... Independents: people I know who are switched onto politics (including two centrist Labour MPs who they might have fancied attracting) are pretty annoyed about their cynical pushing of the referendum against the wishes of the referendum campaigners - really obvious that they're more about damaging Labour than stopping Brexit. I think this will have passed most people by, but they then have the other problem that most people are starting to forget they exist. ..
What was cynical about it? They believe there should be a referendum, so they voted for it. Pretty much the diametric opposite of cynical, in contrast to those who pretend they might support a referendum in order not to fool their own voters and party members.
Why do you think People's Vote and Best for Britain didn't want the amendment? Why do you think TIG ignored them?
The cynically-named 'People's Vote' campaign don't think it's the right time. The TIGgers do. It's called a difference of opinion.
One of the best* parts of Brexit is the alternate way one day it is parliament that is sovereign, and the next "the people" should be ultimate arbiters. Both leave and remain playing this particular hokey kokey.
It's the inevitable consequence of trying to mix direct and representative democracy without laying down rules as to what trumps what.
... Independents: people I know who are switched onto politics (including two centrist Labour MPs who they might have fancied attracting) are pretty annoyed about their cynical pushing of the referendum against the wishes of the referendum campaigners - really obvious that they're more about damaging Labour than stopping Brexit. I think this will have passed most people by, but they then have the other problem that most people are starting to forget they exist. ..
What was cynical about it? They believe there should be a referendum, so they voted for it. Pretty much the diametric opposite of cynical, in contrast to those who pretend they might support a referendum in order not to fool their own voters and party members.
Why do you think People's Vote and Best for Britain didn't want the amendment? Why do you think TIG ignored them?
The cynically-named 'People's Vote' campaign don't think it's the right time. The TIGgers do. It's called a difference of opinion.
One of the best* parts of Brexit is the alternate way one day it is parliament that is sovereign, and the next "the people" should be ultimate arbiters. Both leave and remain playing this particular hokey kokey.
Presumably Gina Miller would be happy that Parliament asserted its control by rejecting a second referendum.
Oh right, the Tiggers. Been drowned out a bit lately.
They've lost their momentum (no pun/gag intended) and are rapidly becoming less and less relevant. When they were a thorn in the side of the leaders of their respective parties they were newsworthy. Now they are a small rump in parliament they are not. They probably made the mistake of believing the press and media were following them when, in reality, it was really interested in the splits in their respective parties and the players in it.
And I'm claiming that it's much more likely that they were not honest than that they didn't see a huge defeat coming.
I'm sure they did see a huge defeat coming. In what way is it dishonest to vote for something just because you know that it won't be successful?
It's not even particularly cynical to try to damage Labour either, given that its backbenches are stuffed with MPs who think their leader should never be Prime Minister.
... Independents: people I know who are switched onto politics (including two centrist Labour MPs who they might have fancied attracting) are pretty annoyed about their cynical pushing of the referendum against the wishes of the referendum campaigners - really obvious that they're more about damaging Labour than stopping Brexit. I think this will have passed most people by, but they then have the other problem that most people are starting to forget they exist. ..
What was cynical about it? They believe there should be a referendum, so they voted for it. Pretty much the diametric opposite of cynical, in contrast to those who pretend they might support a referendum in order not to fool their own voters and party members.
Why do you think People's Vote and Best for Britain didn't want the amendment? Why do you think TIG ignored them?
PV didn't want it, because they knew it would be voted down.
I’ve found that the funniest part of this whole debate.
... Independents: people I know who are switched onto politics (including two centrist Labour MPs who they might have fancied attracting) are pretty annoyed about their cynical pushing of the referendum against the wishes of the referendum campaigners - really obvious that they're more about damaging Labour than stopping Brexit. I think this will have passed most people by, but they then have the other problem that most people are starting to forget they exist. ..
What was cynical about it? They believe there should be a referendum, so they voted for it. Pretty much the diametric opposite of cynical, in contrast to those who pretend they might support a referendum in order not to fool their own voters and party members.
Why do you think People's Vote and Best for Britain didn't want the amendment? Why do you think TIG ignored them?
PV didn't want it, because they knew it would be voted down.
I’ve found that the funniest part of this whole debate.
A very strong candidate for second place is Damien Green calling Steve Bray a wanker.
And I'm claiming that it's much more likely that they were not honest than that they didn't see a huge defeat coming.
I'm sure they did see a huge defeat coming. In what way is it dishonest to vote for something just because you know that it won't be successful?
They sent out an email immediately afterwards claiming that Labour had betrayed its members, without once mentioning that it was Labour who was following PV and BfB's advice and they who were going against it. That seems pretty dishonest to me, and goes back to what Nick initially was saying that TIG was motivated by hurting Labour, not by getting a 2nd ref. It should be pretty clear that a massive defeat in parliament would do more damage to the 2nd ref cause, rather than help it.
And I'm claiming that it's much more likely that they were not honest than that they didn't see a huge defeat coming.
I'm sure they did see a huge defeat coming. In what way is it dishonest to vote for something just because you know that it won't be successful?
It's not even particularly cynical to try to damage Labour either, given that its backbenches are stuffed with MPs who think their leader should never be Prime Minister.
Indeed. Clearly they want to put pressure on Labour to support a referendum, and there's nothing wrong with that. Why should Labour expect to be given a free pass to face in two directions? It's not up to the TIGgers to help Corbyn deceive his voters.
As an aside I went on twitter to get news updates on the horrific events in Christchurch for which I can only add to what others have said. It's an awful awful event. I looked on the christchurch tag however on Twitter people are posting videos of the livestream the terrorist posted. Twitter is not acting to take them down quickly enough. I don't think people need to see that and it should not be being hosted on social media. Twitter are quick to ban feminists who make the crime of "misgendering" and people for relatively minor transgressions yet not so people who post far right terrorists shooting innocent worshippers.
"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,"...
As someone who thinks we are served best by Democracy I find those troubling words.
If he thinks he has the support of the military he is in for a surprise.
I suspect he largely does have the support of the troops.
Hard to say as US miltary is stridently apolitical (below OF-7 anyway) and political discussions are very much haram among officers. I served with USN for just shy of four years and I can't recall a political discussion of any substance in that period. You might assume they would be reflexively Trumpite but you have to bear in mind thst, on the whole, US officers tend to be far more educated and academically accomplished than their NATO counterparts.
And I'm claiming that it's much more likely that they were not honest than that they didn't see a huge defeat coming.
I'm sure they did see a huge defeat coming. In what way is it dishonest to vote for something just because you know that it won't be successful?
