1) It'll be a choice between remain and May's deal 2) The remain slogan will be "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE JUST MAKE IT STOP" 3) Nobody will campaign for May's deal except May and the leavers will boycott it.
The question will surely be "revoke or not revoke"; May's deal has been trashed by a huge margin, it's a norwegian blue, it's not being put in front of the public
I prefer. Last time we asked you a stupid question. You gave us a stupid answer. So we're not going to ask you again.
We got a stupid answer because we didn't ask a sensible question with clear cut options what we asked was "Do you want unicorns or do you want this EU deal which no one can explain but is different to what we had before?"
The argument "what part of Leave did they not understand?" is easy to make and hard to counter.
Also, Remain activists seem to be making all the same mistakes as last time: talking to themselves and assuming that EU membership is a self-evidently good thing that doesn't need explaining, and that opponents of it must therefore be stupid, racist or in it for some other malign intent.
Even worse is some Remainers using "always keep tight hold of nurse". Remember this from last time? Like many, I have had my doubts about the European Union as an organisation. I still do. But just because an organisation is frustrating it does not mean that you should necessarily walk out of it, and certainly not without thinking very carefully through the consequences.
Not Corbyn; not May; David Cameron leading the charge for Remain.
That was the fundamental problem for remain the last time. Very few people can find anything positive to say about the EU, even if they have reservations about how we would do outside it. How anyone could have a better view of the EU today than they did in 2016 after the last 2 years is really beyond my comprehension.
FWIW I also know very few people who have changed their minds but I do know a few who voted remain but think that the last vote has to be delivered on for good or ill. In fairness that viewpoint is quite well represented on PB too. How would they vote? I am really not sure, most have not changed their minds about the underlying merits of the decision.
I think the problem Leave will have is that first time it was a broad church - each leave voter could envisage the type of Leave that they preferred from diamond hard to BINO. In any 2nd referendum, they will have to opt for a specific Leave.
How will all those Leavers who have proclaimed 'May's Deal is worse than Remain' vote if the option is Deal v Remain?
The reason I would make Remain narrow favourite is because a fresh referendum would not be Remain v Leave but Remain v A Specific Option. A Specific Option is not as popular as Leave.
Otherwise I agree completely.
I agree.
If the focus of the campaign is on Leave, then I think Leave would win. If the focus is on a specific option, I would expect Remain to win.
My concern would be that if a specific option for Leave won, there would still be relentless guerrilla action against it in Parliament (MPs can say they would honour the result, but it's very easy to rationalise why in practice, you can't honour it).
The argument "what part of Leave did they not understand?" is easy to make and hard to counter.
Also, Remain activists seem to be making all the same mistakes as last time: talking to themselves and assuming that EU membership is a self-evidently good thing that doesn't need explaining, and that opponents of it must therefore be stupid, racist or in it for some other malign intent.
Even worse is some Remainers using "always keep tight hold of nurse". Remember this from last time? Like many, I have had my doubts about the European Union as an organisation. I still do. But just because an organisation is frustrating it does not mean that you should necessarily walk out of it, and certainly not without thinking very carefully through the consequences.
Not Corbyn; not May; David Cameron leading the charge for Remain.
That was the fundamental problem for remain the last time. Very few people can find anything positive to say about the EU, even if they have reservations about how we would do outside it. How anyone could have a better view of the EU today than they did in 2016 after the last 2 years is really beyond my comprehension.
FWIW I also know very few people who have changed their minds but I do know a few who voted remain but think that the last vote has to be delivered on for good or ill. In fairness that viewpoint is quite well represented on PB too. How would they vote? I am really not sure, most have not changed their minds about the underlying merits of the decision.
I think the problem Leave will have is that first time it was a broad church - each leave voter could envisage the type of Leave that they preferred from diamond hard to BINO. In any 2nd referendum, they will have to opt for a specific Leave.
How will all those Leavers who have proclaimed 'May's Deal is worse than Remain' vote if the option is Deal v Remain?
I don't know that either. I would certainly vote for May's deal with a view to us negotiating a sensible, close trading relationship in the transition period. Would I vote for a no deal Brexit? That would be very hard although I fear things are going to get worse inside the tent as well.
Another "Leave versus Remain" vote would be to ask a silly question a second time, and not expect a silly answer.
One is "whatever the voter wants it to be", the other is something specific that can be attacked. The Independent Commission on Referendums suggested that, if possible, referendums should be post-legislative - to give a go/no-go to something that's specific and ready-to-go; if it's for an indicative direction, they should be two-referendum processes (First one: "Let's go in this direction" (eg Leave/Remain); second one: "We accept this Leave proposal"). Another Leave/Remain referendum would solve nothing, anyway.
Yup, that's a much better process, and it also sounds like the most likely thing for parliament to do: The indicative referendum has been done, and next comes the post-legislative referendum on Remain vs the [only] deal [on the table]. It would probably be binding, since it's partly a compromise between politicians who don't trust each other.
