These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a sensible alternative. That's the mess your party is in. Having got your party into this mess because you ran scared of UKIP you're running scared of them again. Grow a pair, for God's sake, and do what is right by the country. There was a time when Tories did not need to be told this.
My vote no longer matters in my constituency but the Tory candidate need not bother knocking on my door for a very very long time.
I am completely in agreement. The idea that the Tories will stay in government by mortgaging the country’s future in order to hang on to UKIP votes ought to be a cause of shame, not political calculation.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a sensible alternative. That's the mess your party is in. Having got your party into this mess because you ran scared of UKIP you're running scared of them again. Grow a pair, for God's sake, and do what is right by the country. There was a time when Tories did not need to be told this.
My vote no longer matters in my constituency but the Tory candidate need not bother knocking on my door for a very very long time.
It's amazing to me how running scared some Tories are of a period of being behind in the polls after 8 years in government and all the things they have had to deal with, so scared they change direction at a moment's notice in No. 10. Do they think it impossible to regain a poll lead before a new election?
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a sensible alternative. That's the mess your party is in. Having got your party into this mess because you ran scared of UKIP you're running scared of them again. Grow a pair, for God's sake, and do what is right by the country. There was a time when Tories did not need to be told this.
My vote no longer matters in my constituency but the Tory candidate need not bother knocking on my door for a very very long time.
Labour will take the Soubry line and run with it: People with gold-plated pensions and inherited wealth voting to make hundreds of thousands jobless. It seems to me the only chance the Tories have is a GE with a new leader before Hard Brexit bites.
Seen solely from the political perspective, the last few days have been a total vindication of the Labour leadership’s Brexit strategy.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Soft or hard what will matter are the practical consequences. The tories are fooling themselves if they think they will win if hard brexit, or no deal brexit, has big consequences.
No they are not, 52% voted Leave the vast majority of whom back hard Brexit, you only need around 43% for a majority. In a decade or so voters may be in the mood to put the economy first and return to the single market at the moment they want what they voted Leave for to come first ie regaining sovereignty and reducing immigration
Now that the Tories are going for no deal/hard brexit again, how will the ERG and hard leavers react when, I suspect, the polls don't immediately change back? After all, it was entirely about the position and not the chaos.
Now that the Tories are going for no deal/hard brexit again, how will the ERG and hard leavers react when, I suspect, the polls don't immediately change back? After all, it was entirely about the position and not the chaos.
Blame someone else. It’s what they do. The EU, the PM, anyone but them.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
If that is the case May needs to call an election very, very soon, before the reality of what a hard Brexit, let alone a No Deal Brexit, begins to bite. We leave on 29th March 2019 and, as things stand, there will be no transition deal. That’s what the Tories have voted for tonight.
I think on the Chequers Deal terms which May will still likely put forward to the EU if they reject the Moggite amendment there will be a transition deal but the Tories have to have got a FTA by the end of 2020 or they will lose if they do not go to hard Brexit
So why did she not use that time to sort out the UK government position and get most of the ducks in a row? The fact that it's taken this long to decide what the cabinet want re customs, for example, indicates a lot of basic stuff was being left very late.
But why? May could decide when to set the trigger. If it would take more time to arrange the position, she could have taken it. Did she trigger prematurely because she thought that the EU's position was actually quite opaque and the options would only become clear once the talking had started? Did she know how hard it would be to reach cabinet agreement so didn't want to waste time and political capital discussing hypotheticals ("what if the EU don't agree to give us X" etc), and thought that her own control over the negotiations would let her impose her will when required once the process had started? Did she think that they had lined the ducks up, and were surprised that the negotiations stalled over something they hadn't predicted? (Seems unlikely given the stumbling blocks so far have been in pretty predictable areas, but then few people would rate her administration highly for competence right now.)
Neither the Tories nor Labour really had a coherent vision of the kind of Brexit they wanted in their 2017 manifestos so this wasn't just a May phenomenon - had Corbyn won that election, he may have had even more fun and games getting his party to take his line than May has managed - but she's the one who'll be remembered for it.
She was incompetent. She got rid of the advisers who told her how difficult this was going to be. She appointed people to the key posts who were even more useless than she was. She did not do her homework or the thinking needed. And she relied on people like Timothy and Hill who were as much use as a cheese dildo.
Britain should have spent about 2 years planning for an orderly no-deal exit while working out what sort of deal was realistic and THEN triggering Article 50. That 2 year time frame could also have been used to spell out the realities and the trade offs i.e. all the stuff that was not done in the referendum campaign.
But May could not sell water to a thirsty man in a desert.
Well meaning no doubt but utterly utterly out of her depth. And the country is now paying the price. We either take whatever the EU is prepared to give us or we crash out. Or we press the Big Pause Button.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
If that is the case May needs to call an election very, very soon, before the reality of what a hard Brexit, let alone a No Deal Brexit, begins to bite. We leave on 29th March 2019 and, as things stand, there will be no transition deal. That’s what the Tories have voted for tonight.
The reality of a hard Brexit without any transition period will start to bite before any election may can hold after March next year - and wouldn’t Corbyn in any event need to co-operate, given the FTPA ?
Now that the Tories are going for no deal/hard brexit again, how will the ERG and hard leavers react when, I suspect, the polls don't immediately change back? After all, it was entirely about the position and not the chaos.
What from today is no deal?
It's only if there's no deal that Clause 36 kicks in, if there's a reciprocal deal then it is moot.
It’s becoming clearer that something is going to have to give. Either Parliament is going to have to backtrack, Britain is going to crash out without a deal or Brexit isn’t going to happen.
Right now I think I order them 1,2,3 but any of them can easily be envisaged. The next few months look chaotic.
There's a 4, and of interest to people with bets on this, which is indefinite delay. It all.pivots around whether the UK accepts the NI backstop. If it doesn't, both parties may wish to stall rather than crash out or reject Brexit outright.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Soft or hard what will matter are the practical consequences. The tories are fooling themselves if they think they will win if hard brexit, or no deal brexit, has big consequences.
No they are not, 52% voted Leave the vast majority of whom back hard Brexit, you only need around 43% for a majority. In a decade or so voters may be in the mood to put the economy first and return to the single market at the moment they want what they voted Leave for to come first ie regaining sovereignty and reducing immigration
As I said, fooling themselves. You also totally ignored the point, which was not suggesting that people are yearning for retaining the single market, in favour of one you'd prefer I was making. If there are consequences, the Tories will suffer at the next election, people are not logical in going 'but this is what i asked for, best reward the government of the day now there are negative consequences for me'.
People blame governments when they are impacted by things. Sometimes it's not enough to see them lose, depending on where they started, but whether people say they want no deal Brexit, that doesn't prevent them from voting against the Tories if they get negatively impacted by it. After all, we'll already be out, and rejoining isn't going to happen without a referendum - voting for someone else won't retrospectively make a deal occur, so there's no harm in someone supporting no deal and then not voting Tory.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a sensible alternative. That's the mess your party is in. Having got your party into this mess because you ran scared of UKIP you're running scared of them again. Grow a pair, for God's sake, and do what is right by the country. There was a time when Tories did not need to be told this.
My vote no longer matters in my constituency but the Tory candidate need not bother knocking on my door for a very very long time.
Labour will take the Soubry line and run with it: People with gold-plated pensions and inherited wealth voting to make hundreds of thousands jobless. It seems to me the only chance the Tories have is a GE with a new leader before Hard Brexit bites.
Seen solely from the political perspective, the last few days have been a total vindication of the Labour leadership’s Brexit strategy.
There was never much wrong with their political strategy. It's just deeply cynical and prime for them to come out with some hypocritical or outright false comments later.
Here's something I simply do not understand. Cameron and May were both sensible enough to avoid triggering Article 50 immediately after the referendum, because they knew some preparation time would be needed. There were some voices who wanted it triggered immediately, presumably to prevent a "betrayal", but that would clearly have been disastrous. On the other hand, the basic shape of the EU's offer, or set of plausible offers, was pretty clear from the outset. RCS points out that commission "red-lines flowchart" but it didn't contain anything that couldn't have been logically discerned.
So why did she not use that time to sort out the UK government position and get most of the ducks in a row? The fact that it's taken this long to decide what the cabinet want re customs, for example, indicates a lot of basic stuff was being left very late.
But why? May could decide when to set the trigger. If it would take more time to arrange the position, she could have taken it. Did she trigger prematurely because she thought that the EU's position was actually quite opaque and the options would only become clear once the talking had started? Did she know how hard it would be to reach cabinet agreement so didn't want to waste time and political capital discussing hypotheticals ("what if the EU don't agree to give us X" etc), and thought that her own control over the negotiations would let her impose her will when required once the process had started? Did she think that they had lined the ducks up, and were surprised that the negotiations stalled over something they hadn't predicted? (Seems unlikely given the stumbling blocks so far have been in pretty predictable areas, but then few people would rate her administration highly for competence right now.)
Neither the Tories nor Labour reallemembered for it.
A question I have been trying to think of an answer to for a long time, and particularly this year. As hard as I thought Brexit might be, which was pretty hard, I simply never conceived of a situation where 2 years into a new ministry the Tory party would not have coalesced around a coherent position (or even, god forbid, the parties could try to seek some common ground). It's a level of incompetence that can have no justification.
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Rn.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a sensible alternative. That's the mess your party is in. Having got your party into this mess because you ran scared of UKIP you're running scared of them again. Grow a pair, for God's sake, and do what is right by the country. There was a time when Tories did not need to be told this.
My vote no longer matters in my constituency but the Tory candidate need not bother knocking on my door for a very very long time.
That is actually not the Tories USP, the Tories USP is being the party of tradition and the nation state, they tend to be more trusted with the economy than Labour but that is not there USP.
The facts don't lie, the Tories got 42% in 2017 on a hard Brexit platform and are now on 36% on a soft Brexit platform due to Tory Leavers defecting to UKIP, if they stay on the latter figure Corbyn will win as his base is more likely to turn out.
I am sorry but your advice for the Tories to take a BINO approach will finish them for a generation, perhaps even in the worst case scenario to face a Canada 1993 scenario and be overtaken by UKIP. If you look at the winning right of centre parties and candidates at the moment eg Trump, Lega Nord, Kurz's People's Party, even Rutte in the Netherlands they have all taken a tough on immigration stance.
Look too at Sweden where the centre right moderates have taken a corporatist approach as you advocate and are now trailing the hard right Swedish Democrats
Britain should have spent about 2 years planning for an orderly no-deal exit while working out what sort of deal was realistic and THEN triggering Article 50. That 2 year time frame could also have been used to spell out the realities and the trade offs i.e. all the stuff that was not done in the referendum campaign.
I find the lack of No Deal planning under May even more contemptible than the lack of post-referendum contingency planning under Cameron in case "Out" won.
And also, more perplexing. Your negotiating position is stronger if you have a fallback. Even if the planning is quite expensive and you hope never to use it, in the end it might win concessions valuable enough to make it worthwhile. And it is surely better to have a planned fallback if there is even a minute chance of chaos otherwise.
I appreciate that the cabinet could hardly agree a minutely detailed decision tree in advance - "we're going to push for this, we are willing to trade this for that, if the EU says no to these red lines then that is the point we switch to this plan for a clean break" - but a broad vision including red lines and a contingency plan in place for them seems a pretty minimal expectation.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexitcould cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a sensible alternative. That's the mess your party is in. Having got your party into this mess because you ran scared of UKIP you're running scared of them again. Grow a pair, for God's sake, and do what is right by the country. There was a time when Tories did not need to be told this.
My vote no longer matters in my constituency but the Tory candidate need not bother knocking on my door for a very very long time.
Ah, you'll get over it.
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
That would be three years into a Hard Brexit. Can’t see the Tories winning on the back of that. If we’re crashing out - and it looks like we are now - the Tories need an election asap.
So glad we’ve just sold the business. I doubt it would have happened after tonight.
It’s becoming clearer that something is going to have to give. Either Parliament is going to have to backtrack, Britain is going to crash out without a deal or Brexit isn’t going to happen.
Right now I think I order them 1,2,3 but any of them can easily be envisaged. The next few months look chaotic.
There's a 4, and of interest to people with bets on this, which is indefinite delay. It all.pivots around whether the UK accepts the NI backstop. If it doesn't, both parties may wish to stall rather than crash out or reject Brexit outright.
Why would the EU want to stall in those circumstances?
Now that the Tories are going for no deal/hard brexit again, how will the ERG and hard leavers react when, I suspect, the polls don't immediately change back? After all, it was entirely about the position and not the chaos.
Blame someone else. It’s what they do. The EU, the PM, anyone but them.
Well, maybe they'll get lucky and all those UKIp switchers will come back. But if not...
"The polls turned because the public turned against soft brexit. We have now ensured hard brexit or no deal. Oh wait, they aren;t coming back"
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
It's been much predicted but never emerged, but I think the LDs would finally make a bit of a comeback in that situation. A provably desultory and incompetent tory option vs Corbyn, who whatever the political merits of his Brexit strategy, is simply not competent either.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted selves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a sensible alternative. That's the mess your party is in. Having got your party into this mess because you ran scared of UKIP you're running scared of them again. Grow a pair, for God's sake, and do what is right by the country. There was a time when Tories did not need to be told this.
My vote no longer matters in my constituency but the Tory candidate need not bother knocking on my door for a very very long time.
Labour will take the Soubry line and run with it: People with gold-plated pensions and inherited wealth voting to make hundreds of thousands jobless. It seems to me the only chance the Tories have is a GE with a new leader before Hard Brexit bites.
Seen solely from the political perspective, the last few days have been a total vindication of the Labour leadership’s Brexit strategy.
There was never much wrong with their political strategy. It's just deeply cynical and prime for them to come out with some hypocritical or outright false comments later.
If Chequers had stood it would have made life very difficult for Corbyn. A soft Brexit was the last thing he wanted.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a ng time.
Ah, you'll get over it.
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Boris has charisma and actually campaigned for and believes in Brexit, it is no wonder Trump has backed him to succeed May as he clearly sees in Boris something of himself, something able to win by winning the white skilled working and lower middle class and rich entrepreneurs whilst being despised by the upper middle class liberal elite
Now that the Tories are going for no deal/hard brexit again, how will the ERG and hard leavers react when, I suspect, the polls don't immediately change back? After all, it was entirely about the position and not the chaos.
What from today is no deal?
It's only if there's no deal that Clause 36 kicks in, if there's a reciprocal deal then it is moot.
It's no deal because I see no way that a deal will be agreed. That was already a high probability in my view, but at least the government, for better or worse, seemed like it would attempt to get a deal. But no one seems to believe that these amendments match what the chequers deal was about, so instead it looks like the government has decided since it cannot get a deal, best to try to get the ERG back on side at least.
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a sensible alternative. That's the mess your party is in. Having got your party into this mess because you ran scared of UKIP you're running scared of them again. Grow a pair, for God's sake, and do what is right by the country. There was a time when Tories did not need to be told this.
My vote no longer matters in my constituency but the Tory candidate need not bother knocking on my door for a very very long time.
Ah, you'll get over it.
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Boris is not smart: if he were he'd have realised that the funny act wears thin when you're asked to do something serious. Humour needs to be used wisely. He has no judgment. He's despised because people have seen through him. He's a balloon who is slowly deflating.
What we need is someone with courage and judgment and the ability to inspire - not just the country but those who work for them and with them; someone with the ability to show people that he/she is on their side; and someone prepared to do the work needed and get others to do the work as well. And someone who is ruthless but keeps it well hidden. A leader in short. Boris is not that.
The EU is not going to go away. We need someone who understands the importance of building a good relationship with them and behaves calmly and soberly not someone who thinks that Dad's Army is some sort of guide to diplomacy.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted selves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
Labour will take the Soubry line and run with it: People with gold-plated pensions and inherited wealth voting to make hundreds of thousands jobless. It seems to me the only chance the Tories have is a GE with a new leader before Hard Brexit bites.
Seen solely from the political perspective, the last few days have been a total vindication of the Labour leadership’s Brexit strategy.
There was never much wrong with their political strategy. It's just deeply cynical and prime for them to come out with some hypocritical or outright false comments later.
If Chequers had stood it would have made life very difficult for Corbyn. A soft Brexit was the last thing he wanted.
He could still have been vague and said he would have done better, which might have been enough to get protest votes from those unhappy at the next GE.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a ng time.
Ah, you'll get over it.
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Boris has charisma and actually campaigned for and believes in Brexit, it is no wonder Trump has backed him to succeed May as he clearly sees in Boris something of himself, something able to win by winning the white skilled working and lower middle class and rich entrepreneurs whilst being despised by the upper middle class liberal elite
Yep, it takes a lazy, mendacious, sexual predator who is a friend to white supremacists and tyrants to know one.
Britain should have spent about 2 years planning for an orderly no-deal exit while working out what sort of deal was realistic and THEN triggering Article 50. That 2 year time frame could also have been used to spell out the realities and the trade offs i.e. all the stuff that was not done in the referendum campaign.
I find the lack of No Deal planning under May even more contemptible than the lack of post-referendum contingency planning under Cameron in case "Out" won.
And also, more perplexing. Your negotiating position is stronger if you have a fallback. Even if the planning is quite expensive and you hope never to use it, in the end it might win concessions valuable enough to make it worthwhile. And it is surely better to have a planned fallback if there is even a minute chance of chaos otherwise.
I appreciate that the cabinet could hardly agree a minutely detailed decision tree in advance - "we're going to push for this, we are willing to trade this for that, if the EU says no to these red lines then that is the point we switch to this plan for a clean break" - but a broad vision including red lines and a contingency plan in place for them seems a pretty minimal expectation.
Negotiating fallbacks usually maintain the status quo. Cutting off your nose to spite your face, aka The Blazing Saddles gambit, typically fails to impress.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
yn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Soft or hences.
No they are not, 52% voted Leave the vast majority of whom back hard Brexit, you only need around 43% for a majority. In a decade or so voters may be in the mood to put the economy first and return to the single market at the moment they want what they voted Leave for to come first ie regaining sovereignty and reducing immigration
As I said, fooling themselves. You also totally ignored the point, which was not suggesting that people are yearning for retaining the single market, in favour of one you'd prefer I was making. If there are consequences, the Tories will suffer at the next election, people are not logical in going 'but this is what i asked for, best reward the government of the day now there are negative consequences for me'.
People blame governments when they are impacted by things. Sometimes it's not enough to see them lose, depending on where they started, but whether people say they want no deal Brexit, that doesn't prevent them from voting against the Tories if they get negatively impacted by it. After all, we'll already be out, and rejoining isn't going to happen without a referendum - voting for someone else won't retrospectively make a deal occur, so there's no harm in someone supporting no deal and then not voting Tory.
No, voters will blame the Tories at the next general election if they do not deliver the Brexit they voted for with reductions in immigration, reclamation of sovereignty and reduced payments to the EU, they knew there would be some economic risk when they voted Leave due to the doomladen Remain campaign but voted Leave anyway to finally get their country back
It’s becoming clearer that something is going to have to give. Either Parliament is going to have to backtrack, Britain is going to crash out without a deal or Brexit isn’t going to happen.
Right now I think I order them 1,2,3 but any of them can easily be envisaged. The next few months look chaotic.
There's a 4, and of interest to people with bets on this, which is indefinite delay. It all.pivots around whether the UK accepts the NI backstop. If it doesn't, both parties may wish to stall rather than crash out or reject Brexit outright.
The EU probably don't want us to crash out, it has some blowback for them too, but are clearly prepared to countenance it, so there doesn't seem much of a reason they would stall.
and return to the single market at the moment they want what they voted Leave for to come first ie regaining sovereignty and reducing immigration
Except Brexit will make little difference because most of our immigration does not come from the EU
So to be a Tory these days, you have to be prepared to trash the economy and dislike foreigners.
If you are lucky you will only be called the Nasty Party and not something worse.
The Liberals have historically had a longer tradition of being the party of big business than the Tories as anyone with historical knowledge would know, in much of the 19th century and the 1920s the Tories were the party of patriotism, paternalism and protectionism and the Liberals were the party of the industrial classes and free trade.
Well 90% of the world is outside the EU so that is an absurd point but the fact remains we have had no control over EU immigration unlike non EU immigration due to free movement, exacerbated by Blair's failure to impose transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
and return to the single market at the moment they want what they voted Leave for to come first ie regaining sovereignty and reducing immigration
Except Brexit will make little difference because most of our immigration does not come from the EU
So to be a Tory these days, you have to be prepared to trash the economy and dislike foreigners.
If you are lucky you will only be called the Nasty Party and not something worse.
Yes but non-EU migration is controlled migration and thus presumably migration we want. Why you think that should justify uncontrolled migration so long as they're from Europe is beyond me.
Make a justification for free movement if you have one, pointing out that some people come from the rest of the world is not one.
Boris is not smart: if he were he'd have realised that the funny act wears thin when you're asked to do something serious. Humour needs to be used wisely. He has no judgment. He's despised because people have seen through him. He's a balloon who is slowly deflating.
What we need is someone with courage and judgment and the ability to inspire - not just the country but those who work for them and with them; someone with the ability to show people that he/she is on their side; and someone prepared to do the work needed and get others to do the work as well. And someone who is ruthless but keeps it well hidden. A leader in short. Boris is not that.
The EU is not going to go away. We need someone who understands the importance of building a good relationship with them and behaves calmly and soberly not someone who thinks that Dad's Army is some sort of guide to diplomacy.
Problem is every attempt to be calm and sober has met with severe resistance. There isn't a candidate who could win who would be able to do any of what you suggest.
Corbyn's going to walk the next election at this rate.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a ng time.
Ah, you'll get over it.
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Boris has charisma and actually campaigned for and believes in Brexit, it is no wonder Trump has backed him to succeed May as he clearly sees in Boris something of himself, something able to win by winning the white skilled working and lower middle class and rich entrepreneurs whilst being despised by the upper middle class liberal elite
He believes in Brexit so much that ever since June 2016 he has been wholly unable to articulate how it is supposed to bloody work.
I query whether he really is able to win those groups you list, outside London at least.
So glad we’ve just sold the business. I doubt it would have happened after tonight.
Congrats on selling.
I did not sell mine, but I closed it down and then liquidated all the assets and paid everything off so I have no debts of any kind and money in the bank. However the next 12 months turn out I (and my family) should be OK
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a ng time.
Ah, you'll get over it.
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Boris has charisma and actually campaigned for and believes in Brexit, it is no wonder Trump has backed him to succeed May as he clearly sees in Boris something of himself, something able to win by winning the white skilled working and lower middle class and rich entrepreneurs whilst being despised by the upper middle class liberal elite
He believes in Brexit so much that ever since June 2016 he has been wholly unable to articulate how it is supposed to bloody work.
And was incapable of convincing the Cabinet to agree despite May's deal being roundly condemned from everyone from the ERG to remainers.
WTO Brexit is now looking likely, TM has no room to manoeuvre, without ripping the tory party in two. At the end of the day whether you agree or not , the country voted to leave the European Union, We took that decision as a nation. We were told during the referendum that chaos would ensue if we voted leave, but we still chose to leave. I voted leave, even if it meant me losing my livelihood, such is my loathing of the EU and its institutions. We didn't go into this blind, but I do believe a clean Brexit, will eventually - in the medium to long term - bring positive benefits to us, and opportunities that currently we are unable to take advantage of. But more than that we will have regained our right to kick out those who lead us if we are not happy with them. Westminster as a parish council of the EU was never real democracy. We will survive Brexit, and with British ingenuity and the country coming together with goodwill I believe this nation is capable of flourishing and and becoming a serious competitor to the EU, which I think is what they fear the most. If we have the balls to say no to them, they will come crawling back at some point willing to compromise and do a proper deal that truly is in the best interests of the UK and EU. But we have to take the step, and let go of nurse. No one said escaping from 40 years of entanglement with this undemocratic institution was ever going to be easy. We have made a lot of schoolboy errors in the negotiations and seemed to be negotiating from a stance of weakness, letting the EU dictate. But we are where we are. But we are going to have to walk away from the negotiations, because the EU will not bend. They want to punish us for daring to leave. Lets keep the £39 billion , and chart a new course
Michael Gove has distanced himself from some of the arguments he made during the Brexit referendum, including claims over levels of Turkish immigration
Well that's good as that claim was nonsense, and I said so at the time too, but what is his game? Even remainers don't seem to like May's deal, certainly not now, so won't care about someone wooing them from the leave side, and surely his moves lately have meant he won't get leaver backing in any contest.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s trueignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexitcng time.
Ah, you'll get over it.
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
That would bethe Tories need an election asap.
So glad we’ve just sold the business. I doubt it would have happened after tonight.
Human nature is a funny thing. I reckon the electorate would blame the Tories for a while, but then they would start to panic - understandably, given the chaos of Hard Brexit - and then they would vote for the patriotic party, as a basic British reflex.
ALSO, I think it very possible that this obvious British politicking towards a No Deal Crash Brexit might spook the Europeans. If Hard As Fuck Brexit happens Britain will clearly suffer a Depression but Europe will have a severe recession (at the worst possible time) as trade routes for all kinds of EU business, from French wineries to German carmakers to Italian pasta-factories, find that 30% of their international market has disappeared.
There has to be a decent chance that Brussels will blink first, now we are set, apparently, on national seppuku
I can see the Tories winning a snap election. It gets much more difficult the longer into a Hard Brexit we get. I’d be surprised if Brussels blinked first, not least because it is not obvious what could be done on their side to unblock a jam that is all about internal Conservative party politics. We know what the loons don’t want. They have yet to tell us what they do want, but I suspect it looks very unlike anything the EU could ever concede.
Now that the Tories are going for no deal/hard brexit again, how will the ERG and hard leavers react when, I suspect, the polls don't immediately change back? After all, it was entirely about the position and not the chaos.
What from today is no deal?
It's only if there's no deal that Clause 36 kicks in, if there's a reciprocal deal then it is moot.
It's no deal because I see no way that a deal will be agreed. That was already a high probability in my view, but at least the government, for better or worse, seemed like it would attempt to get a deal. But no one seems to believe that these amendments match what the chequers deal was about, so instead it looks like the government has decided since it cannot get a deal, best to try to get the ERG back on side at least.
It keeps them in office a little while longer.
It only goes against Chequers if the intention was to capitulate to the EU and give them what they want without any reciprocity.
If there's a respectful reciprocal deal along the lines of Chequers then today's amendments do nothing to prevent that.
A hard Brexit with Boris as PM would lead to a second referendum. That is a Scottish one. I cannot see the no vote winning this one. If Scotland goes then NI will look for its own deal and maybe Wales. I hate conspiracy theories but wonder why it is the Airbus Welsh factory that was picked on.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
Now that the Tories are going for no deal/hard brexit again, how will the ERG and hard leavers react when, I suspect, the polls don't immediately change back? After all, it was entirely about the position and not the chaos.
What from today is no deal?
It's only if there's no deal that Clause 36 kicks in, if there's a reciprocal deal then it is moot.
It's no deal because I see no way that a deal will be agreed. That was already a high probability in my view, but at least the government, for better or worse, seemed like it would attempt to get a deal. But no one seems to believe that these amendments match what the chequers deal was about, so instead it looks like the government has decided since it cannot get a deal, best to try to get the ERG back on side at least.
It keeps them in office a little while longer.
It only goes against Chequers if the intention was to capitulate to the EU and give them what they want without any reciprocity.
If there's a respectful reciprocal deal along the lines of Chequers then today's amendments do nothing to prevent that.
Chequers was to get us into the transition, nothing more. That is now off the table thanks to the VAT vote.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current polls the only way the Tories win the next election is hard Brexit, if it is soft Brexit based on the Chequers Deal Corbyn will win because of Tory defections to UKIP
Hard Brexit destroys the Tories' main USP - that they are pragmatic, not ideological and can be trusted with economic matters because they care about the country. It shows them up as madly ideological, deeply unconcerned with the practical consequences of an outcome for which little planning has been made and which could cause real economic and social harm to the country and arrogantly indifferent to voters' concerns, talking only to themselves - and not even to the best of themselves but the sorts of people most normal people would avoid sitting next to on a long train journey.
And you think this is a winning combination?
The Tories are making Corbyn look like a ng time.
Ah, you'll get over it.
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Boris has charisma and actually campaigned fpper middle class liberal elite
He believes in Brexit so much that ever since June 2016 he has been wholly unable to articulate how it is supposed to bloody work.
I query whether he really is able to win those groups you list, outside London at least.
He knows precisely how he wants it to work, with a reduction in regulations and directives from the EU, more money for the NHS etc from the savings from payments to EU and greater control of our borders based on the immigration we actually need.
Boris only won the London Mayoralty by appealing to the lower middle classes and the skilled working classes and repeated the trick outside London in the EU referendum when he was the public face of the Leave campaign and will do so again at a general election.
Don't forget Trump was a New Yorker, did not stop him winning the white working and lower middle class in the South and Midwest and rustbelt
and return to the single market at the moment they want what they voted Leave for to come first ie regaining sovereignty and reducing immigration
Except Brexit will make little difference because most of our immigration does not come from the EU
So to be a Tory these days, you have to be prepared to trash the economy and dislike foreigners.
If you are lucky you will only be called the Nasty Party and not something worse.
Yes but non-EU migration is controlled migration and thus presumably migration we want. Why you think that should justify uncontrolled migration so long as they're from Europe is beyond me.
Make a justification for free movement if you have one, pointing out that some people come from the rest of the world is not one.
I do not have to justify anything. It is not me saying that getting rid of the EU will solve immigration. Go speak to the various Leave Campaigns - they pushed that line, not me.
Boris is not smart: if he were he'd have realised that the funny act wears thin when you're asked to do something serious. Humour needs to be used wisely. He has no judgment. He's despised because people have seen through him. He's a balloon who is slowly deflating.
What we need is someone with courage and judgment and the ability to inspire - not just the country but those who work for them and with them; someone with the ability to show people that he/she is on their side; and someone prepared to do the work needed and get others to do the work as well. And someone who is ruthless but keeps it well hidden. A leader in short. Boris is not that.
The EU is not going to go away. We need someone who understands the importance of building a good relationship with them and behaves calmly and soberly not someone who thinks that Dad's Army is some sort of guide to diplomacy.
Problem is every attempt to be calm and sober has met with severe resistance. There isn't a candidate who could win who would be able to do any of what you suggest.
Corbyn's going to walk the next election at this rate.
Corbyn cannot even get a majority on the current polls against May, let alone when the Tories have a more charismatic leader able to win back Brexiteers from UKIP.
Indeed he may even lose some Remainers to the LDs due to his continued failure to support the single market
Not many patriots left in the parliamentary Conservative party.
How the hell is it patriotic to collect tariffs on behalf of a third party if they're not reciprocating?
This amendment should be totally uncontroversial. If the EU wants a deal where we collect tariffs on their behalf and vice versa then great. If no deal can be reached than so be it. Either way this amendment doesn't rule out a deal it rules out unreciprocated servitude.
The EU collect customs for the Swiss, and it's totally uncontroversial in either Switzerland or Brussels
There has to be a decent chance that Brussels will blink first, now we are set, apparently, on national seppuku
Why? They may not want that given they'll get a few cuts from us as well, but that's not enough reason to drop red lines. We aren't bluffing when we say we won't go any further - turns out we couldn't even go as far as May's deal - but they don't look to be bluffing about being willing to take a hit on the basis we get hit harder.
For the same reason you think the Tories might win - their electorates will blame us, not their own
Human nature is a funny thing. I reckon the electorate would blame the Tories for a while, but then they would start to panic - understandably, given the chaos of Hard Brexit - and then they would vote for the patriotic party, as a basic British reflex.
Not if it was three-four years from now. There are problems even getting an earlier election, but like Tsipras in Greece you can see someone winning by going to the electorate before things bite. But afterwards? 12 years in to a government? With more years for people to think, eh, maybe Corbyn isn't so loony after all, I'll just stay home this time?
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
That would be three years into a Hard Brexit. Can’t see the Tories winning on the back of that. If we’re crashing out - and it looks like we are now - the Tories need an election asap.
So glad we’ve just sold the business. I doubt it would have happened after tonight.
Human nature is a funny thing. I reckon the electorate would blame the Tories for a while, but then they would start to panic - understandably, given the chaos of Hard Brexit - and then they would vote for the patriotic party, as a basic British reflex.
ALSO, I think it very possible that this obvious British politicking towards a No Deal Crash Brexit might spook the Europeans. If Hard As Fuck Brexit happens Britain will clearly suffer a Depression but Europe will have a severe recession (at the worst possible time) as trade routes for all kinds of EU business, from French wineries to German carmakers to Italian pasta-factories, find that 30% of their international market has disappeared.
There has to be a decent chance that Brussels will blink first, now we are set, apparently, on national seppuku
I think you are deluding yourself. Today the French authorities wrote to every City institution asking for their Brexit plans.
If Britain heads towards a Depression or severe recession, the EU is just as likely to view this as a golden opportunity to pick for themselves all the best bits of our economy. They can weather a recession. I am not at all sure we can and I have very little confidence in our political leadership, in any party.
If the EU blinks it will be to offer us a deal of a sort on their own terms which will very clearly show that not being a member of the EU is worse than being a member of it, whatever other benefits we may get from it. And then they will continue to try and get as much of our economy and best people from us.
Just as they have prepared for the negotiations, I am quite certain that they have prepared for a no deal outcome. We have not - or so it seems. So the risks are on our side - and the EU knows it.
