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from the somebody-didn't-think-this-all-the-way-through dept.
At least one UK businessman is attaching a condition to his continued support of the ruling Conservative Party:
A major Tory donor has threatened to stop funding the party if Theresa May plans to remove the UK from the "critical" single market after Brexit. Sir Andrew Cook, who has given more than £1.2m to the party, told BBC Radio 4 that ending single market access was "chronic and dangerous" to the economy. The engineering firm chairman said at least one of his factories was almost "entirely dependent" on access to it.
Sir Andrew backed the Remain campaign in the EU referendum. "There are barriers to entry without the single market, there are tariffs," said Sir Andrew, who chairs William Cook, his family's firm which makes components for the rail, energy and defence industries. "One of my factories has 200 people employed making engineering parts that go to France, Germany and Italy," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Also at Reuters. Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has offered to take a Scottish independence referendum off the table in exchange for a "soft Brexit" involving access to the single market.
The BBC reports that while the EU's presence in London is likely to shrink, organizations like the European Banking Authority (EBA) might stick around if the UK remains in the single market.
Finally, have you applied for your Irish passport yet?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fritsd on Monday January 09 2017, @12:01AM
Here's an option that I read somewhere on the Guardian website: (it wasn't called "brexit lite" actually, I don't remember if it had a name)
- The UK stays a proud, fully paid member of the EU (what?!, I hear you ask)
- England and Wales split off from the UK and form a new country and negotiate at leasure about their relationship with the rest of the world
Disadvantages:
- New EU outer border south of Scotland (but I'm told there are not many motorways in or out of Scotland to Cumbria and Northumberland)
Advantages:
- Democratically favourable for all four countries, because each one gets what a majority of its voters voted for in the referendum
- Ireland isn't torn apart by a new EU outer border on the very long internal Northern Irish border (smuggling!!), the Good Friday agreement is saved despite the Brexiters' best efforts
- EU doesn't have to change its letter paper etc., saves some money. New translators better be proficient in Gaelic though.
- England and Wales together are fully independent and as sovereign as they like
- Scotland doesn't have to do the Hokey Kokey "out of EU, out of UK, then into EU again" and can stay just where they are
- Might be good for economic development in Aberdeen which is unfortunately a much larger distance than Dover-Calais
- If the Northern Irish are comfortable with it, they can decide to join the Irish Republic if they like (in 50 years or so) without too much fuss like "you can't glue together an outside-EU with an inside-EU country".
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday January 09 2017, @02:40AM
To be fair and democratic about all of this we should let other countries tear themselves up then too. Spain will end up being 3-4 countries. Belgium will be two. France will get nibbled at the edges because of Spain and may well chop the remainder. Italy, at least 3 bits etc. Everyone has their oppressed others yearning to be their own nation.
Tell me about Catalonia.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @03:43AM
Germany just said no to Bavaria http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/749748/Germany-Bavaria-no-independence-referendum-Bayxit [express.co.uk] . And what Germany says, EU applies to everyone. So no splitting. Only crushing.
For more info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_movements_in_Europe [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @02:01PM
That is one crazy guy, supported by a party that in local elections in the last decades managed at best 2%, but usually stays fairly solid below 1%.
And I wouldn't be surprised if only a small minority of even that 1% even supported independence.
The wikipedia list is really bad, it just throws everything into one pot, from the 1% crazies that often even they people living there never heard about over the ones that have massive support to those that actually have active or semi-active wars of independence currently ongoing.
Of the parties listed there for Germany, the one in Schleswig is the only one that can reasonably be taken seriously, but that party primarily represents minorities and the wikipedia page of that party doesn't say anything about any attempts at independence. According to their web-page their primary topic for the election is education! As far as I can tell, Wikipedia is just plain wrong to list them as an independence movement, they have no such intentions going by their election platform.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @07:11AM
Free Montana! Keep the nukes! Keep out the Trumpsters!
(Score: 3, Funny) by nethead on Monday January 09 2017, @02:50AM
Stop it! Now you're just being sensible.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @04:05AM
There is also the Brexit zero option:
- Admit everything was a farce, with no plan, just lies by everyone.
