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> intentionally cutting themselves out of a massive common market probably isn't helping much. My understanding is that they never intended to leave the common

> intentionally cutting themselves out of a massive common market probably isn't helping much. My understanding is that they never intended to leave the common market but to gain a trade deal that would leave market access substantially the same. However, the EU wouldn’t let them keep access in the divorce if for no reason other than as a cautionary tale for other member states. So, it turned ugly and there they are.

Semaphor 4y ago
My understanding is, that they didn’t want to keep all those laws that would be required for a trade-deal. They wanted their sovereignty.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  EU is about harmonization of regulation and free trade of goods, services and workers... They really wanted to lose workers part, but you can't really do that without the rest and not undermine the whole thing. So it was never acceptable from EU point. Now introducing any level friction of trade quickly moves trade to somewhere else if price is competitive and there is less friction.
- nopinkglasses 4y ago
  The number of laws and regulation have _increased_ in the UK since leaving the EU, not _decreased_.
woodruffw 4y ago
I want to have my cake and eat it, too! From my outsider’s perspective, the EU’s justification is far stronger than a “cautionary tale”: a Union means a Union. No other country or state structure in the world allows its constituent members to carve out only the bits that they themselves like; that would subvert the entire point of the Union.
- nyokodo 4y ago
  > No other country or state structure in the world allows its constituent members to carve out only the bits that they themselves like The EU more or less does exactly that with Norway, a non-EU country with common market access and freedom of movement etc. That was the model I recall being promoted for a UK/EU relationship. They never intended to leave the common market or eschew all regulatory commonality.
  - kmeisthax 4y ago
    Norway was a nonstarter because the UK said they wanted an opt-out for freedom of movement, which is the EU's red line. They do not want market access for only capitalists. If the UK had actually asked for a Norway-style deal they probably would have gotten it. The UK also regularly complains that the EU won't let them opt-out of ECJ jurisdiction in any trade deal negotiations, which is pretty basic as far as a deal goes. US trade deals demand ISDS processes which are arguably worse, and the WTO has its own court jurisdiction for trade disputes under its treaties. All global trade requires an agreement as to who can sue where for what, which means surrendering some sovereignty.
  - pavlov 4y ago
    Norway is a rule-taker that pretty much implements every EU directive but has no say in how they’re made. Britain is too proud to agree to that. It would have been very hard to explain to voters why UK resigned all its influence in the EU but still has to follow all the rules. And anything else meant losing access to the common market. This was explained many times during the Brexit campaign and subsequent years of confusion, but somehow the idea persisted that UK would eventually get an exception that breaks the fundamental design of the common market by allowing one country to produce goods and services that don’t follow the common market’s rules.
  - malermeister 4y ago
    The UK was offered a Norway-style deal, where they kept market access in exchange for following EU rules. They refused, because that would effectively mean they still have to follow all the same rules, but now without any say in how they're decided. But turns out you can't just demand all the benefits of a club without following any of the obligations and now the UK is where it is. People were being sold a lie and they believed it. The optimum relationship with the EU was always the one they already had, membership with a few extra carve-outs.
kmeisthax 4y ago
The EU did not want them keeping access because the UK also wanted to write their own rules. This meant that if the UK decided to lower standards to, say, pursue a US or China trade deal, but the EU let them keep their market access, then they would just be able to smuggle goods into the EU single market. Pretty much every sticking point of the UK/EU negotiations boiled down this. And the stated reasoning was an "I'm Me" argument. The UK deserved sovereignty because I'm me. The UK deserved market access because I'm me. The UK should not lose access to their cake just because they ate it because I'm me. The UK deserved no border in the Irish sea and no border in Ireland because I'm me. Absolutely no effort was spent on meeting the EU halfway or, at the very least, trying to adopt a negotiating position that was not immediately poked full of holes by random Internet commenters. And, for what it's worth... the UK never intended to leave the EU at all. Brexit was a sham vote intended to go the same way as the Scottish independence referendum. When it blew up in David Cameron's face he basically jumped ship and handed UKIP the keys to the country. This is the problem with antiglobalism: it has yet to suggest a viable alternative to the thing it is fighting. Putting up borders and trade barriers everywhere means rolling back everyone's living standards to the 1970s; but it does not matter because the antiglobalists would become richer in the process. In a sense, the UK's negotiating position was less "we want market access and a trade deal" and more "we want you to unconditionally surrender and join the new British Empire".
- nxm 4y ago
  What you label “I’m me” I say is an individual country’s ability to self determination which every sovereign state should have. Globalist elitists have been getting richer and richer and it was time for a change
  - jlokier 4y ago
    All states in the EU already had and have sovereign self determination. It is a voluntary membership. As the UK is demonstrating, it was always possible to leave simply by giving notice, and it's possible to negotiate a new arrangement. The "I'm me" refers to the UK wanting its cake and eating it - by not meeting the EU half way in the trade relationship, of course the UK does not get the benefits either, but they assumed they would get similar benefits. Sucks for those of us who live in the UK. We've basically lost a bunch of rights and privileges. For the individual person in the UK I would say we have less personal sovereignty now than we did before, just because there's less we are free to do with our lives than before. For UK businesses that trade with the EU - and this includes IT contractors - there are considerable barriers to trade now as well, which are causing customers in the EU to be increasing disinclined to bother with UK suppliers. Much of the talk about the EU is about trade, but there were a lot of personal freedoms enshrined in the EU treaty granted to all EU member citizens as a condition of membership as well, which we UK citizens have now lost. For many of us it's a severe and painful loss. You can probably tell, I care much less about the trade, and much more about what personal rights and freedoms individuals (and families etc) have to be free to enjoy their lives. I think individual persons have been harmed by Brexit much more than a "global elite", who can manage their assets just fine and aren't really affected.