It's not even particularly cynical to try to damage Labour either, given that its backbenches are stuffed with MPs who think their leader should never be Prime Minister.
Well yes, I agree with this too, though it goes against the general feeling on pb that "playing politics" is inherently bad. However I do think that many TIG supporters or potential supporters put a very high priority on Remain, and wouldn't be happy with them damaging the cause of a 2nd referendum to score a relatively minor point against Labour
As an aside I went on twitter to get news updates on the horrific events in Christchurch for which I can only add to what others have said. It's an awful awful event. I looked on the christchurch tag however on Twitter people are posting videos of the livestream the terrorist posted. Twitter is not acting to take them down quickly enough. I don't think people need to see that and it should not be being hosted on social media. Twitter are quick to ban feminists who make the crime of "misgendering" and people for relatively minor transgressions yet not so people who post far right terrorists shooting innocent worshippers.
Govt: "How about idea #89453425?" DUP: No Govt: "How about idea #89453426?" DUP: No Govt: "How about idea #89453427?" DUP: No Govt: "How about idea #89453428?" DUP: No .....
Govt: "How about idea #89453425?" DUP: No Govt: "How about idea #89453426?" DUP: No Govt: "How about idea #89453427?" DUP: No Govt: "How about idea #89453428?" DUP: No .....
Govt: "How about idea #89453428 and another couple of billion quid..." ?
"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,"...
As someone who thinks we are served best by Democracy I find those troubling words.
If he thinks he has the support of the military he is in for a surprise.
I suspect he largely does have the support of the troops.
Hard to say as US miltary is stridently apolitical (below OF-7 anyway) and political discussions are very much haram among officers. I served with USN for just shy of four years and I can't recall a political discussion of any substance in that period. You might assume they would be reflexively Trumpite but you have to bear in mind thst, on the whole, US officers tend to be far more educated and academically accomplished than their NATO counterparts.
Yep. I should have been clearer but when I said "the troops" I meant if you take the population of the army as a whole, their members probably have a high proportion of Trump supporters. Whether the military institutionally supports Trump and whether the higher up officers support Trump I couldn't say.
Oh right, the Tiggers. Been drowned out a bit lately.
They've lost their momentum (no pun/gag intended) and are rapidly becoming less and less relevant. When they were a thorn in the side of the leaders of their respective parties they were newsworthy. Now they are a small rump in parliament they are not. They probably made the mistake of believing the press and media were following them when, in reality, it was really interested in the splits in their respective parties and the players in it.
It's a bit surprising they haven't had more MPs join them. Mind you I don't think the group has much purpose beyond Brexit, as that seems to be the only thing uniting them.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
And I'm claiming that it's much more likely that they were not honest than that they didn't see a huge defeat coming.
I'm sure they did see a huge defeat coming. In what way is it dishonest to vote for something just because you know that it won't be successful?
It's not even particularly cynical to try to damage Labour either, given that its backbenches are stuffed with MPs who think their leader should never be Prime Minister.
Indeed. Clearly they want to put pressure on Labour to support a referendum, and there's nothing wrong with that. Why should Labour expect to be given a free pass to face in two directions? It's not up to the TIGgers to help Corbyn deceive his voters.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
"Our family has great affection for New Zealand and especially Christchurch where our eldest son emigrated to 15 years ago and we have visited several times. Though our eldest son now lives in Vancouver he retains ties with friends and ex work colleagues there.
This attack is evil in it's purest form and we need as a Country, especially in light of Brexit, to make a concerted effort to bring all our communities together in total condemnation of all intolerance
I posted this on my facebook page this morning and know PB forum will join in our condolences and sympathy to all Kiwis
To all Kiwis
We have woken up to the horrific attacks in Christchurch and just cannot believe it. Tears are shed for that beautiful City, it's people and the whole Country. Such hatred is beyond belief and we must alll stand against the bigotted and twisted minds of those who think like this. May the Good Lord comfort all those affected and our prayers are for all Kiwis everywhere."
I cannot put it better.
Big_G again showing his heart is in the right place.
As one of our more senior contributors, he demonstrates most lucidly the wisdom that comes with age.
DUP announce they are involved in on going and significant discussions with TM
Very interesting. Hopefully laying a pathway to endorse TM deal which would be a huge step
I think whichever way the DUP decide to go, enough from both sides of the house will follow for a decisive decision.
Strange to think that a rather small party generally regarded as being a little bit regressive and only really interested in a very small part of the country would have been so pivotal in the direction of the entire, twice!
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
And I'm claiming that it's much more likely that they were not honest than that they didn't see a huge defeat coming.
I'm sure they did see a huge defeat coming. In what way is it dishonest to vote for something just because you know that it won't be successful?
It's not even particularly cynical to try to damage Labour either, given that its backbenches are stuffed with MPs who think their leader should never be Prime Minister.
Indeed. Clearly they want to put pressure on Labour to support a referendum, and there's nothing wrong with that. Why should Labour expect to be given a free pass to face in two directions? It's not up to the TIGgers to help Corbyn deceive his voters.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
They will whip in favour but face 50 or more rebels or abstainers unwilling to subvert democracy and it will fall. A lot of those happy yo be whipped to abstain will not be happy to be whipped in support
Oh right, the Tiggers. Been drowned out a bit lately.
They've lost their momentum (no pun/gag intended) and are rapidly becoming less and less relevant. When they were a thorn in the side of the leaders of their respective parties they were newsworthy. Now they are a small rump in parliament they are not. They probably made the mistake of believing the press and media were following them when, in reality, it was really interested in the splits in their respective parties and the players in it.
It's a bit surprising they haven't had more MPs join them. Mind you I don't think the group has much purpose beyond Brexit, as that seems to be the only thing uniting them.
Brexit appears to be the only thing that unites them. That aside they have a range of views. Soubry and Allen were both flag wavers for austerity, although Allen has since rowed back on that a bit, some of the former labour members were not. As an example. Ian Austin not joining them due to their position on Brexit pretty much exposed them as a one trick pony.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
That will depend on the outcome of the battles within Labour. At the moment they are still maintaining the ludicrous pretence that there's some other withdrawal deal, unknown to the EU, which could be offered to voters in a referendum. Absurd though that nonsense is, I rather expect they will stick with it - after all, Corbyn wants Brexit, he wants as much chaos as possible, and he wants the Conservative Party to be as split as possible. But it's true that his hand might be forced.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
And whatever you think of him, no one is going to be pulling the wool over the eyes of Nigel Dodds. He's rapier sharp.
Govt: "How about idea #89453425?" DUP: No Govt: "How about idea #89453426?" DUP: No Govt: "How about idea #89453427?" DUP: No Govt: "How about idea #89453428?" DUP: No .....
