Mr Johnson is a serial liar, cheat and clown. An incompetent, lazy, narcissistic conman. A snob, a bully and in hock to some rich men who desperately want a hard Brexit so they can buy up Britain on the cheap.
The UK has survived worse than this, but yeah it's going to be a rough few years now I think. I can't see how no deal is avoided from here. The vote yesterday probably was the last chance to stop it.
The UK needs, very urgently, to start preparing for a no deal brexit as best it can. There is really not much time left.
All of the above. I don’t think I’ve ever been as angry about politics as I am now. A banana republic in all but name. It’s the helplessness that I can’t get over. Knowing what’s happening but being completely unable to do anything about it. All along I hoped that common sense would prevail - I’m an optimist deep down. But no.
We’re fooked. This is going to make the 80s look like a particularly gentle episode of Heartbeat.
I think by voting for Boris the Tory Party may ultimately have stopped Brexit and signed it’s own suicide note. It’s incompetent and I don’t think his government will last long. He’s not a winner and it’s not a unifying force, the opposite. If not and we have no deal and the economy goes down the toilet we can least laugh at the brexiteers as they are lynched.
Looking at the Thatcher docu on BBC2. You may not have agreed with her, but she was a political giant compared to the bunch of jokers leading the Tories.
The thing I really don't get, is that if everyone that just wants this to end turned up in London for 2 days and surrounded Parliament, refusing to leave and demanding an election with a combined referendum that's simply:
1. Do you want to leave the EU or remain in the EU.
2. If a majority vote to leave the EU in this referendum, should we a) leave based on the withdrawal agreement published in national newspapers and available in this polling station or b) leave without any withdrawal agreement.
If voting is mandatory, I don't see how this doesn't resolve the matter once and for all. It's up to the twots in Parliament whether their manifesto says they will implement the result of the referendum.
It was obvious during the London riots that the police had lost control. Do you really think the twots in Westminster will continue to be dogmatic when there are enough people there to take every bullet that can be fired and still torch the place? The Poll Tax Riots were a pretty effective protest.
What amazes me is that anybody seriously thinks another ref would put this issue to bed. At best you'd get a 52 / 48 split the other way. Remainers would then try to shut down the conversation by denouncing everyone else as 'racist' and 'stupid'.
There needs to be an agreement that incorporates compromise on all sides if the country is to move on. Maybe the next PM will swing it, who knows.
It is the remainers unwillingess to compromise that will ultimately send us hurtling off the cliff. They will keep thinking we will revoke at the last minute. We won't.
mandatory voting is an excellent idea. They have it in Australia and we should have it here. Of course, it requires a "none of the above" box or for spoiling a ballot paper to be permissible, but that's fine. How to do it? Pass a law of course.
That's bollocks re. not putting it to bed IMHO. The reason it is an issue is because remain was a very specific option, whereas leave left a massive vacuum to be filled with "leave means leave" BS. You take the rug out from under Remain people if you have a specific course of action that everyone has signed up to. Everyone that votes Remain will vote for the withdrawal agreement, so that will get probably 65:35 and the issue is done. If that question has an outcome within that region, it also exposes the ERG, Farage etc. as bullshitters, or if it is the same as question 1 it shows that they were right, so all they are doing in accepting this type of referendum is backing themselves.
Voting is mandatory in Australia i.e. it is a criminal offence not to vote.
What a load of w**k re agreement on all sides. The EU have said repeatedly that there is one fooking agreement. So its that fooking agreement, fook all agreement or fooking leave things how they are. Enough hand wringing - put it out there and ask people what they want to do. TBH the Queen should be prepared to do this and put troops on the streets if it comes to it and Raab et al try to defy the constitution (cue w**kers banging on about there being no constitution from their reading of Nutshells).
I do wonder, at what point does it turn from seething resentment to some sort of MIchael Douglas "Falling Dwon" moment, or to the final scenes of V for Vendetta?
What a flippant question: "Have you ever negotiated anything in your life?" Yes and as anyone that has done knows, there is an end where the person will not negotiate anymore. This is where the EU are, and they hold all the cards as has been comprehensively shown by repelling Davis et al who were really going to show them. The suggestion that we are going to send over the best candidate from the Apprentice to really show them who is boss should be reserved for retired captains sat in Lymington marina nicely insulated from all this crap by their vast pension and location.
"Just negotiate a better agreement" is as vacuous as "leave means leave". You should run for the Tory leadership.
