Brexit explained?

[aome]

Could somebody British (or otherwise better informed than I am) explain the Brexit mess to me? I keep reading about how Parliament keeps rejecting deals. But nobody has said what the deals involve and why they're being rejected. If there are no deals, what is the implication? Brexit doesn't happen? It still happens but the EU will refuse to

Comments

[meathiel]

If they don't accept the deal there'll be a "hard" Brexit ... no deal, no tax agreements, no agreements on free move, no nothing ...

[aome]

What do people on the Continent think about it all?

[meathiel]

I was on holiday in the UK when the vote happened and I have to say I was shocked. I couldn't believe it.
I'd still like the UK to remain in the EU and I think that's what most Germans actually would prefer.

[schnoogle]

As best as I can figure out, literally everyone is very confused by it all. Samantha Bee’s show did an explanatory segment a few weeks ago that you might find helpful.

[aome]

I wonder how many Brits are also confused! lol

[jiggery_pokery]

The most recent BBC summary is pretty good

[aome]

Thank you!

Was the initial vote to leave one that was put to the public or just held by Parliament?

[jiggery_pokery]

Public.

Take my abovementioned biases in mind - I won't even pretend to be neutral on the issue - but the referendum was controversial, to say the least. The Leave campaign - or, at the very least, a Leave campaign that was strongly associated with it and associated Leave campaigners - made grandiose claims with (being generous, little or) no basis in reality. The way that Facebook was used by Leave campaigners was not one that we had seen before in British campaigning and has been one of the factors leading to Facebook making considerable pledges about the role it has to play in the way it is used in future EU election campaigns. The finance behind the Leave campaigns is extremely murky; both Leave and Remain campaigns were deliberately limited as to how much money they could spend campaigning, Leave campaigners exceeded that limit and offered the flimsiest and most technical of justifications, have received a mere fine for doing so and recently dropped their appeal against that fine (ignore their claims that they ran out of money,

[aome]

The worst thing is that when it became clear that the Leave campaign had won, it was practically immediately apparent that the Leave campaigners never actually had a plan for what to do if they won.

This is my friend's working theory on Trump, as well. He just wanted to parade around and be important. He didn't actually plan to - or want to - win. And then he did. >_

[siberian_angel]

You're not alone. Everyone is confused, including most of the Brits themselves.
I think people took the Brexit vote back then not serious enough, trusting in other people to do the right thing to stay in. Had more people actually researched the ramifications and then actually put their vote down, things might have gone a different way. If they'd actually re-vote, I'm sure the Brexit would be off the table, entirely - people learned from their mistakes.

What I don't understand is: They want to leave with a deal, right? Then why do they keep rejecting the deals on the table so far? Not good enough? I mean, what could be so wrong about them that they'd rather risk a hard Brexit?

As my office deals with the absentee ballot papers for the upcoming EU elections, it's infuriating not to know which way to plan - including the Brits or not.

[aome]

The deals seem to involve whether to have a hard border between the UK and the EU because most people seem to like the idea of a hard border (passports and the like) between the UK and the Continent, but NOT between UK (which includes Northern Ireland) and Ireland. It's not just because "Oh, we'd like to keep the border between the Irelands more open" but because apparently it might supposedly reignite fighting if the border becomes "hard." So nobody likes any of the deals because there's no tidy way to have their cake (border with the Continent) AND eat it, too (border with Ireland), so all the deals get voted down. At least, that's my impression.