BREXIT Mega Thread (The Saga Begins?)

[Calladan]

I am not certain if this is acceptable, but I thought I would give it a go.

Today, Theresa May signed the letter withdrawing Britain from The European Union, and delivered to start the process of the official withdrawal.

This begins the process of "Brexit" - the government now has two years to reach a deal before Britain has to leave The EU for good.

Rather than dump all of the potential discussion in the British politics thread, I thought we could put everything relating to Brexit into here :- news, speculation and so forth.

And if, at the same time, we could steer clear of abuse and other forms of idiocy that would be nice as well

There is every chance this thread might get locked, but I thought that - along the same lines as the Trump Thread, this might work?

------

I voted against it, but since the 23rd of June it has been obvious today has been coming - the government really didn't have a choice. So now I am just waiting to see how they deal with the various problems :-

The laws they have to incorporate (and which laws they will bother with).
Whether they will maintain access to the single market, or abandon it.
Whether they will protect EU nationals living in the UK (who aren't UK citizens).
Whether this will lead to further withdrawals (The ECHR for example - there was a story circulating that Theresa May was going to pull out of that).

And at the same time how the government will deal with domestic matters :-

Scottish independence.
Northern Ireland.
The impact on the 2020 election (the process will end around 1 year before the next election is due, assuming we don't get one before then).

----

So - what will come next?

[Souseiseki]

continuing from the past thread, vassenor posted something satirical about bendy bananas. let's provide some background on the bananas for our international friends.

the european union passed a regulation requiring that malformed, damaged, partially rotted, etc. bananas be classified as class 2 bananas and bananas free from defects be classified as class 1 bananas. it makes sense that producers and consumers know what they're getting, as people generally prefer class 1 bananas over class 2 bananas and people trying to sell bananas generally prefer class 1 bananas because of that. they're not even banned. you can still buy your shitty low quality bananas if you really want. it sounds like a fairly sensible regulation to be honest, and even if it's not it seems like a minor inconvenience at best.

this... was turned into a national meme. papers ran stories for days about the EU banning bendy bananas. british citizens endlessly regurgitated the story of the EU banning bendy bananas as a top example of the kind of craaaaaaaazy EU regulations they wanted to get rid of. one woman said she legitimately make her mind up about voting leave after looking at a banana in the super market.

they still bring it up to this day. a recent telegrqah article about the worst EU regulations they were looking forward to getting rid of was bananas, light bulbs (a UK regulation that won't go away), renewable energy targets, something about protecting certain renagered species (a UK regulation that won't go away), vaccuum cleaners and worker's rights legislation. these were the worst regulations that one of the most pro-brexit papers could come up with.

this is the kind of silly bullshit that got us where we are today.

[Washington Resistance Army]

So apparently Scotland is super pissed about all this and wants another referendum?

I'm American so I don't follow British politics really but I've been hearing that a lot.

[Ostroeuropa]

So apparently Scotland is super pissed about all this and wants another referendum?

I'm American so I don't follow British politics really but I've been hearing that a lot.

You can just save this post and bring it out again for every incident ever for the next 50 years or so, provided you edit it to, "Scottish Nationalists.", which is less than half of Scotland, but most of its government.

[East Catalina]

continuing from the past thread, vassenor posted something satirical about bendy bananas. let's provide some background on the bananas for our international friends.

the european union passed a regulation requiring that malformed, damaged, partially rotted, etc. bananas be classified as class 2 bananas and bananas free from defects be classified as class 1 bananas. it makes sense that producers and consumers know what they're getting, as people generally prefer class 1 bananas over class 2 bananas and people trying to sell bananas generally prefer class 1 bananas because of that. they're not even banned. you can still buy your shitty low quality bananas if you really want. it sounds like a fairly sensible regulation to be honest, and even if it's not it seems like a minor inconvenience at best.

this... was turned into a national meme. papers ran stories for days about the EU banning bendy bananas. british citizens endlessly regurgitated the story of the EU banning bendy bananas as a top example of the kind of craaaaaaaazy EU regulations they wanted to get rid of. one woman said she legitimately make her mind up about voting leave after looking at a banana in the super market.

they still bring it up to this day. a recent telegrqah article about the worst EU regulations they were looking forward to getting rid of was bananas, light bulbs (a UK regulation that won't go away), renewable energy targets, something about protecting certain renagered species (a UK regulation that won't go away), vaccuum cleaners and worker's rights legislation. these were the worst regulations that one of the most pro-brexit papers could come up with.

this is the kind of silly bullshit that got us where we are today.