I quoted your third but couldn't understand your first.
It's nonsense to say the EU hold all the cards. They want a prosperous ongoing relationship as much as the UK does. Or are you suggesting the EU behaves irrationally and would rather punish a member state that dares to leave?
Boris Johnson in advocating no deal is knowingly acting against the interests of the country (he has written lots of articles previously to evidence this indeed straight after the referendum he wrote about the need to have continued free access to the single market). I don't say this lightly but he is a traitor.
No the world will not end but we are talking about ON PURPOSE creating the greatest national crisis since WW2 - apparently just for shits and giggles, nobody even bothers talking about any benefits any more other than for the sake of democracy - notwithstanding that every poll now shows a remain majority and no poll has ever shown a majority in favour of no deal.
It is complete and utter nonsense to argue the EU do not hold all the cards. On every conceivable metric (population, economy, sanity) the 27 vastly outweigh the disUK.
Yes but is it in their interest for the current deadlock to continue or even for no deal? I would suggest not. The UK is a $3tn economy with 66m people. How would putting up barriers serve the interests of the Member States?
I think most remainers (including me) would accept a compromise that won't fook the economy and allows the border in Ireland to remain open.
I think most leavers would too. It doesn't suit the fanatics on either side, nor those who profit from discord such as a Labour leadership, to allow it though.
Yes but is it in their interest for the current deadlock to continue or even for no deal?
It isn't, but they don't have a huge amount of choice.
The reason no deal wasn't talked about before the referendum is because it is a fooking insane idea. People were encouraged to vote leave on the basis that we would get a deal, and that the deal we would get would be - on balance - better than the deal we currently have as members of the EU.
That doesn't necessarily mean it had to be economically better than being in the EU, but the deal would have to achieve the key aims of ending free movement of people and restoring full sovereignty to the UK parliament, without the economic cost being unreasonably high.
It is now glaringly apparent that no such deal is possible. The EU cannot offer us such a deal without compromising the integrity of their own single market and destroying itself (as other countries would then seek to leave to get a better deal).
If it comes down to a choice between offering the UK a different deal which will ultimately destroy the EU, or letting the UK leave with no deal and destroy itself (although it will wound the EU in the process), they will obviously go for the latter.
I think most leavers would too. It doesn't suit the fanatics on either side, nor those who profit from discord such as a Labour leadership, to allow it though.
But it is the fanatics on the leave side who are preventing it.
No deal without being prepared for it does sound like a disaster. If we ran our politics on the basis of populist slogans we'd be in even worse of a mess.
But it is the fanatics on the leave side who are preventing it.
Too simplistic. There are also a significant number of MPs who refuse to respect the outcome of the first referendum and will stand in the way of anything that takes us out of the EU.
Theresa May could have got her withdrawal deal through parliament if all the leavers in her party had voted for it. And then we would be out of the EU and negotiating trade deals by now.
"Yes but is it in their interest for the current deadlock to continue or even for no deal? I would suggest not. The UK is a $3tn economy with 66m people. How would putting up barriers serve the interests of the Member States?"
But it is even less in our interests - are you just working on the assumption they will have to indulge us because we suidicidally mental? We put a gun to our own head and threaten them with a bit of splatter from our corpse? What a place for a once great country to end up.
We’re not putting up barriers, you do. We will never compromise the integrity of the single market for anything or anyone let alone a bunch of spackers like the British
Oliver Letwin says they are out of options and Parliament is royally fooked should the new PM pursue a no deal.
Still gobsmacked that any PM would actually allow a no deal to happen. Our only hope is for Johnson to win, prove that he is the khunt we know he is and stab the ERG types in the back. He is an intelligent man, does he really want to go down in history as the PM that allowed this to happen?
BTW can we all stop calling him 'Boris' or 'BoJo' ,it's as bad as 'Brexiteer'
The reason no deal wasn't talked about before the referendum is because it is a fooking insane idea. People were encouraged to vote leave on the basis that we would get a deal, and that the deal we would get would be - on balance - better than the deal we currently have as members of the EU.
Not true. No deal without adequate preparation would be an insane idea. Switzerland is not in the EU but subject to a number of bilateral treaties. I'm saying it can be done but arbitrary leaving dates aren't helpful.
Did the UK lobby for it to be included in its current drafting, or just for the inclusion of a withdrawal mechanism (which the 2004 accession States also wanted)?