These votes tonight are all theatre. Yes, it incenses Remainers that May is so willing to cave to the ERG, but if they don’t like it they can vote against - or even resign, as Bebb has.
I don’t think they change Chequers in any meaningful sense.
The ball is now in the EU’s court and we must wait for October.
It’s true though the the odds of both no Brexit and no deal have risen in the last week, largely as a result of the Davis and Johnson resignations.
Meanwhile, businesses will continue making plans to transfer investment and people away from Britain.
Yep - this is the key point. The Tories are telling business loud and clear that No Deal is coming. The Tories will own the consequences of that. Jeremy Corbyn will be delighted. Chequers could have put him on the back foot. Now he is home free.
On current The Tories are making Corbyn look like a ng time.
Ah, you'll get over it.
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Boris has charisma
Yep, it takes a lazy, mendacious, sexual predator who is a friend to white supremacists and tyrants to know one.
Trump won against the odds. Boris also won, twice.
And (tho this caricature of Boris is absurd) I wouldn't mind a "white supremacist" in power, for a while, given the way the rape of 100,000-300,000 white girls, by pedophile racist Muslim grooming gangs, is being treated as a mere footnote in British history. Whereas if it had happened the other way we'd be immersed in enormous national inquiries for decades.
I'm bored of being cuckolded by you lefties, simply because I am white. Fuck conservative Islam. Fuck it all. I'd rather be governed by Putin, who at least says the truth: let those who want to be orthodox Muslim fuck off to Arabia.
Look at France after their World Cup win. City centres burning with riots, looting and petrol bombs. Not out of joy, out of anger and nihilism. However uncomfortable this feels, to liberals (and to me) Trump is right. On this point.
I think the idea that white supremacists genuinely give a fuck about young adults and children being gang raped by anyone is a little naive.
TRUMP: So let me just say that we have two thoughts. You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server, why haven't they taken the server. Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee. I've been wondering that. I've been asking that for months and months and I've been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know. Where is the server, and what is the server saying? With that being said, all I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others and said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server. But I have — I have confidence in both parties. I really believe that this will probably go on for a while, but I don't think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server...
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
I find the lack of No Deal planning under May even more contemptible than the lack of post-referendum contingency planning under Cameron in case "Out" won.
And also, more perplexing. Your negotiating position is stronger if you have a fallback. Even if the planning is quite expensive and you hope never to use it, in the end it might win concessions valuable enough to make it worthwhile. And it is surely better to have a planned fallback if there is even a minute chance of chaos otherwise.
I appreciate that the cabinet could hardly agree a minutely detailed decision tree in advance - "we're going to push for this, we are willing to trade this for that, if the EU says no to these red lines then that is the point we switch to this plan for a clean break" - but a broad vision including red lines and a contingency plan in place for them seems a pretty minimal expectation.
Negotiating fallbacks usually maintain the status quo. Cutting off your nose to spite your face, aka The Blazing Saddles gambit, typically fails to impress.
But Article 50 is structured in such a way that you have to pre-commit to leaving first, and the fallback has to be some kind of no-deal scenario. This is obviously to the detriment of the leaving party, apparently by design..
But the leaving party at least gets to choose how seriously to prepare for the no-deal scenario, and hence how credible it is, and what kind of no-deal they wish to pursue, whether it's Chilly-Singapore-on-Sea or something else. Proper contingency planning can change the quality and desirableness of the fall-back option - even if you personally cannot foresee a life for Britain outside the EU that is preferable to one inside it, you can surely see something superior to a no-deal no-preparation scenario.
To publicly fail to establish a fall-back position is, by default, to announce to the world that you are dependent upon any deal they are willing to grant, and the alternative is that you will just blow up in a ball of chaos in front of their face.
A hard Brexit with Boris as PM would lead to a second referendum. That is a Scottish one. I cannot see the no vote winning this one. If Scotland goes then NI will look for its own deal and maybe Wales. I hate conspiracy theories but wonder why it is the Airbus Welsh factory that was picked on.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
Actually the polls fail to support that.
The latest YouGov has an astonishing 31% of Scots thinking the Chequers Deal is too soft and gives too much to the EU, compared to just 20% who think it is too hard a Brexit plan with 13% thinking it about right.
Wales of course voted Leave anyway and NI still voted DUP even after the Brexit vote
Incidentally, if we do end up with No Deal, then I would want Boris as leader. He's smart, funny, charismatic, and despised by the rest of the EU Establishment.
Who gives a F. That's a positive.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
That would be three years into a Hard Brexit. Can’t see the Tories winning on the back of that. If we’re crashing out - and it looks like we are now - the Tories need an election asap.
So glad we’ve just sold the business. I doubt it would have happened after tonight.
Human nature is a ku
I think you are deluding yourself. Today the French authorities wrote to every City institution asking for their Brexit plans.
If Britain heads towards a Depression or severe recession, the EU is just as likely to view this as a golden opportunity to pick for themselves all the best bits of our economy. They can weather a recession. I am not at all sure we can and I have very little confidence in our political leadership, in any party.
If the EU blinks it will be to offer us a deal of a sort on their own terms which will very clearly show that not being a member of the EU is worse than being a member of it, whatever other benefits we may get from it. And then they will continue to try and get as much of our economy and best people from us.
Just as they have prepared for the negotiations, I am quite certain that they have prepared for a no deal outcome. We have not - or so it seems. So the risks are on our side - and the EU knows it.
We keep being told Brexit will lead to a mass exodus of finance from London to Paris and Frankfurt but still no real evidence of that so far
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
Boris is not smart: if he were he'd have realised that the funny act wears thin when you're asked to do something serious. Humour needs to be used wisely. He has no judgment. He's despised because people have seen through him. He's a balloon who is slowly deflating.
What we need is someone with courage and judgment and the ability to inspire - not just the country but those who work for them and with them; someone with the ability to show people that he/she is on their side; and someone prepared to do the work needed and get others to do the work as well. And someone who is ruthless but keeps it well hidden. A leader in short. Boris is not that.
The EU is not going to go away. We need someone who understands the importance of building a good relationship with them and behaves calmly and soberly not someone who thinks that Dad's Army is some sort of guide to diplomacy.
We won't agree, I expect, but I think the Corbyn/McDonnell/Starmer combination is objectively a lot more impressive. Corbyn has steady nerves and resolution; McDonnell is less amiable but clever; Starmer is one of the few people on either side to have a fair shot at a sensible Brexit negotiating position. If we're going to try a left-wing government at some point - and unless one expects Tories in power forever it will come sooner or later - it makes sense to do it at the next opportunity when the current government appears entirely at sea. Labour was exhausted in 2010 and needed a period in opposition; the Conservatives are now in a worse place.
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
A hard Brexit with Boris as PM would lead to a second referendum. That is a Scottish one. I cannot see the no vote winning this one. If Scotland goes then NI will look for its own deal and maybe Wales. I hate conspiracy theories but wonder why it is the Airbus Welsh factory that was picked on.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
Actually the polls fail to support that.
The latest YouGov has an astonishing 31% of Scots thinking the Chequers Deal is too soft and gives too much to the EU, compared to just 20% who think it is too hard a Brexit plan with 13% thinking it about right.
Wales of course voted Leave anyway and NI still voted DUP even after Brexit
Hard Brexit is an abstract concept that voters - quite understandably - do not currently get. As the Tories have now to all intents and purposes voted against a transition period, we are now only months away from its reality biting. Let’s see what the polling is like when it actually starts to bite.
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
That, plus the damage that no-deal Brexit would wreak upon the popularity of senior Brexiteers. To get into this position Boris would need the support of MPs (rather unlikely), the support of party members in the event there were a rival candidate (not impossible, depends on who he is up against) and the support of voters (in this scenario, quite unlikely unless the opposition manage complete self-destruction themselves).
Not many patriots left in the parliamentary Conservative party.
How the hell is it patriotic to collect tariffs on behalf of a third party if they're not reciprocating?
This amendment should be totally uncontroversial. If the EU wants a deal where we collect tariffs on their behalf and vice versa then great. If no deal can be reached than so be it. Either way this amendment doesn't rule out a deal it rules out unreciprocated servitude.
The EU collect customs for the Swiss, and it's totally uncontroversial in either Switzerland or Brussels
Precisely!
Why do we have 300 MPs who think its patriotic to suggest that we collect on behalf of the EU but that the EU can refuse to return the favour for us as they already do for the Swiss!
Today's vote should have been moot and uncontroversial and does nothing to change Chequers. It seems only the myopia of Brits who refuse to look at what happens elsewhere (like with the Swiss) that makes this seem controversial in the slightest.