In defence of Cameron who designed the thing as a single-referendum process, I don't suppose the EU would have gone into negotiations on the basis of "we're thinking of leaving but we haven't decided", and even if they had Leave-inclined people would have credibly said that the negotiation wasn't real because the EU was trying to make leaving look bad to make Leave lose the second one. So the only way to do the (rational) two-referendum process was to dress it up like a one-referendum process. But that has the downside that Leavers understandably feel like they're playing Calvinball.
For several years I was the only Liverpool fan in Manchester.
I was a unifying force for Citeh and United fans.
I always met more United fans while working in London than Manchester...
There are seemingly more Liverpool fans on PB than there are in Liverpool.
Almost none of them were born in Liverpool or are resident therein.
Funny old world.
I will declare as a Manchester area raised (aged 2-18 and folks still live in the same 0161, SELNEC'y bit in which most people consider themselves Mancunian rather than Lancastrian), at least third paternal generation Mancunian and second generation United fan.
And Big G is Manchester born as well.
Come to think of it, do we have any Scousers on here of any description? I can't remember a single declaration of such.
The argument "what part of Leave did they not understand?" is easy to make and hard to counter.
Also, Remain activists seem to be making all the same mistakes as last time: talking to themselves and assuming that EU membership is a self-evidently good thing that doesn't need explaining, and that opponents of it must therefore be stupid, racist or in it for some other malign intent.
There is another issue which has never been mentioned. Some part of the 48% were Conservative loyalists voting not for something they believed in apart from David Cameron. Of the party members I know personally towards 20 voted Remain. Of these certainly 5 would vote Remain again. The other 15 would definitely vote Leave in a Second Referendum
The argument "what part of Leave did they not understand?" is easy to make and hard to counter.
Also, Remain activists seem to be making all the same mistakes as last time: talking to themselves and assuming that EU membership is a self-evidently good thing that doesn't need explaining, and that opponents of it must therefore be stupid, racist or in it for some other malign intent.
Even worse is some Remainers using "always keep tight hold of nurse". Remember this from last time? Like many, I have had my doubts about the European Union as an organisation. I still do. But just because an organisation is frustrating it does not mean that you should necessarily walk out of it, and certainly not without thinking very carefully through the consequences.
Not Corbyn; not May; David Cameron leading the charge for Remain.
That was the fundamental problem for remain the last time. Very few people can find anything positive to say about the EU, even if they have reservations about how we would do outside it. How anyone could have a better view of the EU today than they did in 2016 after the last 2 years is really beyond my comprehension.
FWIW I also know very few people who have changed their minds but I do know a few who voted remain but think that the last vote has to be delivered on for good or ill. In fairness that viewpoint is quite well represented on PB too. How would they vote? I am really not sure, most have not changed their minds about the underlying merits of the decision.
The reason I would make Remain narrow favourite is because a fresh referendum would not be Remain v Leave but Remain v A Specific Option. A Specific Option is not as popular as Leave.
Otherwise I agree completely.
I agree.
If the focus of the campaign is on Leave, then I think Leave would win. If the focus is on a specific option, I would expect Remain to win.
The slight challenge is that we all had a chance to guess the collective mind of the electorate last time and all of the opinions turned out to be, well, guesses. My guess is that on a binary referendum you have a 50% chance of calling it right.
Now that the referendum with simplistic questions on complex topics genie is well and truly out of the bottle, what other questions can we bypass our long standing system of parliamentary democracy with?
One I rather like the idea of is "Should public sector workers have their pension schemes cut to donate to those with minimal pensions in the private sector, YES, or NO" It won't be popular with MPs or public sector trade unions, so I cant see it being presented
Very hard to say how a referendum would go - as Alastair says, the options would be much more specific this time. What I think is clear is that views have become more polarised, which in itself means a referendum would be damaging rather than a way of healing the divisions.
However, the purpose of a referendum would be to come to a decision, bypassing the grandstanding of MPs. If it were Revoke vs Orderly Leave, both options would be viable and either could be implemented.
It's not a good course of action, because of the anger it would provoke whatever the options. Starting from here, the best (or rather least bad) course of action remains the deal on the table.
But if MPs are determined to sabotage that, another referendum is the second least bad way of moving forward, since it would give at least a figleaf of democratic cover for ignoring the 2016 referendum or alternatively for ratifying the negotiated deal.
My opinion is that all routes from here are terrible.
1 - DEAL: Either May's Deal gets passed or an alternative Deal gets passed. a - May's Deal : only two plausible ways through are: (i) Desperation. Terrible option, Parliament should never be blackmailed into a bad outcome and this is a bad precedent (ii) Referendum Terrible option, we're re-running a referendum because the first result was wrong The Deal will also piss off Leavers and Remainers alike. Everything that goes badly afterwards is blamed on this. With the above, confidence in our politicians and democratic system is shot
b - Only plausible alternative Deal (taking plausibility to the extreme) is a closer Deal including at least a Customs Union and possibly SM membership. Possibly a majority for this in Parliament, and the EU would plausibly reopen the WA for this. Implausible, goes against all red lines and much of what was promised in the referendum. Looks like Parliament finding a loophole to "Leave but not really leave".
