Brexshit Blunderland

[the flying pig]

yeah, things are very, very seriously ****'ed up.

the referendum made no sense and still makes no sense.

really the tories should have set their stall out really comprehensively in the build up to the 2015 election:

(a) in the event of a tory win there'd be a yes or no referendum on whether or not we should negotiate an exit;
(b) tory members would vote i suppose before the election on a brexiteer who would lead all campaigning for leave [campaigning would set out a very clear vision for the form of brexit we'd pursue], be personally accountable for the campaign's promises, and would be made PM [or be given some other role with absolute power over brexit negotiations] in the event of a yes vote.

what we have is just bollocks. a remainer PM unable to deliver a sensible brexit, the decision to leave having been won on the back of a mountain of unkeepable promises spewed out by people who were totally unaccountable.

[jackos]

I'm not a brexiteer Musta. Just pointing out that the UK bailed out other EU countries. That is all.

ROI isn't "another EU Country though", the UK bailed them out because of the economic & cultural ties between the two countries which go far beyond beyond the relationships between most EU countries, it had bugger all to do with the EU. I am pretty sure Norway would bail out Sweden if we ended up in a similar situation because their oil fund owns something ridiculous like 50% of the Swedish stock market.

[Andymac-47]

I'm not a brexiteer Musta. Just pointing out that the UK bailed out other EU countries. That is all.

ROI isn't "another EU Country though", the UK bailed them out because of the economic & cultural ties between the two countries which go far beyond beyond the relationships between most EU countries, it had bugger all to do with the EU. I am pretty sure Norway would bail out Sweden if we ended up in a similar situation because their oil fund owns something ridiculous like 50% of the Swedish stock market.

You both are thinking about this far more than I am. I'll say it again the UK gave the ROI a bailout. In my statement i have no hidden agenda.
Are you sure about the EU, as I believe that the EU contributed s lot more to the bailout than the what the UK did at that particular time.

[jackos]

I am no expert but I thought that we gave bail out money to both Ireland & Portugal?

The Eurogroup bailed out Portugal. I guess the UK might have helped out in some small way via the ECB, but most of the money came from the Eurogroup. Sweden didn't participate massively either. That's why the UK and Sweden were applauding themselves for not joining the EURO.

Suppose you could also say that Spain bailed out the UK banking sector since Santander now seem to have acquired half the old UK building societies.

[jackos]

You both are thinking about this far more than I am. I'll say it again the UK gave the ROI a bailout. In my statement i have no hidden agenda.
Are you sure about the EU, as I believe that the EU contributed s lot more to the bailout than the what the UK did at that particular time.

Oh I know that. I'm just giving my tuppence. Sweden is one of the biggest contributors to the EU budget per capita (third after NL and DE) but didn't contribute the the bailout - other than possibly indirectly and in a minor way via the EU budget. The Eurogroup financed the bailouts of Portugal and Greece, and most of money came from DE.

[Arnieb]

yeah, things are very, very seriously ****'ed up.

the referendum made no sense and still makes no sense.

really the tories should have set their stall out really comprehensively in the build up to the 2015 election:

(a) in the event of a tory win there'd be a yes or no referendum on whether or not we should negotiate an exit;
(b) tory members would vote i suppose before the election on a brexiteer who would lead all campaigning for leave [campaigning would set out a very clear vision for the form of brexit we'd pursue], be personally accountable for the campaign's promises, and would be made PM [or be given some other role with absolute power over brexit negotiations] in the event of a yes vote.

what we have is just bollocks. a remainer PM unable to deliver a sensible brexit, the decision to leave having been won on the back of a mountain of unkeepable promises spewed out by people who were totally unaccountable.

Agree with this. Before the ref every politician should have agreed who would be PM if leave won. This person would then be responsible for negiotating a deal and presenting it back to the people in a 2nd ref. This lack of even fag packet level planning is crippling us now.

This approach would have focused attention on what the leader said in the campaign. The leader would have known that whatever they said would need to be deliverable and coherent.

Where we are now is that I think we will just revoke A50.

