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The betting money’s still going on a 2022 BJ exit – politicalbetting.com

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  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    Nigelb said:

    Have PB's polling mavens done this one ?

    Interesting account by Chris Curtis from the 2017 election.

    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1534451799511408641
    ...Despite it being entirely predictable, everybody panicked at the backlash to the MRP. Nadhim Zahawi called up the CEO and said he would call for his resignation if he was wrong. It became pretty clear we would all be out of a job if we were wrong now....

    The poll was then spiked.

    I already noted this.
    This happened in 2015 too with Martin Boon.

    It’s why we get herding. It’s much safer to be one of the pack than be an outlier and stand out for mockery, humiliation and even retribution if you’re wrong.

    I now try and factor this into my betting.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    edited June 2022
    Applicant said:

    Phil said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    Yup.

    I thought at the time that the proposals should have been done by some kind of ordered voting system to stop hardliners on both sides preventing any kind of compromise.

    If the point was to find the least worst out of the available options in order to persuade Parliament to vote something through, then voting for them each individually was the worst possible approach. Single votes didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, they just confirmed that Parliament didn’t like any of the available options!

    Just possibly, if we’d done a preference vote, we might have discovered that there was a least worst option that a majority of Parliament might be prepared to accept if it was put before them as a bill to be passed.

    Even then it might not have worked out, but at least we would have tried.
    I don't think it was, because MPs could vote for more than one. The idea was to produce at least one option that was acceptable. If MPs only voted for "good" and voted against "acceptable" they were doing it wrong.
    In a perfect world, without tactical voting, then sure: MPs could have voted for those things they would have been willing to accept & we might have found a compromise.

    Unfortunately, large blocks of MPs decided it would be more fun to try and game the results (in all possible directions) & thus the opportunity for compromise was lost.

    My personal belief (which may be wrong of course) is that an ordered vote style vote, where MPs were forced to place their preferences in order, might have forged consensus out of the chaos by making it public to all MPs that there was a compromise option on the table & given that the entire nation now knew that the compromise option existed, because their own votes had revealed it they’d pretty much have to vote for it, whether they liked that particular outcome or not.

    But we never got to find out.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    edited June 2022

    What did the mm in mmO2 stand for?

    Officially, it stood for nothing at all. It could mean anything you want.

    Suspect it might have been added because "O2" is quite hard to claim as original, although this was never explicitly stated.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    edited June 2022

    Nigelb said:

    Have PB's polling mavens done this one ?

    Interesting account by Chris Curtis from the 2017 election.

    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1534451799511408641
    ...Despite it being entirely predictable, everybody panicked at the backlash to the MRP. Nadhim Zahawi called up the CEO and said he would call for his resignation if he was wrong. It became pretty clear we would all be out of a job if we were wrong now....

    The poll was then spiked.

    I already noted this.
    Has Zahawi or any associated flying monkey denied that he stuck his oar in?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    .

    Nigelb said:

    Have PB's polling mavens done this one ?

    Interesting account by Chris Curtis from the 2017 election.

    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1534451799511408641
    ...Despite it being entirely predictable, everybody panicked at the backlash to the MRP. Nadhim Zahawi called up the CEO and said he would call for his resignation if he was wrong. It became pretty clear we would all be out of a job if we were wrong now....

    The poll was then spiked.

    I already noted this.
    Yes, sorry .... I've actually been working, :smile:
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    That's my neck of the woods, been a lot of NIMBYism from it. You know my opinion on NIMBYs.

    It doesn't say on that article but the NIMBY Council Leader quoted in the article saying that he has been pushing for it to be scrapped is Labour not Tory. Remarkably he's been kept on by the Labour Party as the local Council leader despite facing trial for electoral malpractice: https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/19882246.council-leader-russ-bowden-trial-date-set-court/
    There's a Conservative MP arrested on rape charges, but we're told he's innocent until proven guilty. Doesn't the same apply here?

    Personally, I think if you get as far as an arrest or trial, it's appropriate for such a person to step back, or be made to step back, while such matters are ongoing.
    Arrest only is tricky. Its a legal nicety to allow the police to question.

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut.
    Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty.
    It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus

    If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have t
    CD13 said:

    A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.

    Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.

    I think the sad truth is the network is going to need to be largely automated in the longer term - just as firemen, loco cleaners and signalmen went so will many drivers. This will need to be together with remote condition monitoring of assets using AI and more automated asset maintenance.

    Staffing costs are phenomenally expensive.
    Less than you’d think. A nine-coach IET needs one driver and (depending on union agreements) possibly one guard. Most of the southern commuter fleet just needs one driver. Even a ten-coach Voyager, among the most expensive type of train to operate, needs one driver and two guards.

    There is some fat to be trimmed - I can’t see ticket offices surviving for long in all but the biggest stations. But train and station staff costs aren’t what are killing the railway.

    The real problem is infrastructure. Track renewals and even the most modest enhancements are phenomenally expensive. A new basic station costs £14m absolute minimum. £14m!! For a concrete platform, an expanse of tarmac car park, and a little station building. It’s insane. The Northumberland Line reopening is costing £166m just to run slow passenger trains on existing tracks.
    Someone pointed out to me that the track bed between Northallerton and York needs to be repaired as its end of life (not surprising as it's been in use for 100+ years and trains are way heavier than they used to be).

    The cost is definitely Oh Boy...
    One thing a certain billionaire is right about - unless we get a handle on reducing infrastructure costs, we are going to have less and less infrastructure. Not more.

    Railways at a zillion pounds a mile are not sustainable.
    HS2 is so costly because it was engineered to be cost safe by gold plating the design and doing everything including all risks upfront in a waterfall method.

    The Elizabeth line is expensive because it's not completely new so needed to integrate with existing systems (never a great idea in the first place even worse when they are multiple existing systems).

    Basically we are crap at doing these type of projects and the Treasury makes it worse by not accepting the risk of cost overruns and then scrapping stuff for no good reason. HS2E has cost over £1bn in waterfall development costs that will now need to be redone because of the delays..
    Sorry, you’ve triggered me now: that’s nonsense; the UK is superb at delivering mega projects.

    Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.

    Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.

    Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.

    Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.

    The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
    Superb post.

    My issue is cost. It seems to me that the estimated costs for large projects are never correct - they always, ALWAYS, end up costing more.

    Where is the blame for this? Are governments lying upfront. knowing that the extra will need to be paid? Are the quotes deliberately low, knowing that the extra will need to be paid?
    People price things they know and for them going right first time.

    They don’t price things they don’t know, and over a 5-10+ year megaproject there’s lots in that space - same as there is in predicting the markets or politics for any business.

    So instead they allow a contingency - optimism bias always creeps in there because if you don’t know enough about it you’ll tend to think it’s not a big deal and you won’t allow too much float either as people don’t like to “plan for failure”. It doesn’t drive the project to perform. If it is put in, and people can’t explain what it’s for, HMT like to take it out again at the stage when the final funding package is announced.

    Basically, much of the budget and timeframe for a complex megaproject is an educated guess and we need to get much more comfortable with windows and ranges rather than exact dates and figures.
    Inflation is also a factor because this sort of project will often be long in the planning. Then there's also the question of scope. Initial estimates of the cost of HS2 didn't include the trains, while later totals do, so how much has the cost of the project actually increased on a like-for-like basis?
    Yes, very true.

    I think most of HS2’s problems come down to inconsistent sponsorship and lack of clarity on its business case, which led overspeccing of the engineering scope, and failure to properly price all its interrelated scope and associated risk, but if that was all clear from the start then it wouldn’t have increased nearly as much.

    Might never have got off the ground in the first place though.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
    He was willing to accept Free Movement
    What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
    Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.

    Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
    So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
    It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.

    So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.

    It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
    But a UK holding all the cards wouldn't have had to swallow those terms, right?
    Besides, asymmetry aside, hasn't it been good for Turkey? There's always a sense I get from this sort of thing of making the perfect the enemy of the good. It's one thing to point to imperfections, but quite another to say "disastrous". The reality seems to be it's good for Turkey.
    The Turks don't seem to think so. As I said there is a big movement to pull out of it which on the face of it seems crazy. But there is still the faint hope that it will lead to something better.
    Define "big movement" though
    Well it went as far as the Government and various opposition parties who were all in agreement that if the US trade deal went through they would have to withdraw.
    TTIP? But that's long-dead isn't it? So what's the current status of that "big movement"?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891

    Applicant said:

    Applicant said:

    Not Starmer’s best performance

    Blimey. As terrible as that?
    It wasn't terrible, just not his best. BoJo was dreadful as usual
    If you're saying it was "not his best", I conclude it was terrible. Same as if HYUFD had said it about Boris.
    Is this you saying I’m a Labour fanboy again even though I explained my history the other day?

    I thought it was not good. He’s done worse than today but definitely one of his worse performances.
    It was a poor choice of subject. He thought he'd look statesmanlike by discussing something of substance. A bad mistake. He gets few enough chances to get himself heard but this was one of them. He needed a blisteringly funny performance. He had more material than Billy Connoly on a first night. If he wasn't up to writing it himself get someone who could. I'm getting seriously worried that Labour might have screwed up badly
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841

    Some good questions from backbenchers. Johnson comes across much better when he does polite concern than when he smirks.

    He has this habit of thanking the questioner very much for the question no matter how difficult
    I once interviewed a candidate who started EVERY answer with "That's a very interesting point, [name of questioner]." It was nice at first, but gradually maddening.
    I remember one interview with a young lad. Really really keen, eager to impress, thought pretty well on his feet and clearly told by his mum/dad to rein in the cheeky chappy teen thing and be smart and upstanding because you could see he wasnt totally comfy in the situation. Anyway, end of interview i said 'thats it, well done, you can relax'
    'Nice one, cheers mate. Shit, sorry i didnt mean mate. Or sh... oh im so sorry' he was so crushed and thought hed blown it for a swear and a bit of tension relief familarity.
    He got the job. He was a top lad. And did really well.
    Just swear at your interviewer and hope hes lovely nutcase mentalist Woolie is the moral here. Or not. Its a long time since i worked as a manager or did interviews.
  • Phil said:

    Applicant said:

    Phil said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    Yup.

    I thought at the time that the proposals should have been done by some kind of ordered voting system to stop hardliners on both sides preventing any kind of compromise.

    If the point was to find the least worst out of the available options in order to persuade Parliament to vote something through, then voting for them each individually was the worst possible approach. Single votes didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, they just confirmed that Parliament didn’t like any of the available options!

