Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
There are not the votes for it in Parliament after the Tories lost their majority, Brexit will now effectively be dictated by the DUP and a few moderate Tory MPs who want a softer Brexit than she was planning for before
WTO diamond hard Brexit looks increasingly likely to me. There is no plan for Brexit, the team are fighting amongst themselves and the ticking is getting louder. No party would risk the electoral consequences of withdrawing without a second referendum.
The LDs may even get what they asked for.
Both Labour and the Tories are committed to Brexit without a second referendum, what level of access we get to the single market depends on the concessions given on free movement and payments to the EU and the DUP and Europhile Tories will ensure more concessions will be given than would have been the case with a clear Tory majority
I meant no party would risk withdrawing A50 withhout a second referendum.
Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
There are not the votes for it in Parliament after the Tories lost their majority, Brexit will now effectively be dictated by the DUP and a few moderate Tory MPs who want a softer Brexit than she was planning for before
WTO diamond hard Brexit looks increasingly likely to me. There is no plan for Brexit, the team are fighting amongst themselves and the ticking is getting louder.
It would be ironic if the shambles at DExEU caused Brexit to halt simply because you cannot have a negotiation if only one party turns up.
I do think, however, that WTO Brexit is where the UK is headed simply because we will run out of time.
Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
There are not the votes for it in Parliament after the Tories lost their majority, Brexit will now effectively be dictated by the DUP and a few moderate Tory MPs who want a softer Brexit than she was planning for before
WTO diamond hard Brexit looks increasingly likely to me. There is no plan for Brexit, the team are fighting amongst themselves and the ticking is getting louder. No party would risk the electoral consequences of withdrawing without a second referendum.
The LDs may even get what they asked for.
Yes, a second referendum is coming. By the time the deal is done - whether soft, as looks increasingly likely, or not - and even if a deal isn't done - there will be enough of an outcry from people who weren't expecting what is on offer which, coupled with the majority view in the new Commons that the whole thing is madness to begin with, will make a vote on it both attractive and unavoidable.
The odds for an EUref2 have come in considerably already.
Except how will the legislation for it get proposed?
There might be a majority of MPs in favour of it but as long as the Tory leadership is against, it can't happen.
As an amendment to whatever is tabled regarding the deal, when it goes to parliament.
As I understood it the whole point of the court case and the subsequent votes in Parliament was that the deal no longer needs the approval of Parliament. They had the vote. I am not saying I agree with this but I don't see where Parliament can actually amend anything prior to us being out.
The PM will only stay in office though with DUP support and the DUP do not want ultra hard Brexit
For me our national debt is the overriding issue. We cannot reduce taxes or increase spending with that hanging over us. God forbid we are in a war of national survival and have to borrow to pay for our defence as we have had to do in the past.
We have to reduce the debt as an imperative. We can therefore grow our way out (a business friendly economy outside the EU constraints, increasing our national wealth) or inflate our way out (just of our local debt, but at a heck of a cost for the elderly and the unemployed).
I think it was Niall Ferguson who made an observation on societies that rose and fell: history shows that societies with more merchants and soldiers rise while those with more priests and kings fall - I've been looking for the source for years and can't find it. Basically, societies that consume wealth faster than they create it are doomed. In the EU we were on that path. Out we may have a chance.
It would be ironic if the shambles at DExEU caused Brexit to halt simply because you cannot have a negotiation if only one party turns up.
I do think, however, that WTO Brexit is where the UK is headed simply because we will run out of time.
If we don't have the skills and resources to negotiate Brexit, where are we going to get the skills and resources to negotiate the required WTO schedules?
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
What's happened to SeanT? We could do with his calming presence. I wonder if he's shifted his allegiance to Remain and/or Corbynism, but is still working out how to tell us gently.
I see the Guardian and Observer are going tabloid, explicitly to save money - increasingly the print arm is being kept afloat by the very successful online arm. I wonder how many national print papers will exist in 20 years.
On topic, I'm wary of the tendency of the media to exagerrate (because it makes for more startling stories). The delays to forming a government and starting Brexit talks are not good signs, but they'll be barely noticed by most voters. As with a restaurant where service is slow, people will judge in the end by the quality of the food when it finally turns up. May is clearly not doing well, but she's not the total disaster that some think. In the same way, sooner or later Corbyn will do something controversial (or not do it, e.g. not reshuffling his Shadow Cabinet significantly) and we'll be told that he's squandered all the goodwill; again, the public will barely notice.
The Government has two major risks: a botched negotiation and a significant economic downturn, Everything else is froth.
A minority government always has an additional risk of being defeated by a minor backbench rebellion on something it didn't see coming.
One good thing. It won't be so easy to whip people into some ill-conceived Foreign adventure in the Middle East.
Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
There are not the votes for it in Parliament after the Tories lost their majority, Brexit will now effectively be dictated by the DUP and a few moderate Tory MPs who want a softer Brexit than she was planning for before
WTO diamond hard Brexit looks increasingly likely to me. There is no plan for Brexit, the team are fighting amongst themselves and the ticking is getting louder. No party would risk the electoral consequences of withdrawing without a second referendum.
The LDs may even get what they asked for.
Yes, a second referendum is coming. By the time the deal is done - whether soft, as looks increasingly likely, or not - and even if a deal isn't done - there will be enough of an outcry from people who weren't expecting what is on offer which, coupled with the majority view in the new Commons that the whole thing is madness to begin with, will make a vote on it both attractive and unavoidable.
The odds for an EUref2 have come in considerably already.
Except how will the legislation for it get proposed?
There might be a majority of MPs in favour of it but as long as the Tory leadership is against, it can't happen.
As an amendment to whatever is tabled regarding the deal, when it goes to parliament.
As I understood it the whole point of the court case and the subsequent votes in Parliament was that the deal no longer needs the approval of Parliament. They had the vote. I am not saying I agree with this but I don't see where Parliament can actually amend anything prior to us being out.
The PM will only stay in office though with DUP support and the DUP do not want ultra hard Brexit
I see that bit. Obviously if May is explicitly brought down that is a different matter. But people keep talking about votes in Parliament as a matter of course during or after the negotiations. THis argument is being made as a means of both the Hard Brexiteers and the Remainers getting to vote on the form of Brexit. As I understood it that vote has already been and gone and no more are planned on the actual mechanics of leaving (as opposed to the post Brexit internal legal arrangements in the UK) until we have actually left the EU.
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
What's happened to SeanT? We could do with his calming presence. I wonder if he's shifted his allegiance to Remain and/or Corbynism, but is still working out how to tell us gently.
