Should the UK remain a member of the EU

[Dr Nowt]

Bercow’s sense of theatre when he delivers his decision on that tomorrow will be a sight to behold. 

 

[Barrington Womble]

39 minutes ago, sir roger said:

Bercow is loving the limelight and buzzing off Brexiteers anger so he won’t give a shit. He has only got a limited shelf life to cause chaos.

He's only got till 31st hasn't he?

[Dr Nowt]

12 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

He's only got till 31st hasn't he?

Yep. But realistically whether Johnson gets his deal over the line or is fought off one way or another with an extension and election to follow will be decided under his watch.

[Anubis]

DUP won’t support a customs union amendment.

[No2]

The DUP are heading towards a situation were remain is better than all alternatives. They hate the EU but only because they think it's the British thing to do. When comparing their hate for the EU with their love of the union it's night and day. They can sell remain to their support a million times easier than this deal and piss off the man that betrayed them at the same time.

[ZonkoVille77]

DUP are backward cunts. About absolutely everything.

The sooner all those bitter bastards die off, the better.

[elBooth]

On 14/06/2015 at 11:44, JohnnyH said:

It's going to be a horrible, scaremongering campaign full of half truths, little englander xenophobia, and people with a tiny bit of knowledge acting like they know it all. Should be funny.

 

For anyone else completely baffled by this whole thing I highly recommend heading back to the first few pages of this thread where there are clear opinions being shared from both sides.  JohnnyH pretty much nails it with the first reply from over four years ago... apart from the part about it being funny like.

[Chocoholic]

https://www.ft.com/content/08ae76c2-f197-11e9-a55a-30afa498db1b

 

For those who wish to be spared the trauma of seeing a picture of that hard nosed bigot, Arlene, who's having meetings with the paramilitary UDA, here's the text. 

 

Jonathan Powell

 

The obsession over the past few days with parliamentary manoeuvring has obscured the question of whether Boris Johnson’s Brexit agreement is a good deal or not and what its long-term consequences are. Mr Johnson claims he has delivered a “great new deal” that everyone else said he couldn’t. In fact, it is neither great nor new. Mr Johnson switched from the scorched-earth approach advocated by Dominic Cummings, his principal adviser, to abruptly surrendering on nearly every point in order to meet his October 31 deadline. He has in essence ended up with Theresa May’s deal with some substantive changes on Northern Ireland we may all live to regret. 

 

The prime minister says he has ditched the backstop. On the contrary he has accepted the substance of the original Northern Ireland-only backstop which Mrs May said, “no UK prime minister could ever accept”. 

 

Moreover, he has changed it from being a fallback into the definitive future arrangement for Northern Ireland. He had to abandon his Heath Robinson-esque scheme of two borders, together with all the nonsense we have heard from Brexiters over the past three years about a magic technological answer to the border, and threw in for good measure Northern Ireland remaining in the EU for VAT purposes. Scarcely new, and hardly a triumph. 

 

On consent, Mr Johnson rightly abandoned his initial proposal of giving the Democratic Unionist party a veto. But in the process he has driven a coach and horses through the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement by allowing a simple majority to decide whether the province stays in the single market and customs union. The system of cross-community agreement for major issues was built on the principle of “sufficient consensus” that requires a majority of both communities — nationalists and unionists — for a measure to be agreed, while ensuring a small minority could not block progress. Once you exempt one major issue from this rule, you risk undermining the very notion of power sharing enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement. 

 

The DUP may seem outlandish to people in London, but they represent real concerns in Northern Ireland which should be taken seriously. Tony Blair’s first visit outside London when he became prime minister in 1997 was to the Balmoral agricultural show outside Belfast. In a speech there he ad-libbed that he did not expect to see a united Ireland in his lifetime. The DUP worry that this is no longer true. If you introduce a hard border in the Irish Sea — a border that will grow wider over time as Great Britain diverges from the EU in terms of regulations and tariffs — then it will be harder for the unionists to maintain their Britishness. And we have removed the brake of cross-community agreement that would allow them to stop progress down that slippery slope. 

