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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Six Impossible Things Before Brexit
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Six Impossible Things Before Brexit
With six months to go, the ultimate denouement of Brexit looks as murky as ever. That hasn’t stopped plenty of people trying to peer through the vapours. If you are going to speculate, go right ahead, but it’s probably best not base your speculations on things that are downright wrong. So let’s take a stroll past some of the more common misconceptions.
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"We can, and most likely will" argues Meeks.
The same reason why they only virtue signal about the racist Hungary. We're part of the empire, and they don't want to lose us. I still think they are aiming to force us into a second vote.
The mechanism by which an election happens without government support is much more convoluted than most other commentators think it is, it’s only happening if either :
1. The DUP vote actively for a VoNC in the government (abstaining isn’t enough), and a quick change of Conservative leader (almost certainly a Brexit supporter) can’t bring them back on side.
Or
2. Sufficient numbers of Conservatives (7?) cross the floor to join another party and vote down the government, almost certainly costing their own seats in the process if an election follows. While there might be a dozen Conservative MPs unhappy with the direction on Brexit, there’s not a lot more than a couple (Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen...) who might be considedered at serious risk of changing party affiliation over it.
A writer would be very pleased with themselves if they had thought for months and come up with this scenario. Utterly implausible as the plot would seem. I mean, who doesn't need to call a general election, but does - and then LOSES it?
That said, if you read All Out War, there were about 28 points at which the Brexit vote itself could have come crashing down, so these mobiles do seem to have a certain inbuilt indestructability.
Taking the negotiations away from Davis and handing them to Olly Robbins, with Raab as some powerless mouthpiece fronting Chequers, is looking like it may yet do for May.
Obviously it would have to be a Unionist of some sort.
I realise, of course that it wouldn’t affect the Westminster Members.
Amid the uncertainty, ongoing division is one of the few things of which we can be sure.
Edited for clarity.
a) a Norway-style association agreement, remaining in the Single Market but not the Customs Union; or:
b) a much looser relationship based on Canada's trade deal with the EU.
However, in both these cases, the 6 counties would need to stay in the Customs Union.
The Chequers plan is clearly dead (if it was ever alive) because it fragments the Single Market, and the sooner the Maybot acknowledges this the better. Tusk provided an apt illustration by his excellent Instagram joke about cherry picking. Mrs T would have decisively chosen the Norway option - after all, she was the main promoter of the Single Market, but did not believe in Delors-style "ever closer union".
If this incompetent government doesn't face facts soon, bring on a GE - Corbyn would make a better PM, at least from a foreign policy perspective. Not only would Labour deal better with the EU, but there would be a re-orientation of the UK's relationships with criminal racist regimes elsewhere that foment violence, such as Myanmar and Saudi Arabia.
The Leavers may wind up with supreme executive power over a shambles but many have stated that they would be happy with such an outcome.
What the Belfast agreement requires is that there is no change in the status of NI between NI and RoI and NI and GB - the EU has only picked on one of these as being sacrosanct - without the consent of the people of NI.
I agree that having people like Robbins around isn’t helping, but that’s a failure of No.10 rather than of a civil servant. Davis had a workable set of proposals ready to go from his department, but was overruled by the PM and had little choice but to resign.
We need someone to say, we're going for SM+CU+VAT area and that's that. Anything else is massively uncertain and chaotic. Not that Norway++ doesn't also have big issues. We are where we are.
Nothing I disagree with in your piece, Alastair.
There are supporters and opponents of leaving the EU in both major parties, but it's interesting to observe how circumstances may be conspiring to force them, effectively, to become Remain and Leave parties. That could have an interesting, complicating impact, in another vote.
Just as some on the left used the first vote to 'kick Cameron'* by voting Leave, others now could vote Remain (if the second referendum occurs) to kick May.
*NB voting for tactical political reasons in a strategic vote of national importance is daft.
Another futile day in the Brexit trenches. ...
I feel the need for retail therapy. Bye!
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1043754882988171264?s=19
Reckon it's still a few years away, for the next generation of consoles. Intrigued to see what random number Xbox use for theirs. I think Infinity has a shot.
Brexit, which is inherently a conspiracy theory (see the Applebaum article in the Atlantic posted above by Carlotta), has reality-avoidance baked in, unfortunately.
I wasn’t having a go at you, rather the idiots like “Professor” Barrat who think that pieces like this either offer any insight whatsoever or add anything worthwhile to the discussion.
Charles Grant’s suggestion is of course sensible, the govt should keep pushing as hard as possible the UK’s interests during the negotiations, even if not everything we want is eventually achieveable.
I suspect that a lot of stuff will be deleted on 30th March next year.
People keep saying that if we go for CETA then NI will have to remain in the CU. This simply is not going to happen (apart from the DUP the whole nation would never wear it). If we go for CETA and the EU will not back down on the backstop, there will be no deal. Which is why No Deal is still the likely outcome.
The UK is treated to a government in name only stumbling from one self inflicted crisis to another and without the faintest clue as to the direction of travel or how to get the train back on the tracks. A Prime Minister who is driving her party into the buffers with many of her MP's happy to see the impending train wreck because the carriages were partly made in EU.
Meanwhile over 60 million passengers crowd onto "The Flying Brexit" heading out of Europe Station with a mixture of excitement, confusion, denial, anger, hope and bewilderment. Looking for a lead they note our former Foreign Secretary squeezing himself into the carriage toilet plotting to replace the driver whilst hoping he hasn't flushed his hopes down the lav when the train was stationary a few stops back.
Suddenly the Prime Minister decides to travel up and down the Irish border because she wont be railroaded about how the Ulster goods van operates. All steamed up Mrs May takes a branch line to Salzburg and takes on water, more dead weight baggage and heads out after Station Master Tusk declines her kind invitation to uncouple the third class compartment and leave it at Calais.
Someone pull the communication cord - All is not lost - Waiting to board the train is Her Majesty ... Loyal Opposition for the use of .... but wait their connection seems to have been derailed between Hamas Central and Auschwitz with the signal box flashing red .... very red.
Anyone for the tube ?!? .... No, I thought not .... I'm off to thumb a ride on the royal train. Thank you Ma'am, Balmoral would do very nicely for the coming year ....
Anything that implies a hard border cannot be done without a specific mandate from people on the island of Ireland.
Starting to look like they want him to withdraw before Thursday.
Personally, I think that the most likely outcome of @Alistairmeeks obstacle course is Blind Brexit, with nominal Brexit in March, but into a stay the same Transitional Agreement, ending in Dec 2020. These simply is no time left for anything else apart from A50 withdrawal, and that is not going to happen.
I agree with AM that we will then start on the main discussion, which may well at that point shift the #peoplesvote campaign to Norway plus Customs Union. That would suit me, as I do find that EU rules and policies are by and large better written and constructed than ones coming from Westminster. There are worse things than being a vassal state, and we would have a sort of Devo-Max in some ares.
In many ways though that was worse as there were influential elements in both main parties actively seeking to provoke a civil war.
Is your ARSE giving any emanations to the public? Or are you too busy stocking up on fine pies, ready to pull up your drawbridge against roaming packs of post Brexit peasant brigands?
https://theconversation.com/brexit-this-poll-reveals-a-sad-truth-about-britain-and-northern-ireland-98722
https://twitter.com/JoeTwyman/status/1043761424441462784
We asked people in Northern Ireland how much importance they gave to five potential Brexit outcomes. For Catholic and Nationalists voters, avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic was far and away the most important consideration. For Unionists and Protestants, however, the issue mattered much less than ensuring the UK was able to negotiate its own free trade deals with non-EU countries, was no longer bound by EU rules, and had more control over immigration into the UK. Making sure Northern Ireland was treated the same as the rest of the UK was also more important than preventing a hard border.
Unionists in Northern Ireland overwhelmingly agreed that “the issue of Brexit and the Irish border is being deliberately exaggerated by politicians and others to suit their own political agenda”. More than a fifth of Nationalists agreed, as did a majority in Great Britain – including three quarters of Leave voters and four in ten remainers.
In both Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the most popular solution to the issue was for the whole UK to leave the customs union even if this meant customs checks at the Irish border.
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2018/06/brexit-the-border-and-the-union/#more-15616
That said, it is a little surprising that no-one has tried some mad idea to get him out past the police before now - tunnelling through to a neighbouring building, having a black helicopter pick him up with a rope, hiding him in a locked diplomatic filing cabinet, radically altering his appearance etc.
