Mmmh. Perhaps he meant "compassionate"?
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The point of many Leavers is that other alternatives were never tried. Canada, Norway and Switzerland are all better than the one on offer. If other countries have these deals, why can't the UK? Even at this stage, a WTO exit is better. There will be short term disruption particularly as the Government hasn't planned for it. But at least there won't be any of the messy compromises that some options entail. We will keep the £39 billion divorce bill and be free to sign any trade deals we want, including probably with the EU at some point.
Norway and Switzerland - Free movement, which violates one of the (most important) red lines so it is out.
Canada - No financial services, which is critical to the UK, plus it does not solve the Northern Ireland issue, and Mrs May guaranteed there would be no hard border so that is out.
Norway and Switzerland don't end free movement but there are more limitations than being in the EU. Plus when we actually get to the next phase of the trade deal with the EU under Theresa May's plan I expect that will be watered down too.
As for financial services, in the May deal they won't be covered either. Ultimately though the Eurozone will need access to the City of London for funding as nowhere else in the EU has remotely the capacity. The Eurozone is already tottering not least due to the problems in Italy so any restriction could be terminal.
Northern Ireland backstop - you already know that I think this is a non-issue that was devised by the EU to create leverage. Emanuel Macron's use of it to secure access for EU fisherman to UK waters aptly demonstrates this. It was a terrible decision by May to sign up to this idea last December, one of many by the Government in this process.
I was prepared for the fact that we wouldn't get everything we wanted and given the closeness of the vote desirable that we kept close relations with the EU and compromised in some areas. The problem with May's deal is it doesn't seem to deliver any of the advantages of leaving. Worst of all is that we cannot come out of the Customs Union without the EU's permission. That is an intolerable situation and does mean we would become a Vassal state.
May's deal is worse than Remaining, perhaps that was the idea of our Remain dominated Government and civil service all along. To make us decide to stay after all. Game, set and match to the Establishment.
Naturally, given a previous existence, my interest has always been the negotiation.
I think there was a general wish by May et al to technically comply with Brexit to satisfy the 52% but only just, to satisfy the 48%, compounded by a naivety that our previous "friends" in Europe would continue to treat us as friends in reaching a deal. So the mindset was not to walk away and pursue another model.
It then didn't help that eg Davis and Johnson are vacuous sound bites and bone idle.
If you want a good deal negotiation should never be done if you have a deadline. You need to believe that the other side will do you down if they can - they are not your friends. Etc etc.
When it became apparent that the French and Germans were determined to punish GB the clock had been ticking for a long time and it was then too difficult for the Govt. to admit they were on the wrong track, stop and rethink. A bit like fellrunners, "we are going in the wrong direction so let's run more quickly".
Way back on here I mused how Trump would have dealt with all this. Whatever you think of him as a human being (!) we certainly would not have ended up where we are now - but then not many people think Trump is a nice man to do business with.
A lot to agree with there Graham.
I've never heard Trump described as a "human being" before. :)
More seriously, while the Leavers talk about us being free to do trade deals with anyone we like, that is actually the aspect of Brexit that worries me the most. Remember that the EU was negotiating TTIP with the USA for longer than the Canada deal, and it all collapsed in the end; and that was when they were negotiating with the Obama administration. We now have the most protectionist, aggressive administration in the USA for many decades, and my worry is that we will jump into trade deals with USA, and maybe China, etc, that make concessions far worse than anything in May's current deal with the EU, just because Liam Fox is keen to demonstrate how free we now are.
Immigration, trade deals, cost savings, fishing rights etc etc . These are just side issues to the core of this problem. Do the British people want to be part of a club that gradually subsumes their government, their laws, their sovereignty. And for that club to be ruled by a non elected upper chamber? Most of the people with a voice answered the question and a tiny excess of people said no way, let's leave the club. All of the noise around the other issues is just that....noise, not the reason why the vote went the way it did.