imtringued 4y ago
>However, the EU wouldn’t let them keep access in the divorce if for no reason other than as a cautionary tale for other member states. So, it turned ugly and there they are. This is an internet myth. The EU common market has four pillars of freeeom and one of them is free immigration between EU countries. The Free Movement of Goods The Free Movement of People The Freedom of Services The Freedom of Movement of Capital The UK left the EU because it wanted to limit migration and they thought that somehow they could get a special deal even though there are some very carefully chosen reasons why they have these four freedoms in one package. For example, trading between countries requires people to cross borders and if they need a visa to trade, there is no more free trade as the government could introduce policies to prevent people from trading by denying visas to transportation companies. If you compromise on the four freedoms, the entire concept of the EU will collapse not because other member states will leave the EU to get concessions, rather because there are plenty of loop holes to reduce 3 freedoms to two freedoms and two freedoms to one freedom to zero freedoms effectively eliminating the EU entirely without having a single member leave.
midoridensha 4y ago
Well that sounds like the UK's fault. It's like asking for a divorce from your spouse who earns a much bigger paycheck because you're bored with him and want to bang other people, but wanting to keep access to the shared bank accounts.
mcv 4y ago
Many people in the EU have always argued for a soft Brexit, where the UK would remain in the common market. It was really the Brexiteers who kept insisting on a hard Brexit. You can't blame that on the EU. The problem is that the Leave campaign had promised the impossible: to stay in the common market for goods and services, but leave the common market for labour (free movement), and not pay for anything anymore. The world just doesn't work that way.
tim333 4y ago
Most of the trade deals were laws passed by all 28 or similar members of the EU where you get these trade perks for keeping these conditions. You can either be in or out but the EU central bodies don't really have the power to go changing them to accommodate one atroppy member.
NoboruWataya 4y ago
Whatever their hopes and dreams, they still intentionally cut themselves off from the common market, because that is the natural and logical consequence of leaving the EU. If I cut off my nose in the hope that a better one will grow in its place, I have still intentionally cut off my nose. I won't get into a discussion about who is to blame for the breakdown in negotiations, as those discussions tend to get ugly fast.
rsynnott 4y ago
Your understanding is... well, interestingly wrong. That ("they never intended to leave the common market but to gain a trade deal that would leave market access substantially the same") _was_ the narrative pushed by the yes-for-brexit campaign, by and large, but expert opinion from the start was that this was not possible. The UK wanted to have full access to the common market (except for labour) but without following European laws. This was obviously, from the start, ridiculous positioning. > However, the EU wouldn’t let them keep access in the divorce if for no reason other than as a cautionary tale for other member states. How would you propose that this access would work, given that the UK refused to accept EU regulation?
jlokier 4y ago
Actually there were quite a few things the EU was offering in the trade deal which were similar to before, which the UK declined, if the UK was prepared to subscribe on similar terms as before. These things were in the news in the UK, if you cared to read it, so we kind of saw some of them being rejected by the UK in realtime. My understanding from the news during the negotations was that something similar to common market access under substantially similar terms was on the table from the EU, as were several variations of it. But these were all rejected, because they were viewed by some _in the UK_ as "too soft, soft Brexit, Brexit in name only". Enough politicans and, how shall we say, "influencers", wanted a "hard Brexit", and that meant something bold, symbolic and rejecting things too similar to what had been in place before (including much that was on the table from the EU). Many little things were on the table from the EU as well, regardless of the main deal, that were seemingly rejected by the UK for no convincing reason. The ability for performing artists such as musicians, DJs, etc to do tours of Europe as they did before, for example, was on the table from the EU, but the UK turned it away, because of course we would not want EU citizen artists able to do the same reciprocally. So that wiped out a large part of those UK artists' businesses and lifestyles for no obvious reason. The Erasmus program, also, which allowed students to travel on exchange programs through many of the countries, swapping with their counterpants coming to the UK. I think both of those suffered from ideology, because in virtually every speech by Theresa May that I heard with regard to the negotiations when she was PM, one of the most up-front and prominent sentences seemed to be in the prelude over and over: "Freedom of movement will end". It sounded more important than anything else. She has also been the architect of the "hostile environment" too, which is frankly legislated evil and still ruining lives. She was reportedly upset at the Brexit vote initially, but saw immigration control and removal of the UK from the European Court of Human Rights as a silver lining, so everything bolsters my view that it was a major motivation for her. The famous "oven ready deal" which Boris Johnson said he would get through if he was elected in 2019, won him an election, and then he got it signed and ratified, and then within about 6 months he was already publically committing to breaching the terms. One wonders if the UK gov't ever intended to honour the terms or if it was a bait and switch at the time it was signed. It's because of how that was done (and still is being) that the UK's access to the Horizon science & technology Europe-wide collaborative R&D funding pool has not been renewed. That too, is something the EU had kept on the table, if the deal treaty was honoued. That one's a particular shame because the UK was a net beneficiary and had many top quality R&D groups depending on that funding. The UK gov't says it has its own R&D funding pool to replace it, but nobody believes it will really roll out matching anywhere near the previous level, nor with the previous quality of international collaboration.

Semaphor 4y ago

My understanding is, that they didn’t want to keep all those laws that would be required for a trade-deal. They wanted their sovereignty.

Ekaros 4y ago
EU is about harmonization of regulation and free trade of goods, services and workers... They really wanted to lose workers part, but you can't really do that without the rest and not undermine the whole thing. So it was never acceptable from EU point. Now introducing any level friction of trade quickly moves trade to somewhere else if price is competitive and there is less friction.
nopinkglasses 4y ago
The number of laws and regulation have _increased_ in the UK since leaving the EU, not _decreased_.

woodruffw 4y ago

I want to have my cake and eat it, too! From my outsider’s perspective, the EU’s justification is far stronger than a “cautionary tale”: a Union means a Union. No other country or state structure in the world allows its constituent members to carve out only the bits that they themselves like; that would subvert the entire point of the Union.

nyokodo 4y ago
> No other country or state structure in the world allows its constituent members to carve out only the bits that they themselves like The EU more or less does exactly that with Norway, a non-EU country with common market access and freedom of movement etc. That was the model I recall being promoted for a UK/EU relationship. They never intended to leave the common market or eschew all regulatory commonality.
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  Norway was a nonstarter because the UK said they wanted an opt-out for freedom of movement, which is the EU's red line. They do not want market access for only capitalists. If the UK had actually asked for a Norway-style deal they probably would have gotten it. The UK also regularly complains that the EU won't let them opt-out of ECJ jurisdiction in any trade deal negotiations, which is pretty basic as far as a deal goes. US trade deals demand ISDS processes which are arguably worse, and the WTO has its own court jurisdiction for trade disputes under its treaties. All global trade requires an agreement as to who can sue where for what, which means surrendering some sovereignty.
- pavlov 4y ago
  Norway is a rule-taker that pretty much implements every EU directive but has no say in how they’re made. Britain is too proud to agree to that. It would have been very hard to explain to voters why UK resigned all its influence in the EU but still has to follow all the rules. And anything else meant losing access to the common market. This was explained many times during the Brexit campaign and subsequent years of confusion, but somehow the idea persisted that UK would eventually get an exception that breaks the fundamental design of the common market by allowing one country to produce goods and services that don’t follow the common market’s rules.
- malermeister 4y ago
  The UK was offered a Norway-style deal, where they kept market access in exchange for following EU rules. They refused, because that would effectively mean they still have to follow all the same rules, but now without any say in how they're decided. But turns out you can't just demand all the benefits of a club without following any of the obligations and now the UK is where it is. People were being sold a lie and they believed it. The optimum relationship with the EU was always the one they already had, membership with a few extra carve-outs.

