Being an EU member comes with both Rights and Obligations and the objective was to have the former without the latter.
In fact the Referendum was done because the UK wanted to not to have to obbey the Freedom Of Movement rules for EU citizens entering its country (i.e. the Obligation) whilst keeping it for its citizens entering other EU countries (i.e. the Right) and was using the threat of holding a Leave Referendum to try and blackmail the rest of the EU, and the rest of the EU said “No!”
(This was actually just the later of a long series of instances of the British Government using that technique to get from the rest of the EU “exceptions” from the EU treaties, which went all the way back to Thatcher’s time and was how Britain had so many exceptions that nobody else had).
The British Exceptionalism part is that many Britons genuinelly expected they would get that (and also similarly for a lot of other Rights and Obligations, such as being able to import bleached chicken from the US at the same time as having open and uncontrolled access to the Free Market were such food products are forbidden) from the EU as part of the Leave Negotiations.
Agree with most, but I would say the main reason the referendum was held because of domestic politics - Cameron was confident Remain would win, and wanted to shut up UKIP and the Eurosceptic wing of his own party.
They could have just gotten some regular chicken and sold it with a little bottle of bleach attached. They really didn’t have to resort to such dramatic measures. But that’s UK politics I suppose.
Like Marmite, nobody would have stopped them from selling whatever disgusting seasoning they favour on the side. It’s the having it pre-added that’s the problem!
The UK already had that when they were in, but that was apparently not a good enough deal for them.
Being an EU member comes with both Rights and Obligations and the objective was to have the former without the latter.
In fact the Referendum was done because the UK wanted to not to have to obbey the Freedom Of Movement rules for EU citizens entering its country (i.e. the Obligation) whilst keeping it for its citizens entering other EU countries (i.e. the Right) and was using the threat of holding a Leave Referendum to try and blackmail the rest of the EU, and the rest of the EU said “No!”
(This was actually just the later of a long series of instances of the British Government using that technique to get from the rest of the EU “exceptions” from the EU treaties, which went all the way back to Thatcher’s time and was how Britain had so many exceptions that nobody else had).
The British Exceptionalism part is that many Britons genuinelly expected they would get that (and also similarly for a lot of other Rights and Obligations, such as being able to import bleached chicken from the US at the same time as having open and uncontrolled access to the Free Market were such food products are forbidden) from the EU as part of the Leave Negotiations.
Agree with most, but I would say the main reason the referendum was held because of domestic politics - Cameron was confident Remain would win, and wanted to shut up UKIP and the Eurosceptic wing of his own party.
I would say that either without the other would not have ended up in that Referendum being held.
They could have just gotten some regular chicken and sold it with a little bottle of bleach attached. They really didn’t have to resort to such dramatic measures. But that’s UK politics I suppose.
Indeed.
Like Marmite, nobody would have stopped them from selling whatever disgusting seasoning they favour on the side. It’s the having it pre-added that’s the problem!
The UK was never part of the Schengen zone. You could not enter the UK from Europe without a passport.
Yes. The “exception” was that the UK could stay out of the Schengen zone.