2 - NO DEAL. Only the ERG and a handful of mavericks elsewhere want this.Terrible choice, involve Parliament allowing an outcome that they view as highly likely to cause suffering, damage, and even deaths to the people they've sworn to serve. Parliament essentially abdicating their responsibility to come up with some sort of Deal to avoid this.
3 - Revocation: a - Through another referendum.. Terrible - see above for rerunning a referendum and then undoing something that was promised at the end of the first referendum. b - Unilaterally by the Government. (Via bluff/chicken or out of sheer desperation) Either of that would be terrible - the Government effectively doing "Lol, no" to a democratic mandate.
So - all routes lead to a terrible outcome, but one must come to pass. All routes will fuck up our confidence in democracy and our politicians still further, but one must happen.
Let's face it, he was just too lazy to go and see her last night. I loathe the SNP, but at least we can see that their leaders in the HoC and back in Scotland are proper serious politicians. Corbyn is just a joke, a low intellect lightweight who is completely out of his depth.
I don’t think it’s laziness. He has the sort of world view which is Manichean: you’re either with us or against us. Tories are in the “against us” camp. Why would he speak to them? Particularly to help them out of a mess of their own making? Especially if making the mess worse by not speaking to them will help Labour?
Also the whole “I will speak to anyone” claim was long ago shown to be a lie. Corbyn is most comfortable speaking to those who agree with him already. In this he is surprisingly like May, who is similarly incapable of speaking to or including anyone she does not already trust.
Very hard to say how a referendum would go - as Alastair says, the options would be much more specific this time. What I think is clear is that views have become more polarised, which in itself means a referendum would be damaging rather than a way of healing the divisions.
However, the purpose of a referendum would he options. Starting from here, the best (or rather least bad) course of action remains the deal on the table.
But if MPs are determined to sabotage that, another referendum is the second least bad way of moving forward, since it would give at least a figleaf of democratic cover for ignoring the 2016 referendum or alternatively for ratifying the negotiated deal.
My opinion is that all routes from here are terrible.
1 - DEAL: Either May's Deal gets passed or an alternative Deal gets passed. a - May's Deal : only two plausible ways through are: (i) Desperation. Terrible option, Parliament should never be blackmailed into a bad outcome and this is a bad precedent (ii) Referendum Terrible option, we're re-running a referendum because the first result was wrong The Deal will also piss off Leavers and Remainers alike. Everything that goes badly afterwards is blamed on this. With the above, confidence in our politicians and democratic system is shot
b - Only plausible alternative Deal (taking plausibility to the extreme) is a closer Deal including at least a Customs Union and possibly SM membership. Possibly a majority for this in Parliament, and the EU would plausibly reopen the WA for this. Implausible, goes against all red lines and much of what was promised in the referendum. Looks like Parliament finding a loophole to "Leave but not really leave".
2 - NO DEAL. Only the ERG and a handful of mavericks elsewhere want this.Terrible choice, involve Parliament allowing an outcome that they view as highly likely to cause suffering, damage, and even deaths to the people they've sworn to serve. Parliament essentially abdicating their responsibility to come up with some sort of Deal to avoid this.
3 - Revocation: a - Through another referendum.. Terrible - see above for rerunning a referendum and then undoing something that was promised at the end of the first referendum. b - Unilaterally by the Government. (Via bluff/chicken or out of sheer desperation) Either of that would be terrible - the Government effectively doing "Lol, no" to a democratic mandate.
So - all routes lead to a terrible outcome, but one must come to pass. All routes will fuck up our confidence in democracy and our politicians still further, but one must happen.
1b is your man (perhaps without the SM but certainly CU). With concomitant loss of, er, sovereignty. Thanks ERG!
The argument "what part of Leave did they not understand?" is easy to make and hard to counter.
Also, Remain activists seem to be making all the same mistakes as last time: talking to themselves and assuming that EU membership is a self-evidently good thing that doesn't need explaining, and that opponents of it must therefore be stupid, racist or in it for some other malign intent.
Even worse is some Remainers using "always keep tight hold of nurse". Remember this from last time? Like many, I have had my doubts about the European Union as an organisation. I still do. But just because an organisation is frustrating it does not mean that you should necessarily walk out of it, and certainly not without thinking very carefully through the consequences.
Not Corbyn; not May; David Cameron leading the charge for Remain.
That was the fundamental problem for remain the last time. Very few people can find anything positive to say about the EU, even if they have reservations about how we would do outside it. How anyone could have a better view of the EU today than they did in 2016 after the last 2 years is really beyond my comprehension.
FWIW I also know very few people who have changed their minds but I do know a few who voted remain but think that the last vote has to be delivered on for good or ill. In fairness that viewpoint is quite well represented on PB too. How would they vote? I am really not sure, most have not changed their minds about the underlying merits of the decision.
I think the problem Leave will have is that first time it was a broad church - each leave voter could envisage the type of Leave that they preferred from diamond hard to BINO. In any 2nd referendum, they will have to opt for a specific Leave.
