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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The DUP are not as supportive of Brexit or as united as it mig
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The DUP are not as supportive of Brexit or as united as it might appear
There’s a widespread assumption that the party that supports TMay’s minority government, the DUP with its 10 MPs, is rock solid in its view on Brexit and there’s no wiggle room.
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Much harder to denigrate the successful openly gay leader of the Scottish Tories (who is the only reason Corbyn isn't PM after May's election backfired) as a homophobic backwoodsmen that should be ignored.
Trump intervenes in Iraq and cancels 15 bn euro contract for Siemens and power stations. Contract now heading to GE
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/donald-trump-nimmt-siemens-wohl-milliardenauftrag-weg-15842644.html
In many ways her insight was utterly remarkable:
She foresaw that a computing machine's fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations and therefore should be also be manipulable by adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the machine. She was the first person to use branches, loops and subroutines in a program. She was the first person to realise the full scope of what might be computable, given the necessary resources.
In that sense she stumbled across the idea of the universal Turing machine a whole *century* before Turing did.
That has got to be worth commemorating.
They may well, and indeed probably would not, regard that as reason why they should change their minds, but there's little point in her giving in to what they want, then coming back and telling them she cannot get that through parliament - she's already tried that with her own offer to them which they have rejected and she couldn't get through parliament either.
I have to say I am not sure where this 'autist' talk has come from in recent months either, just because May is awkward, and it seems to be used pejoratively a lot.
Northern Rock.
https://twitter.com/emmacpicken/status/1052311106935513088
Edited extra bit: comments following on suggest some did try to intervene but were prevented from doing so.
Nicias thought Athens intervening in Sicily was foolish. He tried to stop it by emphasising how much force would be needed. The city ended up sending a huge number of men and ships, and defeat there led to defeat to Sparta.
But on the other point while Clegg must take responsibility as Leader (though I think history will be kinder to his decision to enter coalition and stick with it the full term than the voters were), did not the party vote to agree to do it, they didn't go in without party consent?
I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.
I cannot imagine anyone else handling this nightmare any better to be honest
That is especially so as polls show most Northern Irish voters want to stay in the single market and customs union anyway and could vote for a United Ireland if Northern Ireland leaves the single market and customs union with a No Deal Brexit
In short, whatever internal discussions may go on or differences of views might be expressed behind closed doors they will continue to operate as a bloc. It is the only way that they can stay relevant (and they must be enjoying that experience enormously).
My pick would be Gove. He's on top of his brief and can think the unthinkable and make it work anywhere he's worked - education, justice or DEFRA. He's a true Brexiteer but also a true realist and could reach an agreement.
His big weakness is that he's not personally likeable, but then May shares that with him. So he's an all round improvement.
https://twitter.com/IsabelHardman/status/1052524505241915392
If she had made an attempt to heal the divide in the nation by forging a consensus on Brexit that most people could mostly live with then we wouldn't be in half this mess.
https://twitter.com/tommctague/status/1052482507042672640?s=21
There is an interesting point buried in that thread. The threat to the DUP position isn't so much the presence of the EU--NI backstop as the absence of a UK-NI one. In other words the real threat to the NI status quo that benefits the DUP position isn't so much NI being tied into the EU as the UK diverging from it over time and without reference to Northern Ireland.
To say that the backstop requirement should not be part of the withdrawal agreement is not to say it should be ignored. But it could have been dealt with by other means so that the withdrawal arrangements for citizenship, the financial settlement, the transition arrangements and so on were not in jeopardy. Indeed, in view of its sheer importance, a backstop should be a distinct agreement between the UK, Ireland and the rest of the EU, and not something shoehorned into an agreement intended for exit issues.
If there is still no progress on the backstop issue in the next month or so, the UK and EU should consider opening a separate dialogue on the Irish border issue, with the view to a discrete agreement. All sides should accept that such permanent arrangements (and the nature of a backstop is potentially permanent) on a sensitive topic are better dealt with other than in an exit agreement.
https://www.ft.com/content/0df6434e-d12c-11e8-a9f2-7574db66bcd5
So your post reframed as the DUP would see it is thus:
The threat to the DUP position isn't so much the presence of the EU-NI(only) backstop as the absence of a UK(Excluding NI)-NI one. In other words the real threat to the NI status quo that benefits the DUP position isn't so much NI being tied into the EU as the UK(Excluding NI) diverging from it over time and without reference to Northern Ireland.
The backstop can be read 'both ways', nowhere does it state explicitly apply that the backstop is to NI only. That is something the EU have said 'after the fact' and spun for, but there simply is no EU-NI(Only) backstop as far as the DUP is concerned, and nor will there ever be. That is the blood red line.
Remainers and the Scots and Irish will never accept No Deal and WTO terms and Leavers will never accept an EUref2 leading to Remain and most would not accept staying in the single market and customs union either. The EU as is clear will never accept Chequers nor will most Leavers and Remainers either.
