BREXIT? Am I just plain stupid?

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/eu-withdrawal-bill-key-areas_uk_5a0b2ba2e4b0b17ffce0b8b9?utm_hp_ref=uk-politics

Good explanations in this link, Bluegal.

Is the government expecting to lose a vote and cancel Brexit?

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/operation-stack-brexit-dover-customs_uk_5a0c9f64e4b0b37054f417dd

I do not think that listening to the news will help Bluegal or anyone at all to understand the issues. It did not so so prior to the referendum and is no help now. Entrenched factions do not give helpful information.

I went to a variety of academic sources and waded my way through their papers prior to the referendum as I felt that it was important to actually make an effort to try and understand what it was all about or I did not have the right to cast a vote. I nearly did not vote at all; but on principle I did not think I could waste that right.

I am beginning to suspect that our negotiators do not understand the issues either. Whichever way the vote had gone I think that people had the right to expect that any subsequent discussions/negotiations would be conducted with a modicum of intelligence and integrity - but apparently not.

It's quite easy. We are going to leave the EU which is going to be a complete doddle according to Liam Fox and we're going to give £350 million pounds per week/month or something like that to the NHS [according to Johnson, Gove, Patel and Gisela Stuart; oh whoops forgot, the last two have gone, one in disgrace and one has just donearunner]. Simples....

..oh yes; and there are people who say things are going to get a lot worse before they get better but it's going to be worth it in the long run but, quite frankly, I'll probably be dead by then....

and despite voting to Remain,Scotland and NI will be dragged out too,against our will.With NO voice in the "discussions"Brexit will destroy the Scottish economy ...but hey why would Westminster worry about that ...they take all they can from us anyway

Surprised to hear that some people are happy about how things are going re B REX IT. Really? I am still waiting for a Leaver to tell me what Britain post leaving will look like. Come on, share the joy!

I can see no reason why Bluegal shouldn't ask this forum whatever she wants to know. There is quite a lot of knowledge and some helpful people who are prepared to do a bit of research. Currently, I would think it is as good a source for information as any when it comes to acts. Go to the politics threads and ask, suggest, join in.

It is a shame the British government could not have put as much effort into making the EU work as it is into making Brexit a mess.

I think the fundamental problem is that while it was easy for people to say they wanted to “leave”, there was no understanding about what that meant or what it entailed. Leaving the EU after forty years is a lengthy, complicated business which will cost billions of pounds in new regulatory systems, new infrastructure and a huge number of civil servants to implement it. It cannot be done in a few months. New trade agreements will take years to develop and the UK lacks the expertise to do this. In the meantime the economy will take a massive hit.
This could be mitigated against if a hard Brexit is avoided and the UK remains in the EEA or EFTA.
There is plenty of evidence available but the media response to Brexit is ill-informed, biased and lightweight.

A lesson (?) for Britain on how to do precisely the wrong thing and get into a horrible mess?

Again? Really?

There are plenty of excellent sources of information out there.

varian Where is your evidence that Leave voters assumed it would be easy?
It is very easy to throw out casual insults but what does it actually achieve?

Oh Nonnie, sad but true ?

One of the MPs in the debates was talking about how much preparation was done for how 'leaving' would look to Scotland before the referendum was even held. The fact that there was no legal structure to show how leaving the EU would look done by this government before the referendum is what has caused so many problems. They were irresponsible in the extreme calling it and not preparing for all or any outcome.

This is the apathy that will allow the Brexit hardliners to shove us headlong into the most damaging attack on our country there has been since the war. Don't be bullied by the 'remoaner' taunts, you have a right to your opinion and should voice it on every occasion. if we don't speak up for what we believe, then we only have ourselves to blame when our grandchildren end up in an insignificant, impoverished, offshore tax haven Britain, which is what Johnson, Gove etc are steering us towards.

Bluegal, your question is a very sensible one. The referendum result calls on our government to take Britain out of the EU, and to dismantle a complex network of rules, regulations, laws and trading agreements in the hope that we can build up some new ones in time to stop our economy going into a major recession.

The referendum result was constitutionally non-binding (strictly speaking, our government could ignore the result) but our politicians are scared of the political consequences of ignoring the "Will of the People".

The talks are so complicated and so shrouded in secrecy that nobody other than the diplomats and civil servants actually knows what all the issues are and how close to agreement we are. One issue is the "Brexit Bill". The EU wants Britain to pay something like 60 billion pounds to cover the treaty obligations that we are backing out of. Boris says the EU can "whistle" for the money, because he knows that will please his supporters. We're likely to pay something close to 60 billion nevertheless, and nobody seems able to explain whether we are legally obliged to pay it or whether we are giving in to a form of blackmail. It's obvious that most of our politicians are well out of their depth. It's a bit like asking you or me to demolish a house and build a new one, without any experience of what materials to buy or what money to budget for.