Well now they can rely on tory majorities to legislate into action overturns of those horrible regulations.

[Ostroeuropa]

continuing from the past thread, vassenor posted something satirical about bendy bananas. let's provide some background on the bananas for our international friends.

the european union passed a regulation requiring that malformed, damaged, partially rotted, etc. bananas be classified as class 2 bananas and bananas free from defects be classified as class 1 bananas. it makes sense that producers and consumers know what they're getting, as people generally prefer class 1 bananas over class 2 bananas and people trying to sell bananas generally prefer class 1 bananas because of that. they're not even banned. you can still buy your shitty low quality bananas if you really want. it sounds like a fairly sensible regulation to be honest, and even if it's not it seems like a minor inconvenience at best.

this... was turned into a national meme. papers ran stories for days about the EU banning bendy bananas. british citizens endlessly regurgitated the story of the EU banning bendy bananas as a top example of the kind of craaaaaaaazy EU regulations they wanted to get rid of. one woman said she legitimately make her mind up about voting leave after looking at a banana in the super market.

they still bring it up to this day. a recent telegrqah article about the worst EU regulations they were looking forward to getting rid of was bananas, light bulbs (a UK regulation that won't go away), renewable energy targets, something about protecting certain renagered species (a UK regulation that won't go away), vaccuum cleaners and worker's rights legislation. these were the worst regulations that one of the most pro-brexit papers could come up with.

this is the kind of silly bullshit that got us where we are today.

Why regulate it exactly?
If a bulk-buyer wants class 1, they can specify. All this did was add overhead costs and fuck people over who don't give a shit, which is the vast majority of people, and weaken our banana producers. (A trend that repeats over and over and over in every industry or product the EU takes notice of.)

What prevents a shop like Tesco saying "Before we buy these bananas from you, we have some specifications."?

Nothing. It's endless busybody regulating.

[Neu Leonstein]

I'm just going to repost this here as a reference piece, just because it's the best write-up I've seen about the "Brexit bill", i.e. the EUR 60-odd billion that the EU says Britain owes as part of leaving.

https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/fi ... 3feb17.pdf

[Thermodolia]

I'm just going to repost this here as a reference piece, just because it's the best write-up I've seen about the "Brexit bill", i.e. the EUR 60-odd billion that the EU says Britain owes as part of leaving.

https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/fi ... 3feb17.pdf

The EU is going to make this as painful as possible for the UK

[Souseiseki]

So apparently Scotland is super pissed about all this and wants another referendum?

I'm American so I don't follow British politics really but I've been hearing that a lot.

back during the scottish independence referendum EU membership was a big deal. better together (the campaign for scotland staying in the UK) made a big deal about the best way for us to lose our EU membership would be to vote to leave the UK. needless to say now that we voted to stay in the UK and are being dragged out of the EU, even though every local authority in scotland voted remain, that has become a sore spot. the SNP said they would hold another referendum in this exact scenario, which is what is happening now.

the SNP initially suggested a four nation lock on brexit, requiring 3/4 or 4/4 of the nations in the UK to vote for brexit before it went through. that would have prevented this. since we're leaving scotland and the SNP also prefer a soft brexit in which we stay in the single market, we were told to go fuck ourselves and that we're getting hard brexit and that's that. going for soft brexit would have significantly reduced the chances of this happening. pretty much every opportunity to avoid another referendum was fucked up. the scottish parliament have already voted to hold another one and it will be around 2020, probably.

there's a debate about how big of an issue EU membership was and whether people want another referendum, but the SNP said a change like this would result in another referendum so that's what they're doing. oh, you will also see british nationalists pretend that leaving the EU isn't one of the biggest changes in domestic and foreign policy in modern british history and isn't a huge constitutional change in order to de-legitimize another referendum.

