politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Twisting on 17: the hardline Leavers’ great gamble

Alanbrooke said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Alanbrooke said:

Sandpit said:

Alanbrooke said:

So junckers proposals to EU Parlt is lots more Europe.

What did you expect it to be?

Personally just that, but I note lots of our remain colleges have been telling me our influence and smart politicians means that ever closer union is off the agenda .

Once again Mr Alanbrooke you either intentionally or unintentionally misunderstand Europe. Ever closer union is a bullshit phrase. It has no beginning and no end and is open to massive interpretation. There are those that want a super-state, there are many many that do not. It will only happen if the heads of government (the Council of Ministers) from members agree it to be so.

Yes, qualified majority voting and all that, but there really is no concrete evidence of a serious prospect of a super-state with sovereignty. The Eu will continue to be a supra-national organisation only. Sorry to shatter your enjoyment of your negative outlook.

My position is quite conisitent I believe what European politicians have been saying for the last 60 years and what they have delivered in that timeframe. The direction of travel is clear.

UK politicans hiding behind nonsense like influence and denying the facts dont convince.

They don't convince you because you like to be convinced by misleading nonsense. We have had massive influence, though it was mainly Mrs Thatcher. The single market is her construct. The expansion of the EU to Eastern Europe to dilute French and German influence. De-nationalised monopolies across Europe from British influence. British influence creating regulations on prevention of government intervention leading to unbalanced competition (largely hated by the French in particular). Prevention of regulations restricting the financial transactions of the City.

The list is endless, but you are in denial because you worship at the altar of small minded nationalism

archer101au said:

JosiasJessop said:

archer101au said:

I wrote a long critique of the OP but it seems to have vanished from the thread. I assume this is now being edited by Geordie Greig?

Anyway, good to see the Remainers slapping each others backs in mutual congratulation on missing the point of the referendum. The real news today is the Junker is joining Barnier in trying to get it through Theresa May's thick head that the only thing that the EU want to offer is a Canada Plus FTA. Which is what the Leavers want. That must be a bit awkward.

Can we have a few more Remainers on here criticising Leavers for refusing to back the 'pragmatic compromise' of Chequers, despite the fact that the EU have completely ruled it out? Or maybe it is time to accept after all that the referendum was a binary question - fully in or fully out - and that you lost?

"Or maybe it is time to accept after all that the referendum was a binary question - fully in or fully out"

No, it wasn't.

Did you vote in the referendum?

Somebody else thinks so....

Junker: “[We] ask the British government to understand that someone who leaves the Union cannot be in the same privileged position as a member state. If you leave the Union, you are of course no longer part of our single market, and certainly not only in the parts of it you choose,” said Juncker, referring to the U.K. proposal that it remain within the single market for goods but not services. "...We agree with the statement made in Chequers that the starting point for such a partnership should be a free-trade area between the United Kingdom and the European Union,” he said.

As others have said, fudge is very tasty. Don't mistake negotiating positions for final positions.

I'd like to know if you actually voted in the referendum?

archer101au said:

Sandpit said:

Stereotomy said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

CD13 said:

Can we have some clarity in these perpetual moans from Remainers …

(1) Remain had all then advantages during the referendum. The government, TV, especially the BBC (with the exception of the three week purdah period), and the money that was spent.

(2) The lack of preparation and plan was down to one man. David Cameron. He prevented the civil service working on alternative plans - something they would automatically have done. Yet somehow it's all Brexit's fault. I had no ready-made plan in my pocket, and neither had Labour,for exactly the same reason. We're not in charge of the civil service. This isn't rocket science, but why hasn't Cameron been widely castigated for this cock-up?

(3) After a binary referendum, the idea of appealing to the Remainers by accepting many of their policies is akin to Labour winning a GE and taking on much of the Tory manifesto. Why?

(4) The country is split. Another referendum, and possibly another after that until we get the 'right' answer won't solve that.

Two is such bullshit.

He asked for prep to be done but the civil service couldn’t reconcile the contradictions in the Leave campaigns.

Such as we’re leaving the single market but no one is threatening our place in the single market.

Cameron called the referendum. He could, and should, have had the country vote on a specific vision of Brexit.

That was indeed the biggest mistake.

A referendum works when the government are proposing something specific and are asking for approval. It doesn’t work when the government support the status quo and allows something non-specific as an alternative.

The correct approach would have been to have the referendum as EU membership vs EEA membership, we could have debated the pros and cons of both organisations before the vote. Those in favour of WTO or similar would mostly have supported EEU as a loosening of the relationship on the way to the preferred destination.

If he had done that the EEA option would have won by a mile - and the establishment had no intention whatsoever of leaving the EU.. The reason Dave called the in/out referendum is that he assumed he was bound to win.

Indeed. I was a big David Cameron fan until that day in February 2016 when he returned from the “negotiations” with not a fig leaf, but tried to tell us all that he’d got the world’s best deal ever, yet it couldn’t be put in writing until after we’d voted to remain. He thought we’d all happily vote to remain, but completely misread the national mood and the willingness of lots of people who considered themselves left-behind to vote to kick the government.

rkrkrk said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I mean yesterday the ERG said they’d abolish all standards for imports/exports but since before the referendum there’d be no weakening of standards.

Tell me how Dave was supposed to wargame that?

