Excellent post.

On freedom of movement, you are bang on.
A superb ideal and worked well with the original incumbents of the EU. However, I agree that in it's current guise, it's no longer realistic.
It clearly needs changing and with the current feeling among the key players within the EU, if this "pillar" is not amended, this alone will see the EU crumble, it clearly needs dealing with.
The economic situation and timing of the referendum were the key reasons why I voted remain and unless there is a "soft Brexit", the UK is in grave danger of entering a further recession and having barely begun to recover from the Banking crisis, I think that it is/was reckless to put the economy in jeopardy again so soon and I just dont understand the benefits of becoming a stand alone trading nation, who relies very heavily on
the EU market, which, following the vote, simply has to make life difficult for the UK, if only to prevent the complete collapse of the EU.
Of course there have been positive words from the Bank of England but, we are balancing on a knife edge and an impotent government, without direction, could very well see us crash and burn.
Time will tell which one of us is right, let's just hope its you.

David Davis has been today on about paying for access to the EU single market (which means accepting the rules, so much for "takng back control" ) along with saying he expects to see “pretty free access” to the UK for skilled labour as he doesn't want to create labour shortages.

Apparently according to him the government's focus is controlling immigration when we just had immigration figures out for the year to June showing 289,000 migrants arriving from outside of the EU, 284,000 from within plus 77,000 returning Brits. Net figure is 355,000 so he could in theory more than halve that figure and even exceed the government's own target of 100,000 net without going to the trouble of leaving the EU just by tackling non-EU immigration.

You could not make this stuff up.

The point being you clearly don't know what you are talking about. The EU commission is made up of 1 President , 7 Vice Presidents and 28 members, one from each state. The president is elected by the European Parliament which is of course made up of elected M.E.P's. The president then chooses the 28 commissioners based on nominations of the elected national governments of the member states but the final makeup of the commission must be approved by the Council - which is made up of 28 ministers from national governments who are of course elected and it must also approved by the European Parliament which as I said is of course made up of elected M.E.P's.

Law making in the EU is now undertaken by what is known as the "ordinary legislative procedure" which works on the principle that consent from both the Council and European Parliament are required before a law may be adopted. The EU Commission may propose a new law but it must go through this process to become law.

So to summarise neither the EU Commission nor Council are unelected, the EU commission cannot pass laws only propose them (EU parliament can and does also propose laws) and laws can't be passed without the agreement of the elected representatives of the Council and EU Parliament.

So your suggestion we turned law making over to an unelected body is complete and utter hogwash. It's also ironic since we in the UK have an unelected House of Lords and government often does appoint unelected Lords as government ministers. The EU is far more democratic than our own government.



So what do you expect to happen? We close the borders? Well you were told today by Davis he expects to see “pretty free access” to the UK for skilled labour and also that we allowed in 289,000 migrants from outside the EU. The government's own target is 100,000 net.

Unless you naively think the UK can function with closed borders you are going to have to accept some migration to the UK. How many will you accept? Do you think all EU migrants are low skilled fruit pickers (they aren't) and don't bring skills we need?




The latest OBR prediction of the cost is based on less pessimistic assumptions than all the other economic bodies. It is still a disaster waiting to happen. On what do you base your prediction that "Long term, however, we will reap the benefits"?

You should have realised by now freedom of movement or not, you are not going to see a significant reduction in migration and if we want to retain access to the EU single market we will pay for it and obey its rules (David Davis again) and that the government wants to do this because it knows the alternative is to put it mildly, not good. You have been well and truly conned.




The Euro is complete irrelevance.

We aren't in it because G Brown had the sense not to join and I just can't believe people ignore the outright corruption of Goldman Sachs's fiddling Greek books and Greek incompetence where basically paying tax was voluntary! The mess many of these countries are in (including Italy) is as much their own doing as anyone else's. But like I said we are not in the Euro so it is irrelevant to the Brexit debate.

As to Turkey you are making that up from start to finish. It is nothing more than UKIP inspired lies.



Good grief you must have been watching too many reruns of Dad's Army. Germans are stubborn? Really? What about the rest of the EU nationalities? Do they not have a say in matters (of course they do just as we do). Are we going to start vetting the racial characteristics of the countries we want to make trade deals with outside the EU when we leave?

