Admittedly, I don’t know much about Brexit, but from what I have been exposed to, it seems like a decisively economical and political impairment that made travel and business with the rest of Europe more difficult and costly. Since it is so highly criticized as a terrible move, why doesn’t the UK just rejoin the EU?
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it’s like an unstable ex-girlfriend trying to get back together. and now she’s down on her luck with even less to offer.
UK just needs to suck a few dicks and we’re all good ;)
Idk about you but I’m not letting Boris anywhere near my dong.
I think you meant Mr. Sunak, which is only a marginal improvement.
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Does the UK still meet the requirements of joining?
We’re still one of the top ten world economies, of course we do.
Ha, no way. You wish. The only thing England is top 10 at is smelling their own farts.
Currently ranked 6th. Your an idiot.
You’re*
Psh 6th at eating tea and crumpets maybe, you dumb limeys can’t even spell words right while insulting people.
Calm down Clapistani Chungus, and you also don’t eat tea, thats a drink, you spakker. I’m also still correct about the UK economy being sixth largest.
Wrong, California is 6th largest.
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Hubris.
There are a lot of reasons, but I think it boils down to the people in charge do not want the embarrassement of crawling back to the EU.
It would be total ego destruction and that is simply untennable. This is what happens when the right gets enough power to make a change and then has to experience consequences.
Something something leopards and faces.
This is the big one, admitting it was a mistake.
Not only that but the EU doesn’t want to make it seem like people can come and go as they please. So they will make serious demands for rejoining.
Exactly. UK will be adopting the Euro next time.
I forget what other significant concessions there were.
Schengen membership and no rebate are the 2 big ones aside from the euro iirc
If the EU are feeling particularly salty they might add the metric system but that’s not a current condition of membership afaik
They probably wouldn’t force schengen as we’re in a common travel area with Ireland who aren’t in Schengen so they’d have to force in on them too.
Possibly switch to driving on the right, that’d be good
That won’t happen because it would be an unreasonable requirement and for no real point.
It would require a ridiculous amount of road maintenance and sign changes and it would be basically burning money. It would be like asking the French to correctly signpost things, utterly unreasonable.
Shhh, it’d be fun
What do mean ?
Doesn’t “touts directions” tell you everything you need to know? /s
Yeah exactly, not to mention that the EU has called the UK “a trouble maker” in regards to the UK rejoining.
They weren’t wrong, were they?
I got the impression the modern British are an extreme manifestation of “truth hurts”.
I always figured it wouldn’t be the UK rejoining the EU if that ever happened. But thats putting the likelihood of there no longer being a UK over their re-entry into the EU.
Also they never adopted the Euro so they always had one foot out anyway.
If I’m not mistaken, the pro-Brexit party (they call them Torys) has been in charge. If they want to move in a different direction, they need to vote different people in, which has not been happening very quickly.
Politics is complicated, basically.
It’s really weird, as the whole EU deal was Margaret Thatcher’s legacy, and her own party threw it away!!!
I’m no fan of Thatcher but she did some good things during her tenure - negotiating the UK’s place in the EU and setting up Channel 4 spring to mind - and I honestly think she would be utterly devastated if she saw what her party had become today.
I think they wanted to play on the EU outrage, but they didn’t actually want to leave.
The EU deal was nothing to do with Thatcher. She never wanted the UK to join the EU and vehemently opposed the Maastricht Treaty.
She supported economic union, not political.
Worth noting that the true pro-Brexit party was UKIP, but the conservatives wanted their voters so adopted a pro brexit stance.
I don’t think most Tory’s really wanted it to happen (bad for business), David Cameron thought he could get an easy win by holding a referendum and nipping the Brexit talk in the bud, but bit off more than he could chew.
Brexit remained popular with voters for a while, and conservatives have leaned into it being the right decision and demonising immigrants since because they’re fucking up everything else.
Many Tory’s wanted it to happen so they could create a corporation-haven of sorts without the EU having a say in it. Essentially getting rid of “annoying” regulations that keeps people safe.
