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Brexit is turning into a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
I bet he wouldn't say that about certain other faiths...
In one respect, I would like the Tories to go through this and then be out of power for two elections, at least. On the other hand, the country is going to be right royally fu**ed!
I don't remember seeing weedkiller as a flavour in my local store. FYI, if people want a much healthy (way less calories, no sugar, but still actually has milk and cream in it), I can highly recommend Oppo.
Democracy demands the Brexit result be honoured.
People were warned Brexit would be a clusterfeck, they still voted for it.
FWIW, I think the white papers on the Trade and Customs bills are actually quite good (and I recommend reading them, rather than just reading the attack tweets of those who have their own pre-existing agendas).
The Government position is correct. Negotiations are clearly going to go down to the wire. Only once we have a clear agreed framework for the future can we start the transition process to it. We will need those 2 years to line up new trade deals, and prepare our institutional infrastructure for Brexit. Neither Parliament nor the civil service can do it any quicker. And nor, quite frankly, can private business.
Let's see what the EU offers in terms of detail, but I'd suspect we'd "formally" quit on 29th March 2019, with slightly reduced net contributions, the ability to formally start trade talks elsewhere, and CFP/CAP coming back straight away.
If it does look *exactly* the same as EU membership, in every single regard, then I'd agree May would have a political problem, but let's wait and see.
Interstellar is a phenomenal film.
No of Christian nations where gay men are subject to the death penalty - zero.
No of nations where a certain other religion is a majority where gay men are subject to the death penalty - 11.
According to a recent C4 poll published in the Guardian proportion of Christians in the UK who think homosexuality should be made illegal 5 per cent
Proportion of adherents of another faith in the UK who think homosexuality should be illegal - 52 per cent.
i don't deny Christianity has created issues for gay men over the centuries - but surely all religions should be treated equally.
You've got the likes of JRM and Bill Cash unhappy tonight with the pragmatic approach.
If the CU was the only faith prevented from having a stall you may have had a point.
It's been very tetchy here today. I reacted, and then overreacted. I include myself in that. So, there: I'm sorry. My bad.
But, it would be nice if we could just "talk" on here without telling each other to go f*ck ourselves, or cheering on a clusterf*ck, or resigning ourselves to a clusterf*ck, or embracing a clusterf*ck, or somehow wanting a clusterf*ck to f*ck over those we really want to just get f*cked.
It's not that bad.
Brexit was a binary option. Either a) carry on, everything's fine, or b) pull the emergency cord and sort the whole mess out - clusterfuck or not, at least now it's forcing us to confront the societal and economic issues caused by unchecked immigration, the housing crisis, erosion of democratic accountability, and so on.
Brexit remains, in my view, the least worst option. The only people who think that Brexit is a "clusterfuck of epic proportions" are the well-to-do and I'm-alright-Jacks who were happy with the status quo, and even happier with the transfer of sovereignty away from the people and towards an unaccountable supranational body that has demonstrated time and time again it doesn't have the UK's best interests at heart.
Is Brexit going to be bad? Possibly. Quite probably.
Is the alternative worse? Yes, I believe so.
Would reversing the decision now, sticking the middle finger up at 52% of the population and telling them that their vote meant nothing, be the worst possible decision of all? Without a doubt.
But its a free country. They should have been allowed a stall.
If as seems likely things don't turn out that way and the best we can hope for is not as good as we had and the worst is very much worse than we had then it seems fair to have another referendum on the result of the negotiations. NOT a re-run of the original referendum but a new one once the options are known.
Is it accept the deal or no deal?
Or is it 23 June 2016 round 2 - and then best of 3 if remain wins?
Brexit must surely be delivered - it was in Labour and the Tories manifestos. It's merely how surely not if. Because we can't just keep voting until we deliver the 'right' result - what sort of message does that send?
Earlier today the excellent @HHemmelig posted an evidence-based summary of why the last steelworks in South Yorkshire will be doomed by a no deal Brexit.
Needless to say it didn't fit the leaver narrative so was ignored. That's where PB is these days. A Kool aid drinking club.
Not a chance old chap. This is the same delusion shared by Williamglenn. Once we have left, whether on good or bad terms, antipathy towards the EU will only increase and the EU will continue to centralise whilst antagonising many of its members. Both of these are inevitable and mean we will never rejoin the EU.