    Just possibly, if we’d done a preference vote, we might have discovered that there was a least worst option that a majority of Parliament might be prepared to accept if it was put before them as a bill to be passed.

    Even then it might not have worked out, but at least we would have tried.
    I don't think it was, because MPs could vote for more than one. The idea was to produce at least one option that was acceptable. If MPs only voted for "good" and voted against "acceptable" they were doing it wrong.
    In a perfect world, without tactical voting, then sure: MPs could have voted for those things they would have been willing to accept & we might have found a compromise.

    Unfortunately, large blocks of MPs decided it would be more fun to try and game the results (in all possible directions) & thus the opportunity for compromise was lost.

    My personal belief (which may be wrong of course) is that an ordered vote style vote, where MPs were forced to place their preferences in order, might have forged consensus out of the chaos by making it public to all MPs that there was a compromise option on the table & given that the entire nation now knew that the compromise option existed, because their own votes had revealed it they’d pretty much have to vote for it, whether they liked that particular outcome or not.

    But we never got to find out.
    MPs only have themselves to blame if they voted against what they found acceptable, so didn't get what they wanted.

    Anyway, what's the problem? We ended up with a compromise, a new deal agreed between the EU and the UK, which was able to be endorsed by virtually everyone in the Commons from Keir Starmer to Steve Baker.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    What did the mm in mmO2 stand for?

    The partial pressure of oxygen measured in millimetres of mercury (i.e. height of the barometer differential), I think.

    Can be plain pressure of oxygen if there is no other gas present.

    760mm Hg = 1 standard atmosphere aka 1 bar = 101325 Pa = 101325 N m-2.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,251
    Roger said:

    Applicant said:

    Applicant said:

    Not Starmer’s best performance

    Blimey. As terrible as that?
    It wasn't terrible, just not his best. BoJo was dreadful as usual
    If you're saying it was "not his best", I conclude it was terrible. Same as if HYUFD had said it about Boris.
    Is this you saying I’m a Labour fanboy again even though I explained my history the other day?

    I thought it was not good. He’s done worse than today but definitely one of his worse performances.
    It was a poor choice of subject. He thought he'd look statesmanlike by discussing something of substance. A bad mistake. He gets few enough chances to get himself heard but this was one of them. He needed a blisteringly funny performance. He had more material than Billy Connoly on a first night. If he wasn't up to writing it himself get someone who could. I'm getting seriously worried that Labour might have screwed up badly
    Or Sir Beer Korma needed nothing of the kind. Boris bleeding out but still in office suite Labour perfectly
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Matt Hancock on Loose Women talking about his dyslexia

    https://www.itv.com/hub/loose-women/1a3173a3999
  • Leon said:

    Roger said:

    Applicant said:

    Applicant said:

    Not Starmer’s best performance

    Blimey. As terrible as that?
    It wasn't terrible, just not his best. BoJo was dreadful as usual
    If you're saying it was "not his best", I conclude it was terrible. Same as if HYUFD had said it about Boris.
    Is this you saying I’m a Labour fanboy again even though I explained my history the other day?

    I thought it was not good. He’s done worse than today but definitely one of his worse performances.
    It was a poor choice of subject. He thought he'd look statesmanlike by discussing something of substance. A bad mistake. He gets few enough chances to get himself heard but this was one of them. He needed a blisteringly funny performance. He had more material than Billy Connoly on a first night. If he wasn't up to writing it himself get someone who could. I'm getting seriously worried that Labour might have screwed up badly
    Or Sir Beer Korma needed nothing of the kind. Boris bleeding out but still in office suite Labour perfectly
    After today is Boris still bleeding out, or has Sir Beer Korma handed him a tourniquet?
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,921

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut.
    Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty.
    It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus

    If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have t
    CD13 said:

    A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.

    Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.

    I think the sad truth is the network is going to need to be largely automated in the longer term - just as firemen, loco cleaners and signalmen went so will many drivers. This will need to be together with remote condition monitoring of assets using AI and more automated asset maintenance.

    Staffing costs are phenomenally expensive.
    Less than you’d think. A nine-coach IET needs one driver and (depending on union agreements) possibly one guard. Most of the southern commuter fleet just needs one driver. Even a ten-coach Voyager, among the most expensive type of train to operate, needs one driver and two guards.

    There is some fat to be trimmed - I can’t see ticket offices surviving for long in all but the biggest stations. But train and station staff costs aren’t what are killing the railway.

    The real problem is infrastructure. Track renewals and even the most modest enhancements are phenomenally expensive. A new basic station costs £14m absolute minimum. £14m!! For a concrete platform, an expanse of tarmac car park, and a little station building. It’s insane. The Northumberland Line reopening is costing £166m just to run slow passenger trains on existing tracks.
    Someone pointed out to me that the track bed between Northallerton and York needs to be repaired as its end of life (not surprising as it's been in use for 100+ years and trains are way heavier than they used to be).

    The cost is definitely Oh Boy...
    One thing a certain billionaire is right about - unless we get a handle on reducing infrastructure costs, we are going to have less and less infrastructure. Not more.

    Railways at a zillion pounds a mile are not sustainable.
    HS2 is so costly because it was engineered to be cost safe by gold plating the design and doing everything including all risks upfront in a waterfall method.

    The Elizabeth line is expensive because it's not completely new so needed to integrate with existing systems (never a great idea in the first place even worse when they are multiple existing systems).

    Basically we are crap at doing these type of projects and the Treasury makes it worse by not accepting the risk of cost overruns and then scrapping stuff for no good reason. HS2E has cost over £1bn in waterfall development costs that will now need to be redone because of the delays..
    Sorry, you’ve triggered me now: that’s nonsense; the UK is superb at delivering mega projects.

    Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.

    Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.

    Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.

    Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.

    The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
    Um I covered 2 mega projects 1 of which overran and cost more because of reasons that are obvious to those who do tech

    And HS2 that is blooming expensive because the Treasury insisted on everything being gold plated up front rather than accepting any risk at the backend...

    T5 was a private project, Olympics was completely outsourced - so if we privatise it you don't have a problem, if we leave engineers to it we don't have a problem - the problems come with the Treasury insists on things being done in a particular way...
    Um.. you do know I’ve spent my whole career in megaprojects, and worked on T2, T5, the Olympics, and Crossrail, right?

    I won’t embarrass you further by commenting on the rest of your post.
    Where's my Bond Street station? Autumn 2022
    Where's my direct connection from Stratford to Whitechapel? May 2023 (subject to integration testing & trials)
    Where's my direct connection from Paddington low level towards Acton and beyond? (subject to integration testing & trials)

    Thanks!
    Answers above, but you know that.
    And no lifts at Ilford station either!
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846
    IanB2 said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
    He was willing to accept Free Movement
    What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
    Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.

    Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
    So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
    It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.

    So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.

    It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
    One way or another, our being located just outside the EU with so much trade with the EU means that we will be taking their rules, without any influence over them. That was obvious from the minute Brexit was first proposed.

    The question is whether we can be mature enough to acknowledge this in such a way as to make our trading interactions easier and smoother once again, or continue to pretend that somehow the ‘freedom’ to make our own rules - which no-one else will follow - gives us some still entirely hypothetical advantage that will compensate for all the extra hassle, cost, delay and lost business that we have inflicted upon ourselves.
    EFTA members of the EEA have exactly the same input into EU Directive and rule making (as far as it relates to the EEA) as full EU members with the exception of the final vote. And if they don't like the final decision they can reject it. Not something that was available to the UK as a member of the EU.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    edited June 2022

    dixiedean said:

    I didn't watch either.
    But. Do Labour want the PM strengthened or weakened at this moment?

    Excellent point. PB Tories moaning like hell Starmer didn’t knock Boris out for them. The Tories should have done that themselves! No point blaming others who have their own self serving game to play.
    Starmer asked the right questions but wasn't a compelling speaker. Though some of the gags (e.g. 24 hours in A+E) might clip well for the evening news.

    Johnson's answers were garbage, but garbage delivered with oomph and brio.

    You pays your money and you takes your choice.

    (None of this matters at all if the economy really tanks.)
    Governments have stayed put in recessions before. Recession in 92 kept Labour out of power. Economy simply tanking shouldn’t assume is great for oppositions. Only governments can act, if they get things right they can claim getting the big calls right. Meanwhile voters may already be nervous about changing PM and government when country in cost of living and economic crisis so should be easy to help voters along that way by making change and opposition sound scary. Labour would have more chance of winning next election if the country wasn’t in crisis. It’s harder work now for Labour to convince such big change is safe and not making it worse or wrecking the recovery, and hard work to tie things that’s international to the domestic government - any mistakes government have made they will so easily now blame on international situation out of their control as the line between the two will be very blurred.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    edited June 2022

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    edited June 2022
    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    OK this is quite odd now

    Emphatic statement

    “Berlin Police has told Sky News the driver of the car driven into pedestrians is a 29-year-old German-Armenian man with dual citizenship”

    https://twitter.com/skynewsbreak/status/1534500171509276672?s=21&t=VC7iUryNdqr2uLxbhyZQgA

    And yet:

    “UPDATE: In this video the suspect is being detained, while the camera man confronts him with the fact that at least one person has died. The suspect seems confused. WARNING: May contain shocking footage for some! #Berlin #Germany #Car #Attack #Attack”

    https://twitter.com/newsflash_tf/status/1534497628213346304?s=21&t=VC7iUryNdqr2uLxbhyZQgA

    Can that man possibly be 29?!

    The one thing this has done is show exactly what Twitter is any good for. Perhaps the only thing.

    At an incident, there is always someone on the spot who posts near-live footage.

    Political manifestos and views on trans - not so much.
    Twitter is good for many things - the above included, so long as you are extremely selective in whom you follow.

    BTW, reading a book which might be of interest to you: "A Morning in June", Lt. JW Evans' account of the defence of Outpost Harry, toward the end of the Korean War.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpost_Harry

    Plainly written, and very good indeed.
    Serendipitously this just popped up on my twitter feed. The photo may be misattributed, ie there were Koreans that ended up fighting in Europe but this could be a Georgian conscripted into the Ostruppen rather than Yang Kyoungjong (who has also had doubts expressed about his record of fighting for the IJA, the Red Army and the Wehrmacht).
    Whatever, to be born Korean in the first half of the C20th (or subsequently for many of them) was definitely not to win the lottery of life.


  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    That's my neck of the woods, been a lot of NIMBYism from it. You know my opinion on NIMBYs.