He's gone from ultra hard Brexit gives him the horn/bomb France and Germany and kick EU citizens into the channel to very soft Brexit.
He got depressed when I told him it soft Brexit wasn't an option.
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
What's happened to SeanT? We could do with his calming presence. I wonder if he's shifted his allegiance to Remain and/or Corbynism, but is still working out how to tell us gently.
I expect he is quite preoccupied with a Corbynite at the moment but not in the political sense!
Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
How? We didn't get endorsed by the public for hard Brexit. We need to reach out to Labour and other parties to get a cross party mandate together, the public have told the party to compromise, if we push ahead anyway it will be a huge problem for us in the future.
Because we won't be getting a good deal (or any deal), we're falling out on WTO terms.
No way can May get hard Brexit through the Commons now. Maastricht all over again. Labour landslide.
It's not up to the UK though.
She has to deal with 27 other nations to get the trade deal through.
No she doesn't. QMV. I am not saying it will be easy but you really do need to stop making these mistakes considering your claims to be some sort of expert.
The Article 50 negotiations are by QMV, but they don't settle the trade deal. That comes after Brexit.
I don't really know why the Osborne crowd are effectively ruling themselves out of coming back. This is not a time when disloyalty will be rewarded.
Oh and I caught a mention of how the boundaries affect Belfast on the previous thread. I think Sean mentioned Alliance taking SE. I thought they would for certain before this election campaign. Indeed, they were moving forward as recently as the Assembly election in March. But Naomi had a very poor election. She made the mistake of getting too anti-Unionist which was understandable to an extent but she's clearly forgotten the vast majority of her voters are from a PUL background and has a lot of ground to make up now.
Suzanne Evans was diagnosed w breast cancer shortly before the election was called but still managed to campaign, as did the diabetic PM
Forgive me if I am wrong (seriously) but I am not sure you understand just how serious it is to be out of control with diabetes. I lost two good friends with Type 1 because they were unable to bring their regime under control over time. Too often it is considered a bit of a joke but it really is a killer.
Oh I also meant to add a story. This is a hypothetical story in the Sir Humphrey sense.
Consider someone I know well who may have been a senior civil servant of the last generation to negotiate international deals outwith the EU. After the Brexit vote, he and others who are not yet Gaga wrote to the Cabinet Office offering their services to help train their modern colleagues in some of the *ahem* darker arts. After a period of time, their offer was refused on the basis that the services of the major consultancies were to be used to train the current senior civil servants in the art of negotiation. That fits very well with Domenic Cumming's latest thoughts on the general (poor) state of our Civil Service machine.
The politicians are getting all the Brexit negotiation attention, but watch out or the civil service. Their ability to fail to deliver is the real worry now.
A couple of months back there was a fascinating discussion of EU accession talks in the Seventies with one of our original Civil Service negotiators on 5Live.
He was pretty scathing over the preparations (or lack thereof) this time.
Energy cap gone, next the dementia tax and hopefully after than the racial pay charter. Hammer down on buy-to-let and commission a metric fuckton of starter homes for first time buyers and we'll be in a much better position come 2022
Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
There are not the votes for it in Parliament after the Tories lost their majority, Brexit will now effectively be dictated by the DUP and a few moderate Tory MPs who want a softer Brexit than she was planning for before
WTO diamond hard Brexit looks increasingly likely to me. There is no plan for Brexit, the team are fighting amongst themselves and the ticking is getting louder. No party would risk the electoral consequences of withdrawing without a second referendum.
The LDs may even get what they asked for.
Yes, a second referendum is coming. By the time the deal is done - whether soft, as looks increasingly likely, or not - and even if a deal isn't done - there will be enough of an outcry from people who weren't expecting what is on offer which, coupled with the majority view in the new Commons that the whole thing is madness to begin with, will make a vote on it both attractive and unavoidable.
The odds for an EUref2 have come in considerably already.
Except how will the legislation for it get proposed?
There might be a majority of MPs in favour of it but as long as the Tory leadership is against, it can't happen.
As an amendment to whatever is tabled regarding the deal, when it goes to parliament.
As I
The PM will only stay in office though with DUP support and the DUP do not want ultra hard Brexit
I see that bit. Obviously if May is explicitly brought down that is a different matter. But people keep talking about votes in Parliament as a matter of course during or after the negotiations. THis argument is being made as a means of both the Hard Brexiteers and the Remainers getting to vote on the form of Brexit. As I understood it that vote has already been and gone and no more are planned on the actual mechanics of leaving (as opposed to the post Brexit internal legal arrangements in the UK) until we have actually left the EU.
Parliament will have an idea of which direction the talks are going, with the Tories having no majority if Parliament dislikes the way they are heading it can force a change
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
What's happened to SeanT? We could do with his calming presence. I wonder if he's shifted his allegiance to Remain and/or Corbynism, but is still working out how to tell us gently.
He's gone from ultra hard Brexit gives him the horn/bomb France and Germany and kick EU citizens into the channel to very soft Brexit.
He got depressed when I told him it soft Brexit wasn't an option.
BTW Mr Eagles - you posted earlier that we had wasted 77 days out of 730. Please recall that the Europeans wanted Brexit sorted out six months before Brexit Day to give them time for admin stuff and passing laws and such.
Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
How? We didn't get endorsed by the public for hard Brexit. We need to reach out to Labour and other parties to get a cross party mandate together, the public have told the party to compromise, if we push ahead anyway it will be a huge problem for us in the future.
Because we won't be getting a good deal (or any deal), we're falling out on WTO terms.
No way can May get hard Brexit through the Commons now. Maastricht all over again. Labour landslide.
It's not up to the UK though.
She has to deal with 27 other nations to get the trade deal through.
No she doesn't. QMV. I am not saying it will be easy but you really do need to stop making these mistakes considering your claims to be some sort of expert.
The Article 50 negotiations are by QMV, but they don't settle the trade deal. That comes after Brexit.
Isn't trade done by QMV now as well after the ECJ ruling?
May is actually the only foreign leader who has a net positive approval rating in the US from both Clinton and Trump voters, Clinton voters give Merkel, Trudeau, Macron and May net positive approval ratings, Trump voters only give May a net positive approval rating, the others all negative ratings
Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
How? We didn't get endorsed by the public for hard Brexit. We need to reach out to Labour and other parties to get a cross party mandate together, the public have told the party to compromise, if we push ahead anyway it will be a huge problem for us in the future.
Because we won't be getting a good deal (or any deal), we're falling out on WTO terms.
No way can May get hard Brexit through the Commons now. Maastricht all over again. Labour landslide.
It's not up to the UK though.
