The bilthe assumption that a government which behaves in this way will continue to allow free and fair elections is becoming increasingly naive, IMO.
HYUFD's suggestion of redistricting MPs to be elected by county rather than constituency perhaps?
No, that was to do with a UK electoral college if we elected our Head of State or if we had an elected second chamber
Why don't you do it by the square area? That way you could split Haltemprice and Howden into 4 or 5 seats and join 4 or 5 inner London Labour seats together.
Do the objectors not remember what it was like a few months ago when people were dying like flies and half the public was calling the Government murderers? Do they want to go back to that at Christmas, or could we occasionally learn something and move on?
The objectors probably just realise that making ridiculous and spurious laws where you say things that are obviously the same are safe in one case and unsafe in another, such as they can all work together in an office but cant safely have a pint together after, brings any regulation into such disrepute that it is likely people are just going to stick two fingers up at you and ignore it.
I supported the initial lockdown when we thought it was going to be 10 to 12 weeks....now it has been 6 months with no end in sight this year and maybe not most of next year. It is time to admit we cannot continue this.
The rules aren't absolutely consistent precisely because they are a balancing act, so that you get the most virus suppression for the least economic harm. Absolute consistency would require either an absolute lockdown or an absolute release, neither of which is a rational option at this stage.
As mentioned earlier in the thread by moonshine - a strong lockdown sceptic - we are still on track to begin vaccinations in November. With a second wave underway here and in many other countries, which has a high probability of overlapping with the flu season, all that 'going herd' now will achieve is to kill or chronically injure a lot of people who could otherwise have been saved.
It doesn't matter whether the rules are consistent or not. You failed to grasp the point which is
1) The laws are ludicrous and thats not about inconsistency 2) The laws are a serious breach of civil liberties 3) The laws have had no parliamentary scrutiny and even though I can accept that initially they had to be brought in quickly that doesn't excuse that they should have had a time limitation clause after which they could only be renewed after full parliamentary scrutiny 4) The laws were meant to be for a short period. Six months and ongoing is not for a short period 5) The laws have been made more authoritarian still with again no parliamentary scruting
Personally I have no intent on obeying these laws purely on principle and the first covid marshall that tries to hand me a fine will be treated with the contempt they deserve.
I'm not going to tell you how to live - you can make your decisions. But why exactly you expect the laws to be time-limited when the virus itself is not (yet) is a complete mystery to me.
I said time limited until full parliamentary scrutiny I quote "should have had a time limitation clause after which they could only be renewed after full parliamentary scrutiny"
What we have now is arbitrary restrictions on our lives at the whim of boris and cummings with no scrutiny by our elected representatives allowed. That is not acceptable.
Just had a group of about a dozen chaps walk past on the footpath near our house, carrying rucksacks and wearing boots and socks but not wearing anything else.
It's OK though. As they passed we heard one of them say "I've got my secateurs with me in case we need them".
No masks?
'Fraid not. And I'm not convinced they were social distancing either. Where do I find a Covid Marshall so I can snitch on them?
Just a quick question about the Withdrawal agreement.
The Government claims that the "border in the Irish Sea" is an absurd interpretation of the agreement, and therefore there is no reason for the Agreement not to stand despite the UK's refusal to implement customs checks.
Now obviously we know the Govt's claim is absurd, BUT, there is another point.
I assume that under the Withdrawal agreement the possibility of Customs checks on the Irish land border are explicitly excluded. Is this correct? Because the whole point is that checks at the land border were supposed to be replaced by checks at the sea.
So if the UK maintains its position it seems to me that the EU have no choice but to declare the WA null and void and exclude Northern Ireland from the Single Market with all that involves? Because how else can they control the flow of goods into the single market. They don't even have the legal power under the WA to impose their own customs checks.
Just a quick question about the Withdrawal agreement.
The Government claims that the "border in the Irish Sea" is an absurd interpretation of the agreement, and therefore there is no reason for the Agreement not to stand despite the UK's refusal to implement customs checks.
Now obviously we know the Govt's claim is absurd, BUT, there is another point.
I assume that under the Withdrawal agreement the possibility of Customs checks on the Irish land border are explicitly excluded. Is this correct? Because the whole point is that checks at the land border were supposed to be replaced by checks at the sea.
So if the UK maintains its position it seems to me that the EU have no choice but to declare the WA null and void and exclude Northern Ireland from the Single Market with all that involves? Because how else can they control the flow of goods into the single market. They don't even have the legal power under the WA to impose their own customs checks.
If the EU want to build customs posts on the Republic side of the border with NI and exclude NI from the single market and risk the GFA that is up to the EU, the UK will not build any border posts nor will it undertake customs checks in Northern Ireland
Great piece but I disagree about the chances of No Deal. I think it remains unlikely. I think the politics steers towards a deal that prolongs close alignment beyond 1st Jan 2021.
However let’s go with the hardly outrageous proposition that I am wrong and David Herdson is right. In which case there’s a problem. Which is that No Deal Brexit has no domestic mandate. I don’t mean it doesn’t respect the Referendum result. We voted to leave and it is leaving. It’s leaving good and proper. No issue there.
But the most recent national democratic event was the GE in December 2019. Exactly 8 months ago, that was, and it gave Boris Johnson a thumping “Oh yes please!” to the question he asked the British people, which was – “Do you want to get Brexit done and finished on the basis of my oven ready deal with the EU?”
He knew he could not win an election on a No Deal platform. He knew if he’d asked the question - “Do you want to crash out of the EU onto basic WTO terms and get into a serious wrangle about the Irish border with the EU?” – the answer would have been “Are you kidding? Get a grip.”
So, Ok, having won power by nefarious means – by lying to the EU and to the public - he can now use it to do what he wants, which includes pretending that this abuse of the democratic process did not happen. But if he does it will be a bit off and that’s putting it mildly.
The referendum mandate was to leave the EU. That was delivered in full on 31st January. The referendum is literally over and complete. What instead we should be talking about when it comes to a mandate is what we do now that we have successfully left the EU.
The only mandate is for Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement. The one he is now ripping up. So when we get into a Commons vs Lords battle the Lords will be able to put the Parliament Acts and conventions into reverse - it is they who are acting to defend the democratic mandate of a government trying to reverse it.
Oh geez not this again.
The Tories won a landslide less than a year ago, they have the mandate to do what they want until the next election.
This whole "There's no mandate" nonsense every time anything has changed has got to stop.
You say this because you agree with what they are doing rather than out of principle. Nevertheless your opening sentence is spot on if you change just one word. Replace 'mandate' with 'power'.
By this logic there is never going to be a "mandate" for anyone in power to ever react to any event that might happen after an election has taken place. A new election will be required each time.
It's nonsense.
I'm not making a general point, it's a specific one. The GE was won just yesterday on the basis of the oven ready deal. It would not have been won on a no deal platform. This was THE issue of the election. So the winning party do not have a mandate to tear up the deal and do no deal instead. To pretend they do, that is the nonsense.
Lol nonsense, he won on a platform of getting Brexit done.
I heard absolutely no one mention the "oven ready deal" during the election at all.
Do you really think Corbyn would have won the election if it wasn't for the genius "oven ready deal" campaign that the Tories apparently ran?
Please focus rather than 'loling'.
Your question. What would the GE result have been if the Con position was to leave the EU with No Deal?
Hung Parliament. Lab + LD + SNP > Con + DUP.
It's hilarious how the 'genius' oven-ready deal has now become a historical embarrassment in a matter of days.
Yep. The ironies abound. Like, Mrs May said a border in the Irish Sea was "something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And it turns out she was right. But the trick she missed - due to possession of that inconvenient character trait called integrity - was to pretend to accept it in order to get the deal needed as the platform for an election win, and then with power duly secured to unaccept it again!
Play it straight and lose, or dissimulate and win. A tough choice indeed
Dissimulate is kind indeed. That phrase "My word is my bond." Is there an opposite for it?
Perhaps this from Euripides' Hippolytus:
ἡ γλῶσσ’ ὀμώμοχ’, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος.
'The tongue swore, but the mind remained unsworn'.
Sure. And if you lose a £100 bet with a fellow poster here, you can pay up and lose £100 or do nothing and break even. You are claiming to be a piece of shit, and nobody is arguing with you. Not sure what the emoticons and Perseus copy-pastes contribute to the argument.
I'm just answering the question. And whilst I don't endorse this kind of duplicity in my personal life - I'm very T May-like in that regard - do I accept it when the alternative was another Hung Parliament and Corbyn's lunatics breathing down our necks? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
And I make no apologies for exploiting the wonderful resources of the TLG. Don't use Perseus, for God's sake.
Just a quick question about the Withdrawal agreement.
The Government claims that the "border in the Irish Sea" is an absurd interpretation of the agreement, and therefore there is no reason for the Agreement not to stand despite the UK's refusal to implement customs checks.
Now obviously we know the Govt's claim is absurd, BUT, there is another point.
I assume that under the Withdrawal agreement the possibility of Customs checks on the Irish land border are explicitly excluded. Is this correct? Because the whole point is that checks at the land border were supposed to be replaced by checks at the sea.
So if the UK maintains its position it seems to me that the EU have no choice but to declare the WA null and void and exclude Northern Ireland from the Single Market with all that involves? Because how else can they control the flow of goods into the single market. They don't even have the legal power under the WA to impose their own customs checks.
If the EU want to build customs posts on the Republic side of the border with NI that is up to the EU, the UK will not build any border posts in Northern Ireland
You've completely ignored the point/question. Which is whether customs checks on the Irish land border are legal under the Withdrawal Agreement.
Not "they can do it if they wish so". Can they legally do it?
Is Digby Jones a long time and passionate fighter for Orkney escaping the yoke of Holyrood then?
I hadn't realized that.
Diggers' quiver is so well supplied that there's barely a target at which he hasn't loosed off an arrow.
Hasn't hit any of them, mind.
- speaking of which you missed some top level Lozza Fox action on Thursday.
Saw some kerfuffle on twitter where Lozza apparently behaved badly towards national treasure Rebecca Front, it inspired some satirising on Scottish twitter at least. Did the uproar reach the high table of PB?
Great piece but I disagree about the chances of No Deal. I think it remains unlikely. I think the politics steers towards a deal that prolongs close alignment beyond 1st Jan 2021.
However let’s go with the hardly outrageous proposition that I am wrong and David Herdson is right. In which case there’s a problem. Which is that No Deal Brexit has no domestic mandate. I don’t mean it doesn’t respect the Referendum result. We voted to leave and it is leaving. It’s leaving good and proper. No issue there.