I believe Lord Kerr was largely responsible for the drafting. Or at least, if he wasn't, he is happy to let it be widely believed that he was, which is not something I would want in his position.
It's basically the legal equivalent of a well signposted emergency exit which leads to an external door ten floors up with no actual fire escape linking it to the ground, isn't it?
Okay I see. Sorry. The general point of para 1, subject to you disputing that negotiations are over, is that there is an easy way to at least narrow it down to negotiated deal, no deal or remain as the will of the people. The "leave means leave" brigade have the opportunity to get their interpretation endorsed, and the questions I have set out above are not contentious as far as I can see since they don't throw the deal into the leave/remain question to try and split that vote.
Yes the EU wants a prosperous trading relationship, in the same way that the US does, but we are negotiating with an entity that is bigger than the US in terms of population, with the added complexity of having numerous constituents to keep happy. From their perspective, we've had plenty of opt-outs and rebates, and have become almost laughable to them in terms of the lack of seriousness applied to negotiations. On top of that, some of our politicians have been openly and consistently offensive in their pronouncements on the EU, while every slight barb is met with righteous indignation. A Unionist party has also sold Ireland down the river through outright lies about frictionless borders.
It's not mala fides on the EU's part. It's just that they are not a charity and ultimately those that are rich enough to buy most of their retail exports will carry on doing so (there's probably not enough English sparking wine to even cover the catering at Royal Ascot and Wimbledon), and over the next few years lots of components will start going to factories in the EU instead of across the Channel as more and more manufacturers give up on the UK.
"Decisions around leaving a trading block really isn't storming parliament territory...
A little perspective on all sides would help a lot.
No deal will happen, the world will not end."
I agree with your first sentence. I think leaving is an utterly stupid thing to do, but it isn't an end to existence.
What concerns me more is the Esthermcveytion of politics. The mean-spirited, narrow minded hatred of otherness which now seems prevalent in our leaders, and has been normalised in the press and the street. Johnson and his talk of bank robbers, post boxes and watermelon smiles. Farage and his posters. Francois and his petty "they don't like it up em" rubbish. The 1984 style double think. MPs booing reporters for asking genuine and relevant questions. Branding judges and journalists traitors. The absolutism of the unknown, yet immutable will of the people.
It is for you and your ilk. For 30 years, you bullied us into accepting your self-hating, politically correct drivel. You can't be surprised that there's now a dramatic reaction to it.
It is telling that even in the UK opinion polls show far more people blame UK negotiators than the EU for the failure to reach a deal. Blaming any of this shitshow on the EU is laughable - they have taken a steady moderate reasonable position throughout. Of course they cannot be massive flexible - every change in their stance has to be agreed by 27 countries - but we must have known that all along.
Actually they haven't been either moderate or flexible, but why should they be? They have their position to defend. So I agree that it's nonsensical to blame them.
Theresa May could have got her withdrawal deal through parliament if all the leavers in her party had voted for it. And then we would be out of the EU and negotiating trade deals by now.
Which is why Boris will get it through, once he has finally achieved his aim of getting into No 10.
Watch as Leaver opposition to the backstop falls away in the face of "It's this or Remain" and some obfuscatory clarification with the EU over the wording of the temporary nature of the backstop. It'll be miraculous how what wasn't good enough for Boris in opposition is fine & dandy once he's in power.
I guess the question is, what is storming Parliament territory? Was local taxation sufficient cause? The fact is until they are confronted with the scale of the objection* it is just words on a screen or a paragraph in a briefing. "Leaving a trading block" is a fairly simplistic analysis. Even if you boil it down to that, few countries, if any, have left a trading block save where their country has been split, and no country has ever left the WTO. At a stroke it is potentially removing the right of future generations to work in EU countries, consigning UK industries to the bin and undermining its educational and research strength by making it harder for the best students to study here. I would say few decisions taken in government have as much potential bearing on a 10-20 year old's lifetime as the one we are in the process of taking.
*Objection to politicians' conduct all round rather than whether the final decision is in, out or shake it all about.
Also not "moderate or flexible" is untrue in my opinion. They effectively offered equivalence to what the UK had negotiated over several decades as their treatment within the EU to continue for the next negotiation period (yes - more negotiations to go!). This is the ridiculous thing when people take about a Norway or Switzerland deal - their final positions have taken 20-50ish years to achieve, and were cultivated at a time when the EU was not on the scale it is now, and therefore the negotiating position was commensurately weaker, especially when the Cold War was still ongoing and union was seen as a defence against that that encouraged getting people into the club in some form.