How will all those Leavers who have proclaimed 'May's Deal is worse than Remain' vote if the option is Deal v Remain?
I think most would vote for it, but enough would abstain for Remain to win.
YouGov found Remain winning 60-40 against May's Deal, but that's with just 55% of Leave voters backing it. I think that in reality, many more would back it.
Survation have Remain/May's Deal at level-pegging.
I suspect it depends a lot on what the question is. If its specific option vs Remain, Remain will benefit from those not liking that particular Leave option either voting against it or abstaining. If its another Leave vs Remain vote (which I really wouldn't see the point in) there is a bigger chance of this happening. My personal experience, fwiw, is the vast majority would do the same but the two people I've spoken to who would vote differently, say they would change from Leave to Remain.
Of course the one option that I wouldn't put past May to do (oh wait, she might not be that clever) is to have Leave vs Remain and, if Leave wins, and without further recourse to anyone, say "great, my deal is Leave so that is the WA ratified and off we go."
That is the ONLY second vote there could be and yes, there is no point, like Labour's six impossible reasons, being no point is the point.
The reason I would make Remain narrow favourite is because a fresh referendum would not be Remain v Leave but Remain v A Specific Option. A Specific Option is not as popular as Leave.
Otherwise I agree completely.
I agree.
If the focus of the campaign is on Leave, then I think Leave would win. If the focus is on a specific option, I would expect Remain to win.
My concern would be that if a specific option for Leave won, there would still be relentless guerrilla action against it in Parliament (MPs can say they would honour the result, but it's very easy to rationalise why in practice, you can't honour it).
It would have to be a specific option, surely, or the EU would not agree to the required extension to A50 ?
The only justification for having a second referendum would be in settling the national debate about what to do next. You can't just rerun the last referendum.
The argument "what part of Leave did they not understand?" is easy to make and hard to counter.
Also, Remain activists seem to be making all the same mistakes as last time: talking to themselves and assuming that EU membership is a self-evidently good thing that doesn't need explaining, and that opponents of it must therefore be stupid, racist or in it for some other malign intent.
There is another issue which has never been mentioned. Some part of the 48% were Conservative loyalists voting not for something they believed in apart from David Cameron. Of the party members I know personally towards 20 voted Remain. Of these certainly 5 would vote Remain again. The other 15 would definitely vote Leave in a Second Referendum
You are Jacob Rees Mogg or Boris Johnson, or maybe a person in a bot factory in Moscow
The reason I would make Remain narrow favourite is because a fresh referendum would not be Remain v Leave but Remain v A Specific Option. A Specific Option is not as popular as Leave.
Otherwise I agree completely.
I agree.
If the focus of the campaign is on Leave, then I think Leave would win. If the focus is on a specific option, I would expect Remain to win.
My concern would be that if a specific option for Leave won, there would still be relentless guerrilla action against it in Parliament (MPs can say they would honour the result, but it's very easy to rationalise why in practice, you can't honour it).
It would have to be a specific option, surely, or the EU would not agree to the required extension to A50 ?
The only justification for having a second referendum would be in settling the national debate about what to do next. You can't just rerun the last referendum.
The only possible option would be May's Deal vs Remain. The former is leaving, the latter staying. Anything else would cause more confusion than we have today which would be A LOT of confusion.
The problem with another referendum is that a lot of people might not vote on the question itself but on how they feel about being asked to vote again only three years after the previous one.
I will declare as a Manchester area raised (aged 2-18 and folks still live in the same 0161, SELNEC'y bit in which most people consider themselves Mancunian rather than Lancastrian), at least third paternal generation Mancunian and second generation United fan.
And Big G is Manchester born as well.
Come to think of it, do we have any Scousers on here of any description? I can't remember a single declaration of such.
Yes, myself. Don't post often. Lurk a lot (since 2008). Don't gamble, just read. I support Port Vale however (glory hunter from the 1980s you see). Don't ask. Live in Bootle. Don't vote Labour however. When they announce the Bootle result, and you say 'Who was the one who voted X?', that was me.
Difficult to predict the result without knowing the question - I doubt it will be Mays deal vs Remain though - if it was , a mass boycott would be the likely outcome.
That was exactly my point. You shouldn't hold referendums you don't expect to win. So the best choice for a People's Vote is to cheat. Engineer an absurd referendum (remain vs May's deal) with only the most paper thin veneer of legitimacy so that the Leave campaign boycotts it and remain wins by a landslide.
It'd be a very fitting end to Brexit. Born of tragedy, dying in farce.
The problem with another referendum is that a lot of people might not vote on the question itself but on how they feel about being asked to vote again only three years after the previous one.
Yes it would provoke in many a classic petty officialdom jobsworth response - ie go f**k yourselves.
Why the weeks wait? PM statement Jan 21. Debate and vote Jan 29. Smacks of yet more can kicking hoping summat will turn up. Unless someone can enlighten me? As other posters have said, all options are now bad, at least will be divisive and unpopular with a great many. Yet one option must happen. We may as well get on with it.
