Workingman wrote:You mean that Brexit was not in any way defined? So how come 17.4 million voted for it? Spin? Shouldn't there have been some sort of plan, a roadmap, for where the UK would end up? There was never one, was there? We had a bus, sovereignty, immigration, but no policies and no detail, to achieve anything - and we still don't. It was all a dream - now a nightmare.
And the other side had a plan? Certainly scare everyone to death and carry on paying an increasing sum of billions into the EU and be fobbed off for everything we really need, not want, need.
Workingman wrote:The UK can come up with 1001 proposals, but what it cannot do is demand that the EU accepts them, never mind negotiate them. We are the ones leaving and we are going to have to accept whatever that turns out to be.
And I said you can come up with any plan you want but to exit the EU requires the EU to be willing to work to that plan. I shot down the whole "We should have a plan" because the actual exit strategy will be a compromise between what the EU want and what the UK want. That is _not_ slagging the EU off and it is _not_ slagging the government off. It is the truth.
What I am getting at is the disingenuous way that everyone who is opposed to leaving the EU seems to think that we should have some deep detailed plan for how we are going to get out.
Let me talk about the last Member state that had a plan. It was a plan that had red lines, it had enough detail to be going on with, it was clear and it was sold to the people as something that they were "going to sell and make the EU accept".
That Member state spent the better part of the next year being told "There is not enough detail". In fact what they were actually being told was "NO". So that member state played the game, wrote more and more and more. Every time they were told "Not enough detail". Eventually they got to the "Enough detail" at the 11th hour when disaster was about to strike. And they were told "NO".
That Member State was Greece. Remember that?
There is a whole world of difference between the UK and Greece. The GDP of Greece is a rounding error on EU GDP. The UK is 3% of WORLD GDP, let alone EU. The UK is the second largest economy in the EU.
More important than all of that is the fact that the UK is leaving and not coming back.
The only plan the UK needs, to make the very best exit possible comes down to 5 words. "OK we're leaving, forget it".
That is how we reduced a €100bn (or more) exit bill to £39bn. Because when we got to the 11th hour, the EU was unwilling to lose that £39 billion in the hope that they would get €100bn or more.
The only people who want to see a "Plan" in detail, are those who want to screw up Brexit. We don't need a plan, the EU will produce every plan anyone ever wanted. All we have to do is say NO to the bits we don't want.
After all, WE are leaving and THEY can't afford to let us go. Don't be fooled by the whole "they're only 12% of EU GDP BS. We are about 30% of the money that makes the EU work. We are the gravy they use to fund all their petty little schemes. We are €15bn a year, net, to their budget and that number keeps on going up.
Don't tell me we need a plan to get out. We don't. They do. Desperately. What we have to do is Hold Fast and take no BS from the EU. That will ensure the best Brexit of all.
If it all does, finally, go down the tubes, the adjustment will take 3-5 years and it will be over. If we do a bad deal with the EU, we will be living it for decades.
1st lesson of the Army Officer Training on Orders (the plan). "The first casualty of battle is the Plan". I remember, clearly.