"especially when the Cold War was still ongoing and union was seen as a defence against that that encouraged getting people into the club in some form. "
I can’t understand parliament taking their recess when all this is up in the air, all it does is hurtle us quicker towards the end date when that time could be better used surely
Thatcher wasn't popular amongst MPs but she was a winner so she stayed in power when that started to lose the winner halo in 1989 and 1990 they did her in. Ibdont think Boris is a winner but he has stun a good narrative the MPs vote accordingly. I suspect he widely disliked.
thing is bojo may still be v unpopular with a large number of the tozza mps
but to get into the final two he only needs just over a third of them onside
he’s already got well over a third, so he has to lose support from here to fail to get to the membership vote and from there it sound like he’ll have it wrapped up
They voted for Tony, and yet they now get Gordon, and a transition about as democratically proper as the transition from Claudius to Nero. It is a scandal. ‘The extraordinary thing is that it looks as though he will now be in 10 Downing Street for three years, and without a mandate from the British people.’
loving this quote from boris doing the rounds. Presumably the transition from Theresa to him would be just fine
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Yeah :(
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Sorry, vomited and went blind simultaneously after reading the first 4 words of the thread subject.
* end dictation *
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I hate that I refer to him as “Boris” as if he is some kind of Brazilian footballer from the 90s
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Mr Johnson is a serial liar, cheat and clown. An incompetent, lazy, narcissistic conman. A snob, a bully and in hock to some rich men who desperately want a hard Brexit so they can buy up Britain on the cheap.
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The UK has survived worse than this, but yeah it's going to be a rough few years now I think. I can't see how no deal is avoided from here. The vote yesterday probably was the last chance to stop it.
The UK needs, very urgently, to start preparing for a no deal brexit as best it can. There is really not much time left.
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All of the above. I don’t think I’ve ever been as angry about politics as I am now. A banana republic in all but name. It’s the helplessness that I can’t get over. Knowing what’s happening but being completely unable to do anything about it. All along I hoped that common sense would prevail - I’m an optimist deep down. But no.
We’re fooked. This is going to make the 80s look like a particularly gentle episode of Heartbeat.
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I think by voting for Boris the Tory Party may ultimately have stopped Brexit and signed it’s own suicide note. It’s incompetent and I don’t think his government will last long. He’s not a winner and it’s not a unifying force, the opposite. If not and we have no deal and the economy goes down the toilet we can least laugh at the brexiteers as they are lynched.
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Looking at the Thatcher docu on BBC2. You may not have agreed with her, but she was a political giant compared to the bunch of jokers leading the Tories.
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It was always clear to me that there will be hard brexit and bojo
why anyone would grant the Uk an extension is beyond me
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i can’t see it being anyone other than bojo, but the ft is adamant that the favourite does not win in tory leadership contests
unconvinced but that does mean a glimmer of hope
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And if not bojo , is there anyone sensible? No. So bring on bojo
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I meant sensible who has a chance of getting the votes
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what bentines said at 0720
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The thing I really don't get, is that if everyone that just wants this to end turned up in London for 2 days and surrounded Parliament, refusing to leave and demanding an election with a combined referendum that's simply:
1. Do you want to leave the EU or remain in the EU.
2. If a majority vote to leave the EU in this referendum, should we a) leave based on the withdrawal agreement published in national newspapers and available in this polling station or b) leave without any withdrawal agreement.
If voting is mandatory, I don't see how this doesn't resolve the matter once and for all. It's up to the twots in Parliament whether their manifesto says they will implement the result of the referendum.
It was obvious during the London riots that the police had lost control. Do you really think the twots in Westminster will continue to be dogmatic when there are enough people there to take every bullet that can be fired and still torch the place? The Poll Tax Riots were a pretty effective protest.
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What amazes me is that anybody seriously thinks another ref would put this issue to bed. At best you'd get a 52 / 48 split the other way. Remainers would then try to shut down the conversation by denouncing everyone else as 'racist' and 'stupid'.
There needs to be an agreement that incorporates compromise on all sides if the country is to move on. Maybe the next PM will swing it, who knows.
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How would you make voting mandatory?
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So what's your solution?
No deal is certainly not a compromise.
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I don't have a solution but then neither am I the Prime Minister.