It's not about wargaming, it's about preliminary preparation like when the PM turns up on day 1 post referendum result you can give him (and Cameron did promise to stay after all) a list of decisions and trade-offs he needs to make, rather than spending the next X months working out what the key issues are, and boxing yourself into red lines that turn out to be problematic.

As an example, witness the confusion about Euratom.

We did all that as part of my day job.

We couldn’t reconcile the Leave promises.

Leave assured us there’d be no disruption or economic hit.

DecrepitJohnL said:

Slackbladder said:

If I was TM, i'd be tempted to trigger a NCV myself. She surely has the numbers outside of the ERG to win it.

No and that is how you know this is all spin and mind games. Theresa May would almost certainly lose a confidence vote which is why she (or her proxies) won't call one. The Brexiteers would almost certainly lose the leadership election that followed, which is why they won't put the letters in.

It would be a mistake for TM to launch a VNC, it would confirm suspicions she was on the edge. Which of course she is, but appearances matter.

Sandpit said:

Indeed. I was a big David Cameron fan until that day in February 2016 when he returned from the “negotiations” with not a fig leaf, but tried to tell us all that he’d got the world’s best deal ever, yet it couldn’t be put in writing until after we’d voted to remain. He thought we’d all happily vote to remain, but completely misread the national mood and the willingness of lots of people who considered themselves left-behind to vote to kick the government.

I believe I was in intensive care at that time, so in comparison it didn't seem all that bad.

Nigel_Foremain said:

archer101au said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I wrote in favour of Chequers when it came out for that reason:

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2018/07/09/a-better-ole/

I considered extending the WW1 metaphor for this article by noting that Leavers, by abandoning Chequers, had found themselves trapped in no man's land, but remembered that Leavers get unnaturally excited by references to World Wars.

To be fair, many leavers - including some on here - are in favour of the Chequers plan. They're being sensible - I think few of them are massively happy with it (or that's the impression I get), but they see it as a workable compromise.

It's the other camp of leavers who are causing the problems. These people should be nowhere near government or power as they're impractical ideologues IMO.

Absolutely. There’s plenty of pragmatic Leavers around, including people like Michael Gove and Dan Hannan that a lot of commentators would have categorised as extreme, but are actually in favour of a gradual disentanglement of which Chequers is a good compromise.

Sigh. Dickens used great prose to explain to readers that Marley was dead. I am hoping some contemporary genius might be able to find the words to explain the same fact about Chequers.

I think that were he still to be alive Dickens might describe the idea of a positive outcome Brexit as being as dead as a coffin-nail

Door nail actually. Dead as a door nail.

rottenborough said:

matt said:

TOPPING said:

tlg86 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

The ERG are such hypocrites.

https://twitter.com/jimmfelton/status/1039478934105202688?s=21

Are JRM's views on abortion about him being a Christian? Or is just his own personal view?

I don't recall him saying "in the eyes of God" or something similar.

Jacob Rees-Mogg spoke on Radio 4’s Westminster Hour on Sunday. He said of the same-sex marriage bill vote this Tuesday: “I’m not under any pressure. I’m a Roman Catholic and have made it clear to my constituents that in this sort of matter I take my whip from the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church rather than the Whip’s Office.”

And abortion?

Can we not adduce that the Roman Catholic church might also profess not to like adultery?

Quite keen on single men and schoolboys though.

And the Sun rotating around the Earth.

If you are referring to the Galileo incident, there was no clear scientific consensus at the time. Tycho Brahe, one of the finest observational astronomers in history, thought that if the Earth was moving he should be able to see stellar parallax as he assumed that stars were much closer than we now know that are.
Added to which Galileo went out of his way to annoy the pope by making him look like an idiot.

Beverley_C said:

JosiasJessop said:

archer101au said:

JosiasJessop said:

archer101au said:

I wrote a long critique of the OP but it seems to have vanished from the thread. I assume this is now being edited by Geordie Greig?

Anyway, good to see the Remainers slapping each others backs in mutual congratulation on missing the point of the referendum. The real news today is the Junker is joining Barnier in trying to get it through Theresa May's thick head that the only thing that the EU want to offer is a Canada Plus FTA. Which is what the Leavers want. That must be a bit awkward.

Can we have a few more Remainers on here criticising Leavers for refusing to back the 'pragmatic compromise' of Chequers, despite the fact that the EU have completely ruled it out? Or maybe it is time to accept after all that the referendum was a binary question - fully in or fully out - and that you lost?

"Or maybe it is time to accept after all that the referendum was a binary question - fully in or fully out"

No, it wasn't.

Did you vote in the referendum?

Somebody else thinks so....

Junker: “[We] ask the British government to understand that someone who leaves the Union cannot be in the same privileged position as a member state. If you leave the Union, you are of course no longer part of our single market, and certainly not only in the parts of it you choose,” said Juncker, referring to the U.K. proposal that it remain within the single market for goods but not services. "...We agree with the statement made in Chequers that the starting point for such a partnership should be a free-trade area between the United Kingdom and the European Union,” he said.

As others have said, fudge is very tasty. Don't mistake negotiating positions for final positions.

I'd like to know if you actually voted in the referendum?

I would like to know if, post-Brexit, he will be returning to the UK to live in the paradise he is so passionate about.

TBF, it is a question that could be asked of other "remote Leavers" who urge a risky course (Brexit) from the safety of their ex-pat bunkers

I’ll be back, as soon as I can easily get a visa for my wife to join me.