- Start working for the well being of EU citizens, not the companies and not foreigns.
No idea which of them is "more" impossible (you know, like "bigger" infinity when resolving some math problems)... probably politicians working for citizens.
Instead we are going for "mutual assured destruction", sans the nukes. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sir-ivan-rogers-brexit-secret-talks-david-cameron-prime-minister-theresa-may-eu-ambassador-a7515541.html [independent.co.uk] Western world seems to have severe suicidal tendencies.
Or the farce continues, but towards Brexit zero anyway, by means of a defusing at Parliament.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday January 09 2017, @08:07AM
Demographic genocide is the goal of the ruling class.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Monday January 09 2017, @08:53AM
Your option would be the most sane one, I think, but that ship has sailed now.
However, if you think about the "attitude" of the EU (which is some kind of Gestalt of its constituent states) then the balance between "for the well being of EU citizens" and "for the well being of multinational corporations" has for a long time been pushed towards the neo-liberal side of the scale by the UK: they have always been the ones pushing for TTIP, and vetoeing a Banking Union so that 2008 cannot be repeated. Also the UK newspapers (almost all in foreign hands) are notorious for blaming everything bad on the EU for the past 40 years, so that the UK representation in the Europarliament is actually dominated by the UKIP which wants to destroy the EU (while being paid by it). The voice of the British people, when given a means of expression, sounds like the voice of Nigel Farage "you're not laughing now!!!!". Maybe the Brits would vote differently if they watched "Life of Brian" and asked themselves "what has the European Union ever done for us?", but they didn't so now it's divorce time.
So with the UK removed from the equation, it may actually be a lot easier for the EU-27 to finally get some things done that are regarded as necessary to keep it limping along into the future as a vehicle for the expressed will of the European people. Of course the 2019 budget will be substantially smaller so we'll all have to tighten our belts.
If I was an EU politico, I'd reduce the budget with the UK's contribution, and for every country/region that complains about the subsidies being cut, say: "that's because the UK independence movement dragged the UK out of the EU. Understood? We're out of money."
It would be the truth AND it would be Realpolitik. We can all hang together, or we can all hang separately as the larger blocs (USA, Russia, China) play the small countries against each other.
There is some unexpected flexibility w.r.t. playing the different regions against each other, because of the plan of "Europe of the Regions" [wikipedia.org]. Even if e.g. Belgium would finally split, Vlaanderen and Wallonie would happily continue within the larger EU framework (dunno what would happen to Eupen and Malmedy).
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday January 09 2017, @10:09AM
The best outcome would be for the UK to leave the EU but remain in the single market, kind of like Norway. Get all the benefits but have no means of sabotaging the project any more.
Unfortunately it looks like we are going to try to negotiate a hard Brexit, which is impossible. The timescale makes it impossible - 2 years as set out by Article 50, but realistically 18 months because the last six will be the practicalities of actually doing it. Not enough time to negotiate a good trading deal. In any case, EU member states will be looking to discourage others from leaving, or to improve their own situations by e.g. taking control of Gibraltar or wrecking UK financial services in order to build up Frankfurt and Paris.
There is also the Le Penn factor. If she wins the UK will be given a bad deal to discourage the French from following. If she loses the UK will be given a bad deal to bury her movement once and for all.
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @06:28AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rivenaleem on Monday January 09 2017, @09:57AM
You missed one small point. The lads down in the Republic are not so sure they want the north anymore. That place is a big bottomless pit that suck up money. Have you seen the levels of unemployment there?
Maybe in 50 years, true, but not now. We don't _really_ want a united Ireland at this point in time. We've been making nice babysteps (joint sports teams etc) but there's really little point in unifying the island anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @05:11PM
This replaces over 300 years of common heritage [wikipedia.org] with a relationship which mostly on the same land mass with a at-most-75-year relationship [wikipedia.org] with people who speak a different language on a different continent... plus leaves England and Wales in a mostly-surrounded-by-EU position (which isn't impossible, as per Switzerland, but is a bit odd).
This may or may not be a good idea, but is not the most intuitive or natural course of action in my opinion.