Can we just first have Scotland back in? Just to fuck with England.
Thirded so long as we can drop the border down to include Cumbria, Northumberland, and Tyne & Wear… maybe North Yorkshire, too. I’d love to be Scottish if they’d be happy to have us!
If Greater Manchester declares itself a city state, please can we join? Maybe let Wales in too as long as they take responsibility for Liverpool.
This kind of cycle back and forth between full-throated conservative idiocy and then demanding to be saved from the consequences of their own actions is what really makes me so depressed about the majority of voters.
I could excuse a young person maybe for being naive and inexperienced enough to think conservativism might have some kind of merit, but grown-ass adults have literally no excuse to ever believe the right-wing ever about anything.
Not just in the UK, but everywhere.
Sure, no problem. But this time without all the unfair special rules and exceptions that the UK had.
I fear the EU will take them right back and set a precedent for leaving and rejoining without so much problems as figuring out new contracts and agreements.
I’d demand worse terms for every time they leave and then try to rejoin (aka the cut was 50% but now the contribution has to be at least 55%)
I dont think so. Its in the EU interest for them to come back in. It will show others that leaving is not a good idea. However, they wkbt want it to be easy as it might encourage others to leave. They will join in the same terms as new entrants.
They will have to join the euro and they wont get their previous favourabke rebate for agriculture.
Its still a good deal for both sides but Britain make a mistake, as most are aware.
All it takes is for one member country, no matter how tiny, to say “No” and it’s no, and in some countries like Belgium even a single region (say, “mighty” Walonia) can block it.
For example, I expect that Spain will want Gibraltar back as a condition for a Yes on a UK Membership vote.
In regards of Gibraltar, the problem is it being a fiscal paradise. If one of the agreement was that Gibraltar has too have the same rules as the rest of the EU it could be enough for the Spanish government.
And if that meant enforcing the same for Ireland and Luxemburg, even better.
A single region within a member country can veto an entire block’s will, even if the rest of the country assents? That seems very broken as a voting system, to me.
Joining at this point would require an insane effort on the UKs side. I am pretty sure that an undemocratic institution like the house of lords would not be acceptable under current EU laws and that is not even accounting for the UKs voting system. The UK would also have to join the currency union. The last point alone makes rejoining very unlikely in my opinion. I think the only thing UK citizens can realistically hope for is, at best, something similar to the Norway model.
Norway is a rule taker that pays into the EU without any influence. They’re also tiny and they know it. This is said with love from a neighbour who would love to see Norway join the EU.
I don’t think the UKs collective ego would allow them to join on Norway terms.
If I remember it correctly, members of the EFTA such as Norway have a vote with veto, and during the Brexit Deal negotiations they weren’t at all keen on having the UK joining the EFTA because it’s far bigger than all the others and would likely dominate.
I’ve been patiently waiting for all these Brexit benefits we were promised. But they haven’t been forthcoming. In fact, it’s just been a shambles from day one. We’ve just given ourselves more problems to (not) deal with.
The main Brexit benefit appears to be the disintegration of the conservative party. Pretty good benefit really.
That’s how politics work. Conservatives do a few awful things then it swings over to the liberal side… then the liberals go a bit too fast and it swings back.
I just can’t believe the US wasted it’s political clout on fucking Biden. Another Obama would have been killer, but instead we have the guy nobody really wants and is only chosen because his opponent is hitler 2.0
Well you forgot the most important step to get those benefits, that would be the application to become America’s 51st through 89th states. Though most of your 39 counties probably don’t have the necessary population to become their own states.
Could have fooled me with the Tories in power for so long trying to dismantle the NHS and all the other few benefits that you guys have over The US.
Like you guys haven’t given Labor actual power since Thatcher and Reagan. We at least gave the Democrats a supermajority, kinda, for a total of 6 months across 3 different administrations.
Not great, and we seem to have shown the rest of you how to turn into plutocracies.