Brexit

[pjknibbs]

Whatever happened to the power of the PM not to accept resignations of convenience but to insist that minions see their duties through to at least some form of conclusion or holding point before falling on their swords and saying 'I told you so' - hopefully then at a time when it becomes far less damaging or relevant to the nation?

Even assuming such a power ever existed, which I'm not sure it did, you'd still be faced with two critical issues:

1) Only a strong PM could get away with doing something like this. Theresa May is not that PM.

2) You can't force someone to do a job they don't want to do, and you certainly can't force them to do a *good* job. Keeping these guys in post would be far riskier than swapping them out for someone else.

[RegisterMe]

Well one good thing so far - at least all my medic friends will be celebrating.

[euclid]

pjknibbs wrote:

As for Brexit being a shambles, that's kind of what happens when you call a referendum so confident of getting one result that you don't make any sort of plans for what happens if you get the other.

Well said! Chaos like that was to be expected from a life-changing referendum result 51.89:48.11 (which is just 1.0786).

Cheers Euclid

[BugMeister]

..and they've exploited that division ever since..

[Bishop149]

Well it looks like May will live to fight another day.
TBH I think the only reason for her continued survival is the inability / unwillingness of the Tory Brexiteers to get the act together.
They are incredibly quick to shoot down any proposed plan as too soft but have not once proposed an alternative, workable or otherwise. . . . NOTHING just [crickets]

This is because they are just playing politics. They want to be seen as the champions of democracy courageously upholding the "will of the people" whilst avoiding any and all responsibility for what said people actually bloody voted for . . . . because they know full well whoever is eventually left holding the Brexit hot potato is going to be monumentally screwed.
They're banking on that being May and planning to make what they can of the resulting disaster which of course they will characterise as all her fault.

Well one good thing so far - at least all my medic friends will be celebrating.

They might want to hold their celebrations, I hear the new chap has been heavily involved with various think tanks whose objective were to examine how to facilitate the privatisation of the NHS.

[BugMeister]

they've stolen your soul..
now they want you to buy it back..

Chomsky on the minority of the opulent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbFlYLHOSKU

- nothing changes - the fear continues..

[Bishop149]

Well I'll dig this back up again seeing as its all kicking off again.

A summary of recent events for the non-British



Or for those that prefer text. . . .

- Sunday am on Marr, latest Brexit secretary (no idea what #3's name is) gives us a categorical assurance that the Commons vote on Mrs Mays Brexit deal WILL most definitely occur on Tuesday, despite it being obvious to everybody she will lose.
- Monday am: EU court rules that UK can unilaterally cancel Brexit if it wants.
- Monday am: Vote that would "definitely not be cancelled" is cancelled.
- Monday pm: Questions raised whether the PM actually has sufficient remaining parliamentary authority to even cancel the vote
- Monday pm: Labour MP protests the situation by making of with the Mace, leading the whole UK to simultaneously wonder "WTF is this "mace"? What kind of farce exactly passes for our parliamentary process?"
- Tuesday: Mrs May fails to exit her own car on way to meet with Merkel, as Brexit continues to provide its own visual metaphors of the highest quality.
- Wednesday am: Tory party trigger vote of no confidence in the PM.

Prediction: She will almost certainly win the vote making this little more than a Tory brexiteer temper tantrum. They are already pissed off that the vote has been sheduled for tonight rather than being dragged out for a week.
I suspect that the political game now being played by Reese-Mogg and his ilk is to try and waste as much of the remaining time before the March deadline as possible with pointless leadership drama in an effort to make "No Deal" happen by default.

Whilst obviously objectively terrible and rage inducing, I also confess to a certain amount of "Some men just want to watch the world burn" in relation to watching this ongoing trashfire unfold.

Edit: Joke so obvious that I have now seen it being made four times independently:

The Tories voted to choose their leader in 2016, but those in favour of Brexit have decided today, on the basis of updated information, that they don't like the outcome of that vote after all and want to have another one. Imagine!/quote]

[JSDD]

i hope for this scenario to happen:
-- england leaves the EU with a "hard" brexit (no agreement)
-- scotland shoud leave britain and join the EU

... and most of us would be happy.
england and the banking "industry" cant hold the hole EU back any more.
england is "free" and independent again. thats what most people in england voted for ...
most of the scottish can remain EU citizens.
EU can get on with forming a stronger union (which is desperately needed).