Why the weeks wait? PM statement Jan 21. Debate and vote Jan 29. Smacks of yet more can kicking hoping summat will turn up. Unless someone can enlighten me? As other posters have said, all options are now bad, at least will be divisive and unpopular with a great many. Yet one option must happen. We may as well get on with it.
I presume she does not expect to be able to win the vote on the Plan B motion at present, so she needs a week to bring to bear the legendary convincing skills of herself and her chief whip.
Amazing. And they think not coming out for a referendum might be damaging
Corbyn won't survive the year. It'd be hilarious if he were pushed before May.
May and Corbyn, what did we do to deserve such dismal specimens?
The centrists put up three middle aged blokes in suits who had all gone to Oxbridge, were London centric and did not have more than a fag paper between them in views.
I will declare as a Manchester area raised (aged 2-18 and folks still live in the same 0161, SELNEC'y bit in which most people consider themselves Mancunian rather than Lancastrian), at least third paternal generation Mancunian and second generation United fan.
And Big G is Manchester born as well.
Come to think of it, do we have any Scousers on here of any description? I can't remember a single declaration of such.
Yes, myself. Don't post often. Lurk a lot (since 2008). Don't gamble, just read. I support Port Vale however (glory hunter from the 1980s you see). Don't ask. Live in Bootle. Don't vote Labour however. When they announce the Bootle result, and you say 'Who was the one who voted X?', that was me.
Nice to have the Bootle Liberation Front on here, however rare the appearence!
Amazing. And they think not coming out for a referendum might be damaging
Corbyn won't survive the year. It'd be hilarious if he were pushed before May.
May and Corbyn, what did we do to deserve such dismal specimens?
The centrists put up three middle aged blokes in suits who had all gone to Oxbridge, were London centric and did not have more than a fag paper between them in views.
That was exactly my point. You shouldn't hold referendums you don't expect to win.
It would be better to say that you should not hold referendums where you are not prepared (or perhaps able) to implement either outcome.
The AV referendum, had it gone TSE's way, would've been implemented even grudgingly by the Conservatives in 2011. Likewise, had the UK voted to leave the EEC in 1975, that could've been implemented reasonably easy as we only had two years of being in (and were still in a transition).
But after fourty one years, and with almost every government mechanism refusing or prevented from LEAVE planning... it was a dereliction of duty, and Cameron HAS been called out for it (By Danny Dyer's very apt description).
Polling suggests a slight fall in Labour support, if they come out for a second referendum.
I doubt even a decisive dip in the polls for Corbyn would shift him. The movement care about purity above winning elections, and anyway polls are just another tool of the deep state being used to discredit him.
Gove was quite funny but also rather personally offensive last night. It was almost inviting an Opposition MP to intervene with something on the lines of 'the longer the Rt Hon Gentleman speaks the more obvious it becomes why he was put up for Adoption!'
Corbyn explicitly reiterates that a 2nd public vote is an option.
Lots of things are options. There is the option of me running the London Marathon, for instance.
The question is whether it is an option he is going to pursue and he isn’t. He is saying just enough to make people believe he will - but only because they want to believe this. He is being crafty and playing them for fools. His followers are being naive.
I will declare as a Manchester area raised (aged 2-18 and folks still live in the same 0161, SELNEC'y bit in which most people consider themselves Mancunian rather than Lancastrian), at least third paternal generation Mancunian and second generation United fan.
And Big G is Manchester born as well.
Come to think of it, do we have any Scousers on here of any description? I can't remember a single declaration of such.
Yes, myself. Don't post often. Lurk a lot (since 2008). Don't gamble, just read. I support Port Vale however (glory hunter from the 1980s you see). Don't ask. Live in Bootle. Don't vote Labour however. When they announce the Bootle result, and you say 'Who was the one who voted X?', that was me.
Nice to have the Bootle Liberation Front on here, however rare the appearence!
I think most people vote X because that's what the ballot paper says to do.
The critical question is whether or not Plan B (ie adding a customs union element to May's deal) will tempt over Lab MPs in Tuesday's vote. May is of course doing all she can to ensure another stonking defeat but maybe sense will out.
Corbyn explicitly reiterates that a 2nd public vote is an option.
Lots of things are options. There is the option of me running the London Marathon, for instance.
The question is whether it is an option he is going to pursue and he isn’t. He is saying just enough to make people believe he will - but only because they want to believe this. He is being crafty and playing them for fools. His followers are being naive.
1) It'll be a choice between remain and May's deal 2) The remain slogan will be "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE JUST MAKE IT STOP" 3) Nobody will campaign for May's deal except May and the leavers will boycott it.
Remain has already been rejected by the electorate. How could possibly justify making people vote on it again?
The critical question is whether or not Plan B (ie adding a customs union element to May's deal) will tempt over Lab MPs in Tuesday's vote. May is of course doing all she can to ensure another stonking defeat but maybe sense will out.
And if she tries to add a Customs Union to get opposition MPs on board, how many of her own MPs will move to vote against it, some of them resigning from government positions to do so?