kmeisthax 4y ago

The EU did not want them keeping access because the UK also wanted to write their own rules. This meant that if the UK decided to lower standards to, say, pursue a US or China trade deal, but the EU let them keep their market access, then they would just be able to smuggle goods into the EU single market. Pretty much every sticking point of the UK/EU negotiations boiled down this. And the stated reasoning was an "I'm Me" argument. The UK deserved sovereignty because I'm me. The UK deserved market access because I'm me. The UK should not lose access to their cake just because they ate it because I'm me. The UK deserved no border in the Irish sea and no border in Ireland because I'm me. Absolutely no effort was spent on meeting the EU halfway or, at the very least, trying to adopt a negotiating position that was not immediately poked full of holes by random Internet commenters. And, for what it's worth... the UK never intended to leave the EU at all. Brexit was a sham vote intended to go the same way as the Scottish independence referendum. When it blew up in David Cameron's face he basically jumped ship and handed UKIP the keys to the country. This is the problem with antiglobalism: it has yet to suggest a viable alternative to the thing it is fighting. Putting up borders and trade barriers everywhere means rolling back everyone's living standards to the 1970s; but it does not matter because the antiglobalists would become richer in the process. In a sense, the UK's negotiating position was less "we want market access and a trade deal" and more "we want you to unconditionally surrender and join the new British Empire".

nxm 4y ago
What you label “I’m me” I say is an individual country’s ability to self determination which every sovereign state should have. Globalist elitists have been getting richer and richer and it was time for a change
- jlokier 4y ago
  All states in the EU already had and have sovereign self determination. It is a voluntary membership. As the UK is demonstrating, it was always possible to leave simply by giving notice, and it's possible to negotiate a new arrangement. The "I'm me" refers to the UK wanting its cake and eating it - by not meeting the EU half way in the trade relationship, of course the UK does not get the benefits either, but they assumed they would get similar benefits. Sucks for those of us who live in the UK. We've basically lost a bunch of rights and privileges. For the individual person in the UK I would say we have less personal sovereignty now than we did before, just because there's less we are free to do with our lives than before. For UK businesses that trade with the EU - and this includes IT contractors - there are considerable barriers to trade now as well, which are causing customers in the EU to be increasing disinclined to bother with UK suppliers. Much of the talk about the EU is about trade, but there were a lot of personal freedoms enshrined in the EU treaty granted to all EU member citizens as a condition of membership as well, which we UK citizens have now lost. For many of us it's a severe and painful loss. You can probably tell, I care much less about the trade, and much more about what personal rights and freedoms individuals (and families etc) have to be free to enjoy their lives. I think individual persons have been harmed by Brexit much more than a "global elite", who can manage their assets just fine and aren't really affected.

imtringued 4y ago

>However, the EU wouldn’t let them keep access in the divorce if for no reason other than as a cautionary tale for other member states. So, it turned ugly and there they are. This is an internet myth. The EU common market has four pillars of freeeom and one of them is free immigration between EU countries. The Free Movement of Goods The Free Movement of People The Freedom of Services The Freedom of Movement of Capital The UK left the EU because it wanted to limit migration and they thought that somehow they could get a special deal even though there are some very carefully chosen reasons why they have these four freedoms in one package. For example, trading between countries requires people to cross borders and if they need a visa to trade, there is no more free trade as the government could introduce policies to prevent people from trading by denying visas to transportation companies. If you compromise on the four freedoms, the entire concept of the EU will collapse not because other member states will leave the EU to get concessions, rather because there are plenty of loop holes to reduce 3 freedoms to two freedoms and two freedoms to one freedom to zero freedoms effectively eliminating the EU entirely without having a single member leave.

