Brexit outcome
 

Almost two years since the vote. Don't think any of us would imagine the current quagmire.

What's your prediction for a year from now? We're scheduled to formally depart the EU on 30 March 2019. Just a bit more than 10 months from now.

What kind of Brexit will it be? I don't want to get into a 100+ page debate over the merits of Brexit, of the various options or the politicians involved. Just your prediction of what the situation will be come 30 March 2019.

My prediction: Inability to come up with a plan and kicking the can down the road for the next 10 months leads to a hard brexit, UK out of any customs union, a last minute basic FTA cobbled together with EU that redefines the meaning of "open border" in NI (based on free movement of pop but not goods). Ireland will protest, but EU will tell them to shut up and put up, just like they did to Greece. In exchange EU gets the 39billion or even more. Pound drops a lot.

You?

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I agree, it will be a total **** up.

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Would you vote the other way in the event of a referendum on the final deal?

I must say that the current train-wreck is largely what I imagined would be the case - too many vested interests.

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My prediction: A terrible fudge which will please nobody. Probably BINO (Brexit In Name Only).

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I think a lot of people, myself included, thought that leaving the EU would be a huge mistake, and all my fears are coming true, the UK negotiators have to be the worst bunch of clowns ever, many of those who voted 'leave' though that 48 hours after the vote the UK would have triggered article 50 and be out of the EU and free to do what they wanted, people did try to explain it would take years to leave but 'taking back control and £350 million a week for the NHS and a stop to immigration' played on the fears of many of those who voted leave. What we now have is a shambles where no-one really know what is happening, the government have com up with an enormous mish mash of ideas in the Great Leaving bill. The Lords is taking a serious look at it, as they are required to, and throwing out huge parts of it, such as leaving the customs union and requiring Parliament to vote on the final outcome, now, or course, the government is threatening to abolish the HoL because an institution that has always seemed to be on their side is showing it's teeth and reminding them that they are answerable to no man. The whole thing will be a disaster, cause the demise of the Government, the end of Theresa May's career, and, hopefully the careers of BoJo, Hunt and Gove. A second referendum would, slmost certainly, vote to remain, which is why the Government will NOT have one.

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Mike, I distinctly asked people: I don't want to get into a 100+ page debate over the merits of Brexit, of the various options or the politicians involved. Just your prediction of what the situation will be come 30 March 2019.

There are a lot of people who would strongly disagree on every one of your sentiments. And thus begins the 100+ page derailment of the thread.

Can you leave aside your feelings on the merits of Brexit and just tell us what you think will be the scenario come March 2019?

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Certainly won't happen, it's got to be fully open or fully closed.

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What would happen if the border became fully closed? Ka-boom?

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I think this will be the final outcome. The problem is as millhouse says too many vested interests (with deep pockets) and too many cooks. i do feel sorry for poor May as it was a poisoned chalice role. I may even put a punt on a flash election next year - I'd want BoJo as the next PM (him and trump would make a great double act!)

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What tickles me is that English will still be the official Language of the EU even after we've left.

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It will be one of them

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Hardly, the republic doesn't really give a **** about the north. It's more that without a border we will become the official back door into Europe from UK for all smugglers, refugees and ne'er do wells :)

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You already are for the Brits on rotation who want to get back to the UK without the taxman knowing....

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As you very well knew, despite now being a layabout and therefore having no need to pass hours a day in front of a screen appearing to be doing something (ergo participation in this bored), I can't leave this blatant distortion of recent history unchallenged.

One of the main reasons for voting against Brexit was that it was a chimera, a completely undefined phantom onto which every conceivable fantasy was projected: liberty from onerous regulations, the route to global free-trading prosperity, massive reduction in public expenditure to free up money for the NHS, hard control of immigration, have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too relationship with the EU where UK would retain all the benefits and incur none of the costs or obligations (in essence Farage's position in the debates because, as he put it, Germans would want to keep selling us cars).