Govt: "How about idea #89453428 and another couple of billion quid..." ?
As an aside I went on twitter to get news updates on the horrific events in Christchurch for which I can only add to what others have said. It's an awful awful event. I looked on the christchurch tag however on Twitter people are posting videos of the livestream the terrorist posted. Twitter is not acting to take them down quickly enough. I don't think people need to see that and it should not be being hosted on social media. Twitter are quick to ban feminists who make the crime of "misgendering" and people for relatively minor transgressions yet not so people who post far right terrorists shooting innocent worshippers.
It is extremely hard to take down content once it has been uploaded. It can spread very rapidly, and as it gets edited and transcoded even automated systems for detecting bad content struggle. Those systems are imperfect, they will either let bad content through, or they will flag up lots of legitimate content if too strict, and in both cases they will likely need many people in-the-loop for verification of the decisions made by the automated systems.
If automatically detecting and deleting/blocking bad content was easy there would be little to no piracy of content on the internet.
As a rule of thumb anyone saying this is an easy to solve problem is likely to be selling snake oil.
DUP announce they are involved in on going and significant discussions with TM
Very interesting. Hopefully laying a pathway to endorse TM deal which would be a huge step
I think whichever way the DUP decide to go, enough from both sides of the house will follow for a decisive decision.
Strange to think that a rather small party generally regarded as being a little bit regressive and only really interested in a very small part of the country would have been so pivotal in the direction of the entire, twice!
If only Labour would have offered them, and the OUP, that pipeline in 1979 history would have been so different.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
It still had 44% support, including 70% of Unionists, so a lot of their constituency back it.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
I think most of the DUP are pretty much on the side of Brexit.
On the TIGgers, so far their main impact hasn't been as a party-in-the-making but making it harder for Labour to pretend they haven't got a problem with extremism, anti-semitism and Brexit incoherence. Tom Watson's initiative to create a TIG-within-Labour group seems to have stopped the drift for the moment, but it is going to be hard to sustain that initiative in the future, when policy choices have to be made.
But let's suppose the 10 DUP's do come over. That still leaves 65. There are some fanatics in the ERG who will never vote for May's deal under any circumstance. They would even prefer to vote down the Gov't. Even if that hardcore rump was no more than 10, where is May going to get the other 10 from? Labour sense the chance to change the agenda entirely.
This all goes back to the refusal of May to open up discussions right at the start to the Opposition. Ted Heath led us into the EU by involving the moderates opposite. That could only have been the route here. But instead she drew red lines in the sand, alienated every one on the opposition benches and most of her own and, hey presto, the deal is a dead duck.
But let's suppose the 10 DUP's do come over. That still leaves 65. There are some fanatics in the ERG who will never vote for May's deal under any circumstance. They would even prefer to vote down the Gov't. Even if that hardcore rump was no more than 10, where is May going to get the other 10 from? Labour sense the chance to change the agenda entirely.
This all goes back to the refusal of May to open up discussions right at the start to the Opposition. Ted Heath led us into the EU by involving the moderates opposite. That could only have been the route here. But instead she drew red lines in the sand, alienated every one on the opposition benches and most of her own and, hey presto, the deal is a dead duck.
A few knighthood and lordship later the ERG were all content If there are just 10 Tories holding out she will get home with a couple to 4 of the labour brexiteers and a couple of the indy independents who support Brexit
Without the DUP their options narrow and if it ends up that they continue to hold out then I expect May will place the blame on them when she asks for a long extension.
Surely by this point she must feel like she’s on her way out and surely she must feel like exacting some revenge .
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
As an aside I went on twitter to get news updates on the horrific events in Christchurch for which I can only add to what others have said. It's an awful awful event. I looked on the christchurch tag however on Twitter people are posting videos of the livestream the terrorist posted. Twitter is not acting to take them down quickly enough. I don't think people need to see that and it should not be being hosted on social media. Twitter are quick to ban feminists who make the crime of "misgendering" and people for relatively minor transgressions yet not so people who post far right terrorists shooting innocent worshippers.
It is extremely hard to take down content once it has been uploaded. It can spread very rapidly, and as it gets edited and transcoded even automated systems for detecting bad content struggle. Those systems are imperfect, they will either let bad content through, or they will flag up lots of legitimate content if too strict, and in both cases they will likely need many people in-the-loop for verification of the decisions made by the automated systems.
If automatically detecting and deleting/blocking bad content was easy there would be little to no piracy of content on the internet.
As a rule of thumb anyone saying this is an easy to solve problem is likely to be selling snake oil.
While that’s all true in general, it really shouldn’t be too difficult on the day of a tragedy to put up a couple of hundred human moderators checking videos posted with certain hashtags. The public would also be much more willing to deal with a false-positive problem in the circumstances.
But let's suppose the 10 DUP's do come over. That still leaves 65. There are some fanatics in the ERG who will never vote for May's deal under any circumstance. They would even prefer to vote down the Gov't. Even if that hardcore rump was no more than 10, where is May going to get the other 10 from? Labour sense the chance to change the agenda entirely.
This all goes back to the refusal of May to open up discussions right at the start to the Opposition. Ted Heath led us into the EU by involving the moderates opposite. That could only have been the route here. But instead she drew red lines in the sand, alienated every one on the opposition benches and most of her own and, hey presto, the deal is a dead duck.
Remember Corbyn's reaction to May's advances? Sending her a signed copy of the Labour manifesto saying he'd be happy to help her implement those policies.
Further to this below, the real problems stems of course from the disastrous 2017 General Election when she managed to blow the slender majority. If she'd had a majority of 50 + she could have ignored the nutters on the right (sorry they just are) and hammered through Parliament what the hell she wanted.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
It still had 44% support, including 70% of Unionists, so a lot of their constituency back it.
True, but unlike elsewhere in the UK, NI voters already have something more important than brexit that decides voting lines, so they will stick with a unionist party. The UUP were pro remain so no issue there, and the main parties don't stand in NI so have no infrastructure etc there. The DUP have much more to fear by looking like they betrayed the union than that they betrayed brexit. Given how much fuss they have made about the backstop its hard to see how or why they climbdown now.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
That will depend on the outcome of the battles within Labour. At the moment they are still maintaining the ludicrous pretence that there's some other withdrawal deal, unknown to the EU, which could be offered to voters in a referendum. Absurd though that nonsense is, I rather expect they will stick with it - after all, Corbyn wants Brexit, he wants as much chaos as possible, and he wants the Conservative Party to be as split as possible. But it's true that his hand might be forced.
