[scottie_m]

It’s not about control, it’s just that they don’t have to extend anything beneficial to the UK at the EU’s expense. Basically the UK wants a divorce, and they’re pissed that they’re not getting what think they deserve. Whatever control issues exist are due to a treaty the UK freely entered into, and choices (like getting married) have predictable consequences. If you decide freely to marry me, then unilaterally decide to divorce me, you wouldn’t be shocked if the result was a compromise between what you wanted in terms of property and rights, and what I wanted right?

Of course the EU is going to push for every inch, and since they don’t even want Brexit that gives them a lot of power. That was (or should have been) obvious from the get-go.

[ineedasername]

Yes, it all should have been obvious. But the Brexiters campaigned for it on the promise that they would secure every benefit of EU membership without having to put up with the perceived downsides, and they did this quite vocally. So now much of the opposition to May's plan come from within her own party which does not want to be seen as having failed to deliver on promises that were never realistic to begin with.

[pergadad]

Not at all. You're thinking in antagonistic terms. The EU wants the closest possible link and alliance - this is not furthered by forcing the other party in a position where they are unhappy. What the EU is concerned with is that the 27 other countries don't suffer excessively due to the UK's bad internal political process.

The EU wants legal certainty and had committed to protect the good Friday agreement. That's why there is a backstop. Talk to anyone in Ireland and they are convinced that violence will break out the moment the border is back up. That's why there is a backstop. Look at what UK politicians publicly say about how they will act - that's why it's enshrined in the withdrawal agreement - to make clear that the UK doesn't hold the rest of the EU hostage.

[accnumnplus1]

Having a veto on whether the UK can leave is control.

[ahje]

The UK, and any other member state, is allowed to leave the EU at any time. There is, however, nothing saying that a country leaving the EU get to keep the advantages of being a member state. Thus, the previous divorce analogy was spot on.

[accnumnplus1]

No-dealers don't want to keep the advantages - they want out.

[ben_w]

I have the impression that no-dealers generally believe that all EU membership benefits can be attributed to things other than the EU, or that they can force the EU to provide all important benefits post-Brexit regardless.

I mean, perhaps there’s someone who wants it so much they’re fine tearing up the residency and employment rights of 10% of the workforce while simultaneously messing up most import and export oriented businesses — tourist, service, industrial, and fishing/agriculture — and that having no further access to medical radioisotopes is a small price to pay for leaving Euratom, and who think it’s great (or at the very least ‘fine’) that the UK has already not only lost 10% of the value of the currency but also had a capital flight of approximately 20% of non-land assets…

But I think most of them hear stuff like that and say “project fear”.

[accnumnplus1]

Your impression is incorrect. No-dealers do not expect EU policies when out of the EU.

[ben_w]

So, are you one of the few people who thinks it’s entirely fine to seriously mess up an enormous part of the UK’s economy? You don’t think, for example, that such a concern is “just project fear, they need us more than we need them and will therefore give the UK a great deal”?

[AnimalMuppet]

They don't. They have a veto on whether the UK can leave on the terms that the UK wants.

[accnumnplus1]

No-deal has no terms, hence no veto. The WA enables a veto.

[ben_w]

No-deal is not the terms the UK wants. If it did, it would’ve already left.

[accnumnplus1]

By UK you mean Theresa May. No-deal is what leavers want. Remain is what remainers want.

[ben_w]

No, I mean the UK.

Theresa May is so tone-deaf she’s made 80-90% of voters think she’s on the opposite team to themselves, where half of the population think that means “Remainer” and half think it means “Leaver”.

Unfortunately, that 10-20% support for her deal means that literally no option has majority support.

No-deal and Remain both independently beat May’s deal in a direct competition.

If you put the question “do you want no deal?” to the population, almost all the supporters of May’d deal say “no”, but if you put the question “do you want to cancel Brexit and remain?” to the population, almost all the supporters of May’d deal say “no”.

If you make it a normal three-way referendum, I’ve seen Leavers complain that would split the vote.

If you make it a three-way vote with single-transferable-vote, you end up with a real-life version of Arrow’s impossibly Theorem, where voter preferences are non-transitive.

[AnimalMuppet]

I don't think that's accurate. The vote was on Leave (with the specifics completely unspecified) vs. Remain.

Within those who favor Leave, no-deal may be what the majority want. That isn't the majority of the country, though. If you said that May's deal and no deal were the only two flavors of Leave available, then I think it would come down to 48% Remain (using the figure from the previous vote), at most 35% for no-deal, and at least 17% for May's deal. Even if the exact numbers are off, there's no way that no-deal has so much support among leavers that it has more total support than remain.

Worse, of those who support something like May's deal, some would prefer remaining to a no-deal exit. So it's unclear, if the only options on the table are specifically a no-deal exit and remaining, that a no-deal exit is what the people want.

That's of the voters. In Parliament... who knows.