But the most recent national democratic event was the GE in December 2019. Exactly 8 months ago, that was, and it gave Boris Johnson a thumping “Oh yes please!” to the question he asked the British people, which was – “Do you want to get Brexit done and finished on the basis of my oven ready deal with the EU?”
He knew he could not win an election on a No Deal platform. He knew if he’d asked the question - “Do you want to crash out of the EU onto basic WTO terms and get into a serious wrangle about the Irish border with the EU?” – the answer would have been “Are you kidding? Get a grip.”
So, Ok, having won power by nefarious means – by lying to the EU and to the public - he can now use it to do what he wants, which includes pretending that this abuse of the democratic process did not happen. But if he does it will be a bit off and that’s putting it mildly.
The referendum mandate was to leave the EU. That was delivered in full on 31st January. The referendum is literally over and complete. What instead we should be talking about when it comes to a mandate is what we do now that we have successfully left the EU.
The only mandate is for Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement. The one he is now ripping up. So when we get into a Commons vs Lords battle the Lords will be able to put the Parliament Acts and conventions into reverse - it is they who are acting to defend the democratic mandate of a government trying to reverse it.
Oh geez not this again.
The Tories won a landslide less than a year ago, they have the mandate to do what they want until the next election.
This whole "There's no mandate" nonsense every time anything has changed has got to stop.
You say this because you agree with what they are doing rather than out of principle. Nevertheless your opening sentence is spot on if you change just one word. Replace 'mandate' with 'power'.
By this logic there is never going to be a "mandate" for anyone in power to ever react to any event that might happen after an election has taken place. A new election will be required each time.
It's nonsense.
I'm not making a general point, it's a specific one. The GE was won just yesterday on the basis of the oven ready deal. It would not have been won on a no deal platform. This was THE issue of the election. So the winning party do not have a mandate to tear up the deal and do no deal instead. To pretend they do, that is the nonsense.
Lol nonsense, he won on a platform of getting Brexit done.
I heard absolutely no one mention the "oven ready deal" during the election at all.
Do you really think Corbyn would have won the election if it wasn't for the genius "oven ready deal" campaign that the Tories apparently ran?
Please focus rather than 'loling'.
Your question. What would the GE result have been if the Con position was to leave the EU with No Deal?
Hung Parliament. Lab + LD + SNP > Con + DUP.
It's hilarious how the 'genius' oven-ready deal has now become a historical embarrassment in a matter of days.
Yep. The ironies abound. Like, Mrs May said a border in the Irish Sea was "something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And it turns out she was right. But the trick she missed - due to possession of that inconvenient character trait called integrity - was to pretend to accept it in order to get the deal needed as the platform for an election win, and then with power duly secured to unaccept it again!
Play it straight and lose, or dissimulate and win. A tough choice indeed
Dissimulate is kind indeed. That phrase "My word is my bond." Is there an opposite for it?
Perhaps this from Euripides' Hippolytus:
ἡ γλῶσσ’ ὀμώμοχ’, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος.
'The tongue swore, but the mind remained unsworn'.
Sure. And if you lose a £100 bet with a fellow poster here, you can pay up and lose £100 or do nothing and break even. You are claiming to be a piece of shit, and nobody is arguing with you. Not sure what the emoticons and Perseus copy-pastes contribute to the argument.
I'm just answering the question. And whilst I don't endorse this kind of duplicity in my personal life - I'm very T May-like in that regard - do I accept it when the alternative was another Hung Parliament and Corbyn's lunatics breathing down our necks? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
And I make no apologies for exploiting the wonderful resources of the TLG. Don't use Perseus, for God's sake.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Our local amusement of Butt Hole Road was sadly renamed because the residents complained that companies kept refusing to provide services because they thought it was a joke.
Still, there have were worse names in the past. Magpie Lane in Oxford for one...
Also Tidmarsh Lane (behind the Castle) is in its bowdlerised version.
Varteg in Pontypool (which is an Anglicised version of the name) decided not to bilingualise its name, I recall, as the fully Welsh version reflects the fact that the V sound in Welsh is spelled with an F so it would be Farteg.
Just a quick question about the Withdrawal agreement.
The Government claims that the "border in the Irish Sea" is an absurd interpretation of the agreement, and therefore there is no reason for the Agreement not to stand despite the UK's refusal to implement customs checks.
Now obviously we know the Govt's claim is absurd, BUT, there is another point.
I assume that under the Withdrawal agreement the possibility of Customs checks on the Irish land border are explicitly excluded. Is this correct? Because the whole point is that checks at the land border were supposed to be replaced by checks at the sea.
So if the UK maintains its position it seems to me that the EU have no choice but to declare the WA null and void and exclude Northern Ireland from the Single Market with all that involves? Because how else can they control the flow of goods into the single market. They don't even have the legal power under the WA to impose their own customs checks.
That is an interesting point.
My guess is that in the event of a collapse of talks and violation by the UK of the WA they will do nothing at the Irish border in the short term except perhaps spot checks of goods to maintain the principle. Instead, they would obviously suspend cooperation with the UK, and let the default 'third country' rules take their natural stranglehold on us. As well as making it very difficult indeed for us to export food to the EU, it will also be hard for us to import food (because of delays at Dover), we won't be able to sell financial services to the EU27, our truckers won't be able to drive on the continent, no company will be allowed to process EU citizens' data here, and so on. It's important to note that all of that doesn't require them actively to be hostile to us, it is simply what the legal position will be in the event of no deal.
They will then just wait for us to come to our senses and accept their terms, which will obviously be worse than could have been agreed in an amicable settlement based on trust.
They'll calculate that they won't have to wait long, and they'll be right.
Great piece but I disagree about the chances of No Deal. I think it remains unlikely. I think the politics steers towards a deal that prolongs close alignment beyond 1st Jan 2021.
However let’s go with the hardly outrageous proposition that I am wrong and David Herdson is right. In which case there’s a problem. Which is that No Deal Brexit has no domestic mandate. I don’t mean it doesn’t respect the Referendum result. We voted to leave and it is leaving. It’s leaving good and proper. No issue there.
But the most recent national democratic event was the GE in December 2019. Exactly 8 months ago, that was, and it gave Boris Johnson a thumping “Oh yes please!” to the question he asked the British people, which was – “Do you want to get Brexit done and finished on the basis of my oven ready deal with the EU?”
He knew he could not win an election on a No Deal platform. He knew if he’d asked the question - “Do you want to crash out of the EU onto basic WTO terms and get into a serious wrangle about the Irish border with the EU?” – the answer would have been “Are you kidding? Get a grip.”
So, Ok, having won power by nefarious means – by lying to the EU and to the public - he can now use it to do what he wants, which includes pretending that this abuse of the democratic process did not happen. But if he does it will be a bit off and that’s putting it mildly.
The referendum mandate was to leave the EU. That was delivered in full on 31st January. The referendum is literally over and complete. What instead we should be talking about when it comes to a mandate is what we do now that we have successfully left the EU.
The only mandate is for Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement. The one he is now ripping up. So when we get into a Commons vs Lords battle the Lords will be able to put the Parliament Acts and conventions into reverse - it is they who are acting to defend the democratic mandate of a government trying to reverse it.
Oh geez not this again.
The Tories won a landslide less than a year ago, they have the mandate to do what they want until the next election.
This whole "There's no mandate" nonsense every time anything has changed has got to stop.
You say this because you agree with what they are doing rather than out of principle. Nevertheless your opening sentence is spot on if you change just one word. Replace 'mandate' with 'power'.
By this logic there is never going to be a "mandate" for anyone in power to ever react to any event that might happen after an election has taken place. A new election will be required each time.
It's nonsense.
I'm not making a general point, it's a specific one. The GE was won just yesterday on the basis of the oven ready deal. It would not have been won on a no deal platform. This was THE issue of the election. So the winning party do not have a mandate to tear up the deal and do no deal instead. To pretend they do, that is the nonsense.
Lol nonsense, he won on a platform of getting Brexit done.
I heard absolutely no one mention the "oven ready deal" during the election at all.
Do you really think Corbyn would have won the election if it wasn't for the genius "oven ready deal" campaign that the Tories apparently ran?
Please focus rather than 'loling'.
Your question. What would the GE result have been if the Con position was to leave the EU with No Deal?
Hung Parliament. Lab + LD + SNP > Con + DUP.
It's hilarious how the 'genius' oven-ready deal has now become a historical embarrassment in a matter of days.
Yep. The ironies abound. Like, Mrs May said a border in the Irish Sea was "something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And it turns out she was right. But the trick she missed - due to possession of that inconvenient character trait called integrity - was to pretend to accept it in order to get the deal needed as the platform for an election win, and then with power duly secured to unaccept it again!
Play it straight and lose, or dissimulate and win. A tough choice indeed
Dissimulate is kind indeed. That phrase "My word is my bond." Is there an opposite for it?
Perhaps this from Euripides' Hippolytus:
ἡ γλῶσσ’ ὀμώμοχ’, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος.
'The tongue swore, but the mind remained unsworn'.
Sure. And if you lose a £100 bet with a fellow poster here, you can pay up and lose £100 or do nothing and break even. You are claiming to be a piece of shit, and nobody is arguing with you. Not sure what the emoticons and Perseus copy-pastes contribute to the argument.
I'm just answering the question. And whilst I don't endorse this kind of duplicity in my personal life - I'm very T May-like in that regard - do I accept it when the alternative was another Hung Parliament and Corbyn's lunatics breathing down our necks? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
And I make no apologies for exploiting the wonderful resources of the TLG. Don't use Perseus, for God's sake.
Is there any action you don't think would have been justified to avoid a Hung Parliament and Jeremy Corbyn?
Is Digby Jones a long time and passionate fighter for Orkney escaping the yoke of Holyrood then?
I hadn't realized that.
Diggers' quiver is so well supplied that there's barely a target at which he hasn't loosed off an arrow.
Hasn't hit any of them, mind.
- speaking of which you missed some top level Lozza Fox action on Thursday.
Saw some kerfuffle on twitter where Lozza apparently behaved badly towards national treasure Rebecca Front, it inspired some satirising on Scottish twitter at least. Did the uproar reach the high table of PB?
Not in this case no. The main thing it seemed to achieve was another outing on Left Twitter for the notorious "Cancelled In The Wind" song.