[dirty leeds]

The EU would be foolish not to grant us a delay, if we ask for it.

[the flying pig]

yeah, things are very, very seriously ****'ed up.

the referendum made no sense and still makes no sense.

really the tories should have set their stall out really comprehensively in the build up to the 2015 election:

(a) in the event of a tory win there'd be a yes or no referendum on whether or not we should negotiate an exit;
(b) tory members would vote i suppose before the election on a brexiteer who would lead all campaigning for leave [campaigning would set out a very clear vision for the form of brexit we'd pursue], be personally accountable for the campaign's promises, and would be made PM [or be given some other role with absolute power over brexit negotiations] in the event of a yes vote.

what we have is just bollocks. a remainer PM unable to deliver a sensible brexit, the decision to leave having been won on the back of a mountain of unkeepable promises spewed out by people who were totally unaccountable.

Agree with this. Before the ref every politician should have agreed who would be PM if leave won. This person would then be responsible for negiotating a deal and presenting it back to the people in a 2nd ref. This lack of even fag packet level planning is crippling us now.

This approach would have focused attention on what the leader said in the campaign. The leader would have known that whatever they said would need to be deliverable and coherent.

Where we are now is that I think we will just revoke A50.

Just staying probably would be the least bad thing but it'll still be alomst unfathomably awful, will leave a very large number of people seriously disenfranchised [e.g. never voting again]. but it'd, of course, be a nonsense to argue that they'd end up any happier, any more enfranchised, post brexit, once the full uselessnes of it became apparent to all. the electorate's expectations have not been well managed.

[jackos]

The EU would be foolish not to grant us a delay, if we ask for it.

Depends on why the UK asks for a delay surely? In the last two years May hasn't even attempted to reach a consensus in the UK parliament, she hasn't listened to her critic's and hasn't listened to the EU. She has spend two years repeating the same mantra. I was amazed last night when she said, "Parliament has told us what they don't want, now they have to tell us what they do want". Its same thing the EU has been telling her for 18 months. "Westminster needs to decide what it wants'

[eric olthwaite]

NB: this may be useful

[Terre Harte]

While I disagree with it, I can at least grasp the idea that "Brexit was decided" by the original referendum. Were I a Brexit supporter? I'm sure that's how I'd feel.

On the other hand, a much more compelling hand, the consequences of a hard Brexit are imminent. The situation on the ground has changed since 2016, when Brexit was more of a populist rallying cry than a real problem to hash out. So I think holding on to the result of the 2016 referendum is, at best, misplaced pedantic thinking, and at worst, suicidal.

It's like voting for driving over a river five miles from the river, then as you approach the river and see the bridge is out, motoring on anyway because you voted for driving over the river. It's a complete dereliction of common sense.

I feel like people who feel that way are like Alec Guinness's character from "Bridge On The River Kwai". Through stubbornness and misplaced loyalty to a system, they're courting disaster, a disaster that seems less important than honoring a two-and-a-half-year-old vote? Moronic.

Plus, saying "Brexit was decided" and that vote counts in perpetuity is ludicrous in a democratic system if you think about it. By that logic, every election that changes power or changes a law is null and void because the previous result "was what was decided". I eagerly await the Whig Party to claim their mantle of leadership after winning the 1715 election. After all, it "was decided".

[Vampire]

As expected, the meaningless vote has been lost. What now?

No deal is still the default position and could occur due to collective incompetence - especially if the EU plays hard ball on the date - but I still think it unlikely given the desire to prevent it among the overwhelming majority of Parliamentarians (not to mention the EU - the deterrent effect on other states tempted to leave won't be lost on them). Possibly 20-25% chance from here?

General election? Can't see Turkeys voting for Xmas or the DUP giving a pro Sinn Fein Opposition Leader a sniff of power. In any case it just kicks the can down the road - the real options will eventually resurface. Similarly any extension or revocation of article 50, though not unlikely, also kicks the can down the road.

