Although I was a strong Remain supporter I could have accepted a sensible Leave proposal that didn't hurt EU citizens in the UK or UK citizens elsewhere in Europe, and which also protected employment and workers' (and others') rights.
What made that intolerable was May's immediate bowing to the hardest Brexit position backed up by half-witted slogans (Brexit means Brexit and A Red, White and Blue Brexit) and the idle incompetence of clowns like David Davies. And who but an idiot could have put Boris into one of the Great Offices of State? (Incidentally I see from today's news that Johnson claims to know more about the motor manufacturing business than the boss of Jaguar Land Rover).
May has been driven throughout her career by her gut loathing of all foreigners, especially brown-skinned ones, and has shown that she's actually incapable of telling the truth on any subject whatever. She is a lying, incompetent waste of space, and I'm hoping that she is spectacularly humilated in tonight's vote.
Though no doubt she'll tell us afterwards that Nothing Has Changed and keep bashing her silly head against the same brick wall. What was that definition of insanity again?
Again, I was and remain Remain, but would frankly take the arm off anyone who was offering a Norway-style agreement.
May has, for two years, pandered only to the far right, both in her own party and in the wider country, while completely ignoring the 48% who she clearly needed on board to make a compromise work.
She fucked up, and it's entirely her own fault. No sympathy for her, or her pig-fucking predecessor. She stacked the cordwood, poured the petrol on, and is now daring us to light a match.
'So passes Denethor, son of Ecthelion,' said Gandalf. 'And so pass also the days of Gondor... for good or evil they are ended.'
I voted remain, but I didn't believe the referendum once held - however flawed the execution - could be ignored.
I'd support a vote of no confidence and a Labour government, essentially because I believe their redlines are different from May's and that changes the calcus in negotiations with the EU; I do think they could get an A50 extension and a less damaging deal. I believe that because I think their position is informed by their contacts with socialist parties across Europe, and because they won't be asking Europe to divide the four freedoms.
It will still be a worse relationship with Europe than the EU, but better than what the Tories are seeking from the point of view of a remainer. And given the close result of the referendum I think a 'soft' brexit better represents bringing people together and reflecting the views of the whole country, than going to one extreme or the other.
Thinking about it, I'm not sure that the referendum result should be adhered to, since we now know that it was obtained with the help of outright fraud and illegal spending.
Better to defend democracy by rerunning it legally after we've jailed the crooks responsible. All of them.
At the moment, Treeza and her jolly crew of incompetents aren't that far from aiding and abetting a criminal offence.
Yes, and if they'd bitten the bullet in June and accepted that (the illegality of the Leave campaign) then, we would have had a very good reason for rerunning the referendum. But now we are up against the buffers of the self-enforced deadline.
And what do we do if the people's vote still comes back "leave"? Because it is highly possible it will.
Yes, and if they'd bitten the bullet in June and accepted that (the illegality of the Leave campaign) then, we would have had a very good reason for rerunning the referendum. But now we are up against the buffers of the self-enforced deadline.
And what do we do if the people's vote still comes back "leave"? Because it is highly possible it will.
Oh FFS, democracy has never held sway. After King John the burgesses took over, then the landowners, then businesses and trade and now speculators and oil barons have it.
We get to vote every few years but our representatives and those they appoint don't actually have much power.
I voted remain, but I didn't believe the referendum once held - however flawed the execution - could be ignored.
There is a big space between ignoring the referendum and the decision of the government that the referendum result meant there was massive support in the country for a particular form of Brexit. One obvious piece of middle ground would be a recognition that remaining in the EU is not universally popular, and for parties to spend the time needed to formulate options for leaving (or, reasons to remain) that could form part of their manifesto for us to vote on at the 2020 general election, and then if a party is elected with a decent majority then they can try to enact their vision for Brexit. That would respect the result, because you would then not be in the situation where all major parties oppose leaving the EU (which was the status in 2015) when a large portion of the population want to leave.
This shitshow of a government and its shitshow of a leader are a disgrace and an embarassment. Kindly piss of the lot of you to the sewer end of fuckland.
And it is time we moved to being a democratic nation. I wonder what that would be like.
May should resign. She clearly has no means of getting a deal - her deal - through parliament. If she cannot deal with Brexit - which her fucking predecessor forced and made the only important thing to do* - she need to give it all up. As well as the rest of her fucking useless government.
*To be fair, she and her government have found the time to fuck up a lot of other things in the meantime.
We need, not an Election which will waste time and deliver no decisive result, but a Government of National Unity. My ideal person to lead it would be Kier Starmer but that's unlikely unless HMQ personally intervenes. Second choice would be Vince Cable.
