Whitey Grandad

It has always been fairly stupid. The golden rule of government is that you don't hold a referendum unless you're absolutely certain of getting the result you want.

There will have to be another vote of some sort before this business is concluded because the outcome was so narrow. A rerendum is unlikely but a general election within the year almost certain I would have thought. Another factor is that there are national elections in France and Germany next year, April/May and September/October. They are bound to affect our negotiations.

And they are backed by governments. Just as Carney promised £250bn if needed. There's plenty to play with, they can always print some more.

The Dutch spread their summer school holidays over three regions which rotate annually and this year run from 16th July to the 4th September. After decades of experience we have learnt to get to the Med before they start to arrive. I know that their country is as densely populated as ours but in August this cannot be true. Back to the EU... I know there was once a plan to provide money for strategic roads linking all the major ports, Portsmouth to Holyhead for instance. We chose to spend the money on something else which is why Salisbury is gridlocked.

I have visited factories in the north that were on the outside of villages and yet the countryside was so empty that you could see the curvature of the earth. The people are there but are at work or school or at home. Some of the medium-sized towns are only 50,000 people and are 80km from the next. There are only 3 or 4 conurbations that are over 1 million people. Hampshire is 1.76 million including the cities.

With a caravan on the back? We always used to go through the town but always got stuck behind a hay lorry or something on the climb out. Wasn't the A75 part-financed by EU money? I've always thought that was the reason why there were no tolls.

You're one of the few that isn't. That's been the problem all along. The Brexiteers were neither in a position to deliver what they promised nor take the consequences for it. What they wanted was for a narrow remain vote so that they could continue their world of blaming all the ills of Britain on the EU. Now their whole reason for being has evaporated and UKIP might as well disband. All their calls for a Brexit government are a bit hollow considering there is an overwhelming majority in Parliament for remaining in the EU, a Parliament that is only just over one year old.

That's because you live in an overcrowded country. Rural France is wonderfully quiet and peaceful. France is still the largest country in Europe even after German reunification although that may have passed to the Ukraine if you include the Crimea.

Ah, thanks, we normally hack past you when we're driving up the A75. It's always useful to get an insight from outside the insular world that is Britain and especially into the workings of the great bureaucracies. This can only end one way and it won't be very pretty for us. Either way we've made enemies and lost friends.

It's not fear of the unknown, it's fear of a certainty. The pound has plummeted against the dollar and so has the Euro, to some extent, so imports are much more expensive but selling prices have not gone down. In any case, the 20% drop in 2008 (from $1.86!) did nothing to improve exports so there's no guarantee that this fall will be of any help. Please explain to me how a weak £ enhances the value of UK stocks?

No, sorry, that was unnecessary from me. It wasn't aimed at you in particular but there is a lot of real anger over here. Please accept my apologies. By the way, which part of France do you live in? I have interests over there.

And if they are completed before us?

Cash please, no cheques.

Are you serious? This is far worse than 2008. The fall in the world's stockmarkets on Friday was $2,000,000,000,000 . As i just said to Wes, you have no idea of the damage that you have caused.

We should be very grateful to him, he has bought us some much needed time. If we invoked Article 50 now before we have anything sorted then we really are dropping our pants and asking to get shafted. I get really annoyed by ths 'moving forward, all working together' talk from those who have foisted this unbelievable situation on us. It's like smashing someone in the face and then saying to them 'right, now let's work together'. You've heaped a bloody great pile of extra costs and red tape on countless hard-working businessmen who were already struggling to recover from the recent recession and you've added to that an economic slump and you're "saying let's move forward". Do you have any idea of the damage that you've caused?

How long will this take, how many people go bust in the meantime and will I still be alive when it's all settled?

Exactly. There are default terms but we don't want those, we definitely don't want those, so basically we shall have to wait and see what our friends in the EU are prepared to concede to us (if we have any friends left). As was suggested in an link in an earlier post the minute we invoke Article 50 we are fooked so unless we have a deal lined up we'd be stupid to do so and if we aren't offered a deal that we can live with there will be a Brexican standoff.

Yes, I certainly did for decisions which involve a major constitutional change. As is the case in many countries, for example Australia has compulsory voting and: 'Any alteration to the Consitution must be approved by a 'double majority', that is: a national majority of electors (more than half the voters in Australia must vote YES); and a majority of electors in a majority of the States (i.e. at least four of the six) (more than half the voters in more than half the States must vote YES)' And a discussion here about Ecuador: http://aceproject.org/electoral-advice/archive/questions/replies/572011840 Now I am well aware that we are neither of these countries but British democracy does not have a tradition of holding referendums for major decisions. The practicality of the situation is that Parliament is sovereign and has to make the ultimate decision. From what I had heard before the referendum many people did not have a clear idea about what they were voting for and were confused about the possible outcomes. Yes, one big clusterf*ck.

If the EU don't offer an arrangement that we can agree to the we fall back on WTO rules. We have no say in what they will offer, it is purely take it or leave it. If this doesn't convince you of the need for EU access then it should: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/745d0ea2-222d-11e6-9d4d-c11776a5124d.html#axzz4CmUmF1BC "A WTO analysis had calculated the cost of the additional tariffs on goods imports to British consumers at £9bn, while British merchandise exports would be subject to a further £5.5bn in tariffs at their destination." This from February: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit01.pdf This from the Leavers themselves: http://leavehq.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=128 And: http://www.freshfields.com/en/global/Britain_and_the_EU/home/ And finally the Telegraph from 14th June: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/19/what-would-brexit-mean-for-british-trade/ These WTO tariffs range from 32 per cent on wine, to 4.1 per cent on liquefied natural gas, with items like cars (9.8 per cent) and wheat products (12.8 per cent) somewhere in between.

You now this for a fact? OMG another ITK.

His replacement might have scored three. Yes, it was a great result but there were also games where he went missing and fluffed some easy sitters.

Unbelievable arrogance. Do you have any idea how international trade works? Do you know how much these tariffs are?

The big difference between a referendum and an election is that the former is advisory and the second definitive. The enabling act for this one did not make the result compulsory. It is up to parliament to implement and interpret 'the will of the people' which in this instance is not decisively clear majority. Farage said this before and Boris has said it yesterday.

I have consistently maintained that for a constitutional change there should be a much bigger margin than 50%. If not then the outrage will continue as Farage stated well before the vote..

Intra-community dealings do not normally attract VAT. I don't know about personnel contracts but it is certainly true of goods which is one reasonwhy the Single Market is so important to us.Items such as cars, boats and planes are different. 'm sure they would like VAT to apply but they couldn't agree over who should receive it. For example, if you had paid VAT to one country would you then be able to claim it back from your own?