Bob in Spain wrote:

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So yet another Brexiteer jumps ship today. This is rapidly becoming a shambles.

In the recent Chilcott report, amongst the many criticisms aimed at Tony Blair was that Iraq was invaded without a credible plan for putting a new "regime" in place. I fear that in years to come, the exact same criticism will be made of the Brexit campaign. One by one, the main advocates of Brexit have disappeared leaving everybody else to clear up the mess.

All the way through the campaign, we were told to trust the Brexiteers as they would be able to negotiate a leaving process that would benefit the country and negotiate a series of future trade deals etc. But where are they now ?

Michael Gove has shown clearly IMO that he was far more interested in furthering his own political ambitions than in the best interests of the country.

Boris Johnson was stabbed in the back, but has since disappeared without a trace. Why didn't he respond to Gove by running against him ? I think he realised that while he may have had the support of the public, the Tory Party would not have accepted him anyway.

Andrea Leadsome, whilst I believe being a genuine person despite her faux pas with the media over the weekend, has quite simply proved that she was not up to the task.

Nigel Farage has headed for the pub to wallow in his own self importance converting UKIP from a one-man-band to a no-man-band.

Politics in the UK has surely never been in such disarray. In Jeremy Corbyn we have a secret Brexiteer (IMO) who won't admit it because he would lose his own position, and we now have an opposition on the verge of civil war as the parliamentary Labour Party is completely at odds with its own members.

I read this very interesting article this morning from the former Canadian Ambassador to the UK who gave his own opinion on Brexit.

www.opencanada.org/features/brexit-post-mortem-17-takeaways-fallen-david-cameron/

Whilst I don't agree with all of his points, Nº7 in particular is the biggest fear for me. All Brexiteers were adamant that we could negotiate with the EU allowing us to leave under our own terms. If I was the EU, I would be saying, "Clear off. We have more important things to deal with right now than the UK." The most interesting stat is that 45% of UK exports go to the EU. Only 8% of EU exports go to the UK. So they don't need to be in a hurry to negotiate new trade deals. The UK needs the rest of Europe far more that Europe needs the UK.

When the Brexit vote was initially announced, I was disappointed but fairly philosophical about the whole situation. But as time goes on, I find myself both more worried about the future and more angry about the whole situation.

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I came across that link today too - I think a lot of what he says is virtually spot on. Also, I think the problem with the remain campaign in the referendum was that they and the 'pretend to be leave for political gain' campaigners like Boris (an accusation I wouldn't throw at Gove or Leadsom, I should probably add) all thought the population couldn't possibly be economically suicidal enough to vote leave, then panicked when they realised "oh, maybe they could" and concentrated too much on the fear factor (or the realistic and, if anything, euphemistic arguments, as they have turned out to be)

Anyone who thinks we've dodged a bullet this time with Leadsom pulling out (though obviously to some extent, we have) and believes the myth that May is on the moderate wing of the party probably hasn't had any dealings with the Home Office over the past few years, where the PM-to-be has been largely responsible for a toxic mix of callous and largely illogical new rules have managed to make the country feel a very unwelcoming place for the most able potential migrants (the ones any country should want to attract), who are the ones who can choose to go to virtually any country they want to and, in the experience of those I know, are increasingly choosing to do so even after getting through the UK visa system successfully. All that's before even starting on her (thus far abortive) attempts to turn the UK into a surveillance/police state.

I was almost beginning to hope that Leadsom might win and Corbyn might hang on, for the simple reason that it might finally push the moderate wings of both major jokes (I mean parties) to put aside their tribal rivalries, break away and combine to form a new, (relatively) fiscally responsible, socially liberal, outward-looking party to take over the centre ground that both parties are currently leaving wide open and provide something I could actually imagine voting for. I'm not sure there was ever any chance of that, but I fear May has hoodwinked enough of the moderates on her own side to ensure that there's now no chance of it happening at all.

I guess I can hope that that May's cynical tenure at the Home Office was just posturing to ensure that she looked evil enough to appeal to the right-wingers in her party with a view to taking over the leadership at some point and that now she's got it (and now that she's going to be under a lot more scrutiny), she might moderate her approach a bit. I'm certainly willing to give her a chance (though if that was the plan all along, what does that say about her, I wonder ...) but who knows, she might feel the leave vote gives her licence to be even more callous.

By the way, I'm not writing this with an anti-Tory agenda - I'm usually a bit to the right of centre, though apparently, once I get to the US (the words out of the frying pan into the fire have never seemed so apt ...), I'm likely to be seen as someone well to the left. 

Kounosuke wrote:

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BeefyDeedz wrote:

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Anybody know the odds on the UK never triggering Article 50? Asking for a friend.

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Skybet has the odds on "2018, or later, or never" at 6/4.

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It will happen and it will happen fairly quickly as the EU are adamant they will not start exit discussions without it being triggered.

The more relevant question is how long will the negotiations take?

It is in both parties interests to get a quick negotiation as uncertainty just stops investment and growth for both parties.

I can see a scenario when we get two options from the EU and we go back to the people to decide:

1. free trade agreement at a significant cost, but implicit is the freedom of movement

2. Negotiated tariffs for trade, but ability to restrict movement 

What the country actually wants is a hybrid of the two scenarios, but I suspect this will not be put on the table.

AliBlahBlah wrote:

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Well, the impact doesn't really become quantified either way for at least 2 FQ, as the effects of ratings downgrades affect borrowing and inflation etc. amongst multitudinous other details.
If you want a massively crude one week markets based yardstick though, the FTSE250 is a much better indicator (for various reasons mostly to do with the types of companies on each exchange, and their inherent ability to mitigate any impact); it is still down 9.2%.

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Not 2 FQs yet but after a month and a bit FTSE250 is back to where it was pre-referendum now; encouraging

paulisi wrote:

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The FTSE index is not a fair reflection - there a lot of multi national countries that are not particularly exposed to Brexit.

The value of the dollar has had the major impact and will help exporters, but force up import prices and hence inflation. Ignore Lloyds statement about job cuts and branch closures. That was all agree way before the result of the referendum and is due to the nature of the banking sector, the individuals habits and movement towards online services and the low interest rates which makes it less profitable.

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do you mean multi national companies ?

And vohor wasn't citing the main FTSE index but the FTSE 250 which obviously has very few multi national companies.

(Not that I agree with him/her - but just saying....)

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Thursday 28th of July 2016 12:56:49 PM

Terrific article in The Guardian about the "progress" being made on Brexit.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/05/so-brexit-means-brexit-means-brexit-is-that-it

Just about sums up the whole situation. We are leaving the EU. We don't know when, how or what it will be like when we leave, but we are leaving anyway.

Incorrect - The leave campaign was to do with immigration controls. It doesn't have to be the Aussie points system. That was just Farage spouting off and he has no power whatsoever domestically as he has failed to get in as an MP on numerous occasions.
If you look at the data, Australia immigration has increased with this points system, so is it that effective in controlling immigration?