midoridensha 4y ago

Well that sounds like the UK's fault. It's like asking for a divorce from your spouse who earns a much bigger paycheck because you're bored with him and want to bang other people, but wanting to keep access to the shared bank accounts.

mcv 4y ago

Many people in the EU have always argued for a soft Brexit, where the UK would remain in the common market. It was really the Brexiteers who kept insisting on a hard Brexit. You can't blame that on the EU. The problem is that the Leave campaign had promised the impossible: to stay in the common market for goods and services, but leave the common market for labour (free movement), and not pay for anything anymore. The world just doesn't work that way.

tim333 4y ago

Most of the trade deals were laws passed by all 28 or similar members of the EU where you get these trade perks for keeping these conditions. You can either be in or out but the EU central bodies don't really have the power to go changing them to accommodate one atroppy member.

NoboruWataya 4y ago

Whatever their hopes and dreams, they still intentionally cut themselves off from the common market, because that is the natural and logical consequence of leaving the EU. If I cut off my nose in the hope that a better one will grow in its place, I have still intentionally cut off my nose. I won't get into a discussion about who is to blame for the breakdown in negotiations, as those discussions tend to get ugly fast.

rsynnott 4y ago

Your understanding is... well, interestingly wrong. That ("they never intended to leave the common market but to gain a trade deal that would leave market access substantially the same") _was_ the narrative pushed by the yes-for-brexit campaign, by and large, but expert opinion from the start was that this was not possible. The UK wanted to have full access to the common market (except for labour) but without following European laws. This was obviously, from the start, ridiculous positioning. > However, the EU wouldn’t let them keep access in the divorce if for no reason other than as a cautionary tale for other member states. How would you propose that this access would work, given that the UK refused to accept EU regulation?

jlokier 4y ago

Actually there were quite a few things the EU was offering in the trade deal which were similar to before, which the UK declined, if the UK was prepared to subscribe on similar terms as before. These things were in the news in the UK, if you cared to read it, so we kind of saw some of them being rejected by the UK in realtime. My understanding from the news during the negotations was that something similar to common market access under substantially similar terms was on the table from the EU, as were several variations of it. But these were all rejected, because they were viewed by some _in the UK_ as "too soft, soft Brexit, Brexit in name only". Enough politicans and, how shall we say, "influencers", wanted a "hard Brexit", and that meant something bold, symbolic and rejecting things too similar to what had been in place before (including much that was on the table from the EU). Many little things were on the table from the EU as well, regardless of the main deal, that were seemingly rejected by the UK for no convincing reason. The ability for performing artists such as musicians, DJs, etc to do tours of Europe as they did before, for example, was on the table from the EU, but the UK turned it away, because of course we would not want EU citizen artists able to do the same reciprocally. So that wiped out a large part of those UK artists' businesses and lifestyles for no obvious reason. The Erasmus program, also, which allowed students to travel on exchange programs through many of the countries, swapping with their counterpants coming to the UK. I think both of those suffered from ideology, because in virtually every speech by Theresa May that I heard with regard to the negotiations when she was PM, one of the most up-front and prominent sentences seemed to be in the prelude over and over: "Freedom of movement will end". It sounded more important than anything else. She has also been the architect of the "hostile environment" too, which is frankly legislated evil and still ruining lives. She was reportedly upset at the Brexit vote initially, but saw immigration control and removal of the UK from the European Court of Human Rights as a silver lining, so everything bolsters my view that it was a major motivation for her. The famous "oven ready deal" which Boris Johnson said he would get through if he was elected in 2019, won him an election, and then he got it signed and ratified, and then within about 6 months he was already publically committing to breaching the terms. One wonders if the UK gov't ever intended to honour the terms or if it was a bait and switch at the time it was signed. It's because of how that was done (and still is being) that the UK's access to the Horizon science & technology Europe-wide collaborative R&D funding pool has not been renewed. That too, is something the EU had kept on the table, if the deal treaty was honoued. That one's a particular shame because the UK was a net beneficiary and had many top quality R&D groups depending on that funding. The UK gov't says it has its own R&D funding pool to replace it, but nobody believes it will really roll out matching anywhere near the previous level, nor with the previous quality of international collaboration.