[MP-Ryan]

Well, this was unexpected. Reportedly, Farage has said that he "can now speak freely" and that "The real me will come out". I wonder what he means by that.

Curses, you beat me to it.

So, politically speaking for the moment:
-Cameron is toast.
-Johnson is toast.
-Farange is toast.

So the cynical leader of Remain who only called the vote to shore himself up is gone, and the main forces behind Leave decided that they've done enough damage and really didn't have a plan at all so they're jumping too.  The rats all appear to be fleeing HMS Britannia before she sinks from the gaping hole they chewed in her belly.

FFS.

[headdie]

Well, this was unexpected. Reportedly, Farage has said that he "can now speak freely" and that "The real me will come out". I wonder what he means by that.

Curses, you beat me to it.

So, politically speaking for the moment:
-Cameron is toast.
-Johnson is toast.
-Farange is toast.

So the cynical leader of Remain who only called the vote to shore himself up is gone, and the main forces behind Leave decided that they've done enough damage and really didn't have a plan at all so they're jumping too.  The rats all appear to be fleeing HMS Britannia before she sinks from the gaping hole they chewed in her belly.

FFS.

Corbin is playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship with his party to retain the leadership

[Grizzly]

Well, at least the Brexit notion that the UK would be in a favourable position negotiation wise is shattered now isn't it? I mean, why else would the EU ask Britain to get it the hell over with already whilst everyone who was supposed to have an idea on what the Brexit should look like bails out?

[Enioch]

Not getting into the whole 'judging the European politics' versus 'stupidity of national politicians' bruhaha; as an archaeologist and historian I feel we're too involved in all of this (especially as a Greek and EU national) to be objective about those and I don't want to rant.

But even if you start from the premise that the UK had a favourable negotiating position originally, seeing everybody (including those prominent in the Leave campaign) going 'nope, not touching that with a ten foot-pole', certainly hurts that position.

That said, the EUs 'rush' to get the UK out ASAP and the UK stance of dragging their heels gives me flashbacks to the 'delay' policies employed by the Greeks a year or two back. It's interesting to compare the 'We'll be able to negotiate a good deal!' claims by the Leave campaign and the 'They'll be dancing to our tune!' line from the early days of the Tsipras administration. 

[karajorma]

The Leave campaigners don't want to be involved with actually negotiating with the EU so that they can stand on the sidelines and blame someone else when it all goes tits up. It should be one of them in charge. And if none of them are willing, then we shouldn't allow them to get away with it and we just simply shouldn't leave the EU.

[Luis Dias]

False. They never threatened to leave the Euro, let alone the EU. Get your facts straight.

Going back to the drachma was not only on the table but it was an almost certain end result of rejecting the deal given a lack of other options in that situation, nor would have rejecting the deal and then having to go back to their own currency allowed them to gracefully remain in the EU. Everyone knew that rejection would be an almost inevitable cascade to the Greek exit. Brexit as a term owes its existence to the previous use of Grexit. I suppose, in a world of shadowy adherence to absolute statements only when they're convenient and talking about halo effects when they're convenient, you can make this kind of statement.

Don't expect the rest of us to join you.

This is somewhat true and not at the same time. It is true that Grexit was in the air. It's certainly not true that this was a threat *by* the Greek government. On the other way around, it was Europe's threat to Greece. The reason why the Greeks couldn't make that decision was obvious: the return to the Drachma would take them months to set up, and if they announced on day 1 that Grexit was happening, now please wait a few months until we get our Drachmas printed, all the euros in the country would have fled, which would mean that all the troubles the Greeks went through were nothing compared to what it would happen to them. Schauble pointed that "perhaps" Greece could "go temporarily back to the Drachmas". He's either an idiot or a malevolent asshole. He's clearly not an idiot, so guess where I stand here.

What Varoufakis was planning was something risky but didn't entail Grexit from the Euro nor a return to Drachmas. It was something somewhat more complicated involving tax payment assurances and so on.

(Also you weren't listening to the Finance Minister I guess?)

I'm pretty sure I'm not the one who failed to listen to Varoufakis.

You need to get your head out of your ass and stop interpreting the words of others through the lense of some kind of grand left-right struggle, and start thinking about them as the words of individual people with whom you've interacted long enough to know that they probably have some kind of nuance and meaning to them that is unique to that person rather than something that is convenient to your grand ideological cause.

I'm guilty of this, absolutely. Sorry.

In this case, the statement about taking it to the streets is that the streets are not predictable, and cannot be relied upon to back the government. Any attempt to take something to the populace has a risk of backfiring upon the government, regardless of the issue in question and the government's own leanings. The leader of the government in both cases pushed for a vote and campaigned for the losing alternative, leaving themselves high and dry at the end. (Indeed, even Leave has ended up in this boat now.) This has nothing to do with "populism", being "bad", or even "the leftists". You have attempted to cast an observation as old as time as a leftist meme: "Be careful what alternatives you present to another, because they will chose one, and it will not always be the one you desired."