Corbyn speech just now repeating a GE is the only way to resolve the issue
Also he refused to take questions from the press and said he is going to keep bringing back vonc
I regret to say this but he really is thick and the labour party deserve a new leader
You shouldn't regret saying something that is true.
As I said last night, Jezza has one public speaking mode, which he has been practising for 40 years with little change in the content. The difference is that due to changing globalized world there are now more people looking for an alternative that didn't live through the last time his world view was tried and so are sucked in by how wonderful it all sounds.
On topic, I agree with OGH about the likely result of any second referendum.
I was struck last week when within hours of each other, two Remainer friends declared on Facebook that we should simply Leave on 29th March. They are seriously unimpressed with the Parliamentary game playing and some of the statements from Juncker and Tusk have riled them too.
Odd for the respective HR departments to mess something like this up. Or for Santander to be so surprised. They have paid the fees of banks like Merrills for years. They know the numbers. And the Chair of the UK entity is Shriti Vadera, an ex-UBS banker herself, so she will have known the score.
Maybe there is some other reason. It certainly does not help the image of the City at a time like this to have such arguments played out in public.
The critical question is whether or not Plan B (ie adding a customs union element to May's deal) will tempt over Lab MPs in Tuesday's vote. May is of course doing all she can to ensure another stonking defeat but maybe sense will out.
And if she tries to add a Customs Union to get opposition MPs on board, how many of her own MPs will move to vote against it, some of them resigning from government positions to do so?
The critical question is whether or not Plan B (ie adding a customs union element to May's deal) will tempt over Lab MPs in Tuesday's vote. May is of course doing all she can to ensure another stonking defeat but maybe sense will out.
It won't. Labour MPs are never going to commit career suicide by helping the Tories deliver Brexit. Irrespective of the fact that adding a permanent customs union to the non-binding political declaration doesn't meet Labour's six tests, it's just never, ever going to happen.
It won't remove the need for a backstop, so the DUP will vote against.
All adding a customs union to her deal will achieve is alienate more of her party who think she's already conceded too much.
May puts her deal+CU to a vote she's going to lose even harder than her previous galactic-scale shellacking.
In think we should have a referendum with the options …
(1) Remain (2) Stay (3) Remain with no more referendums allowed.
Incidentally, the justification for a re-run now seems to be to get us out of a mess caused by a refusal by Parliament to act on the result of the first one. Am I the only one to see a logic gap here?
Gove was quite funny but also rather personally offensive last night. It was almost inviting an Opposition MP to intervene with something on the lines of 'the longer the Rt Hon Gentleman speaks the more obvious it becomes why he was put up for Adoption!'
Happily, the vast majority of Opposition MPs are not arseholes.
Despite the SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford meeting the premier last night, Mrs Sturgeon today pulled the SNP out of the talks, claiming she would not be 'complicit in more time wasting'.
That looks like a sensible compromise to me. There is no other deal, and I believe there is a majority for it in the HoC [not to mention the country at large], once one of the other two options is definitively ruled out. Which option, and how to rule it out, is now the million-dollar question.
The government will table the motion 3 sitting days after the MV (Monday), and the debate and vote will be four sitting days after that (following Monday)
Bercow/Grieve screwed up. The amendment only required the government to table a motion, not allocate time for a debate and vote. By making them wait a week, Leadsom is rubbing their faces in it.
Leadsom getting her little digs in while she still has time.
I suspect a big issue with Lab supporting a 2nd ref is a lot more Lab/Tory marginals are leave leaning seats than remain seats. Those torn between supporting Lab/LD on the basis of a 2nd vote will predominantly be in seats that are predominantly Labour strongholds.
Adam Boulton was last night discussing the possibility of indicative votes in Parliament to see what options have the broadest support and might show a way forward. It was an interesting idea but the likelihood at the moment is that there is not a majority for anything.
The easiest way to a deal is to lop bits off May's deal until the ERG and DUP can support it. Far easier than some nonsense that will get Labour to switch sides.
A minimalist 2 year fudge deal with temporary arrangements for ports and trade in return for some UK £ would suffice.
Kick the can down the road - force Berlin to choose between that deal and keeping the Irish happy.
The critical question is whether or not Plan B (ie adding a customs union element to May's deal) will tempt over Lab MPs in Tuesday's vote. May is of course doing all she can to ensure another stonking defeat but maybe sense will out.
It won't. Labour MPs are never going to commit career suicide by helping the Tories deliver Brexit. Irrespective of the fact that adding a permanent customs union to the non-binding political declaration doesn't meet Labour's six tests, it's just never, ever going to happen.
It won't remove the need for a backstop, so the DUP will vote against.
All adding a customs union to her deal will achieve is alienate more of her party who think she's already conceded too much.
May puts her deal+CU to a vote she's going to lose even harder than her previous galactic-scale shellacking.
I will declare as a Manchester area raised (aged 2-18 and folks still live in the same 0161, SELNEC'y bit in which most people consider themselves Mancunian rather than Lancastrian), at least third paternal generation Mancunian and second generation United fan.