IMO every single sentence of that post is mistaken, each in a different way (it's an achievement!). Stereotomy is IMO a better guide to Labour politics.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
The EU are demanding people vote again until they get the right answer? I'm shocked.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
It’s an article by the same reporter who has repeatedly got it wrong throughout the negotiations.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
I think it's a really good call by the EU. If we don't like the WA they agreed with the UK then it's time to soften Brexit and throw it back to the people.
"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,"...
As someone who thinks we are served best by Democracy I find those troubling words.
If he thinks he has the support of the military he is in for a surprise.
I suspect he largely does have the support of the troops.
Hard to say as US miltary is stridently apolitical (below OF-7 anyway) and political discussions are very much haram among officers. I served with USN for just shy of four years and I can't recall a political discussion of any substance in that period. You might assume they would be reflexively Trumpite but you have to bear in mind thst, on the whole, US officers tend to be far more educated and academically accomplished than their NATO counterparts.
And the military integrated some time before the US schooling system.
As an aside I went on twitter to get news updates on the horrific events in Christchurch for which I can only add to what others have said. It's an awful awful event. I looked on the christchurch tag however on Twitter people are posting videos of the livestream the terrorist posted. Twitter is not acting to take them down quickly enough. I don't think people need to see that and it should not be being hosted on social media. Twitter are quick to ban feminists who make the crime of "misgendering" and people for relatively minor transgressions yet not so people who post far right terrorists shooting innocent worshippers.
It is extremely hard to take down content once it has been uploaded. It can spread very rapidly, and as it gets edited and transcoded even automated systems for detecting bad content struggle. Those systems are imperfect, they will either let bad content through, or they will flag up lots of legitimate content if too strict, and in both cases they will likely need many people in-the-loop for verification of the decisions made by the automated systems.
If automatically detecting and deleting/blocking bad content was easy there would be little to no piracy of content on the internet.
As a rule of thumb anyone saying this is an easy to solve problem is likely to be selling snake oil.
While that’s all true in general, it really shouldn’t be too difficult on the day of a tragedy to put up a couple of hundred human moderators checking videos posted with certain hashtags. The public would also be much more willing to deal with a false-positive problem in the circumstances.
The couple of tweets I had the misfortune to see (fortunately I did not say anyone killed) had been up for a couple of hours.
While that’s all true in general, it really shouldn’t be too difficult on the day of a tragedy to put up a couple of hundred human moderators checking videos posted with certain hashtags. The public would also be much more willing to deal with a false-positive problem in the circumstances.
The trouble is people get wise to blocking approaches. We already see spammers deliberately posting provocative content on trending but otherwise benign hashtags.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, doing content moderation for the web giants. It's not like they don't try to stop bad content being posted, but they are up against people who are persistent and wise to the way content is blocked.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
What demands do you think they should make?
I wasn't recommending that they make demands. I was pointing out that they were in a position to do so but had putatively chosen one that would not be productive and would arguably make things worse.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
It still had 44% support, including 70% of Unionists, so a lot of their constituency back it.
The south and west of NI voted Remain, the north and east voted Leave.
And I'm claiming that it's much more likely that they were not honest than that they didn't see a huge defeat coming.
I'm sure they did see a huge defeat coming. In what way is it dishonest to vote for something just because you know that it won't be successful?
It's not even particularly cynical to try to damage Labour either, given that its backbenches are stuffed with MPs who think their leader should never be Prime Minister.
Indeed. Clearly they want to put pressure on Labour to support a referendum, and there's nothing wrong with that. Why should Labour expect to be given a free pass to face in two directions? It's not up to the TIGgers to help Corbyn deceive his voters.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
They will whip in favour but face 50 or more rebels or abstainers unwilling to subvert democracy and it will fall. A lot of those happy yo be whipped to abstain will not be happy to be whipped in support
Yeah, this I agree with (doubt it'd be quite so many, but I wouldn't be totally shocked either). And if, in that situation, TIG wanted to send out a newsletter mocking Labour for its splits and saying that many of the MPs were betraying the members by not going along with the leadership, I'd have no particular quarrel with that. It'd be interesting to see if they actually do that, given that TIG despises the leadership, not the PLP.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
What demands do you think they should make?
I wasn't recommending that they make demands. I was pointing out that they were in a position to do so but had putatively chosen one that would not be productive and would arguably make things worse.
I'm just wondering if maybe the demands you think are more reasonable fall under "or soften Brexit"
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
Perhaps, perhaps not - after all. this is a journalist’s account rather than any formal declared terms.
It’s possible that a referendum might be just one of several alternate conditions. We’ll see, I guess.
Slab -> SNP swing of 1% or over = Slab reduced to Ian Murray's Edinburgh Sth seat.
SNP to SCon - any widening of the gap delivers Stirling, but a difference of 14% is needed to start making inroads into seats like Gordon, Angus etc. Even a 20% difference could leave the Conservatives with 4 or 5 seats, so a repeat of 2015 is virtually impossible.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Exactly. The DUP will be difficult to swing. For them the key is the backstop. Unless the AG reverses his legal advice - quite a tall order you would think - the backstop remains in place and the DUP could not move. If Brexit was sacrificed on the altar of the backstop the DUP would be unlikely to suffer politically - their base is motivated primarily by Irish/sectarian issues and not Brexit. And some of them probably realise that Brexit brings an Irish unity referendum closer and would not be unhappy to see it collapse as long as their hands are clean and they can apportion blame elsewhere. So by contracting out the decision to the DUP those members of the ERG who want to support May's deal for fear of losing Brexit are taking a very big risk.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
It still had 44% support, including 70% of Unionists, so a lot of their constituency back it.
227,084 out of 444,881, or 51% of, voters in the 10 DUP constituencies voted to leave.
And I'm claiming that it's much more likely that they were not honest than that they didn't see a huge defeat coming.
I'm sure they did see a huge defeat coming. In what way is it dishonest to vote for something just because you know that it won't be successful?
It's not even particularly cynical to try to damage Labour either, given that its backbenches are stuffed with MPs who think their leader should never be Prime Minister.
Indeed. Clearly they want to put pressure on Labour to support a referendum, and there's nothing wrong with that. Why should Labour expect to be given a free pass to face in two directions? It's not up to the TIGgers to help Corbyn deceive his voters.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
They will whip in favour but face 50 or more rebels or abstainers unwilling to subvert democracy and it will fall. A lot of those happy yo be whipped to abstain will not be happy to be whipped in support
Yeah, this I agree with (doubt it'd be quite so many, but I wouldn't be totally shocked either). And if, in that situation, TIG wanted to send out a newsletter mocking Labour for its splits and saying that many of the MPs were betraying the members by not going along with the leadership, I'd have no particular quarrel with that. It'd be interesting to see if they actually do that, given that TIG despises the leadership, not the PLP.
