Should the UK remain a member of the EU

[magicrat]

3 hours ago, skend04 said:

I think the DUP know they would be sacrificed by the Tories and ERG at the drop of a hat. Especially after yesterday's comments by May that it's their fault. I doubt they'll come back onside now.

I wouldn't trust the DUP to do anything they said. Mercenary fuckers

[skend04]

1 minute ago, magicrat said:

I wouldn't trust the DUP to do anything they said. Mercenary fuckers

Even ERG are turning on each other now and Aaron Banks has called out Mogg's change of heart. This is going to turn into a bloodbath I think 

[magicrat]

Just now, skend04 said:

Even ERG are turning on each other now and Aaron Banks has called out Mogg's change of heart. This is going to turn into a bloodbath I think 

Hope so

[Anubis]

4 minutes ago, skend04 said:

Even ERG are turning on each other now and Aaron Banks has called out Mogg's change of heart. This is going to turn into a bloodbath I think 

 

Farage will be like Mr Pink in a Resevoir Dogs, hiding while they all shoot each other before slipping off.

[Anubis]

https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/stop-brexit-petition-gov-response_uk_5c9a6647e4b07c88662c7c00?utm_hp_ref=uk-brexit&ncid=other_homepage_tiwdkz83gze&utm_campaign=mw_entry_recirc

 

[Anubis]

Looks like MV3 will be back on Friday. It’s like Christopher Lee’s Dracula, it just wont fucking stay dead.

 

Can Abraham Van Bercow stake it again?

[aRdja]

21 hours ago, Captain Turdseye said:

 

Bercow’s comment, posted by Anubis further up has got them all arguing about name calling again instead of talking about the real issues. Childish nonsense. 

Just seen it. The whole thing seems very odd indeed.

 

 

[Pureblood]

MV3 sounds too much like a Call of Duty franchise in the late PS3 era.  

[karl1987]

Latest guesses from John Rentoul regarding indicative votes…  As suspected, no majority for anything.  Not even close.  

[Jenson]

So parliament doesn't want any of the deals on offer, doesn't want no Deal, and doesn't want to remain. Brilliant.

[Megadrive Man]

Well at least they aren't wasting time.

[karl1987]

2 minutes ago, Jenson said:

So parliament doesn't want any of the deals on offer, doesn't want no Deal, and doesn't want to remain. Brilliant.

May's deal will most likely get through on 4th time.  Reckon EU when they see there is no majority for anything will basically just say either accept Mays deal or leave on no deal.  

[skend04]

Don't want to make a decision and don't want anyone else to make a decision. About time we docked them their pay for the last 3 years of inaction then as a starter.

[Megadrive Man]

The problem with this stand off is that I don't see anyway of solving it?

 

A General Election or second referendum won't really change anything.  If and its a big if, the Tories and DUP do end up folding and backing the deal, its not what hardly any of the public want and a disaster for the future of the Conservatives?  

[karl1987]

1 minute ago, MegadriveMan said:

The problem with this stand off is that I don't see anyway of solving it?

 

A General Election or second referendum won't really change anything.  If and its a big if, the Tories and DUP do end up folding and backing the deal, its not what hardly any of the public want and a disaster for the future of the Conservatives?  

What would be a bigger disaster for the Tories?.  Getting some form of Brexit through, or no Brexit at all. Figures show over 70% core support want Brexit.  Revoking A50 would destroy them as party.

 

DUP wont be voting for it either way.  If its gets though it will be because of Tories and Labour votes.

[magicrat]

They don't want No deal resoundingly. There is insufficient support for a referendum ...yet.

If Mays deal goes down again ( which I think it will ) then there is no viable plan B  . Enough support will reluctantly swing behind a public vote on Mays deal, probably straight choice vs remain.  An election could be a possibility but I doubt it yet.

[Megadrive Man]

3 minutes ago, karl1987 said:

What would be a bigger disaster for the Tories?.  Getting some form of Brexit through, or no Brexit at all.

If its her deal though, that completely alienates both sides of the argument. 

Also, considering how many of them voted against it twice, it just makes them look totally incompetent! 

[karl1987]

6 minutes ago, MegadriveMan said:

If its her deal though, that completely alienates both sides of the argument. 

Also, considering how many of them voted against it twice, it just makes them look totally incompetent! 

We went past that stage a long time ago. Both the main parties are in a terrible state at the moment.  

 

The new TIG party was the right idea but the wrong mps.  

[cloggypop]

The only logical thing to do is to revoke Article 50, discuss it properly and come back with Brexit once the country has decided what it actually wants. 

 

Unfortunately, we now crash out automatically mid April if nobody makes a decision. 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

57 minutes ago, MegadriveMan said:

The problem with this stand off is that I don't see anyway of solving it?

