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Say before the next election Starmer or some bolder replacement called a referendum to rejoin the EU and won. It will take some time to negotiate actually doing it with the EU.

What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?

After the experience post 2016, one thing any party promising a referendum would have to do would be to commit to negotiating the full details of any Rejoin package before a referendum were held. That would secure better terms for the UK, because then the EU negotiators would have to convince the UK public that they were offering a fair deal, and were not screwing the UK in the way they were allowed to get away with after the 2016 referendum.

Why another referendum?
Make it an explicit manifesto commitment for

The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.

I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.

With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.

Can be done in the UK if you get the right car charger, there seem to be some bi-directional chargers on the market now, there weren't when I had mine fitted.
Charge the car offpeak and it's 8p/kWhr 24 hours/day

One of the lesser reasons for buying a Leaf was the potential of the Chademo system for bidirectional charging. Unfortunately, bidirectional chargers have remained either unobtainable or wildly expensive to install, and Chademo also seems to be going the way of Betamax. Oh well.

Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?

Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.

That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.

Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.

What makes you think May would have agreed it, since it clearly breached her red lines?

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negotiating-objectives-for-exiting-the-eu-pm-speech

If she was prepared to agree to a Norwegian approach why the feck didn't she herself propose it? She was after all the Prime Minister.

The only two logical positions in the long term are full fat Rejoin and and full Juche Brexit.

The salami treatment on Brexit of Customs Union, then Single Market are just steps on the way.

In truth, the only two coherent positions during our entire period of trying to join, joining, trying to leave and then leaving the EEC and the EU all the way from Messina to Brexit were, to quote the old song "put your whole self in, your whole self out".

We should EITHER have had nothing to do with the EEC/EU but wished it well and worked from the outside to obtain advantageous trading terms for the UK OR we should have gone in as enthusiastic members, taking on the Euro (renaming it the Crown or Florin perhaps), Schengen and pushing for full political and economic union (welcome to EuroFed).

We wasted more than 60 years on a half-hearted, mean-spirited, rebate obsessed, banana fixated notion of membership because the shadow of WW2 hung over us and we couldn't work out what our relationship with Europe was or should be. We thought we were an Imperial power and Europe needed us more than we needed them. That view was re-enforced by the nostalgia-obsessed media and cultural mores.

And we haven't really moved on from that- hence the continued "there must be some other Special Deal under the counter, we just need to discover the secret codeword that releases it" stuff; Streetings's latest interview is just another example of that.

The options are what they always were. Take an economic hit by divergence, because friction always costs. Or share the pool with others, and accept that you won't get your way all the time.

As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.



https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/2002753775891857886?s=20

A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader

Hope he packed enough plasters for that walk in wellies or are they a few hundred metres from his LR discovery in the car park?

The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.

I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.

With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.

What a fascinating modern age with live in.

Talking about the modern age. Russia developing rocket borne shrapnel weapons to take out Starlink.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-12-22/western-intelligence-suspects-russia-is-developing-new-weapon-to-target-musks-starlink-satellites

Surely that risks not only Starlink, but all the other satellites in low Earth orbit. It could also potentially mean the end of human ambitions in space (including Musk's Mars plans).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

There's a lot of engineering him into position I think, and Starmer is clearly on board - not sure how else someone openly campaigning for the top job is still in the Cabinet. He is the annointed successor - and always was.

For that reason, I don't think he makes it.

Doubt he is anointed. There was number 10 briefing against him about a month ago.

IMO wouldn't be surprised if Starmer sacks him, says he needs to bring someone in to end the strikes.

I think it depends on how desperate Labour becomes, which itself depends on how catastrophic the local elections are. If Labour has a true mare - for example losing control of London Boroughs which they currently run with large majorities - then switching to Streeting might be on the cards. The one caveat is if the big winner in the cities happens to be the Greens, Labour members might conclude that being more radical and passionate and tacking left is what's required.

Labour won a NEV of 35% in 2022, and will probably win about 10-15% in May. Reform won nothing in 2022, and will probably win 25-30% next year. The Greens would surge, but the traditional outperformance in local elections by the Lib Dem’s will take a lot of votes that would otherwise go to them. The Conservatives will probably win 20-25%, compared to 30% in 2022.

What that likely means is Labour being hit on multiple fronts.

Boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland, Halton, Sandwell, Thurrock will go Reform.

Islington, Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Birmingham, Southwark, Brent, South Tyneside, will be lost to NOC at least (Your Party will also be challenging in some).

The Tories will lose a string of counties and new unitaries to Reform, but pick up Westminster, Barnet, Wandsworth,

And of course, the results in Wales and Scotland will be horrid.

I agree with all that.
It is gloriously up on the air at the moment.
Gonna be a fascinating election

Yes, it's impossible to predict where the None Of The Above vote goes when it realises it does much like Any Of The Below either.

If he is standing, it is always Count Binface.

Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?

Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.

That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.

Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.

lol still always someone elses fault

@Carnyx

Hi C. Noticed you namechecking Winchcombe recently. You a local, or were you just passing through?

Me? Winchcombe? Not me, must have been someone else who mentioned it.

But I have been there, aeons ago. Dim memory of visiting on a student days tour with the archaeological handbook and CAMRA guide, very necessary in those days of fizzy keg ale.

Somebody posted a pic from StPeter's Church, Winchcombe, which I can see from my back garden. Not you? Sorry, my mistake.

I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.

No worries. Friends used to live not far away and I got to know something of that area. Broadway, the Vale, the Malvern Hills ...

We're about 20 miles south of Broadway, which is dangerously close to ScottP, but he is safely beyond the Worcestershire border. I believe that passport control has his number and his visits to Gloucestershire are therefore confined to the National Hunt Festival.

I made the mistake of visiting Broadway during their extended Christmas opening hours

Interesting article in the Telegraph saying Help to buy has created a whole set of housing problems at great expense to tax payers

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a783b34855474f85

It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?

Clearly yes we should be building social housing on a massive scale to reflect the change in population over the last couple of decades and lost social housing stock.

As for right to buy, the principle is fine, but the discounts are way too big. Make it 2% per year of tenancy, up to a max of 20% discount, rather than starting at 35% and increasing from there!

No qualms with your final paragraph at all.

The problem with our politics is what makes a policy good or bad is often in the detail but the voting public don't care, and therefore neither do our politicians. So the discussion becomes "is right to buy good or bad?" rather than "can we make right to buy good?".

@Carnyx

Hi C. Noticed you namechecking Winchcombe recently. You a local, or were you just passing through?

Me? Winchcombe? Not me, must have been someone else who mentioned it.

But I have been there, aeons ago. Dim memory of visiting on a student days tour with the archaeological handbook and CAMRA guide, very necessary in those days of fizzy keg ale.

Somebody posted a pic from StPeter's Church, Winchcombe, which I can see from my back garden. Not you? Sorry, my mistake.

I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.

I think it was @carnforth not Carnyx.