Will (or indeed should) the UK ever rejoin the EU?

partyguinness

Rejoin?

No chance. The Brits are stubborn and awkward just for the sake of it and have no problem going against their own interests so as to save face in front of untrustworthy Johnny Foreigner

partyguinness

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118031763#Comment_118031763

Yes we would all love dearly to Brexit fail and sit around laughing our asses off.

But the UK will be just fine. Not because of Brexit but in spite of it.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118214567#Comment_118214567

So when will it start being fine? As it stands, they are on a gradual downhill slope in so many areas with no sign of things going to change given everything the Tories are doing. When will the UK become attractive to foreign investment as it had in the past? When will they start attracting talent from overseas like thy did in the past?

Or are you just hoping that it will be fine?

20silkcut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118214567#Comment_118214567

The U.K. was just fine in the 1960’s too I mean relatively speaking the swinging sixties were in full swing. They won the World Cup. Irish people were going there by the boat load.

It was just fine .

partyguinness

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118214781#Comment_118214781

The 60s coincided with the baby boom and building era after WII.

It was not so fine in the 1970s- it was essentaiily bailed out in the mid 70s and ECC membership was critical.

Generally it not helpful to compare the position 50-60 years ago.

partyguinness

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118214584#Comment_118214584

I don't care when it will be fine or on what timescale.

My point is that countries, economies and people evolve and adapt. The UK will be just fine.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118214848#Comment_118214848

This is a comment with no real meaning. The UK isn't going to turn into a developing country. What's more likely is a reduced rate of growth and probably a recession.

I don't think the UK should rejoin before 2030 if indeed it ever does. The British need to reform their country and rejoining would just distract from this and allow the tabloids to resume their practice for making the EU out to be the worst thing in the world.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118214848#Comment_118214848

Well, it depends on what 'The UK will be just fine' actually means.

In 1959, Harold Macmillan won an election on the slogan - 'You have never had it so good!'. But it hid the problems coming down the track, but essentially, following the boom after WW II, he was correct. Everything was fine.

When Harold Wilson took over, the economy was in the toilet, with balance of payments issues dominating a flaky economy. What followed was a decade of devaluation, miner strikes, three day weeks, high inflation, and high unemployment, etc. So that was fine.

Then Thatcher got elected in 1979, and introduced another round of miner strikes, cavalry charges by mounted police against miners protesting. The mines closed within a decade or so, so that was fine.

She nationalised British Leyland, the car company, which cost the tax payer billions, and was sold to British Aerospace for a tenner, but eventually it disappeared into nothing.

She introduced the Poll Tax as a way of supressing the Labour vote and had riots in the streets. So that was fine.

She sold off all the social housing and it was never rebuilt - causing an unrelenting rise in house prices, and rents. Now the young and poor can neither buy nor rent a home at anything like affordable rates. So that is fine.

She introduced 'light touch' regulation of the financial markets in the CoL, and that resulted in the financial crash of 2008. So that was fine.

Roll on to the current state of affairs, where blatant corruption from Gov ministers, their friends and donors pocketing billions from the public purse with not a murmur from any right wing tabloid or broadsheet. So that is fine.

I see what you mean. It will be fine.

partyguinness

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215111#Comment_118215111

That is a comment with no real meaning and based on speculation and generalities.

Why do you not think they should rejoin before 2030? So can we infer that you have a more specific timescale in mind? Please do elaborate. While of course anything is possible but the notion that the UK will rejoin is laughable and for the fairies.

What is more likley to happen over the next few years is that the constant tit for tat with the EU will continue to the extent that the differences vis a vis Protocols etc will be negligible. As I said, the UK will evolve and adapt- it has no choice.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215529#Comment_118215529

Why don't your elaborate on your initial point first? How will the UK evolve and adapt in your opinion?

Larbre34

Its worth remembering, we haven't seen the worst of Brexit yet. Most of the trade restrictions are in abeyance as we're still in the transition period for some elements.

Between that and Covid, we are in something of a limbo. When it all comes fully into effect, I think its going to have a devastating effect on Britain.

A perfect storm of scarcity and inflation, vacancies by the millions in menial jobs but millions of higher value jobs under threat. All coupled with a precipitous drop in GDP. It could get very, very ugly.

crossman47

I can't see the UK (if it still exists) being accepted back by the other countries. There will be too many memories of their constant looking for special deals, opt outs, etc. and then blaming the EU for their problems. Brexit then put the tin hat on it. We might want them back to make life easier for us but I can't see others wanting it.

techman1

No because all the problems facing Europe now are independent of EU membership, the energy crisis, oil prices, inflation, covid, irregular migration, terrorism etc. Rejoining the EU is not going to make any difference to these problems, when the migration crisis hit Europe in 2015 and then covid in 2020, it was every country for themselves.