May postponing the vote looks even more stupid now. It proves once again that if you try and force a body of voters into a corner to achieve your own ends they will react badly.
Previous PMs have gone through no confidence votes and survived. I don’t know that the Tories would vote down the government. I am pro a second vote but we really do need sound choices. Is any replacement for May going to give that?
The biggest idiots in all of this continue to be the judges who ruled that Parliament had to approve the exit deal with the EU.
I remain of the view that the ruling was fundamentally flawed in legal principle and it's also idiotic in practice. Because guess what? If Parliament doesn't approve the deal, Brexit still happens. It just happens without any kind of UK-EU agreement to soften the departure.
Everyone keeps blaming various players in the political game instead of the nincompoops who fucked up the rules. Or possibly the idiots who went to court in the first place believing that this was a way of preventing Brexit from happening.
May was dead right when she said the 'No' vote doesn't tell you anything about what the House of Reps actually wants. Some naysayers want a different deal, some want hard Brexit, and some want to remain. None of this is her fault in my view. She's been handed a completely impossible situation.
And hi everybody. This topic made me mad enough to return to the Ship. You're welcome.
And I don't know what the fuck a second referendum is going to achieve.
If it's a leave/remain question, either it's going to confirm the first vote without resolving the details of an EU deal or it's going to make a lot of Brexit supporters extremely angry that the first answer wasn't accepted.
If it's a vote on a particular deal with the EU, where does a 'No' result leave you? It's exactly the same mess as in Parliament. You'll have Brexiteers voting 'No' because they don't like the deal and people who want to Remain voting 'No' because they think this will stop everything in its tracks.
Meanwhile you've got the EU, sitting on one side of the actual legal relationship involved here, wondering why the fuck it doesn't just get to deal with the UK government. Actually, it DOES get to deal with the UK government. That's who's been negotiating a treaty.
But it's a UK government that's being harangued by the UK Parliament and the UK courts, and now some want to throw the UK general populace back into the fray again... because they think that's going to clear things up?
Oh Lordy. It's about time people learned a bit more about the difference between how representative government and international relations actually work and the kinds of populist notions of "democracy" that have been fuelled by social media, which makes everyone believe not only that they have a say but that they can do so constantly. Which just achieves paralysis, apart from the occasional moments when the populace can band together to express their moral outrage at some wrongdoer.
I voted remain, but I didn't believe the referendum once held - however flawed the execution - could be ignored.
There is a big space between ignoring the referendum and the decision of the government that the referendum result meant there was massive support in the country for a particular form of Brexit. One obvious piece of middle ground would be a recognition that remaining in the EU is not universally popular, and for parties to spend the time needed to formulate options for leaving (or, reasons to remain) that could form part of their manifesto for us to vote on at the 2020 general election, and then if a party is elected with a decent majority then they can try to enact their vision for Brexit. That would respect the result, because you would then not be in the situation where all major parties oppose leaving the EU (which was the status in 2015) when a large portion of the population want to leave.
Which part of this dream actually involves the EU agreeing to wait?
Or agreeing to implement whichever "vision for Brexit" wins? The EU just gives the successful UK party whatever it wants, eh?
People are so UK-centred that they completely forget this is about agreements between the UK and an entire other organisation which won't be participating in the vote you're talking about, and doesn't have to say yes to whatever the UK asks for. There have in fact been LONG negotiations where I'm sure the UK side had to accept compromises.
But now you basically want one side of the table to sit there, sipping its water and playing with its mobile phone, while the other side asks if it can have yet more time to get its shit together in the corner. And then you think that when the side that has fucked up returns to the table, it wins a prize for having managed to coordinate itself just long enough to sit down.
You're talking about the wrong "middle ground" entirely, sitting somewhere inside the deranged psyche of one party to the talks.
Some of us have been yelling similar things for a while. Personally I think Theresa's red lines and Cameron's stupid idea for a referendum in the first place are pretty culpable too.
I think May's worst misdeed, by quite some way, is putting off the vote; otherwise I agree with @orfeo's assessment of her.
Ah-hahahaha
No. Her worst misdeed by some considerable distance was expressing her hatred of foreigners - as a proxy for her blatant racism against anyone who isn't white and middle class - as public policy. And then imagining that others would cooperate with her wish to enshrine this in an international trade agreement.
I think May's worst misdeed, by quite some way, is putting off the vote; otherwise I agree with @orfeo's assessment of her.