She has to deal with 27 other nations to get the trade deal through.
No she doesn't. QMV. I am not saying it will be easy but you really do need to stop making these mistakes considering your claims to be some sort of expert.
The Article 50 negotiations are by QMV, but they don't settle the trade deal. That comes after Brexit.
It does indeed and so long as they remain purely on the basis of trade, under the Lisbon Treaty such agreements are decided by QMV not unanimity.
Yes, a second referendum is coming. By the time the deal is done - whether soft, as looks increasingly likely, or not - and even if a deal isn't done - there will be enough of an outcry from people who weren't expecting what is on offer which, coupled with the majority view in the new Commons that the whole thing is madness to begin with, will make a vote on it both attractive and unavoidable.
The odds for an EUref2 have come in considerably already.
I agree. Indeed, I said to colleagues at the time of the referendum that the ultimate result of a Leave victory would be the replacement of a Tory government with a genuine socialist government and either a meaningless Brexit or no Brexit. The vote was a protest against Tory austerity and had very little to do with the EU. Governments should know that any referendum they call is always a referendum on them.
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
What's happened to SeanT? We could do with his calming presence. I wonder if he's shifted his allegiance to Remain and/or Corbynism, but is still working out how to tell us gently.
He's gone from ultra hard Brexit gives him the horn/bomb France and Germany and kick EU citizens into the channel to very soft Brexit.
He got depressed when I told him it soft Brexit wasn't an option.
BTW Mr Eagles - you posted earlier that we had wasted 77 days out of 730. Please recall that the Europeans wanted Brexit sorted out six months before Brexit Day to give them time for admin stuff and passing laws and such.
Suzanne Evans was diagnosed w breast cancer shortly before the election was called but still managed to campaign, as did the diabetic PM
Forgive me if I am wrong (seriously) but I am not sure you understand just how serious it is to be out of control with diabetes. I lost two good friends with Type 1 because they were unable to bring their regime under control over time. Too often it is considered a bit of a joke but it really is a killer.
Maybe but I doubt it's why Abbott stopped campaigning 10 mins before a radio show. She has form for inventing illness
Energy cap gone, next the dementia tax and hopefully after than the racial pay charter. Hammer down on buy-to-let and commission a metric fuckton of starter homes for first time buyers and we'll be in a much better position come 2022
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
What's happened to SeanT? We could do with his calming presence. I wonder if he's shifted his allegiance to Remain and/or Corbynism, but is still working out how to tell us gently.
He's gone from ultra hard Brexit gives him the horn/bomb France and Germany and kick EU citizens into the channel to very soft Brexit.
He got depressed when I told him it soft Brexit wasn't an option.
I think it is an option as long as we use an off the shelf arrangement like EFTA. We can worry about what comes next after that when we have much more time. Tbh, we could stay in EFTA for up to 10 years without too much trouble. Most people won't notice and difference and the EU will be happy to get £3-4bn per year in membership fees.
I don't really know why the Osborne crowd are effectively ruling themselves out of coming back. This is not a time when disloyalty will be rewarded.
Oh and I caught a mention of how the boundaries affect Belfast on the previous thread. I think Sean mentioned Alliance taking SE. I thought they would for certain before this election campaign. Indeed, they were moving forward as recently as the Assembly election in March. But Naomi had a very poor election. She made the mistake of getting too anti-Unionist which was understandable to an extent but she's clearly forgotten the vast majority of her voters are from a PUL background and has a lot of ground to make up now.
I now think the Alliance bubble is burst in East Belfast. By all means run as soft Unionist. Running as anti-Unionist gets you the Short Strand and guilty Prods.
Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
How? We didn't get endorsed by the public for hard Brexit. We need to reach out to Labour and other parties to get a cross party mandate together, the public have told the party to compromise, if we push ahead anyway it will be a huge problem for us in the future.
Because we won't be getting a good deal (or any deal), we're falling out on WTO terms.
No way can May get hard Brexit through the Commons now. Maastricht all over again. Labour landslide.
It's not up to the UK though.
She has to deal with 27 other nations to get the trade deal through.
No she doesn't. QMV. I am not saying it will be easy but you really do need to stop making these mistakes considering your claims to be some sort of expert.
The Article 50 negotiations are by QMV, but they don't settle the trade deal. That comes after Brexit.
Isn't trade done by QMV now as well after the ECJ ruling?
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
What's happened to SeanT? We could do with his calming presence. I wonder if he's shifted his allegiance to Remain and/or Corbynism, but is still working out how to tell us gently.
He's gone from ultra hard Brexit gives him the horn/bomb France and Germany and kick EU citizens into the channel to very soft Brexit.
He got depressed when I told him it soft Brexit wasn't an option.
I think it is an option as long as we use an off the shelf arrangement like EFTA. We can worry about what comes next after that when we have much more time. Tbh, we could stay in EFTA for up to 10 years without too much trouble. Most people won't notice and difference and the EU will be happy to get £3-4bn per year in membership fees.
But even that approach does not short-circuit the two-year Article 50 process. Even to get from here to there requires the UK to go through the wringer in a humiliating way, no matter how smoothly the process is handled.
It does indeed and so long as they remain purely on the basis of trade, under the Lisbon Treaty such agreements are decided by QMV not unanimity.
Ensuring that it remains purely on trade matters, however, is likely to be incredibly difficult. The CETA deal failed to meet the test. It seems to me highly unlikely that we'll be able to keep a UK-EU deal within the parameters.
As I've said before, trying to ensure that we do so should be almost the number one goal of our negotiating team, but I'm not confident either that it is, or that they'd be able to achieve it.
Yes, a second referendum is coming. By the time the deal is done - whether soft, as looks increasingly likely, or not - and even if a deal isn't done - there will be enough of an outcry from people who weren't expecting what is on offer which, coupled with the majority view in the new Commons that the whole thing is madness to begin with, will make a vote on it both attractive and unavoidable.
The odds for an EUref2 have come in considerably already.
I agree. Indeed, I said to colleagues at the time of the referendum that the ultimate result of a Leave victory would be the replacement of a Tory government with a genuine socialist government and either a meaningless Brexit or no Brexit. The vote was a protest against Tory austerity and had very little to do with the EU. Governments should know that any referendum they call is always a referendum on them.
Knowing this made my voting decision very easy.
It was a vote against immigration for many, then having done that they could vote against austerity at the general election, it was a mistake to think that many of such voters would move to the Tories in retrospect
Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
How? We didn't get endorsed by the public for hard Brexit. We need to reach out to Labour and other parties to get a cross party mandate together, the public have told the party to compromise, if we push ahead anyway it will be a huge problem for us in the future.