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This isn’t about Brexit any more. It’s about being sold out and asset stripped.
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It is the remainers unwillingess to compromise that will ultimately send us hurtling off the cliff. They will keep thinking we will revoke at the last minute. We won't.
See you at the bottom guys
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mandatory voting is an excellent idea. They have it in Australia and we should have it here. Of course, it requires a "none of the above" box or for spoiling a ballot paper to be permissible, but that's fine. How to do it? Pass a law of course.
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It's the fanatics on both sides who will achieve that, LA.
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That's bollocks re. not putting it to bed IMHO. The reason it is an issue is because remain was a very specific option, whereas leave left a massive vacuum to be filled with "leave means leave" BS. You take the rug out from under Remain people if you have a specific course of action that everyone has signed up to. Everyone that votes Remain will vote for the withdrawal agreement, so that will get probably 65:35 and the issue is done. If that question has an outcome within that region, it also exposes the ERG, Farage etc. as bullshitters, or if it is the same as question 1 it shows that they were right, so all they are doing in accepting this type of referendum is backing themselves.
Voting is mandatory in Australia i.e. it is a criminal offence not to vote.
What a load of w**k re agreement on all sides. The EU have said repeatedly that there is one fooking agreement. So its that fooking agreement, fook all agreement or fooking leave things how they are. Enough hand wringing - put it out there and ask people what they want to do. TBH the Queen should be prepared to do this and put troops on the streets if it comes to it and Raab et al try to defy the constitution (cue w**kers banging on about there being no constitution from their reading of Nutshells).
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heh. Seeing the word “nutshells” again has made me all calm and 90s.
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I tried to understand your first paragraph and am still struggling.
Have you ever negotiated anything in your life?
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What Heffalump and Bentines said.
I do wonder, at what point does it turn from seething resentment to some sort of MIchael Douglas "Falling Dwon" moment, or to the final scenes of V for Vendetta?
Up with this I will not put, and all that.
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Can you count? That's the third paragraph.
What a flippant question: "Have you ever negotiated anything in your life?" Yes and as anyone that has done knows, there is an end where the person will not negotiate anymore. This is where the EU are, and they hold all the cards as has been comprehensively shown by repelling Davis et al who were really going to show them. The suggestion that we are going to send over the best candidate from the Apprentice to really show them who is boss should be reserved for retired captains sat in Lymington marina nicely insulated from all this crap by their vast pension and location.
"Just negotiate a better agreement" is as vacuous as "leave means leave". You should run for the Tory leadership.
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I quoted your third but couldn't understand your first.
It's nonsense to say the EU hold all the cards. They want a prosperous ongoing relationship as much as the UK does. Or are you suggesting the EU behaves irrationally and would rather punish a member state that dares to leave?
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Hesseltine summed BJ up:
"a man who waits to see the way the crowd is running and then dashes in front and says, ‘follow me’."
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Boris Johnson in advocating no deal is knowingly acting against the interests of the country (he has written lots of articles previously to evidence this indeed straight after the referendum he wrote about the need to have continued free access to the single market). I don't say this lightly but he is a traitor.
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Decisions around leaving a trading block really isn't storming parliament territory...
A little perspective on all sides would help a lot.
No deal will happen, the world will not end.
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No deal will happen, the world will not end.
No the world will not end but we are talking about ON PURPOSE creating the greatest national crisis since WW2 - apparently just for shits and giggles, nobody even bothers talking about any benefits any more other than for the sake of democracy - notwithstanding that every poll now shows a remain majority and no poll has ever shown a majority in favour of no deal.
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I think most remainers (including me) would accept a compromise that won't fook the economy and allows the border in Ireland to remain open.
Over to you.
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Yes but is it in their interest for the current deadlock to continue or even for no deal? I would suggest not. The UK is a $3tn economy with 66m people. How would putting up barriers serve the interests of the Member States?
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I think most leavers would too. It doesn't suit the fanatics on either side, nor those who profit from discord such as a Labour leadership, to allow it though.
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It isn't, but they don't have a huge amount of choice.
The reason no deal wasn't talked about before the referendum is because it is a fooking insane idea. People were encouraged to vote leave on the basis that we would get a deal, and that the deal we would get would be - on balance - better than the deal we currently have as members of the EU.
That doesn't necessarily mean it had to be economically better than being in the EU, but the deal would have to achieve the key aims of ending free movement of people and restoring full sovereignty to the UK parliament, without the economic cost being unreasonably high.