If the purpose of a referendum is for the populace to back the government's decisions, then is it really democratic or is it just a tool for dicatorial tendencies? It's not a true referendum if it can only exist when the chances of it going against the government's wishes are next to nil.

May I pitch in as  a Greek? While the wording of the referendum was something along the lines of 'Should the governemtn accept this deal?', it was made abundantly clear by both government representatives and experts that a rejection of the deal would result in a Grexit. Turns out, the government did not go for the exit after all, but it had been made clear that a Grexit would happen and Grexit had even been used as a threat by the Greeks during the negotiations.Even after the referendum, Varoufakis has been recorded drafting a government 'Plan B' for a Grexit (that would involve illegally hacking into tax databases, but that's neither here nor there for the purposes of this discussion)

"a threat by the greeks". This is a misreading of what happened. They *couldn't* make good on that threat, so they didn't really press on it. This was actually a threat by Schauble and other eurocrats, by the european media who was constantly speaking about "Grexit" as a way to scare off the Greeks into submission. The reason why people think that the Greeks actually made this threat was that Varoufakis famously didn't buckle with this threat with something like "If you want to do it, then do it". The real counter threat that the Greek government had against Grexit was that they could then simply wipe out 1 trillion euros from all the debts to european banks.

It was only after they had won the referendum, that they proceeded to say that 'Brilliant! So you (the people) don't want us to take this deal! We'll now go negotiate another one!' and ended up with a deal that was several billion Euros worse. Because we had no basis on which to negotiate in the first place.

This showcased the high stakes that were being dealt with. Tsipras simply didn't have the stomach to venture into the unknown of doing what the Greeks told them to do. Varoufakis resigned once Tsipras told him they would concede. I can't blame both, it could have well gone into the black hole of ****tiness. Europe as a whole was simply not caring about what happened to the Greeks, as long as the German banks were being paid. And if these morons aren't going to pay to the german banks, then I guess economically nuking their country may as well count as a merciful act. All in all, the whole episode was a farcical tale on how horrible European institutions and governments are behaving towards each other.

[Enioch]

"a threat by the greeks". This is a misreading of what happened. They *couldn't* make good on that threat, so they didn't really press on it. This was actually a threat by Schauble and other eurocrats, by the european media who was constantly speaking about "Grexit" as a way to scare off the Greeks into submission. The reason why people think that the Greeks actually made this threat was that Varoufakis famously didn't buckle with this threat with something like "If you want to do it, then do it". The real counter threat that the Greek government had against Grexit was that they could then simply wipe out 1 trillion euros from all the debts to european banks.

I'm not sure I understand. Do you think the Greek government originally wanted Grexit and then changed their minds when the stakes went up? Or that they didn't want Grexit at all, ever and they used the trillion-euro-threat as a shield?

Because leaving the Eurozone does not absolve you of debt, which was meant to be paid in Euros anyway. No matter how the Greek Government handled the internal economy after a Grexit, they would still need to pay the debts in Euros, or default.

I can't blame both, it could have well gone into the black hole of ****tiness. Europe as a whole was simply not caring about what happened to the Greeks, as long as the German banks were being paid. And if these morons aren't going to pay to the german banks, then I guess economically nuking their country may as well count as a merciful act. All in all, the whole episode was a farcical tale on how horrible European institutions and governments are behaving towards each other.

I can.

Politics includes diplomacy and diplomacy includes forming a realistic view of the situation. Before deciding on policies and your diplomatic stance, you need to honestly assess your counterparts' stance, goals, capabilities and willingness to pursue them and decide accordingly.

If you're taking a vocal anti-European stance, organise a referendum in which there is a clear bias toward 'please reject this proposal' and then decide that escalating the situation is really not a good ida and decide to make a 180-degree turn and renegotiate a deal, you cannot expect the Europeans to give you a good deal. You are criminally incompetent / stupid / inexperienced for even considering it.

For better or worse, the European institutions have both the power and the interest to strong-arm those who would rock the boat. I agree that this is not ideal, but if you're forming a foreign / economic policy, you need to take this into account. It is a fact of EU politics. Either play their game, or draw up a realistic policy of how you can change that game, but don't go in expecting them to be 'decent' or to have your best interests in mind and then feel betrayed when they don't. And ffs, if you rock the boat be ready to end up in the drink.

TL;DR (and this applies to Brexit as well):

• If at any point you (as a government or major political figure) adopt a vocal anti-European stance, get the populace's support for it and then change your mind and decide that leaving the EU is a bad idea, then somewhere, somehow, you have ROYALLY (and nigh-criminally) screwed up. And you're fully to blame for it - because you were in the perfect position to fully discuss / explore / examine the situation before you go all 'EU is BAAAAAD'
• 'EU is BAAAAAD because they don't care for us / because the institutions are royally ****ed up' is something that you should only ever say as a government or as a political figure if you have a concrete plan of how to deal with the situation (either by changing how the EU works or by having a good plan for leaving them), and the political will to go through with it.

