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YouGov have released some pan-European polling when it comes to how some of our EU allies would view us remaining in the EU.
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In the chart at the top should it read Don't Care rather than Don't Know?
And even if May pulls it off and recalibrates Brexit will it last for more than a few days ? Merkel will either be re-elected and then show her hand or God Forbid falls leading to at best hiatus or at worst chaos. How can we escape the dynamic of having used our Nuclear option in Leaving we're now a large wealthy but third party outsider. We've taken what the EU wants, us staying, off the table and negotiations reflect that.
On a different topic this is good on disaster relief. Here after Grenfell charities appealed for similar donations to stop.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/best-intentions-when-disaster-relief-brings-anything-but-relief/
When I met you..."
(The waitress in the cocktail bar would probably come from Latvia these days)
Helpfully more than enough EU leaders have sad A50 is revocable in practice. The Door is being left open but they aren't running after us. A second offer will only come after a change in UK public opinion not precede it.
What the polling TSE quotes does show is not, I think, that there's any appetite for the UK to remain (there may be in theory but not, as YS notes, with public opinion as it is). What there may be is scope to lever Barnier via the Council into a more flexible position. There are a lot of countries in the EU that don't bear Britain ill will for ducking out on a project that their own citizens aren't entirely enamoured with. To a much greater extent than the EU itself, these have ongoing and wide-ranging activities for which they'll want a cooperative relationship with a powerful neighbour and ally.
LDs peers blocking Brexit bills would be hilarious, and easily bypassed. It would be a show of weakness, rather than strength.
I think David Herdson is right. An unelected house with an appetite for self preservation won't block Brexit legislation. But if it did the two year session actually extends the Lord's delaying powers. The handsome and erudite Mr Meeks is also correct. There are a 101 ways the Lord's can slow things down without rejecting a Bill.
But all roads lead to Rome. Brexit is very easily reversed if voters change their minds. But the Buggers haven't. If they did all the technical problems about staying would vanish. It's a legal problem that would be quickly sorted. But there is no sign for a shift in public opinion. If Brexit becomes unpopular it will be stopped. So far it hasn't.
In reality, Labour peers would probably cave in in short order if push came to shove and even Lib Dem ones might baulk at the constitutional impertinence of an overrepresented element of an unelected House imposing its views against an established referendum outcome.
Besides, if it really did come down to it, the government would have the nuclear option of the creation of hundreds of new peers.
https://infacts.org/may-must-negotiate-eu-not-tory-brexiters/amp/
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/brexit-sets-britain-on-a-stable-path-of-relative-decline-1.3209436?mode=amp
Ultimately, therefore, the Salisbury convention — and, more pertinently, the constitutional principle that animates it — will inform the House of Lords’ approach to Bills implementing manifesto commitments during a hung Parliament. And the Lords could entirely properly take the view that such commitments lack the special status that they enjoy when there is a majority government. At the end of the day, however, such evaluations of constitutional principle will form no more than one part of a much larger political calculus.
https://publiclawforeveryone.com/2017/06/10/does-the-salisbury-convention-apply-during-a-hung-parliament/
There was clearly no negotiation strategy in place. No decision had been made on a transitional deal, for example.
I'm very doubtful whether Labour peers will take a view of it that relieves the pressure on a minority Conservative government.
I'm heading back to a media blackout on the topic until we decide what we want. Nothing is going to change till then.
Suspect that 'the Lords will stop/stymie Brexit' will be another of the Remainers' pipe dreams. Like the significance of Mrs May's leadership, Gina Miller's court case and James Chapman's Tweets...
In the song, Mr Oakey (the EU) comes over as a crazed stalker, and as the song (UK) goes on to say ... "But now I think it's time I lived my life on my own."
An excellent choice of lyrics.
Interesting figures, though I wonder what the other countries think. Is there a financially normal group (which I'd guess would include the Netherlands too) and Club Med split? What do the Visegrad countries think?
France probably thinks it'll get more influence, but that's only true if it splits from the Franco-German axis to become leader of Club Med spendthrifts.
"We can't negotiate with the EU27 untill we know what we want."
We can't negotiate with the EU27 until we pay a large unexplained bill, according to Monsieur Barnier. We know what we want - the best financial deal commensurate with leaving the EU.
There will be a closing of the gap began richer and poorer populations. That is a good thing, not bad.
Ironically, it's the same deliberate hollowing out of public service that Government was desperate to conceal that is contributing to the sabotage of the Brexiters dream.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/09/05/the-poverty-of-brexit/
The Swedes and Danes are still very much hoping Brexit is reversed as besides them we are the only other Western European nation in the EU but not in the Eurozone
I suspect in reality the pragmatic one of seeing where we end up is probably the sane one but it does rather increase the element of doubt people are feeling...
In general, I think the public on the Continent don't care that much - it's seen as an eccentric British decision but primarily an issue for us. Businesses are more concerned, but a shopkeeper in Toulouse or a programmer in Copenhagen have more pressing concerns. That's why it didn't come up in the German leaders' debate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=658xlubwnDc
But - and this is the difference for the irredentist ultramontanes amongst us - we chose when to collaborate as opposed to being required to collaborate on terms that don't suit us
That said, a very good exchange between @david_herdson and @AlastairMeeks downthread this morning.
Which is another reason that I think that this is for keeps. The option of returning to an EU which looks even slightly like the present one simply will not exist within a decade or so. Re-joining will involve a program that would make William Glenn feel dizzy. Join the Euro, have your budget approved in Brussels, make cuts to match some Teutonic (or possibly Club Med) borrowing target regardless of local needs, join Schengen, accept that the EU institutions are now the most influential and that national level politics is strictly local. Things will have to be pretty bad for that to look like an option, way worse than Ganesh is talking about.
It's not impossible in the long-term that the Scandinavians also Leave and join us in EFTA, or similar.
Lets look at some economic facts:
When did the UK last have a trade surplus month ? 1998
When did UK industrial output peak ? 2000
When did UK government debt as a % of GDP start increasing ? 2002
When did home ownerships level start falling in the UK ? 2003
When did declinism begin ?
The handover didn't go smoothly this time.
I'm assuming cheering at English goals/victory must have been very disorienting.
One hopes that eventually a form of Brexit will be found that suits the Tory party - whether that is before 2019 or whether it is then acceptable to the EU is an entirely different matter.
The attitude is as though your brother, who has lived next door for many years, is thinking of emigrating. If you get on well, you'll be sorry to see him go, but the thought that his presence is useful to you is a fairly minor consideration.
When did UK productivity start its stagnation ? 2006
Declinism was a cause of the Leave vote, not a consequence.
On engine penalties, Force India is in favour of the current system. The fact their car is immensely reliable and has the best engine may not be irrelevant.
At the last race, only two drivers actually started in the positions in which they qualified. Some got grid penalties and actually moved forward.
The AfD have picked up a bit after a long period of internal quarrels, but are still not considered "salonfaehig" (people you'd be prepared to sit in a room with). Essentially Merkel is likely to have a choice between a coalition with FDP (free-market liberals, close to business) and Greens (relatively centrist compared with other countires, and more environmental than radical), the continuation of the grand coalition with the social democrats (unlikely as the SPD recognise the problems of being a junior partner) or a minority government with the FDP (viable as the AfD and the left will almost enver vote together, but unusual in Germany.
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/
Mr. Palmer, any long-term prospect of the AfD gaining popularity, do you think, or will they just be a protest vote party?
Like I said, long-term (i.e. not yet) but there's no doubt the Scandinavians have a distinctive and more independent identity as Nordic nations than many of the states on the main continent of Europe.
I disagree with your comment on there being "not much interest in slowing down The Project". Scandinavians do not want to be part of a fundamental part of it - the Euro.
We also have always been at war with Eastasia.
In the long-term, again, I could see Poland being a bigger and more successful player than countries like Italy and Spain, and perhaps even France.
Poland has an entrepreneurial pro-business nature, and takes its armed forces seriously.
Your independence is a great success.
Our sovereignty is a disaster.
We are doomed.
I told you so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Norwegian_parliamentary_election,_2017
First, he admits that the "immediate shock" stuff that pro-Europeans and neutrals predicted did not come to pass. Then, he conflates current slower growth in the UK compared to the eurozone (entirely understandable whilst firms and businesses hold off investment pending knowledge of the final deal and trading arrangements) with an imagined future of wonders and riches had we remained. In fact, he uses those very words: imagined future.
Has he imagined a future where Britain thrives? Where it deepens and strengthens its global trading relationships, adopts a more flexible approach to regulation and has a well-structured immigration policy focussed on attracting the best talent from around the world?
Nope. He is counting all of the (imagined) lost opportunities, and discounting any new ones.
He then hopes for a crisis in 2019 to reverse the decision again.
His evidence base for this seems to be the period from 1945 to c.1975, before the UK joined the EEC. But the world was very different then. The UK was gradually shedding the sterling zone and its empire, trimming its heavy military spending, and becoming a post industrial society. Furthermore, the Western world utterly dominated the global economy, and the EEC formed a very big part of it.
It is true to say that the UK will gradually experience relative decline (as it has for over 100 years) relative to the rest of the world going forwards. So will the EU.
In 20 years I expect no difference in our overall relative level of wealth compared to other large EU countries, and, in fact, I think it may even be better.