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If Michael Gove does it, not only will there be a hard Brexit but we'll also end up repaying the entire 30+ years of rebate in one lump sump, and also somehow end up ceding Sark and Guernsey to France.
God I hate Michael Gove. Useless bastard.
Can we give them Alderney? Complete shit hole.
EDIT:
Necessary soundtrack
We'll give them Canvey Island, and they'll think they're getting a cool island but actually not and island at all, just a random bit of land on the south coast. Take that, Pierre.
Anyway, here is my impression of Michael Gove as Brexit Secretary.
MICHAEL GOVE: *uses a stupid voice, because I hate Michael Gove* Gives to us tarrif free access to the single market while allowing us to opt out of free movement and set our own regulations for customs etc
THE EU: No.
MICHAEL GOVE: I am completely out of ideas.
It's halfwits all the way down me boy.
So Gove stays. Is May going to destroy the extremists?
We’ll see it soon. 48 letters are in.
I think, I think, they might be going to bottle it.
I don't know what's worse: the Tory lack of plan/ideas or the Labour lack of plan/ideas.
I know what’s worse; neither of them having a clue. Though I may say I suspect May has finally understood there is no better deal to be gotten and that no deal is the worst possible outcome.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
I could be wrong but I am starting to believe May could not just defeat the breximaniacs but actually destroy them ad a force in the Conservative Party.
The Tory lack of plans/ideas is indefinitely worse. Labour are the Opposition, they don't need to have plans/ideas. They should, part of their role to get ready to be a government-in-waiting, but they are meant to hold the government to account. They're not doing that, the government's own backbenchers are. Before triggering Article 50 the government should have had a plan/ideas on what they wanted, how to get there and what to do if the EU said no. The government did the first part (May's 'Lancaster House' proposals were reasonable) but that was the end of it. Instead almost 2 years have been wasted kicking the can down the road until she belatedly signs whatever the EU tells her to sign. Well that may work for the EU negotiators but its more complicated than that. We're now left in a horrible mess.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
We have an incompetent lame-duck PM who nobody trusts and nobody respects. She's only still in situ because nobody agrees on an alternative and worries the alternative will be worse.
We have a 'deal' that satisfies neither leavers nor remainers and is opposed by the vast majority of Parliament.
We have a general consensus that we don't want this deal but we even more don't want no deal and no way to square that circle.
We have an opposition led by a Marxist Eurosceptic who has wanted consistently for us to leave the EU since we joined leading a Europhile party but content to see a disastrous crash-out as that'll be his path to becoming PM.
Finally the numbers in Parliament opposing the deal are so overwhelming it won't even be close if it comes to a vote at the moment. If it was close the whips and fear of a no deal would be enough to see the deal over the line, peg over nose. But with safety in numbers this would as it stands likely see a majority over 100 rejecting it.
And the clock is ticking with no unity, no alternative and no frigging clue.
Have I missed anything?
Do you believe we could get a better deal? If so, would what satisfy you?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
World Government? :haha:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
My how narrow your thinking is. :)
Under normal circumstances May, would have either have resigned or been forced out after the general election she called, yet somehow she survived. You'd think if there was a good deal just sitting there waiting to be done but for May's incompetence someone would have mounted a leadership challenge won, and done it by now and be basking in the glory of delivering a successful Brexit.
And yet she's still there. She's, like the weakest prime minister in living memory, she has no majority, her party hates her and somehow she's still there.
My theory is this: Everyone in the Tory party - including the arch-Euroskeptics, the ERG, etc - knows deep down in their grubby little hearts that the Brexit they promised in the referendum is nothing but rank fantasy. If they actually took power they'd be forced to put their money where their mouth is, and when they failed, there'd be no excuses to hid the fact that leaving the EU was just a really stupid idea. Whereas if they just sit on the back benches and snipe and May while she makes the best she can of a bad situation, let her take the blame for either a Brexit that doesn't match the ridiculous lies told during the referendum or one that just ends up actively damaging the country, kick her out and claim Brexit would have been great if it wasn't for that awful, awful Teresa May.
