Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

EU funding for farmers, scientists and other projects will be replaced by the Treasury after Brexit, Chancellor Philip Hammond has said.

In a move which could cost up to £4.5bn a year, the Treasury will guarantee to back EU-funded projects signed before this year's Autumn Statement.

Agricultural funding now provided by the EU will also continue until 2020.

Hammond’s commitment comes after Liam Fox’s Department for International Trade was forced to delete a confusing statement posted on its website, which appeared to announce that the UK would continue to trade with the EU under World Trade Organisation rules post-Brexit “until any new trade deals are negotiated”.

Businesses have previously warned that trading under WTO rules would be disastrous, meaning the imposition of steep tariffs on goods exported to the EU, including 10% on cars and 12% on clothing.

[...]Surely nobody is sensibly suggesting Britain, in a fit of panicky, post-Brexit international outreach, should try to bury its differences with the reckless, lawless regime in Moscow, notwithstanding last week’s embarrassing telephone calls to the Kremlin by May and Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary. Putin, after all, stands accused by an official British inquiry of direct complicity in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent poisoned with polonium in London. If Putin were an African leader, there would be calls for him to be investigated by now by the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes in Syria, Ukraine and Chechnya.

Yet the question nevertheless arises: how does Britain, no longer working in close concert with France, Germany and Poland, propose to manage the Russian problem? Will Moscow, like China sensing weakness and uncertainty, be tempted to pressure and bully May’s untested government, even as armed forces chiefs warn they are outgunned by the Russians? Will May try to win Putin round or will she confront him? Her first test comes next month at the G20 summit in China. One thing is already certain: the hapless Johnson is no match for Sergei Lavrov, his veteran counterpart. A Lavrov-Johnson summit would be like inviting a wolf to take tea with a tethered goat.

Brexit’s champions promised to forge a range of post-Brussels international relationships, thereby creating a more vibrant, prosperous Britain. China and Russia show just how perilous and problematic this project is. History suggests Britain can look to the US for succour and support. But with American confidence failing, and a weird Trumpian dystopia taking root, even that fall-back seems in jeopardy.

Ministers have warned that the UK could take longer to leave the EU than expected, even as May prepares to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which would begin the process.

The prime minister has been expected to begin the negotiations in early 2017. However, the Sunday Times reported that some within the government are suggesting May might wait until autumn of that year to start the two-year process, effectively pushing back the UK's departure from the EU until late 2019.

"They don't have the infrastructure for the people they need to hire. They say they don't even know the right questions to ask when they finally begin bargaining with Europe," one source in London told the newspaper.

Another source said Brexit negotiations were further complicated by the fact that Germany and France will be holding major elections next year.

France is slated to hold presidential election rounds in April and May, while Germany is due to hold its general election in the fall.

Meanwhile, the minister in charge of negotiations, David Davis, has reportedly hired only a fraction of the staff needed to fill a department devoted to carrying out the Brexit, which was created under May.

I think it's going to cost them more than they even thought about.

It is becoming painfully obvious that the whole Brexit thing was an idiotic mistake and is going to immerse Britain in shambolic chaos.

Brexit’s champions promised to forge a range of post-Brussels international relationships, thereby creating a more vibrant, prosperous Britain. China and Russia show just how perilous and problematic this project is. History suggests Britain can look to the US for succour and support. But with American confidence failing, and a weird Trumpian dystopia taking root, even that fall-back seems in jeopardy.

Crazy how you people let the media tell you what to think.

Britain’s complex task of rebuilding trade links will be overseen by a depleted civil service during economic uncertainty

Brexit means Brexit is the slogan of Theresa May’s new government, but more than a month after the seismic decision to leave the EU, no one knows what Brexit means. Only one thing is sure - unpicking Britain’s membership will be a monumental task requiring years of arduous and painstaking negotiations.

“I just can’t imagine a more complicated and more difficult issue to take forward,” said Andrew Hood, a senior director at the Dechert law firm and a former legal adviser to David Cameron. “People at the heart of government were sitting down a week after the Brexit decision with an entirely blank sheet of paper.”

The UK will have to negotiate no fewer than six deals to re-establish its place in the world after Brexit, according to Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform thinktank. Negotiations will be far longer and more complicated than many British politicians realise, for reasons he set out in a recent paper.

One set of talks will cover Britain’s EU divorce, a second the free-trade agreement with the union and a third will be needed to work out interim measures while the talks are being thrashed out. Number four on Grant’s list is regaining full membership of the World Trade Organisation, five is replacing the trade deals the UK enjoys as an EU member and six will be to sort out the UK’s future ties with the EU on foreign, defence and security policy.
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It is becoming painfully obvious that the whole Brexit thing was an idiotic mistake and is going to immerse Britain in shambolic chaos.

If it is, indeed, "painfully obvious", then please describe this chaos that you're imagining for us, if you can.

I honestly wouldn't like to live in a society where the papers aren't allowed to publish opinions and comments.

Why do you think that to be crazy?

One euro costs more than one pound in some bureaux de change today.

One euro costs more than one pound in some bureaux de change today.