Because we won't be getting a good deal (or any deal), we're falling out on WTO terms.
No way can May get hard Brexit through the Commons now. Maastricht all over again. Labour landslide.
It's not up to the UK though.
She has to deal with 27 other nations to get the trade deal through.
No she doesn't. QMV. I am not saying it will be easy but you really do need to stop making these mistakes considering your claims to be some sort of expert.
The Article 50 negotiations are by QMV, but they don't settle the trade deal. That comes after Brexit.
It does indeed and so long as they remain purely on the basis of trade, under the Lisbon Treaty such agreements are decided by QMV not unanimity.
Maybe. It depends on the deal and frankly the whim of the EU Council or Commission (I'm not sure which). If they decide to refer the deal to the States, there's nothing we can do about it.
Two conseculatively entertaining headers. Well done to Joff and Alastair.
I was interested to see the easy physical contact between May and Macron which was in sharp contrast to that between May and Trump. Both knew instinctively which parts of the body were in play and which weren't.
They kissed on both cheeks and touched each other appropriately. The french are well practiced from a young age of course and social etiquette is well understood. But it rammed home again that this is a stupid and unnecessary divorce and if the future looks brighter with the US and the Saudis I must be blind.
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
What's happened to SeanT? We could do with his calming presence. I wonder if he's shifted his allegiance to Remain and/or Corbynism, but is still working out how to tell us gently.
He's gone from ultra hard Brexit gives him the horn/bomb France and Germany and kick EU citizens into the channel to very soft Brexit.
He got depressed when I told him it soft Brexit wasn't an option.
I think it is an option as long as we use an off the shelf arrangement like EFTA. We can worry about what comes next after that when we have much more time. Tbh, we could stay in EFTA for up to 10 years without too much trouble. Most people won't notice and difference and the EU will be happy to get £3-4bn per year in membership fees.
But even that approach does not short-circuit the two-year Article 50 process. Even to get from here to there requires the UK to go through the wringer in a humiliating way, no matter how smoothly the process is handled.
Well it probably does. If the government went to the EU and said, we're going to stay in the single market and sign up for £3-4bn in access charges I'm pretty sure an agreement would come pretty fast. The fear in Brussels is that we leave the single market and then find that there isn't much of a difference economically after a year or two. Not testing that theory is worth for them.
I don't really know why the Osborne crowd are effectively ruling themselves out of coming back. This is not a time when disloyalty will be rewarded.
Oh and I caught a mention of how the boundaries affect Belfast on the previous thread. I think Sean mentioned Alliance taking SE. I thought they would for certain before this election campaign. Indeed, they were moving forward as recently as the Assembly election in March. But Naomi had a very poor election. She made the mistake of getting too anti-Unionist which was understandable to an extent but she's clearly forgotten the vast majority of her voters are from a PUL background and has a lot of ground to make up now.
I now think the Alliance bubble is burst in East Belfast. By all means run as soft Unionist. Running as anti-Unionist gets you the Short Strand and guilty Prods.
I don't really know why the Osborne crowd are effectively ruling themselves out of coming back. This is not a time when disloyalty will be rewarded.
Oh and I caught a mention of how the boundaries affect Belfast on the previous thread. I think Sean mentioned Alliance taking SE. I thought they would for certain before this election campaign. Indeed, they were moving forward as recently as the Assembly election in March. But Naomi had a very poor election. She made the mistake of getting too anti-Unionist which was understandable to an extent but she's clearly forgotten the vast majority of her voters are from a PUL background and has a lot of ground to make up now.
I now think the Alliance bubble is burst in East Belfast. By all means run as soft Unionist. Running as anti-Unionist gets you the Short Strand and guilty Prods.
It was a terrible campaign by Naomi. I've regularly sparred quite chummily with her on Twitter and before the campaign started I'd have said I would have been 95% certain I'd have voted for her were I in East Belfast. By the end of the campaign, I'd have voted for Gavin. And I'm by no means a fan of the DUP. I would previously have said I'd only vote DUP in a direct contest with SF. But I've gone right off Alliance in the past month. They just have this attitude that they are BETTER than everyone else.
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
What's happened to SeanT? We could do with his calming presence. I wonder if he's shifted his allegiance to Remain and/or Corbynism, but is still working out how to tell us gently.
He's gone from ultra hard Brexit gives him the horn/bomb France and Germany and kick EU citizens into the channel to very soft Brexit.
He got depressed when I told him it soft Brexit wasn't an option.
I think it is an option as long as we use an off the shelf arrangement like EFTA. We can worry about what comes next after that when we have much more time. Tbh, we could stay in EFTA for up to 10 years without too much trouble. Most people won't notice and difference and the EU will be happy to get £3-4bn per year in membership fees.
But even that approach does not short-circuit the two-year Article 50 process. Even to get from here to there requires the UK to go through the wringer in a humiliating way, no matter how smoothly the process is handled.
The article 50 process is only two years if that is how long is needed. Now whilst I agree it is probably going to run the course, if they did get everything sorted by going for the EFTA type deal then they don't have to sit around drinking coffee for the rest of the time. Two years is the maximum time (without extensions) not a set time.
It does indeed and so long as they remain purely on the basis of trade, under the Lisbon Treaty such agreements are decided by QMV not unanimity.
Ensuring that it remains purely on trade matters, however, is likely to be incredibly difficult. The CETA deal failed to meet the test. It seems to me highly unlikely that we'll be able to keep a UK-EU deal within the parameters.
As I've said before, trying to ensure that we do so should be almost the number one goal of our negotiating team, but I'm not confident either that it is, or that they'd be able to achieve it.
CETA (and the TTIP deal) included intellectual property rights which are by unanimity. Including that in the overall deal caused a huge amount of grief when it should have been dealt with by a separate deal.
It does indeed and so long as they remain purely on the basis of trade, under the Lisbon Treaty such agreements are decided by QMV not unanimity.
Ensuring that it remains purely on trade matters, however, is likely to be incredibly difficult. The CETA deal failed to meet the test. It seems to me highly unlikely that we'll be able to keep a UK-EU deal within the parameters.
As I've said before, trying to ensure that we do so should be almost the number one goal of our negotiating team, but I'm not confident either that it is, or that they'd be able to achieve it.
Hmm, the ECJ ruled that only the use of ISDS services and a few minor forms of investment had to go to all 38 national and regional parliaments. EFTA wouldn't necessarily have either of those issues, the EC could just do it by QMV since the EFTA court already exists and single market rules allow all forms of investment.
