towny44 wrote: 15 May 2019, 09:45
Farage or no Farage the result was to leave the EU and Cameron promised he would honour the vote, of course he never expected a leave vote but as many have said before, be careful what you wish for, or in this case offer.
As regards no plan or idea about the sort of Brexit we should negotiate, that's not surprising since no one had ever left before, but I agree that I did not want or expect a no deal, although I always assumed the EU would play hard ball with a trade deal, however I never envisaged the acrimony that a withdrawal agreement would cause. I think Barney said way back that accepting that the WA discussions should be finalised before the trade talks was our first big mistake of very many our govt. have made in these discussions.
In summary we are at an impasse and I think our only way out is to revoke article 50 but also to have another referendum, we all know a lot more about the perils of leaving, however I hope our politicians have learned enough to be able to be able proceed to carve up the EU in much the same way they have stitched us up, once we invoke article 50 and start again on a clean sheet.......I am so confident that the result would still be to leave, and probably by a much higher margin.
I would not be a million miles from your position. Nobody expected brexit to win and therefore nobody had a brexit plan - of any sort. After the referendum David Cameron should have thanked the population for their advisory vote and put together a cross-party committee to properly explore and determine a plan and a strategy for leaving that would be acceptable to all parties, but primarily acceptable to the UK. This could have included investigatory relationships with other countries on future relationships with the creation of 'agreements in principle'. They could also have looked at expected impact to the economy, jobs, infrastructure requirements and everything else that comes with brexit. It should have explored and costed ALL brexit options that have been bandied about over the last 3 years.
Once a proper plan and strategy were devised then and only then should article 50 have been triggered. I have always said I could have been convinced either way but, at the time of the referendum I could see through the lies about immigration, the lies about sovereignty, the lies about Laws, the lies about the Lisbon treaty, the lies about the NHS ... the problem was that there was not a single truth in the brexit campaign that I could focus on. Similarly there was little in the remain camp that I could focus on - but there were some things I felt were truths (better working together, weakening of the UK union etc.). When negotiations fail I always believe the best path is to return to the status quo until something verifiably better can be determined. At the minute, 3 years down the line, with over a dozen brexit plans on the table and not one of them verifiably places the UK or its people in a better position.
If article 50 is to be revoked (and I am not even sure it can be - or how much that could cost) then it should be on a promise that the suggested cross-party committee and working group is created to look at how a clean break can be made form the EU (and that should include EU representatives). There should also be guaranteed promise, from all political parties, that within 5 years the question is put back to the people, but this time it is a head-to-head of a single brexit plan/strategy versus the EU plan/strategy (preferably with a threat to execute any politician or journalist found out to be telling lies).
The one thing I disagree with you though is that there has been no stitch up ... just a total incompetent mess by
- the electorate (some of which were more interested in giving the establishment a two-fingered gesture rather than voting for the issue and secondly because they were given a chance to get behind the government that was meant to deliver brexit, but failed to do so)
- the brexiteers (who had no plan or strategy and arrogantly thought the world owed them a favour)
- the remainers (who arrogantly thought they would win so didn't need to try too hard)
- those too lazy to even be bothered to vote for the most important political event that is likely to happen in their lifetimes.
I don't think the EU has stitched us up, they told us before the referendum what their negotiating stance was and despite that being labelled as project fear they have stuck rigidly to it ... we have stitched ourselves up good and proper - especially those demanding that brexit is delivered without a plan (and just saying 'leave' is not a plan).
Sadly there is a total dichotomy between Leave and remain and the job of the government is to represent the entire population not just a minority, or even a majority.