Ah-hahahaha
No. Her worst misdeed by some considerable distance was expressing her hatred of foreigners - as a proxy for her blatant racism against anyone who isn't white and middle class - as public policy. And then imagining that others would cooperate with her wish to enshrine this in an international trade agreement.
And promoting Brexiteer after Brexiteer to strut around, doing nothing with maximum pomposity. My only disagreement with mr cheesy is that I have a sneaking suspicion that she has used the smokescreen of Brexit to destroy our civil society and its supports for those who are not doing well financially. It is a conscious, despicable policy.
She has mishandled everything because she believed herself invulnerable, having a divine mandate for her every action and inaction. She deserves no sympathy whatsoever.
I think May's worst misdeed, by quite some way, is putting off the vote; otherwise I agree with @orfeo's assessment of her.
Ah-hahahaha
No. Her worst misdeed by some considerable distance was expressing her hatred of foreigners - as a proxy for her blatant racism against anyone who isn't white and middle class - as public policy. And then imagining that others would cooperate with her wish to enshrine this in an international trade agreement.
And promoting Brexiteer after Brexiteer to strut around, doing nothing with maximum pomposity. My only disagreement with mr cheesy is that I have a sneaking suspicion that she has used the smokescreen of Brexit to destroy our civil society and its supports for those who are not doing well financially. It is a conscious, despicable policy.
She has mishandled everything because she believed herself invulnerable, having a divine mandate for her every action and inaction. She deserves no sympathy whatsoever.
I don't think I disagreed with that. I'm perfectly open to the possibility that the Tories are recklessly using Brexit to deliberately destroy the state - as per Shock Doctrine.
I suspect cock-up is more likely than conspiracy, but I wouldn't say anything was impossible.
Well, one of the little changes that's just been put through is the removal of pension credit from poorer pensioners (link - Independent story), value £7000 pa. And then the school cuts that mean no funding for special needs kids so schools are reluctant to take them.
Given that she knew she'd have to get the deal through parliament, and given that her stubborn refusal (up to and including this morning) to talk to anyone other than Brexit headbangers, perhaps losing by only 200+ votes should be seen as some sort of triumph.
And I'm sure in her mind it was. But in a normal person this would be an existential crisis, one that would have them fundamentally questioning their entire basis for negotiation, if not their entire life choices up to that point.
Forget the headbangers. No Brexit will ever be Brexity enough for them. There's 40 or so of them. Ignore what they say and actually listen to what the remaining nearly 600 MPs would countenance.
This should have been done 2 years ago. A better PM would have.
I think May's worst misdeed, by quite some way, is putting off the vote; otherwise I agree with @orfeo's assessment of her.
After she lost her majority at the election she decided she could carry on with only the support of the DUP. That has to rate pretty high up the list of strategic errors.
Putting off the vote is merely the latest in a line of putting off things in the hope something would turn up.
Which is not by any means to shift blame from Cameron for leaving her to play an unwinnable hand. But she's done what she could to make it worse.
Forget the headbangers. No Brexit will ever be Brexity enough for them. There's 40 or so of them. Ignore what they say and actually listen to what the remaining nearly 600 MPs would countenance.
This should have been done 2 years ago. A better PM would have.
2 years ago, many of those 600 others still believed in Remain. You talk about 40 or so for whom no Brexit will ever be Brexity enough, how many are there for whom any Brexit is too Brexity?
It seems odd to criticise her for agreeing to talk to those who actually wanted Brexit to happen, in preference to talking to those who fundamentally didn't want Brexit. Congratulations, you lost the referendum, now how would you like to proceed? Seems a loopy notion.
Forget the headbangers. No Brexit will ever be Brexity enough for them. There's 40 or so of them. Ignore what they say and actually listen to what the remaining nearly 600 MPs would countenance.
This should have been done 2 years ago. A better PM would have.
2 years ago, many of those 600 others still believed in Remain. You talk about 40 or so for whom no Brexit will ever be Brexity enough, how many are there for whom any Brexit is too Brexity?
It seems odd to criticise her for agreeing to talk to those who actually wanted Brexit to happen, in preference to talking to those who fundamentally didn't want Brexit. Congratulations, you lost the referendum, now how would you like to proceed? Seems a loopy notion.
It's a hung parliament. Which part of British parliamentary democracy do you not understand?
I voted remain, but I didn't believe the referendum once held - however flawed the execution - could be ignored.
There is a big space between ignoring the referendum and the decision of the government that the referendum result meant there was massive support in the country for a particular form of Brexit. One obvious piece of middle ground would be a recognition that remaining in the EU is not universally popular, and for parties to spend the time needed to formulate options for leaving (or, reasons to remain) that could form part of their manifesto for us to vote on at the 2020 general election, and then if a party is elected with a decent majority then they can try to enact their vision for Brexit. That would respect the result, because you would then not be in the situation where all major parties oppose leaving the EU (which was the status in 2015) when a large portion of the population want to leave.