The eventual TIG strategy in an election v labour is a fascinating aside to the current turmoil
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
That will depend on the outcome of the battles within Labour. At the moment they are still maintaining the ludicrous pretence that there's some other withdrawal deal, unknown to the EU, which could be offered to voters in a referendum. Absurd though that nonsense is, I rather expect they will stick with it - after all, Corbyn wants Brexit, he wants as much chaos as possible, and he wants the Conservative Party to be as split as possible. But it's true that his hand might be forced.
IMO every single sentence of that post is mistaken, each in a different way (it's an achievement!). Stereotomy is IMO a better guide to Labour politics.
There seems to be a lot of denial on PB in general about the idea that Corbyn could (reluctantly) support Remain, even though that's exactly what he did in the referendum. It seems pretty clear to me that he's just not that animated by Brexit or questions of the EU in general, and is motivated much more by electoral politics (in which either full-throated Leave or Remain support would be damaging for Labour), and likely by internal power struggles in the party. But I can understand why people who for the past couple of years have thought that Corbyn was an ultra-Brexiteer would be finding it hard to recalibrate to his current position.
And I'm claiming that it's much more likely that they were not honest than that they didn't see a huge defeat coming.
I'm sure they did see a huge defeat coming. In what way is it dishonest to vote for something just because you know that it won't be successful?
It's not even particularly cynical to try to damage Labour either, given that its backbenches are stuffed with MPs who think their leader should never be Prime Minister.
Indeed. Clearly they want to put pressure on Labour to support a referendum, and there's nothing wrong with that. Why should Labour expect to be given a free pass to face in two directions? It's not up to the TIGgers to help Corbyn deceive his voters.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
They will whip in favour but face 50 or more rebels or abstainers unwilling to subvert democracy and it will fall. A lot of those happy yo be whipped to abstain will not be happy to be whipped in support
Yeah, this I agree with (doubt it'd be quite so many, but I wouldn't be totally shocked either). And if, in that situation, TIG wanted to send out a newsletter mocking Labour for its splits and saying that many of the MPs were betraying the members by not going along with the leadership, I'd have no particular quarrel with that. It'd be interesting to see if they actually do that, given that TIG despises the leadership, not the PLP.
The eventual TIG strategy in an election v labour is a fascinating aside to the current turmoil
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
That will depend on the outcome of the battles within Labour. At the moment they are still maintaining the ludicrous pretence that there's some other withdrawal deal, unknown to the EU, which could be offered to voters in a referendum. Absurd though that nonsense is, I rather expect they will stick with it - after all, Corbyn wants Brexit, he wants as much chaos as possible, and he wants the Conservative Party to be as split as possible. But it's true that his hand might be forced.
IMO every single sentence of that post is mistaken, each in a different way (it's an achievement!). Stereotomy is IMO a better guide to Labour politics.
There seems to be a lot of denial on PB in general about the idea that Corbyn could (reluctantly) support Remain, even though that's exactly what he did in the referendum. It seems pretty clear to me that he's just not that animated by Brexit or questions of the EU in general, and is motivated much more by electoral politics (in which either full-throated Leave or Remain support would be damaging for Labour), and likely by internal power struggles in the party. But I can understand why people who for the past couple of years have thought that Corbyn was an ultra-Brexiteer would be finding it hard to recalibrate to his current position.
So one might say he has less interest in helping resolve the nation’s current quandary than in taking advantage of the resultant mess ?
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
It still had 44% support, including 70% of Unionists, so a lot of their constituency back it.
227,084 out of 444,881, or 51% of, voters in the 10 DUP constituencies voted to leave.
There's almost no chance the AG is now going to convince Nigel Dodds legally. He is phenomenally sharp. He was a barrister practising in European law. And in case you doubt what underpins that, he studied Law at St John's College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a first-class degree, and where he won the University scholarship, McMahan studentship and Winfield Prize for Law.
No-one is going to pull legal wool over his eyes.
So changing the DUP would now have to be for other reasons. Bribery for example.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
That will depend on the outcome of the battles within Labour. At the moment they are still maintaining the ludicrous pretence that there's some other withdrawal deal, unknown to the EU, which could be offered to voters in a referendum. Absurd though that nonsense is, I rather expect they will stick with it - after all, Corbyn wants Brexit, he wants as much chaos as possible, and he wants the Conservative Party to be as split as possible. But it's true that his hand might be forced.
IMO every single sentence of that post is mistaken, each in a different way (it's an achievement!). Stereotomy is IMO a better guide to Labour politics.
There seems to be a lot of denial on PB in general about the idea that Corbyn could (reluctantly) support Remain, even though that's exactly what he did in the referendum. It seems pretty clear to me that he's just not that animated by Brexit or questions of the EU in general, and is motivated much more by electoral politics (in which either full-throated Leave or Remain support would be damaging for Labour), and likely by internal power struggles in the party. But I can understand why people who for the past couple of years have thought that Corbyn was an ultra-Brexiteer would be finding it hard to recalibrate to his current position.
For all his faults, Jezza is not someone afraid of publically stating his opinions, and doing so frankly even when potentially turning off his voters. I believe him when he says he is a reluctant Remainer. In reality his political interests lie elsewhere and he sees Brexit as a colossal distraction.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
It still had 44% support, including 70% of Unionists, so a lot of their constituency back it.
227,084 out of 444,881, or 51% of, voters in the 10 DUP constituencies voted to leave.
And how many would vote for no deal ?
Everybody who voted to leave voted for the possibility of no deal, whether they realised it or not. Rather similar to all those MPs who voted for A50.
While that’s all true in general, it really shouldn’t be too difficult on the day of a tragedy to put up a couple of hundred human moderators checking videos posted with certain hashtags. The public would also be much more willing to deal with a false-positive problem in the circumstances.
The trouble is people get wise to blocking approaches. We already see spammers deliberately posting provocative content on trending but otherwise benign hashtags.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, doing content moderation for the web giants. It's not like they don't try to stop bad content being posted, but they are up against people who are persistent and wise to the way content is blocked.
It’s a difficult problem, but not completely intractable with resources thrown at it intelligently and thoughtfully, especially on days of tragedy like this.
IMO today they should automatically block any video flagged, until a human allows it to go out - rather than the other way around. They should also fingerprint blocked videos and automatically delete them and block any account uploading them again. There’s probably only a few hundred problematic videos, mostly re-encoded from the original terrorist’s live stream.
