The thing about brexit was that the UK was already enjoying a lot of privileges and leeway in regards to their participation in the EU - they didn't participate on the agricultural subsidising fund, they didn't have to covert to Euro, etc, setting them apart and ahead of the other EU countries.

I'm quite positive that the remaining powers of the EU, starting with Germany and France are actually delighted at leveling the playing field and harmonising the EU commitment for the remaining members.

So if the UK wants back in the EU, they will certainly be welcome with the open arms, but without any of the special deals and privileges that UK has enjoyed.

If only for this reason and Brexit was a terrible mistake.

The UK is in the CAP

Maybe the OP was referring to the rebate that the UK had negotiated under Thatcher. This is a special reduction in its contributions to the EU (it was a £4.9 billion reduction in 2015). It was a sweet deal argued principally with regard to the UK receiving less CAP subsidies than France (for example).

There's only two parties - Lib Dems & Greens - which promised a chance to revert Brexit, so I wouldn't expect it to be reversed. A softer Brexit is certainly on the cards though.

This guide [0] from the BBC might help to understand how coalitions are formed. It's currently looking very tricky as the splits are crazy [1].

[0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40209087

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2017/jun...

> A softer Brexit is certainly on the cards though.

The hardness of Brexit does not depend solely on the British government. The EU administration has a huge interest to make Brexit as hard as possible to avoid other member states from feeling the urge to leave.

I'm not sure, I suspect without a big majority May will find it difficult to keep some of the more rabid brexiters in her party under control.

This election was always about the opposition within the Conservative party rather than Labour.

Unlikely to be reversed but it's a big slowdown and uncertainty for the whole Brexit process which was due to start already next week I believe.

But on the bright side (for us in the rest of EU) it's also more likely to result in a "softer" brexit, if the election result is seen as a vote against May's Conservative plan.

That said, whoever replaces May - once she has been eaten by the Tory backbenchers - is likely to have been an original Brexit backer, which May was not. For example Boris Johnson. So it's all very uncertain at this point.

Edit: Was unsure about the exact date of negotiations - they were set to start on june 19th but it's uncertain if it can now.

Someone actually created a throwaway account to deliver a salty (now removed) comment that I should shut up if I didn't know what I was talking about - referring to "I believe.." in my original comment. Otherwise this would "Turn into reddit".

Someone is having a bad morning.

> For example Boris Johnson

Dear lord that would put a ribbon on everything!

I'd imagine the hardcore Conservatives will see BoJo as the only possible "Stop Corbyn" candidate - Amber Rudd is too high risk and not well known enough, even though she did very well in the campaign.

The problem is that, by all accounts, while BoJo might come across as a nice guy by all accounts he'd likely make an awful PM (e.g. read about the chaos that was his last leadership attempt).

He would be an absolutely shambolic PM.

"Idiots love Johnson’s contrived, clownish TV persona, and so will vote for him even if his policies mean they’ll be living under a flyover and cooking rats over a brazier." - Daily Mash http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/br...

The only 'chaos' I recall was trusting Gove, was there something else?

"All Out War" by Tim Shipman has a lot of the details of the post Brexit manoeuvring for power - Boris appeared to be completely disorganised and with a poorly managed team. One particular event described is where Boris probably lost the PM role because he got mixed up about sending a text to tell his team to tweet that Andrea Leadsom was joining the Boris & Gove team. Leadsom backed out after hearing nothing from Boris and announced that she was running on her own behalf and then Grove did the same.

Just out: "May has no intentions of resigning" (!)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/09/theresa-may...

Zebra being eaten by lions "had no intentions of being eaten"

Parliament has already voted yes on Brexit, and formal communication was already sent to the EU. According to Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty the UK now has less than 2 years to negotiate the terms of its exit.

I don't think the process can be reversed but there is certainly a lot of leeway in how it will happen.

I think it can be halted - I've seen a number of high-level EU politicians say that it's possible to stop the process if the UK decides to.

It was this that the Lib Dems were (weakly) campaigning on in the election - to give the people the vote whether to accept the deal or stay in the EU after the negotiations were complete.

It probably can be reversed if the UK wants to. Any amendment needed to make that legally possible would most likely be passed by the EP. Not that it would be easy, mind.