    It doesn't say on that article but the NIMBY Council Leader quoted in the article saying that he has been pushing for it to be scrapped is Labour not Tory. Remarkably he's been kept on by the Labour Party as the local Council leader despite facing trial for electoral malpractice: https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/19882246.council-leader-russ-bowden-trial-date-set-court/
    There's a Conservative MP arrested on rape charges, but we're told he's innocent until proven guilty. Doesn't the same apply here?

    Personally, I think if you get as far as an arrest or trial, it's appropriate for such a person to step back, or be made to step back, while such matters are ongoing.
    Arrest only is tricky. Its a legal nicety to allow the police to question.

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut.
    Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty.
    It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus

    If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have t
    CD13 said:

    A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.

    Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.

    I think the sad truth is the network is going to need to be largely automated in the longer term - just as firemen, loco cleaners and signalmen went so will many drivers. This will need to be together with remote condition monitoring of assets using AI and more automated asset maintenance.

    Staffing costs are phenomenally expensive.
    Less than you’d think. A nine-coach IET needs one driver and (depending on union agreements) possibly one guard. Most of the southern commuter fleet just needs one driver. Even a ten-coach Voyager, among the most expensive type of train to operate, needs one driver and two guards.

    There is some fat to be trimmed - I can’t see ticket offices surviving for long in all but the biggest stations. But train and station staff costs aren’t what are killing the railway.

    The real problem is infrastructure. Track renewals and even the most modest enhancements are phenomenally expensive. A new basic station costs £14m absolute minimum. £14m!! For a concrete platform, an expanse of tarmac car park, and a little station building. It’s insane. The Northumberland Line reopening is costing £166m just to run slow passenger trains on existing tracks.
    Someone pointed out to me that the track bed between Northallerton and York needs to be repaired as its end of life (not surprising as it's been in use for 100+ years and trains are way heavier than they used to be).

    The cost is definitely Oh Boy...
    One thing a certain billionaire is right about - unless we get a handle on reducing infrastructure costs, we are going to have less and less infrastructure. Not more.

    Railways at a zillion pounds a mile are not sustainable.
    HS2 is so costly because it was engineered to be cost safe by gold plating the design and doing everything including all risks upfront in a waterfall method.

    The Elizabeth line is expensive because it's not completely new so needed to integrate with existing systems (never a great idea in the first place even worse when they are multiple existing systems).

    Basically we are crap at doing these type of projects and the Treasury makes it worse by not accepting the risk of cost overruns and then scrapping stuff for no good reason. HS2E has cost over £1bn in waterfall development costs that will now need to be redone because of the delays..
    Sorry, you’ve triggered me now: that’s nonsense; the UK is superb at delivering mega projects.

    Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.

    Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.

    Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.

    Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.

    The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
    Superb post.

    My issue is cost. It seems to me that the estimated costs for large projects are never correct - they always, ALWAYS, end up costing more.

    Where is the blame for this? Are governments lying upfront. knowing that the extra will need to be paid? Are the quotes deliberately low, knowing that the extra will need to be paid?
    People price things they know and for them going right first time.

    They don’t price things they don’t know, and over a 5-10+ year megaproject there’s lots in that space - same as there is in predicting the markets or politics for any business.

    So instead they allow a contingency - optimism bias always creeps in there because if you don’t know enough about it you’ll tend to think it’s not a big deal and you won’t allow too much float either as people don’t like to “plan for failure”. It doesn’t drive the project to perform. If it is put in, and people can’t explain what it’s for, HMT like to take it out again at the stage when the final funding package is announced.

    Basically, much of the budget and timeframe for a complex megaproject is an educated guess and we need to get much more comfortable with windows and ranges rather than exact dates and figures.
    Inflation is also a factor because this sort of project will often be long in the planning. Then there's also the question of scope. Initial estimates of the cost of HS2 didn't include the trains, while later totals do, so how much has the cost of the project actually increased on a like-for-like basis?
    Yes, very true.

    I think most of HS2’s problems come down to inconsistent sponsorship and lack of clarity on its business case, which led overspeccing of the engineering scope, and failure to properly price all its interrelated scope and associated risk, but if that was all clear from the start then it wouldn’t have increased nearly as much.

    Might never have got off the ground in the first place though.
    HS2's problems started on day 1 when it was sold as a faster way between London and Birmingham rather than a new fast direct rail line that will allow us to seriously increase capacity on the existing lines and options for those who want to go from somewhere on the line to somewhere else on the line.

    And since 8am on the day it was announced it's been fighting a losing battle.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    I don't get the Zahawi/Yougov threat. Zahawi sold Yougov in 2010. How on earth could he have power over the CEO position in 2017 ?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    Do I take it that once again SKS proved to be the Stuart Pearce of penalty takers, even although the goal keeper has 2 hands and 1leg tied up behind his back? I am shocked, truly shocked.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841
    edited June 2022

    dixiedean said:

    I didn't watch either.
    But. Do Labour want the PM strengthened or weakened at this moment?

    Excellent point. PB Tories moaning like hell Starmer didn’t knock Boris out for them. The Tories should have done that themselves! No point blaming others who have their own self serving game to play.
    Starmer asked the right questions but wasn't a compelling speaker. Though some of the gags (e.g. 24 hours in A+E) might clip well for the evening news.

    Johnson's answers were garbage, but garbage delivered with oomph and brio.

    You pays your money and you takes your choice.

    (None of this matters at all if the economy really tanks.)
    Governments have stayed put in recessions before. Recession in 92 kept Labour out of power. Economy simply tanking shouldn’t assume is great for oppositions. Only governments can act, if they get things right they can claim getting the big calls right. Meanwhile voters may already be nervous about changing PM and government when country in cost of living and economic crisis so should be easy to help voters along that way by making change and opposition sound scary. Labour would have more chance of winning next election if the country wasn’t in crisis. It’s harder work now for Labour to convince such big change is safe and not making it worse or wrecking the recovery, and hard work to tie things that’s international to the domestic government - any mistakes government have made they will so easily now blame on international situation out of their control as the line between the two will be very blurred.
    The Tories need to reestablish the link in voters minds between Labour and economic incompetence to nullify CoL. I think theyll struggle to put it mildly.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    edited June 2022
    Scott_xP said:
    Stan Lee insulted me! But in Bizarro World, that means he likes me!


  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789

    IanB2 said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
    He was willing to accept Free Movement
    What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
    Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.

    Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
    So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
    It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.

    So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.

    It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
    One way or another, our being located just outside the EU with so much trade with the EU means that we will be taking their rules, without any influence over them. That was obvious from the minute Brexit was first proposed.

    The question is whether we can be mature enough to acknowledge this in such a way as to make our trading interactions easier and smoother once again, or continue to pretend that somehow the ‘freedom’ to make our own rules - which no-one else will follow - gives us some still entirely hypothetical advantage that will compensate for all the extra hassle, cost, delay and lost business that we have inflicted upon ourselves.
    EFTA members of the EEA have exactly the same input into EU Directive and rule making (as far as it relates to the EEA) as full EU members with the exception of the final vote. And if they don't like the final decision they can reject it. Not something that was available to the UK as a member of the EU.
    That's a very rose-tinted view of the process and the EEA isn't designed to allow piecemeal rejection of parts of single market law.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    dixiedean said:

    I didn't watch either.
    But. Do Labour want the PM strengthened or weakened at this moment?

    Excellent point. PB Tories moaning like hell Starmer didn’t knock Boris out for them. The Tories should have done that themselves! No point blaming others who have their own self serving game to play.
    Starmer asked the right questions but wasn't a compelling speaker. Though some of the gags (e.g. 24 hours in A+E) might clip well for the evening news.

    Johnson's answers were garbage, but garbage delivered with oomph and brio.

    You pays your money and you takes your choice.

    (None of this matters at all if the economy really tanks.)
    Governments have stayed put in recessions before. Recession in 92 kept Labour out of power. Economy simply tanking shouldn’t assume is great for oppositions. Only governments can act, if they get things right they can claim getting the big calls right. Meanwhile voters may already be nervous about changing PM and government when country in cost of living and economic crisis so should be easy to help voters along that way by making change and opposition sound scary. Labour would have more chance of winning next election if the country wasn’t in crisis. It’s harder work now for Labour to convince such big change is safe and not making it worse or wrecking the recovery, and hard work to tie things that’s international to the domestic government - any mistakes government have made they will so easily now blame on international situation out of their control as the line between the two will be very blurred.
    on that basis 92 is a VERY interesting election. On the one hand you have the seriously competent John Smith as shadow Chancellor let down by Neil Kinnock's image and on the other hand you have John Major and Norman Lamont
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    eek said:

    That's my neck of the woods, been a lot of NIMBYism from it. You know my opinion on NIMBYs.

    It doesn't say on that article but the NIMBY Council Leader quoted in the article saying that he has been pushing for it to be scrapped is Labour not Tory. Remarkably he's been kept on by the Labour Party as the local Council leader despite facing trial for electoral malpractice: https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/19882246.council-leader-russ-bowden-trial-date-set-court/
    There's a Conservative MP arrested on rape charges, but we're told he's innocent until proven guilty. Doesn't the same apply here?

    Personally, I think if you get as far as an arrest or trial, it's appropriate for such a person to step back, or be made to step back, while such matters are ongoing.
    Arrest only is tricky. Its a legal nicety to allow the police to question.

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut.
    Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty.
    It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus

    If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have t
    CD13 said:

    A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.

    Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.

    I think the sad truth is the network is going to need to be largely automated in the longer term - just as firemen, loco cleaners and signalmen went so will many drivers. This will need to be together with remote condition monitoring of assets using AI and more automated asset maintenance.

    Staffing costs are phenomenally expensive.
    Less than you’d think. A nine-coach IET needs one driver and (depending on union agreements) possibly one guard. Most of the southern commuter fleet just needs one driver. Even a ten-coach Voyager, among the most expensive type of train to operate, needs one driver and two guards.

    There is some fat to be trimmed - I can’t see ticket offices surviving for long in all but the biggest stations. But train and station staff costs aren’t what are killing the railway.

    The real problem is infrastructure. Track renewals and even the most modest enhancements are phenomenally expensive. A new basic station costs £14m absolute minimum. £14m!! For a concrete platform, an expanse of tarmac car park, and a little station building. It’s insane. The Northumberland Line reopening is costing £166m just to run slow passenger trains on existing tracks.
    Someone pointed out to me that the track bed between Northallerton and York needs to be repaired as its end of life (not surprising as it's been in use for 100+ years and trains are way heavier than they used to be).

    The cost is definitely Oh Boy...
    One thing a certain billionaire is right about - unless we get a handle on reducing infrastructure costs, we are going to have less and less infrastructure. Not more.

