RetroFed
UK could keep special pre-Brexit terms if it rejoined EU, Michel Barnier says
BrikoXExclusive: Former chief Brexit negotiator says staying out of euro and Schengen area would be ‘perfectly possible’
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mannycalaveraPrime Minister Burnham has already ruled this out. Time to vote him out and elect a PM with the balls to rejoin.
Brave Little Hitachi WandWhatever gets the dirty deed undone, though I don’t necessarily feel it is a just outcome.
CyberEggWhy would the EU offer that same stupid special treatment?
Because getting the UK to rejoin sends a very clear sign of “don’t think about leaving, you’ll just come crawling back poorer” to all the other countries’ eurosceptic movements.
That would be the signal if the UK came back getting the same deal as everyone else. Taking the UK back fulfilling these wishes would just send a signal that some countries are just better than others.
If it made economic and security sense, a rational actor, which I believe the EU to be, would do it.
English pride was their problem before Brexit. Don’t give them the same opportunities to be a problem. Euro or no EU. British banks need more oversight to stop oligarchs using them to hide money.
I get what Barnier is saying - he wants the UK to rejoin and polls in the UK show clearly that there is only support for rejoining if the Euro and Schengen Zone opt outs are still there (not sure about the financial opt outs being as much as an issue, but of course that will play in any referendum).
But it doesn’t really solve the fundamental issues. The problem is the UK wanting such opt outs shows politically it currently doesn’t want to be in this version of the EU. Negotiating a rejoining with those opt outs just perpetuates the political problems the UK has and never gets us to face up to the realities.
I wanted to remain in the EU, but I honestly would be in 2 minds about voting to rejoin at the moment. Brexit was all consuming and distracted from a lot of other important issues for the UK, and rejoining would be the same. Leaving the EU hasn’t been a positive but it also frankly hasn’t been as bad many remainers like me feared.
It was bizarrely far worse when we had politicians obsessing over the EU and not sorting out the problems with the economy, healthcare, social care, energy and education. One big benefit of leaving the EU is that the buck stops with Westminster - now politicians on the right can’t lie and blame all our problems on Brussels. We do now have direct democratic accountability, and also pro-EU politicians can point to the EU being part of the solution to some of the problems, as it’s clearly not the cause of the problems.
We’re nowhere near ready to be a stable committed member of the EU. We really need to fix the UK first - and that for me is electoral reform with proportional representation, well before we think about rejoining. Even rejoining the customs union or single market are just distractions from the real ills in UK politics. We need democratic reform before we can ever be a stable and worthy member of the EU. The EU didn’t cause us to have 5 conservative prime ministers in 5 years, nor what looks likely to now be 2 labour prime ministers in the current 5 year parliament.
It wouldn’t be up to him, but I can see the UK rejoining and not just for the make up sex. I know it’s q counter-intuitive with Reform on the rise, but many perceive that the situation is out of control since Brexit and anti-immigration parties are also surging across the union. It seems likely that the whole bloc will form a “Fortress Europe” against migrants displaced by colonialism, capitalism and now climate change.
Barnier trying to be relevant after his political career ended with his failed bid at French presidency.
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This mf lasted 3 months before being voted out at Matignon, the shortest time for any prime minister in 5th republic France, he’s become completely irrelevant and his opinion doesn’t mean shit.
Nope, the UK ain’t getting special founder treatment after they pulled out of the project instead of believing in it.
Do you want the Brits believing that they’re above consequences because everyone recognises their inherent superiority and defers to them? Because that’s how you get it.
Nobody in Britain would mistake this as consequence free if we rejoined. The pro-brexit crowd would be spitting fire and the remainers would be bemoaning the lost decade. Who do you think would be in this hypothetical smugly oblivious state of superiority at that point?
Not that I think there’s a chance in hell of us rejoining on original terms, but if we somehow did it’d be more like a shellshocked and half dead soldier falling back into the trench, hardly “consequence free”.
More seriously, if you want to put new conditions in, I’d focus on forcing the uk gov to invest in bringing awareness of and encouraging engagement with eu institutions, that was the real downfall here I think, nobody paid attention to how it all actually worked, so the shit rags could claim whatever they wanted and there was insufficient real experience amongst the public to counter it.
If (or when) Britain rejoins, it will not be like voting for a new government for a change, but out of having exhausted all options and realising that the alternative is far grimmer, that outside of the EU, it would be a hollowed-out plaything of Trumpist oligarchs/Middle Eastern petrostates/the CCP/the neo-Putinist klept. As such, they would be willing to concede on Schengen and the Euro. As such, the EU preemptively folding on those and letting les rosbifs keep their much-cherished pound and Eurostar security queues would be a tremendous own goal.
Surely keeping the iconic 568ml pint and driving on the left should be enough British exceptionalism to point out that the UK isn’t being homogenised into a suburb of Belgium or whatever the gammon are chronically irate about?
Perfectly possible != likely
Yeah no, they can come back, but it’s the full package or nothing.
Of course EU citizens don’t get a say in whether we want that. With the direction they’re heading, I’m not sure I’d want them back.
Oh how predictable. After they pulled out and see the consequences of their actions, namely the downwards spiral of the economy and subsequent decline of life quality they‘re selling a EU membership as a golden goose. Sorry, pal but that‘s not how it works. The world doesn‘t revolve around you.