What hope for Brexit negotiations?

[DonPeffers]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1035679/Brexit-news-Guy-Verhofstadt-Theresa-May-UK-EU-Ireland-border-no-deal-latest

The European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator questioned from both sides of the negotiations that they are nearing completion of the withdrawal agreement, insisting “zero percent” is finished until they finish the so-called backstop.

In a speech to MEPs, Mr Verhofstadt   mocked   the Prime Minister’s estimation of how close both sides are to reaching a deal.

Mrs May told MPs in the House of Commons “95 percent” of the withdrawal agreement is now completed between the UK and EU.

Mr Verhofstadt said: “Britain has always had difficulties with the metric system.”

If we cannot agree that percentage system of Mathematics predates the metric system of measurement by a couple of thousand years then what can we agree on?

Clearly nothing is agreed until all is agreed and the 27 Countries then accept the proposed agreement.

[TAFKARM]

I’m still hoping we’ll come to our senses and not leave. The older you are, the less your vote should count in this instance. 

[Alan France]

My Westfield was 95% complete for a very long time. It could have been 19/20 or even 95 out of 100.

EU Politicians always amaze me, did you see the recent ruling on MEP's expenses.

MEP's receive the following in Euro's:

7,705 monthly salary plus large pension contribution (After 15 years the pension could be worth 60,000 per year, Neil Kinnock's is 100,000 a year)
On leaving the EU parliament they get a parachute payment of up to 206,664
First class travel is all paid against receipts, but a 313 daily, allowance for hotels living expenses needs no receipts
In addition they receive 4,416 a month, general allowance
Their general court has just rejected an FOI request asking that the 4,416 payment is subject to receipts as they felt it would undermine MEP's privacy!

I can just imagine going to my old accounts department with the message, "no receipts, it would undermine my privacy."

(The EU pension deficit was €227,700,000 in 2012)

[Alan France]

5 minutes ago, RussH said:

I’m still hoping we’ll come to our senses and not leave. The older you are, the less your vote should count in this instance. 

Why?

[DonPeffers]

2 hours ago, RussH said:

I’m still hoping we’ll come to our senses and not leave. The older you are, the less your vote should count in this instance. 

Surely the older a voter is (provided they're still compos mentis) the more experience they have of life, Politics and the EU.

[AdamR]

I agree, however on the flip side, the less it matters to them I would say!

I would be interested to see the outcome of a second vote. I'm fairly sure those who had the wool thoroughly pulled over their eyes by the leave campaign would change their minds now they've see what a mess is being made of all this.

Don't envy May's position, she can't win either way now, but I believe that staying in the EU is better for the country.

[Steve (sdh2903)]

22 minutes ago, DonPeffers said:

Surely the older a voter is (provided they're still compos mentis) the more experience they have of life, Politics and the EU.

But being cynical they will have less time to put up with the **** storm that that is going to follow.

[Stuart]

I'm an old fart but I also happen to have worked in Brussels and have seen at first hand the greed, power mania and empire building etc.  Its a corrupt money black hole.

[AdamR]

11 minutes ago, Stuart said:

I'm an old fart but I also happen to have worked in Brussels and have seen at first hand the greed, power mania and empire building etc.  Its a corrupt money black hole.

I don't think we can get away from that though, just some countries / governments / etc are worse than others!

[DamperMan]

 Before the vote I had no idea how dividing this has turned out to be be. I enjoyed the discussion before.  No I mostly keep my in/out views to myself.   There has been some total and complete miss information fed to the public via Parliament, media and Social regarding both arguments and some of this issues.  People have taken on and believed all sorts.  What is evident is that I would not trust any of any party to run a bath let  alone a successful negotiation.  It appears the only actual preparation for Brexit has been to tweak the m20 to make it a better car park.  I’m very dis-elusioned about it all. 

[Stuart]

Believe me Adam R, it's many, many times worse than what you have ever seen happen in Westminster.  

[DonPeffers]

23 minutes ago, DamperMan said:

 Before the vote I had no idea how dividing this has turned out to be be.