It is now glaringly apparent that no such deal is possible. The EU cannot offer us such a deal without compromising the integrity of their own single market and destroying itself (as other countries would then seek to leave to get a better deal).
If it comes down to a choice between offering the UK a different deal which will ultimately destroy the EU, or letting the UK leave with no deal and destroy itself (although it will wound the EU in the process), they will obviously go for the latter.
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But it is the fanatics on the leave side who are preventing it.
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No deal without being prepared for it does sound like a disaster. If we ran our politics on the basis of populist slogans we'd be in even worse of a mess.
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Isn't that exactly what we do in this day and age?
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Too simplistic. There are also a significant number of MPs who refuse to respect the outcome of the first referendum and will stand in the way of anything that takes us out of the EU.
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Theresa May could have got her withdrawal deal through parliament if all the leavers in her party had voted for it. And then we would be out of the EU and negotiating trade deals by now.
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"Yes but is it in their interest for the current deadlock to continue or even for no deal? I would suggest not. The UK is a $3tn economy with 66m people. How would putting up barriers serve the interests of the Member States?"
But it is even less in our interests - are you just working on the assumption they will have to indulge us because we suidicidally mental? We put a gun to our own head and threaten them with a bit of splatter from our corpse? What a place for a once great country to end up.
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We’re not putting up barriers, you do. We will never compromise the integrity of the single market for anything or anyone let alone a bunch of spackers like the British
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Oliver Letwin says they are out of options and Parliament is royally fooked should the new PM pursue a no deal.
Still gobsmacked that any PM would actually allow a no deal to happen. Our only hope is for Johnson to win, prove that he is the khunt we know he is and stab the ERG types in the back. He is an intelligent man, does he really want to go down in history as the PM that allowed this to happen?
BTW can we all stop calling him 'Boris' or 'BoJo' ,it's as bad as 'Brexiteer'
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That was @ Fred fookwit 12:09
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Not true. No deal without adequate preparation would be an insane idea. Switzerland is not in the EU but subject to a number of bilateral treaties. I'm saying it can be done but arbitrary leaving dates aren't helpful.
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Oh Article 50 is a pile of poo, and unusable, but guess who lobbied for it to be included in the Treaty?
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Did the UK lobby for it to be included in its current drafting, or just for the inclusion of a withdrawal mechanism (which the 2004 accession States also wanted)?
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I believe Lord Kerr was largely responsible for the drafting. Or at least, if he wasn't, he is happy to let it be widely believed that he was, which is not something I would want in his position.
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The whole point of Art 50 was it was drafted on the basis that no sane nation would invoke it
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It's basically the legal equivalent of a well signposted emergency exit which leads to an external door ten floors up with no actual fire escape linking it to the ground, isn't it?
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McVey and Leadsom out in first round. Small mercies I guess
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When's the second round?
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Harper also a gonner.
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Next week I understand.
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I reckon Javid, Hancock and Raab will be out next.
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Obv no surprise that Johnson is top. but surprised Hunt is second
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I suspect Stewart will not last much longer.
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It’s for Johnson to lose now . Dear god hear goes , he will May look very competent , he will be a car crash and then some
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Hunt is probably the most credible candidate.
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that's why I'm surprised, anna
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yea, it's Johnson unless he self-destructs
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He hasn't ruled out no deal because he knows that if he does he won't stand a chance. I'm guessing that's why he's doing well so far.
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Rory speaks eleven languages apparently.
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Rory speaks eleven languages apparently.
one beer please in 11 languages?
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I thought opium was more his thing.
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I'm really starting to like Rory
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Okay I see. Sorry. The general point of para 1, subject to you disputing that negotiations are over, is that there is an easy way to at least narrow it down to negotiated deal, no deal or remain as the will of the people. The "leave means leave" brigade have the opportunity to get their interpretation endorsed, and the questions I have set out above are not contentious as far as I can see since they don't throw the deal into the leave/remain question to try and split that vote.
Yes the EU wants a prosperous trading relationship, in the same way that the US does, but we are negotiating with an entity that is bigger than the US in terms of population, with the added complexity of having numerous constituents to keep happy. From their perspective, we've had plenty of opt-outs and rebates, and have become almost laughable to them in terms of the lack of seriousness applied to negotiations. On top of that, some of our politicians have been openly and consistently offensive in their pronouncements on the EU, while every slight barb is met with righteous indignation. A Unionist party has also sold Ireland down the river through outright lies about frictionless borders.