Then they can implement their nasty little agenda, such as opening up the NHS to predation from the US health industry in exchange for a trade deal.
Except it'll be a Labour government by then.
Yes I do believe we could have got a better deal. A much better deal.
For one thing the Irish Backstop should have been responded to with a gigantic 'hell no' when first mooted, it was moronic to accept it. That has been the root of all problems since. The EU has insisted we respect the indivisibility of their union, it is eminently reasonable to request the same. The solution to the Irish situation is simple, the border already exists for many issues and customs is just another tax. The solution is to get businesses to self-declare their taxes [as we already do] and then punish any criminals who smuggle stuff undeclared with hefty fines or prison terms. Job done.
For another thing May has been serially incompetent and vague to the point that even Merkel has been making jokes at her expense about not saying what she wanted. As a result of being a blank page its left the EU to fill in the blanks.
Ultimately we can look back to the start to see how different all this could have been. When this process started the EU presented us a series of options and asked us what we wanted, May decided to be coy and not tell anyone - even the other side - what we wanted. We were asked for proposals on how to deal with Ireland, we came up with nothing. Had we come up with a strong proposal from the start that would have formed the basis for negotiations. Some of which may have been a non-starter, but it would have overall been the original basis to talk. Instead we just left it blank and waited until they filled it in. That's not a way to negotiate.
No the problem is the party is riven by division and extremists on both sides and the numbers May led the party to are unmanageable. A true Europhile like Anna Soubry would not get the support from the Eurosceptic wing of the party. A true Europhile like Gove would not get the support from the Europhile wing of the party. The party even united doesn't carry a majority and nobody really likes the DUP and nobody else in Parliament likes us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
So in that situation what are people supposed to do? Facing that impossible situation the ideal would be to go to the polls and seek a mandate and a majority but after 2017 nobody is going to touch that with a barge poll.
Had someone sensible who was willing to stand for something - anything - taken over from David Cameron in 2016 then things could have been very different. For one thing if they'd gone to the polls early they should have bothered to campaign and turn up at the debates.
And in the process you'd haveQuote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
a) shown that you're untrustworthy in your agreements because if you cannot uphold an agreement which stopped a bloody civil war, what would keep you from breaking less important agreements?
b) started said civil war pretty much immediately. You obviously want bombs to explode again.
a) No because the backstop breaches the GFA.
b) No because the backstop breaches the GFA.
I know this is a concept you're still struggling to wrap your head around but there were two sides setting off bombs not one.
None of which matters because the ROI is a member of the EU which you are not.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
The unfolding Banks-Bannon-Mercer illegal-American-fundraising-and-Russian-gold-and-diamonds plot is equal parts hilarious and tragic. They believed the UK was their best hope for a back-door through which they could infect and undermine European resistance to both Putin and other xenophobic nationalists... and they were right. What a sad bunch of rubes they are, these Little Englanders. I wonder what the inquest will find, a decade from now.
The UK is pretty much the least xenophobic nationalist nation in Europe.
That's an interesting assertion, what are you basing it on?
It was, however, the most influential xenophobic nationalist nation in Western Europe—and the biggest prize (in Europe) for anglophone nationalist xenophobes with shady business interests.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Post-brexit surveys skewed by answers from immigrants and people outside Little England. Note that he makes an exception for fear and suspicion based on accent analysis.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unheard Of
Many European countries have far right parties in their parliaments if not outright in a governing coalition, Le Penn got 34% of the vote share in France against Macron, AfD has 94 seats in the Budenstag, Swedish Democrats have significant representation in the Swedish parliament, etc etc. Hungary and Poland are... like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unheard Of
Meanwhile UKIP couldn't manage a single seat in Parliament, even at their peak.
This says more about how bad the far right is getting in Europe than anything good about the UK, for example it's only first past the post that stopped UKIP getting seats in Parliament, and the Tories are further right than most continental right wing parties so more of the the right finds a home there and it's also worth noting that US also has no significant far right parties, and look how that one turned out in the end.