Nigel_Foremain said:

Alanbrooke said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Alanbrooke said:

Sandpit said:

Alanbrooke said:

So junckers proposals to EU Parlt is lots more Europe.

What did you expect it to be?

Personally just that, but I note lots of our remain colleges have been telling me our influence and smart politicians means that ever closer union is off the agenda .

Once again Mr Alanbrooke you either intentionally or unintentionally misunderstand Europe. Ever closer union is a bullshit phrase. It has no beginning and no end and is open to massive interpretation. There are those that want a super-state, there are many many that do not. It will only happen if the heads of government (the Council of Ministers) from members agree it to be so.

Yes, qualified majority voting and all that, but there really is no concrete evidence of a serious prospect of a super-state with sovereignty. The Eu will continue to be a supra-national organisation only. Sorry to shatter your enjoyment of your negative outlook.

My position is quite conisitent I believe what European politicians have been saying for the last 60 years and what they have delivered in that timeframe. The direction of travel is clear.

UK politicans hiding behind nonsense like influence and denying the facts dont convince.

They don't convince you because you like to be convinced by misleading nonsense. We have had massive influence, though it was mainly Mrs Thatcher. The single market is her construct. The expansion of the EU to Eastern Europe to dilute French and German influence. De-nationalised monopolies across Europe from British influence. British influence creating regulations on prevention of government intervention leading to unbalanced competition (largely hated by the French in particular). Prevention of regulations restricting the financial transactions of the City.

The list is endless, but you are in denial because you worship at the altar of small minded nationalism

Juncker et al want a United States of Europe. They are willing to lie, bend the rules, be creative, salami slice, ignore votes, rerun votes till they get the "right" answer. They are prepared to be patient.

I don't want to be part of it.

Everything else is noise.

Sandpit said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Sandpit said:

Alanbrooke said:

Sandpit said:

Alanbrooke said:

So junckers proposals to EU Parlt is lots more Europe.

What did you expect it to be?

Personally just that, but I note lots of our remain colleges have been telling me our influence and smart politicians means that ever closer union is off the agenda .

Ever closer union has not been off the table since the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957. The fact that the EU is a ratchet was a factor in many a Leave vote, mine included. They have every intention of being a United States of Europe, only without the democratic accountability seen in the USA.

Wrong. Those that in favour of such are the equivalent of our ERG. They are headbangers and were very much in decline. If this was the reason for your vote, you, like many others were massively mislead

Did you hear what J-C Drunker had to say this morning? It’s very clear that the direction of travel is of ever more Europe, and a Europe that is increasingly inward-looking and protectionist, despite being a rapidly-falling proportion of the world’s economy. The opportunities of the next few decades lie outside Europe, they are in Asia, Africa and South America.

Yes and no. Opportunities in far-off lands are all well and good but most of our trade will continue to be with Europe simply because it is closest.

archer101au said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I wrote in favour of Chequers when it came out for that reason:

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2018/07/09/a-better-ole/

I considered extending the WW1 metaphor for this article by noting that Leavers, by abandoning Chequers, had found themselves trapped in no man's land, but remembered that Leavers get unnaturally excited by references to World Wars.

To be fair, many leavers - including some on here - are in favour of the Chequers plan. They're being sensible - I think few of them are massively happy with it (or that's the impression I get), but they see it as a workable compromise.

It's the other camp of leavers who are causing the problems. These people should be nowhere near government or power as they're impractical ideologues IMO.

Absolutely. There’s plenty of pragmatic Leavers around, including people like Michael Gove and Dan Hannan that a lot of commentators would have categorised as extreme, but are actually in favour of a gradual disentanglement of which Chequers is a good compromise.

Sigh. Dickens used great prose to explain to readers that Marley was dead. I am hoping some contemporary genius might be able to find the words to explain the same fact about Chequers.

His lucid explication of the law could equally apply to Brexit, and its proponents.
“The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble.”

archer101au said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I wrote in favour of Chequers when it came out for that reason:

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2018/07/09/a-better-ole/

I considered extending the WW1 metaphor for this article by noting that Leavers, by abandoning Chequers, had found themselves trapped in no man's land, but remembered that Leavers get unnaturally excited by references to World Wars.

To be fair, many leavers - including some on here - are in favour of the Chequers plan. They're being sensible - I think few of them are massively happy with it (or that's the impression I get), but they see it as a workable compromise.

It's the other camp of leavers who are causing the problems. These people should be nowhere near government or power as they're impractical ideologues IMO.

Absolutely. There’s plenty of pragmatic Leavers around, including people like Michael Gove and Dan Hannan that a lot of commentators would have categorised as extreme, but are actually in favour of a gradual disentanglement of which Chequers is a good compromise.

Sigh. Dickens used great prose to explain to readers that Marley was dead. I am hoping some contemporary genius might be able to find the words to explain the same fact about Chequers.

It will be interesting to see exactly where the compromise ends up. I agree with you that we should have done the negotiations the other way around, starting with completely out and ending up at a CETA-type agreement. The opportunity lies in being able to convince Barnier to drop his backstop bollocks and go with what’s purely a trade agreement - which I think is quite possible after a transition period.

DecrepitJohnL said:

Sandpit said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Sandpit said:

Alanbrooke said:

Sandpit said:

Alanbrooke said:

So junckers proposals to EU Parlt is lots more Europe.

What did you expect it to be?

Personally just that, but I note lots of our remain colleges have been telling me our influence and smart politicians means that ever closer union is off the agenda .

Ever closer union has not been off the table since the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957. The fact that the EU is a ratchet was a factor in many a Leave vote, mine included. They have every intention of being a United States of Europe, only without the democratic accountability seen in the USA.

Wrong. Those that in favour of such are the equivalent of our ERG. They are headbangers and were very much in decline. If this was the reason for your vote, you, like many others were massively mislead

Did you hear what J-C Drunker had to say this morning? It’s very clear that the direction of travel is of ever more Europe, and a Europe that is increasingly inward-looking and protectionist, despite being a rapidly-falling proportion of the world’s economy. The opportunities of the next few decades lie outside Europe, they are in Asia, Africa and South America.

Yes and no. Opportunities in far-off lands are all well and good but most of our trade will continue to be with Europe simply because it is closest.

There will always be an amount of trade with our closest neighbours, that is true, but the direction of travel is clear.

Most likely the withdrawal agreement to get the transition period ends up being mirroring the single market and customs union regulations essentially with a work permit or study place on arrival requirement, the only way to Leave with a Deal of some form with the EU and gain a token control of free movement and avoid a border in the Irish Sea unacceptable to the DUP

real ding dong in the Bundestag with name calling shouting and accusations

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/haushaltsdebatte-im-bundestag-und-dann-platzt-martin-schulz-der-kragen-15783755.html

Chemnitz raising the temperature of AfD versus the government

DecrepitJohnL said:

Sandpit said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Sandpit said:

Alanbrooke said:

Sandpit said:

Alanbrooke said:

So junckers proposals to EU Parlt is lots more Europe.

What did you expect it to be?

Personally just that, but I note lots of our remain colleges have been telling me our influence and smart politicians means that ever closer union is off the agenda .

Ever closer union has not been off the table since the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957. The fact that the EU is a ratchet was a factor in many a Leave vote, mine included. They have every intention of being a United States of Europe, only without the democratic accountability seen in the USA.

Wrong. Those that in favour of such are the equivalent of our ERG. They are headbangers and were very much in decline. If this was the reason for your vote, you, like many others were massively mislead

Did you hear what J-C Drunker had to say this morning? It’s very clear that the direction of travel is of ever more Europe, and a Europe that is increasingly inward-looking and protectionist, despite being a rapidly-falling proportion of the world’s economy. The opportunities of the next few decades lie outside Europe, they are in Asia, Africa and South America.

Yes and no. Opportunities in far-off lands are all well and good but most of our trade will continue to be with Europe simply because it is closest.

Most of our trade is already to outside of the EU. Most means over 50% and the EU's share of our trade is already below 50% and falling still.

That's before we even grasp any post-brexit opportunities.

Beverley_C said:

Sandpit said:

Beverley_C said:

JosiasJessop said:

archer101au said:

JosiasJessop said:

archer101au said:

?

"Or maybe it is time to accept after all that the referendum was a binary question - fully in or fully out"

No, it wasn't.

Did you vote in the referendum?

Somebody else thinks so....

Junker: “[We] ask the British government to understand that someone who leaves the Union cannot be in the same privileged position as a member state. If you leave the Union, you are of course no longer part of our single market, and certainly not only in the parts of it you choose,” said Juncker, referring to the U.K. proposal that it remain within the single market for goods but not services. "...We agree with the statement made in Chequers that the starting point for such a partnership should be a free-trade area between the United Kingdom and the European Union,” he said.

As others have said, fudge is very tasty. Don't mistake negotiating positions for final positions.

I'd like to know if you actually voted in the referendum?

I would like to know if, post-Brexit, he will be returning to the UK to live in the paradise he is so passionate about.

TBF, it is a question that could be asked of other "remote Leavers" who urge a risky course (Brexit) from the safety of their ex-pat bunkers

I’ll be back, as soon as I can easily get a visa for my wife to join me.

Good for you

It will be interesting to see how many others will return. Surely your wife can just return as she is your spouse and you will have documentation that you are indeed married, etc? At this point the UK is still bound by EU rules and a non-EU national married to an EU national has right of entry.

You’re nearly right.

A non-EU national married to a non-British EU National has the right of residence in the U.K. A non-EU national married to a Brit doesn’t.

If I was French, she’d be allowed to reside with me in the U.K. unequivocally, but because I’m British she can’t. That’s how screwed up our immigration system has become.

She’s a qualified teacher of English in Ukraine, she’d walk into a job as a teacher of Russian in a private school in U.K. for probably £40k salary, a net contributor even if she wasn’t my wife.

(And there’s no gliders in Dubai).

Fysics_Teacher said:

On topic: are we sure that the ERG are not closet Remainers? Everything they have done so far seems calculated to make me feel that I was, after all, correct to vote Remain. They are acting like the opposition and if they continue to do so I’m sure the electorate will make it true.

They're certainly pushing myself there too.

The optics of this ERG Irish border presentation are appalling. It’s the launch of John Redwood’s leadership all over again.

Beverley_C said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

If you are referring to the Galileo incident, there was no clear scientific consensus at the time. Tycho Brahe, one of the finest observational astronomers in history, thought that if the Earth was moving he should be able to see stellar parallax as he assumed that stars were much closer than we now know that are.
Added to which Galileo went out of his way to annoy the pope by making him look like an idiot.

In any case, the Catholic church has since dropped heliocentrism from its proscribed list and several Popes have apologised for how he was treated, but the planned statue to Galileo that was to be erected within the Vatican has been kicked into the long grass.

The modern Big Bang theory was first propounded by a priest, Georges Lemaître.

I’m glad about the statue: I’m not a fan of Galileo.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

JRM and David Davis both endorse TM as PM saying she is a good PM and they only disagree with her on this one issue

In fact on the Irish border they seem to agree with her. (They are right, as well).

Is the ERG Group, including Nobel prize winner Lord Trimble and David Davis, currently refuting Mr Meek's Blog?

williamglenn said:

The optics of this ERG Irish border presentation are appalling. It’s the launch of John Redwood’s leadership all over again.

Authenticity rules.

Alanbrooke said:

Beverley_C said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

rkrkrk said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I mean yesterday the ERG said they’d abolish all standards for imports/exports but since before the referendum there’d be no weakening of standards.

Tell me how Dave was supposed to wargame that?

It's not about wargaming, it's about preliminary preparation li out to be problematic.

As an example, witness the confusion about Euratom.

We did all that as part of my day job.

We couldn’t reconcile the Leave promises.

Leave assured us there’d be no disruption or economic hit.

Ah right, so you were running scared of Nigel Farage.

Not exactly a recommendartion for Cameronite skills is it ?

Nah.

Anyhoo you won, deal with it.

Theres not much to deal with Im getting pretty much what I voted for

Total chaos?

Beverley_C said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

rkrkrk said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I mean yesterday the ERG said they’d abolish all standards for imports/exports but since before the referendum there’d be no weakening of standards.

Tell me how Dave was supposed to wargame that?

Leave assured us there’d be no disruption or economic hit.

Ah right, so you were running scared of Nigel Farage.

Not exactly a recommendartion for Cameronite skills is it ?

Nah.

Anyhoo you won, deal with it.

Theres not much to deal with Im getting pretty much what I voted for

Total chaos?

no thats only on here where the 5% at either end of the spectrum yell at each other and ignore the shades of opinion of the 90% in between

I voted for a soft brexit, continued trade but a guarantee of no further integration. Thats what we will end up with on current trends.

That the voted ended Osborne's career was a bonus

"I voted for a soft brexit, continued trade but a guarantee of no further integration."
Didn't see that on the voting paper.
That's the problem, it wasn't clear what was being voted for so lots of minorities were able to vote 'Leave' and together get a small majority.It's why they can't come up with a plan now and that's why we need a People's Vote.

Richard_Nabavi said:

A good article from Alastair.

I'm baffled as to what the ERG's gameplan actually is. Never mind the point that they don't know what they want - that's a minor point - the bigger issue is that they don't know how to get it. Steve Baker said the other day that If the government tried to push through a Brexit deal through the Commons, on the back of Labour votes, the Tory Party "would suffer the catastrophic split which thus far we have managed to avoid". He might be right, but of course the corollary is also true: is he going to defeat whatever deal is put to parliament on the back of Labour (and LibDem and SNP and other strong Remainer) votes? For that matter, what conceivable calculation could lead to the conclusion that voting down the deal would lead to a result even more remote from what the majority of MPs want?

It just doesn't add up; the ERG rebels are drunk on their own rebellion. If they don't back down the overwhelming likelihood is that Article 50 will be delayed, and that thereafter we will end up with a much softer Brexit, or possibly no Brexit at all. Oh, and a Corbyn government to boot, quite probably.

I've always seen the ERG as an internal pressure group - it is loyal to the party and Euroscepticism if not necessarily always the leadership. As evidence, the securing of amendments to the British Withdrawal Bill that prevented any 'softer than Chequers' compromises,

Their power, pre and post referendum, lies in pressurising the Government to secure tactical advantage. Their strength is that they can create an almighty issue for the Government and feasibly bring down the leader (by voting down legislation, rather than triggering either a leadership ballot or general election).

In short, I therefore don't see a right wing revolt on the final deal. But I suspect there will be lots more episodes of push back by the ERG. Moving towards Canada Plus is the current position. Given the ERG has secured at least partial victory in pretty much every engagement it has taken part in, and that Chequers is not going to be acceptable to the EU, I suspect more movement will be secured here.

Beverley_C said:

Beverley_C said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

rkrkrk said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I mean yesterday the ERG said they’d abolish all standards for imports/exports but since before the referendum there’d be no weakening of standards.

Tell me how Dave was supposed to wargame that?

It's not about warg out to be problematic.

As an example, witness the confusion about Euratom.

We did all that as part of my day job.

We couldn’t reconcile the Leave promises.

Leave assured us there’d be no disruption or economic hit.

Ah right, so you were running scared of Nigel Farage.

Not exactly a recommendartion for Cameronite skills is it ?

Nah.

Anyhoo you won, deal with it.

Theres not much to deal with Im getting pretty much what I voted for

Total chaos?

no thats only on here where the 5% at

That the voted ended Osborne's career was a bonus

You could not have voted for a "Soft Brexit" - the ballot only had "Leave" or "Stay" (and is possibly the most accurate thing about the whole Brexit process)

I took my own view on the likely outcome since the politicians couldnt arrticulate one, its shorthand for

1. I believed we'd always have a trading relationship with the EU and that out wouldnt be that much different from in in trade terms
2. Im not that worried about EU conributions as long as theyre doing something useful
3. once out we can decide what and how we wish to devlop our trade
4. a kick up the backside is what is needed to change our complacent establishment
5. I didnt believe any of the "guarantees" on further integration

rottenborough said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

archer101au said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I wrote in favour of Chequers when it came out for that reason:

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2018/07/09/a-better-ole/

I considered extending the WW1 metaphor for this article by noting that Leavers, by abandoning Chequers, had found themselves trapped in no man's land, but remembered that Leavers get unnaturally excited by references to World Wars.