Does anyone think Momentum will overplay their hand by way of extra-parliamentary activities?
Meaning?
Lots of demos, political strikes, trying to build a mass movement to force an election. It could start having a negative effect.
Momentum proved not to be clicktivists and slacktivists, but were rather self disciplined in the campaign. They proved very effective indeed.
I note that Labour party membership is up 150000 since Friday too. I think that is more thanthe entire Tory party.
Wasn't that 150,000 claim debunked? And turnout numbers posted earlier suggest it wasn't the youth that significantly boosted Labour.. it was the middle-aged and older voters.
For me our national debt is the overriding issue. We cannot reduce taxes or increase spending with that hanging over us. God forbid we are in a war of national survival and have to borrow to pay for our defence as we have had to do in the past.
We have to reduce the debt as an imperative. We can therefore grow our way out (a business friendly economy outside the EU constraints, increasing our national wealth) or inflate our way out (just of our local debt, but at a heck of a cost for the elderly and the unemployed).
I think it was Niall Ferguson who made an observation on societies that rose and fell: history shows that societies with more merchants and soldiers rise while those with more priests and kings fall - I've been looking for the source for years and can't find it. Basically, societies that consume wealth faster than they create it are doomed. In the EU we were on that path. Out we may have a chance.
Great post. As a nation we're in denial, its all about party politics.
Oh I also meant to add a story. This is a hypothetical story in the Sir Humphrey sense.
Consider someone I know well who may have been a senior civil servant of the last generation to negotiate international deals outwith the EU. After the Brexit vote, he and others who are not yet Gaga wrote to the Cabinet Office offering their services to help train their modern colleagues in some of the *ahem* darker arts. After a period of time, their offer was refused on the basis that the services of the major consultancies were to be used to train the current senior civil servants in the art of negotiation. That fits very well with Domenic Cumming's latest thoughts on the general (poor) state of our Civil Service machine.
The politicians are getting all the Brexit negotiation attention, but watch out or the civil service. Their ability to fail to deliver is the real worry now.
A couple of months back there was a fascinating discussion of EU accession talks in the Seventies with one of our original Civil Service negotiators on 5Live.
He was pretty scathing over the preparations (or lack thereof) this time.
My source told me another story that is relevant to Brexit. In the early 1970's, Peter Walker had to lead a delegation to negotiate international Law of the Sea arrangements. He invited Labour shadows to join the delegation, including Tony Crosland. They would all be briefed together in the morning on the agreed position, attend sessions, and regroup in the evenings to discuss progress. In one session, TC was the only UK politician in the room when an issue arose - he could have made trouble, but advised the civil servants that they should make a point that supported the government position rather than the Labour Party position.
On something as important as Brexit, shouldn't more people to be pulled into the tent so they can all p*ss out together?
Does anyone think Momentum will overplay their hand by way of extra-parliamentary activities?
Meaning?
Lots of demos, political strikes, trying to build a mass movement to force an election. It could start having a negative effect.
Like the rioting we were assured would happen? 1 Demos...perfectly legal. 2 Political strikes are illegal. No-one (apart from yourself) wants them. 3 Building a mass movement. Like a 600 000 member Labour Party which just fought a democratic election? 4 Having a negative effect. What on a strong and stable government which doesn't know what to do on Brexit, and thinks it's own manifesto was a pile of poo it can't run away quickly enough from? I can't see how such an outfit could possibly be de-stabilized any further.
Two conseculatively entertaining headers. Well done to Joff and Alastair.
I was interested to see the easy physical contact between May and Macron which was in sharp contrast to that between May and Trump. Both knew instinctively which parts of the body were in play and which weren't.
They kissed on both cheeks and touched each other appropriately. The french are well practiced from a young age of course and social etiquette is well understood. But it rammed home again that this is a stupid and unnecessary divorce and if the future looks brighter with the US and the Saudis I must be blind.
On present US and UK polling President Sanders will be welcoming PM Corbyn to the White House in 2021 so I would not worry too much about the May Trump relationship as it might not last for too much longer
Sticking to hard Brexit is literally idiotic. She's a fool.
Hard Brexit is all that's left. She needs to be able to spin it as a victory.
How? We didn't get endorsed by the public for hard Brexit. We need to reach out to Labour and other parties to get a cross party mandate together, the public have told the party to compromise, if we push ahead anyway it will be a huge problem for us in the future.
Because we won't be getting a good deal (or any deal), we're falling out on WTO terms.
No way can May get hard Brexit through the Commons now. Maastricht all over again. Labour landslide.
It's not up to the UK though.
She has to deal with 27 other nations to get the trade deal through.
No she doesn't. QMV. I am not saying it will be easy but you really do need to stop making these mistakes considering your claims to be some sort of expert.
Lucky for PB that we have you to correct us
If people can't be bothered to keep up with the treaties and the ECJ rulings....
I see the Guardian and Observer are going tabloid, explicitly to save money - increasingly the print arm is being kept afloat by the very successful online arm. I wonder how many national print papers will exist in 20 years.
On topic, I'm wary of the tendency of the media to exagerrate (because it makes for more startling stories). The delays to forming a government and starting Brexit talks are not good signs, but they'll be barely noticed by most voters. As with a restaurant where service is slow, people will judge in the end by the quality of the food when it finally turns up. May is clearly not doing well, but she's not the total disaster that some think. In the same way, sooner or later Corbyn will do something controversial (or not do it, e.g. not reshuffling his Shadow Cabinet significantly) and we'll be told that he's squandered all the goodwill; again, the public will barely notice.
The Government has two major risks: a botched negotiation and a significant economic downturn, Everything else is froth.
Good post Nick. There is far too much hysteria on here - lots of people need to calm down.
This Parliament could well be a rerun of 92/97 with Con sinking and they get trounced at the next GE whenever it comes.
Or maybe whenever May resigns Con will elect a new leader who gets a honeymoon period, puts forward a popular manifesto and wins.
As for all the posts about the fundamentals - well without the dementia tax and winter fuel Con would surely have won at least a modest majority - despite all the problems of high house prices and student debt etc.
So it's nothing like as simplistic as many on here seem to think - and literally anything could happen at the next GE - which is why Betfair Next GE Most Seats is currently:
Oh I also meant to add a story. This is a hypothetical story in the Sir Humphrey sense.
Consider someone I know well who may have been a senior civil servant of the last generation to negotiate international deals outwith the EU. After the Brexit vote, he and others who are not yet Gaga wrote to the Cabinet Office offering their services to help train their modern colleagues in some of the *ahem* darker arts. After a period of time, their offer was refused on the basis that the services of the major consultancies were to be used to train the current senior civil servants in the art of negotiation. That fits very well with Domenic Cumming's latest thoughts on the general (poor) state of our Civil Service machine.