Unless the content platforms find a way to deal with this, and quickly, they *will* be getting regulated by governments. Facebook and Google especially are making billions of dollars in profit, yet seem completely unwilling to make the effort required.
"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,"...
No. “The inciter must intend the others to engage in the behaviour constituting the offence, including any consequences which may result, and must know or believe (or possibly suspect) that those others will have the relevant mens rea“
So unless in what he said he intended these people to go and commit mass murder like they did, then no there’s no grounds for incitement.
... Independents: people I know who are switched onto politics (including two centrist Labour MPs who they might have fancied attracting) are pretty annoyed about their cynical pushing of the referendum against the wishes of the referendum campaigners - really obvious that they're more about damaging Labour than stopping Brexit. I think this will have passed most people by, but they then have the other problem that most people are starting to forget they exist. ..
What was cynical about it? They believe there should be a referendum, so they voted for it. Pretty much the diametric opposite of cynical, in contrast to those who pretend they might support a referendum in order not to fool their own voters and party members.
Why do you think People's Vote and Best for Britain didn't want the amendment? Why do you think TIG ignored them?
The cynically-named 'People's Vote' campaign don't think it's the right time. The TIGgers do. It's called a difference of opinion.
One of the best* parts of Brexit is the alternate way one day it is parliament that is sovereign, and the next "the people" should be ultimate arbiters. Both leave and remain playing this particular hokey kokey.
Parliament are supposed to be the representatives of the people and exercise power on their behalf. It should be one and the same. Except of course the Remainers want to give away that power to another body.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
The EU are demanding people vote again until they get the right answer? I'm shocked.
Perhaps they wonder what electorate 2016 has over electorate 2019 such that its views on brexit should prevail for all time, despite the latter having a much clearer idea of what brexit looks like.
We should not have had a referendum without a clear framework as to how referendums are meant to work. With the HoC we have clear rules for a vote every 5 years and with provision to accelerate the cycle by vonc when things get to clusterfuckcon 1. Brexit is now at clusterfuckcon 1. As we don't have any other rules to guide us I would suggest that there is a lot to be said for applying ftpa rules by analogy and permitting ourselves to vonc electorate 2016 and have a rethink.
"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,"...
As someone who thinks we are served best by Democracy I find those troubling words.
If he thinks he has the support of the military he is in for a surprise.
I suspect he largely does have the support of the troops.
Hard to say as US miltary is stridently apolitical (below OF-7 anyway) and political discussions are very much haram among officers. I served with USN for just shy of four years and I can't recall a political discussion of any substance in that period. You might assume they would be reflexively Trumpite but you have to bear in mind thst, on the whole, US officers tend to be far more educated and academically accomplished than their NATO counterparts.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
The EU are demanding people vote again until they get the right answer? I'm shocked.
Perhaps they wonder what electorate 2016 has over electorate 2019 such that its views on brexit should prevail for all time, despite the latter having a much clearer idea of what brexit looks like.
We should not have had a referendum without a clear framework as to how referendums are meant to work. With the HoC we have clear rules for a vote every 5 years and with provision to accelerate the cycle by vonc when things get to clusterfuckcon 1. Brexit is now at clusterfuckcon 1. As we don't have any other rules to guide us I would suggest that there is a lot to be said for applying ftpa rules by analogy and permitting ourselves to vonc electorate 2016 and have a rethink.
Anti-democrats tying themselves in knots again to try and justify their disgusting views.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
It still had 44% support, including 70% of Unionists, so a lot of their constituency back it.
227,084 out of 444,881, or 51% of, voters in the 10 DUP constituencies voted to leave.
And how many would vote for no deal ?
Everybody who voted to leave voted for the possibility of no deal, whether they realised it or not. Rather similar to all those MPs who voted for A50.
Do you think anyone who voted leave had any real idea what they were voting for? I don't.
There seems to be a lot of denial on PB in general about the idea that Corbyn could (reluctantly) support Remain, even though that's exactly what he did in the referendum. It seems pretty clear to me that he's just not that animated by Brexit or questions of the EU in general, and is motivated much more by electoral politics (in which either full-throated Leave or Remain support would be damaging for Labour), and likely by internal power struggles in the party. But I can understand why people who for the past couple of years have thought that Corbyn was an ultra-Brexiteer would be finding it hard to recalibrate to his current position.
So one might say he has less interest in helping resolve the nation’s current quandary than in taking advantage of the resultant mess ?
He's offered to help on umpteen occasions if TM accepts that "no customs union" should no longer be a red line, and the EU have made it clear that they'd reopen discussions if she did. He's under no obligation to accept TM's deal just because she says so.
But it's just a fact about JC that he says what he thinks (or, if persuaded, possibly refrains from further comment, as with Trident), and what he thinks is that Brexit needs to be resolved with membership or referendum or soft Brexit but other issues are more important. It would be better for Labour in the current climate if he pretended that it was his consuming passion and gave interviews on it every day, but that's not how he works.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
The EU are demanding people vote again until they get the right answer? I'm shocked.
Perhaps they wonder what electorate 2016 has over electorate 2019 such that its views on brexit should prevail for all time, despite the latter having a much clearer idea of what brexit looks like.
We should not have had a referendum without a clear framework as to how referendums are meant to work. With the HoC we have clear rules for a vote every 5 years and with provision to accelerate the cycle by vonc when things get to clusterfuckcon 1. Brexit is now at clusterfuckcon 1. As we don't have any other rules to guide us I would suggest that there is a lot to be said for applying ftpa rules by analogy and permitting ourselves to vonc electorate 2016 and have a rethink.
The 2019 and 2016 argument won't do. It never ends. What has a 2019 electorate got that is superior to the 2022 one and so on. The only people making this argument who those who don't like the result. It is special pleading.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
That will depend on the outcome of the battles within Labour. At the moment they are still maintaining the ludicrous pretence that there's some other withdrawal deal, unknown to the EU, which could be offered to voters in a referendum. Absurd though that nonsense is, I rather expect they will stick with it - after all, Corbyn wants Brexit, he wants as much chaos as possible, and he wants the Conservative Party to be as split as possible. But it's true that his hand might be forced.
IMO every single sentence of that post is mistaken, each in a different way (it's an achievement!). Stereotomy is IMO a better guide to Labour politics.
There seems to be a lot of denial on PB in general about the idea that Corbyn could (reluctantly) support Remain, even though that's exactly what he did in the referendum. It seems pretty clear to me that he's just not that animated by Brexit or questions of the EU in general, and is motivated much more by electoral politics (in which either full-throated Leave or Remain support would be damaging for Labour), and likely by internal power struggles in the party. But I can understand why people who for the past couple of years have thought that Corbyn was an ultra-Brexiteer would be finding it hard to recalibrate to his current position.