To be fair, many leavers - including some on here - are in favour of the Chequers plan. They're being sensible - I think few of them are massively happy with it (or that's the impression I get), but they see it as a workable compromise.

It's the other camp of leavers who are causing the problems. These people should be nowhere near government or power as they're impractical ideologues IMO.

Absolutely. There’s plenty of pragmatic Leavers around, including people like Michael Gove and Dan Hannan that a lot of commentators would have categorised as extreme, but are actually in favour of a gradual disentanglement of which Chequers is a good compromise.

Sigh. Dickens used great prose to explain to readers that Marley was dead. I am hoping some contemporary genius might be able to find the words to explain the same fact about Chequers.

I think that were he still to be alive Dickens might describe the idea of a positive outcome Brexit as being as dead as a coffin-nail

Door nail actually. Dead as a door nail.

"I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade"

This was the Dickensian quote to which I referred

logical_song said:

Alanbrooke said:

Beverley_C said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

rkrkrk said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I mean yesterday the ERG said they’d abolish all standards for imports/exports but since before the referendum there’d be no weakening of standards.

Tell me how Dave was supposed to wargame that?

It's not about wargaming, it's about preliminary preparation li out to be problematic.

As an example, witness the confusion about Euratom.

We did all that as part of my day job.

We couldn’t reconcile the Leave promises.

Leave assured us there’d be no disruption or economic hit.

Ah right, so you were running scared of Nigel Farage.

Not exactly a recommendartion for Cameronite skills is it ?

Nah.

Anyhoo you won, deal with it.

Theres not much to deal with Im getting pretty much what I voted for

Total chaos?

Beverley_C said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

rkrkrk said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I mean yesterday the ERG said they’d abolish all standards for imports/exports but since before the referendum there’d be no weakening of standards.

Tell me how Dave was supposed to wargame that?

Leave assured us there’d be no disruption or economic hit.

Ah right, so you were running scared of Nigel Farage.

Not exactly a recommendartion for Cameronite skills is it ?

Nah.

Anyhoo you won, deal with it.

Theres not much to deal with Im getting pretty much what I voted for

Total chaos?

no thats only on here where thet trends.

That the voted ended Osborne's career was a bonus

"I voted for a soft brexit, continued trade but a guarantee of no further integration."
Didn't see that on the voting paper.
That's the problem, it wasn't clear what was being voted for so lots of minorities were able to vote 'Leave' and together get a small majority.It's why they can't come up with a plan now and that's why we need a People's Vote.

thats one side of the equation, the other side was Remain couldnt present anything on what staying in meant

so Leave confusion = Remain confusion -4%

Alanbrooke said:

I took my own view on the likely outcome since the politicians couldnt arrticulate one, its shorthand for

1. I believed we'd always have a trading relationship with the EU and that out wouldnt be that much different from in in trade terms
2. Im not that worried about EU conributions as long as theyre doing something useful
3. once out we can decide what and how we wish to devlop our trade
4. a kick up the backside is what is needed to change our complacent establishment
5. I didnt believe any of the "guarantees" on further integration

You’re certainly not getting number 3 based on the current plan, nor number 5 given the government’s continuing willingness to join new integrationist moves.

Alanbrooke said:

Beverley_C said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

rkrkrk said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I mean yesterday the ERG said they’d abolish all standards for imports/exports but since before the referendum there’d be no weakening of standards.

Tell me how Dave was supposed to wargame that?

It's not about wargaming, it's about preliminary preparation li out to be problematic.

As an example, witness the confusion about Euratom.

We did all that as part of my day job.

We couldn’t reconcile the Leave promises.

Leave assured us there’d be no disruption or economic hit.

Ah right, so you were running scared of Nigel Farage.

Not exactly a recommendartion for Cameronite skills is it ?

Nah.

Anyhoo you won, deal with it.

Theres not much to deal with Im getting pretty much what I voted for

Total chaos?

Beverley_C said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

rkrkrk said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I mean yesterday the ERG said they’d abolish all standards for imports/exports but since before the referendum there’d be no weakening of standards.

Tell me how Dave was supposed to wargame that?

It's not about warg out to be problematic.

As an example, witness the confusion about Euratom.

We did all that as part of my day job.

We couldn’t reconcile the Leave promises.

Leave assured us there’d be no disruption or economic hit.

Ah right, so you were running scared of Nigel Farage.

Not exactly a recommendartion for Cameronite skills is it ?

Nah.

Anyhoo you won, deal with it.

Theres not much to deal with Im getting pretty much what I voted for

Total chaos?

no thats only on here where the 5% at either end of the spectrum yell at each other and ignore the shades of opinion of the 90% in between

I voted for a soft brexit, continued trade but a guarantee of no further integration. Thats what we will end up with on current trends.

That the voted ended Osborne's career was a bonus

What a nice chap you are. Osborne still looks quite busy, and possibly better paid than yow, and I am sure if he ever reads your posts he is unlikely to speak highly of you either.

