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Of course the UK will be in the EU in 2019

We WILL be in the EU in five years, says the PM’s top man in Brussels: Lord Hill jumps gun on in-out vote

Lord Hill said the UK will still be in the EU after a proposed in-out referedum
Speaking to MEPs, Lord Hill said the EU would have 28 members in 2019
David Cameron has promised voters an in-out referendum in 2017
Tory Eurosceptics are angry that Lord Hill spoke ahead of the crunch vote


Of course
this is correct: for Lord Hill can actually count. Referendum in 2017 (if Dave keeps his word) asnd assuming we vote to bugger off then it takes two years to leave the EU. That takes us to 2019.

What’s so difficult to understand about this?

17 thoughts on “Of course the UK will be in the EU in 2019”

  1. Dave’s got to be re-elected first. Even if the nationalist socialists of the SNP sweep the Scottish rotten boroughs, forming a coalition sufficient for a parliamentary majority will be difficult, to say the least.

  2. Bloke no Longer in Austria

    NO!
    We must leave the day after the vote (whatever the result).
    Purge the Eurocrats, peoples’ tribunals, firing squads and a big ceremony in Wemblley Stadium.

  3. “then it takes two years to leave”

    It can take as long or as short as you and the EU agree it should. The Lisbon Treaty sets out a nominal two year period but you can leave sooner if you want, or agree a longer process giving time to negotiate things carefully if that was a better option.

    Bloke no Longer in Austria,

    Leaving immediately after the vote means having to negotiate a load of crap from a very disadvantaged position. It would be easier to negotiation access to markets and institutions while we still have a foot in the door.

    Perhaps a better solution would be a referendum on leaving followed by negotiations about the exit and then a second referendum on the result of the negotiations. I do not trust our representatives to do a decent job of it if they don’t have any pressure from us during exit negotiations. An exit vote could be easier to win if it was a vote on the principle of exiting rather than a vote on an already prepared plan that the EU could reject.

  4. We’re going nowhere. Even if there were to be a referendum – if – the outcome would be a vote to stay in, probably by about 55-45 nationally. Why am I so certain? Because the silent majority who want to stay in would see it as a matter of national survival and turn out to vote, as they did in the recent Pict poll. Presented with a fundamental change (AV is another example) the electorate will opt for the familiar, even if it is massively imperfect. There have been turning points of course, 1979, 1997, 2010, but those were instances when the electorate felt that things had gone from being massively imperfect to overwhelmingly imperfect. There is no sense, across the whole population, of that happening vis a vis the EU. For most people it is a non-issue, whereas the blazer-wearing, mobility scooter-riding antis are a visible irritant.

    Ukip’s only hope of doing this is a reverse take-over of the Tories, unity on the right and a stonking majority at the 2025 election based on a policy of unilateral withdrawal. A complete non-runner. And all the time, the actuarial grim reaper is harvesting its members.

  5. Redacto

    And all the time, the actuarial grim reaper is harvesting its members.

    People change their voting habits as they get older, so I don’t believe that’s so relevant. More relevant, to support your argument, is likely be the continuing ongoing effects of migration, both in and out.

  6. Bloke no Longer in Austria

    Leaving immediately after the vote means having to negotiate a load of crap from a very disadvantaged position. It would be easier to negotiation access to markets and institutions while we still have a foot in the door.

    This is where the firing squads will come in useful.
    Negotiating while surrounded by men with rifles concentrates the mind wonderfully.

  7. bloke (not) in spain

    For very much my own purposes I’ve been trying to work out what the time line for disentangling UK from Euroaffairs would be, post a ’17 out vote.
    I’m particularly interested in transportable benefits. Expats who depend on things like care allowances where the UK entitlement is payable in other UK countries.
    Anyone any ideas?
    There’s going to be a lot of these sort of things, in all sorts of areas, can’t just be abandoned because the people (& presumably companies) depending on them would suffer severely if they were terminated.
    No doubt all this stuff could be renegotiated following a Brexit vote, but that’s going to take a long time. Even transitional arrangements would have to be agreed. That could all be done in 2 years? Seems unlikely. They’ve taken 40 odd years to create.

  8. Dr Evil

    On the basis that Dave probably isn’t fluent in Spanish (I’m guessing?), and the translation (into Spanish) may not be word perfect, do we know if there is any record at all of what Dave actually said, ie originally in English?

    And no, I’m not looking for the translated English version, ie translated into Spanish and then back into English?

  9. bloke (not) in spain

    @PF
    Why’d you think I shoved the link over to you? You think I’m going to spend an hour?
    I also tried searching the ex-pat papers, but no joy.
    Spanish websites are generally sh*t anyway. It’s a miracle if their links go anywhere.

  10. B(n)iS

    Why’d you think I shoved the link over to you? You think I’m going to spend an hour?

    LOL… no, it was more rhetorical, in that I did spend some time trying to follow that source, and failed miserably!

    Maybe Dave really did say something daft and hence the original has been suitably removed..;)

    I just had a nagging suspicion that it may have been a translation that had “made” the story.

  11. Bloke in Lower Hutt

    Cameron will only hold a referendum if he knows he’ll get the result he wants (a pro-Eu vote). Opinion polls suggest the staying in option would win which neuters UKIP and puts the EU membership issue to bed again for another 40 years. A referendum in 2017 is the worst thing that could happen for UKIP, in my opinion. For them it would be better to wait for a 2:1 majority in the opinion polls in favour of leaving which may be enough for a victory once all the waverering voters and electoral bribery impacts are considered.

  12. Here are a few non-Panglossian scenarios:
    1. The Euro and EU collapse when the Germans refuse to bail out Italy and France.
    2. The EU Commission has another lebensraum moment, tries to recruit Belarus, Russia has sense of humour failure and nukes Brussels.
    3. The nationalist parties in France, Germany, Sweden and the UK all get voted into government and pull the plug.
    4. An Ebola pandemic hits the continent and the UK shuts its borders (yes, I know, v unlikely – the border bit, I mean).
    5. As global cooling starts with a vengeance, Russia doubles energy prices and as its European customers freeze it offers eastern EU nations discounted energy if they join the Russian Confederation.

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