Yeah, I think there was a bit of a split.
Either way, both sides had self serving intentions, which is oddly enough what unites the conservatives.
Many good answers in this thread (and some stupid ones) but there are a few critical issues that the current British government will not accept.
First, currency. GB does not want to give up control over the pound, and their previous agreement did not force them to adopt the Euro. There are several other EU countries that have not yet adopted the Euro, but all except Denmark are obligated to switch over once certain criteria are met. GB might be able to negotiate that privilege again, but the EU is in a stronger bargaining position now.
Second, immigration. For as much as their country is suffering from their own strict immigration policies, the conservative government is still making political hay out of xenophobia and bigotry. Reopening the borders would be a tacit admission that their rhetoric was bullshit.
Third, taxes. Joining the EU means contributing to the EU, and while their nation may save money overall due to improved trade relations, the conservative government has made the cost of admission another talking point.
Basically, the current government would have to renegotiate readmittance to the EU, and they would get a worse deal than they had before. Doing so would make it obvious that leaving was a mistake, and their government could only be consisered an objective failure. So they won’t do it, even if it is the best option available.
Why didn’t Denmark have to switch to the Euro? I can see how back in the 70s the UK had enough bargaining power to keep the Pound, but Denmark?
Every country that joined the EU after the 1992 Maastricht treaty has to adopt the euro. Denmark signed that treaty, UK as well, but if they rejoin, they’d more than likely be treated as a new member.
I disagree - on paper sure they would, but at the end of the day the UK is the ≈2nd biggest economy in Europe (UK and France make up 2nd & 3rd and who is bigger changes every couple of years), unlike Georgia or Moldova or whoever else where their joining is barely noticeable.
That means that the EU is more likely to want the UK to join, vs smaller countries wanting to join the EU, although it would be mutually beneficial of course - the UK would likely increase the EU’s power a little more than the EU would increase the UK’s power, but saying that hides the fact that it’d probably be a 10+% increase in both cases.
Of course the EU could make an example of the UK if they were want to rejoin, but if they were to look at it objectively then they’d most likely reach the conclusion that the negatives of making the concessions they made before are far outweighed by the additional collective power of having the UK as a member.
Making the same concessions and signal to every other country that you can just hop in and out on a whim? Uhhh I have a bridge to sell you if you really believe that.
The best outcome for the EU would be to drag their feet and wait a decade for readmittance. Right now companies are moving from the UK to the EU.
The UK has proven itself to be a very fickle partner. If they want to join, we would need some serious proofs of good faith. Those proofs are called Euro and Schengen.
That’s a fair point, however it’s hard to see the EU making an example when it’s so in its interest not to… Chances are they’d end up getting some hard proofs in terms of legislation commiting the UK to the EU for a lengthy time period and maybe some other “commitments” which don’t boil down to anything but look firm to members and citizens (as loved by governments everywhere who want to look like they’re doing things while also not wanting to do those same things)
it’s hard to see the EU making an example when it’s so in its interest not to…
Why would it not be in the interest of the EU to make an example? Poland and Hungary were (led by extremist right political parties) playing with the idea of leaving the EU, too. I think it has become mighty quiet on that front now that they have seen how much of a pain it is for the UK to empty a whole magazine into their own feet.
Same for France and Italy. Nobody is making loud noises about leaving the EU anymore.
It’s not a “make an example” situation.
It’s a “fool me once” situation.
Also the nature and goal of the union have changed. Euro and Schengen are table stakes. It’s what the union is about.
I’d disagree - it hurts both the EU and the withdrawing nation to have a nation withdraw, so saying “if you withdraw you will end up coming back, but on terms more beneficial to us” is a good move for the EU to further decay eurosceptic movements around Europe. Letting places rejoin on the same terms would encourage eurosceptics as they’d say “we can always rejoin on the same terms”
I don’t think EU has any reason to “make an example” by being hard on UK, but they also have no reason to bend the rules to be soft on UK. It would be a really bad signal to send to other joining countries to let the ex-country in easier.