Due to have some major bowel surgery at the RVI in Newcastle on Friday. Quite nervous but I’m in very good hands. My surgeon and other NHS staff have been/are fantastic.

williamglenn said:

Alanbrooke said:

You could not have voted for a "Soft Brexit" - the ballot only had "Leave" or "Stay" (and is possibly the most accurate thing about the whole Brexit process)

I took my own view on the likely outcome since the politicians couldnt arrticulate one, its shorthand for

1. I believed we'd always have a trading relationship with the EU and that out wouldnt be that much different from in in trade terms
2. Im not that worried about EU conributions as long as theyre doing something useful
3. once out we can decide what and how we wish to devlop our trade
4. a kick up the backside is what is needed to change our complacent establishment
5. I didnt believe any of the "guarantees" on further integration

You’re certainly not getting number 3 based on the current plan, nor number 5 given the government’s continuing willingness to join new integrationist moves.

on Number 3 thats what Dev told Michael Collins, Collins won the argument

on 5 if the majority of the UK population decide they want to make major consitiutional change thats fine, put it to a vote. Ignoring the voters is the big mistake integrationsist have consistently made and why theyre struggling to build a demos

welshowl said:

Gallowgate said:

Due to have some major bowel surgery at the RVI in Newcastle on Friday. Quite nervous but I’m in very good hands. My surgeon and other NHS staff have been/are fantastic.

Good luck.

Thank you. I’m certainly getting my tax moneys worth!

Gallowgate said:

Due to have some major bowel surgery at the RVI in Newcastle on Friday. Quite nervous but I’m in very good hands. My surgeon and other NHS staff have been/are fantastic.

Hope everything goes well and best wishes for a swift recovery.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

The impression the ERG give is that they will fight their cause but they will not bring down TM or risk the government falling

They could be acting as very useful idiots in Mrs May’s negotiations with the EU (and more importantly the EU27 leaders) though. She can make it quite clear that any deal that makes us a vassal state would result in her being replaced with Boris, who’d argue for no deal and go over the cliff edge - which would seriously damage the EU economy.

Gallowgate said:

Due to have some major bowel surgery at the RVI in Newcastle on Friday. Quite nervous but I’m in very good hands. My surgeon and other NHS staff have been/are fantastic.

Fingers crossed - every best wish for the finest outcome.

not_on_fire said:

tlg86 said:

Sandpit said:

Foxy said:

Beverley_C said:

Sandpit said:

Beverley_C said:

JosiasJessop said:

archer101au said:

JosiasJessop said:

archer101au said:

.

?

.

As others have said, fudge is very tasty. Don't mistake negotiating positions for final positions.

I'd like to know if you actually voted in the referendum?

I would like to know if, post-Brexit, he will be returning to the UK to live in the paradise he is so passionate about.

I’ll be back, as soon as I can easily get a visa for my wife to join me.

Good for you

It will be interesting to see how many others will return. Surely your wife can just return as she is your spouse and you will have documentation that you are indeed married, etc? At this point the UK is still bound by EU rules and a non-EU national married to an EU national has right of entry.

I believe Mrs Sandpit is non EU, so it is government policy to keep her out if possible, not that it is very good at meeting its tens of thousands target.

Indeed. The government pretty much treats all non-EU wives as if they were arranged marriages among teenagers, they don’t understand that people might go away for a few years and fall in love. Plenty of stories around of Australian and Canadian spouses with the same problem, we all feel that we were swept up in the net of legislation designed to discourage subcontinental marriage practices and immigration scams.

Is it not worse than that? Is it not the case that our government can do this to you but not EU nationals who are not from the UK?

This is correct. UK citizens have to go through the UK spousal visa process which costs thousands of pounds and takes 5 years to get permanent residency. EU non-UK citizens can use the EEA family permit route, which is free.

Yup!

The other big spanner in the works is the salary requirement, which can’t take into account earnings outside the U.K.

Alanbrooke said:

Beverley_C said:

Alanbrooke said:

Beverley_C said:

You could not have voted for a "Soft Brexit" - the ballot only had "Leave" or "Stay" (and is possibly the most accurate thing about the whole Brexit process)

I took my own view on the likely outcome since the politicians couldnt arrticulate one, its shorthand for

1. I believed we'd always have a trading relationship with the EU and that out wouldnt be that much different from in in trade terms
2. Im not that worried about EU conributions as long as theyre doing something useful
3. once out we can decide what and how we wish to devlop our trade
4. a kick up the backside is what is needed to change our complacent establishment
5. I didnt believe any of the "guarantees" on further integration

I did not believe any guarantees about further integration either, but the shambolic ineptitude of Westminster has changed my mind to believing that maybe neutering nation parliaments to a degree may not be a bad thing. It is highly amusing that Corbyn appears to support Brexit because getting rid of EU influence will let him indulge his more madcap schemes.

I totally agree about the kick up the backside for the Establishment.

I always prefer politicans having a limited remit and decision making as close to the voters as is practical.

I am pleased that you have come round to the idea of more regular referendums. When should we have the next one on the stupidity of Brexit?

Nigel_Foremain said:

rottenborough said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

archer101au said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I wrote in favour of Chequers when it came out for that reason:

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2018/07/09/a-better-ole/

I considered extending the WW1 metaphor for this article by noting that Leavers, by abandoning Chequers, had found themselves trapped in no man's land, but remembered that Leavers get unnaturally excited by references to World Wars.

