If the best thing you can say about the EU membership is there were lots of exceptions, that is an argument for leaving, not staying.
In reality the exceptions were mostly a work of fiction. For example, the UK was originally assured that the human rights principles they'd originally proposed as a vague set of aspirations would never be made into law, because they weren't suited to be law. Then the EU did that anyway, so the UK got a "carve out" written into the treaties, and it was reported as such to the public. Then the ECJ ruled that it wasn't allowed to have such a carveout and would have to enforce ECHR and ECJ rulings on human rights anyway.
In other words: people were lied to. There was no carveout, not even when every country signed a treaty that spelled out one clear as day. This is how the EU rolls.
>>If the best thing you can say about the EU membership is there were lots of exceptions, that is an argument for leaving, not staying.
Having the best deal out of all members states in a union is a reason to leave that union? Are you even listening to what you say, or do you just say it so quickly it doesn't process? If you negotiate with your employer to have the best working conditions of everyone at your company, according to you that's the reason to leave - why? You tell me.
>>For example, the UK was originally assured that the human rights principles they'd originally proposed as a vague set of aspirations would never be made into law, because they weren't suited to be law.
Can you give a specific example of a human right principle that wasn't suited to be a law please?
The UK "didn't have much" of all the things it didn't want. But plenty of the things it did want. That is a great deal, Trump would be proud. Plenty of Brits too dumb to understand that though.
The UK didn't want unlimited immigration from the EU, and the EU refused to even consider the possibility of an exception, so the UK left.
It's not complicated, it's old history, and the fact that people are still describing this as "brits dumb hurhur" is racist and abusive. The idea that it could have got an exception, by the way, is yet more federalist lying. Cameron did a tour around Europe directly visiting member states, begging them to grant such an exception, and they refused. He returned with his "deal", presented it to the country and never mentioned it again during his campaign because it was an insult to the concerns of the voters.
>>The UK didn't want unlimited immigration from the EU,
It was never unlimited and it's yet another lie peddled by Farage and the Brexit campaign.
UK could have always at the very least enforced the basic of the EU free movement principles in terms of limitations - namely that anyone without a job or means to provide for themselves for over 3 months can be kicked out. That would have solved most of the discontent around the issue. Similarily, UK not being in the schoengen zone could have interviewed everyone arriving from the EU - why are they coming here, do they have funds, do they have a job and turn around people it suspected are coming for benefits etc. It chose not to do that. It was entirely legal at the time and it could have been done. But instead politicians lied about UK being "forced" to accept unlimited immigration, which was never true.
It's not even about exceptions - it could have just used the existing laws that were there.
>>Cameron did a tour around Europe directly visiting member states, begging them to grant such an exception
You and I have a very different understanding of how that visit worked.
>> it was an insult to the concerns of the voters.
It's just really funny to me how after Brexit yes, migration from EU has gone down but it was replaced entirely by migration from former British Empire instead. So I'm not sure if the "concerns of voters" was really respected here either way.
The concerns of voters were absolutely not respected, you are completely right about that. The political class is completely bought into mass migration being a moral good, which is why getting it under control requires a complete replacement of that political class.
There were lots of things the UK could have done in theory which wouldn't have had any impact in reality. You can interview people and ask, do you have funds? Do you have a job? They say yes and go in, that's the end of it. There isn't a way under EU law to just say no there are too many people already, you can't come.
>>You can interview people and ask, do you have funds? Do you have a job? They say yes and go in, that's the end of it.
How do you think this works now then? Or how it worked with non-EU people before Brexit? You asked them and they had to provide proof. If they couldn't they were turned around. It's not rocket science.
>>There isn't a way under EU law to just say no there are too many people already, you can't come.
And again, the existing legal ways of removing EU immigrants would have helped with that, but it was easier to take the entire country of the EU than just use them.
>>The political class is completely bought into mass migration being a moral good
Which political class? Tories which have been in power for forever? the same Tories who ran the "hostile environment" company against immigrants? Or Labour, which is now making it much harder and more expensive to both get in and stay in this country legally?
The best part of Brexit is that the EU protected us from the worst of destitute economic migrants. The southern EU countries were dealing with most of them, we just had to give them some cash to help. France also was more willing to deal with them for us.
We got internal migration from other EU countries (eastern Europe, Spain, Italy mostly) with much higher living standards. EU migrants are much more likely to return to their home countries after a period saving some cash and practising English.
But even that was too much for the poor old Brits.
Now we have people from African war zones and Indian villages and they are NEVER going back voluntarily. France isn't bothered any more because we behaved like spoiled children during Brexit, they wave them off on the Normandy beaches.
After burning bridges with Europe the only solution for the illegals is to go full Nazi and sink their boats in the channel like Farage wants to. Even if he somehow became PM I don't see that happening.
Anyway, legal migration is by far the biggest source, and those are mostly Indian villagers that are happy to have an inside toilet and not be fried by 40c+ heat most of the year. They are here forever too. BTW, a lot of Indians in the UK at the time were really happy about Brexit, i wonder why...
The EU had many things that didn't benefit the UK, which happens when you don't share a mainland with the rest of Europe. e.g. Schengen area didn't make as much sense for UK,
The UK got to not adopt the euro, but then it's currency was particularly strong in the first place. The Rebate is usually what is spin as the great advantage given to the UK, but was mostly justified by the fact that the UK didn't benefit as much from agricultural subsidies.
The Schengen area is only loosely connected to the EU. Not all EU member states are in the Schengen area, and not all Schengen area member states are in the EU.
Mostly just for geographical reasons, no? If you have a free travel area covering a large swathe of continental Europe then it's inevitably going to include mostly EU member states. AFAIK there has never been any substantial objection to Ireland and (formerly) the UK opting out of Schengen, which obviously wouldn't make sense for those countries given where they're located.
And not only that, but within the EU it is no secret that the UK had the very best seat at the table.
The UK had so many carve-outs and exemptions, far more than any other member.