[Vassenor]

I'm just going to repost this here as a reference piece, just because it's the best write-up I've seen about the "Brexit bill", i.e. the EUR 60-odd billion that the EU says Britain owes as part of leaving.

https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/fi ... 3feb17.pdf

The EU is going to make this as painful as possible for the UK

As they have every right to.

[Neu Leonstein]

Nothing. It's endless busybody regulating.

I think the point is more so that Britain is not above its own endless busybody regulating. Anybody who has ever watched an episode of Grand Designs knows this. The banana story just sold papers, and most people don't know what "regulations" even are, really (sorry, you have to scroll to the 'A Theory of Regulation' section).

[Souseiseki]

continuing from the past thread, vassenor posted something satirical about bendy bananas. let's provide some background on the bananas for our international friends.

the european union passed a regulation requiring that malformed, damaged, partially rotted, etc. bananas be classified as class 2 bananas and bananas free from defects be classified as class 1 bananas. it makes sense that producers and consumers know what they're getting, as people generally prefer class 1 bananas over class 2 bananas and people trying to sell bananas generally prefer class 1 bananas because of that. they're not even banned. you can still buy your shitty low quality bananas if you really want. it sounds like a fairly sensible regulation to be honest, and even if it's not it seems like a minor inconvenience at best.

this... was turned into a national meme. papers ran stories for days about the EU banning bendy bananas. british citizens endlessly regurgitated the story of the EU banning bendy bananas as a top example of the kind of craaaaaaaazy EU regulations they wanted to get rid of. one woman said she legitimately make her mind up about voting leave after looking at a banana in the super market.

they still bring it up to this day. a recent telegrqah article about the worst EU regulations they were looking forward to getting rid of was bananas, light bulbs (a UK regulation that won't go away), renewable energy targets, something about protecting certain renagered species (a UK regulation that won't go away), vaccuum cleaners and worker's rights legislation. these were the worst regulations that one of the most pro-brexit papers could come up with.

this is the kind of silly bullshit that got us where we are today.

Why regulate it exactly?
If a bulk-buyer wants class 1, they can specify. All this did was add overhead costs and fuck people over who don't give a shit, which is the vast majority of people, and weaken our banana producers. (A trend that repeats over and over and over in every industry or product the EU takes notice of.)

What prevents a shop like Tesco saying "Before we buy these bananas from you, we have some specifications."?

Nothing. It's endless busybody regulating.

can you source how it weakened our banana producers? frankly i'm not even convinced we even have a significant number of banana producers, or possibly any.

why have tesco and god knows how many other supermarkets try to juggle suppliers in peru and have suppliers trying to meet 50 different specifications when you can just set up a framework that ensures if you're buying class 1 bananas you're getting class 1 bananas? why bother regulating anything if we're using this logic?

[Souseiseki]

Nothing. It's endless busybody regulating.

I think the point is more so that Britain is not above its own endless busybody regulating. Anybody who has ever watched an episode of Grand Designs knows this. The banana story just sold papers, and most people don't know what "regulations" even are, really (sorry, you have to scroll to the 'A Theory of Regulation' section).

also yes not only is the UK in the EU one of the best countries to do business and ironically less regulated than china and india but the UK itself is no stranger to creating needless laws. i again draw attention to how 2/5 of the crazy EU laws already exist in UK law separate from the EU.

[East Catalina]

Why regulate it exactly?
If a bulk-buyer wants class 1, they can specify. All this did was add overhead costs and fuck people over who don't give a shit, which is the vast majority of people, and weaken our banana producers. (A trend that repeats over and over and over in every industry or product the EU takes notice of.)

What prevents a shop like Tesco saying "Before we buy these bananas from you, we have some specifications."?

Nothing. It's endless busybody regulating.

can you source how it weakened our banana producers? frankly i'm not even convinced we even have a significant number of banana producers, or possibly any.

why have tesco and god knows how many other supermarkets try to juggle suppliers in peru and have suppliers trying to meet 50 different specifications when you can just set up a framework that ensures if you're buying class 1 bananas you're getting class 1 bananas? why bother regulating anything if we're using this logic?

