I’m glad you’ve got onto The Guardian, the only English newspaper of any worth.
One I didn’t suggest (but should have done) is The Scotsman. Have a look at this piece:
If I was a bit hard on you, I apologise: I’m really fed up with the pisspoor and partial reprting of Brexit in the Australian media (including the ABC) — you weere just there when I reached exploding point.
All good. I’m glad that overall it was a civil discussion.
I’ll have a read of that article too.
Suspect the complicated legal issues relate to the fact that Northern Ireland and Scotland do not have external affairs powers. They would need to acquire the international legal status of autonomous self governing territories to participate in the EU and to implement its policies.
I think Greenland pretty much had that status in Denmark. It initially joined the EU as part of Denmark, but left soon after and now has some sort of non member associate status.
Edit: alternatively, at a stretch Westminster could use its external powers to administer NI and Scottish membership on their behalf, but that would require hard borders between them and England/Wales . Wouldn’t probably also require different categories of UK passports.
The above Guardian article covers a lot of that, interestingly England would have to acquire it’s own parliament as stated here:
"The harder transitional questions fall in UK constitutional law. The Westminster parliament would have to give the four nations the power to make international agreements in their own name so that each could remain a member of the EU (or not) separately. All subject areas covered by EU law would have to be devolved from Westminster to the four nations so that they could ensure harmonisation of their laws with EU law (or not).
In the current UK constitution, however, the four nations are not equal: England would have to acquire its own parliament to receive the devolution. This idea has been well mooted already so plans are already available. In fact, the creation of an English parliament would bring self-government home even more dramatically than Brexiteers promised."
I’m 100% sure UK citizens had no clue how difficult it would be become and what the implications of their vote was to be. Utter madness over there. If I was English (cough cough) no way would have I voted to “leave”.
I take it you have some Irish or Scottish heritage as you seem quite passionate about the whole scenario.
I’m not English but have many rellies still living there and so can only go on what they want so naturally they are going to have very pro English views.
Scotland is about as socially divided as England, with the differences between Edinburgh and Glasgow , the grip of large landholders and semi feudal conditions in rural areas. Membership of the EU gave opportunities for an escape from that.
For the English, Brexit means a reversion to being condemned to the rigidities of English society and becoming tourists in Continental Europe and losing the automatic right of residence and work in a diversity of European cultures, where, as an individual, you are not going to be judged by English class standards.
The amount of knowledge on this site is amazing. There is a lot of focus on how stupid the Brits are, chortle chortle. However isn’t the other side of the story that the EU has a massive amount to lose? If the UK leaves smoothly, and suffers no significant financial detriment, voters in other countries in the EU surely say “It wasn’t that hard to leave, why are we still here?” By delaying a deadline the EU gets to keep the chaos going. We also get stories about the UK potentially starving from lack of food imports and similar alarmist nonsense. I have not seen sterling collapse so far.
Having said all that, the history of European peace since 1945 (with its flow-on effects for world peace)
does suggest that an EU has some benefits.
I guess the counter point to “not seeing the alarmist predictions” is that they haven’t actually left yet…
I think the point is that the EU has a relatively small proportion of its trade with the UK; but the UK has a very large proportion with the EU.
Supply shortfalls ( food and other) are a short term disruption problem, connected to regulatory border checks. But, depending whether the UK imposes tariffs on imports from the EU under a hard Brexit, the costs to UK consumers will rise.
If there is no interim free trade deal or customs union, the UK will be obliged to impose the same tariffs on imports from the EU as it imposes on other WTO member third countries ( except for any special preferences for developing countries). IIRC, Ireland and the Netherlands would be the hardest hit.
And, under the same scenario, UK exporters to the EU would face tariffs . France could gain for some grain crops.
When May draws a red line on the EU basic principle of the free movement of people and casts it as a migration issue for the UK, she is effectively saying that the UK does not identify itself as European and that there is a potential threat from continental Europe. That will go down well with the EU27 in circumstances where they appear to be more cohesive than her own party.
A recent tweet: “ As an Indian, I an tell you that it takes forever for the British to leave”
Lol
It’s a cultural quirk of the English psyche that still many modern English folk and to a far lesser extent some Britons, have simply never seen themselves or identified as European. It’s probably a throwback derived from the arrogance or self assured expansion of the Empire.
The quirks of language and nation state identity are that we have developed different names for each other amongst many languages but I see The Channel as a symbolic of what’s happening in the UK. I had a French partner who alerted me years ago to the fact that it is known as Le Manche, whereas on the other side of the drink it’s The English Channel. Not only that, it’s what separates them from the mainland of Europe. Interestingly enough I’ve heard all types of English refer to the Republic of Ireland/Eire as ‘Southern Ireland’, including media. It was no surprise to me that the Irish seem to identify somewhat as European, even if simply by currency.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of remain voters don’t really identify as “Euro” but saw it as a practical, political and responsible measure.
The all see themselves as separate countries when they need to, unless they need to see themselves as British. Of course, the English are the most important of the British people.
There was a famous (but apocryphal) headline once:
“Fog over Channel. Continent cut off”
Over long my business life I have dealt with just about every Nation on this earth, and only three times have we been severely screwed over by international companies; all were British. Without any doubt in my mind, it is a cultural feature of being British.
I am a very trusting person by nature; but we either do not deal with British Companies any longer, or if we are forced by necessity to buy or sell from any British company, we are extremely careful in all dealings.
I have discussed this with my new Partners in Houston and their experience is similar.
They really do use the nationality selectively, e.g. Britain’s Andy Murray wins Wimbledon, or Scot Andy Murray loses.
When they claimed Britain’s Seamus Heaney winning a Nobel Prize, he refused, saying he was Irish, even though he lived in Derry in Northern Ireland.
Connor McKenna correcting Luke freaking Darcy or some clown four times saying he is from Ireland spings to mind…
It’s going to hurt the UK waaaay more than it’ll hurt the EU.
Yep. Some individual sectors & businesses in the EU will be hurt through lack of access to uk markets, and there’ll be less opportunity for poorer Europeans to go get jobs doing farm or aged care or whatever work in Britain.
But if Brexit goes through, the bigger eu nations will feast on the productive sectors of the uk economy like vultures on a corpse. Any uk company that relies on exports to the eu will have to think hard about relocating just to survive. It’s already happening.