Brexit, should Britain leave the EU?

I read somewhere that TTIP might be made easier for Britain now we don't have the EU protecting us and a hole in our economy or something. I'm starting to think TTIP is a good thing anyway. I want us to be more aligned with the commonwealth and the states.

Originally posted by jaden101
It's hilarious watching the Westminster parties tear themselves apart now. In a week where Labour should be capitalising on the Tories being in total disarray with their leader resigning and their Chancellor MIA, because Jeremy Corbyn went against his life long stance of leaving the EU and instead chose to campaign for Remain in order to avoid his own party collapsing, now that it's an exit vote the Blairites who are more centre right than left are now calling for Corbyn to resign.

Cameron has resigned without triggering article 50 and Boris Johnson supporters have admitted that he has no plan for what comes next so Johnson either has to run for leader and have the massive task of enacting article 50 (things like organising and bearing the costs of reissuing 10's of millions of passports and building customs checkpoints on the Irish border against huge resistance for example)...or he can run but delay triggering article 50 indefinitely. He can declare the intent to consider the referendum advisory (which is what it is, legally speaking) and so have no obligation to enforce it which would ruin him politically)

All the while Scotland and Northern Ireland will be negotiating their own positions with regards to the EU and whether to hold referendums to break away from the UK in order to continue in Europe

For those who asked previously in another thread, I voted leave. Not for any of the reasons the official leave campaign were touting about immigration because frankly I'd rather have a hard working Polish or Asian guy living next door than some toothless junkie native who's never worked a day in their life). I voted primarily on the threat of TTIP and all that would come with it.

There's also people in here saying it's a victory for the right over liberals. What nonsense. The EU isn't a right/left issue. There were several large trade unions that campaigned for a leave vote just as there were others campaigned for Remain. There were corporate leaders arguing both sides too.

Originally posted by Beniboybling
It's one of the many issues the Leave campaign has backtracked on:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2016/jun/25/tory-mep-daniel-hannan-tells-bbc-free-movement-of-labour-might-not-end-video

Okay but doesn't it show a general lack of understanding as to why they even wanted to leave in the first place?

I mean this quite literally was a major factor lol. Wouldn't it be asinine and just irresponsible to ignore this aspect of why they wanted to leave? To refuse to even compromise at all?

Since just to be clear, I kinda sorta maybe thought the EU didn't want them leaving, yes?

Asinine and irresponsible? On whose part? The EU? The EU has no obligation to bend to promises made by our politicians and in fact they made that much clear just today:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/28/brussels-eu-summit-leaders-push-quick-divorce-cameron-germany-brexit

And no, the EU didn't want us to leave. But we have and now they want to make an example of us.

Originally posted by It's xyz!
I read somewhere that TTIP might be made easier for Britain now we don't have the EU protecting us and a hole in our economy or something. I'm starting to think TTIP is a good thing anyway. I want us to be more aligned with the commonwealth and the states.

TTIP is a deal between the EU and the states. Not to say that Britain's deal with the US might be as bad or worse but for the moment it's off the cards.

As for it being a good thing. If you think the lowering of food safety, environmental protection, trade union powers and workers rights in order to boost corporate profits is a good thing then more fool you.

Cameron's visiting the EU today. Has he begged them for a take-back yet?

I don't get all these idiots calling for a revote. Where were these jackasses during the initial process?

Those "idiots" are just the EU Thugs aka NAZIS that don't want to loose one iota of power over a single individual.

Originally posted by Beniboybling
Asinine and irresponsible? On whose part? The EU? The EU has no obligation to bend to promises made by our politicians and in fact they made that much clear just today:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/28/brussels-eu-summit-leaders-push-quick-divorce-cameron-germany-brexit

And no, the EU didn't want us to leave. But we have and now they want to make an example of us.

I never said they are under any obligation to bend to promises. Rather what I'm saying is the EU doesn't want you to leave and yet seems unwilling to budge on one of the key issues that made you want to leave.

That to me seems asinine. Either they don't understand the reasons some wanted to leave or they just genuinely don't give a shit.

That's because its a fundamental part of the EU and what it stands for, I'm not seeing how its reasonable for them to make a special exception for us, or at what point they should have done this.

I think that's an exaggeration of what TTIP actually is. In truth, I have no idea on what it is other than corporations having power in Europe. I was against it initially, but I understand that Britain needs to have some sort of negotiation with America. Hopefully, it'll be with Trump as president and NOT Obama/Clinton.

Originally posted by jaden101
TTIP is a deal between the EU and the states. Not to say that Britain's deal with the US might be as bad or worse but for the moment it's off the cards.

As for it being a good thing. If you think the lowering of food safety, environmental protection, trade union powers and workers rights in order to boost corporate profits is a good thing then more fool you.

Originally posted by Beniboybling
That's because its a fundamental part of the EU and what it stands for, I'm not seeing how its reasonable for them to make a special exception for us, or at what point they should have done this.

Let me ask, do you feel as if..not a single reason people wanted to leave was valid? Or do you feel there were some valid reasons..just that the negatives did not outweigh the positives? Or there is a third option in that there were no actual valid reasons to leave, but politicians tricked people into thinking there were valid reasons?

Though you mention making a special exception, I wouldn't be for that actually. If other countries in the EU also didn't want open borders then...well, why should they have open borders if they do not want it? I'm curious in your opinion do you feel there are any other countries in the EU that would want what the UK wanted? I do not mean countries that outright want to leave, but merely countries that would want similar things..they just wouldn't go as far as leaving the EU to get them(perhaps out of fear). In other words are these feelings just an anomaly you find in the UK?

