RayC

I am not re-writing history and not for the first time you are deliberately misrepresenting one of my comments. In the first place, my comment mentioned the opposition parties, not the voters and not just the Labour party. The SNP, LibDems and Greens were clear in their opposition to Brexit. It might be argued that Corbyn was lukewarm in his opposition but, officially Labour was against it, and only a handful of Labour MPs were active Brexiters. In any event, no political party other than the Tories would have held a Brexit referendum.

That's a false argument. I'll agree that nothing said on here one way or the other is going to have any effect and that you can't change the past. However, if more influential bodies e.g. CBI, IoD, politicans, think tanks, MSM, etc continue to bang on about the negative effects of Brexit then maybe, just maybe, the Government will listen and take action to mitigate these effects by trying to build closer ties with the EU instead of continually trying to antagonise and alienate them, which often seemed to be the objective of the Johnson administration.

I'm sure that you will be able to avoid incurring the mod's wrath if you omit the expletives and gory bits. I'm genuinely interested in knowing what May could have done differently in order to have turned Brexit into an economic success story.

Brexiters - you chief among them - refuse to acknowledge the significant impact that Brexit is having on the UK economy. For the umpteenth time, the OBR estimates the cost of Brexit as being 4% of GDP (+/-£32bn) per annun. To put that into context, the UK's annual average growth rate in normal times is +/-2% pa. Another way of looking at it, the net cost of membership of the EU to the UK was £13.2bn pa. so we are effectively +/-£18.8bn worse off each year as a result of Brexit. However, despite this and numerous other data being presented, you refuse to budge and acknowledge this information. Instead, you casually dismiss these data by saying that "it (Brexit) may have had an (sic) minimal effect on the UK economy.."! What will it take to get you to acknowledge that Brexit was an act of significant self-harm?

So this whole shambles is down to May? Nothing to do with Johnson and the 'Flat Earthers'? No responsibility and accountability rests with them? The current deal isn't great for the UK, but do you seriously think that trading under WTO rules would have been better for the UK economy? What would you have had May do?

The opposition parties were against Brexit therefore why would you expect them to vote in favour of leaving? The Tories stood on a manifesto of implementing Brexit. May's deal would have done that but it wasn't 'hard' enough for the 'Flat Earthers'. If they had supported May, the deal would have passed. This whole mess has been of the Tories own making from beginning to end.

Yet again, you refuse to let the facts stand in the way of your narrative. https://ig.ft.com/brexit-exit-deal-vote/#votes-table It was the ERG wot dun it!

Unfortunately, we never seem to arrive at these "sunny uplands". -1: Latest percentage estimate of the annual hit to UK GDP as a result of Brexit?????

Of course, silly me. Nothing to do with the 'Flat Earthers' (ERG) consistently undermining and voting against May? No one ever mentioned taking accountability and responsibility for the mess that we created! Why restart the whole thing? Why didn't the UK government simply walk away with 'No deal'? "No deal is better than a bad deal"; wasn't that one of the Leavers' favourite mantas? Just imagine how the UK economy would be flying now if Johnson had had the courage to do so????

Sunny uplands, here we come! Err.... any idea when we might arrive there?

And if we had remained in the EU, other things being equal, we would be doing better than our European neighbours.

Been a while since you played the 'Balotelli card'. In case you've forgotten, the 'Withdrawal Agreement' was agreed and signed off by your hero, Johnson, a Brexiter.

Fair play to the marketing departments of Netflix and Buck Palace. Both are playing a blinder here.

Brexit is far from down and dusted. The Withdrawal Agreement has still not been fully implemented and there are ongoing discussions about it, especially the Protocol. And that's just the goods side of things. Discussions about services haven't even been touched upon in any meaningful way. This is a huge issue for the UK. Services make up +/-80% of the UK's GDP and the value of UK service related exports to the EU in 2019 was +/-£14bn. A sizeable proportion of this was financial services which Paris, Dublin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, etc. have their eye on. Politics dictates that we are highly unlikely to rejoin the EU in the immediate future (imo not before 2030 at the very earliest and more realistically the mid-30s) but, hopefully, by continuing to moan, our current political leaders will acknowledge the monumental act of economic self-harm that the UK has inflicted upon itself. Perhaps they will then, at least, try to mitigate the effects rather than worsen the situation as the last two UK administrations seemed hellbent on doing.

It's the latter. I thought that you were complaining about the author of the article not referencing his sources, rather than the original poster not stating explicitly than the article comes from 'The Observer'. You're right; he doesn't but it also doesn't change the fact that Brexit has had negative effects for the UK economy.

None that I am aware of. However, according to the latest opinion polls many people have changed their minds. I have no idea whether they have been convinced by others or worked out things for themselves. Have you managed to personally to get any Remainers to change sides?

Indeed. But equally supporting them in their belief that Brexit was a good idea isn't going to make the UK a better place.

Fair enough. I'm 55 feeling 75! Actually almost 64. No idea how other 64-year olds feel; it will be my first time ????????

Ignoring the moral argument, probably counter-productive anyway. Alienates partners, weakens our influence on the world stage and probably has negative economic consequences to boot. That would weaken our security and, almost certainly, cost us more than it saves. Don't think that we have too many qualms about doing so as it is I'm sure that we will first chance that we get Again ignoring the moral aspect, they aren't that keen on engaging with us. I imagine that many immigrants would agree with you. The UK needs to speed up the process. Excellent idea but only (proper) ale/ stout???? Heavily tax lager and 'craft' beers to compensate for the loss of revenue. Would need French agreement but why not. I'd prefer to pay for motorcyclists to move to the Isle of Man.

Disagree. Very few things are irreversible. At the very least, don't make a bad situation worse: Johnson and Truss seemed determined to do just that. Small mercies: On first impressions, Sunak seems to be more pragmatic than his immediate predecessors as PM (although he hasn't had a major run in with 'Flat Earth Brigade' - aka the ERG - yet).

How's that going to help? What do you have in mind?

No one is denying that Covid and the war have had negative economic effects. In the case of the war, these effects are probably being felt more in mainland Europe than in the UK. And again the reply is that the overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that Brexit has made a bad situation, worse. If the suggestion is that Brexit has made things worse for EU member states as well then, 'We are all poorer to one degree or another' doesn't sound like much of a justification to me.

You should re-read the article. Amongst other things, it mentions research which found that Brexit has added £6bn to the UK food bill, and that - according to a survey - a majority of the UK public now think that Brexit was a mistake. This is not opinion, it is reportage. If the research and polling was flawed, then that's fair criticism. Objecting to the message simply because it doesn't fit your own biased narrative isn't. Is the recession in the EU compounded by the effects of Brexit? Perhaps. But if so, surely it adds to the argument that Brexit is economically damaging? I will agree that the author is probably anti-Brexit; the overwhelming majority of economists are.

Come now, Nauseus. How is the article "badly referenced"? The author uses quotation marks where appropriate and states his sources very clearly elsewhere. Perhaps it's the facts within the article that you find unpalatable?

I can see pros and cons to all the potential solutions. Personally, I still think that penalties are as good as system as any (although I suspect that some Spanish fans might disagree!).