Which part of this dream actually involves the EU agreeing to wait?
The part where this all happens before the government triggers the process through Article 50 and starts the clock. Give Parliament the role of starting the process by outlining the position they would want the government to attempt to achieve (presumably the outline, with minimal amendments, from the manifesto of the party of government). Then let the government have the powers needed to negotiate with that aim, accepting that on some points the government will need to make concessions, and sign the resulting treaties on our behalf. If there's a consensus that they missed the mark set by Parliament by too far then they will know that at the next general election.
Of course, that's not how things happened. That lack of common sense was always going to lead to some form of chaos, as we're seeing.
The only way Theresa May was not going to add to the schism* in the country was by negotiating with all parties, not continuing to build a Brexit with the most Brexity of Brexiters without consultation with anyone else, particularly anyone else with some wider context - e.g. the rest of NI, Eire. Some of the problems that are still rumbling have been known about since before the original referendum and have still not been tackled. The Irish border being one of them.
* schism is Robert Macfarlane's word for today - which amused me.
The only way Theresa May was not going to add to the schism* in the country was by negotiating with all parties, not continuing to build a Brexit with the most Brexity of Brexiters without consultation with anyone else, particularly anyone else with some wider context - e.g. the rest of NI, Eire. Some of the problems that are still rumbling have been known about since before the original referendum and have still not been tackled. The Irish border being one of them.
* schism is Robert Macfarlane's word for today - which amused me.
There is no solution to the Irish border other than remaining in the EU.
Whichever way you cut it, divergence between the UK and EU in any way leads to a hard border. Anyone saying anything else is misunderstanding the nature of the CM.
Yes. But we have had months of discussion with politicians various saying that this was soluble. And Theresa May and/or various Brexit Secretaries have not bitten the bullet to say having cake and eating it are not possible.
It seems odd to criticise her for agreeing to talk to those who actually wanted Brexit to happen, in preference to talking to those who fundamentally didn't want Brexit. Congratulations, you lost the referendum, now how would you like to proceed? Seems a loopy notion.
And you make exactly the same mistake that May has, and continues to, make.
Yes, Remain lost by the slimmest of margins. That is now part of the landscape. Now, how would you like to proceed? Do you want to burn this fucker down and turn us into some version of the Thunderdome, like this tiny cabal of Brextremists want, or do you want sensible trading relationships with the countries we've spent the previous 40 years aligning our economy with?
Her strategy has failed. Let's not pretend it hasn't.
There is no doubt that Cameron gave her a hospital pass (great phrase, @anoesis). But the rest is of her very own making.
1) She didn't have to stand for leader
2) She didn't have to trigger Article 50 when she did
3) She didn't have to adopt a strategy of appeasing the ERG and ignore everyone else.
(There are plenty of Remainers in Parliament who would have supported a sensible deal)
4) She didn't have to spent the past 12 months pretending that the Backstop was a surprise - it was in the interim agreement she signed up to.
5) She didn't have to start the negotiation with the particular Red Lines she choose that made the construct of this particular deal inevitable (The EU's position being so obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of the relevant EU treaties and law).
6) She didn't have to use anti-immigrant rhetoric which is inescapably racist (although given her track record at the Home Office, this is not surprising).
7) She didn't have to call the election when she did
8) She didn't have to do a deal with the DUP
the list goes on and on... I can't write more, my 10 month old needs my attention...
Yes, Mrs May is in a corner, but the limitations are almost all of her own making.
What will happen to her after all this is over? She'll retire with her husband's money and write a book.
She will not suffer the consequences of her actions.
History will no-doubt judge Cameron as the greater villain here but she is without excuse for the mess she has made.
Once again, we are in the position where No Deal and No Brexit increase in likelihood. It really is a crisis in that sense - opportunity and danger. Of course, which is which will depend on your perspective...
{Minor cross-Pond question, at least somewhat relevant.}
Re Ireland:
I saw something today that made me wonder if it's connected to Ireland and Brexit. There was a TV tourism ad for "the island of Ireland". No mention of NI and/or Eire, or any specific towns. It seemed like it was actually put out by Ireland.
There's been talk on the boards, since Brexit began, about managing the Irish border and about some UK countries maybe going independent. Might this ad be an indication that the island of Ireland is at least working on being one piece economically?