This is where people like Richard North demonstrate their peerless understanding of the EU but pitiful grasp of politics in a democracy.
That is, of course, very different from saying you should *never* quit an economic union, nor that there should not be a practical path to ever doing so, if the politics of it become unacceptable to the majority.
People should be free to sensibly agree or disagree either way.
The problem that you have is that the transition period is not a period of continued negotiation. The A50 rules are very clear. All negotiations on the basic relationship between the UK and the EU end in March 2019 unless we get all 27 other member states to agree to an extension and we also want one.
The transition period which follows that is to provide the soft landing and allow time for new trade arrangements to be put in place. They will not affect the basic relationship between the UK and the EU in terms of the structures and the legal relationships.
So unless you think the EU is going to agree to an extension (and that the UK will ask for one in the first place which under a Tory Government I think is unlikely) then the backstop for being able to stay in the Single Market or the Customs Union is March 2019.
.
Have the polls shifted at all, nationally, beyond the margin of error?
If we re-ran the referendum and it split 48/52 to Remain this time, what would happen?
If the scenes in Catalonia last week were repeated in Brexit towns across the country, could we still call ourselves a democracy?
If homegrown separatists began marching in the streets, then spilling out into violence, would they be justified? Having had their vote at the ballot box effectively ignored and overruled? If, heaven forbid, that spilled over into a domestic bombing campaign, what then? Where do you draw the line?
TSE is right. For better or worse, democracy has to be respected. The alternatives are too awful to bear.
We do things differently in this country. It's what makes us British - heck, it's what makes me proud to be British. Democracy comes first. If the EU had the same attitude, we wouldn't be in this sorry mess in the first place.
I think the EU showed itself to not be meaningfully reformable and, with all past experience of how it had both operated and developed, and its future path of federal intent, was no longer right geopolitical model for the UK.
What I got wrong is that I grossly underestimated how bitter it would get on both sides. I thought the vast majority of people really didn't give much of a toss about the EU, and would shrug their shoulders and accept it without much fuss if we did vote to Leave.
I was wrong. Perhaps that was always going to be the case in a close vote that chose to take the nuclear option, but I was still wrong. I admit, and accept that. I also got wrong just how threatened the EU would feel by Brexit, and how defensively it would react, and I regret some of the actions of the UK Government from c.Sept 2016 to May 2017 when it all got a bit too "Up Yours, Delors".
But, we are where we are. And it must be seen through.
I think we've got some way to go before we get to that level.
If we were to get to March 2019 and there has been no agreement then the only way it is possible for negotiations on the nature of our Leaving and our future relationship with the EU to continue is for all 28 members including the UK to agree to extend the negotiations. If this does not happen then we leave without agreement. The extra 2 year transition period is not there to allow the negotiations on our leaving to continue. We will already have left.
So what the EU wants is immaterial unless every single government including the UK agree to continue negotiations.
I've stepped in on your behalf in the past when you and TSE were hurling abuse at each other, so a little less of the high ground please.
Starmer or La Thornberry would keep us in the SM perhaps indeed very likely in the EU also. And treaty schmeaty they'd love us back in as you say.
Is what JRM fears.
I really want you to be right but I'm concerned. I don't think maximum risk is now, but rather 2019-21 where we are still following Brussels' rules but are officially out. It would be very easy to be slipped back into to full membership by making that condition permanent IF a British government wanted it and made the necessary offer.
Of course, if we become a third country to the EEA in March 2019 then we're out for good. I agree there would be no realistic prospect of us returning.
A lot of people think Corbyn as PM and McDonnell in No 11 will crash the economy.
Should we cancel the election result if Labour gets a majority next time and hold another election and another one until Voters elect a Tory majority government - because a lot of people think Corbyn means economic collapse, a run on the pound, a collapse in house prices, rising interest rates and rising inflation?
If that is what the people voted for then they should get what they voted for - for better or worse! Same with Brexit.
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."
Dramatic Grenfell baby story probably never happened
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41550836
One of the unfortunate misconceptions about the ECJ is that they are considered to be a 'political court' making decisions based on politics rather than law. This is not the case. Their remit is to interpret law based primarily on the existing treaties. No matter how attractive the politics might be they will not just sit by and see the treaties ignored either to allow us to stay in or to get us back in once we have left.
