Well, the supposed advantages are that (1) Brits will have more control of their country and (2) there will be less immigrants. The second has already come to pass because a lot less people now see UK as an attractive prospect for some reason, so have stopped coming, and a load more have left because they feel unwanted and rejected by the xenophobic atmosphere. If you count these as advantages, then I think that’s about it. To me they are not advantages at all - rather the contrary - and, as I’m sure you know there is a lot on the other side of the balance. However, all this is being ignored by both the major political parties who, as usual, are more interested in winning or holding onto power than anything else. What disturbs me most is the theme that got this thread going - that many families in the UK are now bitterly divided over this issue and the country as a whole is going to live with a grievous wound however it turns out because neither camp is going to forgive the other any time soon.
Sadly, I think you are right there David.
However I do think that there will eventually be a greater degree of understanding on all sides once the details of what is being agreed between the UK and the EU become more apparent than they are now. At present there seems to be a lot more coverage of the differences being experienced in the Davis / Barnier talks than of the areas of agreement already reached, and this in turn leads to a lot of speculation which tends to be overly polarising, and quite unnecessarily so in many instances.
I hope you are right, Robert. One problem is that the way that the UK political system works Remainers currently feel disenfranchised - and they may well now be the majority of the population. The Tory party, for the sake of their own cohesion, has to stay solid on Brexit (even though they are really quite divided) and Labour has to position itself just slightly to the Remain side of the Tories in the hope of picking up both Brexit and Remain votes (a tricky operation), leaving only the Lib Dems in England clearly in favour of Remain and few think they have much real chance, so a huge swathe of people have been rendered more or less voiceless. This is reinforced by the idea that you can’t afford dissension in your own camp while engaged in a negotiation that is widely seen as antagonistic. So you might be right that when that phase ends things will change - but in the release of pent up frustration there may well be some rather strong kick-back. There will certainly be plenty of room for “I told you so”.
What is needed is for everyone to take a deep breath and resolve never to engage in the business of “I told you so”. It never helps, and only serves to antagonise folks.
As for the UK political situation the problem is the same as ever in that our elected representatives seem to generally have more interest in being re-elected (preferably as the party of government) than they ever do in actually representing the people that elected them.
Hi Robert. Agreed, though I think your second para is very close to being a breach of your rule in the first one 
. Best - David
You are right, of course.
However if/when things go pear shaped I wonder who the Brexiteers will blame?
Will it be those who wanted to remain for not abandoning their principles and concern for the good of our nation and “getting behind” Brexit.
Will it be the EU for “punishing” us.
Will it be the negotiating team for agreeing too “soft” a Brexit.
Or will it be themselves for getting us into this mess in the first place.
Somehow I don’t think the last option will get much traction.
I hope that you are right but the omens are not good.
If we agree access to the markets accepting some or all of the 4 freedoms, jurisdiction of the ECJ and/or restrictions on negotiating our own trade deals the hard Brexiteers will be unhappy because we are not “out” enough. If we walk away with no deal those who see the whole thing as folly will just assume that the lunatics are running the asylum. In short whatever happens someone will be unhappy.
That said, despite being firmly in the Remain camp I occasionally wonder whether the right thing to do is to give the ultra “hard” crowd their way - on the grounds that it is all a mess anyhow and, when the tallies are counted they will had a harder time blaming everyone else (see above).
Yes, some progress has been made on citizen’s rights but there are a number of important differences yet to be resolved.
Has significant progress been made on the Irish border or the “divorce bill”? If there has (and I do hope that there are teams quietly working on these issues out of the public’s glare) then it does not seem to have hit the usual media outlets.
Hi Paul,
I expect that at the end of the day it will inevitably be a case of what one sees will depend on where one is standing. No doubt the end arrangement will, for everyone, be rather like the proverbial ‘Curate’s egg’ … good in parts.
What I do find remarkable at present however, is the degree to which the Davis / Barnier discussions seem to be virtually leak-proof. No doubt the monthly meetings between the two are just a sort of figurehead occurence, and there is no doubt a whole phalanx of civil servants beavering away behind the scenes, who either must be very well paid (so the press can’t get to them), or who have been threatened with a fate worse than death in the event that they leak anything.
In the meantime I suppose that we shall all just have to be patient and wait and see what transpires in due course.
Robert I have been offline for a few days, but I note that Jane has quite accurately provied the answer - except for one other detail in that he has been proposing that ‘returning expatriates should not be able to claim a pension either’. This was if I recall correctly in answer to a question in the house as to how these people would be treated if Brexit (aka British Government) decided to stop pension payments to expatriates, and they had to return to the UK.
In case you think this is an outlandish scenario, it happened to both my French wife and myself after we left Australia to return to Europe, and the same thing applies to expats in New Zealand.
IDS is the clown who made the remarks about ‘expat pensioners living off the fat of the land by their swimming pools should not get pensions’.
You may not find that offensive or worrying, or possibly not be on a pension, but as he is a leading (but dim) light in the anti-Europe Brexit movement, I suggest his comments should be regarded seriously.