Re: Britain outside the EU
 

The majority who voted, as you well know. :rolleyes:

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Unless of course a government is elected with a mandate otherwise.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Well no one will know what the 13,000,000 odd would have voted for.


They have ZERO complaints as they didn't bother to vote.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Not what he said/typed…

I can only respond to what people post, not what others think they may have meant to post (as I’m not telepathic).

I even mitigated it by only including the voting population, not the actual population.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Since I dont believe you're that stupid, I know full well that you knew exactly what was meant, as I'm quite sure did everyone else.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

you have to be in it to win it

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

But we do know how people think today:

In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union?

The EU transition period ended on Dec 31st 2020. Since then, do you think Brexit has gone well or badly?

Large majority of people think it has gone badly and we were wrong to leave.

The good thing about democracies is that they can change their minds. The evidence is compelling (£40 billion loss per year, etc.) and with the upcoming Trump Presidency, the UK will need to choose which bloc it should be aligning with. The answer is clear ...

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

This is a false dichotomy.

As an independent trading nation we are free to align wherever is in our interests and there’s no reason why we should be forced to pick one trading zone over another.

Pointing to Trump as a reason not to pursue good trading relations with the USA is also to fundamentally misunderstand the deep strategic and cultural ties between the UK and the USA that are on an entirely different level than anything a president who will be on the scene for no more than the next 4 years can undo.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

of course, we live in a democracy

---------- Post added at 12:42 ---------- Previous post was at 12:41 ----------

You think I meant Under 5's? or something?

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Age or iQ?

just asking for a friend

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

I disagree. Being a small nation when compared to these trading blocs, we need to ensure our strategic and economic interests are aligned with the trading partner that best meets our needs and best fits our values.

A trade deal with a US on a Trump trajectory that diverges from the need to trade efficiently with the EU requires a clear choice of alignment.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Can you illustrate why you believe these two things are fundamentally incompatible?

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

One example is if a US trade mandates changes in food standards e.g. hormone-treated beef, etc. then these could compromise our food exports to the EU.

To my mind if you seek to harmonise regulatory alignment with the EU to reduce the ongoing costs of Brexit then you would find it very difficult to make changes due to US trade demands and still square the circle.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

No - your assumptions are based on a mindset that’s still within the EU, and we are not. When we were in, then we were obliged to harmonise regulations such that they affected every business whether it was an exporter or not. But we are not in the EU any more. When you sign a trade deal with another country or bloc external to your own, you do so either on the basis of mutual recognition of standards, or else you accept that goods exported to that bloc must meet their standards. You do not, however, have to align your non-exported goods and services with that bloc. So it is entirely possible to sign trade deals in parallel with both the USA and the EU, even for exactly the same goods and services. It is then up to exporters to decide who to sell to.

And this is why your assumptions are faulty - you’re not thinking in terms of trade deals, you’re thinking in terms of realignment in such a way as to make the UK a semi-detached member of the single market, along some variation of thr EEA model perhaps.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

It's unlikely the US would demand we only sell hormone treated beef, they may demand we buy it though.

in any event let's take that argument at face value.

Do you think it is beyond the capability of our farmers to produce beef for both markets?

And it may be that the US market for hormone-treated beef eclipses the EU market, so we may not care if it compromised our EU exports.

Many positions can be held.

Markets decide.