A second referendum (probably leading to no Brexit) has some momentum. The peoples’ vote is backed by the overwhelming majority of Labour members and all the other main opposition parties. It also has support from a number of Conservatives and more could be persuaded especially as the clock ticks down to "no deal" - and they can easily justify the move by saying "it’s not my preferred option but we can only break the deadlock by asking the public." As a lifelong Eurosceptic, however, Corbyn is using his position to thwart the will of his Party. That so called "compromise conference motion" commits him to nothing and he's still saying that even if there was a GE he'd prefer Labour to contest it on a pro Brexit platform. In claiming he could negotiate a better "cake and eat it" deal than May he is as deluded (or cynical) as Johnson and Rees Mogg.

What I do find really interesting in the Labour dynamic is the way anti Brexit Corbynites are still in denial about their dear leader's Euroscepticism - still making excuses for him - some even justifying his position as being tactical rather than ideological. Even if this were true, it misses the obvious irony of him putting electoral expediency above principle after so vehemently criticising Tony Blair for years for doing precisely that! But the truth is Corbyn's position isn't tactical at all - it is ideological – as he made clear yet again just recently when criticising EU restrictions on state aid to industry.

So, that leaves the option of some sort of amendment to May’s plan. This could be a softer Brexit through moderate MPs on both sides pushing for some sort of Norway type option, or a more cosmetic amendment to May’s plan allowing both her and her critics to save face. Possibly 30-35% chance?

So, my personal opinion (apologies to the xenophobes on here who think a foreigner shouldn't comment on UK politics) is:

Softer Brexit or amended/fudged version of May’s plan – 30-35%
2nd referendum – likely outcome no Brexit - 25-30%
no deal (with or without 2nd referendum) - 20-25%
other/fuck knows 15-20%

I do also think, however, that the key to the first of those two is (as I have always thought) dependent on whether Labour Party members can find a way of prevailing upon their Eurosceptic leader. Again, apologies to anti Brexit Corbynites on here who think "Corbyn" should be a censored word on this thread and all the fire should be on the Conservatives - but I've always thought - given the divided Government and deadlock across a hung Parliament - the position of the Opposition Leadership is critical. Despite Corbyn's obvious Euroscepticism, it is possible he could find himself backed against the wall by his own membership - which is why I still see 2nd referendum a close second in the options.

Yes Corbyn is anti EU and always has been, but focussing on that is akin to FLDC focussing on a bloke with binoculars outside the training ground instead of the fact that Bielsa schooled him twice and were lucky to get away with a 6-1 test ting.
It's pointless distraction.

You keep repeating this assertion but I’ve now put this question to you twice without response.

[the flying pig]

a silly thing is that the tories' manifesto which promised a referendum in the event of a win only bagged them 37% of the votes in the 2015 election.

[Vampire]

The problems with the second referendum as I see it are these.....

Option 2: all options.
- No deal
- May's deal or a version thereof / EFTA type set-up
- Remain

Brexiteers will object in principle; Remain's a shoo-in here because of the split Leave vote.

It’s a fair vote if the winner needs 50% once 2nd preferences are included from the eliminated 3rd place option. There’s no legitimate objection in principle to that.

[jackos]

Head of the body representing German industry has just said they do not support and extension. They need to know what they are dealing with and cannot continue with the uncertainty they have had for the past two years.

Sounds about right to me. Just get it done so everyone can get on with their day job.

[Vampire]

What about the option where a second referendum is held and the people reinforce the original vote to leave? Back to square one?

Then you leave - but this time (unlike the first referendum) you know the terms of the leave you’re voting for (no deal, May’s deal, or whatever). People know what they’re voting for.

You’re not voting for an ill defined concept where people wanting different things vote the same way and then can’t agree afterwards - one of the mistakes of the first referendum.

[eric olthwaite]

I think the New Statesman morning email is often quite useful. Copying this one, just because the title is memetastic and made me chuckle:

No Confidence Is A Preference For The May-Critical Voyeur Of What Is Known As...

Good morning. Nothing has changed. MPs gave Westminster its long-awaited moment of catharsis last night, voting to reject the Brexit deal negotiated by Theresa May by 432 votes to 202 in the largest parliamentary defeat in more than a century. The prime minister faces a vote of no confidence in her government tonight, but is going nowhere. So what now?