Great piece but I disagree about the chances of No Deal. I think it remains unlikely. I think the politics steers towards a deal that prolongs close alignment beyond 1st Jan 2021.
However let’s go with the hardly outrageous proposition that I am wrong and David Herdson is right. In which case there’s a problem. Which is that No Deal Brexit has no domestic mandate. I don’t mean it doesn’t respect the Referendum result. We voted to leave and it is leaving. It’s leaving good and proper. No issue there.
But the most recent national democratic event was the GE in December 2019. Exactly 8 months ago, that was, and it gave Boris Johnson a thumping “Oh yes please!” to the question he asked the British people, which was – “Do you want to get Brexit done and finished on the basis of my oven ready deal with the EU?”
He knew he could not win an election on a No Deal platform. He knew if he’d asked the question - “Do you want to crash out of the EU onto basic WTO terms and get into a serious wrangle about the Irish border with the EU?” – the answer would have been “Are you kidding? Get a grip.”
So, Ok, having won power by nefarious means – by lying to the EU and to the public - he can now use it to do what he wants, which includes pretending that this abuse of the democratic process did not happen. But if he does it will be a bit off and that’s putting it mildly.
The referendum mandate was to leave the EU. That was delivered in full on 31st January. The referendum is literally over and complete. What instead we should be talking about when it comes to a mandate is what we do now that we have successfully left the EU.
The only mandate is for Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement. The one he is now ripping up. So when we get into a Commons vs Lords battle the Lords will be able to put the Parliament Acts and conventions into reverse - it is they who are acting to defend the democratic mandate of a government trying to reverse it.
Oh geez not this again.
The Tories won a landslide less than a year ago, they have the mandate to do what they want until the next election.
This whole "There's no mandate" nonsense every time anything has changed has got to stop.
You say this because you agree with what they are doing rather than out of principle. Nevertheless your opening sentence is spot on if you change just one word. Replace 'mandate' with 'power'.
By this logic there is never going to be a "mandate" for anyone in power to ever react to any event that might happen after an election has taken place. A new election will be required each time.
It's nonsense.
I'm not making a general point, it's a specific one. The GE was won just yesterday on the basis of the oven ready deal. It would not have been won on a no deal platform. This was THE issue of the election. So the winning party do not have a mandate to tear up the deal and do no deal instead. To pretend they do, that is the nonsense.
Lol nonsense, he won on a platform of getting Brexit done.
I heard absolutely no one mention the "oven ready deal" during the election at all.
Do you really think Corbyn would have won the election if it wasn't for the genius "oven ready deal" campaign that the Tories apparently ran?
Please focus rather than 'loling'.
Your question. What would the GE result have been if the Con position was to leave the EU with No Deal?
Hung Parliament. Lab + LD + SNP > Con + DUP.
It's hilarious how the 'genius' oven-ready deal has now become a historical embarrassment in a matter of days.
Yep. The ironies abound. Like, Mrs May said a border in the Irish Sea was "something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And it turns out she was right. But the trick she missed - due to possession of that inconvenient character trait called integrity - was to pretend to accept it in order to get the deal needed as the platform for an election win, and then with power duly secured to unaccept it again!
Play it straight and lose, or dissimulate and win. A tough choice indeed
Dissimulate is kind indeed. That phrase "My word is my bond." Is there an opposite for it?
Perhaps this from Euripides' Hippolytus:
ἡ γλῶσσ’ ὀμώμοχ’, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος.
'The tongue swore, but the mind remained unsworn'.
Sure. And if you lose a £100 bet with a fellow poster here, you can pay up and lose £100 or do nothing and break even. You are claiming to be a piece of shit, and nobody is arguing with you. Not sure what the emoticons and Perseus copy-pastes contribute to the argument.
I'm just answering the question. And whilst I don't endorse this kind of duplicity in my personal life - I'm very T May-like in that regard - do I accept it when the alternative was another Hung Parliament and Corbyn's lunatics breathing down our necks? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
And I make no apologies for exploiting the wonderful resources of the TLG. Don't use Perseus, for God's sake.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal only was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
Do the objectors not remember what it was like a few months ago when people were dying like flies and half the public was calling the Government murderers? Do they want to go back to that at Christmas, or could we occasionally learn something and move on?
The objectors probably just realise that making ridiculous and spurious laws where you say things that are obviously the same are safe in one case and unsafe in another, such as they can all work together in an office but cant safely have a pint together after, brings any regulation into such disrepute that it is likely people are just going to stick two fingers up at you and ignore it.
I supported the initial lockdown when we thought it was going to be 10 to 12 weeks....now it has been 6 months with no end in sight this year and maybe not most of next year. It is time to admit we cannot continue this.
The rules aren't absolutely consistent precisely because they are a balancing act, so that you get the most virus suppression for the least economic harm. Absolute consistency would require either an absolute lockdown or an absolute release, neither of which is a rational option at this stage.
As mentioned earlier in the thread by moonshine - a strong lockdown sceptic - we are still on track to begin vaccinations in November. With a second wave underway here and in many other countries, which has a high probability of overlapping with the flu season, all that 'going herd' now will achieve is to kill or chronically injure a lot of people who could otherwise have been saved.
It doesn't matter whether the rules are consistent or not. You failed to grasp the point which is
1) The laws are ludicrous and thats not about inconsistency 2) The laws are a serious breach of civil liberties 3) The laws have had no parliamentary scrutiny and even though I can accept that initially they had to be brought in quickly that doesn't excuse that they should have had a time limitation clause after which they could only be renewed after full parliamentary scrutiny 4) The laws were meant to be for a short period. Six months and ongoing is not for a short period 5) The laws have been made more authoritarian still with again no parliamentary scruting
Personally I have no intent on obeying these laws purely on principle and the first covid marshall that tries to hand me a fine will be treated with the contempt they deserve.
I'm not going to tell you how to live - you can make your decisions. But why exactly you expect the laws to be time-limited when the virus itself is not (yet) is a complete mystery to me.
Also much to the point is that these laws create new crimes as from Monday, 36 hours away, and have not yet been published.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
Do the objectors not remember what it was like a few months ago when people were dying like flies and half the public was calling the Government murderers? Do they want to go back to that at Christmas, or could we occasionally learn something and move on?
The objectors probably just realise that making ridiculous and spurious laws where you say things that are obviously the same are safe in one case and unsafe in another, such as they can all work together in an office but cant safely have a pint together after, brings any regulation into such disrepute that it is likely people are just going to stick two fingers up at you and ignore it.
I supported the initial lockdown when we thought it was going to be 10 to 12 weeks....now it has been 6 months with no end in sight this year and maybe not most of next year. It is time to admit we cannot continue this.
The rules aren't absolutely consistent precisely because they are a balancing act, so that you get the most virus suppression for the least economic harm. Absolute consistency would require either an absolute lockdown or an absolute release, neither of which is a rational option at this stage.
As mentioned earlier in the thread by moonshine - a strong lockdown sceptic - we are still on track to begin vaccinations in November. With a second wave underway here and in many other countries, which has a high probability of overlapping with the flu season, all that 'going herd' now will achieve is to kill or chronically injure a lot of people who could otherwise have been saved.
It doesn't matter whether the rules are consistent or not. You failed to grasp the point which is
1) The laws are ludicrous and thats not about inconsistency 2) The laws are a serious breach of civil liberties 3) The laws have had no parliamentary scrutiny and even though I can accept that initially they had to be brought in quickly that doesn't excuse that they should have had a time limitation clause after which they could only be renewed after full parliamentary scrutiny 4) The laws were meant to be for a short period. Six months and ongoing is not for a short period 5) The laws have been made more authoritarian still with again no parliamentary scruting
Personally I have no intent on obeying these laws purely on principle and the first covid marshall that tries to hand me a fine will be treated with the contempt they deserve.
I'm not going to tell you how to live - you can make your decisions. But why exactly you expect the laws to be time-limited when the virus itself is not (yet) is a complete mystery to me.
Also much to the point is that these laws create new crimes as from Monday, 36 hours away, and have not yet been published.
How can they create new crimes from Monday, when by definition, at the hour when Monday dawns they can't have received consent. Doesn't all secondary legislation have to be formally laid before the House of Commons and voted on (without debate)?
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
Do the objectors not remember what it was like a few months ago when people were dying like flies and half the public was calling the Government murderers? Do they want to go back to that at Christmas, or could we occasionally learn something and move on?
The objectors probably just realise that making ridiculous and spurious laws where you say things that are obviously the same are safe in one case and unsafe in another, such as they can all work together in an office but cant safely have a pint together after, brings any regulation into such disrepute that it is likely people are just going to stick two fingers up at you and ignore it.
I supported the initial lockdown when we thought it was going to be 10 to 12 weeks....now it has been 6 months with no end in sight this year and maybe not most of next year. It is time to admit we cannot continue this.
The rules aren't absolutely consistent precisely because they are a balancing act, so that you get the most virus suppression for the least economic harm. Absolute consistency would require either an absolute lockdown or an absolute release, neither of which is a rational option at this stage.
As mentioned earlier in the thread by moonshine - a strong lockdown sceptic - we are still on track to begin vaccinations in November. With a second wave underway here and in many other countries, which has a high probability of overlapping with the flu season, all that 'going herd' now will achieve is to kill or chronically injure a lot of people who could otherwise have been saved.
It doesn't matter whether the rules are consistent or not. You failed to grasp the point which is
1) The laws are ludicrous and thats not about inconsistency 2) The laws are a serious breach of civil liberties 3) The laws have had no parliamentary scrutiny and even though I can accept that initially they had to be brought in quickly that doesn't excuse that they should have had a time limitation clause after which they could only be renewed after full parliamentary scrutiny 4) The laws were meant to be for a short period. Six months and ongoing is not for a short period 5) The laws have been made more authoritarian still with again no parliamentary scruting
Personally I have no intent on obeying these laws purely on principle and the first covid marshall that tries to hand me a fine will be treated with the contempt they deserve.
I'm not going to tell you how to live - you can make your decisions. But why exactly you expect the laws to be time-limited when the virus itself is not (yet) is a complete mystery to me.
Also much to the point is that these laws create new crimes as from Monday, 36 hours away, and have not yet been published.
Surely, laws work only because people believe in them and accept them. A bit like Tinkerbell, in Never-Never Land... which is where Johnson and Cummings belong.
I for one do not believe this government is legitimate, therefore I do not accept any of the laws, rules and suggestions it is imposing on us - not unless they make sense to me.