I think everyone needs to move on from a discussion of why they voted the way they did. The only meaningful discussion now is about what happens next.
This is a report from the cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee about the implications for Customs. It is quite clear that a hard Brexit would be catastrophic for Britain.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmhaff/540/540.pdf

Here is part of the conclusion.
“We were not satisfied with the answers we received to a vitally important question about planning for post-Brexit customs arrangements: who is in charge? The Government’s approach seems to us to lack focus, urgency and above all leadership. Any progress seems to rely on working groups of government officials, with no meaningful ministerial leadership. This is particularly worrying given that the costs involved would appear to be significantly higher than the existing Brexit contingency funding requested by the Home Office and even higher than the total envisaged by the Prime Minister for the whole Government.”

Nonnie hit the nail on the head !
We are all lied to and misled by buffoons who also don’t have a clue, so .....
Just sit back and watch the pantomime continue ?

This has never been done before, so it is a blank canvas. Even the unelected elete in Brussels don't know how to deal with it. So no surprises that we are not clear on what is going on. Interestingly I gather there is nothing written in the articles that say the end date actually has to be 29th March 2019 or indeed that we have to leave at all, following our trigger letter last year. I personally hope we do leave and move onwards and upwards.

OK Bluegal I'll give it a go. GCSE answer. Feel free GN members to give marks and feedback.
1. the detail of leaving the EU is massively complicated despite the simple slogans and promises of the Leave campaign.
2.the EU have said there are 3 areas that need some clear agreement before the UK can start talking about how the trade will work i.e. customs tariffs for different things
3. The 3 areas are: The status of EU nationals living in the UK. There's a broad brush idea that they are welcome to stay but will need to "register" and that EU workers will need to have a job offer or a job, or they can't stay. The Irish Border - this is v complicated because if customs charges are introduced then the 300mile long border, with 200 road crossings, will need a way of handling customs. The broad brush statement is that the UK want this to be "frictionless" but nobody seems to know what that means, and Irish government worried. No government at all in N Ireland at the moment as the main parties can't agree. The third key issue is the money. PM says we'll "meet our obligations" e.g pensions of MEPs but government don't want to get pinned down on detail cos whatever the cost, there will be an outcry.
4 Some of the barriers are to do with the Court - the ECJ - that is the ultimate arbiter for many things. (Not human rights though, different court) Issues like who has the right to stay in which country would ultimately be judged by ECJ. But the PM has said we'd have to set up a new post-brexit court that would do this kind of thing. This makes little sense
5 People are very worried about things like the regulation of medicines, rights of planes to take off and land, importation of isotopes used in radiotherapy etc. No known progress in these areas.
6. Businesses very worried about what the trading arrangements will be - they don't realistically have time now to sort out computer systems and business plans before spring of 2019
7. There is a general agreement that we will need a transitional period to get things sorted. The avid "Leavers" are kicking up a fuss about this.
8. Nearly everyone is agreed that a "no deal" would be an utter disaster.

I wish we still had John Cravens Newsround! He used to explain stories clearly and simply giving the Background. I think a lot of adults enjoyed it.
I am also confused about what it all means. I voted remain but not for ant clear reason except I thought vaguely that it had given us peace in Europe for 60 years and although corrupt was better than beingbon our own. I think we were all poorly informed. Can we not have a discussion on this site without people sniping at each other? I have friendswho voted for brexit for equally vague reasons and we are still friends!

Having read the first page I guess this is a remainders blog. Safe to say I won't continue much longer. I voted to leave and still feel it's the right move. Try reading the history of Germany from the late 1800s and their wanting to have a united Europe under them.

No-one, not even the EU or the UK government knows what will happen BECAUSE IT HASN'T HAPPENED YET. Yes I am shouting - it is bad enough the Remainers on The Times being patronising and insulting to Leavers - I really didn't expect it here. Just for the record, I voted leave and have a Double First from Cambridge so thank you Whitewave for suggesting that a lack of intelligence was the reason I voted leave.
I voted leave as I took a good long look at the future plans by the EU and didn't much like what I saw. Further and closer union - do we really want to be a sub-statelet of Germany and France? I don't. We are the third highest net payer into the EU - does anyone think our payments will go down - nope, me neither. We are paying for lovely new roads in France and schools and hospitals in Poland and Eastern Europe whilst our own infrastructure is going down the pan. We will be expected to pay more and more and I think we pay far too much already.
In order to appease the remainers, the government seem to still want an agreement but most of us are coming to the conclusion that this will not happen. Maybe a clean break would be for the best.
Whilst on the subject of Germany, one of the richest countries in the West, why can't they pay their fair share into NATO. Why should we support them any longer?

Re Germany - we don’t