    Railways at a zillion pounds a mile are not sustainable.
    HS2 is so costly because it was engineered to be cost safe by gold plating the design and doing everything including all risks upfront in a waterfall method.

    The Elizabeth line is expensive because it's not completely new so needed to integrate with existing systems (never a great idea in the first place even worse when they are multiple existing systems).

    Basically we are crap at doing these type of projects and the Treasury makes it worse by not accepting the risk of cost overruns and then scrapping stuff for no good reason. HS2E has cost over £1bn in waterfall development costs that will now need to be redone because of the delays..
    Sorry, you’ve triggered me now: that’s nonsense; the UK is superb at delivering mega projects.

    Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.

    Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.

    Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.

    Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.

    The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
    Superb post.

    My issue is cost. It seems to me that the estimated costs for large projects are never correct - they always, ALWAYS, end up costing more.

    Where is the blame for this? Are governments lying upfront. knowing that the extra will need to be paid? Are the quotes deliberately low, knowing that the extra will need to be paid?
    People price things they know and for them going right first time.

    They don’t price things they don’t know, and over a 5-10+ year megaproject there’s lots in that space - same as there is in predicting the markets or politics for any business.

    So instead they allow a contingency - optimism bias always creeps in there because if you don’t know enough about it you’ll tend to think it’s not a big deal and you won’t allow too much float either as people don’t like to “plan for failure”. It doesn’t drive the project to perform. If it is put in, and people can’t explain what it’s for, HMT like to take it out again at the stage when the final funding package is announced.

    Basically, much of the budget and timeframe for a complex megaproject is an educated guess and we need to get much more comfortable with windows and ranges rather than exact dates and figures.
    Inflation is also a factor because this sort of project will often be long in the planning. Then there's also the question of scope. Initial estimates of the cost of HS2 didn't include the trains, while later totals do, so how much has the cost of the project actually increased on a like-for-like basis?
    Yes, very true.

    I think most of HS2’s problems come down to inconsistent sponsorship and lack of clarity on its business case, which led overspeccing of the engineering scope, and failure to properly price all its interrelated scope and associated risk, but if that was all clear from the start then it wouldn’t have increased nearly as much.

    Might never have got off the ground in the first place though.
    HS2's problems started on day 1 when it was sold as a faster way between London and Birmingham rather than a new fast direct rail line that will allow us to seriously increase capacity on the existing lines and options for those who want to go from somewhere on the line to somewhere else on the line.

    And since 8am on the day it was announced it's been fighting a losing battle.
    That was always only one of the benefits. You seem to be confusing the justifications with the critics' misrepresentation.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,251
    As a Leave voter I have to say the UK quitting/being kicked out of Horizon, the EU science fund, seems pretty bloody sub-optimal

    Get this fucker Boris out of Number 10 and find someone who will deal pragmatically with the EU. Yes the EU is boorish and overbearing, at times, but we have to rub along with it
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    DavidL said:

    Do I take it that once again SKS proved to be the Stuart Pearce of penalty takers, even although the goal keeper has 2 hands and 1leg tied up behind his back? I am shocked, truly shocked.

    Starmer’s cunning plan to prop up Johnson by asking useless questions @indypremium https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/voices/keir-starmer-boris-johnson-pmqs-nhs-b2096540.html
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    Leon said:

    As a Leave voter I have to say the UK quitting/being kicked out of Horizon, the EU science fund, seems pretty bloody sub-optimal

    Get this fucker Boris out of Number 10 and find someone who will deal pragmatically with the EU. Yes the EU is boorish and overbearing, at times, but we have to rub along with it

    I can't believe he has helped his case with his backbench today after it seems declaring "no one can stop him" and "he has only just begun".

  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,395
    Quite amusing report here on how boozing Scots - faced with Sturgeon's minimum price for alcohol units policy - simply moved from cider to vodka, and cut down on food.

    More alky deaths than ever, to go along with Europe's worst performance on drug-related deaths.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2022/06/emily-carver-meanwhile-in-scotland-the-snp-bungles-schools-ferries-drugs-rail-and-now-minimum-alcohol-pricie.html

  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    edited June 2022

    dixiedean said:

    I didn't watch either.
    But. Do Labour want the PM strengthened or weakened at this moment?

    Excellent point. PB Tories moaning like hell Starmer didn’t knock Boris out for them. The Tories should have done that themselves! No point blaming others who have their own self serving game to play.
    Starmer asked the right questions but wasn't a compelling speaker. Though some of the gags (e.g. 24 hours in A+E) might clip well for the evening news.

    Johnson's answers were garbage, but garbage delivered with oomph and brio.

    You pays your money and you takes your choice.

    (None of this matters at all if the economy really tanks.)
    Governments have stayed put in recessions before. Recession in 92 kept Labour out of power. Economy simply tanking shouldn’t assume is great for oppositions. Only governments can act, if they get things right they can claim getting the big calls right. Meanwhile voters may already be nervous about changing PM and government when country in cost of living and economic crisis so should be easy to help voters along that way by making change and opposition sound scary. Labour would have more chance of winning next election if the country wasn’t in crisis. It’s harder work now for Labour to convince such big change is safe and not making it worse or wrecking the recovery, and hard work to tie things that’s international to the domestic government - any mistakes government have made they will so easily now blame on international situation out of their control as the line between the two will be very blurred.
    The Tories need to reestablish the link in voters minds between Labour and economic incompetence to nullify CoL. I think theyll struggle to put it mildly.
    In 92 Labour helped them. The Tories trying to frighten voters with prospect of Labour raising taxes on hard up households in recession - Labour were simultaneously out they saying “we definitely will, investment from more tax on you is our master plan.”

    Which is why the coming big tax cuts from Boris government works well as lead jab for the knock out blow as in this situation people will applaud it, not ask how it’s to be funded, or it’s impact on inflation or borrowing. The knock out blow is then the manifesto Labour produce, opposing the tax cuts, promising spending and investment that needs to be costed cause the 92 Tory campaign will be resurrected.

    It gets a lot more difficult Labour closing the deal. Despite everything Poll is only 4% behind, Boris and his supporters still confident they can win majority.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    This is not how most Irish people think about NATO:

    https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2022/06/08/ireland-would-not-need-referendum-to-join-nato-says-taoiseach/

    Ireland would not need to hold a referendum to join NATO as it is a policy decision of the government, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited June 2022

    Quite amusing report here on how boozing Scots - faced with Sturgeon's minimum price for alcohol units policy - simply moved from cider to vodka, and cut down on food.

    More alky deaths than ever, to go along with Europe's worst performance on drug-related deaths.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2022/06/emily-carver-meanwhile-in-scotland-the-snp-bungles-schools-ferries-drugs-rail-and-now-minimum-alcohol-pricie.html

    This is the third time we've had this on PB. The overall benefit was there across the population - it is just the out and out alkies who are being focussed on for political effect and political bias.

    Of course, the likes of Lord-to-be Frost campaigned bitterly against this pretty mild law (when he was i/c the Scots Whisky Federation, almost none of which drink was affected at all).
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Quite amusing report here on how boozing Scots - faced with Sturgeon's minimum price for alcohol units policy - simply moved from cider to vodka, and cut down on food.

    More alky deaths than ever, to go along with Europe's worst performance on drug-related deaths.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2022/06/emily-carver-meanwhile-in-scotland-the-snp-bungles-schools-ferries-drugs-rail-and-now-minimum-alcohol-pricie.html

    Let's all laugh at a miserably fucked up, unhappy, impoverished and psychologically disturbed subset of the population
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,281

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut.
    Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty.
    It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus

    If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have t
    CD13 said:

    A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.

    Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.

    I think the sad truth is the network is going to need to be largely automated in the longer term - just as firemen, loco cleaners and signalmen went so will many drivers. This will need to be together with remote condition monitoring of assets using AI and more automated asset maintenance.

    Staffing costs are phenomenally expensive.
    Less than you’d think. A nine-coach IET needs one driver and (depending on union agreements) possibly one guard. Most of the southern commuter fleet just needs one driver. Even a ten-coach Voyager, among the most expensive type of train to operate, needs one driver and two guards.

    There is some fat to be trimmed - I can’t see ticket offices surviving for long in all but the biggest stations. But train and station staff costs aren’t what are killing the railway.

    The real problem is infrastructure. Track renewals and even the most modest enhancements are phenomenally expensive. A new basic station costs £14m absolute minimum. £14m!! For a concrete platform, an expanse of tarmac car park, and a little station building. It’s insane. The Northumberland Line reopening is costing £166m just to run slow passenger trains on existing tracks.
    Someone pointed out to me that the track bed between Northallerton and York needs to be repaired as its end of life (not surprising as it's been in use for 100+ years and trains are way heavier than they used to be).

    The cost is definitely Oh Boy...
    One thing a certain billionaire is right about - unless we get a handle on reducing infrastructure costs, we are going to have less and less infrastructure. Not more.

    Railways at a zillion pounds a mile are not sustainable.
    HS2 is so costly because it was engineered to be cost safe by gold plating the design and doing everything including all risks upfront in a waterfall method.

    The Elizabeth line is expensive because it's not completely new so needed to integrate with existing systems (never a great idea in the first place even worse when they are multiple existing systems).

    Basically we are crap at doing these type of projects and the Treasury makes it worse by not accepting the risk of cost overruns and then scrapping stuff for no good reason. HS2E has cost over £1bn in waterfall development costs that will now need to be redone because of the delays..
    Sorry, you’ve triggered me now: that’s nonsense; the UK is superb at delivering mega projects.

    Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.

    Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.

    Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.

    Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.

    The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
    Is HS2 on time and budget?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    Go back and read what I said, I said Labour voted for every compromise *except* Eustice's. Because that left the Irish border issue in limbo.
    All my opening paragraph reveals is that I thought that Brexit was a bad idea. I still think this. Your arrogant claim that I can therefore be dismissed is typical of Leavers' hubris, and is why you fanatics have steered us into this disastrous situation instead of trying to find a workable compromise that protected the GFA and our economy.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    IshmaelZ said:

    Quite amusing report here on how boozing Scots - faced with Sturgeon's minimum price for alcohol units policy - simply moved from cider to vodka, and cut down on food.

    More alky deaths than ever, to go along with Europe's worst performance on drug-related deaths.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2022/06/emily-carver-meanwhile-in-scotland-the-snp-bungles-schools-ferries-drugs-rail-and-now-minimum-alcohol-pricie.html

    Let's all laugh at a miserably fucked up, unhappy, impoverished and psychologically disturbed subset of the population
    Quite so. I thought @DavidL made some very good comments on here yesterday, the last time some Unionist media type picked out the bit that would make a good story.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    Quite amusing report here on how boozing Scots - faced with Sturgeon's minimum price for alcohol units policy - simply moved from cider to vodka, and cut down on food.