The longer the wait, the sweeter the deal - for the EU.
Yeah well, I’d like them to rejoin before they run the country further down. I’ve visited London several times and I’m shocked to see how it is noticeable falling behind already. If this keeps up, it won’t be great for EU to accept a “Mississippi” state. The sooner they rejoin the better it is for both UK and EU.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/03/britain-economy-society
I wholly agree, but as long as the political scene is like it is, it will be quite unlikely. I guess it will take at least a generation to get over this in the UK alone, and then it will be questionable still.
It seems the British (IMO the English in particular) need to eat humble pie and the way to make them is sadly economic ruin.
It’s no good letting in somebody who is that flaky and loud and proud about it.
This is exactly the mentality that made Brexit come true and the post-Brexit agreements such a mess: “The EU needs the UK more than the other way round!”. Now look at it and tell me who needs whom more?
Neither truly needs the other - both are hurt by Brexit but they’re both getting along ok without the other (although brexit was far softer than people tend to realise - aside from a few very major things the UK is still de facto in a lot of EU institutions, and not including issues caused by Russian invasions)
UK would likely increase the EU’s power a little more than the EU would increase the UK’s power
This belongs on the side of a Brexit bus.
It was in regards to the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, which was sort of the founding treaty of EU. In order to complete the transformation from European Communities to a European Union, all involved countries had to sign the treaty.
Some of the countries just couldn’t legally give off this amount of sovereignty without a domestic election. Denmark being one of them. So, even if it’s a small country, it had the same power as any other country to obstruct the founding of the entire union.
So when the election turned out a narrow “no”, it was a bit of wrench in the wheel. Denmark then negotiated having a few opt outs before they were able hold a new election which then gave a “yes”.
Well I’m looking at it from the other point of view, as in “you’re not allowed to join the EU unless you convert to the Euro”.
The EU didn’t exist at all back then. Today, the EU can make such a demand of a new joiner, say for instance the United Kingdom, because it’s the entire EU vs UK. In 1992, it was Voltron coming together, and they needed that left leg lion to keep him upright.
Old members had a deal there, like the UK did. New members need to join the Euro as part of their joining the EU package.
So Britain is in a sunk cost fallacy situation? If so who exactly in power is preventing us to rejoin?
Well, ostensibly it’s the voters. Vote for progressive candidates.
First of all, all the politicians that would look bad after propagating Brexit. Then those few select rich who gained a fortune from Britain’s misery. And those people who fell for their lies, and simply can’t admit that they had been had. This is the one side.
The other side is the EU. Brexit has cost the EU a fortune, and a lot of work. Re-admitting the UK would be put them in a bind to make sure - absolutely sure - that such a shit show will never, ever, happen again. Basically “Fool me once…” And they would have to convince all current EU members that this time, the UK really means to join and stay and take the whole EU stuff seriously, and not just like they did when the UK joined for the first time: To be in just to be able to easier weaken them.
Those other countries still accept the euro though right?
I think they do, but probably not guaranteed everywhere. Denmark might not, but I don’t know for sure. I know Czechia does close to the borders, but I haven’t been to the other countries myself to know.
It is up to the shops whether they want to accept euro or not (or any other currency), but the official currency is kroner. I know that some supermarkets (Netto) used to gladly take euro in exchange for a horrible exchange rate
For as much as their country is suffering from their own strict immigration policies, the conservative government is still making political hay out of xenophobia and bigotry.
The funny thing is that the UK now gets way more refugees than before, as France no longer sees the need to keep them back.
Not just that, all these trade deals we cut with other countries means visas for their citizens. Net immigration to the UK has tripled since Brexit from countries like India. I’m sure the racists and xenophobes are really happy with what they voted for.
Well at least all the people who enjoy Indian food will be happy.
there are no stupid questions. there are however stupid people which most of the time are prideful for the silliest things.
