At what point do you leave a failing country?

So, how does a new vote to reverse Brexit come into being?

A referendum will probably be done when it’s very clear the rejoin side is big enough to probably win. That was so divisive an issue I never discussed my opinion on it anywhere other than with family and very close friends. There were friends of mine who were told ‘go back to your country’ when they tried to back staying in EU openly.

Referendum is one thing. Rejoining is quite another.

The UK is unlikely to rejoin in even 20 years. They would never ditch the pound, and the public finances are terrible. It also requires unanimous approval from all EU countries. Good luck with that one.

The damage done by Brexit was very much terminal for the country (which is precisely what people warned against).

The problem is UK has poor leaders. This shouldn’t have been tabled ever. Those around him should have had the insight to see how it would play out. It’s too complicated an issue to resolve with a referendum. Maybe Cameron thought it was a diversion from the ailing economy that he had hamstrung with his season of austerity that became permanent. I blame him.

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Sorry, what is your definition of the verb “table”?

It takes two to tango. Even if a UK referendum supports rejoining, the EU has to agree.

Put forward for consideration.

That is what I figured, but in the USA, it means “to set aside for later.”
Down a rabbit hole I go…
but I promise, no 200-post thread drift!

OK, I’m back.

Not included: “To start eating said bill, preferably with a fork and knife.”

And, unlike Steve Martin’s proclamation that “Those French have a different word for EVERYTHING!”, “Those British (or Americans, per POV) have a different meaning for every word!”

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:rofl:TIL

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Cameron never understood huge parts of the country. The referendum was supposed to be a way to defeat the Eurosceptics once and for all. He thought it wouldn’t even be close and was very wrong.

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:iatp: but for the other meaning.

London is pretty much the only game in town (UK-wise) if you want a decent career.

Housing costs and lack of productivity outside of London is the reason why the UK cannot replicate what happens in other developed countries, where you have options outside of the largest cities.

Canada is as bad as the UK in this regard. Toronto has always had an even higher concentration of the highest paying jobs than London.

Vancouver is more expensive to live in than Toronto but incomes are lower. Folks in Vancouver have assets but not high paying jobs.

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This bears repeating.

Joining the common currency is a requirement for membership in the European Union*. The United Kingdom and Denmark were granted exemptions, but those exemptions applied to their initial membership in the EU only. Now that the UK is out, rejoining would mean either adopting the Euro (which as Poly pointed out they are NOT going to want to do) or getting another exemption (which I think is DOA… which European governments would want that?)

*There are a few other member countries who, for lack of a nicer way to put it, have finances that are too screwed up to be allowed into the Euro at the moment. They are still required to eventually join the Euro, but they aren’t allowed to yet. I am not an expert on this so I can’t tell you precisely which requirements they aren’t meeting or even which countries although I know the list includes Poland, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic as well as two or three others IIRC.

And to be fair, I can’t really comment intelligently on the precise requirements… maybe one or two aren’t reasonable… no clue. But the concept was that if your financial house was not in order but everything else was then you could join the club with an IOU on adopting the Euro.

In many ways Canada looks worse.

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UK outlook not so good.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/18/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-uk-inflation-cpi-budget-tax/

Foreign investment into UK has been the hallmark of the last decade plus. Sports teams etc , basically cherry picking of the economy by the Arabs. It probably goes back to Harrods.

Heathrow to get £2.3bn upgrade after Saudi Arabia takes stake

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/18/heathrow-to-get-23bn-upgrade-after-saudi-arabia-takes-stake/

FWIW / because I was curious… Wikipedia of course has more information.

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I have mixed feelings about the plight of the UK’s “Waspi women”.

When I first got involved in UK pension work in the 1980s, I found it odd that women had a lower normal retirement age, 60, than men, 65. It was illogical from an HR and actuarial viewpoint.

Eventually the ages were harmonized in a somewhat clumsy fashion. However there was huge publicity around the changes and I find it a bit spurious that the affected group are now saying it was not communicated properly to them by the appropriate government department. You would have had to not read newspapers or watch the telly to not know it was coming!

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Yeah I also wondered how the retirement process went for those that retired. It would imply HR also did not know that the retirement age was being changed.

It’s also really confusing because the amount is about £220 per week since 2016 or so.

Nway it’s just been a tough decade and a half in UK at the bottom.

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