Thought I'd start a new thread as this is going to be a major talking point this year...have not made up my mind yet...(unlike bucksfizz)....but thinking of voting for an exit as Europe is not doing Britain any good at all it seems....

I still think as soon as any other country starts making noises about a referendum the EU will sit down and talk about the free movement rather than break up the EU ,we have done Europe a huge favour .

Chancellor George Osborne has abandoned his target to restore government finances to a surplus by 2020.
It had been the chancellor's most prized goal and had been driving austerity measures in previous budgets.
However, Mr Osborne said the UK must be "realistic about achieving a surplus by the end of the decade".
The UK economy is showing "clear signs" of shock in the aftermath of the vote to leave the European Union, he said.
In a speech on Friday, Mr Osborne said: "As the governor [of the Bank of England] has said: the referendum is expected to produce a significant negative economic shock to our economy. How we respond will determine the impact on jobs and growth.

Are you lot net getting the big picture yet?

Haystack is laying it out the way it is...if they (pcp) elect a remainer, the tory party will go against the will of the people, they will one way or another ignore the vote or keep fobbing it off, hoping that people will forget.

They will not do article 50

tits

European Union leaders spelled out stark conditions for a new relationship with a departing Britain on Wednesday, warning that if British business wants to keep access to Europe’s single market, the country must accept European workers, too.

The leaders produced no clear rehaul for their shaken union after an unusual and emotionally charged summit, but agreed they must make it more relevant to citizens and keep it from disintegrating after Britain’s unprecedented vote to leave. The 27 remaining presidents, chancellors and prime ministers said they’re “absolutely determined to remain united,” EU Council President Donald Tusk said.

They met without British Prime Minister David Cameron, who left Brussels on Tuesday night without any clear divorce plan, fending off pressure for a quick exit and punting the complex departure negotiations to his successor. In Britain, nominations opened Wednesday for a new Conservative leader to replace him after his devastating political miscalculation in calling last week’s referendum.

Other EU leaders warned the U.K. that if it wants to continue to enjoy the seamless single market after its departure, it would also have to accept that EU citizens can continue to enter Britain. That’s the crux of the current tensions: Britain’s “leave” vote hinged on concerns about migration from poorer EU countries.

Well obviously they're not going to roll over before the negotiations
start, but there WILL be a deal where the UK will take back control of
its borders and obtain a free trade agreement that does NOT entail
having to continue with free movement..

That of course relies on who is leading the country and who does the
negotiating!!..

Anyone in the mould of cameron/osborne will betray the UK...

Yes Osbourne still blaming leavers would you believe .

It's surprising ozzy hasn't thrown his hat in the ring.

GB - pretty much agree with you ....... with few exceptions, i don't think any exiters object to the free movement of those with skills - i certainly do not ...... the prime objection is to the freeloaders who think they'll chance their arms just because, as this romanian lady said on the box a couple of weeks back, conditions and benefits in uk are so much better

a way round the current (public) impasse is surely to introduce properly enforceable restrictions on benefits and also the free movement of whole (extended) families just because they have eu passports

also, and in some ways it's relatively small beer though very irksome, nhs hospitals should charge at the door for "foreigners" just as they do in the private sector everywhere

Whoever takes over as PM will invoke article 50.

May storming ahead with more than 50% of committed MPs.

May has just increased her lead. She now has 83 MPs.

Farage said today that Carswell could be expelled on Monday.

Rumours are doing the rounds that several as yet undeclared Theresa May supporters are considering endorsing Andrea Leadsom in order to keep Michael Gove off the ballot. With less than half of the parliamentary party openly declared, May currently has 87 MPs publicly backing her and many more supporters yet to declare – she is absolutely nailed on to make the final two.

Her allies are allegedly now pushing her right-wing Leave backers over to Leadsom, with the aim that Andrea gets the numbers to beat Gove to the ballot. This would make sense as a calculated piece of election skullduggery – May’s friends know the membership is unlikely to choose Andrea over Theresa, Gove is the high-profile Brexit candidate they want to keep off the ballot.

That twat Gove is an accident waiting to happen. Does he not realise to come out and say "There will not be a Scottish Referendum" is like a red rag to a bull. Theresa May landslide imo.

Gove thought he had the Daily Mail in his pocket. It is where hi wife works as a journalist. When he stabbed Boris they switched their support to May.

Why is this going on until September , it's practically over now .

