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Well, in an ideal world the parties suddenly realising that we are dealing with the Emperor's new clothes would be great- I will be staggered if half the purported benefits of Brexit come to fruition and I expect the economic impact of business uncertainty in the meantime will take a very long time to be overcome.
Having said the above in the words of Macbeth,
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly"
What is currently crippling is uncertainty, we are a barometer of business activity as we lease commercial property to other entities, activity is still sluggish and I suspect there will continue to be fewer new transactions until we really get to see what we have bought.
I really don't know why there is all this fuss. We will continue to do business with the EU and they with us. All this hype is artificial as was seen just after the result of the referendum. The EU are suffering severe problems because of their immigration and human rights policies. They need to change PDQ. A cap on immigration doesn't have to stop the free movement of workers. The immigration problem is only going to get worse. When a woman braves the Sahara desert and the Med in order to not go into prostitution to survive says something about the human race. We do not live in a perfect world therefore we can't have perfect solutions to problems. Time the EU got off its fat backside and did something meaningful.
The thrust of the recent position papers begs the question as to why we are actually going to all this trouble to leave the EU at all.
The more the details of what is actually involved are revealed, the more it appears that not much in honesty needs to change. Why do it?
It seems to me in all this, as so often happens, politics has got in the way of pragmatism and common sense.
As we accountants know from long experience, politicians very often make life a lot more complicated than it needs to be.
The issue is quite simple. Most of us decided to leave the EU because of their incompetence to deal with important issues. Your comment is somewhat contrary as common sense would have got rid of a national security threat yet the EU court of human rights (run by the EU politicians) said no.
All this political stuff is just huff and puff.
My view is to come away with no deal and just negotiate as and when, because, let's face it, the EU and many others do not want us to leave and will put obstacles at every opportunity.
I am afraid John, that may be why YOU have voted for Brexit.
But the reality is about half the votes were to leave and half of the votes are to stay. And lots of people didn't have an opinion either way.
Whilst he is a bit of a [***], this is quite good analysis from Ashcroft on "why" and most of it is about feeling old and left behind in the modern world, or basically having a hard time of if financially and voting for "something different" or simply not understand how Europe works or what is does. Curiously virtually none of the problems that keep Brexiteers up and night will be solved by Brexit.
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/
Unfortunately the EU doesn't work and the reason is quite simple. It is far too big and controlling by a few to many. EFTA was the original reason for us entering the then "common market". I cannot see any valid reason that free trade should be glued to movement of people. There has to be flexibility and individual country controls. Europe is not and never will be a country so it's no good trying to treat it like one.
Many of our problems are cause by the vast increase in immigration when our infrastructure can't handle it. Many people on ground level were seeing and experiencing this first hand. Everyone of my clients voted for Brexit, even those that do business with the EU countries.
Nigel Farage sums it up really well. Would we join if we weren't in. The resounding answer was no. By the way 52% - 48% is not half or about half.
I suggest you read Article 45 of the Lisbon treaty. We could have had a lot more control of EU freedom of movement than successive governments chose to implement.
And recent surveys continue to show that the country remains split down the middle by this most divisive of issues.
This will simply not have a good outcome and to pretend otherwise is completely deluded.
Being a business man and have clients that do a lot of business with the EU I fully understand where your coming from. I don't think anyone expected such an influx of people (300,000+ net), most from the EU. So surely the EU could have realised that this needs a flexible solution but they don't seem to be able to move in that direction. Now they will have to. I totally disagree with you on the outcome. It will be a good outcome for all concerned, because at the end of the day the EU will realise that tying the movement of people to the single market will not work for a prosperous economy (unless every EU country has a prosperous economy).
Like many people who voted to leave, I am in favour of a "common" market and free trade across Europe.
What I am not in favour of is the increasing centralisation and federalisation, eroding national identities and absorbing them into the great EU empire project.
History is littered with examples of what happens when individual sovereign states are absorbed into empires and artificial federations.
Sooner or later, such groupings collapse into nationalistic tensions and outright civil war, the most recent example being what happened to the former Yugoslavia. So long as Tito was alive, he kept the country together, ruling with an iron fist. Once he was gone, and with the accompanying break up of the Soviet empire, the former Yugoslav states descended into civil war.
The Balkan conflict of the 1990s is a foreshadowing of what might happen in the future in Europe, if the EU is allowed to go on with its federalist agenda. Better for us to leave now, before it collapses and descends into anarchy and war.
Although I agree with much of your post, and I think that us leaving the EU is just the start of a complete EU breakdown, I do not think that they will descend into anarchy and war. The business giants of Europe will come up with a plan that will save EU face and allow us to be linked in some form. They are already talking about "imaginative proposals". BMW are working behind the scenes. Years ago someone came up with a trading currency called the Ecu. Surely that is better than countries having to answer to a central bank. To me the whole EU thing has not been thought out properly. I compare the EU to HMRC. Some great concepts then the need for ultimate control sends it all down the pan.
Wonder if the accountants have ever considered that financial benefits of remaining in the EU might be far outweighed by non-financial costs? My CPD constantly harps on about non-financial "benefits" but it does seem that reality trumps theory every time.
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