Those are good points. I had a chance to do a blind tasting of Brexit options with some non-aligned people last night. All 7 preferred Labour's version of Brexit to the May one - I didn't say which party came up with them. I think all 7 would be either Conservatives or non-voters, and all were over 50.
It just struck me how trivially easy it would be to get Brexit through if the Tories had been prepared to switch to supporting the customs union and offering up some non-binding waffle about workers' rights. We could even have got out on time if they had done that before Christmas.
I know she is popular with the public right now but I think history is going to be pretty hard on May.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
It still had 44% support, including 70% of Unionists, so a lot of their constituency back it.
227,084 out of 444,881, or 51% of, voters in the 10 DUP constituencies voted to leave.
And how many would vote for no deal ?
Everybody who voted to leave voted for the possibility of no deal, whether they realised it or not. Rather similar to all those MPs who voted for A50.
Do you think anyone who voted leave had any real idea what they were voting for? I don't.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
The EU are demanding people vote again until they get the right answer? I'm shocked.
Perhaps they wonder what electorate 2016 has over electorate 2019 such that its views on brexit should prevail for all time, despite the latter having a much clearer idea of what brexit looks like.
We should not have had a referendum without a clear framework as to how referendums are meant to work. With the HoC we have clear rules for a vote every 5 years and with provision to accelerate the cycle by vonc when things get to clusterfuckcon 1. Brexit is now at clusterfuckcon 1. As we don't have any other rules to guide us I would suggest that there is a lot to be said for applying ftpa rules by analogy and permitting ourselves to vonc electorate 2016 and have a rethink.
No, but their views should probably last as long as the views of the 1975 electorate.
"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,"...
No. “The inciter must intend the others to engage in the behaviour constituting the offence, including any consequences which may result, and must know or believe (or possibly suspect) that those others will have the relevant mens rea“
So unless in what he said he intended these people to go and commit mass murder like they did, then no there’s no grounds for incitement.
I thought it fairly clear that the question wasn’t about prima facie grounds for criminal charge.
But I do have serious concerns about Trump’s intentions.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
That will depend on the outcome of the battles within Labour. At the moment they are still maintaining the ludicrous pretence that there's some other withdrawal deal, unknown to the EU, which could be offered to voters in a referendum. Absurd though that nonsense is, I rather expect they will stick with it - after all, Corbyn wants Brexit, he wants as much chaos as possible, and he wants the Conservative Party to be as split as possible. But it's true that his hand might be forced.
IMO every single sentence of that post is mistaken, each in a different way (it's an achievement!). Stereotomy is IMO a better guide to Labour politics.
There seems to be a lot of denial on PB in general about the idea that Corbyn could (reluctantly) support Remain, even though that's exactly what he did in the referendum. It seems pretty clear to me that he's just not that animated by Brexit or questions of the EU in general, and is motivated much more by electoral politics (in which either full-throated Leave or Remain support would be damaging for Labour), and likely by internal power struggles in the party. But I can understand why people who for the past couple of years have thought that Corbyn was an ultra-Brexiteer would be finding it hard to recalibrate to his current position.
Those are good points. I had a chance to do a blind tasting of Brexit options with some non-aligned people last night. All 7 preferred Labour's version of Brexit to the May one - I didn't say which party came up with them. I think all 7 would be either Conservatives or non-voters, and all were over 50.
It just struck me how trivially easy it would be to get Brexit through if the Tories had been prepared to switch to supporting the customs union and offering up some non-binding waffle about workers' rights. We could even have got out on time if they had done that before Christmas.
I know she is popular with the public right now but I think history is going to be pretty hard on May.
Isn't the difference between the two policies that the EU have agreed to May's one?
"He was cleared though of conspiracy to burgle the high-end Chatila jewellery store in Bond Street over the late August bank holiday weekend in 2010 with members of the same gang."
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
It still had 44% support, including 70% of Unionists, so a lot of their constituency back it.
227,084 out of 444,881, or 51% of, voters in the 10 DUP constituencies voted to leave.
And how many would vote for no deal ?
Everybody who voted to leave voted for the possibility of no deal, whether they realised it or not. Rather similar to all those MPs who voted for A50.
Do you think anyone who voted leave had any real idea what they were voting for? I don't.
I did.
But did you? You knew that you would be effectively voting for Theresa May's deal?
That's the point, there was zilch about what leave actually meant. No definition of it. No clarification. No timetable. No tabling of options. It was presented as a ludicrously simplistic binary choice.
Absolute shame on David Cameron. Most of the fault is right there.
Sounds like DUP discussions are serious and £££ is involved.
I'm surprised by that - I've never seen the back-stop as country-dividing as they do. But if they do, and it's their raison d'etre - then I'm surprised some extra cash for their areas will overcome that.
Could be a mighty backlack from their supporters who aren't exactly primed for a climbdown on cost grounds.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Yes. Very few people have commented on this important point. Brexit wasn't a Northern Ireland preference and it's not the DUP's.
It still had 44% support, including 70% of Unionists, so a lot of their constituency back it.
227,084 out of 444,881, or 51% of, voters in the 10 DUP constituencies voted to leave.
And how many would vote for no deal ?
Everybody who voted to leave voted for the possibility of no deal, whether they realised it or not. Rather similar to all those MPs who voted for A50.
That is casuistry. To be clear, I was wanting to know how many would vote for no deal, now that they are actually faced with that prospect.
And I'm claiming that it's much more likely that they were not honest than that they didn't see a huge defeat coming.
I'm sure they did see a huge defeat coming. In what way is it dishonest to vote for something just because you know that it won't be successful?
It's not even particularly cynical to try to damage Labour either, given that its backbenches are stuffed with MPs who think their leader should never be Prime Minister.
Indeed. Clearly they want to put pressure on Labour to support a referendum, and there's nothing wrong with that. Why should Labour expect to be given a free pass to face in two directions? It's not up to the TIGgers to help Corbyn deceive his voters.
If, as I suspect, there's an amendment or indicative calling for a 2nd referendum next week which PV supports, my prediction is that Labour will whip in favour. What's yours?
They will whip in favour but face 50 or more rebels or abstainers unwilling to subvert democracy and it will fall. A lot of those happy yo be whipped to abstain will not be happy to be whipped in support
There are many reasons why holding a second vote is not a particularly good idea but the notion that asking people to vote is a subversion of democracy is positively orwellian.
I'd be very interested to know how the DUP could be persuaded to switch sides. Blocking the backstop must surely be more important to the DUP than getting Brexit.
