Waste of time.

[Workingman]

But wouldn't that be the same as not really having a deal? And does the other side also get its own 'get out of jail' card? And what are the rules for the cards to be played? Can the card be thrown at any time with the shout of "SNAP!" or is it when the other side has won a certain number of 'tricks', and can they then play their card and reverse your "SNAP!".

Interesting.

[medsec222]

I'm as puzzled as everyone else Frank. Maybe there will be a deal or maybe there won't be a deal. But I do know if I was negotiating a deal I wouldn't want to box myself into a corner I couldn't get out of. It will be an interesting couple of weeks, that's for sure.

[Suff]

We have been in the EU club for 46 years. The EU knows exactly how UK politics work, just as we know how its politics works. Stop the deflection and the pushing of blame onto the EU.

Erm Rubbish. What do we know about how grand coalitions work. Any more than EU countries who can't function without "laws" know about a Highway Code instead of Road Law.

Don't tell me we understand each other because 46 years of pain and frustration tend to prove the opposite. Nobody and I do mean NOBODY, who understood the UK, would have done what they did to Cameron when he tried to win the referendum.

This is the problem with Remainers. They tend to think that time==understanding. It doe not.

Here's a thought for you that nobody talks about.

The vast majority who voted Leave have seen and lived non EU life.
The vast majority who voted Remain have never experienced anything other than the EU or the EEC.

[medsec222]

Here's a thought for you that nobody talks about.

The vast majority who voted Leave have seen and lived non EU life.
The vast majority who voted Remain have never experienced anything other than the EU or the EEC.

Some commenters seem to put that thought in a slightly different way Suff - as in, the young were cheated out of their vote last time because they were too young to vote. And the old will be dropping off their perches before too long - thus narrowing the gap between remainers and leavers.

[Workingman]

I am sat here wondering what intelligent Europeans, there must be some, think about us when they realise how they are viewed by a sizeable minority of the UK public. They must recoil in horror when the read and hear that we hold them in such low esteem because of how dense they are when we Brits are so superior. They all drive on the wrong side of the road FFS and their stupid companies have bought up large swathes of our industry and utilities. Idiots!

For any of our EU friends tuning in; please do not think that a large cohort of the 17.4 million Leavers represent the majority in UK. They most certainly do not.

The vast majority who voted Leave have seen and lived non EU life.

True. they will remember the three day week, uncollected rubbish stacked up on our streets, us going cap in hand for a bailout from the IMF. Those were the days, eh? The days when the UK was the sick man of Europe. But unless they are nonagenarians they will also have lived the majority of their lives in the EU with all that entails: see below.

The vast majority who voted Remain have never experienced anything other than the EU or the EEC.

Also probably true. They have lived in a time of peace among nations. They have lived in a time when they were free to look for work and live in another member state. Since 1985 they have been free to travel from one member state to another without let or hindrance. Since 1999 they have been able to travel in many countries using only one currency. They have seen countries that were once our sworn enemies drawn into the fold. Boy, have they had a hard time!

[TheOstrich]

I was unsure whether or not to post this here as I don't want to detract from the serious comments on the thread, but it is, in a way, rather apt, given WM's last post.

There was an absolutely classic faux pas during the end credits of the BBC News at 6 tonight.

There had been two main news items - Theresa May going to go to Brussels to confront the EU over the exit plan, and the opening of the new RAF Museum at Biggin Hill commemorating "The Few".

Right at the end of the bulletin, when recapping the stories, they got their timing muddled up.
The newscaster's comment about Theresa May going to Europe was accompanied by archive footage of a squadron of Spitfires flying overhead.

Says it all, really …...

[Suff]

The vast majority who voted Remain have never experienced anything other than the EU or the EEC.

Also probably true. They have lived in a time of peace among nations. They have lived in a time when they were free to look for work and live in another member state. Since 1985 they have been free to travel from one member state to another without let or hindrance. Since 1999 they have been able to travel in many countries using only one currency. They have seen countries that were once our sworn enemies drawn into the fold. Boy, have they had a hard time!