As for what point they should of done this? Well assuming they were going to do it at all? Probably some point before the UK actually went far enough to have an actual vote over whether to leave.

Originally posted by Surtur
If other countries in the EU also didn't want open borders then...well, why should they have open borders if they do not want it?

He already answered this, its a fundamental part of the EU. The EU stands for freedom of movement and open borders for the benefit of everyone. At the moment people in the UK are against this because they don't want more immigrants. It's a selfish concept, they don't care about how this affects those immigrants, who mostly have it far worse off than a UK citizen, so long as it doesn't impact them. The EU as a whole however, has no special consideration towards the petty, selfish interests of the British public over the immigrants and so doesn't believe that its right to deny those in need aid just because Granny gets uncomfortable around brown people. Thus, (52% of) the UK is against open borders while the EU are for it.

You really believe the leave group is all about selfishness towards immigrants and nothing else huh

Originally posted by Nephthys
He already answered this, its a fundamental part of the EU. The EU stands for freedom of movement and open borders for the benefit of everyone. At the moment people in the UK are against this because they don't want more immigrants. It's a selfish concept, they don't care about how this affects those immigrants, who mostly have it far worse off than a UK citizen, so long as it doesn't impact them. The EU as a whole however, has no special consideration towards the petty, selfish interests of the British public over the immigrants and so doesn't believe that its right to deny those in need aid just because Granny gets uncomfortable around brown people. Thus, (52% of) the UK is against open borders while the EU are for it.

I think perhaps something that feeds into the scepticism over immigrants in Britain is a relatively poor standard of multilingual proliferation in the UK compared with other European countries. In Germany huge numbers of young people especially are fluent in English as well as other languages. There just isn't anywhere near the same number of Brits fluent in other languages due to the universality of English. Obviously I'm not saying it's a huge reason but it's probably a contributing factor that when British people hear other languages being spoken on the streets of the UK it is intimidating for many people.

Originally posted by Nephthys
He already answered this, its a fundamental part of the EU. The EU stands for freedom of movement and open borders for the benefit of everyone. At the moment people in the UK are against this because they don't want more immigrants. It's a selfish concept, they don't care about how this affects those immigrants, who mostly have it far worse off than a UK citizen, so long as it doesn't impact them. The EU as a whole however, has no special consideration towards the petty, selfish interests of the British public over the immigrants and so doesn't believe that its right to deny those in need aid just because Granny gets uncomfortable around brown people. Thus, (52% of) the UK is against open borders while the EU are for it.

So just out of curiosity, do you feel the EU has ever been selfish or petty?

Here's my take from my particular corner of the world. It's a bit implausible to think that any of us can really grasp this in its entirety. It's a whole socio-political-economic animal. Reduction to talking points is a disservice. So tackling the entirety is beyond my knowledge.

But I work for a financial company, and I've learned one thing: the economic world is so much more complex than we realize. It takes multiple degrees and specialized study to truly understand the depths of even small corners of it. Now, take all the crazy rules and regulations, the dozens of legal and governmental entities involved in any agreement or deal, and what happens? Those who spend all the time studying the rules know how to work with them. There's nothing illegal, and no one deliberately set the systems up like this; it's just a natural emergence in the chaotic world we live in. And navigating it is a high-level song & dance that the rest of us don't even know exists. Doesn't matter what the rules are, or who's making them, those whose job it is to navigate the rules for profit will do so. It's part of the hatred the working class feels for the 1% (mind you, I'm not 1% or anywhere near, I just get to sit in on meetings with a handful of them every now and then).

I've actually heard some coherent arguments for an against Brexit. True, I've also seen a lot of irrational xenophobia as reason from Brexit, and that's less flattering. But I won't wholly dismiss the pro-Brexit camp because of a few idiots. But another part of the argument has to do with the invisible bogeyman that is the EU string-pullers. The claim goes - and my gut is actually to believe it to an extent - that there are economic exploitations on the part of the higher-ups at the expense of Britain. Or even if it isn't direct exploitation, it's an unfavorable arrangement that benefits the whole but the not "Britain" portion of the whole. Fair enough. But I fear the other side of the coin. The British 1% will work with whatever new rules are in place. Their company stock prices will dip, they'll look worried and fearful in the media, and they'll go home to their mansions and yachts. But the new, more murky trade agreements - which will undoubtedly be less kind to Britain - the plunging value of the currency, the estimated catastrophic drop in GDP in numerous countries, those stock prices I mentioned earlier, which lead to job cuts (Richard Branson has already said he had to drop a deal bc of this that would have created ~3,000 jobs)...I fear for everyone else. No blow was struck to the elite, but it remains to be seen what blow was struck to everyone else.

Which doesn't even touch on the immigration issue. But I can say less about that. The news I get on Brexit is almost entirely economic.

The EU was incredibly at Britains expense. Middle easterners want to go to the UK and the USA, not Poland, Italy and Spain. English is universal, and Britain is seen as tolerant and multicultural. Germany still has the hitler stigma and France is rude. The EU sucked money from Britain and cultures from everywhere were coming to the UK. The problem was only the poor and stupid felt these problems, and the older generation remembered a time before this mess.

In 2014 everyone thought Farage was scaremongering when he said Romanians and Bulgarians were to visit Britain for social housing, well, 2 years later I see more and more Romanians in social housing with drug and alcohol problems in and out of work sending money to their home countries. You don't have to be an economics expert to see this is taking a toll on the British public and Farage was right. If you're a college graduate still living at home and have no connection with the public, you won't understand what the masses are thinking.

**** off, were full! To put it, bluntly.

Originally posted by Time-Immemorial

But what about their borders? Are they 100% open?