Brexit - a year on

Our embarrassment of a PM has delayed Brexit for an entire year and the people aim their ire at the leader of the opposition! Beggars belief.

I voted leave and would also do the same again. My motivation was anti neoliberal, anti corporate/bankster elite as espoused by the Lexit campaign. However, I have never supported a hard/clean Brexit. To me that is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Labour's ambiguous stance on the type of Brexit Britain should argue for has been brilliant politics, but they will eventually have to show their hand. When they do I hope they make a stand for the softest Brexit compatible with the kind of social democratic principles laid out in their inspirational General Election manifesto. Staying in the Customs Union is not only good economics, its also hard headed pragmatic politics, the alternative, the Tory WTO membership and a la la land gamble on achieving multiple trade deals around the globe really has not been thought through.

The Single Market has a lot going for it, and for anyone not anti immigrant or xenophobic, free movement should not be problematic. But there must be red lines, an effective Lexit that allows Britain, under a Labour party now restored to its traditional social democrat political principles, cannot allow itself to be hamstrung by the neoliberal restrictions drawn up by the globalist elites and embedded in EU treaties, nor by EU trade/investor protection treaties.

I would argue that the red lines must include the freedom for UK industrial policy to have increased state aid, infant industry protection and public ownership, and that the UK is exempt from the provisions of CETA, and of any post Trump revived TTIP. Those red lines certainly have a more realistic chance of finding agreement with the EU27 than the anti immigrant agenda of the Tory/Ukip right wing Brexit.

What we need first is to force another General Election, and to get a transformative Labour government elected. Very few General Elections change anything significantly. 1945 and 1979 are the only elections in the last century that qualify, the next election will, I hope, bring change of the same magnitude.

I too, voted remain, but, I am pleased that Brexit and the Corbyn led Labour Party, has effectively destroyed Maybot and the Conservatives.
I think the Government will fall, and the final vote on the terms of Breixt., will be the catalyst.
Labour's 'jobs first' Brexit, with membership of the custom's union and single market membership, will be a priority. (With the 'red lines, above included).
A 'Hard Brexit', would be an economic disaster, that only the Tory Headbangers, Racists and Daily Mail readers ,would support.
The Conservatives are, in a very difficult position, in that whoever they replace May with, be it Boris Johnson, Gove or Davis, they are all toxic to Remainers. lol
It is now abundantly clear that Labour can and will win the next election, with a socialist, re-distributive agenda.

The EU referendum was held at the most inappropriate time possible, and for the most irresponsible reason, to try to keep unity in the Tory party. The resulting vote was as much a vote on a Status quo vs. Change question as it was about EU membership.

The all or nothing clean Brexit clarion call of many leave voters is pure economic madness. I voted to leave the EU and its political structures, but not to ditch our vital trade and cultural links with the EU. But herein lays the problem, the binary Leave/Remain question was a travesty, a sham perversion of democracy, as it treated a complex question as being answerable with a one word answer, well it can’t be. The ‘half in’ claim has much truth, but that half is the trade and cultural elements, that which is worth keeping, the undemocratic political structures are the side of the EU that we are right to ditch. ANY trade deal means a diminution of national autonomy, compromises to aim at equal benefits for both sides have to be made, the single market and customs union are no exception. We are not living on an island that will float off into the Atlantic come March 2019. This delusion is beginning to run up against harsh reality, as the floundering Brexit ministers look increasingly out of their depth.

The case for remaining in the EEA, and therefore the single market is contentious, but only because of the xenophobic opposition to free movement, take that away and it would have overwhelming public support. The Customs Union is the more important issue, and what a moments thought should make perfectly clear, is that to leave the EU customs Union for an ill thought-out WTO la la land, in the hope of somehow agreeing multiple trade deal around the globe, including a fresh one with our largest trading partner, the EU27, is totally unrealistic, and represents economic lunacy of the highest order. It is a recipe for chaos. The government have not got a clue how they can achieve their aim, and are admitting as much with talk of a transition period in which the UK remains in the Customs Union for a time following Brexit. I doubt they will get that agreed by the EU27, and even if they can, the economic cliff face will still be awaiting us when it expires.

What about the Irish border problem?

The only feasible solution is a united Ireland surely, but would the south want to take on the troublesome north now that the DUP are in this toxic relationship with the Tories.

Why not? A United Ireland, it's not if but when. Ulster will one re-join it's fellow Irish provinces. I'm a neutral, but that's what I feel most decent people want.

People who aren't bigots.

If the people of Northern Ireland want to unify with the Republic then they should be allowed to unify with the rest of Ireland. How would they decide to do that? Referendum of course.