    More alky deaths than ever, to go along with Europe's worst performance on drug-related deaths.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2022/06/emily-carver-meanwhile-in-scotland-the-snp-bungles-schools-ferries-drugs-rail-and-now-minimum-alcohol-pricie.html

    It would also help if HMG hadn't been so obstructive about the relatively mild initiatives the SG did bring in (notably drug rooms). But the SG has been too timid anyway, partly because of the outcries from the Unionist media (who seem to hate junkies but support jakies, for reasons i can't comprehend).
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846

    IanB2 said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
    He was willing to accept Free Movement
    What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
    Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.

    Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
    So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
    It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.

    So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.

    It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
    One way or another, our being located just outside the EU with so much trade with the EU means that we will be taking their rules, without any influence over them. That was obvious from the minute Brexit was first proposed.

    The question is whether we can be mature enough to acknowledge this in such a way as to make our trading interactions easier and smoother once again, or continue to pretend that somehow the ‘freedom’ to make our own rules - which no-one else will follow - gives us some still entirely hypothetical advantage that will compensate for all the extra hassle, cost, delay and lost business that we have inflicted upon ourselves.
    EFTA members of the EEA have exactly the same input into EU Directive and rule making (as far as it relates to the EEA) as full EU members with the exception of the final vote. And if they don't like the final decision they can reject it. Not something that was available to the UK as a member of the EU.
    That's a very rose-tinted view of the process and the EEA isn't designed to allow piecemeal rejection of parts of single market law.
    No I agree but it does allow withdrawal from relevant chapters if the EFTA member is strongly enough opposed. And without leaving EFTA or the EEA. When we were part of the EU the only option for us was to accept the rule or leave the whole organisation.

    EFTA members also do not have to implement directives and rules verbatim as EU members do. The EFTA members pass laws in Parliament which are supposed to align as closely as possible with EU rules but with their own interpretation/implementation. Hundreds of EU rules have been 'interpreted' in this way so that they do not exactly match the EU regulations.

    It is covered well in the Fullfact article here:

    https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-facts-behind-claims-norway/

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,251
    IshmaelZ said:

    Quite amusing report here on how boozing Scots - faced with Sturgeon's minimum price for alcohol units policy - simply moved from cider to vodka, and cut down on food.

    More alky deaths than ever, to go along with Europe's worst performance on drug-related deaths.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2022/06/emily-carver-meanwhile-in-scotland-the-snp-bungles-schools-ferries-drugs-rail-and-now-minimum-alcohol-pricie.html

    Let's all laugh at a miserably fucked up, unhappy, impoverished and psychologically disturbed subset of the population
    Bit harsh on the Scots, there?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    DavidL said:

    Do I take it that once again SKS proved to be the Stuart Pearce of penalty takers, even although the goal keeper has 2 hands and 1leg tied up behind his back? I am shocked, truly shocked.

    It depends wether you think he missed an open goal, or, for his own reasons, choose to ignore it. There’s a lot of Tories who just want Boris buried now asap, with everyone joining in on that, so they have a skewed view of what happened at todays PMQs.

    I like the way the opposition party’s reacted today to be honest 🙂
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    I have at last had my response from Alun Cairns.

    He has explained his support for Boris Johnson.

    a. Boris Johnson apologised.

    b Sue Gray and the Met exonorated Johnson personally from direct blame

    c. Johnson is winning the war for Ukraine ( my embellishment, but the gist is not wrong).

    d. Johnson's Covid performance.

    e. Johnson's economic performance.

    And there we have it five reasons why an ebullient Johnson believes his tenure as PM is in its infancy

    Glory be!

    P S. I responded to Mr Cairns by expressing that my Conservative wife hopes he becomes an ex-MP at the next General Election for his spinelessness (my wife's description).
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    edited June 2022

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    Go back and read what I said, I said Labour voted for every compromise *except* Eustice's. Because that left the Irish border issue in limbo.
    All my opening paragraph reveals is that I thought that Brexit was a bad idea. I still think this. Your arrogant claim that I can therefore be dismissed is typical of Leavers' hubris, and is why you fanatics have steered us into this disastrous situation instead of trying to find a workable compromise that protected the GFA and our economy.
    If you're calling someone who has been a supporter of EEA/EFTA - the only off-the-shelf compromise between membership and no deal - since longe before the referendum was called a "fanatic" then I rather suggest you should be looking in the mirror.

    It's clear that in the indicative votes Labour only supported EU membership or something which EU membership was the only way to get.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846
    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    I have at last had my response from Alun Cairns.

    He has explained his support for Boris Johnson.

    a. Boris Johnson apologised.

    b Sue Gray and the Met exonorated Johnson personally from direct blame

    c. Johnson is winning the war for Ukraine ( my embellishment, but the gist is not wrong).

    d. Johnson's Covid performance.

    e. Johnson's economic performance.

    And there we have it five reasons why an ebullient Johnson believes his tenure as PM is in its infancy

    Glory be!

    P S. I responded to Mr Cairns by expressing that my Conservative wife hopes he becomes an ex-MP at the next General Election for his spinelessness (my wife's description).

    JFC! Though, on reflection, the comparison may be apt, a bit late for Whit Sunday though.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    .

    Leon said:

    As a Leave voter I have to say the UK quitting/being kicked out of Horizon, the EU science fund, seems pretty bloody sub-optimal

    Get this fucker Boris out of Number 10 and find someone who will deal pragmatically with the EU. Yes the EU is boorish and overbearing, at times, but we have to rub along with it

    I can't believe he has helped his case with his backbench today after it seems declaring "no one can stop him" and "he has only just begun".

    From Labour's absolute boy, to Tory absolute arse.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,251
    File under “Things Can Only Get Better”

    “Russian deputy proposes to cancel the recognition of #Lithuania independence. Seems like #Ukraine isn't the only target of putin's sick imperialist ambitions! We need to stop putin now, before he starts claiming that Paris and Berlin are native russian cities”

    https://twitter.com/gerashchenko_en/status/1534530462986772481?s=21&t=JQPBplDtRKIsungNMSGVHg
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    I have at last had my response from Alun Cairns.

    He has explained his support for Boris Johnson.

    a. Boris Johnson apologised.

    b Sue Gray and the Met exonorated Johnson personally from direct blame

    c. Johnson is winning the war for Ukraine ( my embellishment, but the gist is not wrong).

    d. Johnson's Covid performance.

    e. Johnson's economic performance.

    And there we have it five reasons why an ebullient Johnson believes his tenure as PM is in its infancy

    Glory be!

    P S. I responded to Mr Cairns by expressing that my Conservative wife hopes he becomes an ex-MP at the next General Election for his spinelessness (my wife's description).

    Answer B is utter fantasy 🤭
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    David Neal, chief inspector of Borders & Immigration, says he's not met the home secretary since starting job 14 months ago

    He says 6 scheduled meetings with Priti Patel have been cancelled

    "I'm frustrated because I think I have a lot of things to offer"

    @CommonsHomeAffs

    https://twitter.com/matt_dathan/status/1534528581124210689
  • Leon said:

    As a Leave voter I have to say the UK quitting/being kicked out of Horizon, the EU science fund, seems pretty bloody sub-optimal

    Get this fucker Boris out of Number 10 and find someone who will deal pragmatically with the EU. Yes the EU is boorish and overbearing, at times, but we have to rub along with it

    Or we should just set up our own alternative to Horizon. The EU is not some science superpower, they don't even have any universities in the Top 50 as far as I know in any of the major international rankings.

    The UK, Israel, Switzerland and other comparable nations combined all have more more scientific development than the EU combined does. If the EU want to politicise science, then we should step away from the politics and concentrate on the science instead.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    This explains Ukraine's desperation to get hold of NATO standard heavy weapons.

    https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1534497485237932032
    ...A European defence official told me this morning that Soviet/Russian-standard ammunition is severely depleted across Europe. "It's gone already in three months...It doesn't exist anymore." Added that inflation is going to make all ammunition much more expensive...
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    I have at last had my response from Alun Cairns.

    He has explained his support for Boris Johnson.

    a. Boris Johnson apologised.

    b Sue Gray and the Met exonorated Johnson personally from direct blame

    c. Johnson is winning the war for Ukraine ( my embellishment, but the gist is not wrong).

    d. Johnson's Covid performance.

    e. Johnson's economic performance.

    And there we have it five reasons why an ebullient Johnson believes his tenure as PM is in its infancy

    Glory be!

    P S. I responded to Mr Cairns by expressing that my Conservative wife hopes he becomes an ex-MP at the next General Election for his spinelessness (my wife's description).

    a. For getting caught

    b. Bollocks

    c. Bollocks

    d. He caught it

    e. worst in G7
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    Go back and read what I said, I said Labour voted for every compromise *except* Eustice's. Because that left the Irish border issue in limbo.
    All my opening paragraph reveals is that I thought that Brexit was a bad idea. I still think this. Your arrogant claim that I can therefore be dismissed is typical of Leavers' hubris, and is why you fanatics have steered us into this disastrous situation instead of trying to find a workable compromise that protected the GFA and our economy.
    Look I understand you are arguing from a position of profound ignorance on this but when you are in a hole you really should stop digging. Admit it. You were unwilling to accept any form of practical compromise just like most Labour MPs (and most of the rest of Parliament on all sides as well unfortunately). Trying to rewrite history like this to assuage their guilt is rather infantile.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    edited June 2022
    Applicant said:

    If you're calling someone who has been a supporter of EEA/EFTA - the only off-the-shelf compromise between membership and no deal - since longe before the referendum was called a "fanatic" then I rather suggest you should be looking in the mirror.

    It's clear that in the indicative votes Labour only supported EU membership or something which EU membership was the only way to get.

    Richard is one of the most consistent but relatively moderate opponents of the EU. As far as I can recall he has always favoured EFTA or some analogue of it. He doesn't appear to have changed his position at all. If people like him had set the direction for Brexit much of the bad blood and problems would never have occurred.

    FWIW I still think that long term we'll end up in EFTA or I Can't Believe It's Not EFTA! Although I do expect it to take a long time and probably several changes of government before we end up with the right people at the right time to get it over the line.
  • PaulSimonPaulSimon Posts: 34

    Quite amusing report here on how boozing Scots - faced with Sturgeon's minimum price for alcohol units policy - simply moved from cider to vodka, and cut down on food.

