent.
Luckily we settled in the effective capital of Europe - London - where no compromise was necessary between the pursuit of career and the easy embrace of all that. Not entirely consciously, we lived a happy ecumenicalism - at "home" as New Zealanders, as British, and European. One day, perhaps, we hoped to retire at least part of the time to France.
Brexiters have been at pains throughout to maintain that "the EU is not Europe" which of course is true from a legal perspective, but hardly speaks to the heart. Regardless, much Brexit discourse seems angrily or sneeringly both anti-EU *and* anti-European - dismissive of foreign perspectives and indeed of people like me who found something quite wonderful in an Anglo-European existence.
I thought of my memories, and feelings, and considered the millions of people who must have felt similar to me. And of the many who won't quite have the same chance to feel that way.
Brexit is weird. Gibraltar in Schengen, a border in the Irish Sea and relations with Scotland weaker than ever. And yet they celebrate. Weird.
I wonder if we'll be lumping Gibraltar Monaco, San Marino Andorra etc together, as 'small associated states of the EU' by the end of the year. And I suspect the next Northern Irish elections will result in losses for hard-line Unionists and gains for parties like Alliance and SDLP, which could just mean a SF First Minister. And as there'll be no Unionist alliance in Scotland the SNP will walk home. Indeed I wonder whether, if the LD's nationally adopt a very pro-EU (not necessarily Rejoin) line they'll have a revival ind Scotland.
I for one would welcome a united Ireland [though hopefully not led into it by SF] possible more so than the Republican government. The north brings with it many deep-rooted, complex and intransigent problems.
The break up of the UK is a catastrophe.
I agree wrt Scotland but the NI anomaly is really just that. If they could get along a single united Irelandis not a catastrophe at all.
We’re in serious danger of ending up with an English state.
Certainly possible and it would make little sense but at least I'm clear that England alone would be a very powerful and viable force, economically, politically, culturally and socially. A Federated outcome of some sort would be preferable certainly.
The danger of England alone is that it will be a country born out of rejection and so angry with itself and with others.
I have rejected England. I cannot stand what we have become, can see no way to turn around the rank stupidity and arrogant exceptionalism, so I'm leaving.
England has turned into an insular we are better fuck you country which would make sense if we were still the industrial powerhouse of the 60s or had a financial sector we hadn't just signed away with a Brexit deal that doesn't protect it. So having become spiteful and nasty towards the countries more prosperous and less cunty than we are, we will slide to being even less prosperous and even nastier.
Or, more accurately, you will. Norniron will be fine, cast off the UK by a government so thick that it didn't realise it was doing it. Gibraltar, cast off to become British in Name Only. And Scotland, who at the very least will want their own slice of freedom and at the most will walk.
People in England want to be free of the forrin? Lets be honest, that includes Paddy and Jock just as much as it does the Hun and the Frogs. Time to accept that and let England do whatever it thinks a country of its stature is entitled to.
TBH I think you need to look in a different mirror.
Brexit is not to do with expelling the "forrin". It is to do with not being controlled by an unaccountable, demonstrably irreformable EU.
Having a headspace dominated by 'EU' (not "Europe") is far more parochial than looking more widely.
Let's see what happens.
The thing that is really odd is that RP voted for Brexit from memory - but now he's as arch a Europhile extremist as Scott or williamglenn.
Having examined some of RP's posting, I think we might describe his views as volatile.
(My recollection like you is he had a fit about the Remain campaign, and voted Leave).
My EFTA / EEA position hasn't changed throughout. We were inevitably going to pushed to the extremities of the two-speed Europe because we were not part of the Euro / Schengen / Army etc. So better to step off of our own volition than be flung off. Given the choice of what we now have or continued EU membership I'd stay in the EU - but that wasn't the only option.
That we are shouting about free trade having just left the free trade area is laughable. You can trade freely with the EU without being a member. We have chosen not to.
Really don't understand your last paragraph. We have chosen to trade freely with the EU without being a member. Whether that proves to be a good idea or not only time will tell.
Actually we haven't and RP is absolutely right on this. We have chosen to trade freely in certain specific areas. Had we chosen the EFTA/EEA route it would have been far more comprehensive. The only difference between RP and myself is I would still have chosen this over staying in. In the end trade, as he mentions, is only one small part of the EU project and the rest of it negates value we get from membership.
But what significant differences are there between our zero tariff/zero quota but outside of the customs area deal . . . with the EFTA/EEA Single Market but outside of the customs area deal?
The main issues RP complains about: customs declarations, rules of origin etc - they apply to the EEA too don't they? What would be significantly different between the EFTA and our deal now?
We have resolved this for Northern Ireland and your favourite PM Mrs May resolved it for the entire UK. The UK had no choice but to remain in a customs union and the EEA because of the GFA. That it would create a unique arrangement for the UK of combining EEA and CU membership outside the EU isn't an objection as we have just created a different unique arrangement.
I have to laugh at the stupidity of it. We have ended up with this omnishambles deal where we have the right to sign trade deals with elsewhere and change our standards, but only at the cost of tariffs and quotas. We have the right to have babies even though we can't have babies. Or, we could have agreed with the EU the exact same principle that isn't practical without imposing trade barriers and sinking our financial services sector.
Actually this is wrong. The UK could not stay inside the Customs Union under any circumstances. The reasons for this had nothing to do with the UK and everything to do with the EU. Membership of the Customs Union is explicitly reserved for EU members. To change this would have required rewriting of the basic treaties that underpin the EU and they did not want to do that because every time they do member countries want other changes made. It was made explicit at the start of the whole process from the EU that leaving the EU meant leaving the Customs Union even if we stayed in the Single Market.
We could have been like Turkey, outside "the" customs Union but inside "a" customs union.
A disastrous situation particularly with regard to getting any future trade deals
Comments
While they were happy to have your vote, the large majority of Brexiteers regard your position as nonsensical, and a downright denial of what they claim the 2016 vote was for.
My views are probably fairly close to yours on the acceptability of the EEA/CU, but I saw no real prospect of that happening in the wake of a leave vote, much as I might have hoped for it.
I "courted" my (also NZ-born) wife when I was living in London and she in Paris.
For maybe two years in the mid 2000s I would take the Eurostar to visit her each month (and she likewise, but in reverse).
We fell in love in Shoreditch and Charing Cross Road. But also on Rue Montorgeuil and the Parc Monceau.
Together, as young New Zealanders, we developed our love of European culture, food, history and landscape on successive holidays and through the steady accumulation of friends from every corner of the continent.
We have been to the Opera on a snowy night in Vienna. But also, we have stood on the basalt in Staffa, getting damp in the sea spray. Got lost in the Schwarzvald and sailed out of Stockholm. But also, spent long summer days walking - and drinking - in the fields and downs of Sussex, Hampshire and Kent.
Luckily we settled in the effective capital of Europe - London - where no compromise was necessary between the pursuit of career and the easy embrace of all that. Not entirely consciously, we lived a happy ecumenicalism - at "home" as New Zealanders, as British, and European. One day, perhaps, we hoped to retire at least part of the time to France.
Brexiters have been at pains throughout to maintain that "the EU is not Europe" which of course is true from a legal perspective, but hardly speaks to the heart. Regardless, much Brexit discourse seems angrily or sneeringly both anti-EU *and* anti-European - dismissive of foreign perspectives and indeed of people like me who found something quite wonderful in an Anglo-European existence.
I thought of my memories, and feelings, and considered the millions of people who must have felt similar to me. And of the many who won't quite have the same chance to feel that way.
I did not wait up for the actual countdown.