[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Membership of the EU was always a trade-off between the pros & cons of being part of such an entity. It is plain to see who much we benefited when you look at the economic growth since we joined the Common Market all those years ago. What was never recognised by the small cabal of sovereignty zealots that drove the Brexit agenda was the fact that the economic DNA of the UK was intertwined with the EU at the smallest level of business. From zero-tariff trade, just-in-time supply chains sources parts from the EU to the ability to source workers, who were economically net-positive, to fill the gaps in our domestic labour market.

Surgically extracting a 40+ year old economic nervous system was always going to be a lose-lose situation. Always. Now here's the rub, those zealots who voted Brexit based on their perception of sovereignty, will never address the lies told at the time to get their project over the line. They still won't. The damage to the country in so many ways will never be honestly discussed and here lies the real problem.

What is less than obvious is the technical gain in sovereignty much celebrated is actually a danger of sorts. While we were part of the EU, as a rules-based organisation, we had checks & balances in place that curbed the excesses of member state governments. We had to abide by environment controls & standards, we had common standards on all sorts of things: food ingredients, etc.

Now, we have no such controls and as such, our Government can take us in a direction far beyond what would have been tolerated when in the EU. Elect a right wing, populous, Government and we're on a crazy train to being a 1st world banana republic. You could argue we on that train already.

In summary, it was all a big con. The sovereignty pot of gold at the end of the rainbow turned out to be, as it always was going to do, a handful of dried beans sold to you by a pack of non-dom spivs. The only funny part of all this is that many of those who voted Leave in the hope that we would have fewer immigrants, now have so many more and here's the kicker, they are not the colour they may have wished for

The inexorable tide of demographics will lead us back into the EU, probably via incremental steps e.g. EFTA first, in approx. 10 years.

Oh well - another load of Remoaner tripe to rebut.

Membership of the EU was always a trade-off between the pros & cons of being part of such an entity. It is plain to see who much we benefited when you look at the economic growth since we joined the Common Market all those years ago. What was never recognised by the small cabal of sovereignty zealots that drove the Brexit agenda was the fact that the economic DNA of the UK was intertwined with the EU at the smallest level of business. From zero-tariff trade, just-in-time supply chains sources parts from the EU to the ability to source workers, who were economically net-positive, to fill the gaps in our domestic labour market.

We joined the Common Market. Had it stayed like that, including the development of the Single Market and Customs Union, then we would still be there. But no, they had to do the WTD trick to remove our veto. Why the WTD? France needed to protect its uncompetitive working practices. What else did France want to protect? Its share of our fishing waters and their inefficient farming practices.

On the bit that I've highlighted, we weren't so 'DNA inter-twined' as to have joined the Euro. The Euro got itself into serious trouble and individual countries were then at the mercy of Germany (again). We avoided all that. I still believe that the Euro is the EU's Achilles heel.

Surgically extracting a 40+ year old economic nervous system was always going to be a lose-lose situation. Always. Now here's the rub, those zealots who voted Brexit based on their perception of sovereignty, will never address the lies told at the time to get their project over the line. They still won't. The damage to the country in so many ways will never be honestly discussed and here lies the real problem.

Extracting us from the EU's 'nervous system' had a considerable transition and grace period. That helped. The FTA has helped - all it needs is decent customs forms software to make it easy on our exporters. Their exporters see a huge market here and don't want to lose that - a decent pragmatic situation.

What is less than obvious is the technical gain in sovereignty much celebrated is actually a danger of sorts. While we were part of the EU, as a rules-based organisation, we had checks & balances in place that curbed the excesses of member state governments. We had to abide by environment controls & standards, we had common standards on all sorts of things: food ingredients, etc.

You dismiss the value of sovereignty too lightly. What 'checks and balances' are you referring to? Did those rules deal with German excess when they fixed the value of the Euro against the DM? Did they curb French excesses on the agriculture front? No, they curbed poor old Greece when it tried to get out of an economic mess. There are no environmental rules that we haven't kept; the common standards make sense and if we don't maintain them, we won't sell them very much. Likewise food ingredients - we're not going to go soft on those standards. We don't need the EU for that and if I recall correctly, we developed most of the standards.

Now, we have no such controls and as such, our Government can take us in a direction far beyond what would have been tolerated when in the EU. Elect a right wing, populous, Government and we're on a crazy train to being a 1st world banana republic. You could argue we on that train already.

Utter tripe. What controls are missing now. You've just said that, hypothetically, our sovereign government could take us in directions that Brussels would not like. Your fear of electing the wrong sort of government could happen whether or not we are in the EU is a tilt against democracy - however undesirable you and I might find it. But we need to have that degree of freedom and I doubt that it will happen. Your case for remaining in the EU tilts toward the possibility of the UK straying outside the EU's preferred political boundaries.

In summary, it was all a big con. The sovereignty pot of gold at the end of the rainbow turned out to be, as it always was going to do, a handful of dried beans sold to you by a pack of non-dom spivs. The only funny part of all this is that many of those who voted Leave in the hope that we would have fewer immigrants, now have so many more and here's the kicker, they are not the colour they may have wished for

You are even dafter than I previously thought. Do you really think that the Red Wall and other Leavers were taken in by the hype? They didn't like being a subsidiary of the EU - simples. The promises were nice-to-haves. A competent government could have delivered most of the promise, more or less. However, COVID didn't help and choices made by the government cost us a lot of money which we are now paying back. The EU is/was totally irrelevant .

You then bring racial prejudice (highlighted) into this. That's a foul low blow. This immigration row is entirely political points scoring and very shallow. I've not seen a proper labour requirements analysis that we could debate. It's all headline stuff playing to the electoral roll.

The inexorable tide of demographics will lead us back into the EU, probably via incremental steps e.g. EFTA first, in approx. 10 years.

Who knows? Maybe. Democracy will decide. Don't forget that.