    More alky deaths than ever, to go along with Europe's worst performance on drug-related deaths.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2022/06/emily-carver-meanwhile-in-scotland-the-snp-bungles-schools-ferries-drugs-rail-and-now-minimum-alcohol-pricie.html

    And perennial nanny statist Jeremy Hunt seriously considered imposing this paternalistic nonsense on England, too. We dodged a bullet when he left the cabinet. Good thing he's never coming back, right? Right???

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6397675/jeremy-hunt-risks-pushing-away-voters-nanny-state-policies/
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    Leon said:

    As a Leave voter I have to say the UK quitting/being kicked out of Horizon, the EU science fund, seems pretty bloody sub-optimal

    Get this fucker Boris out of Number 10 and find someone who will deal pragmatically with the EU. Yes the EU is boorish and overbearing, at times, but we have to rub along with it

    Or we should just set up our own alternative to Horizon. The EU is not some science superpower, they don't even have any universities in the Top 50 as far as I know in any of the major international rankings.

    The UK, Israel, Switzerland and other comparable nations combined all have more more scientific development than the EU combined does. If the EU want to politicise science, then we should step away from the politics and concentrate on the science instead.
    "...should just..."

    That's just handwaving.
  • Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    As a Leave voter I have to say the UK quitting/being kicked out of Horizon, the EU science fund, seems pretty bloody sub-optimal

    Get this fucker Boris out of Number 10 and find someone who will deal pragmatically with the EU. Yes the EU is boorish and overbearing, at times, but we have to rub along with it

    Or we should just set up our own alternative to Horizon. The EU is not some science superpower, they don't even have any universities in the Top 50 as far as I know in any of the major international rankings.

    The UK, Israel, Switzerland and other comparable nations combined all have more more scientific development than the EU combined does. If the EU want to politicise science, then we should step away from the politics and concentrate on the science instead.
    "...should just..."

    That's just handwaving.
    Why is having a Plan B "just handwaving"?

    In life its generally pretty reasonable to have a Plan B, if Plan A doesn't work. The EU wants to use Horizon politically as a weapon, in which case walking away from it is perfectly rational.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,002

    I have at last had my response from Alun Cairns.

    He has explained his support for Boris Johnson.

    a. Boris Johnson apologised.

    b Sue Gray and the Met exonorated Johnson personally from direct blame

    c. Johnson is winning the war for Ukraine ( my embellishment, but the gist is not wrong).

    d. Johnson's Covid performance.

    e. Johnson's economic performance.

    And there we have it five reasons why an ebullient Johnson believes his tenure as PM is in its infancy

    Glory be!

    P S. I responded to Mr Cairns by expressing that my Conservative wife hopes he becomes an ex-MP at the next General Election for his spinelessness (my wife's description).

    I have my response from Robin Millar who refuses to say, at least Cairns told you his vote

    Anyway it hardly matters as the 148 will prevail
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    The only customs union that would allow the UK to have a say on EU third party trade deals (which was explict in their proposal) would be 'The' Customs Union. It was typical political dishonesty to try and dress it up any other way. Something you are repeating now.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    eek said:

    dixiedean said:

    I didn't watch either.
    But. Do Labour want the PM strengthened or weakened at this moment?

    Excellent point. PB Tories moaning like hell Starmer didn’t knock Boris out for them. The Tories should have done that themselves! No point blaming others who have their own self serving game to play.
    Starmer asked the right questions but wasn't a compelling speaker. Though some of the gags (e.g. 24 hours in A+E) might clip well for the evening news.

    Johnson's answers were garbage, but garbage delivered with oomph and brio.

    You pays your money and you takes your choice.

    (None of this matters at all if the economy really tanks.)
    Governments have stayed put in recessions before. Recession in 92 kept Labour out of power. Economy simply tanking shouldn’t assume is great for oppositions. Only governments can act, if they get things right they can claim getting the big calls right. Meanwhile voters may already be nervous about changing PM and government when country in cost of living and economic crisis so should be easy to help voters along that way by making change and opposition sound scary. Labour would have more chance of winning next election if the country wasn’t in crisis. It’s harder work now for Labour to convince such big change is safe and not making it worse or wrecking the recovery, and hard work to tie things that’s international to the domestic government - any mistakes government have made they will so easily now blame on international situation out of their control as the line between the two will be very blurred.
    on that basis 92 is a VERY interesting election. On the one hand you have the seriously competent John Smith as shadow Chancellor let down by Neil Kinnock's image and on the other hand you have John Major and Norman Lamont
    You might not be right. I say might be because it’s a bit counterfactual - but polls and elections for years didn’t pick up on Kinnock image make labour unelectable, he did take a hammering in the press didn’t he? But John Smith who I hasn’t seen on video but looks cocky in pictures brought out a tax raising shadow budget during the campaign, that was a bit like handing the Tory’s the howitzers which blew the Labour chances away?

    We can’t rule out a very similar thing happening this time.

    PS did anyone watch Wes Streetings car crash in commons today. I don’t rate him at all, he was so rubbish today. If Streeting takes over from Starmer this summer Labour definitely lose. Starmer’s the best option they have from that front bench.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited June 2022
    Applicant said:

    eek said:

    That's my neck of the woods, been a lot of NIMBYism from it. You know my opinion on NIMBYs.

    It doesn't say on that article but the NIMBY Council Leader quoted in the article saying that he has been pushing for it to be scrapped is Labour not Tory. Remarkably he's been kept on by the Labour Party as the local Council leader despite facing trial for electoral malpractice: https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/19882246.council-leader-russ-bowden-trial-date-set-court/
    There's a Conservative MP arrested on rape charges, but we're told he's innocent until proven guilty. Doesn't the same apply here?

    Personally, I think if you get as far as an arrest or trial, it's appropriate for such a person to step back, or be made to step back, while such matters are ongoing.
    Arrest only is tricky. Its a legal nicety to allow the police to question.

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut.
    Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty.
    It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus

    If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have t
    CD13 said:

    A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.

    Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.

    I think the sad truth is the network is going to need to be largely automated in the longer term - just as firemen, loco cleaners and signalmen went so will many drivers. This will need to be together with remote condition monitoring of assets using AI and more automated asset maintenance.

    Staffing costs are phenomenally expensive.
    Less than you’d think. A nine-coach IET needs one driver and (depending on union agreements) possibly one guard. Most of the southern commuter fleet just needs one driver. Even a ten-coach Voyager, among the most expensive type of train to operate, needs one driver and two guards.

    There is some fat to be trimmed - I can’t see ticket offices surviving for long in all but the biggest stations. But train and station staff costs aren’t what are killing the railway.

    The real problem is infrastructure. Track renewals and even the most modest enhancements are phenomenally expensive. A new basic station costs £14m absolute minimum. £14m!! For a concrete platform, an expanse of tarmac car park, and a little station building. It’s insane. The Northumberland Line reopening is costing £166m just to run slow passenger trains on existing tracks.
    Someone pointed out to me that the track bed between Northallerton and York needs to be repaired as its end of life (not surprising as it's been in use for 100+ years and trains are way heavier than they used to be).

    The cost is definitely Oh Boy...
    One thing a certain billionaire is right about - unless we get a handle on reducing infrastructure costs, we are going to have less and less infrastructure. Not more.

    Railways at a zillion pounds a mile are not sustainable.
    HS2 is so costly because it was engineered to be cost safe by gold plating the design and doing everything including all risks upfront in a waterfall method.

    The Elizabeth line is expensive because it's not completely new so needed to integrate with existing systems (never a great idea in the first place even worse when they are multiple existing systems).

    Basically we are crap at doing these type of projects and the Treasury makes it worse by not accepting the risk of cost overruns and then scrapping stuff for no good reason. HS2E has cost over £1bn in waterfall development costs that will now need to be redone because of the delays..
    Sorry, you’ve triggered me now: that’s nonsense; the UK is superb at delivering mega projects.

    Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.

    Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.

    Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.

    Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.

    The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
    Superb post.

    My issue is cost. It seems to me that the estimated costs for large projects are never correct - they always, ALWAYS, end up costing more.

    Where is the blame for this? Are governments lying upfront. knowing that the extra will need to be paid? Are the quotes deliberately low, knowing that the extra will need to be paid?
    People price things they know and for them going right first time.

    They don’t price things they don’t know, and over a 5-10+ year megaproject there’s lots in that space - same as there is in predicting the markets or politics for any business.

    So instead they allow a contingency - optimism bias always creeps in there because if you don’t know enough about it you’ll tend to think it’s not a big deal and you won’t allow too much float either as people don’t like to “plan for failure”. It doesn’t drive the project to perform. If it is put in, and people can’t explain what it’s for, HMT like to take it out again at the stage when the final funding package is announced.

    Basically, much of the budget and timeframe for a complex megaproject is an educated guess and we need to get much more comfortable with windows and ranges rather than exact dates and figures.
    Inflation is also a factor because this sort of project will often be long in the planning. Then there's also the question of scope. Initial estimates of the cost of HS2 didn't include the trains, while later totals do, so how much has the cost of the project actually increased on a like-for-like basis?
    Yes, very true.

    I think most of HS2’s problems come down to inconsistent sponsorship and lack of clarity on its business case, which led overspeccing of the engineering scope, and failure to properly price all its interrelated scope and associated risk, but if that was all clear from the start then it wouldn’t have increased nearly as much.

    Might never have got off the ground in the first place though.
    HS2's problems started on day 1 when it was sold as a faster way between London and Birmingham rather than a new fast direct rail line that will allow us to seriously increase capacity on the existing lines and options for those who want to go from somewhere on the line to somewhere else on the line.