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
A hard Brexit with Boris as PM would lead to a second referendum. That is a Scottish one. I cannot see the no vote winning this one. If Scotland goes then NI will look for its own deal and maybe Wales. I hate conspiracy theories but wonder why it is the Airbus Welsh factory that was picked on.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
Actually the polls fail to support that.
The latest YouGov has an astonishing 31% of Scots thinking the Chequers Deal is too soft and gives too much to the EU, compared to just 20% who think it is too hard a Brexit plan with 13% thinking it about right.
Wales of course voted Leave anyway and NI still voted DUP even after the Brexit vote
Overall 40% of UK voters think the Chequers Deal is too soft and gives too much power to the EU, including 60% of Tories, 12% think it is still too hard a Brexit plan and 13% think it about right
I find the lack of No Deal planning under May even more contemptible than the lack of post-referendum contingency planning under Cameron in case "Out" won.
And also, more perplexing. Your negotiating position is stronger if you have a fallback. Even if the planning is quite expensive and you hope never to use it, in the end it might win concessions valuable enough to make it worthwhile. And it is surely better to have a planned fallback if there is even a minute chance of chaos otherwise.
I appreciate that the cabinet could hardly agree a minutely detailed decision tree in advance - "we're going to push for this, we are willing to trade this for that, if the EU says no to these red lines then that is the point we switch to this plan for a clean break" - but a broad vision including red lines and a contingency plan in place for them seems a pretty minimal expectation.
Negotiating fallbacks usually maintain the status quo. Cutting off your nose to spite your face, aka The Blazing Saddles gambit, typically fails to impress.
But Article 50 is structured in such a way that you have to pre-commit to leaving first, and the fallback has to be some kind of no-deal scenario. This is obviously to the detriment of the leaving party, apparently by design..
But the leaving party at least gets to choose how seriously to prepare for the no-deal scenario, and hence how credible it is, and what kind of no-deal they wish to pursue, whether it's Chilly-Singapore-on-Sea or something else. Proper contingency planning can change the quality and desirableness of the fall-back option - even if you personally cannot foresee a life for Britain outside the EU that is preferable to one inside it, you can surely see something superior to a no-deal no-preparation scenario.
To publicly fail to establish a fall-back position is, by default, to announce to the world that you are dependent upon any deal they are willing to grant, and the alternative is that you will just blow up in a ball of chaos in front of their face.
Correct. Which is why not calling Article 50 was the UK's BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement). As incidentally I pointed out at the time on this forum to the universal derision of Leavers ("glad you're not the negotiator")
Talking to a civil servant friend I was arguing with him about how unprepared we are for a no deal scenario/lack of preparation etc. He was having none of it and believes the civil service is very much gearing up for no deal. I'd like to believe him and he's in a core Brexit department but I wonder if he's being swayed by his own enthusiasm for leaving
On today’s votes: didn’t we just have a round of votes mid June which were supposed to be the do or die moment? Feeling like a lot of these hyped up votes don’t seem to mean much, given that there is always another set of votes which are the new suddenly ‘the do or die’ moment.
A hard Brexit with Boris as PM would lead to a second referendum. That is a Scottish one. I cannot see the no vote winning this one. If Scotland goes then NI will look for its own deal and maybe Wales. I hate conspiracy theories but wonder why it is the Airbus Welsh factory that was picked on.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
Actually the polls fail to support that.
The latest YouGov has an astonishing 31% of Scots thinking the Chequers Deal is too soft and gives too much to the EU, compared to just 20% who think it is too hard a Brexit plan with 13% thinking it about right.
Wales of course voted Leave anyway and NI still voted DUP even after Brexit
Hard Brexit is an abstract concept that voters - quite understandably - do not currently get. As the Tories have now to all intents and purposes voted against a transition period, we are now only months away from its reality biting. Let’s see what the polling is like when it actually starts to bite.
No they 'quite understandably' do not get it to diehard Remainers like yourself who are astonished that the plebs could even consider things like the sovereignty of their nation and control of its borders to be more important than what you see as the economic apocalypse of Brexit.
In reality though the precise nature of the Mogg amendments on customs to the Chequers Deal (which the polling is clear most voters thought too soft) are unlikely to make that much difference to it overall and its impact on a transition deal
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
That, plus the damage that no-deal Brexit would wreak upon the popularity of senior Brexiteers. To get into this position Boris would need the support of MPs (rather unlikely), the support of party members in the event there were a rival candidate (not impossible, depends on who he is up against) and the support of voters (in this scenario, quite unlikely unless the opposition manage complete self-destruction themselves).
Tbh I think his stint in the Foreign Office killed his chances as far as gaining enough support among Tory MPs is concerned. He’s been unpopular among the public for sometime now already.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
I would not be surprised to find that some of them would accept it. Nationalism is a nasty business.
Sadly, I believe polling suggests most of the parties view the break up of the UK as an acceptable price.
The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
Oh well... it will be interesting to watch.
Except as I have already posted a plurality of Scots think the Chequers Deal is too soft a Brexit Deal, not still too hard a Brexit Deal as the SNP claim
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
That, plus the damage that no-deal Brexit would wreak upon the popularity of senior Brexiteers. To get into this position Boris would need the support of MPs (rather unlikely), the support of party members in the event there were a rival candidate (not impossible, depends on who he is up against) and the support of voters (in this scenario, quite unlikely unless the opposition manage complete self-destruction themselves).
Tbh I think his stint in the Foreign Office killed his chances as far as gaining enough support among Tory MPs is concerned. He’s been unpopular among the public for sometime now already.
Utter rubbish. If Tory MPs think Boris will beat Corbyn they will pick him and if he was so 'unpopular' with the public how come he is the only Tory EVER to win the London Mayoralty not once but TWICE and how come it was when he took over the de facto leadership of the LEAVE campaign it moved from narrowly behind to beating the Remain campaign across the UK?
The EU is an economic trading bloc which is trying (and painfully failing) to become a Federal superstate. These failures are why we left. You cannot create a demos, and thence a functional democracy, out of so many different political cultures, and languages and traditions. This is why we quit.
On current showing, the British demos is a lot more fractured than the European demos. EU leaders meet and establish painful fudged compromises - it's not great, but it gets them through. We are almost literally falling apart with quite distinct political tribes unable to stand each other.
A hard Brexit with Boris as PM would lead to a second referendum. That is a Scottish one. I cannot see the no vote winning this one. If Scotland goes then NI will look for its own deal and maybe Wales. I hate conspiracy theories but wonder why it is the Airbus Welsh factory that was picked on.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
Actually the polls fail to support that.
The latest YouGov has an astonishing 31% of Scots thinking the Chequers Deal is too soft and gives too much to the EU, compared to just 20% who think it is too hard a Brexit plan with 13% thinking it about right.
Wales of course voted Leave anyway and NI still voted DUP even after Brexit
Hard Brexit is an abstract concept that voters - quite understandably - do not currently get. As the Tories have now to all intents and purposes voted against a transition period, we are now only months away from its reality biting. Let’s see what the polling is like when it actually starts to bite.
No they 'quite understandably' do not get it to diehard Remainers like yourself who are astonished that the plebs could even consider things like the sovereignty of their nation and control of its borders to be more important than what you see as the economic apocalypse of Brexit.
In reality though the precise nature of the Mogg amendments on customs to the Chequers Deal (which the polling is clear most voters thought too soft) are unlikely to make that much difference to it overall and its impact on a transition deal
What a silly post. If you think voters understand clearly what a Hard Brexit involves I’m afraid you are in for a very big shock. They’ve been told it’s all Project Fear.
As for a transition deal, tonight’s vote killed it because it killed the NI backstop (unless the VAT vote was for something that is illegal).
I find the lack of No Deal planning under May even more contemptible than the lack of post-referendum contingency planning under Cameron in case "Out" won.
And also, more perplexing. Your negotiating position is stronger if you have a fallback. Even if the planning is quite expensive and you hope never to use it, in the end it might win concessions valuable enough to make it worthwhile. And it is surely better to have a planned fallback if there is even a minute chance of chaos otherwise.
I appreciate that the cabinet could hardly agree a minutely detailed decision tree in advance - "we're going to push for this, we are willing to trade this for that, if the EU says no to these red lines then that is the point we switch to this plan for a clean break" - but a broad vision including red lines and a contingency plan in place for them seems a pretty minimal expectation.
Negotiating fallbacks usually maintain the status quo. Cutting off your nose to spite your face, aka The Blazing Saddles gambit, typically fails to impress.