This is before we even start to approach the question of accession terms such as Schengen and Euro membership.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41559196
Personally, I don't find this very finny. They're plumbing the depths, but I guess someone's having a whale of a time.
The Euro may have arrived just in time to go extinct.
I know, I know: I haven’t lived. What can I be thinking? What have I been doing? Well, I can assure you I have been doing lots of lovely things.
For instance:
I did see ET in an open air cinema in Venice. That was lovely. And my rather gorgeous Italian date had tears in his eyes at the end, which made him even more irresistible.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/londoners-stop-being-so-rude-and-unfriendly-says-think-tank-call-for-a-civility-code-to-help-make-a3653656.html
The vast majority of people have accepted it. The issue now is that the small vocal minority now exists on both sides of the divide. Whereas previously only the sceptics were the angry vocal majority, there is now an angry vocal majority on the Remain side too.
Both angry vocal minorities are just that though. ~5% on either side (if that) are angry and loud, ~90% of the country has moved on.
I particularly like the orginal "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers", for example as an exploration of cold war paranoia.
At last.
(Assuming Greece beat Gibraltar tomorrow to confirm their 2nd place).
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Latest-on-North-Bay-fires-A-really-rough-12263721.php
I approach the new film with an open mind. I may struggle to get Mrs Fox to go, but Fox jr is probably game.
Lucky they are not genetically disadvantaged...
What has taken me aback over the year is the sheer ferocity of the loyalty to the EU shown by the ultras. I didn't know they existed. I didn't know anyone could feel love for, let alone allegiance to, a bureacracy I regard as nothing more than meddlesome.
But while I voted leave, I've never seen msyelf as a headbanger. Had the vote gone the other way, I would have shrugged my shoulders, gone 'ah, that's democracy, at least I had my say' and gone on to think of other things.
Had we continued to remain in the EU, I would have simply regarded it in the same way as a distant villager in Dykanka might have viewed the court of the Russian Tsar - distant, dictatorial and bureaucratic, but an inevitible part of life, a burden to bear. But the idea that one might feel love and loyalty to these distant and alien overlords is still utterly alien to me.
The sheer strength of feeling for the EU by the ultras on the other side has surprised me. The last year has been something of an eye opener, to put it mildly.
Still at least somebody appears to have woken up and realised that No Deal is becoming more likely by the hour.
The next step is to cut short the negotiations if we can't make some progress by dates of our choosing, otherwise the EU will try to take it to the wire. 1 year before exit looks sensible to me, if we haven't made real progress by next spring announce that the talks are done, and prepare for hard Brexit in 2019.
But what the comments on this site show is that many people closely interested in politics haven't moved on.
Literally every single day, the vast majority of comments on every thread consist of both Brexit and Remain supporters going on and on and on and on regurgitating the same old points over and over and over and over again.
The good news for me is, whatever happens, the British people have given a firm 'non' to further integration - whether in the form of the single currency, an EU army, tax harmonisation, or any of the other things that might have been on the cards.
Even if we head for Brexit In Name Only it at least puts a halt on any further integration and demands a new democratic mandate for any further surrender of sovereignty. It is a halt to the salami slice tactics of the last thirty or more years.
I'm sure Williamglenn will be along any moment now to tell us how fantastic this is, because now the dispirited British people will surely vote in favour of the Euro and the Great Project once we've been broken on the wheel...
Brexit is the only game in town. The party conferences didn't change the narrative. The zombie cabinet is hostage to Brexit. The economy is in a Brexit holding pattern.
What else should we be talking about?
Edit and I am normally considered a headbanger
I don't expect committed Leavers to understand this but I like the idea of nations cooperating rather than fighting (which was the history of Europe pre-EU); I like the fact that I can travel freely, that all EU countries are expected to meet the same standards (as a wheelchair user for the past 35 years I've seen the practical side of that). I like it that the richer EU regions support the poorer regions. I think the EU has been an instrument for promoting and protecting democracy in Greece, Spain, Portugal (none of which were democracies when we joined the EEC) and the ex-Iron Curtain countries.
I could go on...