Obviously, as a private individual, you can say / think whatever the hell you like.

[Grizzly]

In this case, the statement about taking it to the streets is that the streets are not predictable, and cannot be relied upon to back the government. Any attempt to take something to the populace has a risk of backfiring upon the government, regardless of the issue in question and the government's own leanings. The leader of the government in both cases pushed for a vote and campaigned for the losing alternative, leaving themselves high and dry at the end. (Indeed, even Leave has ended up in this boat now.) This has nothing to do with "populism", being "bad", or even "the leftists". You have attempted to cast an observation as old as time as a leftist meme: "Be careful what alternatives you present to another, because they will chose one, and it will not always be the one you desired."

If the purpose of a referendum is for the populace to back the government's decisions, then is it really democratic or is it just a tool for dicatorial tendencies? It's not a true referendum if it can only exist when the chances of it going against the government's wishes are next to nil.

That's what NGTM-1R is saying: The brexit referendum was not intended to be a true referendum, but rather simply another propaganda campaign for the various people involved. However, it backfired. The message here is that one should never do a referendum that way.

[Luis Dias]

I'm not sure I understand. Do you think the Greek government originally wanted Grexit and then changed their minds when the stakes went up? Or that they didn't want Grexit at all, ever and they used the trillion-euro-threat as a shield?

The second.

Because leaving the Eurozone does not absolve you of debt, which was meant to be paid in Euros anyway. No matter how the Greek Government handled the internal economy after a Grexit, they would still need to pay the debts in Euros, or default.

Yes, the threat was "default". If the germans pressed Greece to go to the precipice of Grexit, then the Greeks could default on their debts. The greek government had, by this point, a budget surplus. This would absolutely wreck the entire german finantial institutions and banks. Lehman Brothers et al would be a walk in the park compared to this.

I can.

Politics includes diplomacy and diplomacy includes forming a realistic view of the situation. Before deciding on policies and your diplomatic stance, you need to honestly assess your counterparts' stance, goals, capabilities and willingness to pursue them and decide accordingly.

This was actually done. Europe failed to do the same. You're merely blaming them not for any of this "realistic view" thing, but simply because they lost. You should be true to yourself.

If you're taking a vocal anti-European stance, organise a referendum in which there is a clear bias toward 'please reject this proposal' and then decide that escalating the situation is really not a good ida and decide to make a 180-degree turn and renegotiate a deal, you cannot expect the Europeans to give you a good deal. You are criminally incompetent / stupid / inexperienced for even considering it.

Yes, I agree with this. The stakes were too high and Tsipras folded. The reason why I'm saying I don't blame him is because the stakes were too high. Can you imagine the horrors that would befall the greeks if he would fail his move from that point on?

For better or worse, the European institutions have both the power and the interest to strong-arm those who would rock the boat. I agree that this is not ideal, but if you're forming a foreign / economic policy, you need to take this into account. It is a fact of EU politics. Either play their game, or draw up a realistic policy of how you can change that game, but don't go in expecting them to be 'decent' or to have your best interests in mind and then feel betrayed when they don't. And ffs, if you rock the boat be ready to end up in the drink.

And what happens when you're in an impossible situation? The problem resides precisely with the fact that Europe is being absolutely irrational with regards to the greek problem. They could have solved the problem in a few months after 2010! This fact alone should make you absolutely mad at Europe. If they insisted that the Greeks have all these cultural problems of their own, then they should force Greece to Grexit all the while helping them to do it. Discreetly print new Drachmas way outside Greece and when a long weekend came, close down every bank and change the currency within the weekend. Give them necessary aid. Restructure their debts. Say bye bye to them. Instead we have all of this unresolved shenanigan. For more than 6 years.

Regarding the "cultural greek problem" all I see is scapegoating all the problems into xenophobic remarks, which is insanely ironic, given how Merkel and co then goes to the telly saying how "bad" all of these anti-immigration people are. These people were directly responsible for the ressurgence of xenophobia within Europe and now are complaining that it is rising in their own ranks? Go **** yourselves, you pathetic little ****s!

• If at any point you (as a government or major political figure) adopt a vocal anti-European stance, get the populace's support for it and then change your mind and decide that leaving the EU is a bad idea, then somewhere, somehow, you have ROYALLY (and nigh-criminally) screwed up. And you're fully to blame for it - because you were in the perfect position to fully discuss / explore / examine the situation before you go all 'EU is BAAAAAD'

Totally agree. Brexit is a typical british dark humour comedy sketch.

• 'EU is BAAAAAD because they don't care for us / because the institutions are royally ****ed up' is something that you should only ever say as a government or as a political figure if you have a concrete plan of how to deal with the situation (either by changing how the EU works or by having a good plan for leaving them), and the political will to go through with it.

Not true. A conversation should start before "plans" are made. Anti-Europe sentiment has never been higher and we can thank Eurocrats handling of Greece for this. Politicians start conversations and debates all the time.