From this viewpoint the alternative drudgery of enslavement to the bloated bureaucracy of Brussels intent only on unbending our bananas and scuppering our sausages was all too well known and understood (and fundamentally distorted by years of self-interested press-baron propaganda). A perfect environment for all of those billionaires and Russian trolls to dance around spreading their vicious social-media seeds of malcontent and chaos and lies without any regard for rules or fair-play or basic decency. Hence Brexit!

None of that is to excuse the hapless Remain campaign and the sheer cravenness of most of the British politicians who knew better (many many from the centre-left alas). But at least many of them did point out that a vote for Brexit was a vote for some unknown outcome with no clear path ahead and the likelihood of uncertainty and weakness. So this chaos was not only entirely predictable, it was actually PREDICTED! To say that none of us could have imagined the current quagmire when many of us have been screaming that it was coming since this wretched initiative launched, shows just how much Brexit thinking is isolated from reality.

And here's another prediction which I'm sure will be ignored and forgotten: IT WILL GET WORSE. It will get worse because the shape of Brexit is still totally up for grabs. Much like every little religious faction claims they alone have the truth, every shade of Brexit view claims their version of Brexit is what the public voted for. Given the narrowness of the vote, it is clear that what most people voted for is very little change at all. At least 5% of the pro-Brexit vote was for EEA (and likely much more than that given how frequently this was posited as an option). That, along with the Remain vote, leaves a clear majority in favour of staying not just in the Customs Union but also the single market with freedom of movement and ECJ jurisdiction. Yet this obvious fact-based logic has been distorted into the position of the government, as articulated by their puppet-master, the odious cheat, Arlene cash-for-ash Foster, that the people voted to leave the customs union. Sadly this goes completely UNCHALLENGED by the cowed and bewildered media who have been too easily corralled into Brexit-correctness.

Aside from the usual ignorant Brexit arrogance continually exhibited in dismissive comments about the Irish border, you clearly completely fail to understand the relationship between Ireland and the EU. The EU will continue to support Ireland because they are the poster boys for taking their medicine and smiling through the pain and coming out the other side, as opposed to Greece, for example, which kept slouching off and thus remains critically ill. And Ireland's pain was entirely to support the (mainly German and British) bond-holders of the banks that the Irish government guaranteed when they crashed. Unlike Greece (or almost any other EU member), Ireland was running a current account and budget surplus with low national debt before the bank guarantee. So the Irish tax payers have given a gift to the EU that won't be forgotten. And in any case, Irish and EU interests are perfectly aligned here in seeking to prevent the incursion of chlorinated chickens and radioactive fish across the EU frontier. Leo Varadkar's popularity ratings surged when he stood up to the UK late last year and exposed the arrant nonsense being spouted from Westminster about the border. That alone prevented the opposition precipitating a general election in December even though Varadkar leads a supposedly weak minority government. Brussels and Dublin are in lock-step on this (and they have a much smarter strategy than the blustering UK government: hint - Coveney is the good cop...).

The ongoing uncertainty will have a negative impact on investment and the British economy that will take a generation to recover, at which point the UK will be seeking to rejoin the evolved EU as a weakened supplicant. My own fantasy, though I admit it is as likely to happen as most of the Brexit-prosperity fantasies (with the key difference being that I know mine is a fantasy), is that a newly emboldened political leadership recognises all this before it's too late and reverses course on Brexit before any more damage is done. The reality will be that the UK will have to accept the minimal deal offered by the EU in March 2019 and a hard border will return to the island of Ireland. Unrest (though not outright conflict) will ravage a newly impoverished Northern Ireland and there will a resurgence in sentiment towards Scottish independence when Brexit becomes increasingly obviously an empty can of hot-air with no goodies to disburse. And, oh god, as the gift that keeps on giving, it may even result in Jeremy Corbyn, PM...

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At least those campaigning to leave have stuck around to help, chip in, roll their sleeves up and physically contribute.