It's a measure of just how unprecedented the situation before us is that the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, which for months has functioned as May's straitjacket, is now her lifebelt. Despite the lopsided scale of last night's defeat, she can count on the support of the DUP and the Brexiteers on the Conservative benches. Jeremy Corbyn's chances of success are effectively nil, as those close to him well know. Tonight's result will merely affirm last night's: the Commons is content to keep May in office but is nowhere near a consensus on how it might allow her to exercise it as far as Brexit is concerned.

Can the prime minister broker one? The short answer appears to be no. For about five seconds at the despatch box last night, it appeared that May might snap out of a lifetime of partisan truculence and attempt to come to some sort of accord with Labour. It soon became clear, however, that the "senior parliamentarians" she has pledged to meet do not include Jeremy Corbyn, and the offer she is currently willing to make will not include the big things that Labour MPs and the trades unions want, namely a permanent customs union with the EU.

That Downing Street were briefing that within minutes of the defeat - and Cabinet ministers spinning the same line on the airwaves - suggests that in the short term they might struggle to convince many more members of the opposition than the three who voted for the withdrawal agreement last night. Something, most likely May's attachment to an independent trade policy after Brexit, is going to have to give. Her spokesman insists it is a "principle" rather than an immovable red line. But for reasons of internal party management, it will be difficult for the prime minister to be the one who gives it up.

Nor, despite the increasingly forlorn hopes of pro-Europeans on the Labour benches, will Jeremy Corbyn drop his opposition to a second referendum once tonight's confidence vote is lost. The message from his allies in public and private is that Labour intends to push its confidence vote again, again, again and again in the hope of peeling off the DUP and Tory Leavers, and failing that - as is likely - force a Brexit it can live with through the Commons somehow. The Labour leadership's reluctance to be blamed for stopping Brexit - shared by many of its MPs - increases the chances of some sort of deal, probably with a radically revised political declaration, passing the Commons.

But how either May or Corbyn arrives at that point without a fatal rupture within either of their parties or electoral coalitions is still unclear. Barring the EU27 agreeing to gut the withdrawal agreement, at least one key constituency in the Commons - either party leadership, advocates for a Norway-style deal, advocates for a second referendum, the DUP, hard Brexiteers - will have to decide to act against its obvious political interests if the UK is to leave the EU with a deal on March 29. Until that happens, MPs and the rest of us are merely trapped in a new holding pattern. Meanwhile, the Article 50 clock rattles heedlessly on. If MPs aren't willing to endure the sort of political pain they have hitherto avoided for the sake of stopping a no-deal, they face a simple choice: run out of time, or give themselves more.

Round and round and round and . . .

[Mustafaster]

Say again Vamps, for the last time.
No, Corbyn's position is of vanishingly small importance.
There's no clear majority amongst Labour voters for anything.
The labour party is as split as the Tories, but the split isn't as toxic for Labour.
May can't put her bill through, that is not because of Labour opposition, it's because she can't command a majority in her own party, the party that is in government with the backing of some nutters from NI.
The absolute best that Corbyn can do is put forward a VONC which he will lose.
The big issue here is the Tories, who are in government, not the opposition.
The labour party will never be united over Europe, whoever the leader is.
I'm not a labour supporter, but it makes no sense to distract from what's really happening by concentrating on a sideshow.
Look! A squirrel!

[Devi]

This is quite a tidy graphic

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... &smtyp=cur

[eric olthwaite]

Just staying probably would be the least bad thing but it'll still be alomst unfathomably awful, will leave a very large number of people seriously disenfranchised [e.g. never voting again]. but it'd, of course, be a nonsense to argue that they'd end up any happier, any more franchised, post brexit, once the full uselessnes of it became apparent to all. the electorate's expectations have not been well managed.

This is spot on. It's time all our politicians realised that there is no good way out of this now; not one. It's time for everyone to be honest about what can never possibly get beyond a damage limitation exercise.