Government by consent, eh? Not this gang of incompetent charlatans and rip off merchants.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
Absolutely. Boris was marketed as the genius who'd found the magical solution to Brexit, a solution which had eluded the hapless Theresa for years. We now know that 'solution' was a steaming pile of dung, and Boris himself has defamed Britain on the world stage as his tries to ditch it in panic. If Boris had a shred of integrity he would admit that the last general election was won by deceit and offer to rerun it.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
That’s a separate issue to the rewriting of the oven ready withdrawal agreement. Stop being disingenuous.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
Absolutely. Boris was marketed as the genius who'd found the magical solution to Brexit, a solution which had eluded the hapless Theresa for years. We now know that 'solution' was a steaming pile of dung, and Boris himself has defamed Britain on the world stage as his tries to ditch it in panic. If Boris had a shred of integrity he should admit that the last general election was won by deceit and offer to rerun it.
"The deal was ready, but, alas, the oven was not."
Great piece but I disagree about the chances of No Deal. I think it remains unlikely. I think the politics steers towards a deal that prolongs close alignment beyond 1st Jan 2021.
However let’s go with the hardly outrageous proposition that I am wrong and David Herdson is right. In which case there’s a problem. Which is that No Deal Brexit has no domestic mandate. I don’t mean it doesn’t respect the Referendum result. We voted to leave and it is leaving. It’s leaving good and proper. No issue there.
But the most recent national democratic event was the GE in December 2019. Exactly 8 months ago, that was, and it gave Boris Johnson a thumping “Oh yes please!” to the question he asked the British people, which was – “Do you want to get Brexit done and finished on the basis of my oven ready deal with the EU?”
He knew he could not win an election on a No Deal platform. He knew if he’d asked the question - “Do you want to crash out of the EU onto basic WTO terms and get into a serious wrangle about the Irish border with the EU?” – the answer would have been “Are you kidding? Get a grip.”
So, Ok, having won power by nefarious means – by lying to the EU and to the public - he can now use it to do what he wants, which includes pretending that this abuse of the democratic process did not happen. But if he does it will be a bit off and that’s putting it mildly.
The referendum mandate was to leave the EU. That was delivered in full on 31st January. The referendum is literally over and complete. What instead we should be talking about when it comes to a mandate is what we do now that we have successfully left the EU.
The only mandate is for Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement. The one he is now ripping up. So when we get into a Commons vs Lords battle the Lords will be able to put the Parliament Acts and conventions into reverse - it is they who are acting to defend the democratic mandate of a government trying to reverse it.
Oh geez not this again.
The Tories won a landslide less than a year ago, they have the mandate to do what they want until the next election.
This whole "There's no mandate" nonsense every time anything has changed has got to stop.
You say this because you agree with what they are doing rather than out of principle. Nevertheless your opening sentence is spot on if you change just one word. Replace 'mandate' with 'power'.
By this logic there is never going to be a "mandate" for anyone in power to ever react to any event that might happen after an election has taken place. A new election will be required each time.
It's nonsense.
I'm not making a general point, it's a specific one. The GE was won just yesterday on the basis of the oven ready deal. It would not have been won on a no deal platform. This was THE issue of the election. So the winning party do not have a mandate to tear up the deal and do no deal instead. To pretend they do, that is the nonsense.
Lol nonsense, he won on a platform of getting Brexit done.
I heard absolutely no one mention the "oven ready deal" during the election at all.
Do you really think Corbyn would have won the election if it wasn't for the genius "oven ready deal" campaign that the Tories apparently ran?
Please focus rather than 'loling'.
Your question. What would the GE result have been if the Con position was to leave the EU with No Deal?
Hung Parliament. Lab + LD + SNP > Con + DUP.
It's hilarious how the 'genius' oven-ready deal has now become a historical embarrassment in a matter of days.
Yep. The ironies abound. Like, Mrs May said a border in the Irish Sea was "something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And it turns out she was right. But the trick she missed - due to possession of that inconvenient character trait called integrity - was to pretend to accept it in order to get the deal needed as the platform for an election win, and then with power duly secured to unaccept it again!
Play it straight and lose, or dissimulate and win. A tough choice indeed
Dissimulate is kind indeed. That phrase "My word is my bond." Is there an opposite for it?
Perhaps this from Euripides' Hippolytus:
ἡ γλῶσσ’ ὀμώμοχ’, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος.
'The tongue swore, but the mind remained unsworn'.
Sure. And if you lose a £100 bet with a fellow poster here, you can pay up and lose £100 or do nothing and break even. You are claiming to be a piece of shit, and nobody is arguing with you. Not sure what the emoticons and Perseus copy-pastes contribute to the argument.
I'm just answering the question. And whilst I don't endorse this kind of duplicity in my personal life - I'm very T May-like in that regard - do I accept it when the alternative was another Hung Parliament and Corbyn's lunatics breathing down our necks? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
And I make no apologies for exploiting the wonderful resources of the TLG. Don't use Perseus, for God's sake.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal only was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You are "dissimulating". We all remember the campaign rhetoric and the Con PPBs.
Scottish labour sound their death knell Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard survives as motion of no confidence in him is withdrawn The vote had been expected to take place at a meeting of the party’s governing body on Saturday.
However, it has been withdrawn meaning that he will remain leader of the party.
Four MSPs had called for Mr Leonard to step aside but the motion to unseat him has now failed.
It had been submitted to the party’s Scottish Executive Committee (SEC) asking it express that it had no confidence in Mr Leonard’s leadership.
Following the vote, Edinburgh councillor Scott Arthur, a member of the party’s Scottish Executive Committee, tweeted: “Richard Leonard has retained the support of the SEC and will take us into the Holyrood 2021 election.”
Assume they did their usual , abstained or voted against their own opinion.
Do the objectors not remember what it was like a few months ago when people were dying like flies and half the public was calling the Government murderers? Do they want to go back to that at Christmas, or could we occasionally learn something and move on?
The objectors probably just realise that making ridiculous and spurious laws where you say things that are obviously the same are safe in one case and unsafe in another, such as they can all work together in an office but cant safely have a pint together after, brings any regulation into such disrepute that it is likely people are just going to stick two fingers up at you and ignore it.
I supported the initial lockdown when we thought it was going to be 10 to 12 weeks....now it has been 6 months with no end in sight this year and maybe not most of next year. It is time to admit we cannot continue this.
The rules aren't absolutely consistent precisely because they are a balancing act, so that you get the most virus suppression for the least economic harm. Absolute consistency would require either an absolute lockdown or an absolute release, neither of which is a rational option at this stage.
As mentioned earlier in the thread by moonshine - a strong lockdown sceptic - we are still on track to begin vaccinations in November. With a second wave underway here and in many other countries, which has a high probability of overlapping with the flu season, all that 'going herd' now will achieve is to kill or chronically injure a lot of people who could otherwise have been saved.
It doesn't matter whether the rules are consistent or not. You failed to grasp the point which is
1) The laws are ludicrous and thats not about inconsistency 2) The laws are a serious breach of civil liberties 3) The laws have had no parliamentary scrutiny and even though I can accept that initially they had to be brought in quickly that doesn't excuse that they should have had a time limitation clause after which they could only be renewed after full parliamentary scrutiny 4) The laws were meant to be for a short period. Six months and ongoing is not for a short period 5) The laws have been made more authoritarian still with again no parliamentary scruting
Personally I have no intent on obeying these laws purely on principle and the first covid marshall that tries to hand me a fine will be treated with the contempt they deserve.
I'm not going to tell you how to live - you can make your decisions. But why exactly you expect the laws to be time-limited when the virus itself is not (yet) is a complete mystery to me.
Also much to the point is that these laws create new crimes as from Monday, 36 hours away, and have not yet been published.
How can they create new crimes from Monday, when by definition, at the hour when Monday dawns they can't have received consent. Doesn't all secondary legislation have to be formally laid before the House of Commons and voted on (without debate)?
Good question, not tested in the courts. Where is Gina Miller when she could be useful?
No deal will be very interesting to watch: day by day, we'll be able to see what happens when, for the first time in all recorded history, a country imposes an economic blockade on itself.
Great piece but I disagree about the chances of No Deal. I think it remains unlikely. I think the politics steers towards a deal that prolongs close alignment beyond 1st Jan 2021.
However let’s go with the hardly outrageous proposition that I am wrong and David Herdson is right. In which case there’s a problem. Which is that No Deal Brexit has no domestic mandate. I don’t mean it doesn’t respect the Referendum result. We voted to leave and it is leaving. It’s leaving good and proper. No issue there.
But the most recent national democratic event was the GE in December 2019. Exactly 8 months ago, that was, and it gave Boris Johnson a thumping “Oh yes please!” to the question he asked the British people, which was – “Do you want to get Brexit done and finished on the basis of my oven ready deal with the EU?”
He knew he could not win an election on a No Deal platform. He knew if he’d asked the question - “Do you want to crash out of the EU onto basic WTO terms and get into a serious wrangle about the Irish border with the EU?” – the answer would have been “Are you kidding? Get a grip.”
So, Ok, having won power by nefarious means – by lying to the EU and to the public - he can now use it to do what he wants, which includes pretending that this abuse of the democratic process did not happen. But if he does it will be a bit off and that’s putting it mildly.
The referendum mandate was to leave the EU. That was delivered in full on 31st January. The referendum is literally over and complete. What instead we should be talking about when it comes to a mandate is what we do now that we have successfully left the EU.
The only mandate is for Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement. The one he is now ripping up. So when we get into a Commons vs Lords battle the Lords will be able to put the Parliament Acts and conventions into reverse - it is they who are acting to defend the democratic mandate of a government trying to reverse it.
Oh geez not this again.
The Tories won a landslide less than a year ago, they have the mandate to do what they want until the next election.
This whole "There's no mandate" nonsense every time anything has changed has got to stop.
You say this because you agree with what they are doing rather than out of principle. Nevertheless your opening sentence is spot on if you change just one word. Replace 'mandate' with 'power'.
By this logic there is never going to be a "mandate" for anyone in power to ever react to any event that might happen after an election has taken place. A new election will be required each time.
It's nonsense.
I'm not making a general point, it's a specific one. The GE was won just yesterday on the basis of the oven ready deal. It would not have been won on a no deal platform. This was THE issue of the election. So the winning party do not have a mandate to tear up the deal and do no deal instead. To pretend they do, that is the nonsense.
Lol nonsense, he won on a platform of getting Brexit done.
