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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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 🙂
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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”
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).
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.
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...
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).
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.
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.
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.
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???
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
“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”
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Comments
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
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
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.
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.
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).
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.
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/
I like the way the opposition party’s reacted today to be honest 🙂
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).
It's clear that in the indicative votes Labour only supported EU membership or something which EU membership was the only way to get.
“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
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
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.
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...
b. Bollocks
c. Bollocks
d. He caught it
e. worst in G7
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.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6397675/jeremy-hunt-risks-pushing-away-voters-nanny-state-policies/
That's 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.
Anyway it hardly matters as the 148 will prevail
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.
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.
A customs union + A say over EU trade deals = The Customs Union.
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.
It is the vaguest of aspirations, and doesn't mean very much at all.
That is why I called it handwaving.
But it appears to be the chosen narrative.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's simply not the case that every contentious decision in a democracy requires a referendum. Democratic decisions can be taken by Parliamentary representatives.
The problem was that not enough Tories agreed.