[RegisterMe]

It's a complete ******* shambles.

[CBJ]

For a bit of light relief, you might enjoy the submarine made out of cheese analogy. There is some mild swearing in there, but nothing too offensive.

[felter]

Brexit is a total farce but then that was to be expected right from the start.

[matthewfarmery]

Totally lost confidence of the whole thing now, including Mrs May. I do hope that she goes, as she is so blind to the facts, sure that the EU has made things super hard on the UK, they are just to blame for this whole mess as MRss may and others are. I think the country should see another referendum and see if we can reverse course. I leave without a deal. As the DUP will no support the current deal any shape or form. And Mrs May should have seen this coming from a mile off.

Those in charge are acting like children and headless chickens. Its not a proud day to be British.

[felter]

sure that the EU has made things super hard on the UK, they are just to blame for this whole mess as MRss may and others are.

Here's the thing, why should they make it easy why should they bend to our will. It's our making our own mess not theirs, they have nothing to gain by doing what May and the rest of the brexiteers want. In the end we have more to lose than they do and we cannot continue to blame them for it, so I do not blame them for anything they have done or are asking.

[Morkonan]

Came across this yesterday, but didn't know how "funny" you guys would think it was... It starts out funny, but it gets darn sobering really quick. It's kind of creepy.

Andy Serkis as May

[pjknibbs]

The sad thing is, I think the likes of Reese-Mogg and Johnson really believe that they can get a better deal than the one on the table, and should they manage to oust May, I fear they're going to run into the brick wall of the EU negotiating team. Wasn't Boris Johnson the one who said, back in 2016, that the negotiations to leave the EU would likely be the easiest negotiation *ever*? I used to think that the whole bumbling idiot thing was just an act, but I now geniunely believe that Boris is just as much of a cretin as he appears in public to be.

[Observe]

I wonder what would happen if Brexit was put up for vote again? Is this a possibility? Do you think the interest in leaving EU has faded?

[Antilogic]

Polling projects remain victory in that case currently.

[Stars_InTheirEyes]

I sympathise with May, to a degree. She's been given the impossible task of negotiating a deal which leaves Britain in a better position than it was before and thus appease most parties. The problem is that such a deal is a dream and nothing more.

There's still time for the UK to wake-up from this self-inflicted nightmare. Those who started pouring the gasoline have long since been paid off and run into hiding/obscurity, their job done. I maintain some small glimmer of hope that people will start seeing sense.

[Mightysword]

There's still time for the UK to wake-up from this self-inflicted nightmare.

Is it even possible for you to wake up at this point? I think either way, you either gonna sleep in that nightmare for a while, or wake up with a headache big enough that'll make that nightmare seems preferable.

Those who started pouring the gasoline have long since been paid off and run into hiding/obscurity, their job done. I maintain some small glimmer of hope that people will start seeing sense.

I don't think it's that simple. There are already enough people talking about why a bad Brexit is bad and a hard Brexit is even worse so I won't add to that. But even if you guys call for a 2nd referendum, what would happen? I see at least two problems with that:

- From what I understand, the UK has been traditionally give some kind of special status within the EU and have some leverage in negotiation. But if you decide to walk back, while the EU may be smiling and say "welcome back bro", I doubt in the ruthlessness of politic all with be forgiven and forgotten. At least I think for a long while, the UK will not have the same voice and weight it has on the negotiation table. I had always thought walking the line of "one foot in and one foot out" had given the UK an advantage, with certain decree of appeasement to keep you in. But if they now recognize the UK has no mentality to actually leave, it will make no sense to keep those accommodations in place from the bloc's POV.