 

A General Election or second referendum won't really change anything.  If and its a big if, the Tories and DUP do end up folding and backing the deal, its not what hardly any of the public want and a disaster for the future of the Conservatives?  

If Labour win a majority at a General Election, that changes everything.  It changes the terms on which a deal with the EU would be negotiated; it would, presumably, change the timescales (the current A50 deadlines apply to May's deal); it changes the people in the House of Commons who get to vote on the deal; and it, possibly, opens up a referendum to leave on Labour's terms or remain.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Someone's dug up an article that Daniel Hannan wrote in June 2016, looking into his crystal ball.

https://reaction.life/britain-looks-like-brexit/

 

It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.

 

The United Kingdom is now the region’s foremost knowledge-based economy. We lead the world in biotech, law, education, the audio-visual sector, financial services and software. New industries, from 3D printing to driverless cars, have sprung up around the country. Older industries, too, have revived as energy prices have fallen back to global levels: steel, cement, paper, plastics and ceramics producers have become competitive again...

 

The last thing most EU leaders wanted, once the shock had worn off, was a protracted argument with the United Kingdom which, on the day it left, became their single biggest market. Terms were agreed easily enough. Britain withdrew from the EU’s political structures and institutions, but kept its tariff-free arrangements in place. The rights of EU nationals living in the UK were confirmed, and various reciprocal deals on healthcare and the like remained...

 

During the first 12 months after the vote, Britain confirmed with the various countries that have trade deals with the EU that the same deals would continue. It also used that time to agree much more liberal terms with those states which had run up against EU protectionism, including India, China and Australia. These new treaties came into effect shortly after independence. Britain, like the EFTA countries, now combines global free trade with full participation in EU markets...

 

Unsurprisingly, several other European countries have opted to copy Britain’s deal with the EU, based as it is upon a common market rather than a common government. Some of these countries were drawn from EFTA (Norway, Switzerland and Iceland are all bringing their arrangements into line with ours). Some came from further afield (Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine). Some followed us out of the EU (Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands).

The United Kingdom now leads a 22-state bloc that forms a free trade area with the EU, but remains outside its political structures...

 

Perhaps the greatest benefit, though, is not easy to quantify. Britain has recovered its self-belief. As we left the EU, we straightened our backs, looked about us, and realised that we were still a nation to be reckoned with: the world’s fifth economy and fourth military power, one of five members on the UN Security Council and a leading member of the G7 and the Commonwealth. We recalled, too, that we were the world’s leading exporter of soft power; that our language was the most widely studied on Earth; that we were linked by kinship and migration to every continent and archipelago. We saw that there were great opportunities across the oceans, beyond the enervated eurozone. We knew that our song had not yet been sung.

[aRdja]

5 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Perhaps the greatest benefit, though, is not easy to quantify. Britain has recovered its self-belief. As we left the EU, we straightened our backs, looked about us, and realised that we were still a nation to be reckoned with: the world’s fifth economy and fourth military power, one of five members on the UN Security Council and a leading member of the G7 and the Commonwealth. We recalled, too, that we were the world’s leading exporter of soft power; that our language was the most widely studied on Earth; that we were linked by kinship and migration to every continent and archipelago. We saw that there were great opportunities across the oceans, beyond the enervated eurozone. We knew that our song had not yet been sung.

He sounds genuinely psychotic.

[Dr Nowt]

Can’t believe he wasn’t predicting we’d won the Eurovision Song Contest 9 years in a row.

[Anubis]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/27/brexit-referendum-conservative-party

Quote

 

Even as doodlebugs smashed into the surrounding streets, George Orwell consoled himself with this thought: “One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed.” Present those who governed us with an existential crisis, he argued in his essay England Your England, and they would do what they believed to be right for the country.

 

Almost eight decades later, the UK stands on the verge of a calamity as great as any since the war. Whatever the protestations in parliament, we could within days crash-land into a world of medicine shortages and food riots. And where are our political classes? According to the lobby correspondents, Monday’s cabinet meeting was spent war-gaming general election strategies and thinking how to timetable voting so as to “scare” Labour. Wherever the national interest actually featured, it was buried under a thick dollop of party interest.

 

Sunday afternoon was Theresa May’s crisis summit at Chequers, to which Iain Duncan Smith came as Toad of Toad Hall, complete with open-top vintage sports car and cloth cap. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s chosen passenger was his 12-year-old son, Peter, because a national crisis evidently created the perfect occasion for bring-your-child-to-work day. Boris Johnson rocked up in his Spaffmobile before chuntering back to London to publish a column dumping all over the woman with whom he’d just been talking, dubbing her “chicken” and saying she had “bottled it”. (One of the columns, if it’s not too unseemly to mention, for which the Telegraph pays him £275,000 a year.) The BBC reports that these men refer to themselves as the Grand Wizards. Since that is an honorific used by the Ku Klux Klan, the best can be said is they have put as much thought into their nicknames as they ever did into the Irish backstop.

