With the greatest of sincerity I do hope that the 1st of October is inevitable after the 30th September.
With the greatest of sincerity I do hope that the 1st of October is inevitable after the 30th September.
With respect to a new referendum would you say that there were a number of things that were promised would happen if Brexit was approved that have turned out not to be true and these may have been influential in determining the outcome? For example, the amount of additional money flowing into the NHS.
Has there been a significant number who voted in the original referendum that are now dead. Similarly, is there a significant number of voters who were 16 or 17 who now are eligible to vote?
Would you say that voters are now more informed about the actual reality of what leaving the EU is than when the original referendum took place?
We actually need a passport now to travel to France. The UK did not sign the Schengen Agreement which would have allowed Brits to enter France with just a valid driving license.
Greece is a bit more complex but basically it defaulted on its loan payments and the EU forced austerity on the country. Back then i saw it as overreach by the EU. On this forum there was a lot of hysteria with the usual suspects predicting that the EU was going to launch military action against Greece and have EU soliders stationed there. However there is no EU army. There is a common defense policy but no standing EU army.
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Do you see any positives, either short-term or long-term, with the Brexit proceeding as-is?
Sure there is more awareness, give me another three years to study any subject and I will be more educated on it.
The problem is you could apply that arguement to any vote. What if we defer implementing the results of a general election and then say we need a do over because since the original vote new information has come to light. Both sides engaged in propaganda just like any vote.
And what happens if we have another referendum and the vote to leave wins again or the vote to leave wins by the same narrow margin as the original vote?
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I donât necessarily agree that it is analogous to a general election. When you vote at a general election it is not a vote for the next 25+ years; you know you will get another chance within 5 years to change your mind.
If there was another referendum I suspect that there will be a clear choice between remain and the Leave option passed in parliament (whether that is the deal agree to by the EU or a no deal exit). The outcome of the referendum would have been passed by the Commons and Lords prior to the referendum.
I am posting kinda below at leg level at work if you could tell me the post you would be helping someone out 
âŚthe post i replied to and quotedâŚ
The referendum was a clear choice between leave and stay. It was either or and very black and white.
The government completely failed in their attempt to convince people. The day before the election I listened to an interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer who repeatedly said the government had no plans in the event of a leave vote. He was repeatedly pressed on that because the interviewer Iain Dale could not believe what he was hearing.
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I do not disagree that that is why they came up with the idea, what I said was that it was not necessary to preserve peace on the Continent. I sincerely doubt that the low countries of Europe would have been overrun by one of their neighbors had the EU not been established. There was no threat on the horizon except from Russia and that was pretty toothless considering the USSR had just dissolved.
And? Again, we are talking about the EU.
Thank you Mobulis Jr.
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True but they werenât nearly as economically dependent on each other as they are today. Itâs an extra cog that keeps the European machine turning without breaking itself apart.
World War I didnât have to happen. But once the die was cast you couldnât turn it off. Every power involved was a slave to the rail road timetable.
Especially the Germans. I actually feel pretty bad for Von Moltke. There was no other option once the call had been made and he took all the blame for deviating from Schlieffenâs âmasterstroke.â Even though his masterstroke was probably doomed to fail In the first place.
Geez and I say the US government is incompetentâŚ
Theyâre just different interactions of the same organization. The Treaty of Maastricht turned the EEC into the EU the same way that the Treaty of Rome turned the ECSC into the EEC.
Yeah, they simply didnât have the capability to score a rapid decisive victory. No military did then. The Michael Offensive fell victim to the same problem as the Schlieffen plan, even though it was four years later and they had tanks and bombers and rolling artillery strikes and combined arms tactics: an army could only move so far into enemy territory before it outran its own supply lines and exhausted itself, just in time to be hit with a crushing counterattack.
The Low Countries were steamrolled dozens of times over the centuries, pretty much every time there was a European war. They pretty much only exist because the British Empire insisted on neutral countries who were not France or Germany on the eastern end of the English Channel, where an enemy could bottle up the Royal Navy.
All this European unity stuff was pushed heavily by America too, because a Europe not destroying the world tearing itself apart was in everyoneâs best interest.
The EUâs situation looks grim at best. Germany, UK, and Italy are probably either in or borderline a recession and Italy has a ton of banking problems while their debt to GDP is over 130% and rocking a -.04 interest rate.
Can the ECB do anything to save this mess?
Not really.
The European Central Bank will likely cut rates in September and ease the pressure on Europe by loosening policy, but it probably wonât do the trick.
Interest rates are already negative, at -0.4%. Going further negative would create logistical problems that might, counter intuitively, reduce further bank lending (because banks would lose money by doing so). The ECB doesnât have many weapons in its arsenal to provide a stimulus to Europe.
As a result, Europe looks pretty stuck.
