Or you could actually try and read Article 7. It does nowhere state that you can sanction a country without breach of fundamental laws like basic human rights.

And the most you could do with this Article is take the UK's voting rights.

I'm sure the UK can come up with ways to punish the EU into submission without breaching any laws. (5% tax would be legal) Also how about vetoing almost everything. That's a political tool that has shown to be very effective for centuries.

Either way you slice it, if the UK wants access to the market at advantageous terms she will get it. The question is only how much does she want it.

> It does nowhere state that you can sanction a country without breach of fundamental laws like basic human rights.

Actually, "the risk of a breach" is sufficient. And given that the UK openly promotes xenophobia and racist attacks are on the rise and have been since the Referendum...

Do not expect Europe to play fairly when the UK decides to play dirty, e.g. by trying to actively damage EU member states while being an EU member state..

> And the most you could do with this Article is take the UK's voting rights.

Actually, the EU can take it all, including voting rights.

> I'm sure the UK can come up with ways to punish the EU into submission without breaching any laws.

And I am sure the EU can very easily destroy the UK's economy for the next few decades without much effort, should the need arise. All they need to do is to invoke trading sanctions with any non-EU state that trades with the EU. Let's see if China or the US would rather trade with 40-odd million Britons, or 500 Million EU citizens.

> Also how about vetoing almost everything.

Aka. "the trantruming toddler in the supermarket" - it doesn't work.

> if the UK wants access to the market at advantageous terms she will get it. The question is only how much does she want it.

I agree - and it will cost the UK dearly. After fourty years of special deals with London, the EU is fed up.

You seem a resentful, agitated and vengeful as some of your statements border on the insane. ("UK openly promotes xenophobia" -> ????)

I doubt it makes sense for me to engage in a discussion with you.

> border on the insane. ("UK openly promotes xenophobia"

Yeah, remember this News, where the UK government essentially encouraged those damn pesky foreigners to Keep their trap shut?

> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37590044

I agree, that's pretty insane - and it is rather xenophobic, if not encouraging xenophobia.

"The university said the leader of a project had been told only UK passport-holders should be involved in talks on national security and foreign trade."

Well, it states it is a national security / foreign trade issue which I feel is accurate regarding Brexit. I don't view it as racist to not allow foreigners to influence the government on national security issues since the UK is a sovereign country that has interests which clearly conflict with the interests of many EU countries.

Most Western countries have laws to prevent that from happening, including the US. (even accepting foreign donations for election campaigns is limited or forbidden in some cases)

One of the characteristics of an emerging protofascist society is that suddenly people are being disenfranchised because of the blanket reason of "national security".

Another characteristic, by the way, is the thought of forcing neighbors to appease the country by means of economic or military force.

History shows us that these things usually don't work out too well.