Because few people can see the benefit of classifying bananas, and more people can see the benefit of ensuring that the lemonade in the stores isn't pink piss.

[Ostroeuropa]

can you source how it weakened our banana producers? frankly i'm not even convinced we even have a significant number of banana producers, or possibly any.

why have tesco and god knows how many other supermarkets try to juggle suppliers in peru and have suppliers trying to meet 50 different specifications when you can just set up a framework that ensures if you're buying class 1 bananas you're getting class 1 bananas? why bother regulating anything if we're using this logic?

Because few people can see the benefit of classifying bananas, and more people can see the benefit of ensuring that the lemonade in the stores isn't pink piss.

This.

[Souseiseki]

can you source how it weakened our banana producers? frankly i'm not even convinced we even have a significant number of banana producers, or possibly any.

why have tesco and god knows how many other supermarkets try to juggle suppliers in peru and have suppliers trying to meet 50 different specifications when you can just set up a framework that ensures if you're buying class 1 bananas you're getting class 1 bananas? why bother regulating anything if we're using this logic?

Because few people can see the benefit of classifying bananas, and more people can see the benefit of ensuring that the lemonade in the stores isn't pink piss.

well the good news is that once our food standards fall after leaving the EU and then fall even further as the US makes us lower them as part of a free trade deal we'll be enjoying a whole new world of crazy questionable food products

[Neu Leonstein]

The EU is going to make this as painful as possible for the UK

I'm not even sure that this is true. They don't want to make it easy, because they want to make sure that everyone gets the message that membership is valuable and comes as a package deal. It's about preserving the integrity of membership.

But that doesn't require "as painful as possible" or any sort of punishment. That just requires making sure that the UK doesn't get to weasel out of obligations while retaining the benefits. Some people who sold Brexit as costless see this stance as "punishment", but it really isn't. Anyway, the bill is part of all that, sure, but it is also about money. That last bit has been lost a little bit in the discussions of the issue (weirdly), but one of the things that happened today is that a big contributor to the EU budget has just said that it doesn't want to be part of the team anymore. That means that a lot of money stuff has to be reorganised, and the EU27 have to work out a way to do this. That's hard work and so phasing out the UK contributions, rather than having them stop suddenly, would be helpful. Whatever other story you tell about how justified or not the claim is... it is a claim about money and it has to do with paying for stuff.

And because it's as mundane as that, it also seems like one of the more manageable parts of all this. It's not like all the EU countries aren't used to having discussions about budget contributions. They've been doing this regularly for 46 years. Only two differences this time: 1) it's the UK against everybody rather than everybody for themselves, and 2) there are some people who genuinely operate under the notion that the UK shouldn't have to pay a cent. The latter could throw a spanner in the works, but as far as we've heard so far, they don't represent the UK government and may remain confined to the opinion pages of the Daily Mail.

[East Catalina]

Because few people can see the benefit of classifying bananas, and more people can see the benefit of ensuring that the lemonade in the stores isn't pink piss.

well the good news is that once our food standards fall after leaving the EU and then fall even further as the US makes us lower them as part of a free trade deal we'll be enjoying a whole new world of crazy questionable food products

Glorious american bananas, Souse. Imagine them!
They'll be painted up or have dents on the outside and on the inside they're all mushy brown shit. Or they spoil in 24 hours. I've been through the shit before and it sucks liquid thorium.

[Calladan]

So apparently Scotland is super pissed about all this and wants another referendum?

I'm American so I don't follow British politics really but I've been hearing that a lot.

back during the scottish independence referendum EU membership was a big deal. better together (the campaign for scotland staying in the UK) made a big deal about the best way for us to lose our EU membership would be to vote to leave the UK. needless to say now that we voted to stay in the UK and are being dragged out of the EU, even though every local authority in scotland voted remain, that has become a sore spot. the SNP said they would hold another referendum in this exact scenario, which is what is happening now.

the SNP initially suggested a four nation lock on brexit, requiring 3/4 or 4/4 of the nations in the UK to vote for brexit before it went through. that would have prevented this. since we're leaving scotland and the SNP also prefer a soft brexit in which we stay in the single market, we were told to go fuck ourselves and that we're getting hard brexit and that's that. going for soft brexit would have significantly reduced the chances of this happening. pretty much every opportunity to avoid another referendum was fucked up. the scottish parliament have already voted to hold another one and it will be around 2020, probably.

there's a debate about how big of an issue EU membership was and whether people want another referendum, but the SNP said a change like this would result in another referendum so that's what they're doing. oh, you will also see british nationalists pretend that leaving the EU isn't one of the biggest changes in domestic and foreign policy in modern british history and isn't a huge constitutional change in order to de-legitimize another referendum.