Yes and after the American Civil War, some slaves committed suicide. Why? Well they lived a life where food, clothing and housing were all provided for them. Freedom would mean that they had to make money, pay to live and produce their own food and clothes. Horrors indeed.

Also those of the EU generation, who believe that peace, the collapse of the USSR and all those benefits which came with it, might actually want to realise that the EU has not been supplying the bulwark of that peace, it has been NATO and the commitment to NATO which has created that. But let us not fool ourselves, the EEC and the EU did that. Absolutely.

Those who have seen this peace and that travel might also want to ponder the fact that the loss of our utilities and companies to state backed companies from France, Germany and the Netherlands was the price of that peace. It certainly would not have been so easy or so mandated without the EU.

There are always two sides to the story.

The EU? Very few in the EU itself understand how the institutions work or what drives them. Because they are lazy and unintelligent? No, because the EU wants it to be that way just as Washington DC wants the states in the US to be the same way.

I never said the people of the EU were thick or unintelligent. What I said was that the UK is nothing in their experience. Why? Because the vast proportion of the EU works on a legal and constitutional system which is radically different from the UK. They recognise and understand their other neighbours who work the same way they do. The UK? We're just awkward buggers because we "want" to be different. The vast majority of them never even want to see or understand why we are different, they prefer to just label us. This is something the EU loves, labelling. Unless the labels are pointed at the EU themselves of course, that is bad. Yet every country in the EU has a minority (growing decade by decade), willing to cry foul at the EU.

Our Utopian EU is not the harmonious entity that Remain would have us believe. It is full of rancour, spite and general bad behaviour, underlying the nice pretty rose smelling exterior.

And here is how it works. Those Danish and German minsters babbling on about how the UK is a "small country" and not knowing it's place in the world. They have no clue that this is the last time they will talk, negotiate or interact with the UK over trade. Once the UK has left the EU, the UK will negotiate directly with the commission. The council and the parliament will get a chance to talk about what has been agreed and vote on it. But not one of those states will have any meaningful conversation with the UK on our trade deal with the EU.

Most of those idiots calling the UK a "small country" don't even understand that they, themselves, by giving up their sovereignty to the EU, have even less say in the world than Iceland.

If they choose not to even understand the Union they are in, how the hell are they going to understand the UK, which is radically different from both themselves and the entire ethos of the EU?

[Suff]

Says it all, really …...

Ahh the BBC. Inept to the very end. What a massive fall from grace. The most respected news and media organisation in the world, become a household joke.

[Workingman]

American Civil War, the collapse of the USSR, NATO, the loss of our utilities and companies to state backed companies from France, Germany and the Netherlands was the price of that peace.

Straws - handful - grab - clutch.

American Civil War, different continent, different century, EU not even a twinkle in some politicians eye - dismiss.

The collapse of the USSR, this saw many factors involved. Internal schisms, geopolitical pressures and global economics to name but a few. All happened before the establishment of the EU - dismiss.

NATO, 29 states in alliance since 1949. There are 12 original signatories the rest are from a series of expansions. 14 are former members of the Warsaw Pact inc East Germany. France, Greece and Turkey are now full members after periods outside the fold. Not all members of NATO are from the EU and not all EU members are in NATO - dismiss.

The loss of our utilities and companies to state backed companies from France, Germany and the Netherlands was the price of that peace. Sorry? I seem to remember one M. Thatcher being accused of selling off the family silver with her free market economics and social policies - 'Thatcherism'. I cannot find any speech where she claimed that selling off the silverware was to keep the peace in Europe. Thatcher's sell off was long before the EU was created - dismiss.

I would carry on but I cannot be bothered.

[Workingman]

Regarding the BBC, I think that many of us in our millions are saddened at the depths to which it has sunk.

It is now the broadcast equivalent of press red tops.