The September 2014 Scottish Independence referendum ended some long-standing friendships and bitterly divided families (some still to this day) so we Scots had some idea of how divisive the EU referendum was likely to be.

That's the trouble with a referendum with a Yes/No result. 

The SNP want another Indy ref. asap. and more Westminster politicians are discussing the possibility of another EU referendum.

If any more do take place then the result has to be legally binding and not simply advisory, otherwise all the headaches could be for nothing.

[jeff oakley]

The EU has some good points to it but many bad ones and over the years countries who are nett contributors have been paying more and more in to the pot to prop up the countries who economies are basket cases. 

As Stuart has said the corruption is almost beyond belief and when you cannot get audits signed off by anyone it shows the level of problems. 

All the EU had to do was to make some concessions to Cameron to fend of the rise in UKIP and there would never have been a vote offered, but as it was they felt that the UK people would never vote to leave. Once the vote was announced, my brother who has lived in France for over 20 years, told me that politicians there were rolling around with joy. If the UK voted to leave they must be punished as other countries must not see that leaving is easy. If they vote to stay all previous concessions won would be swept away as they could treat us with contempt in the knowledge that we will never leave.

Both sides lied, project fear being one and the land of milk and honey full of money from the other side and to be honest somewhere in the middle is the truth. 

So here we are and the issue for me is we either support democracy or ignore it, the people voted on a single issue and the leavers won. The EU has deliberately made it a difficult negotiation and are using the potential return to bloodshed in Ireland as their ace up their sleeve. No one wants a return to that  but no PM would allow a part of the UK to be treated differently.

May is in an impossible position and this has been driven by divisive people on both sides in this country and those in the EU. I am sure a deal will be done but will it be what people voted for or a fudge? What has happened is that no one in the EU wants the UK to leave as we are a nett contributor, business knows they export more to the UK than we export and we will get access via World Trade terms but even that is being made difficult by some. 

Will it be done by next year who knows, will we get a second vote I doubt that otherwise you go against the democracy and trust will be even further eroded in the state of politics. I hope both sides come out with some pride and we continue to work with and live by our EU neighbours who in the main are like us, good people led by self centred people who want power more than anything. 

[Alan France]

This old git voted to leave because of my grandchildren’s future prospects. I just think real future growth may well come from the 93% of the world outside the EU, in part, because of the EU.

If you want a good read about how the EU operates try Yanis Varoufakis - Adults in the Room about his battles with Europe’s deep establishment. He predicted we would be exactly where we are by now and that a deal would be impossible on anything like fair terms. 

[Blatman]

A trading partnership is fine. The EU are trying and have been tying to get POLITICAL union in through the back door of trade. This is not acceptable.

Kinnock was mentioned. I'll mention Mandelson and Farage as well. All of them soundly rejected by the UK electorate yet they become EU politicians. This is the very opposite of democracy and if it happens with those we vote out of office I'm sure it happens with politicians from other countries too. In other words the very people we deliberately reject end up being in a position of power and largely exempt from the will of the people.

The British government handled this all wrong. The UK is the 5th biggest economy in the world

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/the-worlds-biggest-economies-in-2018/

We trade with more countries under WTO rules than we do with the EU. We should have said "We're out. If you want us to trade with you, come up with a deal or we'll spend our money elsewhere." And at the end of the day is Germany really going to say that they don't want to sell us BMW's, Mercedes, Audi's, Daimler, Bosch, Siemens etc etc. Hardly. We need to hold out nerve, stare down project fear, keep calm and carry on.

The core of the EU are much more concerned about contagion. If they make it easy for us to leave then they will be faced with several other countries wanting to do the same. The harder they make it for us the more unattractive leaving looks to other countries who may be on the cusp, and that is political cynicism of gargantuan proportions.

I'm old and I spend a LOT of my working time in Holland, France and Germany and I'm a confirmed leaver. No deal is fine by me. WTO rules will work the way they always have.