Brexit is 'no deal'. Brexit means leaving the EU. Any form of deal that the EU will be willing to offer will result in is leaving in name only. Leave, and then negotiate. It won't be in either parties interests to put tarrifs on trade.

After the remain and leave campaigns and debate leading up to the referendum, the government/media/EU cleverly played about with terms, and redefined what everyone understood as Brexit as 'no deal', and we've rerun the initial debate all over again.

The EU are s***ting themselves about the prospect of a no deal, and the only reason we're in the diabolical position that we're currently in, is because the negations have been held by a May, a remainer, and a civil service also full of remainers.

Edited by Rubin (16 Jan 2019 10.10pm)

What is your recommendation? It sounds like greater central control to counter the power of big business. Yet somehow I don’t see you as Marxian

Would have agreed with you up until he became leader. Since then he has seemed totally out of his depth. Over the last couple of days he has come across as a total weasel - I have no real idea what his brexit plan is except "better than May", he keeps his mouth shut so he can't shoot himself in the foot, then looks for opportunities. Now he has turned down the chance for talks (despite the SNP et al buying in), I hope all the other parties proceed without him and let him whine about not having a voice later

I don't see Europe as foreign anymore than I see Scotland or Wales as foreign. Evolution applies to everything and our horizons expanding are just part of that. The world has shrunk and we need to adjust to the changed environment or decline. I live in Cornwall and some here think those who live in Devon live in another country. Of course our interests aren't identical. Mine aren't the same as yours. There is though sufficient common ground to make it sensible to act together in many ways without anyone losing their personalities.

Your comment hinted at xenophobia. It can be found elsewhere in this thread too.

It's not just me that that thinks Brexit will be bad for us. Many, and I would say now it's most of us, do too. I have heard the most fervent anti-Europeans, who just seem to object on principle, say it will take 30 years for the UK to return to our current level. That makes no sense. In today's world 30 years is several lifetimes.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

I know. It was a mistake which they can correct. If they truly believe, as most do, that we will be better off if we stay in, then they have a duty to correct. Laws can be changed. Acts can be repealed. People and MPs can change their minds. Nothing lasts forever and if it ought to be changed and can be changed then change it must be

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Mp's can change their minds but the thing is, it is not their decision to change. They defered the vote to the people and it was the peoples choice to leave.

Are they servants of the people or servants of themselves.

The 2016 referendum was a time that Parliment said to the people, this is a big decision, one that the people should make. The people made it.

Does anyone think that the people would have had a say on the issue of europe, if they had any idea that the people would vote leave? The same with the Scotish Referendum, only that time they called it right. The EU vote was a huge shock.

Now, they want and need a second referendum to give their decision to overturn the most democratic of all votes, a referendum, legitimacy. They still need to portray, the faint notion that they are a noble band that serve the country.

We must also remember the climate at the time of the 2016 vote. It was as much an anti-establishment vote as it was a vote on the EU. The levels of distrust towards MP's was and remains, at an all time high.

A second vote will prove the doubters right. The people make a decision and if the politicians don't like it we don't get it. So much for democracy.

A second vote would mean nothing to me. It would just underline the illusion that we live in a democracy, for those that believe, there was some strange miscarriage of justic in 2016 that must be corrected.

I like many was on a knife edge with that original vote. At first I was most definatley for out but then started to look at the possible economic problems voting out would cause and I thought, maybe stay in and help reform it.

However Mr. Juncker came through for me in the end, when he stated, on the eve of the vote, "It will be bad for Britain if they decide to leave the EU. It will be bad if they decide to stay. Europe has given britain all they can, there will be no changes". He then went on to say that he did not like it when the people decide an issue as they are just a "Mob"...

I don't ever remember having a say, as a European voter on his appointment to an organisation that for nearly a decade, cannot even post accounts to show what has been done with the billions that member states have put into the EU project.

"You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead"

Stan Laurel