The politicians are getting all the Brexit negotiation attention, but watch out or the civil service. Their ability to fail to deliver is the real worry now.
A couple of months back there was a fascinating discussion of EU accession talks in the Seventies with one of our original Civil Service negotiators on 5Live.
He was pretty scathing over the preparations (or lack thereof) this time.
My source told me another story that is relevant to Brexit. In the early 1970's, Peter Walker had to lead a delegation to negotiate international Law of the Sea arrangements. He invited Labour shadows to join the delegation, including Tony Crosland. They would all be briefed together in the morning on the agreed position, attend sessions, and regroup in the evenings to discuss progress. In one session, TC was the only UK politician in the room when an issue arose - he could have made trouble, but advised the civil servants that they should make a point that supported the government position rather than the Labour Party position.
On something as important as Brexit, shouldn't more people to be pulled into the tent so they can all p*ss out together?
No way is Labour going to interfere with the Tory party tearing itself apart over Europe.
I don't really know why the Osborne crowd are effectively ruling themselves out of coming back. This is not a time when disloyalty will be rewarded.
Oh and I caught a mention of how the boundaries affect Belfast on the previous thread. I think Sean mentioned Alliance taking SE. I thought they would for certain before this election campaign. Indeed, they were moving forward as recently as the Assembly election in March. But Naomi had a very poor election. She made the mistake of getting too anti-Unionist which was understandable to an extent but she's clearly forgotten the vast majority of her voters are from a PUL background and has a lot of ground to make up now.
Long got into Westminster in 2010 off the back of a paramilitary inspired mobilisation of loyalist housing estate votes in East Belfast as a kick against Peter Robinson losing sight of the working class segment of his constituency. Everybody and their dog (some of whom may have voted) knew this was happening, Long knew it was happening as well but she started to get into her head that she was somehow self generating all this and they all came out because of good old commonal garden roots in the community. Patent bollocks and they got a bit fed up with her high and mighty shit.
A slice of that vote did stay with her alongside the guilty Prod vote in the Assembly but last week she didn't just get beat, she got absolutely thumped by the DUP because that working class loyalist vote turned out this time in opposition to her.
Lets be honest, Gavin Robinson, who's 2015 acceptance speech might as well have invoked the imagery of the 5 year reign of Alliance terror that he had just toppled, isn't exactly a killer candidate.
It was a vote against immigration for many, then having done that they could vote against austerity at the general election, it was a mistake to think that many of such voters would move to the Tories in retrospect
Ostensibly, yes. In reality, immigration was more scapegoat for a marked decline in living standards than it was cause. The decline was the root of the result. People don't lust after deporting their neighbours (or worse) if life is good (c.f. the rise of Nazism). It was very foolish to invite the public to endorse the status quo after a prolonged period of austerity.
Hmm, the ECJ ruled that only the use of ISDS services and a few minor forms of investment had to go to all 38 national and regional parliaments. EFTA wouldn't necessarily have either of those issues, the EC could just do it by QMV since the EFTA court already exists and single market rules allow all forms of investment.
CETA (and the TTIP deal) included intellectual property rights which are by unanimity. Including that in the overall deal caused a huge amount of grief when it should have been dealt with by a separate deal.
You're both looking at this from the wrong end. It's not whether any UK-EU deal might hit one of the same snags that CETA hit which is the issue, it's whether there are likely to be new snags specific to any UK-EU27 deal. Given that we start from a much closer relationship, and are trying to replicate some of the same rights and obligations as we currently have, it seems to me that the risk of hitting a new snag is considerable. IANAL, but to take the most obvious pratfall - aren't we going to be negotiating reciprocal rights for EU and UK citizens? That's not a pure trade matter.
I don't really know why the Osborne crowd are effectively ruling themselves out of coming back. This is not a time when disloyalty will be rewarded.
Oh and I caught a mention of how the boundaries affect Belfast on the previous thread. I think Sean mentioned Alliance tunderstandable to an extent but she's clearly forgotten the vast majority of her voters are from a PUL background and has a lot of ground to make up now.
I now think the Alliance bubble is burst in East Belfast. By all means run as soft Unionist. Prods.
It was a terrible campaign by Naomi. I've regularly sparred quite chummily with her on Twitter and before the campaign started I'd have said I would have been 95% certain I'd have voted for her were I in East Belfast. By the end of the campaign, I'd have voted for Gavin. And I'm by no means a fan of the DUP. I would previously have said I'd only vote DUP in a direct contest with SF. But I've gone right off Alliance in the past month. They just have this attitude that they are BETTER than everyone else.
I don't really know why the Osborne crowd are effectively ruling themselves out of coming back. This is not a time when disloyalty will be rewarded.
Oh and I caught a mention of how the boundaries affect Belfast on the previous thread. I think has a lot of ground to make up now.
Long got into Westminster in 2010 off the back of a paramilitary inspired mobilisation of loyalist housing estate votes in East Belfast as a kick against Peter Robinson losing sight of
A slice of that vote did stay with her alongside the guilty Prod vote in the Assembly but last week she didn't just get beat, she got absolutely thumped by the DUP because that working class loyalist vote turned out this time in opposition to her.
Lets be honest, Gavin Robinson, who's 2015 acceptance speech might as well have invoked the imagery of the 5 year reign of Alliance terror that he had just toppled, isn't exactly a killer candidate.
I think she's dreadful. It would be like voting for Caroline Lucas. I'm glad she went down in flames.
Oh I also meant to add a story. This is a hypothetical story in the Sir Humphrey sense.
Consider someone I know well who may have been a senior civil servant of the last generation to negotiate international deals outwith the EU. After the Brexit vote, he and others who are not yet Gaga wrote to the Cabinet Office offering their services to help train their modern colleagues in some of the *ahem* darker arts. After a period of time, their offer was refused on the basis that the services of the major consultancies were to be used to train the current senior civil servants in the art of negotiation. That fits very well with Domenic Cumming's latest thoughts on the general (poor) state of our Civil Service machine.
The politicians are getting all the Brexit negotiation attention, but watch out or the civil service. Their ability to fail to deliver is the real worry now.
A couple of months back there was a fascinating discussion of EU accession talks in the Seventies with one of our original Civil Service negotiators on 5Live.
He was pretty scathing over the preparations (or lack thereof) this time.
