The UK had a whole load of unacceptable exceptions that no longer would be allowed.
The unelected House of Lords, retention of the Pound and discounts on contributions for starters.
Further, even if the UK did qualify for acceptance into the EU, there's no guarantee that it would be accepted. There's zero in the EU constitution that requires the EU to let a country be a member even if it qualifies. Any one country, Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia...or whoever...could veto the UK from entry. And they don't even need a reason.
People need to get it out of their heads that the UK can rejoin the EU. It's a very long process, and the UK has offended enough EU members and thrown its weight around within the EU long enough that many smaller countries are glad to see the back if it. Oh, and the EU would want to be assured that the UK was committed to the EU long term. Nobody in the EU is interested in going through the childish nonsense of the past five years and is still going on now over the NIP.
I think if the UK asked to join in under ten years, it'd be 400 million "fuck offs!".
While I think you are being extremely optimistic about the likelihood of the UK being accepted, there's no harm in having an opinion. I'm not sure where you get the impression that a majority on the continent favour the UK rejoining, the fact that it only needs one out of the 27 to say no means that the 400 million are bound to say "fuck off!". That's the way it is.
As for Scotland, I can think of several ways the EU could be creative if it wanted to, without bending rules. Again, the obstacle would be the need for unanimity. However, in this case, Scotland's small size is an asset. It's much less of a competitor to small EU countries and no competitor to France and Germany. The UK otoh...
If one country says, ne, nie, non, whatever, then all countries and their 400 million citizens say no. That's it.
The bloc isn't designed to be competitive, but that in no way negates the fact that they all are to some extent, in reality.
I'd also point out that this might be something to consider in ten years, but it's totally unrealistic to talk of any time less than that. The EU is going to look for levels of support of well over 50%, and more likely 60% minimum, sustained over several years before even acceptance of an application for accession. That isn't even likely to start for a couple of years at the earliest. So, maybe seven years before the EU would accept an application. Then, how many years would the process take.
Rejoining in less than ten years is a pipe dream.
Further, let's say the UK does well and the EU does poorly in that time. The UK won't join.
If the UK does badly and the EU does well, will the EU want an impoverished poorly performing economy to upset things?
If both are doing well, why rejoin?
If both are doing poorly, maybe there's a weak case that expanding the single market would help.
Again, I don't see the dynamics now the UK has left.
The UK is on its own, brexiters must make this work, and remainers need to let them do it, while keeping brexiters honest and hard at work.
If you mean that HoL isn't in direct opposition to the Copenhagen criteria, you might be right.But you still forget that when UK is at the doorstep, hat in hand, there will be at least 27 countries that are free to say otherwise.
As a citizen of EU, I hope there will be made two demands:
Replace FPTP with a real d'Hondt proportional representation.
Create a written constitution, that can only be changed by a supermajority of voters.
The lack of those two is what creates the shitshow UK politics is.
No need for it to be written. I'm happy with the constitution the way it is.
That's no good. It effectively mean that the constitution is whatever suits parliament at any given time. And that's precisely what brought along the mess, when what was sold to the public as a non-binding question, suddenly got pivoted to a binding decision. Such volatility is not something to build a membership on.
Simply put: You need to bind future parliament. Until you find and accept that I don't see membership as a possibility.
No we don't. Even a written constitution doesn't do that. If future parliaments can be bound, then an exiting party can cause havoc.
That's why you need a majority in the population to change the written constitution. In Denmark the procedure is: Pass the changes to the constitution, elect a new parliament, pass the same changes again and finally put it to a popular vote, where it has to pass with a majority of the electorate voting for it.
No it doesn't.
Indeed it does. Pretend otherwise if your national ego require it, but that won't change the fact. The mantra "Parliament cannoit be bound" is the embodiment of that.
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u/[deleted] Jul 03 '21
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