{Minor cross-Pond question, at least somewhat relevant.}
Re Ireland:
I saw something today that made me wonder if it's connected to Ireland and Brexit. There was a TV tourism ad for "the island of Ireland". No mention of NI and/or Eire, or any specific towns. It seemed like it was actually put out by Ireland.
There's been talk on the boards, since Brexit began, about managing the Irish border and about some UK countries maybe going independent. Might this ad be an indication that the island of Ireland is at least working on being one piece economically?
Thanks in advance.
There are some areas where the institutions in NI and the RoI work together - I think marketing tourism is one and (some) sports are another.
I don't think this is particularly an indication of anything significant with regard to reunification.
I think @mr cheesy has got this right: it's not really an indication of change, more of how the cross-border cooperation that has worked so well since the Good Friday Agreement.
The whole of the Good Friday Agreement was predicated around two fictions. The first fiction was for the Unionists - that they were part of the United Kingdom, and the second was for the Nationalists - that they were part of the Republic. Both were simultaneously true, and could be held to be true, as long as the UK was in the EU.
The Nationalists were already reunited with the Republic. The Unionists were still part of the Union. And now England has taken one of those options away.
The whole of the Good Friday Agreement was predicated around two fictions. The first fiction was for the Unionists - that they were part of the United Kingdom, and the second was for the Nationalists - that they were part of the Republic. Both were simultaneously true, and could be held to be true, as long as the UK was in the EU.
The Nationalists were already reunited with the Republic. The Unionists were still part of the Union. And now England has taken one of those options away.
Yep. It was a fudge.
But what a beautiful fudge:
No. of deaths in NI troubles prior to 1998: 3466
No. of deaths in NI troubles since 1998: 0*
The arrogance of so many to think this could be tampered with without the utmost care and careful planning is criminal.
AFZ
*There has been some 'low-level' violence and the problems have not gone away completely but I don't think there have been any murders attributed to sectarian violence rather than gang-crime related to drug-dealing etc. but I may be wrong.
I voted remain, but I didn't believe the referendum once held - however flawed the execution - could be ignored.
There is a big space between ignoring the referendum and the decision of the government that the referendum result meant there was massive support in the country for a particular form of Brexit. One obvious piece of middle ground would be a recognition that remaining in the EU is not universally popular, and for parties to spend the time needed to formulate options for leaving (or, reasons to remain) that could form part of their manifesto for us to vote on at the 2020 general election, and then if a party is elected with a decent majority then they can try to enact their vision for Brexit. That would respect the result, because you would then not be in the situation where all major parties oppose leaving the EU (which was the status in 2015) when a large portion of the population want to leave.
Which part of this dream actually involves the EU agreeing to wait?
The part where this all happens before the government triggers the process through Article 50 and starts the clock. Give Parliament the role of starting the process by outlining the position they would want the government to attempt to achieve (presumably the outline, with minimal amendments, from the manifesto of the party of government). Then let the government have the powers needed to negotiate with that aim, accepting that on some points the government will need to make concessions, and sign the resulting treaties on our behalf. If there's a consensus that they missed the mark set by Parliament by too far then they will know that at the next general election.
Of course, that's not how things happened. That lack of common sense was always going to lead to some form of chaos, as we're seeing.
What you set out involves Parliament "outlining a position". This simply isn't what Parliament normally does and its mechanisms aren't designed to formulate policy parameters in this way. Parliament votes on the text of legislation, yes or no, and the reasons why particular MPs voted the way that they did or what they were thinking get buried in the collective decision.
At the time the process started, there was no court decision deciding that Parliament had to sign off on things and so the whole notion that Parliament would be setting negotiation parameters in this way didn't come up.
It seems odd to criticise her for agreeing to talk to those who actually wanted Brexit to happen, in preference to talking to those who fundamentally didn't want Brexit. Congratulations, you lost the referendum, now how would you like to proceed? Seems a loopy notion.
And you make exactly the same mistake that May has, and continues to, make.
Yes, Remain lost by the slimmest of margins. That is now part of the landscape. Now, how would you like to proceed? Do you want to burn this fucker down and turn us into some version of the Thunderdome, like this tiny cabal of Brextremists want, or do you want sensible trading relationships with the countries we've spent the previous 40 years aligning our economy with?
Her strategy has failed. Let's not pretend it hasn't.
Interesting fantasy land you've created where May AGREED to "burn this fucker down" and not go with sensible trading relationships. Anyone would think from that paragraph that she's negotiated with the EU for a hard Brexit.
She started off with red lines that included no customs union and no free movement, which have meant that any negotiated deal was on the harder end of Brexit.