    And since 8am on the day it was announced it's been fighting a losing battle.
    That was always only one of the benefits. You seem to be confusing the justifications with the critics' misrepresentation.
    You really don't know the number of times I've had to explain to people that by separating off the fast train to XYZ you can now run 10-12 trains an hour on that route rather than the 4-6 that currently run on it as all the trains can progress along the track at the same speed

    One of the things the IRP is very quiet about is that yes you can have slightly faster trains on the to Leeds, York and Sheffield but the cost of that is reduced capacity on the line as a whole because the intervals between trains will need to be widened.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,883

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    And what does that mean? How does it differ? Is it not another example of a unicorn?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    Go back and read what I said, I said Labour voted for every compromise *except* Eustice's. Because that left the Irish border issue in limbo.
    All my opening paragraph reveals is that I thought that Brexit was a bad idea. I still think this. Your arrogant claim that I can therefore be dismissed is typical of Leavers' hubris, and is why you fanatics have steered us into this disastrous situation instead of trying to find a workable compromise that protected the GFA and our economy.
    Look I understand you are arguing from a position of profound ignorance on this but when you are in a hole you really should stop digging. Admit it. You were unwilling to accept any form of practical compromise just like most Labour MPs (and most of the rest of Parliament on all sides as well unfortunately). Trying to rewrite history like this to assuage their guilt is rather infantile.
    Delusional. Typical arrogant sneering Brexiteer. I wanted us to stay in the single market and resolve the Irish border problem through some kind of customs arrangement with the EU, precise form to be negotiated. In other words, compromise. It's what Labour MPs voted for. The Tories rejected it and we now have Johnson's shit deal that Johnson is trying to dismantle and Tories now claim to hate having voted for it.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    Three posts up in the quote: And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    A customs union + A say over EU trade deals = The Customs Union.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    And what does that mean? How does it differ? Is it not another example of a unicorn?
    If so then unicorns exist in Turkey.
  • Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    And what does that mean? How does it differ? Is it not another example of a unicorn?
    If so then unicorns exist in Turkey.
    No, Turkey doesn't have a say in the EU's customs agreements.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,883
    glw said:

    Applicant said:

    If you're calling someone who has been a supporter of EEA/EFTA - the only off-the-shelf compromise between membership and no deal - since longe before the referendum was called a "fanatic" then I rather suggest you should be looking in the mirror.

    It's clear that in the indicative votes Labour only supported EU membership or something which EU membership was the only way to get.

    Richard is one of the most consistent but relatively moderate opponents of the EU. As far as I can recall he has always favoured EFTA or some analogue of it. He doesn't appear to have changed his position at all. If people like him had set the direction for Brexit much of the bad blood and problems would never have occurred.

    FWIW I still think that long term we'll end up in EFTA or I Can't Believe It's Not EFTA! Although I do expect it to take a long time and probably several changes of government before we end up with the right people at the right time to get it over the line.
    I remain confused that having a free trade agreement is not facilitating trade. I gather this is down to the checking of forms, because we have not agreed to align to EU standards, even though we are aligned with EU standards.

    I can't shake the impression that both sides are game playing to an extent. We could at a stroke agree to align to the EU standard or higher. And the EU could actually sort trusted trader status much more widely to help in NI.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841
    Dirty old fat arse friend of many in Hollywood Harvey Weinstein to be prosecuted in UK for 2 counts of indecent assault
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587

    I have at last had my response from Alun Cairns.

    He has explained his support for Boris Johnson.

    a. Boris Johnson apologised.

    b Sue Gray and the Met exonorated Johnson personally from direct blame

    c. Johnson is winning the war for Ukraine ( my embellishment, but the gist is not wrong).

    d. Johnson's Covid performance.

    e. Johnson's economic performance.

    And there we have it five reasons why an ebullient Johnson believes his tenure as PM is in its infancy

    Glory be!

    P S. I responded to Mr Cairns by expressing that my Conservative wife hopes he becomes an ex-MP at the next General Election for his spinelessness (my wife's description).

    Answer B is utter fantasy 🤭
    No he assured me Boris Johnson after rigorous investigation did nothing negative of note. He didn't explain away the cake incident, but I suspect it too trivial to be of concern. I have suggested he might be taking his constituents for mugs.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,921

    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    OK this is quite odd now

    Emphatic statement

    “Berlin Police has told Sky News the driver of the car driven into pedestrians is a 29-year-old German-Armenian man with dual citizenship”

    https://twitter.com/skynewsbreak/status/1534500171509276672?s=21&t=VC7iUryNdqr2uLxbhyZQgA

    And yet:

    “UPDATE: In this video the suspect is being detained, while the camera man confronts him with the fact that at least one person has died. The suspect seems confused. WARNING: May contain shocking footage for some! #Berlin #Germany #Car #Attack #Attack”

    https://twitter.com/newsflash_tf/status/1534497628213346304?s=21&t=VC7iUryNdqr2uLxbhyZQgA

    Can that man possibly be 29?!

    The one thing this has done is show exactly what Twitter is any good for. Perhaps the only thing.

    At an incident, there is always someone on the spot who posts near-live footage.

    Political manifestos and views on trans - not so much.
    Twitter is good for many things - the above included, so long as you are extremely selective in whom you follow.

    BTW, reading a book which might be of interest to you: "A Morning in June", Lt. JW Evans' account of the defence of Outpost Harry, toward the end of the Korean War.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpost_Harry

    Plainly written, and very good indeed.
    Serendipitously this just popped up on my twitter feed. The photo may be misattributed, ie there were Koreans that ended up fighting in Europe but this could be a Georgian conscripted into the Ostruppen rather than Yang Kyoungjong (who has also had doubts expressed about his record of fighting for the IJA, the Red Army and the Wehrmacht).
    Whatever, to be born Korean in the first half of the C20th (or subsequently for many of them) was definitely not to win the lottery of life.


    He doesn't look Georgian.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,883

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    And what does that mean? How does it differ? Is it not another example of a unicorn?
    If so then unicorns exist in Turkey.
    Which does not answer the question. How does 'a' differ from 'the'? Does it impose restrictions on deal done elsewhere, for instance? What are the limitations/downsides (because there will be).
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    Applicant said:

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    Three posts up in the quote: And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    A customs union + A say over EU trade deals = The Customs Union.
    That's your interpretation. We couldn't have been in *the* CU because only EU members can be in the CU and we have left the EU. Labour's proposal was to negotiate a kind of associate membership with some say over things, to protect the Irish border. Was that feasible? Who knows, it was never tried. Otherwise what is the solution on Ireland? Clearly not the deal we have, since the government say it doesn't work, even though they negotiated it.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    As a Leave voter I have to say the UK quitting/being kicked out of Horizon, the EU science fund, seems pretty bloody sub-optimal

    Get this fucker Boris out of Number 10 and find someone who will deal pragmatically with the EU. Yes the EU is boorish and overbearing, at times, but we have to rub along with it

    Or we should just set up our own alternative to Horizon. The EU is not some science superpower, they don't even have any universities in the Top 50 as far as I know in any of the major international rankings.

    The UK, Israel, Switzerland and other comparable nations combined all have more more scientific development than the EU combined does. If the EU want to politicise science, then we should step away from the politics and concentrate on the science instead.
    "...should just..."

    That's just handwaving.
    Why is having a Plan B "just handwaving"?

    In life its generally pretty reasonable to have a Plan B, if Plan A doesn't work. The EU wants to use Horizon politically as a weapon, in which case walking away from it is perfectly rational.
    "...we should just set up our own alternative to Horizon..." is not a plan.
    It is the vaguest of aspirations, and doesn't mean very much at all.

    That is why I called it handwaving.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535

    I remain confused that having a free trade agreement is not facilitating trade. I gather this is down to the checking of forms, because we have not agreed to align to EU standards, even though we are aligned with EU standards.

    I can't shake the impression that both sides are game playing to an extent. We could at a stroke agree to align to the EU standard or higher. And the EU could actually sort trusted trader status much more widely to help in NI.

    I totally agree. There is bloody-mindedness on both sides. I find it incomprehensible that it should be so, as right now the EU and UK have a much bigger problem to deal with, and if the war in Ukraine drags on into the winter as looks all too probably we are going to face a real crunch when the Russians do exactly what people were warned of and turn off the gas.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,837

    I have at last had my response from Alun Cairns.

    He has explained his support for Boris Johnson.

    a. Boris Johnson apologised.

    b Sue Gray and the Met exonorated Johnson personally from direct blame

    c. Johnson is winning the war for Ukraine ( my embellishment, but the gist is not wrong).

    d. Johnson's Covid performance.

    e. Johnson's economic performance.

    And there we have it five reasons why an ebullient Johnson believes his tenure as PM is in its infancy

    Glory be!

    P S. I responded to Mr Cairns by expressing that my Conservative wife hopes he becomes an ex-MP at the next General Election for his spinelessness (my wife's description).

    e just seems bizarre given the situation.
    But it appears to be the chosen narrative.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    Leon said:

    Roger said:

    Applicant said:

    Applicant said:

    Not Starmer’s best performance

    Blimey. As terrible as that?
    It wasn't terrible, just not his best. BoJo was dreadful as usual
    If you're saying it was "not his best", I conclude it was terrible. Same as if HYUFD had said it about Boris.
    Is this you saying I’m a Labour fanboy again even though I explained my history the other day?

    I thought it was not good. He’s done worse than today but definitely one of his worse performances.
    It was a poor choice of subject. He thought he'd look statesmanlike by discussing something of substance. A bad mistake. He gets few enough chances to get himself heard but this was one of them. He needed a blisteringly funny performance. He had more material than Billy Connoly on a first night. If he wasn't up to writing it himself get someone who could. I'm getting seriously worried that Labour might have screwed up badly
    Or Sir Beer Korma needed nothing of the kind. Boris bleeding out but still in office suite Labour perfectly
    That’s probably the truth of it. Starmer stayed clear because having a discredited clown continuing in office suits him just fine. And he could rely on Blackwood coming after to try and twist the knife, anyhow.

    Starmer didn’t hit any targets with his NHS questions, except for scoring one good soundbite, but he probably reckons that this doesn’t matter too much right now.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    And what does that mean? How does it differ? Is it not another example of a unicorn?
    If so then unicorns exist in Turkey.
    Which does not answer the question. How does 'a' differ from 'the'? Does it impose restrictions on deal done elsewhere, for instance? What are the limitations/downsides (because there will be).
    Of course there are downsides. My preferred solution would have been to stay in the EU. Since that was not an option, the question is which imperfect deal would have been better. Clearly not the deal we have as we are trying to tear it up.
    The point is that there were compromises on offer that preserved a close relationship with the EU and protected the GFA while leaving the EU. Labour voted for those, the Tories voted against them.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    And what does that mean? How does it differ? Is it not another example of a unicorn?
    If so then unicorns exist in Turkey.
    Which does not answer the question. How does 'a' differ from 'the'? Does it impose restrictions on deal done elsewhere, for instance? What are the limitations/downsides (because there will be).
    Of course there are downsides. My preferred solution would have been to stay in the EU. Since that was not an option, the question is which imperfect deal would have been better. Clearly not the deal we have as we are trying to tear it up.
    The point is that there were compromises on offer that preserved a close relationship with the EU and protected the GFA while leaving the EU. Labour voted for those, the Tories voted against them.
    Labour voted for EU membership or something which could only be achieved by EU membership.