Seeing as we were in the EU (and EEC) for almost 50 years, surely it’s only fair to give it time to see what the long-term effects are, positive or negative.
Governments can renegotiate elements of Brexit over the years which could improve things anyway. Maybe one day a government will be sensible enough to join EFTA, but I won’t hold my breath on that.
I can’t wait to see how this turns out.
Everything is on fire. Should I run away from the fire? Or like, just give it some time and see how it goes?
God forbid anyone suggest an alternative to rejoining, eh?
If we’d joined the EU and then after four years, people were complaining and calling for us to leave again, they would be ridiculed for not giving it the opportunity. But because it’s the other way around, it’s apparently sensible. 🤷
We voted out. You can’t put us back in, it’s undemocratic.
People never thought Brexit would win but it did. If we had another vote, it would win again. You can find twenty million Brits who voted for Brexit and will admit it’s a mistake but when they’re in a private voting booth with no eyes looking, they 100% vote to stay out. Then what? Have a third vote til you get the result you want?
If it was a mistake then it is a mistake we have to live with.
If we had another vote, it would win again. You can find twenty million Brits who voted for Brexit and will admit it’s a mistake but when they’re in a private voting booth with no eyes looking, they 100% vote to stay out.
Is that so? I’m not convinced.
Then what? Have a third vote til you get the result you want
It’s not odd to hold another vote if conditions change. But I don’t see that being reasonable within a decade or so.
Every opinion poll since the referendum has been more and more pro EU. Even the GB news poll was pro EU.
How are those 350 million pounds a week working out for you? NHS must be a real powerhouse now with all that cash.
A powerhouse in patient waiting lists 🤡
Look at your butthurt comment.
What a compelling argument.
I’m not an expert in this topic at all, but there’s a few reasons i can see. One major reason is that you’d have to get a big portion of the country to admit that they were totally wrong and got badly scammed, which people (especially that particular portion of people) won’t allow themselves to admit.
Screw England, let’s just let Scotland and Wales join without them
Extremely based opinion
U forgot abt northern ireland
That’s reunification with Eire, which is already in the EU.
I doubt u could reunify without mass deportation or genocide of half the population I think the best option is becoming our own country and joining the ru before reuniting. Sure no ones happy at first but it’s the only way to keep the peace.
The Ulster Unionists have basically given up on doing anything as a protest against the Tories back in Westminster, who have basically screwed them over to get their majority. Meanwhile, Sinn Fein have stopped their protest and started working again, and there does seem to be an appetite for a referendum on reunification. It’ll cause some people to lose their minds over it, but Eire has been the good guy on that side of the Irish Sea, and Westminster have all but abandoned them with the Northern Ireland Protocol. Whether Westminster allows such a referendum is another thing, if it does happen, it’ll be after Scotland get theirs, and hopefully along with Wales, they’ll get their say in the matter.
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Wales voted out
Regions of Wales with a large English retiree population voted out.
if we held the referendum again - no new voters, everyone votes exactly the same as they did before - remain would win simply because enough elderly leave voters have died since then that now it would swing the other way, so its likely is sentiment is not trending positive
It won’t happen as long as the Conservatives are in power. They’ve been pushing the Brexit is great agenda for ages and have finally admitted that maybe it’s not brilliant, but it’s still pretty great mind you.
There is probably going to be an election in January or February of 2024, because of the utterly stupid way that UK politics works there may not be an election, who knows, but if there is an election and
ifwhen the conservatives lose and labour win it might be under cards but it’s probably going to take years if it does happen.Why would the EU accept that? GB needs to make its mind about that. It had so many specific benefits in the EU, and it still left because an idiot gambled the decision in a referendum.
The brexit could have meant the end of the EU. It’s not something you can come and go on a whim. So GB needs to pay for its stupid decision, because the stability of the EU depends on it, no country should ever get the idea that leaving the EU is inconsequential.
Shame.