It's not mala fides on the EU's part. It's just that they are not a charity and ultimately those that are rich enough to buy most of their retail exports will carry on doing so (there's probably not enough English sparking wine to even cover the catering at Royal Ascot and Wimbledon), and over the next few years lots of components will start going to factories in the EU instead of across the Channel as more and more manufacturers give up on the UK.
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"Decisions around leaving a trading block really isn't storming parliament territory...
A little perspective on all sides would help a lot.
No deal will happen, the world will not end."
I agree with your first sentence. I think leaving is an utterly stupid thing to do, but it isn't an end to existence.
What concerns me more is the Esthermcveytion of politics. The mean-spirited, narrow minded hatred of otherness which now seems prevalent in our leaders, and has been normalised in the press and the street. Johnson and his talk of bank robbers, post boxes and watermelon smiles. Farage and his posters. Francois and his petty "they don't like it up em" rubbish. The 1984 style double think. MPs booing reporters for asking genuine and relevant questions. Branding judges and journalists traitors. The absolutism of the unknown, yet immutable will of the people.
These things are a genuine cause for concern.
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It is for you and your ilk. For 30 years, you bullied us into accepting your self-hating, politically correct drivel. You can't be surprised that there's now a dramatic reaction to it.
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It is telling that even in the UK opinion polls show far more people blame UK negotiators than the EU for the failure to reach a deal. Blaming any of this shitshow on the EU is laughable - they have taken a steady moderate reasonable position throughout. Of course they cannot be massive flexible - every change in their stance has to be agreed by 27 countries - but we must have known that all along.
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Moaning about "politically correct drivel" = "I want to be free to be as much of a bigot as I like without being called out for it".
Right?
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Actually they haven't been either moderate or flexible, but why should they be? They have their position to defend. So I agree that it's nonsensical to blame them.
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#metoo
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Which is why Boris will get it through, once he has finally achieved his aim of getting into No 10.
Watch as Leaver opposition to the backstop falls away in the face of "It's this or Remain" and some obfuscatory clarification with the EU over the wording of the temporary nature of the backstop. It'll be miraculous how what wasn't good enough for Boris in opposition is fine & dandy once he's in power.
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I guess the question is, what is storming Parliament territory? Was local taxation sufficient cause? The fact is until they are confronted with the scale of the objection* it is just words on a screen or a paragraph in a briefing. "Leaving a trading block" is a fairly simplistic analysis. Even if you boil it down to that, few countries, if any, have left a trading block save where their country has been split, and no country has ever left the WTO. At a stroke it is potentially removing the right of future generations to work in EU countries, consigning UK industries to the bin and undermining its educational and research strength by making it harder for the best students to study here. I would say few decisions taken in government have as much potential bearing on a 10-20 year old's lifetime as the one we are in the process of taking.
*Objection to politicians' conduct all round rather than whether the final decision is in, out or shake it all about.
Also not "moderate or flexible" is untrue in my opinion. They effectively offered equivalence to what the UK had negotiated over several decades as their treatment within the EU to continue for the next negotiation period (yes - more negotiations to go!). This is the ridiculous thing when people take about a Norway or Switzerland deal - their final positions have taken 20-50ish years to achieve, and were cultivated at a time when the EU was not on the scale it is now, and therefore the negotiating position was commensurately weaker, especially when the Cold War was still ongoing and union was seen as a defence against that that encouraged getting people into the club in some form.
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"especially when the Cold War was still ongoing and union was seen as a defence against that that encouraged getting people into the club in some form. "
Er wasn't that club NATO?
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I can’t understand parliament taking their recess when all this is up in the air, all it does is hurtle us quicker towards the end date when that time could be better used surely
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Thatcher wasn't popular amongst MPs but she was a winner so she stayed in power when that started to lose the winner halo in 1989 and 1990 they did her in. Ibdont think Boris is a winner but he has stun a good narrative the MPs vote accordingly. I suspect he widely disliked.
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thing is bojo may still be v unpopular with a large number of the tozza mps
but to get into the final two he only needs just over a third of them onside
he’s already got well over a third, so he has to lose support from here to fail to get to the membership vote and from there it sound like he’ll have it wrapped up
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loving this quote from boris doing the rounds. Presumably the transition from Theresa to him would be just fine
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