Cameron had already decided to ask the British public how to settle the question of EU membership. Since politicians were bickering about how to implement this referendum result, maybe they could have asked the public to choose a form of Brexit. Whether to stay in the single market and/or the customs union.
Anyway I suppose it’s all a moot point since it’s in the past. I think EU membership will probably be a possibility for the UK again in the future. It might take a decade or two though.
Cameron was running a populist xenophobic anti-EU campaign to appease the UKIP and its voters. His actual intention never was to leave the EU because he isn’t that stupid, but his publicity stunt of the referendum backfired spectacularly by the votes for “leave” coming up ever so slightly ahead. An outcome for which there was no plan at all. And then the monumental fuck-up really started.
The problem is that neither the British public nor the politicians ever really understood the implications nor the point of the EU. They largely only viewed (and still view) it as just another trade agreement, which it really, really isn’t. The EU and its predecessors always were a political project, which did (and does) heavily rely on trade to achieve the main political goal of lasting peace and cooperation between the member states.
This led to insane and impossible attempts at cherry picking benefits for potential future relationships, which the EU could and did not accept. You cannot have free movement of goods without free movement of people, because the EU isn’t just a free trade organisation. You cannot have access to the single market without accepting and implementing regulations, because this would allow you to endanger EU citizens with substandard goods and undercut EU producers with prices only achievable by substandard production.
Another stupid misunderstanding that backfired spectacularly is the silly notion that the EU saps away a member country’s sovereignty and replaces it with some dictates from Brussles. In fact, EU members do pool their sovereignty and, by doing so, give it more weight than that of every individual member alone could ever carry. This is how Ireland was able to dictate its conditions for the Northern Ireland border situation. The logical consequence of this was the sea border with all its absurd complications, because the UK didn’t want freedom of movement nor regulatory alignment, and a hard border on the Island of Ireland would automatically have meant no deal at all.
Speaking of “no deal”, it was peak comedy when the UK parliament repeatedly voted “against” “no deal”, yet refused every deal the EU was willing to accept. The utter stupidity of assuming that “no deal” wasn’t automatically the outcome of not making a deal, and the idea that a single country somehow would have a strong negotiating position against an alliance of 27 countries, among them some of the largest and most prosperous in Europe, having in total more than 17 times the land mass, and over 6 times the population and GDP, was utterly ridiculous.
I am a big fan of British comedy, but none of your brilliant comedians could have delivered such a hilarious absurd comedy show as the Brexit negotiations were.
The thing is, you only get the single market proper if you accept freedom of movement. It’s a package deal.
Also, in order to get access to the single market, you have to accept and implement regulations.
Of course, you’ll have to pay for access to the single market, as well, but as a non member have no say on regulations.
Neither of those implications was wanted by the UK.
Cameron had already decided to ask the British public how to settle the question of EU membership. Since politicians were bickering about how to implement this referendum result, maybe they could have asked the public to choose a form of Brexit. Whether to stay in the single market and/or the customs union.
Anyway I suppose it’s all a moot point since it’s in the past. I think EU membership will probably be a possibility for the UK again in the future. It might take a decade or two though.
Cameron was running a populist xenophobic anti-EU campaign to appease the UKIP and its voters. His actual intention never was to leave the EU because he isn’t that stupid, but his publicity stunt of the referendum backfired spectacularly by the votes for “leave” coming up ever so slightly ahead. An outcome for which there was no plan at all. And then the monumental fuck-up really started.
The problem is that neither the British public nor the politicians ever really understood the implications nor the point of the EU. They largely only viewed (and still view) it as just another trade agreement, which it really, really isn’t. The EU and its predecessors always were a political project, which did (and does) heavily rely on trade to achieve the main political goal of lasting peace and cooperation between the member states.
This led to insane and impossible attempts at cherry picking benefits for potential future relationships, which the EU could and did not accept. You cannot have free movement of goods without free movement of people, because the EU isn’t just a free trade organisation. You cannot have access to the single market without accepting and implementing regulations, because this would allow you to endanger EU citizens with substandard goods and undercut EU producers with prices only achievable by substandard production.
Another stupid misunderstanding that backfired spectacularly is the silly notion that the EU saps away a member country’s sovereignty and replaces it with some dictates from Brussles. In fact, EU members do pool their sovereignty and, by doing so, give it more weight than that of every individual member alone could ever carry. This is how Ireland was able to dictate its conditions for the Northern Ireland border situation. The logical consequence of this was the sea border with all its absurd complications, because the UK didn’t want freedom of movement nor regulatory alignment, and a hard border on the Island of Ireland would automatically have meant no deal at all.
Speaking of “no deal”, it was peak comedy when the UK parliament repeatedly voted “against” “no deal”, yet refused every deal the EU was willing to accept. The utter stupidity of assuming that “no deal” wasn’t automatically the outcome of not making a deal, and the idea that a single country somehow would have a strong negotiating position against an alliance of 27 countries, among them some of the largest and most prosperous in Europe, having in total more than 17 times the land mass, and over 6 times the population and GDP, was utterly ridiculous.
I am a big fan of British comedy, but none of your brilliant comedians could have delivered such a hilarious absurd comedy show as the Brexit negotiations were.