• EnderMB@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    My hope is that Labour are playing this smart. They’ll bang on about how Brexit won’t change, but that “we’ll look to increase economic and social strengths via our relationship with the EU”. We’ll reintroduce entry to the single market, ensure freedom of movement, and basically rejoin in everything but name - and then eventually say “well, if we want to rejoin it’s basically a tick in a box”.

    The EU will likely be happy for the UK to rejoin, even without punishment. The most reliable ally in the battle against Euroscepticism is a former Eurosceptic that can say how shit things were after leaving, and how much better they are since rejoining.

    • zaphod@sopuli.xyz
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      4 months ago

      They could do what Norway does, paying for an almost membership that doesn’t give them any voting rights.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Only apparently in the EU power circles nobody wants yet another “special deal” like Norway or (even worse) Switzerland.

        • Tja@programming.dev
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          4 months ago

          Why not? Pay into the EU, adopt all EU laws, get one fishing or banking exception and no vote in laws. I’m all for it.

          • davidagain@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            There’s absolutely no chance of us getting a fishing exception. That was highly contentious when we were one of the big three EU countries. No way would they agree to that whilst also letting us back in after throwing all our toys out of the play pen.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      If the UK applies to rejoin, this time no Thatcher UK Rebate or any other special exceptions. UK leeches were a thorn in our side for way too long. This time you better pay what you actually owe. And say bye-bye to your stupid currency. Euro adoption or nothing.

      • Oddbin@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        That’s quite an acerbic way to talk about people.

        Keep in mind 2 nations within the UK didn’t want to leave along with a large chunk of the other two.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I’ve lived in a couple of countries of Europe, including the UK whilst it was an EU Member.

          The spirit about the EU in the UK was always different, no “stronger as a group” mindset, always “what’s in it for me” and trying scheme after scheme to see if they could swindle the rest of the EU.

          Then on top of it all there were all the many insults to the EU - and by extention the people in it - during the Leave Referendum and even afterwards, coming from amongst others top people in party in government, including the PM.

          I remember how even the Remainers were running around with delusions of national superiority: for example one of their arguments were “We should stay and change the EU from the inside”, as if Brits knew better what the EU should be than the other 470 million people in it.

          The EU doesn’t really need that kind of member nation, more so when we’re dealing with another one like that in our midst: Hungary.

          Respect is earned, not due, and the UK has a lot of work ahead to earn it.

          • Oddbin@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Not here to try and change your mind but I’ll reiterate what I said before, not everyone wanted to leave. The negatives you give are mostly related to Leavers. Keep that in mind when you’re being aggressively negative to the “UK”, it’s not one lump.

            • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              I’m sorry but the UK is the entity we’re talking about, not actual persons - individuals can’t join or leave the EU on their own hence it’s the actions of the actual formal nation state that get judged when it comes to joining or leaving the EU.

              Consider the possibility that it’s your nationalist feelings (and given the huge role of British Nationalism in Brexit that’s not actually a good thing) that are making you confuse the country and the actions of it by the hand of it’s elective representatives, with you yourself and people like you - the actions of the nation never really represent all people in that nation and it’s not really healthy (IMHO) to identify yourself with The Nation.

              People being critical of a country seldom means they’re critical of everybody in that country, unless they’re nationalist far-right morons, in which case their problem is a lot bigger than merely talking in an acerbic way about a nation.

              • Oddbin@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                You’ve mistaken what I said I think. I was reiterating that the UK is 4 nations. I wasn’t talking about individuals. I think it’s safe to say we’ve reached the end here though given your rhetoric to I’ll leave you to your opinions.

                • davidagain@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Whilst I don’t disagree with your facts, I disagree with your tone.

                  It’s really understandable for EU folk to be angry with us. Our newspapers are toxic, the BBC promotes Farage and we were always going for British exceptionalism, with Brexit being the ultimate act of We’re Better Than You sentiment.

                  Me, you, 48% of the then voting public, Scotland and NI didn’t buy it, correct, but genuinely the right approach to EU irritation with the UK is apology, not “stop being mean” and not “it wasn’t my part of the UK”.

                  We’re not out of the woods yet. Britain’s most unelectable politician of all time, with nine losses in hand-picked constituencies may well win Clacton because the stupidly corrupt Conservative party couldn’t keep their stupidly corrupt MPs honest. How “we’re not a bunch of racist loonies” is that going to look across the channel? Yes, a bunch of us are going to turn away from the stupid racist Conservative party, but a lot of them are going to turn to the even more stupid, even more racist, even more anti EU Refuse UK Party.

                  • Oddbin@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    Where did I say stop being mean? Jesus fucking Christ, I was just hoping to moderate peoples attitude to try and have a more positive impression and something we can work towards but instead it’s just classic Lemmy vitriol and shite.

                    Thank you, between you and that other tit you’ve given me the push I needed to just bin this off.

        • gian @lemmy.grys.it
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          4 months ago

          Keep in mind 2 nations within the UK didn’t want to leave along with a large chunk of the other two.

          Irrelevant. It is like saying the Lombardia and Veneto do not agree with what Italian government decide: it could be true but they cannot do whatever they want, they are part of Italy.

          • Oddbin@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Ah, you’re Italian. That’s why you’re being a cunt. Makes sense.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      With the fight over the pound in the 80s and 90s when they first formed the EU, I would be very surprised if the EU didn’t force the UK to adopt the Euro to rejoin

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        4 months ago

        Why would they. Like the above comments says they have much more to gain by UK having to slink back so why would they put barriers to that.

        It’s also not as if the pound is a particularly weak currency like the French Frank or the German Deutsche Mark was.

        • friendlymessage@feddit.de
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          4 months ago

          It’s also not as if the pound is a particularly weak currency like the French Frank or the German Deutsche Mark was.

          The Deutsche Mark was famously stable and the biggest official foreign exchange reserves after the dollar, it was much stronger than the pound sterling.

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          They don’t want to make it easy to get back in, so that other countries aren’t tempted to leave in the first place. They shouldn’t reward temper tantrums.

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            4 months ago

            I would have thought the inverse would have been true that they would want to reward coming back It seems like a petulant philosophical view to suggest that the EU would not let the UK back in.

            After all doing so would demonstrate that leaving is non-practical

            • davidagain@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              If a kid throws their ice cream on the floor, giving them another one soon afterwards doesn’t in any way teach the other kids not to throw their ice cream on the floor. This is very firmly a “no ice cream for you then” situation. I think labour realise they if they tried to rejoin, they would get a very rough ride indeed from the EU with massive amounts of playing hardball and that the best they can hope for in the next five years really is some softening and smoothing of the deal for being cooperative. We agree to fund EU science a bit, they let us back into erasmus, that kind of thing (although specifically not that).

              But joining the EU takes a decade or more sometimes, and the “but it’s really very simple, we follow most of the EU rules already because we’re a former member” is as stupid as the “oven ready deal” and “German car manufacturers will insist we get a great deal” nonsense.