Sure we were the biggest "little irelanders" during covid wanting to shut ourselves completely from Europe and not let anyone in. Indeed we had to have an acceptable reason to leave the island or the guards would turn us back

Peregrinus

Ask yourself why the UK joined the EU in the first place. The answer is that in the late 1950s/early 1960s they could see they had a long-term economic problem. They "would be just fine" in partyguiness's terms, but they were consistently underperforming comparable European countries, were falling behind them and would continue to fall further and further behind them. And, in the 1960s, the UK had a political leadership that didn't regard that as "just fine".

Brexit - at least, as implemented - essentially recreates these circumstances. The British government's own modelling is that Brexit will create systemic underperformance by the UK, relative to what they would achieve as EU members, and over time this will led to them falling further and further behind comparable EU economies, with a growing gap in economic performance, real wages, living standards, ability to finance government services, etc. Brexiter dreams that this will be offset by wonderful new trade deals with countries yet to be discovered under the sea are wholly unrealistic; there is at present no realistic strategy for avoiding the economic effects of Brexit.

So, essentially Brexit has recreated the economic conditions that led the UK to aspire to EU membership in the first place.

But this is a slow-burning thing; these conditions have to persist for a long time in order for a big gap to open up. And the present generation of political leaders (on both sides of UK politics) either have nailed their colours to the Brexit mast, or at least have positioned themselves as accepting Brexit and trying to make it work, which makes it difficult to pivot and point out that it can't work. So the easiest course for them is to let the problem drift for quite a while.

Ambitious, up-and-coming politicians who hope to be among the next generation of political leaders - at least, those of them with two brain cells to rub together - can spot the problem. If and when they do find themselves in the hot seat, the economic stresses resulting from Brexit will be starting to become pressing. There won't necessarily be a mass Rejoin movement in full swing, but there will be business, trade, etc leaders pressing for economically less ruinous government positions, and there'll be a popular awareness that the UK is a tatty, dull, lethargic place compared to neighbouring countries; a distinctly second-rate country. Those boardies who are old enough to remember what Ireland felt like for much of the 1980s — the vibe will be something like that. And there'll be an expectation that something will be done to make the UK a bit brighter and more promising, and huge political advantage accruing to whoever can successfully do that something.

My guess is that the something done will not be rejoining, but it will be a significant incremental realignment towards the EU. It will be the kind of policies that, in recent years, would have been dismissed as "Brexit in name only". But in the late 2020s and beyond, say, which is when we are talking about, that criticism will have little traction; the public will have no patience with or interest in anyone who, at that time, is still trying to fight the Brexit wars of the late 2010s.

Sam Russell

Remember - Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, were all communist countries and opposed to EU membership until the fall of the USSR. They changed their view overnight and are (mostly) happy members of the EU.

It just will take a watershed change in British politics - probably with the Scottish vote to leave the UK and become an independent state.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118225305#Comment_118225305

Bear in mind that the topic of this thread is "will or should the UK ever rejoin the EU?". Unless you were simply venting at random, your post presumably meant that you felt the UK's trade union problems in the 1970s were in some way pertinent to the question of EU membership. My point is that it was in fact mainly the Tories who presided over the development of the conditions that led the UK to seek EU membership, and it is now the Tories who are working hard to recreate those conditions. Random rants about trade unions are either wholly irrelevant to this, or an active attempt to distract from it.

ancapailldorcha

Mod: Can we get back on topic please.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118225598#Comment_118225598

Several posts have been removed. Please stay on topic. The state of the UK in the 1970's and 80's is not the topic of the thread.

Mayfielder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118225215#Comment_118225215

It's a fine theory that at the moment doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. The campaign for Scottish independence is going nowhere but backwards and this, after Brexit, when it should be flying if the experts are to be believed. The latest polling from Survation out this week shows more weakening of support - Remain: 59% (+2) Leave: 41% (-2).

And Northern Ireland ? For as long as I can remember the view has been yes a united Ireland might be agreeable but not just yet if you don't mind come back to me at some time in the much distant future thanks very much.

I just don't see anyone of any note in UK politics seriously contemplating a return to the EU.

McGiver

So "just fine" is the Great British Standard now? 😎

Right, I guess the English (not British) will be "just fine" when the Czech Republic, a 3rd league "Eastern" country in British standards, converges the UK GPD per capita PPP, which if everything continues going so well with Brexit will take a few years max.

• IT - $41840
• CZ - $42049
• UK - $44916

Czechia has already overtaken Portugal, Greece and Italy much older EU members...Slovenia is close to Italy too and will catch up stagnating UK as well in my opinion.

Also, notice how Germany continues to diverge from the UK. I am sure it must be a coincidence or the bloody German carmakers or something. Perhaps Germany didn't have something called Brexit?😀