It's frankly devastating to think that bullshit prevails and the demise of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has already begun in haste. Scotland will be first and NI second as you suggest with ravaging from unrest and border issues.

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There won't be a demise of the UK, the NI people don't want that and neither do the scots (both pseudo nations do the vast majority of their trade with England anyway and they really should be subservient to the English.

As for , I truly don't understand what planet you're on, let's face it, we, as the UK, decided to leave. That's it, now why don't the "We know better than the serfs" just accept it and get on with the implantation and stop moaning.

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Mainly because those tasked with smoothing the leaving process don't seem to have a brain cell between them when it comes to negotiating a deal which will be good for the UK, everything currently being said seems to be to benefit the rich and those in power lining their own pockets.

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Fantastic bit of trolling.

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It seems to me that you are the one claiming to know better than the serfs by imposing a dubious interpretation on the ambiguous result of a non-binary choice to suit your own agenda. As I inhabit Planet Reason rather than Asteroid Fantasy, I have confined my assessment to those facts and logic that are available to draw a very strongly supported conclusion that a clear majority of the electorate indicated a preference for the very softest possible Brexit.

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So will Davis resign today over the backstop? Then back to square one of shitiness.

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Not sure why he should really. From my understanding he's saying we should have an end date to the back up plan which might not even be needed.

It's unfortunately just a classic example of politics being games and dicking around rather than getting shit done.

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Let`s face it Brexit was the result of successive governments inability to control immigration (and yes I know we had control over our borders, they (the governments) just did not choose to exercise it!) and the non stop PC correctness that is a one way street in minorities favour!

They basically fell right into the hands of the far right, and let the bogeyman of irrational fear take over, although having said that the the culture of being PC, is in itself, to blame, it (in my opinion) has gone way to far and is now starting to chip away at the very basics of freedom of speech and to fetter and discourage the truth!!

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Does it mean there will be no cheese?

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Or trees?

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dear God, when will this nightmare end?
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...3d1977b72d.gif

but on a more serious note, heres a technical question. Do you think after the brexit...when and if it happens, (and also after that orange orangutan in the white house has destroyed all forms of the western alliance that has been built in the past 70 years) will UK be a more trade friendly place for outsiders? will it be easier for, lets say me, to import from the UK?

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Maybe. Maybe not.

Let's ****ing hope so or people like IKnowNothing will have nobody left to blame other than themselves.

Lol. Kidding. They'll just say it's all better when it isn't.

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Why would you want to? Our exports are either high end machine tools, financial services or weapons. Anything else would be a re-export, you'd be better off sourcing it directly from China?

Unless you are considering becoming an arms dealer, in which case I am interested in any vacancies.

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Me too.

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I could do that! Gizza job

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ha! reminds of that brilliant movie Lord of War, 'There are There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?'

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To get back to the the OP's original question of a prediction on what we are going to wake up to on 30th March 2019, what I find most worrying is that it is literally impossible to predict. Not in general terms or details, not nationally or in foreign policy, not economically, socially, culturally or ethically. Not in imports or exports, not in jobs, incomes, economic and social divides. Not in the rejuvenation of the neglected parts of UK, not in migration both professional and humanitarian. Not in anything.
The only thing predictable about 30th March 2019 is that we were always going to be in the position of having no idea what was going to happen. Brexit was never about voting in favour of a definite, quantifiable future, it was about rejecting a perceived past.

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But we'll have 350m quid more a week for the NHS and we'll be taking back control. I mean, it can't fail just on those points alone. It's got to work, morons said so.

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And we'll have three less layers of bureaucracy: European Parliament, European Commission and European Council. Really looking forward to April :)

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Of course the caveat to that is that there will be NO savings after the loss of earnings by industry, the extra costs of imports, the loss of the value of the pound, the loss of many of the EU workers etc.

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No, realist..

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Now we know that they really will spend a squillion ponds on the NHS it is all hunkey-dorey. Excuse me now, I have to report back to the State Hospital for the criminally insane.