Carswell needs expelling from UKIP, why he came over to UKIP is anyones
guess, as far as i'm concerned he's a snake in the grass, As Nigel Farage says
why would you join a party that you don't believe in, or it's polices.

He should slither back to the Tory party he should never have left.

As to Arron Banks suggesting that a new party should be set up, yes it would be
a party that unified all those who were/feel betrayed by the main establishment
parties, even UKIP knew that continuing with the UKIP name in any future GE's
would need to project their change in direction, seeing as the future holds the
exit of the UK from europe, but with no other party standing for the
disenfranchised and what the ordinary man/woman in the street feels that is
missing in the main parties, it needs a NEW party to fight for them.

And Arron Banks dosn't say a party without Nigel Farage, he suggest 'possibly'
that Farage may have had enough, hopefully not, he might just need a rest.

Carswell was always a Trojan imo.

He no sooner joined amid the fanfare etc, then immediately started criticizing.


"They" ought to give Farage a Lairdship, but I wouldn't hold my breath, he's upset too many of the great and good.

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) - A shock referendum result demanding controls on European Union migration has created a serious headache for politicians, who must do the people's bidding without jeopardising access to the single market.

Not Britain: Switzerland.

Home to more than a million EU citizens, Switzerland voted on Feb 9, 2014 to impose quotas on migration, potentially ripping up a bilateral deal with the EU on free movement of people. It could trigger a "guillotine clause" cancelling six other bilateral agreements, including on air transport, road, rail and agriculture.

The government sees few ways out and, in what could be a warning to Britain, may have no choice but to ask voters to reconsider. Though even that is difficult.

Switzerland is one of the models some supporters of Britain leaving the European Union have pointed to of a European economy that thrives outside of the EU. But in 1999, to negotiate access to the European single market, it had to agree to bilateral deals that allow free movement of workers from EU countries.

European leaders say they will demand similar "free movement" conditions if Britain is to retain easy access to the EU market, a position that British officials acknowledge makes it difficult to deliver the limits on migration that voters want while also keeping the free trade businesses need.

As in Britain, voters defied the advice of their government to deliver a narrow victory to a referendum campaign led by right-wing populists.

The Swiss referendum was backed in rural areas with few migrants, and carried with 50.3 percent of the vote, upsetting businesses and creating an unexpected dilemma for the government. Swtizerland now has until February to implement the binding result.

"Right now we are in a situation that is both delicate and paradoxical," Swiss negotiator Jacques de Watteville told an audience of Swiss bankers earlier this month, before the Brexit vote.

Foreigners make up a quarter of the population of the neutral Alpine country, which despite being outside the EU is inside its Schengen zone of border-free travel. Three hundred thousand workers commute into Switzerland across borders from France, Germany and Italy every day.

NEW REFERENDUM?

Swiss politicians now appear to face a choice of passing legislation that the EU will reject, abrogating their agreements with the EU unilaterally, or hoping that the 2014 vote will get overturned by a new referendum.

"I don't see any possibility for the EU to give anything to Switzerland," said René Schwok, a professor at the University of Geneva and author of books on Swiss-EU relations.

The referendum has already resulted in Switzerland being dumped from Europe's "Erasmus" university exchange programme. Once the government passes legislation to implement it, the guillotine clause would end a range of other bilateral agreements, having far wider impact.

A campaign to overturn the 2014 referendum is already underway, but it would require a majority of Switzerland's 26 cantons to agree, as well as the population, which means it is unlikely to succeed, Schwok said.

Some in Britain are closely watching the Swiss case for the lessons they can learn. Remain campaigners say it shows that the victorious Leave side may not be able to deliver its promises.

"It's not at all clear that Switzerland is going to achieve the objectives that it has set out," said British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who campaigned to remain in the EU against a Leave campaign also led by figures from his ruling Conservative Party.

"There are some of my colleagues in the Conservative party at the moment saying things like 'It'll be straightforward to agree access to the single market and there'll be no need to have freedom of movement,'" he told BBC radio this week.

"I'm afraid they are simply betraying a lack of understanding of the political realities in the European Union. It will be much more complicated than that."

De Watteville, the Swiss diplomat charged with finding a solution to the EU problem, said whatever solution is found, the Swiss will probably have to return to the ballot box.

"In the end, it’s going to be up to the Swiss people to decide, because in any scenario, it’s very likely that a referendum will be announced by one side or the other,” he said.