I heard absolutely no one mention the "oven ready deal" during the election at all.
Do you really think Corbyn would have won the election if it wasn't for the genius "oven ready deal" campaign that the Tories apparently ran?
Please focus rather than 'loling'.
Your question. What would the GE result have been if the Con position was to leave the EU with No Deal?
Hung Parliament. Lab + LD + SNP > Con + DUP.
It's hilarious how the 'genius' oven-ready deal has now become a historical embarrassment in a matter of days.
Yep. The ironies abound. Like, Mrs May said a border in the Irish Sea was "something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And it turns out she was right. But the trick she missed - due to possession of that inconvenient character trait called integrity - was to pretend to accept it in order to get the deal needed as the platform for an election win, and then with power duly secured to unaccept it again!
I think Johnson is hoist with his own petard. In the event of a No Deal, EU exporters can export to the RoI, then up to NI with no checks, then across to rUK with no checks. No problem.
And one would almost love to see it. But then of course there would be a gaping hole the other way too - into the SM - if there is no Irish border. Total mess if it happens. Which I really really doubt. Deal coming, I think.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
I know the WA wasn't a trade deal. You know the WA wasn't a trade deal. What difference does that make?
At last year's GE the WA was sold as the deal which sorted Brexit. Brexit happened on 31st January and nothing bad happened. Then 8 months later Johnson has ditched "the deal which sorted Brexit", indeed gone so far as to break the law to do so. And then 3 months later we might have a lot of bad things happening. That will be blamed on No deal. And all most people will know is that the only deal we had, which was allowing Brexit to proceed smoothly, was one which Boris ditched.
Boris won the election on a simple message. Which side do you think will have the simple message post January?
The Government having to explain why the deal they had didn't sort Brexit? Or the Opposition?
I know where my money is. The Government need to pray that 1st January isn't so bad...
Great piece but I disagree about the chances of No Deal. I think it remains unlikely. I think the politics steers towards a deal that prolongs close alignment beyond 1st Jan 2021.
However let’s go with the hardly outrageous proposition that I am wrong and David Herdson is right. In which case there’s a problem. Which is that No Deal Brexit has no domestic mandate. I don’t mean it doesn’t respect the Referendum result. We voted to leave and it is leaving. It’s leaving good and proper. No issue there.
But the most recent national democratic event was the GE in December 2019. Exactly 8 months ago, that was, and it gave Boris Johnson a thumping “Oh yes please!” to the question he asked the British people, which was – “Do you want to get Brexit done and finished on the basis of my oven ready deal with the EU?”
He knew he could not win an election on a No Deal platform. He knew if he’d asked the question - “Do you want to crash out of the EU onto basic WTO terms and get into a serious wrangle about the Irish border with the EU?” – the answer would have been “Are you kidding? Get a grip.”
So, Ok, having won power by nefarious means – by lying to the EU and to the public - he can now use it to do what he wants, which includes pretending that this abuse of the democratic process did not happen. But if he does it will be a bit off and that’s putting it mildly.
The referendum mandate was to leave the EU. That was delivered in full on 31st January. The referendum is literally over and complete. What instead we should be talking about when it comes to a mandate is what we do now that we have successfully left the EU.
The only mandate is for Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement. The one he is now ripping up. So when we get into a Commons vs Lords battle the Lords will be able to put the Parliament Acts and conventions into reverse - it is they who are acting to defend the democratic mandate of a government trying to reverse it.
Oh geez not this again.
The Tories won a landslide less than a year ago, they have the mandate to do what they want until the next election.
This whole "There's no mandate" nonsense every time anything has changed has got to stop.
You say this because you agree with what they are doing rather than out of principle. Nevertheless your opening sentence is spot on if you change just one word. Replace 'mandate' with 'power'.
By this logic there is never going to be a "mandate" for anyone in power to ever react to any event that might happen after an election has taken place. A new election will be required each time.
It's nonsense.
I'm not making a general point, it's a specific one. The GE was won just yesterday on the basis of the oven ready deal. It would not have been won on a no deal platform. This was THE issue of the election. So the winning party do not have a mandate to tear up the deal and do no deal instead. To pretend they do, that is the nonsense.
Lol nonsense, he won on a platform of getting Brexit done.
I heard absolutely no one mention the "oven ready deal" during the election at all.
Do you really think Corbyn would have won the election if it wasn't for the genius "oven ready deal" campaign that the Tories apparently ran?
Please focus rather than 'loling'.
Your question. What would the GE result have been if the Con position was to leave the EU with No Deal?
Hung Parliament. Lab + LD + SNP > Con + DUP.
It's hilarious how the 'genius' oven-ready deal has now become a historical embarrassment in a matter of days.
Yep. The ironies abound. Like, Mrs May said a border in the Irish Sea was "something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And it turns out she was right. But the trick she missed - due to possession of that inconvenient character trait called integrity - was to pretend to accept it in order to get the deal needed as the platform for an election win, and then with power duly secured to unaccept it again!
Play it straight and lose, or dissimulate and win. A tough choice indeed
Dissimulate is kind indeed. That phrase "My word is my bond." Is there an opposite for it?
Perhaps this from Euripides' Hippolytus:
ἡ γλῶσσ’ ὀμώμοχ’, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος.
'The tongue swore, but the mind remained unsworn'.
Sure. And if you lose a £100 bet with a fellow poster here, you can pay up and lose £100 or do nothing and break even. You are claiming to be a piece of shit, and nobody is arguing with you. Not sure what the emoticons and Perseus copy-pastes contribute to the argument.
I'm just answering the question. And whilst I don't endorse this kind of duplicity in my personal life - I'm very T May-like in that regard - do I accept it when the alternative was another Hung Parliament and Corbyn's lunatics breathing down our necks? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
And I make no apologies for exploiting the wonderful resources of the TLG. Don't use Perseus, for God's sake.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal only was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You are "dissimulating". We all remember the campaign rhetoric and the Con PPBs.
Boris should rerun that silly one - where he was 'interviewed' by a fawning sycophant in the tea room - with an apology at the end for baseless claims about an 'oven-ready' Brexit. It may not be enough, but at least the British people could take the first step on the road to forgiving him.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
I know the WA wasn't a trade deal. You know the WA wasn't a trade deal. What difference does that make?
At last year's GE the WA was sold as the deal which sorted Brexit. Brexit happened on 31st January and nothing bad happened. Then 8 months later Johnson has ditched "the deal which sorted Brexit", indeed gone so far as to break the law to do so. And then 3 months later we might have a lot of bad things happening. That will be blamed on No deal. And all most people will know is that the only deal we had, which was allowing Brexit to proceed smoothly, was one which Boris ditched.
Boris won the election on a simple message. Which side do you think will have the simple message post January?
The Government having to explain why the deal they had didn't sort Brexit? Or the Opposition?
I know where my money is. The Government need to pray that 1st January isn't so bad...
If Labour and the LDs want to campaign on a platform of handing over all our fishing catch in UK waters to EU vessels (including in the fishing ports in the old LD heartlands in Devon and Cornwall), entrenching EU sovereignty over UK law, preventing UK government state aid to industries in the former Labour seats in the Red Wall and imposing a border between NI and GB and continuing to infuriate the largest party in NI, the DUP, for a trade deal with the EU be my guest
Our local amusement of Butt Hole Road was sadly renamed because the residents complained that companies kept refusing to provide services because they thought it was a joke.
Still, there have were worse names in the past. Magpie Lane in Oxford for one...
Also Tidmarsh Lane (behind the Castle) is in its bowdlerised version.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
Absolutely. Boris was marketed as the genius who'd found the magical solution to Brexit, a solution which had eluded the hapless Theresa for years. We now know that 'solution' was a steaming pile of dung, and Boris himself has defamed Britain on the world stage as his tries to ditch it in panic. If Boris had a shred of integrity he should admit that the last general election was won by deceit and offer to rerun it.
"The deal was ready, but, alas, the oven was not."
That also fits well enough into an iambic trimeter:
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
I know the WA wasn't a trade deal. You know the WA wasn't a trade deal. What difference does that make?
At last year's GE the WA was sold as the deal which sorted Brexit. Brexit happened on 31st January and nothing bad happened. Then 8 months later Johnson has ditched "the deal which sorted Brexit", indeed gone so far as to break the law to do so. And then 3 months later we might have a lot of bad things happening. That will be blamed on No deal. And all most people will know is that the only deal we had, which was allowing Brexit to proceed smoothly, was one which Boris ditched.
Boris won the election on a simple message. Which side do you think will have the simple message post January?
The Government having to explain why the deal they had didn't sort Brexit? Or the Opposition?
I know where my money is. The Government need to pray that 1st January isn't so bad...
If Labour and the LDs want to campaign on a platform of handing over all our fishing catch in UK waters to EU vessels, entrenching EU sovereignty over UK law, preventing UK government state aid to industries in the Red Wall and imposing a border between NI and GB for a deal with the EU be my guest
They are demoralised and they want the EU to rule over us and punish us.
And then they wonder why they keep losing elections.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
I know the WA wasn't a trade deal. You know the WA wasn't a trade deal. What difference does that make?
At last year's GE the WA was sold as the deal which sorted Brexit. Brexit happened on 31st January and nothing bad happened. Then 8 months later Johnson has ditched "the deal which sorted Brexit", indeed gone so far as to break the law to do so. And then 3 months later we might have a lot of bad things happening. That will be blamed on No deal. And all most people will know is that the only deal we had, which was allowing Brexit to proceed smoothly, was one which Boris ditched.
Boris won the election on a simple message. Which side do you think will have the simple message post January?
The Government having to explain why the deal they had didn't sort Brexit? Or the Opposition?
I know where my money is. The Government need to pray that 1st January isn't so bad...
If Labour and the LDs want to campaign on a platform of handing over all our fishing catch in UK waters to EU vessels, entrenching EU sovereignty over UK law, preventing UK government state aid to industries in the Red Wall and imposing a border between NI and GB for a deal with the EU be my guest
Lol. The only thing that anyone will be sure about is that UK Government policy will have presided over an economic catastrophe. The Opposition will be able to pick their ground and their policy platform as they wish.
And just to be clear - you, as a lifelong Tory, are slavering over the possibility of pumping state aid into industries in the North? I mean, i know you value getting elected highly above anything else, but do you have any basic political beliefs whatsoever???
Just a quick question about the Withdrawal agreement.