 

That is why we have heard worrying noises from loyalist groups like the Ulster Volunteer Force and why Arlene Foster has been meeting with the Ulster Defence Association. The DUP may well be right in their fears. The poll numbers have already begun to move towards greater acceptance of a united Ireland during the Brexit process as Catholic voters who traditionally supported remaining in the UK drift to remaining in the EU. It seems likely, for demographic and other reasons, those numbers will continue to grow. Paradoxically Mr Johnson and Brexit may have done more for a united Ireland than the IRA ever did. 

 

The fact that the Irish government and the EU have managed to prevent Mr Johnson’s proposed hard customs border in Northern Ireland, which would have posed a fundamental threat to the Good Friday Agreement, is welcome and enormously important. But the DUP have a strong case when they argue that he has instead undermined the other aspects of the agreement through his deal. That is the reason why they are supported by the more moderate Ulster Unionist party and even the cross-community Alliance party in this complaint. 

 

The deal we have ended up with means a soft Brexit for Northern Ireland and a hard Brexit for the rest of the UK. In these circumstances it would be understandable if Scotland demanded the same treatment as Northern Ireland, since it had a similar majority for Remain in the referendum. When that is rejected by the Conservative government, and it refuses a further referendum, the support for independence will continue to grow. 

 

This Trumpian “great new deal” will therefore not just take Britain out of the EU, but may also mark the end of the union, leaving a Little Englander government ruling a Little England. 

[magicrat]

16 hours ago, Barry Wom said:

Who'd want to be in bercows shoes now. If he blocks the MV, the right wing nutters will be ready to kill him. 

 

It's fucking complicated isn't it? I think I follow this quite closely and I don't have a clue! 

Just as well we have a well informed legislature acting in our best interests then

[Jenson]

Speculation that Bercow is not going to let Johnson bring the WA back for a vote today.

[Anubis]

18 minutes ago, Jenson said:

Speculation that Bercow is not going to let Johnson bring the WA back for a vote today.

It wouldn’t be the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which is due to be heard tomorrow.

 

Its his meaningful vote on his deal he’ll block.

 

Although there were noises coming out of Downing St this morning that they won’t table the Meaningful Vote if it looks like Bercow will allow amendments to it to be tabled. Which won’t get that far because he’s unlikely to allow them to table it in the first place.

[Bjornebye]

I like Bercow. 

 

 

 

 

[skend04]

How many times does history have to show that if you enable Tory policies, you're going to get fucked by association? All these Labour politicians like Nandy coming out and saying they'd pass BoJo's deal on a second reading need their heads testing and then bashing in.

[Bjornebye]

6 minutes ago, skend04 said:

How many times does history have to show that if you enable Tory policies, you're going to get fucked by association? All these Labour politicians like Nandy coming out and saying they'd pass BoJo's deal on a second reading need their heads testing and then bashing in.

Selling their souls to the devil. 

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

It looks like Bercow might knock the government back on a yes/no vote. 

[Bjornebye]

Come on Bercow lad! 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Ha!

 

Fuck off, Fatty!

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Now to hammer in the amendments to the first reading of the Withdrawal Act Bill and drag it out as much as possible. 

[Barrington Womble]

Good work bercow. It looks like some of those Tories are going to cry.

[Bjornebye]

Why can't they get it into their thick fucking skulls? 

[Barrington Womble]

Fucking face on bill cash. Have that you Tory twat. 

[Bjornebye]

Rees-Mogg still looking smug the smug twat 

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Christ. Bercow has just wiped the floor with Bernard Jenkin there. Brilliant stuff. 

[Barrington Womble]

3 minutes ago, Nelly-Torres said:

Christ. Bercow has just wiped the floor with Bernard Jenkin there. Brilliant stuff. 

It was fucking great wasn't it. The Tories aren't even bothering to boo him any more. 

[polymerpunkah]

Bercow kibosh!

 

So what now?

 

Can Johnson make significant enough changes to the bill to pass Bercow's muster without going back to the EU?