Forget the headbangers. No Brexit will ever be Brexity enough for them. There's 40 or so of them. Ignore what they say and actually listen to what the remaining nearly 600 MPs would countenance.
This should have been done 2 years ago. A better PM would have.
2 years ago, many of those 600 others still believed in Remain. You talk about 40 or so for whom no Brexit will ever be Brexity enough, how many are there for whom any Brexit is too Brexity?
It seems odd to criticise her for agreeing to talk to those who actually wanted Brexit to happen, in preference to talking to those who fundamentally didn't want Brexit. Congratulations, you lost the referendum, now how would you like to proceed? Seems a loopy notion.
It's a hung parliament. Which part of British parliamentary democracy do you not understand?
Mostly the part where lots of MPs, having agreed to hold a referendum and thereby having significantly abdicated the role they might otherwise have had in fundamental policy discussion, now don't want to face up to the consequences of the result of that referendum because they never guessed what the result would be and they don't like it.
If you want to talk about "British parliamentary democracy" you need to start by talking about the point where every party bar the SNP decided to screw parliamentary democracy and go for direct democracy instead. If people were going to stick with, and invoke, the "British parliamentary democracy" system that's been around for quite a while, then they bloody well needed to do it when the departure from that system was on the table. Not try to move back into that mode after direct voting didn't give them the desired answer.
"British parliamentary democracy" was abandoned as the primary mode of decision-making when it came to Brexit when the European Union Referendum Act 2015 was passed.
Comments
What made that intolerable was May's immediate bowing to the hardest Brexit position backed up by half-witted slogans (Brexit means Brexit and A Red, White and Blue Brexit) and the idle incompetence of clowns like David Davies. And who but an idiot could have put Boris into one of the Great Offices of State? (Incidentally I see from today's news that Johnson claims to know more about the motor manufacturing business than the boss of Jaguar Land Rover).
May has been driven throughout her career by her gut loathing of all foreigners, especially brown-skinned ones, and has shown that she's actually incapable of telling the truth on any subject whatever. She is a lying, incompetent waste of space, and I'm hoping that she is spectacularly humilated in tonight's vote.
Though no doubt she'll tell us afterwards that Nothing Has Changed and keep bashing her silly head against the same brick wall. What was that definition of insanity again?
May has, for two years, pandered only to the far right, both in her own party and in the wider country, while completely ignoring the 48% who she clearly needed on board to make a compromise work.
She fucked up, and it's entirely her own fault. No sympathy for her, or her pig-fucking predecessor. She stacked the cordwood, poured the petrol on, and is now daring us to light a match.
'So passes Denethor, son of Ecthelion,' said Gandalf. 'And so pass also the days of Gondor... for good or evil they are ended.'
I'd support a vote of no confidence and a Labour government, essentially because I believe their redlines are different from May's and that changes the calcus in negotiations with the EU; I do think they could get an A50 extension and a less damaging deal. I believe that because I think their position is informed by their contacts with socialist parties across Europe, and because they won't be asking Europe to divide the four freedoms.
It will still be a worse relationship with Europe than the EU, but better than what the Tories are seeking from the point of view of a remainer. And given the close result of the referendum I think a 'soft' brexit better represents bringing people together and reflecting the views of the whole country, than going to one extreme or the other.
Better to defend democracy by rerunning it legally after we've jailed the crooks responsible. All of them.
At the moment, Treeza and her jolly crew of incompetents aren't that far from aiding and abetting a criminal offence.
And what do we do if the people's vote still comes back "leave"? Because it is highly possible it will.
Then we are properly screwed several times over.
We get to vote every few years but our representatives and those they appoint don't actually have much power.
And it is time we moved to being a democratic nation. I wonder what that would be like.
May should resign. She clearly has no means of getting a deal - her deal - through parliament. If she cannot deal with Brexit - which her fucking predecessor forced and made the only important thing to do* - she need to give it all up. As well as the rest of her fucking useless government.
*To be fair, she and her government have found the time to fuck up a lot of other things in the meantime.
I think she's toast. I half think she might give up tomorrow.
Though I don't envy Mr. Corbyn, if he gets the job of cleaning up the shite she leaves behind.
I remain of the view that the ruling was fundamentally flawed in legal principle and it's also idiotic in practice. Because guess what? If Parliament doesn't approve the deal, Brexit still happens. It just happens without any kind of UK-EU agreement to soften the departure.
Everyone keeps blaming various players in the political game instead of the nincompoops who fucked up the rules. Or possibly the idiots who went to court in the first place believing that this was a way of preventing Brexit from happening.