The Government claims that the "border in the Irish Sea" is an absurd interpretation of the agreement, and therefore there is no reason for the Agreement not to stand despite the UK's refusal to implement customs checks.
Now obviously we know the Govt's claim is absurd, BUT, there is another point.
I assume that under the Withdrawal agreement the possibility of Customs checks on the Irish land border are explicitly excluded. Is this correct? Because the whole point is that checks at the land border were supposed to be replaced by checks at the sea.
So if the UK maintains its position it seems to me that the EU have no choice but to declare the WA null and void and exclude Northern Ireland from the Single Market with all that involves? Because how else can they control the flow of goods into the single market. They don't even have the legal power under the WA to impose their own customs checks.
I think Ireland will avoid imposing checks on the Irish land border at all costs. Which means there will be pressure by the other member states to put checks between Ireland and the rest of the EU, which goes against the principle of the SIngle Market and Ireland's concept of sovereignty.
Northern Ireland is a complication for both sides but the EU side is a lot more responsible about it. It also means the EU will never compromise on the Withdrawal Agreement. It is the prerequisite for any relationship or cooperation with the EU.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
I know the WA wasn't a trade deal. You know the WA wasn't a trade deal. What difference does that make?
At last year's GE the WA was sold as the deal which sorted Brexit. Brexit happened on 31st January and nothing bad happened. Then 8 months later Johnson has ditched "the deal which sorted Brexit", indeed gone so far as to break the law to do so. And then 3 months later we might have a lot of bad things happening. That will be blamed on No deal. And all most people will know is that the only deal we had, which was allowing Brexit to proceed smoothly, was one which Boris ditched.
Boris won the election on a simple message. Which side do you think will have the simple message post January?
The Government having to explain why the deal they had didn't sort Brexit? Or the Opposition?
I know where my money is. The Government need to pray that 1st January isn't so bad...
If Labour and the LDs want to campaign on a platform of handing over all our fishing catch in UK waters to EU vessels, entrenching EU sovereignty over UK law, preventing UK government state aid to industries in the Red Wall and imposing a border between NI and GB for a deal with the EU be my guest
Lol. The only thing that anyone will be sure about is that UK Government policy will have presided over an economic catastrophe. The Opposition will be able to pick their ground and their policy platform as they wish.
And just to be clear - you, as a lifelong Tory, are slavering over the possibility of pumping state aid into industries in the North? I mean, i know you value getting elected highly above anything else, but do you have any basic political beliefs whatsoever???
I am a traditional Tory yes, not a pure free market Liberal
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
I know the WA wasn't a trade deal. You know the WA wasn't a trade deal. What difference does that make?
At last year's GE the WA was sold as the deal which sorted Brexit. Brexit happened on 31st January and nothing bad happened. Then 8 months later Johnson has ditched "the deal which sorted Brexit", indeed gone so far as to break the law to do so. And then 3 months later we might have a lot of bad things happening. That will be blamed on No deal. And all most people will know is that the only deal we had, which was allowing Brexit to proceed smoothly, was one which Boris ditched.
Boris won the election on a simple message. Which side do you think will have the simple message post January?
The Government having to explain why the deal they had didn't sort Brexit? Or the Opposition?
I know where my money is. The Government need to pray that 1st January isn't so bad...
If Labour and the LDs want to campaign on a platform of handing over all our fishing catch in UK waters to EU vessels (including in the fishing ports in the old LD heartlands in Devon and Cornwall), entrenching EU sovereignty over UK law, preventing UK government state aid to industries in the former Labour seats in the Red Wall and imposing a border between NI and GB and continuing to infuriate the largest party in NI, the DUP, for a trade deal with the EU be my guest
No deal will be very interesting to watch: day by day, we'll be able to see what happens when, for the first time in all recorded history, a country imposes an economic blockade on itself.
And in doing so shattered Britain's long-standing and utterly deserved reputation for probity, imperilled peace in Northern Ireland and wrecked any chance of a trade deal with America. This will probably go down as the greatest act of political misconduct in British history.
I drove right past Wank yesterday. Just up the road from where Steve McQueen tried to jump that fence
I was a bit taken aback by there being two Twatts in Scotland, and apparently none in England.
both almost certainly emigrants from England or perhaps map was drawn up when Johnson and Gove visited. The number of twats will be ever changing depending on what creature from Westminster is sneaking in or lurking in fridges.
I drove right past Wank yesterday. Just up the road from where Steve McQueen tried to jump that fence
I was a bit taken aback by there being two Twatts in Scotland, and apparently none in England.
both almost certainly emigrants from England or perhaps map was drawn up when Johnson and Gove visited. The number of twats will be ever changing depending on what creature from Westminster is sneaking in or lurking in fridges.
No deal will be very interesting to watch: day by day, we'll be able to see what happens when, for the first time in all recorded history, a country imposes an economic blockade on itself.
Hmmm. Not sure I want to be living in those kinds of interesting times. I've stockpiled some food, but medication from the GP is a lot harder to stockpile.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
The Withdrawal Agreement was necessary before a trade deal could be negotiated. Signing it, praising it, fighting and winning an election on it - then dumping it means there will be No Deal.
Excellent header David. A thorough summary of how sh*t Johnson's government is.
Here, here - it is a brilliantly written thread intro.
Pedant alert, it is " Hear Hear "
Consider me chastised
In a most gentle and polite fashion. I await being hoist by my own petard at some future date.
Should it not be 'hoisted' rather than 'hoist' - I mean you did ask
He's using the subjunctive, no? Smartarse, but correct, I think.
Don't really know why, but I love using this expression, I suppose it's the highly descriptive words 'hoist' and 'petard' even if few know what the latter means. I particularly enjoy putting the emphasis on the first syllable, i.e. pronouncing it PETard, although this is probably incorrect, I find that few will challenge me on this.
You put the emPHASis wherever you like, me old china.
Keeping well?
Yes thanks PTP, trust you are well too. Looking forward to the new footy season starting today and I have some tasty season long bets in place. At one time I'd have posted them on here but PB.com long ceased to be a meaningful betting site, politically or otherwise and most of the smart cookies in that regard have long departed the site, more's the pity. No meet-ups, no prize money competitions any more, fings ain't what they used to be.
Fret not, my friend. As long as the Two Towers remain upright all will be well.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
I know the WA wasn't a trade deal. You know the WA wasn't a trade deal. What difference does that make?
At last year's GE the WA was sold as the deal which sorted Brexit. Brexit happened on 31st January and nothing bad happened. Then 8 months later Johnson has ditched "the deal which sorted Brexit", indeed gone so far as to break the law to do so. And then 3 months later we might have a lot of bad things happening. That will be blamed on No deal. And all most people will know is that the only deal we had, which was allowing Brexit to proceed smoothly, was one which Boris ditched.
Boris won the election on a simple message. Which side do you think will have the simple message post January?
The Government having to explain why the deal they had didn't sort Brexit? Or the Opposition?
I know where my money is. The Government need to pray that 1st January isn't so bad...
If Labour and the LDs want to campaign on a platform of handing over all our fishing catch in UK waters to EU vessels, entrenching EU sovereignty over UK law, preventing UK government state aid to industries in the Red Wall and imposing a border between NI and GB for a deal with the EU be my guest
Lol. The only thing that anyone will be sure about is that UK Government policy will have presided over an economic catastrophe. The Opposition will be able to pick their ground and their policy platform as they wish.
And just to be clear - you, as a lifelong Tory, are slavering over the possibility of pumping state aid into industries in the North? I mean, i know you value getting elected highly above anything else, but do you have any basic political beliefs whatsoever???
The worrying thing is that there will indeed be a certain amount of levelling up and that this government will claim credit for it when it actually has nothing at all to do with their actions. I of course talk of all the jobs that will become pure wfh.
My job for example was while in the office based job. Now it has been confirmed that it will be wfh for good that job will likely become a cornish job, my wages being spent in the local economy there rather than in the south east. Ok just one job but if even 10% of jobs that were office based become home based then we start to see a significant shift in where money circulates
Great piece but I disagree about the chances of No Deal. I think it remains unlikely. I think the politics steers towards a deal that prolongs close alignment beyond 1st Jan 2021.
However let’s go with the hardly outrageous proposition that I am wrong and David Herdson is right. In which case there’s a problem. Which is that No Deal Brexit has no domestic mandate. I don’t mean it doesn’t respect the Referendum result. We voted to leave and it is leaving. It’s leaving good and proper. No issue there.
But the most recent national democratic event was the GE in December 2019. Exactly 8 months ago, that was, and it gave Boris Johnson a thumping “Oh yes please!” to the question he asked the British people, which was – “Do you want to get Brexit done and finished on the basis of my oven ready deal with the EU?”
He knew he could not win an election on a No Deal platform. He knew if he’d asked the question - “Do you want to crash out of the EU onto basic WTO terms and get into a serious wrangle about the Irish border with the EU?” – the answer would have been “Are you kidding? Get a grip.”
So, Ok, having won power by nefarious means – by lying to the EU and to the public - he can now use it to do what he wants, which includes pretending that this abuse of the democratic process did not happen. But if he does it will be a bit off and that’s putting it mildly.
The referendum mandate was to leave the EU. That was delivered in full on 31st January. The referendum is literally over and complete. What instead we should be talking about when it comes to a mandate is what we do now that we have successfully left the EU.
The only mandate is for Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement. The one he is now ripping up. So when we get into a Commons vs Lords battle the Lords will be able to put the Parliament Acts and conventions into reverse - it is they who are acting to defend the democratic mandate of a government trying to reverse it.
Oh geez not this again.
The Tories won a landslide less than a year ago, they have the mandate to do what they want until the next election.
This whole "There's no mandate" nonsense every time anything has changed has got to stop.
You say this because you agree with what they are doing rather than out of principle. Nevertheless your opening sentence is spot on if you change just one word. Replace 'mandate' with 'power'.
By this logic there is never going to be a "mandate" for anyone in power to ever react to any event that might happen after an election has taken place. A new election will be required each time.
It's nonsense.
I'm not making a general point, it's a specific one. The GE was won just yesterday on the basis of the oven ready deal. It would not have been won on a no deal platform. This was THE issue of the election. So the winning party do not have a mandate to tear up the deal and do no deal instead. To pretend they do, that is the nonsense.
Lol nonsense, he won on a platform of getting Brexit done.
I heard absolutely no one mention the "oven ready deal" during the election at all.
Do you really think Corbyn would have won the election if it wasn't for the genius "oven ready deal" campaign that the Tories apparently ran?
