Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

@Walter Hinteler,

It has been mentioned months ago, but now:
David Davis admits: Government has done no economic assessment of the UK crashing out of EU without deal

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@Walter Hinteler,

Britain's May 'good at getting it wrong', says France's Le Pen

Quote:

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has criticized British Prime Minister Theresa May for hosting her main rival, centrist Emmanuel Macron, while apparently snubbing her.

Macron visited May at her Downing Street office in London on Feb. 21. He was photographed arriving and leaving, and spoke to reporters and TV crews in front of the building.

Asked in an interview, due to be aired on British radio station LBC later on Wednesday, whether she thought this was overt support for Macron and a snub towards her, Le Pen said: "It seems to be the case."

The British government says it has a long-standing policy not to engage with Le Pen's Front National party which has been considered toxic for decades by many mainstream European parties.

According to a transcript of the LBC interview, which was conducted by anti-EU British politician Nigel Farage, Le Pen said the decision to host Macron was inconsistent with May's own stance on delivering Brexit and reducing immigration to Britain.

Le Pen said Macron, who is strongly pro-EU, represented "the opposite of what Brexit stands for and the choice made by the British people". ... ... ...

Farage suggested to Le Pen that May's attitude towards her would change if she won the French election, drawing a parallel with Britain's dealings with U.S. President Donald Trump. He said Downing Street had not wanted to engage with Trump until after he was elected.

Le Pen responded: "She is good at getting it wrong but this is rather reassuring."

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

It is your thread, Lash, and certainly you can post what you want.
But why don't you post such in the thread about the election in the Netherlands? Or do you think that the decade-old immigration to the Netherlands is connected to the Brexit in the UK?

Walter, I believe the answer to your question lies in the apparent inseparability of the current Brexit debate from the ongoing political tumult in France and the Netherlands , and to lesser degrees in other EU nations. All arise from related issues concerning sovereignty in terms of immigration and policies related to economic activity and employment, and likely as well, other related to financial and banking regulation. I believe it would certainly be a mistake for those interested in the preservation and health of the European Union to consider them separately.

I don't have enough knowledge and direct experience in these matters to have a strong opinion on specific national issues, and, frankly, those aren't judgments for me to make. However, the existence of rather pervasive strains within the EU regarding these matters is both evident and a topic worthy of serious consideration.

It appears that the UK government intends to continue with its Brexit program. Whether it will succeed and whether Scotland will remain with the UK is unclear to me, though I find it hard to imagine that the Scots would calculate any advantage for themselves in separating. My impression is that Marie Le Pen's National party will do well in the first round of the forthcoming election in France, but will fade in the second. How the current issues related to the assimilation of immigrants in the Netherlands will play out remains unclear to me. History suggests that the assimilation of large numbers of immigrants of different cultures is at best a difficult process everywhere, and requires a generation or so for meaningful success. It also appears that the existence of a modern social welfare state adds significant difficulty and complexity to the process - yielding uncertain outcomes, both in Europe and North America.

The process of Brexit, if it continues, will play out with all of this ongoing tumult as a background, both in the UK and the EU. It appears the matters will remain inseparable.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

It appears that the UK government intends to continue with its Brexit program.

And what is this program besides "Brexit means Brexit"?

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@Walter Hinteler,

Besides the various arguments within the UK's cabinet about various issues related the effects of the Brexit, the governing Conservatives have more pain: the 2015 election results could be declared void if there are prosecutions because the Conservatives broke campaign spending laws (12 police forces from across the country have passed files to the Crown Prosecution Service over those allegations)

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
It appears that the UK government intends to continue with its Brexit program.
And what is this program besides "Brexit means Brexit"?

I don't know. That's an issue for both the UK, and in response, the EU; -- though some statements and posturings have appeared on both sides of the matter. Either way, Brexit, however it may unfold, will be conducted with the tumult of the other issues I cited above in the background: both sides are involved, and will be affected by what unfolds. I wish all parties to this well.

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Record numbers of EU nurses quit NHS
Daniel Boffey
Saturday 18 March 2017 16.26

The number of EU nationals registering as nurses in England has dropped by 92% since the Brexit referendum in June, and a record number are quitting the NHS, it can be revealed.

The shock figures have prompted warnings that Theresa May’s failure to offer assurances to foreigners living in the UK is exacerbating a staffing crisis in the health service.

Only 96 nurses joined the NHS from other European nations in December 2016 – a drop from 1,304 in July, the month after the referendum.

At the same time, freedom of information responses compiled by the Liberal Democrats from 80 of the 136 NHS acute trusts in England show that 2,700 EU nurses left the health service in 2016, compared to 1,600 EU nurses in 2014 – a 68% increase.