Like the finest boat trains of the past my ARSE has sailed its' last, its' day is done and it is now firmly planted on a mahogany toilet seat in the bowels of Auchentennach Castle.
Fine pies continue to see modest growth after a period where the main ingredient was notable for their disinclination to contribute to the coffers of the Scottish nobility. I also fear that a pie filled with the detritus of assorted Kippers and their kind would be unpalatable to 48% of the market.
You Remainers are the ones detached from reality. Have been for decades.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-united-ireland-referendum-northern-border-uk-yougov-poll-a8389086.html
It'd get nicknamed the Xboxey.
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1043764010334736384?s=20
You could try Left-overs pie, but they are likely to be a bit hard to swallow I fear, being well past their best.
There is always the default No Deal Brexit*, but six months is too short for that, so a Transition Period of SM continuity BINO while we spend 2 years preparing for WTO Brexit is the best option for the Brexiteers. It gets their hands on their Precious, and prevents a reversal of Brexit via an A50 withdrawal.
*Warning: No Deal Brexit may contain nuts, and multiple mini-Deals, available only to members in good standing .
It is hard not to disagree with that conclusion
The EU has no need to compromise, indeed no-one has any need to do so. The government has to come up with a plan that works though, and that takes more than 6 months, hence Blind Brexit to EEA plus CU plus VAT while we get our act together. Brexit ends not with a bang but with a whimper.
The problem is fundamental. Neither the country nor the government can agree what we should do.
HINT: it doesn't. This is the Alice in Wonderland element of the EUs position. You MUST have a position that is acceptable to us or...er....off with their heads!
Corbyn may try a fudge but he simply will not risk stopping Brexit which would restrain his policies
The petition was dismissed in the Outer House but this has been reversed on appeal. It was, in large part, dismissed in the Outer House by Lord Boyd on the issue of whether the issue was hypothetical or academic given the declared intention of the British government.
Lord Carloway has decided that things have changed because of the terms of s13 of European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. This is the section that requires the government to come to Parliament and report the outcome of their negotiations with the EU so that Parliament can either vote in favour of that deal or not ("the meaningful vote" provision). The view of the petitioners and Lord Carloway is that if they are minded not to approve the deal they should know whether the options are to (a) leave without a deal or (b) opt to revoke Article 50 unilaterally.
It is not quite right to say the remit has been made. There are a number of hurdles for this referral to overcome yet. Firstly, the government may well seek to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. If, as seems likely, the Court refuses leave to appeal they have the right to petition the Supreme Court itself.
Secondly, the parties must agree the terms of a remit. Only 14 days have been allowed for this and given that Lord Carloway has somewhat unusually drafted it for them this is unlikely to be much of a hold up. Thirdly, however, the CJEU has to accept the remit. That is a matter in their discretion and it is by no means certain. Intervening events might well make the matter academic. If, for example, the EU and the UK get a deal in the November meeting they may well take the view that there is nothing left to discuss.
My guess is that the government will seek to appeal this decision and that they will hope that intervening events then make the issue ever more academic. My own belief as to what would happen if the CJEU ever got its hands on the question is the same as Alastair's. The terms of Article 50 allow for an extension in the event of unanimous agreement. The terms of the notice don't contain such a provision but it seems to me that an obvious reading of the article as a whole is that any withdrawal will be read subject to unanimous consent too. The fact that such an outcome would be advantageous to the EU makes such a conclusion all the more likely.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/969087/Brexit-news-UK-EU-latest-European-Union-second-referendum-vote-Jeremy-Corbyn-Labour-BBC
The nation had the perfect right to reject the EU and did so. That said when you leave a club you do not get to determine the relationship that you might want with the rejected club.
The UK also holds no card in this game that the EU does hold a bigger and better card. None. And the clock is running down
This is the reality of our position, made considerably worse by the divisions and personal ambitions of some senior Conservative MP's and the bungling incompetence of the government and a lame duck Prime Minister grasping onto a deal that is dead in the water she is furiously paddling below.
So both wings of the party want a new leader post Brexit. Betting on TM to go next year must be favourite