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I understand that my use of the term leach is confrontational, but I am not ready to back down from it for several reasons: * I am disappointed at the role tha

I understand that my use of the term leach is confrontational, but I am not ready to back down from it for several reasons: * I am disappointed at the role that the UK has played in the EU, how you have dragged your feet, how you have pushed for EU policies that, long time later, you have complained about them as being EU imposed. As a short list, I must mention opening negotiations with Turkey, expansion to the East, renouncing to east Europeans quotes by your own decision, and specially blocking legislation about financial markets. * I am angry about how the EU has been portrayed by your media and politicians during the last 30 years. * Lack of goodwill: the UK has been given special treatment. What has been your response? To continue complaining, and now to withdraw from the union, putting it at existential risk. * Outright lies during the referendum campaign: one thing is to say "we think the UK will do bad outside the EU" (an opinion of the remainers), the other is to say "we send 350 million pound to the EU each week" (an outright lie by the leavers) And a very specific reason why I think the UK is actually trying to justify its leaching, that's why I call it like it is: you (your politicians, a big part of your media) feel "entitled" to a special relationship, and particularly insist that the UK should get free access to the internal market (eat your cake and keep it). This I call plain and simply "leaching", and I will call it that as long as you keep on pretending that you are entitled to anything. The EU and the UK are going to negotiate what they want their future relationship to be. The old agreements are void, and nobody is entitled to anything. Stop pretending that the UK knows what the EU internal interests are, we can very well come up with our own priority list. We are all adults here. If we decide that it is not in our interest to give free access to our internal market (as I think it is the case), stop pretending to know better. So, if you want a better tone from the EU side, use a more respectful tone from your side.

pjc50 10y ago
> I am angry about how the EU has been portrayed by your media and politicians during the last 30 years Frankly, so am I. Blaming the UK in general is about as productive as blaming all Americans for Trump. The UK has a big lead in fake news, to the point that the Daily Mail has now been prohibited by wikipedia from being considered a "source". Nobody really has a good idea what to do about this, and the Opposition have become uniquely useless.
- gonvaled 10y ago
  I understand that there are lots of pro-EU people in the UK, and I also accept respectful and factual critique of the EU, also from leavers, as long as it is balanced and reported truthfully. The EU is definitely not perfect. And I think, in all, the EU is losing big with the UK's decision to leave, but we need to move on, otherwise the current political climate can bring about the demise of the EU. There are also good side-effects of the UK leaving, namely the possibility to proceed with political integration without being continuously blocked. In this context, I think there is little the EU can do to support remainers, even though we are really saddened by their impossible situation. One of the suggested ideas, to give EU citizenship to those UK citizens that request it, sounds very good on paper but I think is very difficult to implement in practice, for two reasons: - how do you give rights to people who are not invested in the project? I am 100% in favor of giving EU-citizenship, and voting rights, to all persons living in EU countries, but not in countries outside the EU, otherwise what is the point? - do we really want to give rabid eurosceptics a say on the future of the EU? People whose explicit goal is to work towards the destruction of the EU. Should Trump vote too?

pjc50 10y ago

> I am angry about how the EU has been portrayed by your media and politicians during the last 30 years Frankly, so am I. Blaming the UK in general is about as productive as blaming all Americans for Trump. The UK has a big lead in fake news, to the point that the Daily Mail has now been prohibited by wikipedia from being considered a "source". Nobody really has a good idea what to do about this, and the Opposition have become uniquely useless.

gonvaled 10y ago
I understand that there are lots of pro-EU people in the UK, and I also accept respectful and factual critique of the EU, also from leavers, as long as it is balanced and reported truthfully. The EU is definitely not perfect. And I think, in all, the EU is losing big with the UK's decision to leave, but we need to move on, otherwise the current political climate can bring about the demise of the EU. There are also good side-effects of the UK leaving, namely the possibility to proceed with political integration without being continuously blocked. In this context, I think there is little the EU can do to support remainers, even though we are really saddened by their impossible situation. One of the suggested ideas, to give EU citizenship to those UK citizens that request it, sounds very good on paper but I think is very difficult to implement in practice, for two reasons: - how do you give rights to people who are not invested in the project? I am 100% in favor of giving EU-citizenship, and voting rights, to all persons living in EU countries, but not in countries outside the EU, otherwise what is the point? - do we really want to give rabid eurosceptics a say on the future of the EU? People whose explicit goal is to work towards the destruction of the EU. Should Trump vote too?