Not really if you think about what the backstop is designed to do and not do. Well yes of course it's a divergence but if you get over the "trapped in it forever" idea then it is pretty unremarkable and even quite pragmatic.
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
I am saddened by this, as it's too much of an overreach by the EU. They are in a good position to make demands, so throwing it all away by demanding a second referendum is stupid: it won't win and arguably it shouldn't be held, at least not without an improvement on Cameron's deal. Everybody, Leavers and Remainers alike, are twisting on 18 and it's annoying the (redacted) out of me.
The EU are demanding people vote again until they get the right answer? I'm shocked.
Perhaps they wonder what electorate 2016 has over electorate 2019 such that its views on brexit should prevail for all time, despite the latter having a much clearer idea of what brexit looks like.
We should not have had a referendum without a clear framework as to how referendums are meant to work. With the HoC we have clear rules for a vote every 5 years and with provision to accelerate the cycle by vonc when things get to clusterfuckcon 1. Brexit is now at clusterfuckcon 1. As we don't have any other rules to guide us I would suggest that there is a lot to be said for applying ftpa rules by analogy and permitting ourselves to vonc electorate 2016 and have a rethink.
Anti-democrats tying themselves in knots again to try and justify their disgusting views.
Yes, you can always tell the anti- democrats by their enthusiasm for giving the electorate the opportunity to vote on something crucially affecting its entire future. And the democrats by their distaste for same.
I am not actually wedded to the idea of a second referendum, just pointing out the justification for one. Perhaps you would like to dial down the boorishness a notch or two and let us know whether there are or should be any rules analogous to ftpa governing the duration of a referendum result?
Comments
Govt: "How about idea #89453425?"
DUP: No
Govt: "How about idea #89453426?"
DUP: No
Govt: "How about idea #89453427?"
DUP: No
Govt: "How about idea #89453428?"
DUP: No
.....
As one of our more senior contributors, he demonstrates most lucidly the wisdom that comes with age.
Strange to think that a rather small party generally regarded as being a little bit regressive and only really interested in a very small part of the country would have been so pivotal in the direction of the entire, twice!
If automatically detecting and deleting/blocking bad content was easy there would be little to no piracy of content on the internet.
As a rule of thumb anyone saying this is an easy to solve problem is likely to be selling snake oil.
This all goes back to the refusal of May to open up discussions right at the start to the Opposition. Ted Heath led us into the EU by involving the moderates opposite. That could only have been the route here. But instead she drew red lines in the sand, alienated every one on the opposition benches and most of her own and, hey presto, the deal is a dead duck.
If there are just 10 Tories holding out she will get home with a couple to 4 of the labour brexiteers and a couple of the indy independents who support Brexit
Without the DUP their options narrow and if it ends up that they continue to hold out then I expect May will place the blame on them when she asks for a long extension.
Surely by this point she must feel like she’s on her way out and surely she must feel like exacting some revenge .
Support for Brexit here is ebbing away.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, doing content moderation for the web giants. It's not like they don't try to stop bad content being posted, but they are up against people who are persistent and wise to the way content is blocked.
It’s possible that a referendum might be just one of several alternate conditions. We’ll see, I guess.
Slab -> SNP swing of 1% or over = Slab reduced to Ian Murray's Edinburgh Sth seat.
SNP to SCon - any widening of the gap delivers Stirling, but a difference of 14% is needed to start making inroads into seats like Gordon, Angus etc.
Even a 20% difference could leave the Conservatives with 4 or 5 seats, so a repeat of 2015 is virtually impossible.
No-one is going to pull legal wool over his eyes.
So changing the DUP would now have to be for other reasons. Bribery for example.
They don’t want no deal so the DUP can’t be seen to facilitate that . The unhinged lunatic Sammy Wilson doesn’t speak for all the DUP.
IMO today they should automatically block any video flagged, until a human allows it to go out - rather than the other way around. They should also fingerprint blocked videos and automatically delete them and block any account uploading them again. There’s probably only a few hundred problematic videos, mostly re-encoded from the original terrorist’s live stream.
Unless the content platforms find a way to deal with this, and quickly, they *will* be getting regulated by governments. Facebook and Google especially are making billions of dollars in profit, yet seem completely unwilling to make the effort required.
“The inciter must intend the others to engage in the behaviour constituting the offence, including any consequences which may result, and must know or believe (or possibly suspect) that those others will have the relevant mens rea“
So unless in what he said he intended these people to go and commit mass murder like they did, then no there’s no grounds for incitement.
We should not have had a referendum without a clear framework as to how referendums are meant to work. With the HoC we have clear rules for a vote every 5 years and with provision to accelerate the cycle by vonc when things get to clusterfuckcon 1. Brexit is now at clusterfuckcon 1. As we don't have any other rules to guide us I would suggest that there is a lot to be said for applying ftpa rules by analogy and permitting ourselves to vonc electorate 2016 and have a rethink.
But it's just a fact about JC that he says what he thinks (or, if persuaded, possibly refrains from further comment, as with Trident), and what he thinks is that Brexit needs to be resolved with membership or referendum or soft Brexit but other issues are more important. It would be better for Labour in the current climate if he pretended that it was his consuming passion and gave interviews on it every day, but that's not how he works.
It just struck me how trivially easy it would be to get Brexit through if the Tories had been prepared to switch to supporting the customs union and offering up some non-binding waffle about workers' rights. We could even have got out on time if they had done that before Christmas.
I know she is popular with the public right now but I think history is going to be pretty hard on May.
But I do have serious concerns about Trump’s intentions.
Final Hatton Garden raider 'Basil' guilty of conspiracy to burgle
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-47584477
Interesting tit-bit,
"He was cleared though of conspiracy to burgle the high-end Chatila jewellery store in Bond Street over the late August bank holiday weekend in 2010 with members of the same gang."
That's the point, there was zilch about what leave actually meant. No definition of it. No clarification. No timetable. No tabling of options. It was presented as a ludicrously simplistic binary choice.
Absolute shame on David Cameron. Most of the fault is right there.
I'm surprised by that - I've never seen the back-stop as country-dividing as they do. But if they do, and it's their raison d'etre - then I'm surprised some extra cash for their areas will overcome that.
Could be a mighty backlack from their supporters who aren't exactly primed for a climbdown on cost grounds.
To be clear, I was wanting to know how many would vote for no deal, now that they are actually faced with that prospect.
I am not actually wedded to the idea of a second referendum, just pointing out the justification for one. Perhaps you would like to dial down the boorishness a notch or two and let us know whether there are or should be any rules analogous to ftpa governing the duration of a referendum result?