Perhaps many Europeans like the EU and see it as a positive? Recent polls suggest so. It's probably got a lot to do with their own governments not blaming the EU for everything that goes wrong unlike our own which has always used it as a scapegoat for its own incompetence.



The original concept never was limited to free trade. It was always a political union as well as a free trade association. Very early concepts such as the common agricultural policy were designed to tie its members together and to try and ensure Europe didn't starve (thus avoid promoting unrest) for example. It has always been about cooperation with a view to avoiding rivalry, conflict and wars. Seems to have worked. Did you know 13 of its current members were former dictatorships? You can't be an EU member and a dictatorship so the aim of EU membership and the EU's direct assistance in this process has helped democratise many countries.

Finally what laws/initiatives the EU has had a hand in do you object to and do you think a UK government would have done as much or had the legislative capacity to do so:

What did the EEC/EU ever do for us? Not much, apart from: providing 57% of our trade; structural funding to areas hit by industrial decline; clean beaches and rivers; cleaner air; lead free petrol; restrictions on landfill dumping; a recycling culture; cheaper mobile charges; cheaper air travel; improved consumer protection and food labelling; a ban on growth hormones and other harmful food additives; better product safety; single market competition bringing quality improvements and better industrial performance; break up of monopolies; Europe-wide patent and copyright protection; no paperwork or customs for exports throughout the single market; price transparency and removal of commission on currency exchanges across the eurozone; freedom to travel, live and work across Europe; funded opportunities for young people to undertake study or work placements abroad; access to European health services; labour protection and enhanced social welfare; smoke-free workplaces; equal pay legislation; holiday entitlement; the right not to work more than a 48-hour week without overtime; strongest wildlife protection in the world; improved animal welfare in food production; EU-funded research and industrial collaboration; EU representation in international forums; bloc EEA negotiation at the WTO; EU diplomatic efforts to uphold the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; European arrest warrant; cross border policing to combat human trafficking, arms and drug smuggling; counter terrorism intelligence; European civil and military co-operation in post-conflict zones in Europe and Africa; support for democracy and human rights across Europe and beyond; investment across Europe contributing to better living standards and educational, social and cultural capital.

Wow this European Union sounds really great. So great that more people voted to leave it than have ever voted for anything....ever.......

The saying about "you dont know what you've got till it's gone" may be relevant over the next few years.
With the UK giving up on clearing the national debt and with massive inflationary pressures already in the system (yesterday's news on oil will further add to this), our economy will be severely tested and we will then find out which "side" was right.
The vast majority of people are worse off, in real terms, than they were 10 years ago and things are likely to get worse before they get better. Therefore, rubbing your hands at the thought of being on the outside, may be a little premature.

One of the more worrying aspects of all this, is the popularity of a party (UKIP), who are more right wing than the Tories, who most traditional voters would previously never have even considered voting for.

"People in this country have had enough of experts..."
M.Gove, June 2016

As May allegedly wasn't invited to the EU's end of term dinner (part funded by you and I), why is the UK still paying its contributions? If they are treating us as if we have already left, shouldn't our government have the guts to reciprocate by withdrawing funding until negotiations have been completed?

Because its not just about a loving dinner.

On free movement, I hope you're all happy with the possibility of schlepping to London to apply for a visa to go and support your team in Perpignan, or hit the clubs of Ibiza, or the beautiful beaches of Greece, or the Canary Islands.

1.4m British people (approx.) live and work in the EU at the moment and if we kick out the EU citizens here, imagining there won't be some reciprocal kicking out is daft. Still, all those expats from Spain can pick veg and work in hotels eh?

That's fine , except NOBODY , I mean NOBODY , has suggested any EU nationals already in the UK will be repatriated , so WHY are YOU suggesting they will ?

As regards the cheap labour market for farmers , so I assume you are happy to see essentially slave labour from other countries working over here ? , how very noble , how very ' European '

Look at the situation in Lithuania ATM , virtually all their Tax paying workers are/have left , leaving the place full of the very young and the very old , joining the EU is killing their country

So stop using the project fear to try to make a point

But they are 'ex-pats,' which sounds all nice and fluffy; whereas when people come here, they are 'immigrants,' which has all sorts of nasty, job-taking, school-filling, GP-misusing, benefit-claiming connotations attached to it.