    I presume your reluctance to admit this is because the architect of the Labour position was SKS, the very man you now want to be PM.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    Go back and read what I said, I said Labour voted for every compromise *except* Eustice's. Because that left the Irish border issue in limbo.
    All my opening paragraph reveals is that I thought that Brexit was a bad idea. I still think this. Your arrogant claim that I can therefore be dismissed is typical of Leavers' hubris, and is why you fanatics have steered us into this disastrous situation instead of trying to find a workable compromise that protected the GFA and our economy.
    Look I understand you are arguing from a position of profound ignorance on this but when you are in a hole you really should stop digging. Admit it. You were unwilling to accept any form of practical compromise just like most Labour MPs (and most of the rest of Parliament on all sides as well unfortunately). Trying to rewrite history like this to assuage their guilt is rather infantile.
    Delusional. Typical arrogant sneering Brexiteer. I wanted us to stay in the single market and resolve the Irish border problem through some kind of customs arrangement with the EU, precise form to be negotiated. In other words, compromise. It's what Labour MPs voted for. The Tories rejected it and we now have Johnson's shit deal that Johnson is trying to dismantle and Tories now claim to hate having voted for it.
    Hahah. Every time you reply you show how little you actually know or understand.

    If you wanted us to stay in the Single Market then the EFTA/EEA proposal was exactly that. The Single Market and the Customs Union are two entirely separate things. Which is why EFTA members can be part of the Single Market but not the Customs Union.

    Most Labour MPs rejected compromise at every turn just as most of the Tories did. Trying to claim one side was on the side of the Angels in this is profoundly dumb when the record is there for all to see.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    The only customs union that would allow the UK to have a say on EU third party trade deals (which was explict in their proposal) would be 'The' Customs Union. It was typical political dishonesty to try and dress it up any other way. Something you are repeating now.
    Or the UK and EU could have negotiated a new customs union between the UK and EU that gave the UK some say. That should have been possible given that we always hold all the cards in these negotiations.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    The only customs union that would allow the UK to have a say on EU third party trade deals (which was explict in their proposal) would be 'The' Customs Union. It was typical political dishonesty to try and dress it up any other way. Something you are repeating now.
    Or the UK and EU could have negotiated a new customs union between the UK and EU that gave the UK some say. That should have been possible given that we always hold all the cards in these negotiations.
    Almost anything might have been negotiable, if only "no deal" had been left on the table.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    Go back and read what I said, I said Labour voted for every compromise *except* Eustice's. Because that left the Irish border issue in limbo.
    All my opening paragraph reveals is that I thought that Brexit was a bad idea. I still think this. Your arrogant claim that I can therefore be dismissed is typical of Leavers' hubris, and is why you fanatics have steered us into this disastrous situation instead of trying to find a workable compromise that protected the GFA and our economy.
    Look I understand you are arguing from a position of profound ignorance on this but when you are in a hole you really should stop digging. Admit it. You were unwilling to accept any form of practical compromise just like most Labour MPs (and most of the rest of Parliament on all sides as well unfortunately). Trying to rewrite history like this to assuage their guilt is rather infantile.
    Delusional. Typical arrogant sneering Brexiteer. I wanted us to stay in the single market and resolve the Irish border problem through some kind of customs arrangement with the EU, precise form to be negotiated. In other words, compromise. It's what Labour MPs voted for. The Tories rejected it and we now have Johnson's shit deal that Johnson is trying to dismantle and Tories now claim to hate having voted for it.
    Hahah. Every time you reply you show how little you actually know or understand.

    If you wanted us to stay in the Single Market then the EFTA/EEA proposal was exactly that. The Single Market and the Customs Union are two entirely separate things. Which is why EFTA members can be part of the Single Market but not the Customs Union.

    Most Labour MPs rejected compromise at every turn just as most of the Tories did. Trying to claim one side was on the side of the Angels in this is profoundly dumb when the record is there for all to see.
    You have unilaterally decided that a customs arrangement with the EU means EU membership, despite a clear precedent of a country (Turkey) that is in a customs union with the EU but not in the EU. That is bizarre. And you have no solution to the Irish border problem.
    Labour MPs voted for a number of compromises which had a solution to the Irish border. Tories voted against compromise at every turn. To say anything else is just lying.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047
    ..

    Leon said:

    As a Leave voter I have to say the UK quitting/being kicked out of Horizon, the EU science fund, seems pretty bloody sub-optimal

    Get this fucker Boris out of Number 10 and find someone who will deal pragmatically with the EU. Yes the EU is boorish and overbearing, at times, but we have to rub along with it

    Or we should just set up our own alternative to Horizon. The EU is not some science superpower, they don't even have any universities in the Top 50 as far as I know in any of the major international rankings.

    The UK, Israel, Switzerland and other comparable nations combined all have more more scientific development than the EU combined does. If the EU want to politicise science, then we should step away from the politics and concentrate on the science instead.
    Quite.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    The only customs union that would allow the UK to have a say on EU third party trade deals (which was explict in their proposal) would be 'The' Customs Union. It was typical political dishonesty to try and dress it up any other way. Something you are repeating now.
    Or the UK and EU could have negotiated a new customs union between the UK and EU that gave the UK some say. That should have been possible given that we always hold all the cards in these negotiations.
    We never held all the cards. I deal with realities, not pipe dreams. You are more interested in defending your beloved party than in finding an actual solution to these issues.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    This is not how most Irish people think about NATO:

    https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2022/06/08/ireland-would-not-need-referendum-to-join-nato-says-taoiseach/

    Ireland would not need to hold a referendum to join NATO as it is a policy decision of the government, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.

    It's a fact that NATO membership would not require a constitutional amendment, and so wouldnot require a referendum. However, there is very unlikely to be a majority in the Dail for NATO membership.

    It's simply not the case that every contentious decision in a democracy requires a referendum. Democratic decisions can be taken by Parliamentary representatives.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,883
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    As a Leave voter I have to say the UK quitting/being kicked out of Horizon, the EU science fund, seems pretty bloody sub-optimal

    Get this fucker Boris out of Number 10 and find someone who will deal pragmatically with the EU. Yes the EU is boorish and overbearing, at times, but we have to rub along with it

    Or we should just set up our own alternative to Horizon. The EU is not some science superpower, they don't even have any universities in the Top 50 as far as I know in any of the major international rankings.

    The UK, Israel, Switzerland and other comparable nations combined all have more more scientific development than the EU combined does. If the EU want to politicise science, then we should step away from the politics and concentrate on the science instead.
    "...should just..."

    That's just handwaving.
    Why is having a Plan B "just handwaving"?

    In life its generally pretty reasonable to have a Plan B, if Plan A doesn't work. The EU wants to use Horizon politically as a weapon, in which case walking away from it is perfectly rational.
    "...we should just set up our own alternative to Horizon..." is not a plan.
    It is the vaguest of aspirations, and doesn't mean very much at all.

    That is why I called it handwaving.
    Horizon is classic EU - set up for big, multi-centre, collaborative grants. They can be effective, but a lot of the money gets spent on non-science (e.g. typically there will be managers paid to sort out meetings, travel etc. Not saying big grants are an issue, but often smaller, more focused ones (one location) are better.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    New thread.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    Farooq said:

    Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.

    Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?

    May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.

    They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
    They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick.
    But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
    Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.

    But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.

    Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.

    Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.

    The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
    The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
    No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.

    Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred

    Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
    Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
    Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.

    Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.

    So much for Labour supporting compromise.
    This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.

    The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.

    For the first round of indicative votes:

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.

    Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.

    The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.

    The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.

    George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.

    Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
    Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.

    The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.

    Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.

    These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.

    Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.

    Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left.
    Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
    What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
    I already addressed that. Stop creating straw men.

    And the Labour proposal was specifically for membership of The Customs Union because they said they wanted to have say over EU trade deals. They were either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest.

    And you are telling outright lies. Labour did not vote for every compromise on offer. The most obvious compromise was the EFTA/EEA membership and only 4 Labour MPs supported that.

    Dragging in how the Tories voted is immaterial because I have not been supporting their stance either. They ere just as bad. I was specifically calling you out for your utter drivel about Labour supporting compromise. They didn't. They only supported proposals that were either impossible or which negated the referendum result.

    It is clear from your opening paragraph that you also would rather have reversed the referendum result which is why you deserve nothing from scorn for your dishonesty.
    It feels like you're the one being dishonest though. You enumerated the Labour votes on some of the indicative votes, but dismissed the customs union one as "impossible". Now we see it wasn't "impossible" but merely undesirable in your opinion.
    No, as set out they were impossible. Membership of the Customs Union requires full EU membership. The Labour proposal particularly was clearly for membership of The Customs Union not just 'a' customs union as they argued for UK input to EU third party trade agreements.
    Labour's proposal was for *a* customs union not membership of *the* customs union.
    The only customs union that would allow the UK to have a say on EU third party trade deals (which was explict in their proposal) would be 'The' Customs Union. It was typical political dishonesty to try and dress it up any other way. Something you are repeating now.
    Or the UK and EU could have negotiated a new customs union between the UK and EU that gave the UK some say. That should have been possible given that we always hold all the cards in these negotiations.
    We never held all the cards. I deal with realities, not pipe dreams. You are more interested in defending your beloved party than in finding an actual solution to these issues.
    I have literally provided a solution: Efta plus a customs arrangement similar to Turkey's to allow for frictionless trade GB/NI/EU. This is the compromise that Labour voted for. It isn't perfect but it protects the GFA, protects trade and honours the referendum. What is your solution? And what compromise did the Tories vote for?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    The record shows that Labour mostly *did* vote for compromises; indeed they were proposals put forward by various Tories.

    The problem was that not enough Tories agreed.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    Carnyx said:

    Quite amusing report here on how boozing Scots - faced with Sturgeon's minimum price for alcohol units policy - simply moved from cider to vodka, and cut down on food.

    More alky deaths than ever, to go along with Europe's worst performance on drug-related deaths.

    https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2022/06/emily-carver-meanwhile-in-scotland-the-snp-bungles-schools-ferries-drugs-rail-and-now-minimum-alcohol-pricie.html

    This is the third time we've had this on PB. The overall benefit was there across the population - it is just the out and out alkies who are being focussed on for political effect and political bias.

    Of course, the likes of Lord-to-be Frost campaigned bitterly against this pretty mild law (when he was i/c the Scots Whisky Federation, almost none of which drink was affected at all).
    Yoons, constantly gaining amusement and succour from alcoholism and drug deaths. It's what keeps the poor souls going.
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