Please focus rather than 'loling'.
Your question. What would the GE result have been if the Con position was to leave the EU with No Deal?
Hung Parliament. Lab + LD + SNP > Con + DUP.
It's hilarious how the 'genius' oven-ready deal has now become a historical embarrassment in a matter of days.
Yep. The ironies abound. Like, Mrs May said a border in the Irish Sea was "something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And it turns out she was right. But the trick she missed - due to possession of that inconvenient character trait called integrity - was to pretend to accept it in order to get the deal needed as the platform for an election win, and then with power duly secured to unaccept it again!
I think Johnson is hoist with his own petard. In the event of a No Deal, EU exporters can export to the RoI, then up to NI with no checks, then across to rUK with no checks. No problem.
And one would almost love to see it. But then of course there would be a gaping hole the other way too - into the SM - if there is no Irish border. Total mess if it happens. Which I really really doubt. Deal coming, I think.
wishful thinking
We will see. Betting odds are 1/2 No Deal, 6/5 Deal.
I drove right past Wank yesterday. Just up the road from where Steve McQueen tried to jump that fence
I was a bit taken aback by there being two Twatts in Scotland, and apparently none in England.
One in Orkney and one in Shetland I believe. I hesitate to remind folk that Orkney and Shetland are separate constituencies for Holyrood, each with their own LD MSP.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
The Withdrawal Agreement was necessary before a trade deal could be negotiated. Signing it, praising it, fighting and winning an election on it - then dumping it means there will be No Deal.
No, worse than that. WA + no further deal would be rubbish for the UK but leave us in good standing.
Breaking the WA would take the UK back to running out of the restaurant without paying the bill territory.
Great piece but I disagree about the chances of No Deal. I think it remains unlikely. I think the politics steers towards a deal that prolongs close alignment beyond 1st Jan 2021.
However let’s go with the hardly outrageous proposition that I am wrong and David Herdson is right. In which case there’s a problem. Which is that No Deal Brexit has no domestic mandate. I don’t mean it doesn’t respect the Referendum result. We voted to leave and it is leaving. It’s leaving good and proper. No issue there.
But the most recent national democratic event was the GE in December 2019. Exactly 8 months ago, that was, and it gave Boris Johnson a thumping “Oh yes please!” to the question he asked the British people, which was – “Do you want to get Brexit done and finished on the basis of my oven ready deal with the EU?”
He knew he could not win an election on a No Deal platform. He knew if he’d asked the question - “Do you want to crash out of the EU onto basic WTO terms and get into a serious wrangle about the Irish border with the EU?” – the answer would have been “Are you kidding? Get a grip.”
So, Ok, having won power by nefarious means – by lying to the EU and to the public - he can now use it to do what he wants, which includes pretending that this abuse of the democratic process did not happen. But if he does it will be a bit off and that’s putting it mildly.
The referendum mandate was to leave the EU. That was delivered in full on 31st January. The referendum is literally over and complete. What instead we should be talking about when it comes to a mandate is what we do now that we have successfully left the EU.
The only mandate is for Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement. The one he is now ripping up. So when we get into a Commons vs Lords battle the Lords will be able to put the Parliament Acts and conventions into reverse - it is they who are acting to defend the democratic mandate of a government trying to reverse it.
Oh geez not this again.
The Tories won a landslide less than a year ago, they have the mandate to do what they want until the next election.
This whole "There's no mandate" nonsense every time anything has changed has got to stop.
You say this because you agree with what they are doing rather than out of principle. Nevertheless your opening sentence is spot on if you change just one word. Replace 'mandate' with 'power'.
By this logic there is never going to be a "mandate" for anyone in power to ever react to any event that might happen after an election has taken place. A new election will be required each time.
It's nonsense.
I'm not making a general point, it's a specific one. The GE was won just yesterday on the basis of the oven ready deal. It would not have been won on a no deal platform. This was THE issue of the election. So the winning party do not have a mandate to tear up the deal and do no deal instead. To pretend they do, that is the nonsense.
Lol nonsense, he won on a platform of getting Brexit done.
I heard absolutely no one mention the "oven ready deal" during the election at all.
Do you really think Corbyn would have won the election if it wasn't for the genius "oven ready deal" campaign that the Tories apparently ran?
Please focus rather than 'loling'.
Your question. What would the GE result have been if the Con position was to leave the EU with No Deal?
Hung Parliament. Lab + LD + SNP > Con + DUP.
It's hilarious how the 'genius' oven-ready deal has now become a historical embarrassment in a matter of days.
Yep. The ironies abound. Like, Mrs May said a border in the Irish Sea was "something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And it turns out she was right. But the trick she missed - due to possession of that inconvenient character trait called integrity - was to pretend to accept it in order to get the deal needed as the platform for an election win, and then with power duly secured to unaccept it again!
I think Johnson is hoist with his own petard. In the event of a No Deal, EU exporters can export to the RoI, then up to NI with no checks, then across to rUK with no checks. No problem.
And one would almost love to see it. But then of course there would be a gaping hole the other way too - into the SM - if there is no Irish border. Total mess if it happens. Which I really really doubt. Deal coming, I think.
wishful thinking
We will see. Betting odds are 1/2 No Deal, 6/5 Deal.
So based on odds it is No Deal, that is what they want as it opens the door for more aid for their chums , having milked Covid they will be rubbing their hands at Brexit spoils.
I drove right past Wank yesterday. Just up the road from where Steve McQueen tried to jump that fence
I was a bit taken aback by there being two Twatts in Scotland, and apparently none in England.
One in Orkney and one in Shetland I believe. I hesitate to remind folk that Orkney and Shetland are separate constituencies for Holyrood, each with their own LD MSP.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
The Withdrawal Agreement was necessary before a trade deal could be negotiated. Signing it, praising it, fighting and winning an election on it - then dumping it means there will be No Deal.
No, worse than that. WA + no further deal would be rubbish for the UK but leave us in good standing.
Breaking the WA would take the UK back to running out of the restaurant without paying the bill territory.
Actually officially we are not repudiating the Withdrawal Agreement (claiming that the Internal Market Bill is offering "clarification" to present "absurd interpretations" of its effects). So presumably we are still agreeing to the payment of the bill...
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
The Withdrawal Agreement was necessary before a trade deal could be negotiated. Signing it, praising it, fighting and winning an election on it - then dumping it means there will be No Deal.
No, worse than that. WA + no further deal would be rubbish for the UK but leave us in good standing.
Breaking the WA would take the UK back to running out of the restaurant without paying the bill territory.
Actually officially we are not repudiating the Withdrawal Agreement (claiming that the Internal Market Bill is offering "clarification" to present "absurd interpretations" of its effects). So presumably we are still agreeing to the payment of the bill...
I drove right past Wank yesterday. Just up the road from where Steve McQueen tried to jump that fence
I was a bit taken aback by there being two Twatts in Scotland, and apparently none in England.
One in Orkney and one in Shetland I believe. I hesitate to remind folk that Orkney and Shetland are separate constituencies for Holyrood, each with their own LD MSP.
Carmichael is one of them , who is the other one.
That's for Westminster, there are 2 seats for Holyrood. They're actually relatively inoffensive so i was being a wee bit mischievous. The member for Edinburgh West otoh..
I drove right past Wank yesterday. Just up the road from where Steve McQueen tried to jump that fence
I was a bit taken aback by there being two Twatts in Scotland, and apparently none in England.
One in Orkney and one in Shetland I believe. I hesitate to remind folk that Orkney and Shetland are separate constituencies for Holyrood, each with their own LD MSP.
Carmichael is one of them , who is the other one.
Liam Macarthur for Orkney, Beatrice Wishart for Shetland are MSP's. According to Wikipedia. Both LD's.
Right. Useful contribution. Because there was a bizarre view earlier that Johnson would have won the election easily on a No Deal platform because "the country just trusted Boris to generally sort things out".
Boris won on a Brexit Deal or No Deal platform, not a Brexit only with a Deal or only with No Deal platform.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
You're rewriting history. Brexit "Deal or No Deal" is what won Boris the Tory leadership, but he won the General Election on an "Oven-Ready Deal" platform.
He won the GE on a deal only if it regained control of our fishing waters and ended EU sovereignty over UK law, the EU have refused to comply so the Tory manifesto of 2019 also said there would be no extension of the implementation period post December 2020 if no deal was agreed
The deal was the Withdrawal Agreement. Which he has now repudiated.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
The WA deal was not a trade deal, most people expected having signed the WA the UK would be given a fair trade deal by the EU which ended EU sovereignty over the UK and regained UK control of its fishing waters, the EU refused to offer that so most people will think the EU are being unreasonable and not be bothered therefore about Boris removing a border between NI and GB
The Withdrawal Agreement was necessary before a trade deal could be negotiated. Signing it, praising it, fighting and winning an election on it - then dumping it means there will be No Deal.
No, worse than that. WA + no further deal would be rubbish for the UK but leave us in good standing.
Breaking the WA would take the UK back to running out of the restaurant without paying the bill territory.
Actually officially we are not repudiating the Withdrawal Agreement (claiming that the Internal Market Bill is offering "clarification" to present "absurd interpretations" of its effects). So presumably we are still agreeing to the payment of the bill...
Just not with actual money.
No, with actual money. The Withdrawal Agreement includes exit payments, payable over decades. Some was the upfront cost of the continued membership of the single market for the duration of the transition period. The rest was the uk's share of historic and future liabilities. And, since we are not officially abandoning the WA apparently, we stand by those.
60mph on the motorway? I thought the Government wanted a 80mph speed limit! This wont play well in the red wall.
Not this crap again....Bloody stupid. It will just piss motorists off all round the country. It is like this government have looked at everything Labour have offered and gone which are the unpopular ones, yeah that seems like yes go with that one.
Are this government trying to go sub 20% in the polls by the time of the next election?
I see the Oxford vaccine trial has been resumed. There was some silliness on here when it was suspended.
Its amazing that the Russian and Chinese vaccines haven't had a single case like this. All 100% safe and 100% effective.
Apparently the Lancet excelled itself recently by publishing a study on the Russian vaccine which mysteriously seemed to return literally identical results for every sample.
I see the Oxford vaccine trial has been resumed. There was some silliness on here when it was suspended.
Its amazing that the Russian and Chinese vaccines haven't had a single case like this. All 100% safe and 100% effective.
Apparently the Lancet excelled itself recently by publishing a study on the Russian vaccine which mysteriously seemed to return literally identical results for every sample.