But Article 50 is structured in such a way that you have to pre-commit to leaving first, and the fallback has to be some kind of no-deal scenario. This is obviously to the detriment of the leaving party, apparently by design..
But the leaving party at least gets to choose how seriously to prepare for the no-deal scenario, and hence how credible it is, and what kind of no-deal they wish to pursue, whether it's Chilly-Singapore-on-Sea or something else. Proper contingency planning can change the quality and desirableness of the fall-back option - even if you personally cannot foresee a life for Britain outside the EU that is preferable to one inside it, you can surely see something superior to a no-deal no-preparation scenario.
To publicly fail to establish a fall-back position is, by default, to announce to the world that you are dependent upon any deal they are willing to grant, and the alternative is that you will just blow up in a ball of chaos in front of their face.
A membership agreement detrimental to the Party trying to leave? Clearly you never joined a David Lloyd gym.
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
ong the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
That, plus the damage that no-deal Brexit would wreak upon the popularity of senior Brexiteers. To get into this position Boris would need the support of MPs (rather unlikely), the support of party members in the event there were a rival candidate (not impossible, depends on who he is up against) and the support of voters (in this scenario, quite unlikely unless the opposition manage complete self-destruction themselves).
Tbh I think his stint in the Foreign Office killed his chances as far as gaining enough support among Tory MPs is concerned. He’s been unpopular among the public for sometime now already.
Utter rubbish. If Tory MPs think Boris will beat Corbyn they will pick him and if he was so 'unpopular' with the public how come he is the only Tory EVER to win the London Mayoralty not once but TWICE and how come it was when he took over the de facto leadership of the LEAVE campaign it moved from narrowly behind to beating the Remain campaign across the UK?
Boris was popular back when was Mayor, he isn’t now.
The Leave campaign won on the back of the issue of immigration. It’s actually from Boris’ involvement in that campaign that his popularity started to tank.
So if this VAT amendment (see earlier tweet posted by Southam) is illegal, then it can’t stand then and back to the drawing board for the government.
If an Act of Parliament says it’s legal, it’s legal. I’m very happy for the Supreme Court to rule on the issue in the summer of 2019, once we’re well over the cliff edge.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
I would not be surprised to find that some of them would accept it. Nationalism is a nasty business.
Sadly, I believe polling suggests most of the parties view the break up of the UK as an acceptable price.
The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
Oh well... it will be interesting to watch.
Except as I have already posted a plurality of Scots think the Chequers Deal is too soft a Brexit Deal, not still too hard a Brexit Deal as the SNP claim
A hard Brexit with Boris as PM would lead to a second referendum. That is a Scottish one. I cannot see the no vote winning this one. If Scotland goes then NI will look for its own deal and maybe Wales. I hate conspiracy theories but wonder why it is the Airbus Welsh factory that was picked on.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
Actually the polls fail to support that.
The latest YouGov has an astonishing 31% of Scots thinking the Chequers Deal is too soft and gives too much to the EU, compared to just 20% who think it is too hard a Brexit plan with 13% thinking it about right.
Wales of course voted Leave anyway and NI still voted DUP even after Brexit
Hard Brexit is an abstract concept that voters - quite understandably - do not currently get. As the Tories have now to all intents and purposes voted against a transition period, we are now only months away from its reality biting. Let’s see what the polling is like when it actually starts to bite.
No they 'quite understandably' do not get it to diehard Remainers like yourself who are astonished that the plebs could even consider things like the sovereignty of their nation and control of its borders to be more important than what you see as the economic apocalypse of Brexit.
In reality though the precise nature of the Mogg amendments on customs to the Chequers Deal (which the polling is clear most voters thought too soft) are unlikely to make that much difference to it overall and its impact on a transition deal
What a silly post. If you think voters understand clearly what a Hard Brexit involves I’m afraid you are in for a very big shock. They’ve been told it’s all Project Fear.
As for a transition deal, tonight’s vote killed it because it killed the NI backstop (unless the VAT vote was for something that is illegal).
They understand the Brexit they voted for which was to regain sovereignty and bring immigration under control. The transition period whether it occurs or not will just be a transition to hard Brexit as there is no way the EU will agree a FTA by December 2020
So if this VAT amendment (see earlier tweet posted by Southam) is illegal, then it can’t stand then and back to the drawing board for the government.
If an Act of Parliament says it’s legal, it’s legal. I’m very happy for the Supreme Court to rule on the issue in the summer of 2019, once we’re well over the cliff edge.
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
DOUBLE the total for the second place candidates, one of whom was Mogg
That doesn’t make Boris look popular, it just makes the other candidates look even worse....
You could have said the same about Corbyn in 2015, though Burnham actually led Labour leadership polls then
People hardly knew who Corbyn was back then, Boris has been a well known figure amongst the public since at least 2009.
Yes and he has one a Mayoral election and an EU referendum in that time, he is the most electorally successful politician still in frontline UK politics today, Corbyn may have done better than expect but less us not forget he still lost his only general election in 2017
As I said before, I think May's autobiography will be fascinating reading. What was she really thinking? Whenever we can seem to discern some rationale behind her choices, she negates it with her next move.
It should be a fascinating glimpse. Sadly I fear she will switch between different ghost writers from chapter to chapter, so we'll have no more clue than now why she seems to shift position all the time.
If we go to No Deal, you want someone with cullions and cunning and a bit of funny rhetoric to buck us all up. Because life will be TUFF for a few years. I suspect Boris would win a GE against Corbyn in 2022.
ong the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Wrong, Boris was by far the most popular choice to succeed May in the Delta poll at the weekend, double the total of Mogg and Davidson who were second and 10% ahead of Javid who was third
That, plus the damage that no-deal Brexit would wreak upon the popularity of senior Brexiteers. Tmanage complete self-destruction themselves).
Tbh I think his stint in the Foreign Office killed his chances as far as gaining enough support among Tory MPs is concerned. He’s been unpopular among the public for sometime now already.
Utter rubbish. If Tory MPs think Boris will beat Corbyn they will pick him and if he was so 'unpopular' with the public how come he is the only Tory EVER to win the London Mayoralty not once but TWICE and how come it was when he took over the de facto leadership of the LEAVE campaign it moved from narrowly behind to beating the Remain campaign across the UK?
Boris was popular back when was Mayor, he isn’t now.
The Leave campaign won on the back of the issue of immigration. It’s actually from Boris’ involvement in that campaign that his popularity started to tank.
Bullshit, as the latest Tory Leadership poll shows he is by far and away the most popular contender with the public.
He may not be popular with left liberal diehard Remainers like you thanks to his involvement in the EU referendum but less us not forget it was Leave that won it
The EU is an economic trading bloc which is trying (and painfully failing) to become a Federal superstate. These failures are why we left. You cannot create a demos, and thence a functional democracy, out of so many different political cultures, and languages and traditions. This is why we quit.
On current showing, the British demos is a lot more fractured than the European demos. EU leaders meet and establish painful fudged compromises - it's not great, but it gets them through. We are almost literally falling apart with quite distinct political tribes unable to stand each other.
That is a joke I presume? Admittedly I'm looking at it from the outside but you have massive economic problems in the south of Europe and the Germans obviously don't care. The Euro works just fine for them and they've got no interest in altering the status quo. It's very revealing that your example is the meetings of the leaders - you're looking at it from the top down - not really an example of a demos which I always thought was about the people. You seem to be confusing a demos with an Empire.
I voted Remain but I don't think we help anything by ignoring the existential crises griping the EU. Whether that means we should be leaving - we aren't in the Euro or Schengen anyway - is a different matter but we had a referendum and then a general election where both main parties' official policy was full Brexit.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
I would not be surprised to find that some of them would accept it. Nationalism is a nasty business.
Sadly, I believe polling suggests most of the parties view the break up of the UK as an acceptable price.
The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
Oh well... it will be interesting to watch.
Except as I have already posted a plurality of Scots think the Chequers Deal is too soft a Brexit Deal, not still too hard a Brexit Deal as the SNP claim
Subsamples.
Snigger.
It chimes in with the 2017 general election result when the SNP thought they would win a landslide in opposition to the Brexit vote and instead found themselves losing over a third of their MPs
Comments
Seen solely from the political perspective, the last few days have been a total vindication of the Labour leadership’s Brexit strategy.
Britain should have spent about 2 years planning for an orderly no-deal exit while working out what sort of deal was realistic and THEN triggering Article 50. That 2 year time frame could also have been used to spell out the realities and the trade offs i.e. all the stuff that was not done in the referendum campaign.
