Re: Brexit
 

At the same time it was also said we would get a deal, easily, and the Northern Irish border wouldn't be a problem. Neither of these things came true and I don't recall that Leaving with No Deal was on the table either.

May's deal came closest to this with a transitional period whilst we arrange a trade agreement and a backstop to the Irish border. The latter was going to on the island of Ireland only until we requested it be UK wide to appease the DUP. The DUP voted against it anyway and so did the ERG.

Re: Brexit
 

Sorry, Pierre, fact-checkers disagree with you on this. As does the substantial evidence in the linked Poke post in post #1137
https://fullfact.org/europe/what-was...on-referendum/

Re: Brexit
 

Wasting your time evidenced fact doesn’t get a look in. Same for contradictory statements from Brexiteers.

Re: Brexit
 

I've always accepted that Leave won and I've always been against a second referendum. But I'm also been against the recent attempt at rewriting history to stipulate that a vote to leave was a vote for a no-deal Brexit or similar terms. Fortunately, we have independent fact-checking sites that can correct such matters.

---------- Post added at 20:56 ---------- Previous post was at 20:54 ----------

That suggests that Pierre's assertion was correct. Independent fact-checkers disagree.

Re: Brexit
 

we’ve got a deal. A bespoke deal, something that was said we wouldn’t get. But nobody wants it.

I honestly don’t recall that being a major discussion point, which was obviously a major error

well it wasn’t Because I was under the impression that A50 stipulated that a WA is required. So i’m Sure it was thought this would happen as a matter of course.

Re: Brexit
 

That’s disingenuous.

Striking independent trade deals was discussed extensively. Leaving the customs union is the technical measure required to fulfil that aim. Googling the phrase “customs union” and concluding that because the UK’s trade policy wasn’t discussed in those terms, it therefore was not discussed, is a pretty poor quality piece of work and leaves me wondering whether Full Fact’s work is similarly compromised in other ways.

Re: Brexit
 

That post ironically backs up what I said.

Re: Brexit
 

Government set to offer a “confirmatory referendum” vote.

Popcorn time. No more extensions or can kicking. What does Parliament want to do? Remain? Here’s the big chance.

Re: Brexit
 

There's nothing to evidence that FullFact only Googled "customs union" so your subsequent criticism of FullFact is on shaky ground.
Pierre said "It was made Crystal clear prior to the referendum, that leaving the EU meant leaving the Single Market, Customs Union and ECJ jurisdiction. That was repeated over and over again and was in the famous leaflet delivered to each household. That is a fact and is unquestionable."
It certainly was not in the leaflet and certainly was not crystal clear.

---------- Post added at 21:35 ---------- Previous post was at 21:34 ----------

You could be correct but your post doesn't help anyone to understand why.

Re: Brexit
 

There’s nothing wrong with my post, nor with Pierre’s contention.

“Leave the customs union” and “strike independent trade deals” are tightly bound together. The former is required in order to achieve the latter.

All that has changed since 2016 is that we have moved on from discussing policy aims to understanding and discussing the measures required in order to enact them.

It is hardly surprising that people are now more familiar with some of the EU’s technical ways of working. Had anyone discussed “leaving the customs union” at length prior to the vote, then that discussion would have immediately required the explanation “that’s what we need to do in order to pursue an independent trade policy”, and that in itself would have been no more controversial than explaining that going to the shops involves driving the car.

This argument rests on the absurd idea that if you had said, prior to the vote, “pursuing an independent trade policy necessitates leaving the customs union” then people would’ve said, “oh well hang on there, we can’t do that, the customs union is the customs union, we’d better not mess with it”.

For the purposes of debate, there was nothing disingenuous about discussing trade policy rather than the measures necessary to achieve it and for the purposes of deciding whether the debate was illuminating, there is nothing disingenuous about claiming that the customs union issue was properly discussed.

Re: Brexit
 

Well yes. It's also a sign of how polarised the discussion has become that May's Deal was seen as 'not Brexit'. It was a deal that would have meant that as we're talking right now the UK would not have been a member of the European Union. We would in two years time also be out of the transition period and (almost) completely out of every facet of the EU.

All rejected because either people wanted a closer relationship or because of the backstop. The backstop required as a solution to a problem for which no one else had an answer anyway. Well, most people, in a remarkable stroke of bad luck all those geniuses who had an answer were stuck on radio phone in shows or internet forums rather than in the civil service.

Incidentally go back to when it was about to be voted on and I hesitantly accepted it. I didn't want to Leave and I thought her deal was pretty bad for my view of what the UK should be. However at least it was orderly and helped us move on. However if the ERG + others won't even accept that then why shouldn't Remain strike and take advantage? After all it's never going to stop with these people. Mark Francois will be on television every time the Government tried to compromise in a future trade agreement with the EU bleating on about the referendum.

I don't think it did but obviously we wanted one.

And that's the thing with the 'we knew what we were voting for'. I think most people thought we would leave with a deal. That's why they were talking about the German car companies making Germany sign a deal, it's why politicians talked about dealing with each country separately by-passing the EU and it's why the Vote Leave Campaign talked about the deal constantly. The Leave campaign was intentionally vague but pretty much every discussed outcome involved us getting a great deal.

Now thinking we would Leave with a deal but it's not very good so let's Leave without one is a different and valid opinion to hold but that's not the same as all the people who claim to have thought No Deal was what they originally voted for.

Re: Brexit
 

Re: Brexit
 

To state that FullFact just performed a Google search without any evidence to show this is wrong. It was also not made crystal clear that we would leave the customs union as it was rarely mentioned. There is a world of difference between "crystal clear" and its being a necessity of independent trade deals.

Re: Brexit
 

Fair enough although it obviously isn't mandatory to complete since no deal is a prospect.

Re: Brexit
 

Yes, but the point being that before the referendum “no deal” was not an issue as it shouldn’t happen.

The deal should have been conducted between the Government and the EU, but Gina Miller stopped that. So here we’re are.