For Europeans concerned by Brexit

[loobylou]

I haven't even read this thread. I just can't bear to hear or read more about a process I think is so unbelievably tragic for my country and my children.
But this is the reality of what we are seeing in my profession.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/worl ... tDAJ1YB7Tw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Amber]

I haven't even read this thread. I just can't bear to hear or read more about a process I think is so unbelievably tragic for my country and my children.

I agree. My 17 year old said to me last night, 'there can be no good outcome from this now, can there, whatever happens?', and I have to agree with him. It makes no difference now; even if there were a general election tomorrow, who would actually want to win this poison chalice? Another referendum would muddy the waters and if it reversed the decision then Brexiters would cry foul.

Future generations will look back and ask what on earth 'the British people' thought they were playing at when they gambled the country's future away like this on a misinformed whim. I really hope my children manage to get citizenship of another country (it may be possible for them because of their father, though sadly not for me).

I have started making a point of telling Europeans here now that I didn't vote for this and that as far as I am concerned they are welcome here and I don't want them to leave. I do this to the many hotel and waiting staff that I am fortunate enough to encounter in my daily life, as well as my lovely European colleagues. Many are grateful and say that they feel now that people want them gone and they can't tell which customers feel that way so it makes them sad and insecure. I wonder who is going to replace them all.

[RedPanda]

I haven't even read this thread. I just can't bear to hear or read more about a process I think is so unbelievably tragic for my country and my children.
But this is the reality of what we are seeing in my profession.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/worl ... tDAJ1YB7Tw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I didn't read it loobylou. I'll probably stop reading the Brexit news for a while for the same reasons.

I have a bit of sympathy with May, if I'm honest. I suspect she took over the reigns because Davis wasn't getting anywhere fast.

Anyway, to cheer you up loobylou, here is my prediction.

May's 'compromise' deal will not get through Parliament. Not enough labour MPs will vote for it because it doesn't meet their cleverly/dastardly (delete as appropriate) engineered 6 tests. The DUP will probably vote in favour but even if they do it will not make a difference. Too many Tory MPs will not vote it through.

What happens next is beyond me. May will probably resign. Maybe an extension of article 50, maybe another referendum. I am fairly confident that there won't be another general election (I'd prefer there not to be) but I wouldn't rule it out.

So, to quote a fellow (and let's be honest - an entertaining) forumite, you heard it here first! However if it doesn't end up like this then this isn't me. Somebody must have hacked my account.

[Loopyloulou]

Ooooh! Predictions! This is mine:

Mrs May's deal will not pass the Commons. She will resign. The Conservatives will elect a remainer as their new leader, Amber Rudd perhaps? She will hold a second referendum, asking the same question as before.

That could go either way.

If we vote Leave again, then we will leave, but with a much better deal since both Brussels and Westminster will know that we are serious. The Conservatives might then win the next election.
If we vote Remain, then we will remain, but with much rancour. Labour will win the next election.

Anyone else ?

[hermanmunster]

Watch out for MPs tabling amendments to the bill .. could change all sorts of things . Of course the EU won't agree.

[Amber]

Anyone else ?

I will wake up and it will all have been a bad dream. David Cameron will have lost the 2015 election. 'Austerity' will be a word people vaguely remember from the 1930s; the NHS will have enough money so doctors don't want to leave before they even begin and my tyres won't keep being knackered by potholes in my road. Schools will be called schools and not academies and GCSEs will be graded A* to F not 1-9. 'Strong and stable' will be something you want your dining table to be but you won't have heard it otherwise. There will be a thing called social care which means that your elderly relatives won't be abandoned or left to languish in hospital when they are at their most vulnerable. The police will have enough resources to investigate crimes rather than log them, and there won't be vigilantes doing what should be police work on the streets of Hartlepool. Best of all I will be European and my European friends will feel welcome here.

Oh, and maybe Trump could have just gone to prison for tax evasion and s exual misconduct rather than being on the telly all the time in that stupid hat with that stupid orange hair under it trying to pretend that he actually is God.

Actual prediction - the opposite of all that, I suppose.

[Stimela]

Anyone else ?

I will wake up and it will all have been a bad dream. David Cameron will have lost the 2015 election. 'Austerity' will be a word people vaguely remember from the 1930s; the NHS will have enough money so doctors don't want to leave before they even begin. Best of all I will be European and my European friends will feel welcome here.

Actual prediction - the opposite of all that, I suppose.

Gosh well that certainly is something to tell the Grandchildren. You mean we actually managed without austerity for over 40 years and an NHS that could cope before we joined the EEC/EU? And now we’ve had 10 years of so called austerity while still in the EU. Remind me again why we should stay?

I too have European friends (amazingly some non-European as well) and while they think we must be a bit mad or strange for voting the way we did, nobody I know thinks it makes us actively hostile towards them. Maybe it’s the way you tell em?

I’ve said before if the Scots had voted for independence, I don’t think Englishmen living in Scotland would take that as a message that they were being asked to leave?

You may remember as well that TM and David Davis wanted to make an open Offer to existing EU citizens soon after the vote but it didn’t fit the EU’s timetable ie they wanted to use it as a bargaining chip. It’s because we fall in to this UK bad, EU good, EU must punish UK narrative, that they currently have us over a barrel.

If I could turn the clock back, it would be before 2003, Parliament would have seen through Tony Blair’s lies, David Kelly wouldn’t have been murdered and Hans Blix would have had time to report that there were no remaining weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we wouldn’t have been complicit in the wilful murder of 200,000 Iraqi’s which really is a national stain on our character. That makes this whole Brexit thing look like a minor domestic in my eyes. If only we could have had a referendum on that. Reassuring though to see Tony Blair’s (why isn’t that man in jail) stance on the EU debate though. Helps me to know I’m on the right side.

[Stimela]

Ooooh! Predictions! This is mine:

Mrs May's deal will not pass the Commons. She will resign. The Conservatives will elect a remainer as their new leader, Amber Rudd perhaps? She will hold a second referendum, asking the same question as before.

That could go either way.

If we vote Leave again, then we will leave, but with a much better deal since both Brussels and Westminster will know that we are serious. The Conservatives might then win the next election.
If we vote Remain, then we will remain, but with much rancour. Labour will win the next election.

Anyone else ?

Wouldn't it be great if after TM's 'sell out' tour of the country she came on national television to state;

''I have spoken to the people and time and again they have been telling me the same thing ...........This is one turkey they don't want for Christmas!''

[Amber]

My fear now is that people are just bored of it, and, motivated by a mix of pity and admiration for her sheer staying power, the majority of the public will fall in behind her 'common sense' plea to 'just get on with it'. For anyone thinking that way, this is a must-read. Remember May is a shrewd and ruthless politician whose headstrong arrogance took us into a general election which wasted millions of pounds; who was responsible for the 'round up the foreigners' messages on buses and who almost daily makes ill-considered remarks which are offensive to one group of people or another.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ter-letter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe it’s the way you tell em?

I will assume that you don't mean to be offensive with this remark. And no, I don't think it is.

[Amber]

The chancellor acknowledges that we will be worse off under any imaginable Brexit scenario. I can't beat the words of the Campaign to Remain in Europe at this point:

Just. Call. It. Off. FFS.

Chancellor aware that government is leading Britain to a poorer future - link