But May could not sell water to a thirsty man in a desert.
Well meaning no doubt but utterly utterly out of her depth. And the country is now paying the price. We either take whatever the EU is prepared to give us or we crash out. Or we press the Big Pause Button.
It's only if there's no deal that Clause 36 kicks in, if there's a reciprocal deal then it is moot.
People blame governments when they are impacted by things. Sometimes it's not enough to see them lose, depending on where they started, but whether people say they want no deal Brexit, that doesn't prevent them from voting against the Tories if they get negatively impacted by it. After all, we'll already be out, and rejoining isn't going to happen without a referendum - voting for someone else won't retrospectively make a deal occur, so there's no harm in someone supporting no deal and then not voting Tory.
Except Brexit will make little difference because most of our immigration does not come from the EU
So to be a Tory these days, you have to be prepared to trash the economy and dislike foreigners.
If you are lucky you will only be called the Nasty Party and not something worse.
The facts don't lie, the Tories got 42% in 2017 on a hard Brexit platform and are now on 36% on a soft Brexit platform due to Tory Leavers defecting to UKIP, if they stay on the latter figure Corbyn will win as his base is more likely to turn out.
I am sorry but your advice for the Tories to take a BINO approach will finish them for a generation, perhaps even in the worst case scenario to face a Canada 1993 scenario and be overtaken by UKIP. If you look at the winning right of centre parties and candidates at the moment eg Trump, Lega Nord, Kurz's People's Party, even Rutte in the Netherlands they have all taken a tough on immigration stance.
Look too at Sweden where the centre right moderates have taken a corporatist approach as you advocate and are now trailing the hard right Swedish Democrats
And also, more perplexing. Your negotiating position is stronger if you have a fallback. Even if the planning is quite expensive and you hope never to use it, in the end it might win concessions valuable enough to make it worthwhile. And it is surely better to have a planned fallback if there is even a minute chance of chaos otherwise.
I appreciate that the cabinet could hardly agree a minutely detailed decision tree in advance - "we're going to push for this, we are willing to trade this for that, if the EU says no to these red lines then that is the point we switch to this plan for a clean break" - but a broad vision including red lines and a contingency plan in place for them seems a pretty minimal expectation.
So glad we’ve just sold the business. I doubt it would have happened after tonight.
"The polls turned because the public turned against soft brexit. We have now ensured hard brexit or no deal. Oh wait, they aren;t coming back" It's been much predicted but never emerged, but I think the LDs would finally make a bit of a comeback in that situation. A provably desultory and incompetent tory option vs Corbyn, who whatever the political merits of his Brexit strategy, is simply not competent either.
It keeps them in office a little while longer.
What we need is someone with courage and judgment and the ability to inspire - not just the country but those who work for them and with them; someone with the ability to show people that he/she is on their side; and someone prepared to do the work needed and get others to do the work as well. And someone who is ruthless but keeps it well hidden. A leader in short. Boris is not that.
The EU is not going to go away. We need someone who understands the importance of building a good relationship with them and behaves calmly and soberly not someone who thinks that Dad's Army is some sort of guide to diplomacy.
Well 90% of the world is outside the EU so that is an absurd point but the fact remains we have had no control over EU immigration unlike non EU immigration due to free movement, exacerbated by Blair's failure to impose transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries
Am very confident that you're wrong re the electoral outcome in this scenario, as Boris already seems to be a spent force among the public. I'm also confident that, in the event of Hard Brexit, Boris will be getting nowhere near the Conservative leadership as he will hardly be flavour of the day among Tory MPs. But I hope to goodness your prediction is never put to the test!
Make a justification for free movement if you have one, pointing out that some people come from the rest of the world is not one.
Corbyn's going to walk the next election at this rate.
I query whether he really is able to win those groups you list, outside London at least.
I did not sell mine, but I closed it down and then liquidated all the assets and paid everything off so I have no debts of any kind and money in the bank. However the next 12 months turn out I (and my family) should be OK
Night all.
Well that's good as that claim was nonsense, and I said so at the time too, but what is his game? Even remainers don't seem to like May's deal, certainly not now, so won't care about someone wooing them from the leave side, and surely his moves lately have meant he won't get leaver backing in any contest.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44852447
Members of Parliament are to vote on whether to start their summer recess this Thursday, instead of next week.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44853464
If there's a respectful reciprocal deal along the lines of Chequers then today's amendments do nothing to prevent that.
The English Tories may well accept the break up of the UK as the price for their Brexit.
Boris only won the London Mayoralty by appealing to the lower middle classes and the skilled working classes and repeated the trick outside London in the EU referendum when he was the public face of the Leave campaign and will do so again at a general election.
Don't forget Trump was a New Yorker, did not stop him winning the white working and lower middle class in the South and Midwest and rustbelt
Indeed he may even lose some Remainers to the LDs due to his continued failure to support the single market
For the same reason you think the Tories might win - their electorates will blame us, not their own Not if it was three-four years from now. There are problems even getting an earlier election, but like Tsipras in Greece you can see someone winning by going to the electorate before things bite. But afterwards? 12 years in to a government? With more years for people to think, eh, maybe Corbyn isn't so loony after all, I'll just stay home this time?
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1018268450324611073
If Britain heads towards a Depression or severe recession, the EU is just as likely to view this as a golden opportunity to pick for themselves all the best bits of our economy. They can weather a recession. I am not at all sure we can and I have very little confidence in our political leadership, in any party.
If the EU blinks it will be to offer us a deal of a sort on their own terms which will very clearly show that not being a member of the EU is worse than being a member of it, whatever other benefits we may get from it. And then they will continue to try and get as much of our economy and best people from us.
Just as they have prepared for the negotiations, I am quite certain that they have prepared for a no deal outcome. We have not - or so it seems. So the risks are on our side - and the EU knows it.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/16/full-text-trump-putin-meeting-transcript-724369
My second question is would you now with the whole world watching tell President Putin, would you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him to never do it again?
TRUMP: So let me just say that we have two thoughts. You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server, why haven't they taken the server. Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee. I've been wondering that. I've been asking that for months and months and I've been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know. Where is the server, and what is the server saying? With that being said, all I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others and said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server. But I have — I have confidence in both parties. I really believe that this will probably go on for a while, but I don't think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server...
But the leaving party at least gets to choose how seriously to prepare for the no-deal scenario, and hence how credible it is, and what kind of no-deal they wish to pursue, whether it's Chilly-Singapore-on-Sea or something else. Proper contingency planning can change the quality and desirableness of the fall-back option - even if you personally cannot foresee a life for Britain outside the EU that is preferable to one inside it, you can surely see something superior to a no-deal no-preparation scenario.
To publicly fail to establish a fall-back position is, by default, to announce to the world that you are dependent upon any deal they are willing to grant, and the alternative is that you will just blow up in a ball of chaos in front of their face.
The latest YouGov has an astonishing 31% of Scots thinking the Chequers Deal is too soft and gives too much to the EU, compared to just 20% who think it is too hard a Brexit plan with 13% thinking it about right.
Wales of course voted Leave anyway and NI still voted DUP even after the Brexit vote
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/phvyn092lg/TimesResults_180711_VI_Brexit.pdf
Why do we have 300 MPs who think its patriotic to suggest that we collect on behalf of the EU but that the EU can refuse to return the favour for us as they already do for the Swiss!
Today's vote should have been moot and uncontroversial and does nothing to change Chequers. It seems only the myopia of Brits who refuse to look at what happens elsewhere (like with the Swiss) that makes this seem controversial in the slightest.
Oh well... it will be interesting to watch.
In reality though the precise nature of the Mogg amendments on customs to the Chequers Deal (which the polling is clear most voters thought too soft) are unlikely to make that much difference to it overall and its impact on a transition deal
You could have said the same about Corbyn in 2015, though Burnham actually led Labour leadership polls then
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1018988967553794048?s=21
As for a transition deal, tonight’s vote killed it because it killed the NI backstop (unless the VAT vote was for something that is illegal).
The Leave campaign won on the back of the issue of immigration. It’s actually from Boris’ involvement in that campaign that his popularity started to tank.
Snigger.
He may not be popular with left liberal diehard Remainers like you thanks to his involvement in the EU referendum but less us not forget it was Leave that won it
I voted Remain but I don't think we help anything by ignoring the existential crises griping the EU. Whether that means we should be leaving - we aren't in the Euro or Schengen anyway - is a different matter but we had a referendum and then a general election where both main parties' official policy was full Brexit.