- But that's not even the worst problem, what about the UK's Constitution moving forward if you walk back now? From what I understand the referendum had one of the largest if not the largest turn out of voters, what will be the implication going forward? Sure, you may argue the result was based on a campaign of lie ... but that's nothing news in modern politic, lookup and look around and you see that's the norm. But scrapping the result of a legitimate vote with a historical turnout under no legal basic because it's inconvenience? Pretty sure that will be a first, at least among stable democracies. Internationally the UK will lose its voice for a foreseeable future, because even a dictator can point at this and say "you just did that so you have no right to lecture us!". Domestically it'll probably be even a bigger shitstorm. I don't think the result of a second referendum will be even matter. If the leave camp projects that they will certainly lose, they can just decide to boycott and stay home. So even if the result is a 90% to 10%, while that may give some legal basic for the government to scrap the process of leaving, everyone with an iota of common sense will know that's not even the point, since the result will have no democratic legitimacy. When that happens ... good luck with your future elections or voting of any kind.

Ironically the ideal scenario given what already happens is the UK able to negotiate a nice exit deal, the kind that the like of Boris is talking about. But then anyone with a little of common sense know fat chance that gonna happen. The EU will naturally see that as the worst outcome because it'll incentive other to leave (the UK is hardly the only one wanted to leave). But like someone said ealier you can't blame the EU for this, the UK basically paints a bullseye on its back while holding up a sight saying "SHOOT ME IF YOU DARE!", the EU just obliged and pulled the trigger.

[Bishop149]

From what I understand, the UK has been traditionally give some kind of special status within the EU and have some leverage in negotiation. But if you decide to walk back, while the EU may be smiling and say "welcome back bro", I doubt in the ruthlessness of politic all with be forgiven and forgotten. At least I think for a long while, the UK will not have the same voice and weight it has on the negotiation table. I had always thought walking the line of "one foot in and one foot out" had given the UK an advantage, with certain decree of appeasement to keep you in. But if they now recognize the UK has no mentality to actually leave, it will make no sense to keep those accommodations in place from the bloc's POV.

I don't think this would be a problem, at least not right away
The EU's court has ruled that the UK can revoke article 50 unilaterally. If that happens then everything will simply default back to exactly where we were before this whole sorry mess started, at least initially.
However you are probably right that the UK's reputation is Europe will have been badly damaged and I can't see them being particularly happy if we start acting all "we're special!" again. I'd expect the following years would see much politicking with the objective of making Britain fall more in line a regular EU member

- But that's not even the worst problem, what about the UK's Constitution moving forward if you walk back now? From what I understand the referendum had one of the largest if not the largest turn out of voters, what will be the implication going forward? Sure, you may argue the result was based on a campaign of lie ... but that's nothing news in modern politic, lookup and look around and you see that's the norm. But scrapping the result of a legitimate vote with a historical turnout under no legal basic because it's inconvenience? Pretty sure that will be a first, at least among stable democracies. Internationally the UK will lose its voice for a foreseeable future, because even a dictator can point at this and say "you just did that so you have no right to lecture us!". Domestically it'll probably be even a bigger shitstorm. I don't think the result of a second referendum will be even matter. If the leave camp projects that they will certainly lose, they can just decide to boycott and stay home. So even if the result is a 90% to 10%, while that may give some legal basic for the government to scrap the process of leaving, everyone with an iota of common sense will know that's not even the point, since the result will have no democratic legitimacy. When that happens ... good luck with your future elections or voting of any kind.

Firstly we don't have a written constitution which is at least part of the reason why we're in such a mess. If we had one maybe it would have contained sensible rules about how and when referenda should be run.
Parliament has the power to ignore the vote, it had no legal power and was only ever "advisory", however you are right that if they did that at this stage we'd most definitely have a constitutional crisis on our hands.
If we had another referendum and went the other way they could then simply cancel brexit without causing any major constitutional problems.
We have a long tradition in this country of just completely ignoring the views of those that refuse to vote out of protest (one of many flaws in our democracy), I don't see that this would be any different.
There would be much braying and yelling, it would kill the careers of some politicians stone dead and probably screw the conservative party at the polls for years to come* . . . . . but no more than they deserve for foisting this disaster on us in the first place and then playing internal party politics with it.

*This in my opinion is probably the only reason they haven't called one.
They're torn, on the one hand if Brexit happens they will have initiated, delivered and presided over the biggest economic disaster since the war and 48% of the country will never forgive them for it.
A second referendum gives them a way out from that, but then a majority of their own voter base will see this as the worst possible betrayal and never vote for them again.
They're f***ed.