I thank you! Born in Croydon, ancestry Irish,lives where ever he wants- although Croydon, Ireland, spain or portugal are preferable- North Carolina at a push!

The eu created this by being stubborn with cameron.
I bet they wish they had moved a little now!
Our relationship is in tact. Maybe some extra red tape but the EU have rolls of it which they wernt afraid to use. Now it's a smaller roll for us.

Stirling - how can you say that few voted to leave on economic grounds?
Sure there were some jingoistic votes and some who voted on purely immigration grounds but an awful lot of people I know voted for the same reasons as I did.
The EU - let's say Germany and France - wants total control of its member states and to that end is prepared to ruin economies to ensure that those countries can never leave.
To that end the strong economies will have to provide the financial support and we are one of those.
The EU is in despair and fear that we have left and while it will take a few years we will prosper outside the EU.
It is my honest belief that the EU will cease to exist in anything like it's current form within 20 years.
Matov- great post!!!!

I really don't know what will happen with the EU in the future but I don't think it will collapse.

With the UK gone the EU is losing a major financial contributor some of the smaller countries like Ireland may end up becoming givers rather than takers but it will still rely heavily on Germany and France to fund it. Italy and Spain are the 2 big economies that the EU would wish to go from taker to giver but that is not likely to happen for a long time so how then do they square this circle.

The next 7 countries to join are all takers so I doubt the EU is in a rush to add them then of course there is Turkey and for the ambitious others such as Russia and Ukraine assuming you can get around the politics.

It is possible that the EU will eventually recognise that it needs a 2 track approach possibly even based on it's new relationship with the UK.

An inner circle of financial sound countries with closer integration and full EU membership. And then an outer circle of prospective EU candidates who can only move on once their economies are aligned and also countries who don't want to join such as the UK.

This outer circle would be more of a free trade group like NAFTA so it is possible that countries like Russia would agree to join as long as there was no political angle.

Anyway whatever happens I think the current funding will start to change as an EU paid for by Germany and France will become too problematic.

Edited by Badger11 (28 Dec 2020 10.03am)

One more point

There is worse out there. Not so much on the BBS but there are plenty of examples of people publicly celebrating the deaths of their own family members for having the audacity to vote Leave.

The vitriol and the spite has been a torrent and from people who love nothing more than to virtue signal their own supposed tolerance and understanding on any and every other aspect of their lives.

But perhaps now is a time to move on. Once January 1st has arrived perhaps we can begin to try and move on from this but the Remoaners (and again I have to stress that I bear not a drop of malice to anybody who voted Remain in 2016 and then just acted like a decent human being and accepted the vote for what it was) have a lot to be ashamed about given their disgusting behaviour ever since.

Not sure if the damage done can ever be reversed but I think we need to at least try, even if for me that will be bloody difficult.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

As you say Brexit is done for now.
All we will do here is expound our views I guess.
Maybe it is time to move on.