The haemorrhaging of foreign staff is being blamed by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) on the failure of the government to provide EU nationals in the UK with any security about their future. May has claimed that Britain cannot act unilaterally to guarantee residency as it would weaken her hand in the coming article 50 negotiations over Brexit.

Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the RCN, said the government’s tactic was backfiring, and now threatened the sustainability of the health service.

“The government risks turning off the supply of qualified nurses from around the world at the very moment the health service is in a staffing crisis like never before,” she said.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/18/nhs-eu-nurses-quit-record-numbers

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Well British PM Theresa May has delivered Notice to the Head of the EU government of the UK's intent to withdraw from the EU. In her letter she significantly noted the mutual intelligence and security interests that still unite the EU and continental Europe, probably a pointed reference to the balances the parties will have to strike in the forthcoming negotiations.

I suspect the hand-wringing about how this and that thing will be done without EU membership will resume. However it is worth recalling that the UK and continental Europe have a long history and substantial mutual interests. Britain has, throughout its history, stood apart from the principal political power on the continent, through many changes. Switzerland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia and parts of Turkey are part of Europe but not members of the EU. The sky will not fall in and Europe will survive.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Switzerland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia and parts of Turkey are part of Europe but not members of the EU. The sky will not fall in and Europe will survive.

Switzerland has a free-trade agreement with the EEC/EU since 1973, is a Schengen-country, too.

Sernia still is on candidate status, the Ukraine now got visa-free entrance to the Schengen countries ... and the UK had been an EEC/EU member for more than 40 years.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

In her letter she significantly noted the mutual intelligence and security interests that still unite the EU and continental Europe, probably a pointed reference to the balances the parties will have to strike in the forthcoming negotiations.

I had written about it already months ago: the status of the UK as a member of EUROPOL will be a big quarrel ... like many others, when looking at start of this war of the roses

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@Walter Hinteler,

Perhaps you should have warned Theresa May.

In fact these issues are obvious to all, and my impression is that the British PM was merely putting them on the table along with the Brexit negotiations in her letter. I believe that was an important and beneficial step for both parties involved.

If the negotiations degenerate into the quarrels you suggest, I believe the interests of all parties involved will be materially harmed. Such things do happen, given the defects of our common human natures, but we can hope for better outcomes.

The people of the UK spoke in a democratic referendum. Some EU advocates have found such things to be uncertain and often inconvenient in the past. However, I believe it would be in their self-interest as well to consider them more seriously going forward.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

UK moves to calm European nerves over security cooperation

Quote:

After language in the letter – which was delivered to the president of the European council, Donald Tusk – on Wednesday was interpreted to mean that security work could be undermined by a disadvantageous deal, Davis spent most of Wednesday afternoon on the phone to major European capitals. He sought to reassure diplomats that it would be wrong to interpret the letter as a threat.

Any attempt to play Britain’s security bargaining card so early in the negotiations was likely to set the talks off to the worst possible start, but European diplomats were assured that May was spelling out the consequences for both sides if no deal were reached.

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@Walter Hinteler,

How could any reasonable European government construe this to be a threat, and their their prior implications that the UK would be penalized economically for the Brexit as anything else but an equivalent threat.

Seems very childish to me.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Record numbers of EU nurses quit NHS

Has any of the media reported on whether the Commonwealth countries applaud Brexit, in that they might be getting a better shot at British employment?

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@georgeob1,

It sounded for some like it - especially, for the Eastern Europeans, and more especially, when looking at today's and yesterday's anti-European UK papers.

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@georgeob1,

The UK would equally suffer from any breakdown of intell/security/police relations, so their threat has no teeth.

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@Foofie,

I don't know about that. The broader point of the article is: penny wise pound stupid. The British government is endangering it's own health system just because it wants to keep cheap negotiating cards with the EU.

This is shaping up as a massive and bitter showdown with a hard Brexit at the end. ie no deal.

The UK has much more to lose than we do, and they think they can adopt a hard line? **** them and their superiority complex.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Britain will demand a leading role in Europol after Brexit

Quote:

Senior figures in the Government believe the UK's central role in creating the EU-wide intelligence agency and the fact that a Brit currently heads up the organisation will force European nations to agree to a new data-sharing deal.

Well, that's an opinion ...
History of EUROPOL
wikipedia: Europol
EUROPOL: Statistics and data

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

The UK would equally suffer from any breakdown of intell/security/police relations, so their threat has no teeth.

Both would clearly suffer, but with respect to itself compared to the EU without it, the EU faces many more proximate threats to its security from both the East and the South than does the UK alone.; Indeed after a Brexit the UK will be relatively immune.

Implied threats have been made by both sides, and I suspect the threat from the UK will ultimately have more stroke than those coming from the (indignant and rejected) EU.

1 Reply

Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

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