May was dead right when she said the 'No' vote doesn't tell you anything about what the House of Reps actually wants. Some naysayers want a different deal, some want hard Brexit, and some want to remain. None of this is her fault in my view. She's been handed a completely impossible situation.
And hi everybody. This topic made me mad enough to return to the Ship. You're welcome.
If it's a leave/remain question, either it's going to confirm the first vote without resolving the details of an EU deal or it's going to make a lot of Brexit supporters extremely angry that the first answer wasn't accepted.
If it's a vote on a particular deal with the EU, where does a 'No' result leave you? It's exactly the same mess as in Parliament. You'll have Brexiteers voting 'No' because they don't like the deal and people who want to Remain voting 'No' because they think this will stop everything in its tracks.
Meanwhile you've got the EU, sitting on one side of the actual legal relationship involved here, wondering why the fuck it doesn't just get to deal with the UK government. Actually, it DOES get to deal with the UK government. That's who's been negotiating a treaty.
But it's a UK government that's being harangued by the UK Parliament and the UK courts, and now some want to throw the UK general populace back into the fray again... because they think that's going to clear things up?
Oh Lordy. It's about time people learned a bit more about the difference between how representative government and international relations actually work and the kinds of populist notions of "democracy" that have been fuelled by social media, which makes everyone believe not only that they have a say but that they can do so constantly. Which just achieves paralysis, apart from the occasional moments when the populace can band together to express their moral outrage at some wrongdoer.
Total disaster in which you have heated debates about what size recycling bins to use and whether the new NHS or BBC logo is acceptable.
Which part of this dream actually involves the EU agreeing to wait?
Or agreeing to implement whichever "vision for Brexit" wins? The EU just gives the successful UK party whatever it wants, eh?
People are so UK-centred that they completely forget this is about agreements between the UK and an entire other organisation which won't be participating in the vote you're talking about, and doesn't have to say yes to whatever the UK asks for. There have in fact been LONG negotiations where I'm sure the UK side had to accept compromises.
But now you basically want one side of the table to sit there, sipping its water and playing with its mobile phone, while the other side asks if it can have yet more time to get its shit together in the corner. And then you think that when the side that has fucked up returns to the table, it wins a prize for having managed to coordinate itself just long enough to sit down.
You're talking about the wrong "middle ground" entirely, sitting somewhere inside the deranged psyche of one party to the talks.
orfeo--welcome back.
For sure. It's the hospital pass to end all hospital passes.
Ah-hahahaha
No. Her worst misdeed by some considerable distance was expressing her hatred of foreigners - as a proxy for her blatant racism against anyone who isn't white and middle class - as public policy. And then imagining that others would cooperate with her wish to enshrine this in an international trade agreement.
And promoting Brexiteer after Brexiteer to strut around, doing nothing with maximum pomposity. My only disagreement with mr cheesy is that I have a sneaking suspicion that she has used the smokescreen of Brexit to destroy our civil society and its supports for those who are not doing well financially. It is a conscious, despicable policy.
She has mishandled everything because she believed herself invulnerable, having a divine mandate for her every action and inaction. She deserves no sympathy whatsoever.
I don't think I disagreed with that. I'm perfectly open to the possibility that the Tories are recklessly using Brexit to deliberately destroy the state - as per Shock Doctrine.
I suspect cock-up is more likely than conspiracy, but I wouldn't say anything was impossible.
And I'm sure in her mind it was. But in a normal person this would be an existential crisis, one that would have them fundamentally questioning their entire basis for negotiation, if not their entire life choices up to that point.
Forget the headbangers. No Brexit will ever be Brexity enough for them. There's 40 or so of them. Ignore what they say and actually listen to what the remaining nearly 600 MPs would countenance.
This should have been done 2 years ago. A better PM would have.
Putting off the vote is merely the latest in a line of putting off things in the hope something would turn up.
Which is not by any means to shift blame from Cameron for leaving her to play an unwinnable hand. But she's done what she could to make it worse.
2 years ago, many of those 600 others still believed in Remain. You talk about 40 or so for whom no Brexit will ever be Brexity enough, how many are there for whom any Brexit is too Brexity?
It seems odd to criticise her for agreeing to talk to those who actually wanted Brexit to happen, in preference to talking to those who fundamentally didn't want Brexit. Congratulations, you lost the referendum, now how would you like to proceed? Seems a loopy notion.
It's a hung parliament. Which part of British parliamentary democracy do you not understand?
Of course, that's not how things happened. That lack of common sense was always going to lead to some form of chaos, as we're seeing.