If neither the UK nor the EU desires this break-up, then it won't happen. It all depends on what the UK government does (which realistically speaking probably does not include pulling the emergency brake on the Brexit, unfortunately).

The process could be reversed. All the EU countries would need to agree, but it would be a huge vote of confidence in the EU if Britain changed its mind, so I think that part would be easy.

However, it's unlikely Britain would back out of the decision. I think the best we can hope for is a Norway-like approach (EEA).

The terms can be anything the UK and EU (but that's all of the EU) agrees to, including reentry.

So its reversible, and if there was a change of government that wanted to reverse it I suspect the EU would go along. OTOH, it seems near certain that if a coalition is formed, it will be a Tory-DUP coalition, which won't want to reverse it (the DUP seems to want a softer Brexit, but it's not clear that the EU is interested in that.)

If a government can't be formed.(which doesn't seem implausible), then my understanding is that there is another election in fairly short order.

Quite a few prominent EU figures have said they think it can be reversed quite easily. I imagine it gets harder the more negotiation has actually been done though, because especially if Theresa May takes her attitude to them there'll be increasing numbers of burning bridges behind her.

The EU want us to stay though, so at the moment I think a reversal would be quite painless. In a year's time, maybe not.

Tusk has said A50 can be cancelled. Irrespective of the correct legal interpretation, I think if the UK government wanted out of Brexit, they'd get it. This is still a pretty unlikely scenario, but not impossible.

I'm putting that qualification in because, frankly, no-one knows the answer since it's never been put to a court. Moreover, I don't think it will matter. What will matter is whether or not the political will exists to make it happen.

The UK has a first-past-the-post system designed explicitly to stop coalitions.

For the next few weeks the winning party will negotiate with the other parties and try to create a coalition. If that fails they can either try a minority government or a new election will be called.

This time around a coalition will be hard, the third party (Lib Dems) went into a coalition with the Tories in 2010. It almost destroyed them as a party so they won't do it again.

I think avoiding coalitions was a side effect rather than a design principle: doesn't FPTP predate political parties in the Commons?

> The UK has a first-past-the-post system designed explicitly to stop coalitions.

That's a terrible reason for FPTP. As soon as you have a third party, you run the risk of coalitions.

What's so bad about coalitions anyway? Germany is run by coalitions and it's a world economic power.

Nothing is wrong with coalitions but they are demonised in the UK as weak and unstable. FPTP is an ancient system from before the time of parties and needs to be reformed.

There can be a sense with coalition government that people are removed from the decisions made behind closed doors - politicians trading off with each other.

I don't accept that myself, but it's ecactly what happens to the Liberal Democrats in 2010 - they entered a coalition, agreed to policies that their voter base didn't accept and paid heavily for the sense of betrayal it fostered.

DUP + Tories could manage a minority government given Sinn Fein's refusal to take up their 7 Westminster seats.

I think the voting reflects the general uncertainty about the Brexit process, plus some of the under 30s actually getting out of bed this time...

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2017/06/...

I actually saw queues outside polling stations yesterday.

I'm a bit wary about the idea of a DUP + Tory agreement, because the DUP must know that the Tory position on Brexit is a huge threat to the stability and peace in Northern Ireland, and a hard border with the Irish Republic would be disastrous.

The DUP want a hard border with the Irish Republic. They specifically don't want any special status for Northern Ireland as they're afraid it would bring Ireland and Northern Ireland closer together.

They've said the opposite - do they still behave like they actually do?

Maye the under 30's got out of bed because they saw someone worth voting for (for a change).

Great question! Brexit negotiations are due to start in 11 days yet we do not have a party with a clear mandate (the purpose of the election in the first place). This is an omnishambles given the Brexit clock is already ticking and the UK's position has weakened significantly. The EU must be quaking in its boots regarding the upcoming negotiations!

The BBC has an interesting article on the subject. http://www.bbc.com/news/live/election-2017-40171454

The main thing with Brexit is that the British people had a referendum about it which decided the matter. The elected politicans need to follow that direction. So it's unlikely that it can be reverted without damaging the system of UK democracy.

The lib Dems wanted a second referendum about what it would mean, I think, e.g. soft Vs hard.

So it can't really be reversed but the angle can be changed as that has always been unclear.

It can be changed but it would need to be proceeded by a shift in public opinion.