 

This is how today’s governing classes comport themselves, while the country teeters on the edge of a cliff: they behave with neither care nor caution, let alone concern for the welfare of the nation. These people are laughing at us, even as they take our money to go about their daily business.

 

I am not going to bleat about “leadership”, as if whatever ails Britain could be set right by the thwack of firm government. I want instead to point out a fundamental trend in public life that is utterly corrosive. Far from resembling the sometimes dim but dutiful set depicted by Orwell, today’s political elite are strangers to collective interest or public responsibility. Their conduct serves to undermine both the establishment of which they are part and the country they run.

 

This observation runs wider and deeper than a bunch of backbench headbangers. The fecklessness can be seen in the prime minister’s daubing of those red lines in her first conference speech as Tory leader, without consulting or warning cabinet colleagues and civil servants, let alone business or trade unions. It’s there when Ivan Rogers, resigning as ambassador to Brussels, inveighs against “the ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking” of government ministers.

 

This is playing games with other people’s money, and sometimes with the basics of their lives. Think of Johnson’s love of pointless and expensive monuments to himself, such as the garden bridge or the Boris Island airport. Recall how, in 2015, George Osborne planned to scrap all taxes on savings. The measure would have cost well over £1bn a year, at a time when the chancellor was slashing budgets for schools and hospitals. But as former Liberal Democrat minister David Laws records in his memoir, Coalition, Osborne laughingly said: “It will only really be of help to stupid, affluent and lazy people, who can’t be bothered to put their savings away into tax-efficient vehicles. But it will be very popular – we have polled it.”

 

Such myopic cynicism has run through our politics for years, under both Tony Blair and David Cameron, and has been captured in historical record and TV satire. Yet it is the serious mess of Brexit that has truly exposed the profound unseriousness of the people in charge. The failure of our governing elite is technical and political, for sure. But it is also moral. They have short-changed the public for so long that they don’t know any different.

 

In his essential recent book Reckless Opportunists, Aeron Davis charts the breadth and the depth of this betrayal. The sociologist has spent two decades interviewing more than 350 people at the top of Westminster and Whitehall, big business, the media and the City. Across these interlocking elites, he finds common trends: they reach the top far sooner, stay in post for far less time, before rushing through the revolving doors to the next gig. The result, Davis writes, is a generation of leaders who are “precarious, rootless and increasingly self-serving”. They grab whatever they can – be that cheap headlines or fast money – and then crash out, even while loosening the very foundations of the institutions entrusted to them. Crucially, this is a genre of politics that relies on a strong state even as it bilks it of the necessary tax revenue.

 

There is no heroism here, just moneyed nihilism. There are no ideas, just reheated Thatcherism about low taxes and burning red tape. These people say little about national interest, but their ears prick up when it comes to compound interest. Much has been said about how Brexit Britain might be put back together again, with solutions ranging from more cash to more listening to each other. It’s a healthy and necessary conversation. Yet one of the strongest lessons of this period is that we need a wholesale reimagining of our institutions so that they better serve the rest of us, rather than just those who run them. This was one of the promises of the leave campaign, of course, but it was always destined to be folded and put away inside the pocket of one of Rees-Mogg’s double-breasted jackets. It is up to the rest of us to rescue it and give it some meaning.

 

Pulsing through Orwell’s essay about England is an anxiety about whether the upper classes might succumb to the lure of fascism, just as they had done in Weimar Germany. Orwell eventually settled on a comforting conclusion: “They are not wicked, or not altogether wicked; they are merely unteachable.” I thought about that line while reading a remarkable recent article in the Financial Times by John Redwood. The arch-Brexiter and Thatcherite MP has a side-gig in the finance industry (or perhaps it is the other way round) and observed here what a tonic populism had proved for markets. Donald Trump’s tax cuts had been great for Wall Street; the Brexit vote had pumped up the FTSE-250.

 

Of the upcoming European parliament elections, Redwood wrote: “A bit of populism might be no bad thing when I look at the state of the euro area economy.” By “a bit of populism” the MP for Wokingham presumably means the Mussolini-worship and xenophobia of Italy’s Matteo Salvini. And Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, silencing the media and driving judges into retirement, behaviour that has earned him unprecedented sanctions from the European parliament. Chaos and authoritarianism are fine, it appears, as long as they prove good for asset prices. In that elision between morality and financial returns is much that’s gone wrong with the governing classes. Would today’s ruling classes opt for fascism? Perhaps, if the price was right.

 

 

[Anubis]

Nice perk of the job, if you can get it...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/26/the-16m-new-york-penthouse-fit-for-a-uk-civil-servant