My source told me another story that is relevant to Brexit. In the early 1970's, Peter Walker had to lead a delegation to negotiate international Law of the Sea arrangements. He invited Labour shadows to join the delegation, including Tony Crosland. They would all be briefed together in the morning on the agreed position, attend sessions, and regroup in the evenings to discuss progress. In one session, TC was the only UK politician in the room when an issue arose - he could have made trouble, but advised the civil servants that they should make a point that supported the government position rather than the Labour Party position.
On something as important as Brexit, shouldn't more people to be pulled into the tent so they can all p*ss out together?
No way is Labour going to interfere with the Tory party tearing itself apart over Europe.
Labour stuck in EU muddle as Jeremy Corbyn and colleagues fail to agree
Labour's Brexit plans have descended into chaos after Jeremy Corbyn was directly contradicted by members of his Shadow Cabinet over his plans to leave the single market.
In one session, TC was the only UK politician in the room when an issue arose - he could have made trouble, but advised the civil servants that they should make a point that supported the government position rather than the Labour Party position.
Politicians were a more decent bunch back then. They seemed to prioritise both country and democracy over party interest. Many of you will be familiar with this tale from the no confidence vote that brought down Callaghan:
In the BBC documentary "A Parliamentary Coup" it was revealed that Bernard Weatherill played a critical role in the defeat of the government in the vote of confidence. As the vote loomed, Labour's deputy Chief Whip, Walter Harrison approached Weatherill to enforce the pairing convention that if a sick MP from the Government could not vote, an MP from the Opposition would abstain to compensate. Weatherill said that pairing had never been intended for votes on Matters of Confidence that meant the life or death of the Government and it would be impossible to find a Conservative MP who would agree to abstain. However, after a moment's reflection, he offered that he himself would abstain, because he felt it would be dishonourable to break his word with Harrison. Harrison was so impressed by Weatherill's offer – which would have effectively ended his political career – that he released Weatherill from his obligation and so the Government fell by one vote on the agreement of gentlemen.
So right now the prospects for Britain look bleak indeed. Hunker down. Winter is coming.
Still, look on the bright side. Well-off oldies are protected and they'll still get their tax-free fuel allowance as the winter sets in, thanks to the election result.
Oh I also meant to add a story. This is a hypothetical story in the Sir Humphrey sense.
Consider someone I know well who may have been a senior civil servant of the last generation to negotiate international deals outwith the EU. After the Brexit vote, he and others who are not yet Gaga wrote to the Cabinet Office offering their services to help train their modern colleagues in some of the *ahem* darker arts. After a period of time, their offer was refused on the basis that the services of the major consultancies were to be used to train the current senior civil servants in the art of negotiation. That fits very well with Domenic Cumming's latest thoughts on the general (poor) state of our Civil Service machine.
The politicians are getting all the Brexit negotiation attention, but watch out or the civil service. Their ability to fail to deliver is the real worry now.
A couple of months back there was a fascinating discussion of EU accession talks in the Seventies with one of our original Civil Service negotiators on 5Live.
He was pretty scathing over the preparations (or lack thereof) this time.
My source told me another story that is relevant to Brexit. In the early 1970's, Peter Walker had to lead a delegation to negotiate international Law of the Sea arrangements. He invited Labour shadows to join the delegation, including Tony Crosland. They would all be briefed together in the morning on the agreed position, attend sessions, and regroup in the evenings to discuss progress. In one session, TC was the only UK politician in the room when an issue arose - he could have made trouble, but advised the civil servants that they should make a point that supported the government position rather than the Labour Party position.
On something as important as Brexit, shouldn't more people to be pulled into the tent so they can all p*ss out together?
No way is Labour going to interfere with the Tory party tearing itself apart over Europe.
Labour stuck in EU muddle as Jeremy Corbyn and colleagues fail to agree
Labour's Brexit plans have descended into chaos after Jeremy Corbyn was directly contradicted by members of his Shadow Cabinet over his plans to leave the single market.
Labour won seats by ignoring Brexit. As many on here point out, Labour LOST an election 5 days ago, so their position is irrelevant. Does the newly-elected govt. have a superior plan? That is a matter of the greatest import for us all.
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
What's happened to SeanT? We could do with his calming presence. I wonder if he's shifted his allegiance to Remain and/or Corbynism, but is still working out how to tell us gently.
He's gone from ultra hard Brexit gives him the horn/bomb France and Germany and kick EU citizens into the channel to very soft Brexit.
He got depressed when I told him it soft Brexit wasn't an option.
I think it is an option as long as we use an off the shelf arrangement like EFTA. We can worry about what comes next after that when we have much more time. Tbh, we could stay in EFTA for up to 10 years without too much trouble. Most people won't notice and difference and the EU will be happy to get £3-4bn per year in membership fees.
But even that approach does not short-circuit the two-year Article 50 process. Even to get from here to there requires the UK to go through the wringer in a humiliating way, no matter how smoothly the process is handled.
The article 50 process is only two years if that is how long is needed. Now whilst I agree it is probably going to run the course, if they did get everything sorted by going for the EFTA type deal then they don't have to sit around drinking coffee for the rest of the time. Two years is the maximum time (without extensions) not a set time.
The most sensible option is, and has always been, to go to EFTA/EEA and then see how we like it. We could even legislate now for a referendum after five years in it.
This would give hope to Europhiles who think we might change our mind. To hard core Brexiteers who think the public would never accept the Norway solution. And to the sensible middle.
And if we did decide to go it alone after five years, we would be doing it from a position of relative strength after we had already rebuilt our non EU trade deals.
Hmm, the ECJ ruled that only the use of ISDS services and a few minor forms of investment had to go to all 38 national and regional parliaments. EFTA wouldn't necessarily have either of those issues, the EC could just do it by QMV since the EFTA court already exists and single market rules allow all forms of investment.
CETA (and the TTIP deal) included intellectual property rights which are by unanimity. Including that in the overall deal caused a huge amount of grief when it should have been dealt with by a separate deal.
You're both looking at this from the wrong end. It's not whether any UK-EU deal might hit one of the same snags that CETA hit which is the issue, it's whether there are likely to be new snags specific to any UK-EU27 deal. Given that we start from a much closer relationship, and are trying to replicate some of the same rights and obligations as we currently have, it seems to me that the risk of hitting a new snag is considerable. IANAL, but to take the most obvious pratfall - aren't we going to be negotiating reciprocal rights for EU and UK citizens? That's not a pure trade matter.
This is why the ECJ ruling on the Singapore FTA is so important. It effectively confirmed a huge swathe of agreements on trade in services and other possible problem areas as being within the remit of QMV. We probably couldn't have asked for a more timely or favourable ruling as it clarified what was and was not subject to QMV. And what is not is very easily avoided.
The reciprocal rights issue is something that must come under Article 50. I can see no way at all that either side would want to get to the end of the process without having sorted that out. Indeed the EU has made it their number one priority. And again the Article 50 process is decided by QMV.
So right now the prospects for Britain look bleak indeed. Hunker down. Winter is coming.
Still, look on the bright side. Well-off oldies are protected and they'll still get their tax-free fuel allowance as the winter sets in, thanks to the election result.
Hmm My parents are grateful, but they could manage their fuel bills before my Dad hit 65. So the cash won't be going to pay his gas and electric, more holidays and general saving...
So right now the prospects for Britain look bleak indeed. Hunker down. Winter is coming.
Still, look on the bright side. Well-off oldies are protected and they'll still get their tax-free fuel allowance as the winter sets in, thanks to the election result.
Thanks to the DUP..apparently....they'll claim it anyway.
Comments
I do think, however, that WTO Brexit is where the UK is headed simply because we will run out of time.
On a positive note, SeanT is still bonking a youngster 30 years younger than himself, so it's not all bad.
https://twitter.com/BBCHelenaLee/status/874743929123590147
He got depressed when I told him it soft Brexit wasn't an option.
Oh and I caught a mention of how the boundaries affect Belfast on the previous thread. I think Sean mentioned Alliance taking SE. I thought they would for certain before this election campaign. Indeed, they were moving forward as recently as the Assembly election in March. But Naomi had a very poor election. She made the mistake of getting too anti-Unionist which was understandable to an extent but she's clearly forgotten the vast majority of her voters are from a PUL background and has a lot of ground to make up now.
He was pretty scathing over the preparations (or lack thereof) this time.
https://twitter.com/nycjim/status/874367325629231104
So we have wasted 77 days out of 550
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-barnier-idUKKBN13V16D
Knowing this made my voting decision very easy.
At least those 77 days have been used to strengthen Theresa May's mandate for Brexit.
Oh.
Oh my in Enoch Powell's old seat, there's a black MP now.
The blacks really do have the whip hand now.
https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/politics/midlands-first-black-mp-wins-seat-once-held-by-enoch-powell/
Edit - And it has been pointed out that his South Down seat was gained by Sinn Féin last week.
But apparently TSE and his friends know better than the ECJ - who actually make the rules.
Well, 19 years...
As I've said before, trying to ensure that we do so should be almost the number one goal of our negotiating team, but I'm not confident either that it is, or that they'd be able to achieve it.
I was interested to see the easy physical contact between May and Macron which was in sharp contrast to that between May and Trump. Both knew instinctively which parts of the body were in play and which weren't.
They kissed on both cheeks and touched each other appropriately. The french are well practiced from a young age of course and social etiquette is well understood. But it rammed home again that this is a stupid and unnecessary divorce and if the future looks brighter with the US and the Saudis I must be blind.
I note that Labour party membership is up 150000 since Friday too. I think that is more thanthe entire Tory party.
15,000, apparently now 30,000
On something as important as Brexit, shouldn't more people to be pulled into the tent so they can all p*ss out together?
1 Demos...perfectly legal.
2 Political strikes are illegal. No-one (apart from yourself) wants them.
3 Building a mass movement. Like a 600 000 member Labour Party which just fought a democratic election?
4 Having a negative effect. What on a strong and stable government which doesn't know what to do on Brexit, and thinks it's own manifesto was a pile of poo it can't run away quickly enough from?
I can't see how such an outfit could possibly be de-stabilized any further.
This Parliament could well be a rerun of 92/97 with Con sinking and they get trounced at the next GE whenever it comes.
Or maybe whenever May resigns Con will elect a new leader who gets a honeymoon period, puts forward a popular manifesto and wins.
As for all the posts about the fundamentals - well without the dementia tax and winter fuel Con would surely have won at least a modest majority - despite all the problems of high house prices and student debt etc.
So it's nothing like as simplistic as many on here seem to think - and literally anything could happen at the next GE - which is why Betfair Next GE Most Seats is currently:
Con 1.96
Lab 2.02
ie a complete toss-up.
A slice of that vote did stay with her alongside the guilty Prod vote in the Assembly but last week she didn't just get beat, she got absolutely thumped by the DUP because that working class loyalist vote turned out this time in opposition to her.
Lets be honest, Gavin Robinson, who's 2015 acceptance speech might as well have invoked the imagery of the 5 year reign of Alliance terror that he had just toppled, isn't exactly a killer candidate.
Labour stuck in EU muddle as Jeremy Corbyn and colleagues fail to agree
Labour's Brexit plans have descended into chaos after Jeremy Corbyn was directly contradicted by members of his Shadow Cabinet over his plans to leave the single market.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/13/labour-stuck-eu-muddle-leaders-fail-agree-single-market-policy/
In the BBC documentary "A Parliamentary Coup" it was revealed that Bernard Weatherill played a critical role in the defeat of the government in the vote of confidence. As the vote loomed, Labour's deputy Chief Whip, Walter Harrison approached Weatherill to enforce the pairing convention that if a sick MP from the Government could not vote, an MP from the Opposition would abstain to compensate. Weatherill said that pairing had never been intended for votes on Matters of Confidence that meant the life or death of the Government and it would be impossible to find a Conservative MP who would agree to abstain. However, after a moment's reflection, he offered that he himself would abstain, because he felt it would be dishonourable to break his word with Harrison. Harrison was so impressed by Weatherill's offer – which would have effectively ended his political career – that he released Weatherill from his obligation and so the Government fell by one vote on the agreement of gentlemen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_vote_of_no_confidence_in_the_government_of_James_Callaghan
Still, look on the bright side. Well-off oldies are protected and they'll still get their tax-free fuel allowance as the winter sets in, thanks to the election result.
'This is the Labour Party. They want to spend the taxes you pay and control the country's finances.
In the 2017 election they won 262 seats, the Conservatives won 318 seats.
Labour thinks it won the election even though it won 56 less seats than the Conservatives
Labour can't count.
Vote Conservative. '
This would give hope to Europhiles who think we might change our mind. To hard core Brexiteers who think the public would never accept the Norway solution. And to the sensible middle.
And if we did decide to go it alone after five years, we would be doing it from a position of relative strength after we had already rebuilt our non EU trade deals.
The reciprocal rights issue is something that must come under Article 50. I can see no way at all that either side would want to get to the end of the process without having sorted that out. Indeed the EU has made it their number one priority. And again the Article 50 process is decided by QMV.
Not sure its the best use of public money xD