I really have to side with Scotland on this one. Not so much because I want the Union to break up (although if it does, the first thing I am going to do is move to Scotland) but because by any measurement you can think of, Scotland voted to Remain and by a MUCH larger majority than the rest of the country voted to leave. (National majority - 52% to leave, Scottish Majority - 62% to stay).

So I don't think asking the people of Scotland whether or not they want to let a Tory government (that very few people in Scotland voted for) guide them through a process (that the majority did not vote for) is entirely out of the question and is in any way, shape or form undemocratic or even unreasonable. In fact I would say it is the very definition of democracy - you give the people a say in how their future and their government is to be shaped.

But, sadly, I am not running the country (Probably a good thing on balance!)

[SD_Film Artists]

It will be nice if we saw more national unity. I voted remain yet in my Lib Dem party I'm made to feel like the resident pro-Brexit Ukipper for no other reason than that I have the audacity of wanting Britain to get a good deal. Some remainers seem so stuck in the gear of jeering and criticising Brexit that they don't seem to realise that Britain getting a bad deal isn't just going to hurt Brexiteers, it's going to hurt everyone.

My only guess of why they're doing that is that they see rejoining the EU as the only end-game and thus anything which discredits Brexit is a plus.

[Vassenor]

It will be nice if we saw more national unity. I voted remain yet in my Lib Dem party I'm made to feel like the resident pro-Brexit Ukipper for no other reason than that I have the audacity of wanting Britain to get a good deal. Some remainers seem so stuck in the gear of jeering and criticising Brexit that they don't seem to realise that Britain getting a bad deal isn't just going to hurt Brexiteers, it's going to hurt everyone. My only guess of why they're doing that is that they see rejoining the EU as the only end-game and thus anything which discredits Brexit is a plus.

Pretty sure that's a massive strawman really. Mainly because I haven't come across anyone trying to argue that way in any of the venues I have been in the discussion.

[Questers]

People should stop referring to the SNP as Scottish Nationalists, because they're not. They're Euronationalists. The SNP means the Scottish branch of the european Nationalist Party.

[Vassenor]

People should stop referring to the SNP as Scottish Nationalists, because they're not. They're Euronationalists. The SNP means the Scottish branch of the european Nationalist Party.

Citation Needed.

[Questers]

People should stop referring to the SNP as Scottish Nationalists, because they're not. They're Euronationalists. The SNP means the Scottish branch of the european Nationalist Party.

Citation Needed.

LOL

[SD_Film Artists]

It will be nice if we saw more national unity. I voted remain yet in my Lib Dem party I'm made to feel like the resident pro-Brexit Ukipper for no other reason than that I have the audacity of wanting Britain to get a good deal. Some remainers seem so stuck in the gear of jeering and criticising Brexit that they don't seem to realise that Britain getting a bad deal isn't just going to hurt Brexiteers, it's going to hurt everyone. My only guess of why they're doing that is that they see rejoining the EU as the only end-game and thus anything which discredits Brexit is a plus.

Pretty sure that's a massive strawman really. Mainly because I haven't come across anyone trying to argue that way in any of the venues I have been in the discussion.

Oh I only wish it was a strawman. At least in my local party (and to some extent the national party) any notion of nationalistic determination is sneered at as delusional jingoistic propaganda. Each news source claiming an EU advantage or a British disadvantage is championed and almost cheered at in a kind of "I told you so" way. I even talked to someone who openly agreed that Britain should pay a significant exit fee because we're "paying our tab at a bar" despite the fact that there's not a single law or treaty which requires Britian to pay it.