But any critique about nationalist xenophobia from the continent is clearly a beam/eye situation :o
All of these things became worse after Brexit, but, more importantly, the UK has been the biggest prize--the most sought-after and influential EU member to have succumbed at the highest levels of policymaking. In Germany and France, nativists have largely been denied influence in international matters, and both have reaffirmed their commitments to an open society with close collaboration with both their European neighbours as well as with the world at large (France's flirting with institutionalized Islamophobia is a few years ahead of public opinion in Little England). Both France and Germany have done a better job of resisting Russian interference with their elections.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
The UK's electoral system places rising third parties at an enormous disadvantage, but it doesn't shield established parties from the pressure to embrace the extremist fringe in the hope of safeguarding their small margins over their primary opponents. Sweden saw a similar trend after the Left-Right political blocs became entrenched a few elections ago, effectively creating something akin to a two-party system for over a decade. Now, we're seeing an advantage of the system as intended: two liberal parties on the right have distanced themselves from their two conservative partners (who tried to change their platforms to appeal to xenophobes, nativists and other bigots) and have been rewarded by voters for doing so. They are only able to do this because they don't have to attract the nativist vote in order to gain representation and direct influence in parliament.
The Tories made the foolish mistake of embracing xenophobia and nativism along with anti-EU sentiment in the hopes of retaining an advantage over Labour after getting rattled by their defeat in the 2014 EP elections. Through them, xenophobes and nativists won. Similarly, xenophobes and nativists (and just outright racists and fuckwits) in the US won by co-opting the GOP and its voter-base.
Well phrased Steely.
Aimless, Brexit isn't a xenophobic endeavour no matter how small minded and ignorant you want to be. Is Canada xenophobic for not being a part of the USA? Is New Zealand xenophobic for not being a part of Australia? Is Japan xenophobic for not being part of China? If you want to form a federation then good luck to you but we don't need to be a part of it.
And just when you thought it couldn't get any dumber... you might as well have asked if the Earth is xenophobic for not being part of Mercury.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
I mean, the Leave vote was largely driven by fear of immigration, so yeah it kinda was.
Here's a poll about unfavorable views about the EU from before the referendum.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cp..._eu_gra624.png
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi...endum-36471989
So, potentially a *exit could happen in any European country if the hypothetical referendum campaign went badly enough, though fortunately most of the major European nations do not seem to have leaders arrogant and careless enough to call a referendum without any gameplan for winning it, and if they did Brexit should prove a salutary warning.
None of things that have caused problems during the negotiations were even mentioned during the campaign; noone brought up the Irish border or the divorce bill or any of that stuff, and it was the Remain side that should have been hammering that stuff, instead of vague predictions of non-specific calamities. But I guess they couldn't be bothered to look into it? Like, when you do a post to make an argument but it's super-weak because you weren't that interested in the topic and didn't bother to look into it? Yeah, like that but with the future of an entire country.
Seriously, I hope David Cameron feels like a fucking asshole right now. I mean, he definitely doesn't. But I hope he does.
As has been explained to you previously, the stain of xenophobia lies thick over Brexit not simply because people wanted to leave the EU but because many if not most who wanted to leave the EU did so partly because of xenophobia. We know this, because voters have said as much, and their views have been reflected (and shaped) by the coverage of both the EU and of issues arising from the referendum, which has frequently been xenophobic (by turns demonizing and drumming up fear of/hatred against Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians, Turks, etc). But the xenophobia and nativism of Little Englanders predates Brexit. Brexit is only one expression of that national character defect, much like the enthusiastically celebrated promise to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands. By your reasoning, Nigel Farage isn't a xenophobe, because he's opposed to the idea of a European federation with Britain as a member. In reality, he is both a xenophobe and an opponent of EU federalism. Similarly, many/most Brexiters are both anti-EU and xenophobic.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade