We are not going to get "no deal". Whoever is Tory leader will get another 2 years (at least) of status quo. He will be able to say we are out of the EU - the nutters will moan but most will say thats all OK the sky hasn't fallen in after all.
Of course in the longer term will be a mess -we will be rule takers with no influence but that will be the result of a badly thought out referendum.
Ultimately correct in my view, but there could be a lot of mess in the meantime. Also I don't think people realise what rule taking means. We will be denied an opinion on what happens to us. Despite the rhetoric that's not the situation now.
People certainly realise what rule taking means as its how they have to live their lives.
And it is what the UK has had to do while it has been in the EU.
There is however a big difference between being bound by collective decision-making (EU membership) and not turning up to to the meetings where those decisions are made, but nevertheless bound by them (soft and only realistic Brexit)
People will find out the difference.
The UK has a vote in the EU in the same way as a Conservative supporter has a vote in Liverpool.
No it doesn't. The is the second biggest economy in the EU. Its language is the lingua franca of the community. It has a lot of cards to play. It is extremely foolish to give up the influence we have.
So what did the UK get in return for giving away half the Rebate ?
Anecdote alert: I’m just off the phone to my mum, lifelong Conservative and firm (though not obsessed) Leaver. Unprompted, she asked about my betting position on the Conservative leadership race (my niece blabbed and my mum now takes a personal interest).
“Do you think that Boris Johnson will get it?”
I said I thought it was looking very likely.
“Heaven help us all.”
Like all good Mums she probably didn't want to upset you!
I could equally quote my mother - former NHS nurse, pretty much voted Labour her entire life (including in the EU elections), voted leave and the only Tory she has ever voted (as Mayor) is Boris Johnson and he is the only candidate who would make her think about voting Tory.
Boris like Corbyn is marmite - so it makes for interesting times. But for every Mum who doesn't like Boris there is another who does!
My mother will be voting for Boris, though usually she disapproves of serial adulterers.
Haven't yet looked at the comments but thanks @david_herdson for a good article.
What baffles me is why on earth Mr B Johnson wishes to become PM. Ambition, delusions of grandeur maybe, but he must know he isn't likely to be much good at it. He might make a decent stab at it with a superbly competent team around him, but where are they going to come from? How long will it be before he gets fed up & what will he do then? Resign? Just go AWOL?
Good afternoon, everyone.
i really don't get the total hostility to Boris, he is 1000% improvement on TMay. For me poetic justice would be Bojo and Gove in final two and to see Gove humiliated like he humiliated Johnson in 2016. Revenge is a dish.......
It's not hostility I feel towards any of them, it's apathy towards all of them. Mrs May was unknown to me before she became leader/PM and I wished her well. Mr B Johnson has a long & strong track record for being good at the entertaining and not-so-competent at the day job.
I am going to the East Midlands Swinson / Davey hustings this evening. What question should I ask?
I have just got back from the hustings in Leeds. There were questions about Brexit, coalitions, student finance, climate change, and legacy to the young. But the chair left one question to last - but did not ask the candidates to answer it. It was 'all Liberal Democrat leaders seem to have a fatal flaw. What is yours?'
Corbyn is of course completely right, and looks statesmanlike. If even our Government is not 100% certain Iran attacked these tankers, why are we banging the war drum once again? When did it become the thing to act, or threaten to act, without evidence? Hunt's tweet in response is weaselly - it's basically an admission that we should be 'backing' America (Lord knows why) without looking too hard at the evidence. And how British interests in the region are served by invading Iran remains a mystery best known to Jeremy Hunt.
Jezza’s problem is that he previously chose Putin’s theory on Salisbury over the Uk security services.
And previously Gerry Adams, the PLO etc etc . He probably hopes it wasn’t an American false flag - deep down he’s really hoping it was Mossad.
Perhaps he has watched the war drums being beaten far too often and the disastrous unexpected results after. Recently, we had Fallon trying too hard to militarise against the Russians for sailing their clunker of an aircraft carrier, and accompanied tug boat, through the English Channel, and against Spain for once again daring to question Gibraltar's status.
Then Cameron's decision to attack Libya for "Freedom" (actually illegal regime change but let's just forget that) followed by the failed attempt to get UK boots onto Syrian soil to help the USA, even though our special forces and RAF were active (again regime change) and didn't these turn out well, not.
Blair did successfully involve the UK in the Balkans, Sierra Leone amongst others in peace activity, then came Iraq (regime change) using very spurious, vague and ultimately proven incorrect assumptions. And not forgetting the mess of Afghanistan. You would have thought someone would have read the histories of the UK's previous failed attempts to conquer that country, and of the Soviet Russian failure before getting involved.
Even Thatcher and Major were involved in Iraq 1, and if the job had been completed then Iraq 2 would not have been needed.
And so on, and on, and on. And every time, the law of unexpected consequences comes into play. Mass deaths, as the rules of law and legal recourse breakdown while civil disorder reign. Mass migration as people try to escape the carnage and try and find a peaceful life to live. Problems in the countries that the refugees are attempting to be absorbed into.
Just maybe, in Corbyn we have someone who thinks that there must be a better way. We've had the other way far too often, our young people have been sent to fight, to die, to be wounded in body and mind. While the people who they were sent to kill/save decided they weren't going to play by the rules we were trying to impose. And a few people have become very rich selling weapons.
Comments
Apathy.
Saying you’ll leave with deal or no deal is likely to make things worse . Enforcing no deal on the country without a mandate is unacceptable.
Leavers seem very happy to hark back to Cameron’s comments in the EU but amazingly ignore what their own side said .
They said there would not be a rupture with the EU , that a deal will be done and the UK would leave in an orderly way .
The no deal Leavers continue to show themselves as total hypocrites .
Then Cameron's decision to attack Libya for "Freedom" (actually illegal regime change but let's just forget that) followed by the failed attempt to get UK boots onto Syrian soil to help the USA, even though our special forces and RAF were active (again regime change) and didn't these turn out well, not.
Blair did successfully involve the UK in the Balkans, Sierra Leone amongst others in peace activity, then came Iraq (regime change) using very spurious, vague and ultimately proven incorrect assumptions. And not forgetting the mess of Afghanistan. You would have thought someone would have read the histories of the UK's previous failed attempts to conquer that country, and of the Soviet Russian failure before getting involved.
Even Thatcher and Major were involved in Iraq 1, and if the job had been completed then Iraq 2 would not have been needed.
And so on, and on, and on. And every time, the law of unexpected consequences comes into play. Mass deaths, as the rules of law and legal recourse breakdown while civil disorder reign. Mass migration as people try to escape the carnage and try and find a peaceful life to live. Problems in the countries that the refugees are attempting to be absorbed into.
Just maybe, in Corbyn we have someone who thinks that there must be a better way. We've had the other way far too often, our young people have been sent to fight, to die, to be wounded in body and mind. While the people who they were sent to kill/save decided they weren't going to play by the rules we were trying to impose. And a few people have become very rich selling weapons.