* schism is Robert Macfarlane's word for today - which amused me.
There is no solution to the Irish border other than remaining in the EU.
Whichever way you cut it, divergence between the UK and EU in any way leads to a hard border. Anyone saying anything else is misunderstanding the nature of the CM.
And you make exactly the same mistake that May has, and continues to, make.
Yes, Remain lost by the slimmest of margins. That is now part of the landscape. Now, how would you like to proceed? Do you want to burn this fucker down and turn us into some version of the Thunderdome, like this tiny cabal of Brextremists want, or do you want sensible trading relationships with the countries we've spent the previous 40 years aligning our economy with?
Her strategy has failed. Let's not pretend it hasn't.
There is no doubt that Cameron gave her a hospital pass (great phrase, @anoesis). But the rest is of her very own making.
1) She didn't have to stand for leader
2) She didn't have to trigger Article 50 when she did
3) She didn't have to adopt a strategy of appeasing the ERG and ignore everyone else.
(There are plenty of Remainers in Parliament who would have supported a sensible deal)
4) She didn't have to spent the past 12 months pretending that the Backstop was a surprise - it was in the interim agreement she signed up to.
5) She didn't have to start the negotiation with the particular Red Lines she choose that made the construct of this particular deal inevitable (The EU's position being so obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of the relevant EU treaties and law).
6) She didn't have to use anti-immigrant rhetoric which is inescapably racist (although given her track record at the Home Office, this is not surprising).
7) She didn't have to call the election when she did
8) She didn't have to do a deal with the DUP
the list goes on and on... I can't write more, my 10 month old needs my attention...
Yes, Mrs May is in a corner, but the limitations are almost all of her own making.
What will happen to her after all this is over? She'll retire with her husband's money and write a book.
She will not suffer the consequences of her actions.
History will no-doubt judge Cameron as the greater villain here but she is without excuse for the mess she has made.
Once again, we are in the position where No Deal and No Brexit increase in likelihood. It really is a crisis in that sense - opportunity and danger. Of course, which is which will depend on your perspective...
AFZ
Re Ireland:
I saw something today that made me wonder if it's connected to Ireland and Brexit. There was a TV tourism ad for "the island of Ireland". No mention of NI and/or Eire, or any specific towns. It seemed like it was actually put out by Ireland.
There's been talk on the boards, since Brexit began, about managing the Irish border and about some UK countries maybe going independent. Might this ad be an indication that the island of Ireland is at least working on being one piece economically?
Thanks in advance.
There are some areas where the institutions in NI and the RoI work together - I think marketing tourism is one and (some) sports are another.
I don't think this is particularly an indication of anything significant with regard to reunification.
The Nationalists were already reunited with the Republic. The Unionists were still part of the Union. And now England has taken one of those options away.
Yep. It was a fudge.
But what a beautiful fudge:
No. of deaths in NI troubles prior to 1998: 3466
No. of deaths in NI troubles since 1998: 0*
The arrogance of so many to think this could be tampered with without the utmost care and careful planning is criminal.
AFZ
*There has been some 'low-level' violence and the problems have not gone away completely but I don't think there have been any murders attributed to sectarian violence rather than gang-crime related to drug-dealing etc. but I may be wrong.
What you set out involves Parliament "outlining a position". This simply isn't what Parliament normally does and its mechanisms aren't designed to formulate policy parameters in this way. Parliament votes on the text of legislation, yes or no, and the reasons why particular MPs voted the way that they did or what they were thinking get buried in the collective decision.
At the time the process started, there was no court decision deciding that Parliament had to sign off on things and so the whole notion that Parliament would be setting negotiation parameters in this way didn't come up.
Interesting fantasy land you've created where May AGREED to "burn this fucker down" and not go with sensible trading relationships. Anyone would think from that paragraph that she's negotiated with the EU for a hard Brexit.
Mostly the part where lots of MPs, having agreed to hold a referendum and thereby having significantly abdicated the role they might otherwise have had in fundamental policy discussion, now don't want to face up to the consequences of the result of that referendum because they never guessed what the result would be and they don't like it.
If you want to talk about "British parliamentary democracy" you need to start by talking about the point where every party bar the SNP decided to screw parliamentary democracy and go for direct democracy instead. If people were going to stick with, and invoke, the "British parliamentary democracy" system that's been around for quite a while, then they bloody well needed to do it when the departure from that system was on the table. Not try to move back into that mode after direct voting didn't give them the desired answer.
"British parliamentary democracy" was abandoned as the primary mode of decision-making when it came to Brexit when the European Union Referendum Act 2015 was passed.