And Big G is Manchester born as well.
Come to think of it, do we have any Scousers on here of any description? I can't remember a single declaration of such.
Yes, myself. Don't post often. Lurk a lot (since 2008). Don't gamble, just read. I support Port Vale however (glory hunter from the 1980s you see). Don't ask. Live in Bootle. Don't vote Labour however. When they announce the Bootle result, and you say 'Who was the one who voted X?', that was me.
Nice to have the Bootle Liberation Front on here, however rare the appearence!
I haven't checked, but I know that Bootle has consistently been one of the safest seats in the country for a very long time (I think in 2005, it was THE safest seat). We went into 2017 election with it being the fifth safest, and an increased majority for Peter Dowd and now 82% Labour, it may well be back in the top three (Probably Knowsley is the safest).
Of course, whilst disheartening, it does allow me to be ideologically pure in my vote. I can vote for anyone I like, knowing that Labour will win. I just add one to the national total, tis all.
I'm a supporter of PR, for obvious reasons (though have been anyway).
I think someone on here once said they'd only voted for the winning candidate twice in their life. Since 1997, I have never voted for the winner. Even in 1997 when I did vote Labour, I found myself at University and the Plaid candidate won. Since then, I haven't voted Labour but have been back on Merseyside, so its all rather irrelevant.
Adam Boulton was last night discussing the possibility of indicative votes in Parliament to see what options have the broadest support and might show a way forward. It was an interesting idea but the likelihood at the moment is that there is not a majority for anything.
I think when the Plan B vote fails (as it invariably must) then what other choice possibly remains?
May HAS to show the EU what there's a majority for in Parliament before any progress can be made. And there's no majority for ANYTHING right now.
Despite the SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford meeting the premier last night, Mrs Sturgeon today pulled the SNP out of the talks, claiming she would not be 'complicit in more time wasting'.
The easiest way to a deal is to lop bits off May's deal until the ERG and DUP can support it. Far easier than some nonsense that will get Labour to switch sides.
A minimalist 2 year fudge deal with temporary arrangements for ports and trade in return for some UK £ would suffice.
Kick the can down the road - force Berlin to choose between that deal and keeping the Irish happy.
The only workable compromise is the deal with tweaks or possibly the deal with a significant change on backstop. Everything else is a fight for total victory in the Civil War or Labour tribalism / Corbynista campaigning.
Comments
So after all this never ending "People's Vote" talk for the past year it's by no means certain there's even a majority for it in the Commons?
How will all those Leavers who have proclaimed 'May's Deal is worse than Remain' vote if the option is Deal v Remain?
If the focus of the campaign is on Leave, then I think Leave would win. If the focus is on a specific option, I would expect Remain to win.
My concern would be that if a specific option for Leave won, there would still be relentless guerrilla action against it in Parliament (MPs can say they would honour the result, but it's very easy to rationalise why in practice, you can't honour it).
In defence of Cameron who designed the thing as a single-referendum process, I don't suppose the EU would have gone into negotiations on the basis of "we're thinking of leaving but we haven't decided", and even if they had Leave-inclined people would have credibly said that the negotiation wasn't real because the EU was trying to make leaving look bad to make Leave lose the second one. So the only way to do the (rational) two-referendum process was to dress it up like a one-referendum process. But that has the downside that Leavers understandably feel like they're playing Calvinball.
*can't remember whose it was - Grieve again? Which said business must be brought back to the house within three days.
https://twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/1085811419835174912
Now that the referendum with simplistic questions on complex topics genie is well and truly out of the bottle, what other questions can we bypass our long standing system of parliamentary democracy with?
One I rather like the idea of is "Should public sector workers have their pension schemes cut to donate to those with minimal pensions in the private sector, YES, or NO" It won't be popular with MPs or public sector trade unions, so I cant see it being presented
1 - DEAL: Either May's Deal gets passed or an alternative Deal gets passed.
a - May's Deal : only two plausible ways through are:
(i) Desperation. Terrible option, Parliament should never be blackmailed into a bad outcome and this is a bad precedent
(ii) Referendum Terrible option, we're re-running a referendum because the first result was wrong
The Deal will also piss off Leavers and Remainers alike. Everything that goes badly afterwards is blamed on this. With the above, confidence in our politicians and democratic system is shot
b - Only plausible alternative Deal (taking plausibility to the extreme) is a closer Deal including at least a Customs Union and possibly SM membership. Possibly a majority for this in Parliament, and the EU would plausibly reopen the WA for this. Implausible, goes against all red lines and much of what was promised in the referendum. Looks like Parliament finding a loophole to "Leave but not really leave".
2 - NO DEAL. Only the ERG and a handful of mavericks elsewhere want this.Terrible choice, involve Parliament allowing an outcome that they view as highly likely to cause suffering, damage, and even deaths to the people they've sworn to serve. Parliament essentially abdicating their responsibility to come up with some sort of Deal to avoid this.
