No deal was ever going to better than the deal we have as EU members and this is a very bad deal for the United Kingdom. We are left rule takers not rule makers.
The Liberal Democrats won’t stand idly by and watch a Tory Brexit destroy our businesses, service sector, and our economy. Far from creating a ‘Global Britain’, this deal will leave the UK as an insignificant vassal state, tied loosely to Europe but with no influence, and shunned by the rest of the world.
Rather than wasting time, money and effort on delivering a Brexit deal which no one, whether they voted remain or leave, signed up for, the Liberal Democrats would give back power to the people.
The Liberal Democrats would give people the final say on the Brexit deal with the choice to remain in the EU.
By protecting the economy from a Brexit slowdown, remaining in the EU would allow the UK to focus on the challenges which really affect communities up and down the country, like waiting lists in the NHS, schools under-funding and falling police numbers.
Rather than cowardly saying Brexit can’t be stopped and hiding behind six red lines which are clearly undeliverable as Jeremy Corbyn does, the Liberal Democrats are acting as the real opposition to this deal, by offering a clear solution as to how to Stop Brexit and end the chaos.
We demand better than this deal and we demand better than Brexit.
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24 Comments
It was always going to be a bad deal. A currency union is a bad deal, but I wish you would leave “vassal state” terminology to Boris. There is enough emotive language and not enough clear thought.
Correction: ‘customs union’
“Everybody knows the boat is leaking
Everybody knows the captain lied.
Everybody got this sinking feeling
Like their father or their dog just died.”
Lyric from Everybody knows, by Leonard Cohen.
I have nothing further to add on this matter.
@ nom de plume. Jo Johnson also used the term vassal state to describe the result of the negotiation. It’s a very accurate term to describe our situation. My only doubt is that I question how many voters actually know what it means. Perhaps they will soon learn.
I don’t see Norway or any of the other nations with agreements as vassal states.
Risible state is more accurate. Perhaps servile state might be a better description than vassal state, nonetheless, I suppose a vassal, risible or servile state is better than the pariah state that Rees Mogg and co seem to be gunning for.
The problem is it doesn’t matter what you do because the poor leadership of your party has made you an irrelevance.
The toxic coalition deal that put the Tories in power led to brexit. No coalition, no Cameron promise of a referendum to see off UKIP and stay in power.
Worse the toxic coalition discredited the pro-EU cause by destroying the main pro-EU party, yourselves. You won’t publish this, but it hardly matter, you party is politically irrelevant anyway.
Harold Macmillan, in 1962, said:
“Accession to the Treaty of Rome would not involve a one-sided surrender of ‘sovereignty’ on our part, but a pooling of sovereignty by all concerned, mainly in economic and social fields.
“In renouncing some of our own sovereignty we would receive in return a share of the sovereignty renounced by other members.” The Conservative Prime Minister added:
“The talk about loss of sovereignty becomes all the more meaningless when one remembers that practically every nation, including our own, has already been forced by the pressures of the modern world to abandon large areas of sovereignty and to realise that we are now all inter-dependent.
“No country today, not even the giants of America or Russia, can pursue purely independent policies in defence, foreign affairs, or the economic sphere.
“Britain herself has freely made surrenders of sovereignty in NATO and in many other international fields on bigger issues than those involved in the pooling of sovereignty required under the Treaty of Rome.”
The UK is an Island nation that is home to 1% of the world’s population. Our future security and prosperity (not least on issues like global warming) is dependent on our ability and willingness to work together with other nations. Working together means sharing some power and agreeing on some common rules.
Not being in Schengen or the Euro, and hence being excluded from EU decision making in these areas of policy does not make the UK a vassal state or shunned by the rest of the world.
We should stick with the policy approach agreed, demanding a referendum on the negotiated deal with an option to remain on the basis that the deal we have now (as a full EU member with negotiated opt-outs) is the best arrangement we can achieve with the European Union.
Martin
Do you think do you think Norway and Iceland are risible or servile too?
Norway to Britain: Don’t leave, you’ll hate it
Norwegians pay a high price for not being at the table on EU decisions, says prime minister…….
Norway receives access to most of the bloc’s internal market through membership of the European Economic Area. That means goods, services and labor flow freely between Norway and the EU. In return, however, Norway has to adopt a large number of EU laws without having a formal say in how they are shaped. Norway also has to pay about the same amount of money into the EU budget on a per capita basis as the U.K., according to OpenEurope, a think tank that has declared itself neutral in the debate.
Although the EU influences everything from the health warnings on Norwegian cigarette packs to the fact that Poles have become the biggest minority in the country, there isn’t much appetite for a third ballot on EU membership…..
While some in the U.K. see Norway’s looser relationship with the EU as a potential model for a post-Brexit Britain, Oslo sees a long list of drawbacks: losing influence in Brussels, being sidelined at meetings on defense policy, and having to accept EU rules in return for retaining access to the internal market.
Norway also has its own reasons for wanting Britain to vote “Remain” in its June 23 referendum on EU membership. Oslo has long relied on London’s free-market zeal to keep the EU’s interventionist instincts in check…..
There is also frustration at the excessive number of rules and regulations emanating from Brussels. The Norwegian parliament adopts five EU laws for every day it is in session, without having much say in how those laws are formed.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-referendum-look-before-you-leap-norways-pm-tells-brexiteers/
Does that answer your question Glen? If only someone had warned you before Brexit, O wait the Norwegian PM did, the article is from 6/15/16, 5:28 AM CET.
What is coming to pass is that, that was predicted, but the Leavers knew better, Project Fear they squealed, well welcome to Project Fact my dear Brexiteers.
We are unfortunately being dealt a hard lesson in power politics. The Brexiteers felt we were special and would force the EU to capitulate to our fantasies, well the EU is too powerful for that and now we face national humiliation or a hard Brexit followed by national humiliation. Tis sad but true.
We are not the first to make that mistake, the Greeks made a similar mistake and it did not go well for them.
Can anyone explain what happens if there is another referendum and the result is either very close, against the party line, as it was last time, or is very close but in the other direction?
If we do not accept that a narrow majority after a referendum is the end of the matter, what will be?
The foundations of the EU are in the context of the democratisation of West Germany after WW2, German rearmament (controversial at the time). The integration of the iron and steel industries of France and West Germany was a key step in an attempt to make war impossible, which has succeeded.
Considerable coverage of WW1 issues has left the public much better informed.
John,
That is the problem once the box was opened it is practically impossible to get the horrors unleashed back in. The referendum bumped the EU up the to do list until it became the only item on the list. It will dominate for years to come, we may wish it wasn’t true but unfortunately it is.
I note Norway still hasn’t joined it.
As for what has come to pass. The sky hasn’t fallen, either.
Personally, I don’t believe Britain is special. I just think the EU is a bad organisation based on the false premise of shared European culture and destiny.
Anyway my question was directed at Martin and it was “do you think Norway and Iceland are risible and servile, too”?
Glen,
And I answered the question for him. Enjoy your Brexit Glen after all this is what you voted for, not what you expected I wager but that was always going to be the case. As I have repeatedly told our dear Brexiteers, you don’t get the Brexit you dreamed of, you get the Brexit you are given. A hard lesson no doubt but an inevitable one.
Thank you Frankie.
Of course Norway accepts and abides by regulations that it had no part in framing. Moreover, I expect the number of times Donald Tusk, chairing meetings of Heads of Governments, has intervened to warn that Norway might say No can be counted on the fingers of one fish.
At least the Norway government has not behaved as ridiculously as the UK government has over Brexit. In any case Norway is signed up to Schengen and the Single Market, even so all the certification of origin bureaucracy caused by not being in the Customs Union is a bit of a chore. It is quite obvious that, internationally, Brexit has discredited the image of the UK and the antics of government ministers, including the Prime one, have all too often been an object of ridicule.