On a related note, another loud mouth critic of everything the government ever does has surfaced after a few months of being rather quiet. Prof Ashton giving government both barrel in the Mail today, ending with BTW I have a book out explaining everything the government has done wrong, available in all good book stores...
60mph on the motorway? I thought the Government wanted a 80mph speed limit! This wont play well in the red wall.
How does increased journey times, by corallary more cars on the roads and more traffic jams, lead to reductions in pollution?
Slower speed does not necessarily lead to lower throughput, all to do with queuing theory, that’s why there are variable speed limits on busy motorways.
Great piece but I disagree about the chances of No Deal. I think it remains unlikely. I think the politics steers towards a deal that prolongs close alignment beyond 1st Jan 2021.
However let’s go with the hardly outrageous proposition that I am wrong and David Herdson is right. In which case there’s a problem. Which is that No Deal Brexit has no domestic mandate. I don’t mean it doesn’t respect the Referendum result. We voted to leave and it is leaving. It’s leaving good and proper. No issue there.
But the most recent national democratic event was the GE in December 2019. Exactly 8 months ago, that was, and it gave Boris Johnson a thumping “Oh yes please!” to the question he asked the British people, which was – “Do you want to get Brexit done and finished on the basis of my oven ready deal with the EU?”
He knew he could not win an election on a No Deal platform. He knew if he’d asked the question - “Do you want to crash out of the EU onto basic WTO terms and get into a serious wrangle about the Irish border with the EU?” – the answer would have been “Are you kidding? Get a grip.”
So, Ok, having won power by nefarious means – by lying to the EU and to the public - he can now use it to do what he wants, which includes pretending that this abuse of the democratic process did not happen. But if he does it will be a bit off and that’s putting it mildly.
The referendum mandate was to leave the EU. That was delivered in full on 31st January. The referendum is literally over and complete. What instead we should be talking about when it comes to a mandate is what we do now that we have successfully left the EU.
The only mandate is for Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement. The one he is now ripping up. So when we get into a Commons vs Lords battle the Lords will be able to put the Parliament Acts and conventions into reverse - it is they who are acting to defend the democratic mandate of a government trying to reverse it.
Oh geez not this again.
The Tories won a landslide less than a year ago, they have the mandate to do what they want until the next election.
This whole "There's no mandate" nonsense every time anything has changed has got to stop.
You say this because you agree with what they are doing rather than out of principle. Nevertheless your opening sentence is spot on if you change just one word. Replace 'mandate' with 'power'.
By this logic there is never going to be a "mandate" for anyone in power to ever react to any event that might happen after an election has taken place. A new election will be required each time.
It's nonsense.
I'm not making a general point, it's a specific one. The GE was won just yesterday on the basis of the oven ready deal. It would not have been won on a no deal platform. This was THE issue of the election. So the winning party do not have a mandate to tear up the deal and do no deal instead. To pretend they do, that is the nonsense.
Lol nonsense, he won on a platform of getting Brexit done.
I heard absolutely no one mention the "oven ready deal" during the election at all.
Do you really think Corbyn would have won the election if it wasn't for the genius "oven ready deal" campaign that the Tories apparently ran?
Please focus rather than 'loling'.
Your question. What would the GE result have been if the Con position was to leave the EU with No Deal?
Hung Parliament. Lab + LD + SNP > Con + DUP.
It's hilarious how the 'genius' oven-ready deal has now become a historical embarrassment in a matter of days.
Yep. The ironies abound. Like, Mrs May said a border in the Irish Sea was "something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And it turns out she was right. But the trick she missed - due to possession of that inconvenient character trait called integrity - was to pretend to accept it in order to get the deal needed as the platform for an election win, and then with power duly secured to unaccept it again!
I think Johnson is hoist with his own petard. In the event of a No Deal, EU exporters can export to the RoI, then up to NI with no checks, then across to rUK with no checks. No problem.
And one would almost love to see it. But then of course there would be a gaping hole the other way too - into the SM - if there is no Irish border. Total mess if it happens. Which I really really doubt. Deal coming, I think.
wishful thinking
We will see. Betting odds are 1/2 No Deal, 6/5 Deal.
So based on odds it is No Deal, that is what they want as it opens the door for more aid for their chums , having milked Covid they will be rubbing their hands at Brexit spoils.
A Brexit deal won't stop them doing all that, Malcolm.
60mph on the motorway? I thought the Government wanted a 80mph speed limit! This wont play well in the red wall.
How does increased journey times, by corallary more cars on the roads and more traffic jams, lead to reductions in pollution?
Higher speeds use more fuel to go the same distance and so must involve more pollution. As a specific measure to deal with high pollution in affected areas this seems like a reasonable policy, although I'd be pissed off I had an electric car! We don't have a God-given right to impose bad air quality on other people.
60mph on the motorway? I thought the Government wanted a 80mph speed limit! This wont play well in the red wall.
How does increased journey times, by corallary more cars on the roads and more traffic jams, lead to reductions in pollution?
Higher speeds use more fuel to go the same distance and so must involve more pollution. As a specific measure to deal with high pollution in affected areas this seems like a reasonable policy, although I'd be pissed off I had an electric car! We don't have a God-given right to impose bad air quality on other people.
The same physics will mean that electric cars consume less fuel per mile at 60mph rather than 70mph. People living near the power station might be grateful?
Comments
What we have now is arbitrary restrictions on our lives at the whim of boris and cummings with no scrutiny by our elected representatives allowed. That is not acceptable.
The Government claims that the "border in the Irish Sea" is an absurd interpretation of the agreement, and therefore there is no reason for the Agreement not to stand despite the UK's refusal to implement customs checks.
Now obviously we know the Govt's claim is absurd, BUT, there is another point.
I assume that under the Withdrawal agreement the possibility of Customs checks on the Irish land border are explicitly excluded. Is this correct? Because the whole point is that checks at the land border were supposed to be replaced by checks at the sea.
So if the UK maintains its position it seems to me that the EU have no choice but to declare the WA null and void and exclude Northern Ireland from the Single Market with all that involves? Because how else can they control the flow of goods into the single market. They don't even have the legal power under the WA to impose their own customs checks.
And I make no apologies for exploiting the wonderful resources of the TLG. Don't use Perseus, for God's sake.
Not "they can do it if they wish so". Can they legally do it?
My guess is that in the event of a collapse of talks and violation by the UK of the WA they will do nothing at the Irish border in the short term except perhaps spot checks of goods to maintain the principle. Instead, they would obviously suspend cooperation with the UK, and let the default 'third country' rules take their natural stranglehold on us. As well as making it very difficult indeed for us to export food to the EU, it will also be hard for us to import food (because of delays at Dover), we won't be able to sell financial services to the EU27, our truckers won't be able to drive on the continent, no company will be allowed to process EU citizens' data here, and so on. It's important to note that all of that doesn't require them actively to be hostile to us, it is simply what the legal position will be in the event of no deal.
They will then just wait for us to come to our senses and accept their terms, which will obviously be worse than could have been agreed in an amicable settlement based on trust.
They'll calculate that they won't have to wait long, and they'll be right.
Brexit with a Deal only was May or Labour's platform, Brexit with No Deal only was Farage and the Brexit Party's platform
In two senses, perhaps.
When bad things happen from 1st January all most people will know is we had a deal, signed it, Brexited, and then 8 months later chucked the deal in the bin.
https://twitter.com/khayerc/status/1304524039524880385?s=20
I for one do not believe this government is legitimate, therefore I do not accept any of the laws, rules and suggestions it is imposing on us - not unless they make sense to me.
Government by consent, eh? Not this gang of incompetent charlatans and rip off merchants.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard survives as motion of no confidence in him is withdrawn
The vote had been expected to take place at a meeting of the party’s governing body on Saturday.
However, it has been withdrawn meaning that he will remain leader of the party.
Four MSPs had called for Mr Leonard to step aside but the motion to unseat him has now failed.
It had been submitted to the party’s Scottish Executive Committee (SEC) asking it express that it had no confidence in Mr Leonard’s leadership.
Following the vote, Edinburgh councillor Scott Arthur, a member of the party’s Scottish Executive Committee, tweeted: “Richard Leonard has retained the support of the SEC and will take us into the Holyrood 2021 election.”
Assume they did their usual , abstained or voted against their own opinion.
At last year's GE the WA was sold as the deal which sorted Brexit. Brexit happened on 31st January and nothing bad happened. Then 8 months later Johnson has ditched "the deal which sorted Brexit", indeed gone so far as to break the law to do so. And then 3 months later we might have a lot of bad things happening. That will be blamed on No deal. And all most people will know is that the only deal we had, which was allowing Brexit to proceed smoothly, was one which Boris ditched.
Boris won the election on a simple message. Which side do you think will have the simple message post January?
The Government having to explain why the deal they had didn't sort Brexit? Or the Opposition?
I know where my money is. The Government need to pray that 1st January isn't so bad...
Currently the Government website simply says “no test sites”.
The entire testing system has broken down.
https://youtu.be/_4q8x5fR4Sw?t=166
I am beginning to wonder if I am honest if the one we know as Philip isn't the nom de plume of a certain mr Cummings
ἑτοῖμα μὲν συνθήματ’, ἀλλ’ οὔπω πνιγεύς.
And then they wonder why they keep losing elections.
And just to be clear - you, as a lifelong Tory, are slavering over the possibility of pumping state aid into industries in the North? I mean, i know you value getting elected highly above anything else, but do you have any basic political beliefs whatsoever???
Northern Ireland is a complication for both sides but the EU side is a lot more responsible about it. It also means the EU will never compromise on the Withdrawal Agreement. It is the prerequisite for any relationship or cooperation with the EU.
Good afternoon, everyone.
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1304764498037927936
My job for example was while in the office based job. Now it has been confirmed that it will be wfh for good that job will likely become a cornish job, my wages being spent in the local economy there rather than in the south east. Ok just one job but if even 10% of jobs that were office based become home based then we start to see a significant shift in where money circulates
I hesitate to remind folk that Orkney and Shetland are separate constituencies for Holyrood, each with their own LD MSP.
Breaking the WA would take the UK back to running out of the restaurant without paying the bill territory.
60mph on the motorway? I thought the Government wanted a 80mph speed limit! This wont play well in the red wall.
Are this government trying to go sub 20% in the polls by the time of the next election?
https://twitter.com/patrickkmaguire/status/1304784502431125506?s=20