3 - Revocation:
a - Through another referendum.. Terrible - see above for rerunning a referendum and then undoing something that was promised at the end of the first referendum.
b - Unilaterally by the Government. (Via bluff/chicken or out of sheer desperation) Either of that would be terrible - the Government effectively doing "Lol, no" to a democratic mandate.
So - all routes lead to a terrible outcome, but one must come to pass. All routes will fuck up our confidence in democracy and our politicians still further, but one must happen.
Also the whole “I will speak to anyone” claim was long ago shown to be a lie. Corbyn is most comfortable speaking to those who agree with him already. In this he is surprisingly like May, who is similarly incapable of speaking to or including anyone she does not already trust.
YouGov found Remain winning 60-40 against May's Deal, but that's with just 55% of Leave voters backing it. I think that in reality, many more would back it.
Survation have Remain/May's Deal at level-pegging.
The only justification for having a second referendum would be in settling the national debate about what to do next.
You can't just rerun the last referendum.
No food
No medicine
No travel
Simple, Emotive, Powerful.
Go Jezza!
I support Port Vale however (glory hunter from the 1980s you see). Don't ask.
Live in Bootle.
Don't vote Labour however. When they announce the Bootle result, and you say 'Who was the one who voted X?', that was me.
It'd be a very fitting end to Brexit. Born of tragedy, dying in farce.
May and Corbyn, what did we do to deserve such dismal specimens?
As other posters have said, all options are now bad, at least will be divisive and unpopular with a great many. Yet one option must happen. We may as well get on with it.
https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1085814480649551874
The AV referendum, had it gone TSE's way, would've been implemented even grudgingly by the Conservatives in 2011. Likewise, had the UK voted to leave the EEC in 1975, that could've been implemented reasonably easy as we only had two years of being in (and were still in a transition).
But after fourty one years, and with almost every government mechanism refusing or prevented from LEAVE planning... it was a dereliction of duty, and Cameron HAS been called out for it (By Danny Dyer's very apt description).
It's a very drab speech though.
The question is whether it is an option he is going to pursue and he isn’t. He is saying just enough to make people believe he will - but only because they want to believe this. He is being crafty and playing them for fools. His followers are being naive.
That well has already been poisoned. The plague of boils thingy is so last-referendum.
Also he refused to take questions from the press and said he is going to keep bringing back vonc
I regret to say this but he really is thick and the labour party deserve a new leader
As I said last night, Jezza has one public speaking mode, which he has been practising for 40 years with little change in the content. The difference is that due to changing globalized world there are now more people looking for an alternative that didn't live through the last time his world view was tried and so are sucked in by how wonderful it all sounds.
I was struck last week when within hours of each other, two Remainer friends declared on Facebook that we should simply Leave on 29th March. They are seriously unimpressed with the Parliamentary game playing and some of the statements from Juncker and Tusk have riled them too.
Odd for the respective HR departments to mess something like this up. Or for Santander to be so surprised. They have paid the fees of banks like Merrills for years. They know the numbers. And the Chair of the UK entity is Shriti Vadera, an ex-UBS banker herself, so she will have known the score.
Maybe there is some other reason. It certainly does not help the image of the City at a time like this to have such arguments played out in public.
It won't remove the need for a backstop, so the DUP will vote against.
All adding a customs union to her deal will achieve is alienate more of her party who think she's already conceded too much.
May puts her deal+CU to a vote she's going to lose even harder than her previous galactic-scale shellacking.
(1) Remain
(2) Stay
(3) Remain with no more referendums allowed.
Incidentally, the justification for a re-run now seems to be to get us out of a mess caused by a refusal by Parliament to act on the result of the first one. Am I the only one to see a logic gap here?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6601865/May-fights-cross-party-Brexit-plan-surviving-confidence-vote.html
So it is literally, Lib Dem, NO BREXIT, and Green Party, NO FRACKING, coming to the talks.
The 3 days thing is a bit of a mockery.
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/all-options-ruled-out-20190116181417
Not seen a single person yet suggest something other than what they already wanted.
Bercow/Grieve screwed up. The amendment only required the government to table a motion, not allocate time for a debate and vote. By making them wait a week, Leadsom is rubbing their faces in it.
Leadsom getting her little digs in while she still has time.
A minimalist 2 year fudge deal with temporary arrangements for ports and trade in return for some UK £ would suffice.
Kick the can down the road - force Berlin to choose between that deal and keeping the Irish happy.
Of course, whilst disheartening, it does allow me to be ideologically pure in my vote. I can vote for anyone I like, knowing that Labour will win. I just add one to the national total, tis all.
I'm a supporter of PR, for obvious reasons (though have been anyway).
I think someone on here once said they'd only voted for the winning candidate twice in their life. Since 1997, I have never voted for the winner. Even in 1997 when I did vote Labour, I found myself at University and the Plaid candidate won. Since then, I haven't voted Labour but have been back on Merseyside, so its all rather irrelevant.
May HAS to show the EU what there's a majority for in Parliament before any progress can be made. And there's no majority for ANYTHING right now.