To be fair, many leavers - including some on here - are in favour of the Chequers plan. They're being sensible - I think few of them are massively happy with it (or that's the impression I get), but they see it as a workable compromise.

It's the other camp of leavers who are causing the problems. These people should be nowhere near government or power as they're impractical ideologues IMO.

Absolutely. There’s plenty of pragmatic Leavers around, including people like Michael Gove and Dan Hannan that a lot of commentators would have categorised as extreme, but are actually in favour of a gradual disentanglement of which Chequers is a good compromise.

Sigh. Dickens used great prose to explain to readers that Marley was dead. I am hoping some contemporary genius might be able to find the words to explain the same fact about Chequers.

I think that were he still to be alive Dickens might describe the idea of a positive outcome Brexit as being as dead as a coffin-nail

Door nail actually. Dead as a door nail.

"I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade"

This was the Dickensian quote to which I referred

"But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for"

Stick to doornails!

Morning all

Thank you for an excellent piece, Antifrank. As someone who voted LEAVE for a number of reasons, I was well aware the LEAVE Coalition was a widely disparate group united on only one thing. The truth was to make it work elements of said Coalition would have to compromise whether it be on global trade, freedom of movement, the status of Northern Ireland or whatever.

I have been profoundly disappointed by that inability or at best unwillingness to compromise. The buccaneering notion of "Global Britain" was always (for this observer) predicated on a deregulated low-tax pro-business environment which while good for some was likely to be sub-optimal for many. I have always said I have no desire to live in Singapore-on-Thames.

My preferences have long been a return to EFTA membership and a series of Swiss-style bilateral treaties with the EU within which we can resolve issues like freedom of movement, the passporting of financial services and Northern Ireland.

I can't believe the architects of the LEAVE campaign were so arrogant to believe that if the UK turned up to negotiations and started shouting, the EU would simply roll over and give us everything we wanted. There was so much expectation management around all the benefits we would supposedly get that no one seemed to realise that in a negotiation an element of compromise is required.

Some LEAVE people thought we would be like Montgomery dealing with Admiral von Friedeburg on Luneburg Heath but instead the UK has seemed like a group of Titanic passengers arguing over which song the orchestra should play next as the ship sinks.

The EU has indulged our internal machinations and of course has come to realise it will suffer if there is no deal. There is a time and a place for brinkmanship and sometimes, just sometimes, it pays off but are the pain and uncertainty "a price worth paying" as someone once said?

TrèsDifficile said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

rottenborough said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

archer101au said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I wrote in favour of Chequers when it came out for that reason:

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2018/07/09/a-better-ole/

I considered extending the WW1 metaphor for this article by noting that Leavers, by abandoning Chequers, had found themselves trapped in no man's land, but remembered that Leavers get unnaturally excited by references to World Wars.

To be fair, many leavers - including some on here - are in favour of the Chequers plan. They're being sensible - I think few of them are massively happy with it (or that's the impression I get), but they see it as a workable compromise.

It's the other camp of leavers who are causing the problems. These people should be nowhere near government or power as they're impractical ideologues IMO.

Absolutely. There’s plenty of pragmatic Leavers around, including people like Michael Gove and Dan Hannan that a lot of commentators would have categorised as extreme, but are actually in favour of a gradual disentanglement of which Chequers is a good compromise.

Sigh. Dickens used great prose to explain to readers that Marley was dead. I am hoping some contemporary genius might be able to find the words to explain the same fact about Chequers.

I think that were he still to be alive Dickens might describe the idea of a positive outcome Brexit as being as dead as a coffin-nail

Door nail actually. Dead as a door nail.

"I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade"

This was the Dickensian quote to which I referred

"But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for"

Stick to doornails!

Thank you M/Mme TresDifficile for finishing the quote. It is quite apposite is it not?

Mortimer said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Beverley_C said:

Alanbrooke said:

Beverley_C said:

You could not have voted for a "Soft Brexit" - the ballot only had "Leave" or "Stay" (and is possibly the most accurate thing about the whole Brexit process)

I took my own view on the likely outcome since the politicians couldnt arrticulate one, its shorthand for

1. I believed we'd always have a trading relationship with the EU and that out wouldnt be that much different from in in trade terms
2. Im not that worried about EU conributions as long as theyre doing something useful
3. once out we can decide what and how we wish to devlop our trade
4. a kick up the backside is what is needed to change our complacent establishment
5. I didnt believe any of the "guarantees" on further integration

I did not believe any guarantees about further integration either, but the shambolic ineptitude of Westminster has changed my mind to believing that maybe neutering nation parliaments to a degree may not be a bad thing. It is highly amusing that Corbyn appears to support Brexit because getting rid of EU influence will let him indulge his more madcap schemes.

I totally agree about the kick up the backside for the Establishment.

..except that Mr Alanbrookes two favourite "anti-establishment" figures are both millionaire old-Etonians. It is so representative of the intellectual convulsions you would have to go through if you had half a brain to support Brexit. It is like the very worst type of religious zealotry.

Suggest you google "Not Everyone Thinks Exactly the Same As You Do" Support Group and watch the Tracey Ullman sketch

No need, perfectly aware of that. 52% don't. Doesn't stop me thinking they are wrong or taking the piss out of those who in spite of overwhelming evidence still try to convince themselves and others that there was some logic to their decision and/or it had nothing to do with xenophobia