Frankie
There is no Glen on this thread. My name is Glenn with two Ns.
I am enjoying it. I said right from the start that people will not see a huge difference and the transition will be fairly smooth. So I can say ” I told you so”. To me this is an acceptable compromise and a decent first step. I think it will go through parliament, when MPs realise the alternative is hard Brexit.
So becoming a rule taker, rather than a rule maker is no great change! Only in your world Glenn and if I remember rightly not so long ago you wanted it hard. Try to stay consistent please. Still to your credit it must be admitted you are the last Brexiteer standing, for there is no sign of the rest. I fear they have left you behind as the heroic last stand as they beat a strategic retreat. “Retreat” they seem to have shouted “For we are over run with facts. there is no turning them back they are overwhelming us and encircling us we must retreat to our sunlit uplands”.
Frankie
What do you mean by “you wanted it hard”, are the odd connotations in your phrasing deliberate? The last time it was something about “liking it good and hard”?
I’ve heard the idea that not being in the EU makes the country a “rule taker” a few times, but it’s a bit of an empty slogan. A lot of the rules are more about trading standards than anything else. There is more scope to move away from the more political aspects outside the EU, which is the bit I’m most interested in. Plus I think giving our politicians a smaller stage to act on is an innately good thing. I don’t want them thinking they are world statesman.
What I said about Brexit was that I’ll accept compromise because the vote was close, but personally would favour a complete split. To be, honest, I’m not entirely sure why I’m engaging with you because you seem a little resistant to the concept of nuance. I suspect, it’s because I’m a bit polite and try to answer what I assume is a genuine question.
When are the British people going to get fed up with Jeremy Corbyn? He depends on there being nowhere for them to go. Although we are right to be consistent about our desire for a people’s vote, we could also target better those labour voters who must be despairing at least internally.
Peter Hurst – Indeed Jeremy Corbyn depends on there being nowhere for them to go. There was of course somewhere for them to go over many decades until Nick alienated them so comprehensively in coalition, that they will not come back in a hurry, even for Brexit. Sadly so many of us have refused to consider this fact and so failed to consider how to deal with our collapse, that anything other than a long slow and painful rebuilding over a great many years is now total fantasy.
The option of a people’s vote still depends on what the Labour party does. The best chance would seem to come only after all other amendments to the PM’s brexit bill have fallen by the wayside. If Labour’s general election motion is defeated early on in the process, as is likely, Labour must decide whether to whip its MPs in support of a people’s vote.
It might, however, (on the basis that all options remain on the table) opt for the pro-single market Efta membership motion advocated by Nick Boles– “Norway for now” – that is backed by a number of MPs in all parties (and by David Cameron) and could command a Commons majority.
@Peter Hirst “Jeremy Corbyn? He depends on there being nowhere for them to go.”
Sitting on the fence is probably his best strategy! Trying to lead his divided party one way or the other is likely to alienate either of the stereotypical Guardian or Sun/Mirror reading Labour factions while attracting little new support.
I don’t think that pushing for a People’s Vote now suits Labour as, although it would humiliate the Tory government, it would also give them an escape route from Brexit and 3 years to recover. I think Labour would prefer to force a general election – in which they could conceivably offer a referendum afterwards in order to make Tory incompetence the key factor in the campaign rather than the divisions over Brexit that exist in both parties. And if Labour back another referendum, it is not a given that the Lib Dems will be rewarded or recognised for their longstanding position.
Though that’s just one speculation amongst many other fascinating possibilities at the moment. Brexit may or may not proceed, there may or may not be another election or referendum, political figures and parties might be winners, losers, rewarded, punished, …
The dismal Remain campaign made me increasingly ambivalent about EU membership, moving from being an instinctive Remainer towards Jeremy Corbyn’s “seven and a half out of ten” or Martin Lewis’ “55% to 45%”, so perhaps I’m more of a detached spectator of all this than I should be, but just like the apocryphal Chinese curse, we’re living in the middle of interesting times!