Too late, people have realised that we're losing a certainty, if a deteriorating one, for a future of uncertainty, instability and certainly of extended austerity. Nothing could have made that clearer than the bottom falling out of the FTSE and the pound. And we're only asking for decades of the same once we've invoked Article 50.
Written down in the Treaty of Lisbon, Article 50 is only ever invoked when a member of the EU wants to call it quits. And it has never, EVER been invoked before. If I've learned anything, nothing good ever comes from this kind of a first time.
Once it's been invoked, Article 50 starts a 2 year count down for trade negotiations to be completed and ratified with national governments, while membership treaties between the UK and the EU will stop having any meaning, but even this is being debated now, with EU leaders demanding that we hit the button now, and the Leave Campaign saying "eh, let's leave it a little while".
What makes me so ashamed is that both Brexit and Bremain have operated under the illusion that 'Fear makes it Clear' - scare the voters into voting how we want them to, hence the whole idea that, whatever we do, the world will end.
Neither side, has made it clear exactly what will happen, or what we stand to lose or gain, and I think that the Remain Campaign is particularly guilty of this.
Why? Well, they never really explained what kind of deal we have - had - with the EU. I don't think many voters will know that, when we joined, we were allowed to refuse to join both the Schengen Agreement, for essentially free and open travel, and the Euro. And it's hard to gauge just how much of a calming influence we were between France, Germany and Italy. Mostly because, set slightly apart by the Dover Channel, we could see it differently, I guess.
And I don't think that I ever once heard Cameron or any other Bremainer warning us that, if we wanted to leave and then rejoin the EU, we'll have to join both Schengen and the Euro - the EU has made both of these a compulsory requirement for new members. Thanks for the heads up, guys!
And on the other hand, Brexiteers can never say for sure how Brexit will actually go. NOBODY else has left the EU, except for Greenland, and they didn't even invoke Article 50; they just slipped out with no muss, no fuss.
I think that the only safe bet is that it'll be really shitty for us for the next few years after invoking Article 50. The pound and the stock markets will take a beating, and no matter how much we save from paying the EU, you can bet your arse that the austerity will begin to bite a bit more.
One thing's for sure: we'll regret leaving practically from the beginning, and if we ever decide to rejoin, we will NEVER have it as good as we did.
Feel the shame, "Great" Britain - you just fucked up your future.
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