Balloon needed government approval to fly, Sadiq Khan ok'd it, perpetuating Sadiq Khan and Donald Trump's already pre-existing feud. Theresa May condemned Trump for retweeting a Britain First twitter post. Theresa May has not been quiet about her criticisms of Trump, which is unfortunate, because Theresa May and Trump both speak English. Subsequently of all US allies, partners, rivals, London has paradoxically been the last place the US President has visited.
Can't really fault you, Theresa May really should have gone full sycophant on Trump from a tactical point of view. But the Mayor of London not banning a protest isn't the same as the British government insulting Trump.
May's White Paper is a softish Brexit and Trump has been anti-EU (remember when Trump offered Macron a trade deal if France left the EU?). I can see why, in his mind international relations are zero-sum, bilateral deals. Small countries outside the EU can be bullied around in the way that an Union of 28 countries cannot. Likewise, a UK after a hard Brexit will be desperate for a trade deal, and he can take advantage of it.
It is not a "softish Brexit," as there is no such thing as a soft or hard Brexit, you either leave the European Union or you do not. There are no two independent nations as closely partnered as the USA and UK, and it's subsequently fucking ridiculous that the USA and UK are not allowed to make a trade deal with one another. I do not fear the Anglosphere, and I highly question your sense of priorities. You fear the USA bullying European nations, but with what leverage?
Okay, so you're pulling the very weak rethorical trick of redefining all the options you don't like as "not exiting the EU" so you can get the meaning you want out of the referendum. Switzerland, Norway, Turkey aren't in the EU, not matter your weak attempt at arguments. The rest of your screeching is really both beside the point, and... wrong. The US and the UK can make a trade deal if they want, but the UK can't ask to be in a custom union with the EU and also strike separate trade deal in goods.
As for the US bullying European nations, haven't you noticed how Trump has been threatening countries like South Korea to get some trad econcessions? The US is several time larger than the next EU country, and control large swathe of the planet's financial system. Witness how they've been able to re-sanction Iran practically on their own. You might not feel it that much since the UK is a reasonably large country, but coming from Belgium (which is still larger than your average EU country, pop-wise), I am certainly glad we have the EU to cover our interest.
At the end of the day your leaders choose to accept or deny whatever trade deal they make (OH WAIT LOL THEY CAN'T), so in order to avoid such responsibility, you hand over control of your economy, currency, nation to an unaccountable assassin of multilateralism? I'm sure the Greeks, Irish or Slavs right now are feeling wonderful with all the freedom and clout they possess, having subjected themselves to the diktats of foreign powers with legal supremacy... To defeat the foreigner without.
Frankly, that idea that "You can always refuse a deal so they have no leverage" is so wrong I'm not even sure how to counter it. If that was right, no one would have leverage, ever. It sounds like the kind of screeching you hear from libertarians when they argue that you don't need minimum wages because the worker can always walk out of any deal. (Aslo note that within the EU, national Parliaments still vote on trade deal, so you're against wrong.)
The Greeks got shafted hard by the Euro crisis and the European response to it, no doubt. But the Irish and Slavs probably feels pretty good. Look at the way the EU has stood by the Irish on the question of the NI border. I mean, the EU is not some kind of faceless monster. It's another level of government, with representation, that do some things, and, generally do them well. And it provides a ton of benefits to its citizens.
Anyway, so much for Trump's promise that the US would stand by the UK after Brexit, but hey, at this point anyone who believe anything that dude says has only himself to blame.
Oh, he also said that BoJo would made a great Prime Minister. I'm sure May is thrilled to have invited him over. Frankly, it seems that unless you're a bloody autocrat, you won't get Trump to say anything nice about you.
Theresa May is not the United Kingdom. It's the old adage that three quarters of Tory voters support leave, three quarters of Tory MPs support remain. It still boggles me why Theresa May has done so much to retard the Anglo-American partnership in order to appease the unappeasable.
Well, yeah, I meant those two sentence as separate. He said he'd stood by the UK, and now he is reneging is word. Not related, but Theresa May, who arranged the meeting, is probably thrilled by him endorsing her rival. So Theresa May isn't the UK, but Trump shafted both. :p
"At the Nato news conference, however, Mr Trump said, “I think they like me a lot in the UK.” A recent YouGov poll found that Mr Trump’s favourability rating in the UK was minus 60."
While Britons really don’t like Donald Trump, they are more likely to back working with him than not - Yougov
If popularity was suffice for function we would not work with 99% of politicians
True, but Trump didn't say "They don't like me but they work with me" or something. I just loved the way the FT deadpan quoted him just to show that he was, as usual, spouting random words with no relation to reality in the next sent
The more I think about it, the more I think that what the UK should have done is to immediately go for membership of the EEA, and then once that is done, use the time to negotiate something else and set up the infrastructure needed to replace what the EU did. In effect, use the EEA as the halfway-point.
It would also have had the advantage that people could have had more say on what was the exact goal of Brexit at subsequent elections. You know, vote UKIP or Tory if you want to exit the EEA, Labour if you want to stay in and LibDem if you want to go back in the EU or something depending on the position the various parties take. Because well, the referendum was about leaving the EU, the Brexiters didn't offer an alternative and there were claims all over the place.
The Tory manifesto was clear about leaving the European Economic Area when they promised the EU referendum in the first place, while the Libdems, SNP, Tories, Labour all concurred that voting to leave meant leaving the EEA. What you're suggesting is just revoting until Remain wins. Given the EU's history of ignoring votes until it gets the results it wants, and the ability for the EU to use British money to support the EU's political campaigning, what you suggest clearly benefits only one party and ignores the result of the referendum in its entirety.
Source? I distinctly remember some Leaver proposing Norway as a model. Hell, even the Leave Campaign website contains sentences like
"Third, we will have a new UK-EU trading relationship. There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. " Sounds like the EEA or something like that to me.
In any case, if we believe what the Leave campaign was saying, what the People voted for was to keep full access to trade in good and services, including financial ones, while removing ECJ jurisdiction and EU regulations, stop paying into the EU while also keeping the EU funds coming and keep cooperation in all the parts the UK want but not the others.
There might also have been a free poney promised at some point.
In any case, that's not possible. None of the options offers all of that, and the EU has been pretty clear since day one that it was the case. Given this, no one know exactly what version of the UK-rEU relationship was the one with the most legitimacy. There is a reason that it's only now, almost 16 month after triggering Article 50, that May is able to present her white paper.
It should also be noted that the majority for leave with real, but not overwhelming (and apparently doens't exist anymore). In that sense, EEA membership make sense. This isn't "revoting until Remain wins". You'd be out. That would give you time. And surely, if being in the EEA is worse than being in the EU, it should be easier to convince people to leave the EEA later. Plus it removes the time constraint, leaving time for the UK to generate a potentially Swiss-like deal.
P.S. The Comission isn't out there to destroy the UK. It has a clear mandate, granted to it by the other governments, and is holding to it. Don't make them into bogeyman to hide the fact that Leaver politicians lied about what was possible and that Tories were then really good at being terrible negotiatiors.
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