The only reasonable position of consensus would be a Canada style FTA but that can only be done for GB not NI
a) Delay
b) Remain
c) Chaos
House prices are rising the fastest in the East Midlands, increasing by 6.5% in the year to August, according to official statistics.
I see you're peddling back from your extreme position of 'We must surrender at all costs' of last night.
It will be ugly though, ugly for us, ugly for the EU and ugly for Ireland.
1) They feel that May's dismal position is entirely self-inflicted, and her attempts to use a mixture of weaponised pity and tabloid jingoism to try to bully the EU into thinking that it's somehow their problem has (rightly) fallen on deaf ears.
2) They have, like everyone else, "done the math", and realised that the best chance they've got of getting what they want is to ensure that May remains entirely isolated on all fronts, so her only way out is either SM/CU with Labour support, a second referendum, or a catastrophic Brexit.
Stranger things have happened.......
Chemotherapy is bad, but leukemia is worse. No deal is bad, any deal can be worse.
i) A three line whip (Obviously)
ii) An implicit threat to hard Brexiteers that voting this down could well signal the end of Brexit.
iii) An implicit threat to hard Remainers that voting this down could well signal a "No Deal" Brexit as we crash out on 29th March 2019.
iv) The unity of the UK preserved so the DUP votes it through.
Noone REALLY knows if ii) or iii) prevails in the event of the vote failing, a rare card May still has..
https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1052531952044187649
It doesn't really matter to whom. What matters is the NO-ness, the loudness and the repeating-ness.
May is as good an enemy as anyone else. She's too weak to defend herself, too proud to prove them wrong.
That makes her a perfect target for DUP abuse.
.done the Maths, not Math. Math is an American expression we can do well without.
You have also completely ignored that I pointed out the that EU may well not regard the weakness of May's position as sufficient reason to alter their own position. That doesn't maje it any less true that May cannot give them what they are demanding, and telling the truth is not bullying. Indeed, proponents of the EU are often a great pains to point out that even pointing out harsh truths is not bullying.
May deserves plenty of opprobrium, but the criticisms of her striking a bullish tone, as though people do not talk up their own negotiating position, and that this has had a negative effect on the negotiations for one makes liars out of the EU by making their claims this is about principle false, but is also I think unfair on her because, as noted, she is not lying when she says she cannot bend on some things.
The EU is entitled to play hard ball in this. But May cannot? Maybe she should not, but she cannot? That is going too far, really? The tabloids being given some red meat lines is a step too far?
That's ridiculous. If the EU telling a tough truth is ok, it is ok for May, and I do not buy for one second that the EU leaders and bureaucracy seriously get their feelings hurt by tabloid lines, that they do not understand that politicians need to play for domestic consumption sometimes - there is not a political leader in Europe who does not have to do that.
STV, in wards of c5 members would put a threshold at around 15% - well above the LD average since 2010, so in most wards they still wouldn't be elected. Worse, a lot of that localism work would be lost as you move from electorates of, say, 10000 to ones of 50000. Only in areas where the LDs have a strong enough presence to be winning 2+ wards out of 5 would they do OK under STV - but then in those areas they wouldn't be making gains either.
The Lib Dems might genuinely favour STV for ideological / principled reasons but you can't help notice that it would have been by far the most favourable PR (or PR-like; STV isn't really PR) system to them. But that was when they were a third party with 15-30% of the vote. That's changed; their thinking hasn't.
Varadkar now starting to get boxed in. He wants a GE while his poll numbers are looking good but is now being told he cant have one until Brexit it is out of the way. Coveney now dropping to the ;level of advising the DUP what to do.
https://www.independent.ie/business/brexit/hard-brexit-could-ground-uk-flights-for-three-weeks-but-ryanair-would-survive-michael-oleary-37429645.html
And now I'm thinking about Michael Gove's nipples.
Had they just come out at the start and said "you must remain in both" that would have been dismissed out of hand as unreasonable. Instead they've salami sliced May's Brexit plans away until we're virtually at that point.
https://twitter.com/gavinsblog/status/1052140235033862144
Who needs Brexit? His cabin crew and pilots can do that for him no bother...
Who could be Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr Freeze?
https://aviationanalyst.co.uk/2018/10/17/flybe-is-in-financial-trouble-analysis/
No good ever comes from winding up the shit in Ulster. It kills careers it doesnt make them and the eejits are looking increasingly squeezed
Part of the problem imo is Varadkars team is made up of professional posh boys in their 30s who have only ever known the success of the Celtic Tiger. It never occurs to them that curmudgeonly Nordies will enjoy dragging them into the abyss with them as much as they enjoy dragging each other down. Stupid politics.
EU: What?
UK: It's not you, it's me. I'm sorry.
EU: But... *sobs*
UK: Help me pack, will you. And can you sort out a taxi. Cheers.
EU: What?
UK: WHERE'S MY TAXI YOU PETULANT TWAT?!!?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc