[Politics] Brexit

[Simster]

Ironically the one thing which was really going for the Theresa May agreement was that it did actually manage to deliver Brexit while honouring the Good Friday Agreement. Only for the Brexiters to decide they didn't like that and act accordingly.

In fairness, the DUP (understandably) always said their red lines were such that they want NI to be treated no differently from the rest of the UK. And this is the folly and irresponsibility of a UK government getting into bed with one side of the sectarian divide. It should never have been considered as a means of hanging onto power.

The fact is, we simply cannot just walk away without solving the Irish border issue. I'd be interested in what [MENTION=1365]Westdene Seagull[/MENTION] and [MENTION=33253]JC Footy Genius[/MENTION] - both happy to get into petty squabbles over the meanings of other Irish referendums and their status - hold up as solutions to this problem. I think it is interesting that [MENTION=599]beorhthelm[/MENTION] - previously a leaver - changed his position, in part because he concluded that it simply can't be done.

 

[A1X]

Since you get Crawley in this deal, I am more than happy for East Sussex to become independent

Nuts, I forgot to throw the airport in as a sweetener.

Could we not just flog Crawley off to the US air force for target practice?

 

[WATFORD zero]

In fairness, the DUP (understandably) always said their red lines were such that they want NI to be treated no differently from the rest of the UK.

And this is the folly and irresponsibility of a UK government getting into bed with one side of the sectarian divide. It should never have been considered as a means of hanging onto power.

But the trouble is, even if they hadn't got into bed with the DUP the issue was still there.

It would have just made it a bit easier to throw the whole of Northern Ireland under the bus.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Just been having an email discussion with two mates. One is a hard brexitter (he hasn't actually responded to any of the correspondence between me and the other guy, so his current views are unknown) and the other guy is nondoctrinaire pragmatist whose first reaction to the vote to leave was 'interesting....let's see what happens now'. He lives overseas in a wealthy first world country. I now have some disagreements with the latter bloke, who is blaming May for the current shambles. From his vantage point, she is leader and she is therefore responsible. Personally, apart from the one small mistake of not realisng from day 1 this is an impossible journey, I can't really blame Mrs May for th debacle. My current overview, the contents of an email I sent him earlier taday, may be of interest:

Morning squire. I really don’t think May had an option. The only way to become leader of the tories after Cameron flounced was to promise to deliver Brexit. Anyone saying ‘nah, bollocks to the referendum, I am going to ignore it’ would not have become leader. Remember there are swathes of people, tory and labour MPs who think it is morally wrong to ignore the referendum.

I personally disagree with them (it was advisory and never immutable – but people conveniently forget this). Initially after the referendum, those in favour of Brexit were jubilant. I know people (not many, admittedly, because they are twunts) who were practically dancing a little jig in front of me about the result of the vote: ‘Ha ha, you lost, dry your eyes, we are LEAVING’ – that sort of thing.

Having made the decision to become leader and deliver Brexit there was no turning back for May. She thought she could make life easier by extending Cameron’s weak majority, but didn’t bank in a massive late swing to labour (from a very low rating) that ended up wiping her majority in the last general election, meaning she had to sign a devil’s pact with the baby-eating Catholic-burning Unionist nutters in Belfast.

She has even promised to resign soon (when? Dunno, but soon). There is nothing in this for her now, no legacy, no admiration…..she has simply tried to do the impossible out of a sense of duty. Your average bloke might have said, months ago, ‘you know what? This is never going to work is it? Let's forget it and go down the pub’. However, having become leader in the way she became leader she has had no option other than to plough on…..

So there you have May, elected leader and made PM….Her first difficulty was that the EU refused to negotiate until article 50 had been enacted. What I would have done would have been to not fire off article 50 until parliament had agreed what parliament wanted. You may recall that these days people are saying this should have been done as a cross party thing. But recall the fevered atmosphere after Brexit. A lot of this was anti labour emoting, so no tory PM would start out by inviting a cross party plan. Why share ‘victory’ with the enemy? The other problem May faced was the massive pressure to enact article 50 quickly. Right wing journalists and politicians were claiming that the EU would come begging to make a great deal for the UK, because they ‘need us more than we need them’, So she could not hold off article 50 for long…..

With hindsight this is what I would have done…..immediately after coming leader I would have said to parliament:

“We have been tasked to leave the EU. We now need to decide how to do this. As PM I can simply tell parliament what will happen. But I would rather carry parliament with me – it will be tricky enough striking a deal with the EU. Remember, we can’t just rock up empty handed and say ‘what are you going to give us?* We have to have clear and precise plans on trade, immigration, rights of abode, and the border in Ireland. We have to decide exactly what we want, get the EU to agree, then leave. So my first task is to ask parliament to agree a process. The last thing we want is for me to agree a deal with the EU then for parliament to vote it down**. One issue that will be difficult is this. We could leave the EU tomorrow with no deals. This would mean, immediately, passports and visas for travel to France. This means a halt to cross channel imports and exports. It will mean, immediately, the construction of a 200 mile fence to separate Ireland from Norther Ireland. It would mean immediately the loss of residency right and expulsion of thousands of British ex pats living in Spain. It will result immediately in the expulsion of French German, Italian and other EU citizens living in the UK. Yes, some of these issues can be resolved in days (as long as other EU states take pity on us and act in a kindly way; others like passport control and the Irish border can’t) but all resolution requires negotiation. I would rather we negotiate before we leave the EU. If we can agree this point then all other points and processes follow logically. And ultimately it would be best we have a Brexit plan agreed by parliament that we put to the EU at the time we fire the gun of Article 50 – so let’s not do that till we are clear about what we are doing. We also need to empower the negotiating team to modify aspects of what parliament agrees if the EU requires this. We cannot have a situation where the EU vetos any deal offered by us, and parliament votes down any amendment required by the EU. In short we can’t negotiate Brexit in a triangle of EU, my negotiating team, and parliament. Something has to ‘give’ and it must either be my negotiating team or parliament. You can see the logic here…..my negotiating team cannot deliver Brexit. It has to be delivered by parliament. This means that parliament will not only have to approve a deal, it must actually write it *** . What we cannot do is go through the triangle of failure and cobble together some sort of reluctant cross party initiative at the eleventh hour****. If we do this already having fired off article 50, while the EU sits back while we tear ourselves apart, it will be a national tragedy***** If we do end up in this dire situation we may have to go back to the people and explain exactly the consequences of a hard Brexit, and explain that the only form of Brexit we can deliver is the one offered by the EU, which means we cannot keep the Irish border open unless we sign up to the single market and EU employment and migration laws (the alternative is to throw Ulster, and their loyal British citizens to the wolves – unacceptable******). One thing we have established from the EU is that they cannot allow a soft border between Ireland and Ulster.

This leaves me in a difficult position. Either you allow me and my team to negotiate something, and accept whatever I deliver, or you hand the power and planning to parliament. In order to ensure we don’t end up in stalemate, I propose that if we find ourselves without any deal in, say, 2 years time, and no prospect of progress, we should have another referendum – hard Brexit the following week versus no Brexit. Of course this latter scenario will never come to pass because everyone thinks the EU will agree to whatever we want, and indeed parliament is far too sensible to allow the UK to stumble into crisis over 2 years – so this second referendum backstop, triggered by impasse, is a bit like meteor insurance – low risk and but worth having just in case *******”

At this point anyone with half a brain will realise that Brexit is undeliverable. It is a unicorn. Back in 2016 if May had come out with any of this she would have been immediately finished. Half the country thought Brexit would be like flicking a switch.....

*This is exactly what David Davies did – the EU negotiators thought he was taking the piss.
**This is exactly what has happened
***This is supposedly what is happening now, with May and Jezza sipping tea at number ten, looking balefully into each others’ eyes
**** This is exactly what is happening now
*****And there we have it
******This truly is unacceptable. I can understand devolution but we cannot throw ulster out of the UK.
******* Ho ho ho…….

 

[WATFORD zero]

Could we not just flog Crawley off to the US air force for target practice?

You're going to get into trouble with the Crawley posters on here. I merely pointed out that it was in West Sussex

 

[Simster]

But the trouble is, even if they hadn't got into bed with the DUP the issue was still there.

It would have just made it a bit easier to throw the whole of Northern Ireland under the bus.

When you say "under a bus", you mean "respect the wishes of NI as a whole". And no, the issue wouldn't be there - you'd simply have two jurisdictions (one in the EU, one independent) both controlled from the same parliament. From a people moving point of view, the impact would be minimal.

 

[A1X]

[TWEET]1116583675632574464[/TWEET]

 

[WATFORD zero]

When you say "under a bus", you mean "respect the wishes of NI as a whole".

Well overall they voted to remain, so you could justifiably say a Hard Border down the Irish Sea and NI staying in the single market and Customs Union would be respecting their wishes.

Tell the truth I haven't thought through any implications from that scenario, but that won't stop certain posters leaping on it as a 'solution' to the Customs Union, Hard Border issue

 

[ManOfSussex]

I think you are overthinking this. I am sure that I am in a minority, but I would imagine there are a large number of like-minded people. The state of being established as a cause does not add any validity or credence to a political aim in itself, everything has to start somewhere. It strikes me as odd that you would afford the Scots something that you wouldn't even contemplate for the English which is pretty discriminatory in my view.

However, I am not a Nationalist but rather a nationalist, I believe as Voltaire said, 'every man is my brother' and try to live with that in mind. I won't be desperately hoping for the break-up of the union nor will I decide to take to the streets a la Citizen Smith lol.

Fair enough again and each to their own. I suppose a better example of my bemusement would be to compare it with someone from Comunidad de Madrid or Castilla La Mancha wanting independence from Spain.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Just been having an email discussion with two mates. One is a hard brexitter (he hasn't actually responded to any of the correspondence between me and the other guy, so his current views are unknown) and the other guy is nondoctrinaire pragmatist whose first reaction to the vote to leave was 'interesting....let's see what happens now'. He lives overseas in a wealthy first world country. I now have some disagreements with the latter bloke, who is blaming May for the current shambles. From his vantage point, she is leader and she is therefore responsible. Personally, apart from the one small mistake of not realisng from day 1 this is an impossible journey, I can't really blame Mrs May for th debacle. My current overview, the contents of an email I sent him earlier taday, may be of interest:

Morning squire. I really don’t think May had an option. The only way to become leader of the tories after Cameron flounced was to promise to deliver Brexit. Anyone saying ‘nah, bollocks to the referendum, I am going to ignore it’ would not have become leader. Remember there are swathes of people, tory and labour MPs who think it is morally wrong to ignore the referendum.

I personally disagree with them (it was advisory and never immutable – but people conveniently forget this). Initially after the referendum, those in favour of Brexit were jubilant. I know people (not many, admittedly, because they are twunts) who were practically dancing a little jig in front of me about the result of the vote: ‘Ha ha, you lost, dry your eyes, we are LEAVING’ – that sort of thing.

Having made the decision to become leader and deliver Brexit there was no turning back for May. She thought she could make life easier by extending Cameron’s weak majority, but didn’t bank in a massive late swing to labour (from a very low rating) that ended up wiping her majority in the last general election, meaning she had to sign a devil’s pact with the baby-eating Catholic-burning Unionist nutters in Belfast.

She has even promised to resign soon (when? Dunno, but soon). There is nothing in this for her now, no legacy, no admiration…..she has simply tried to do the impossible out of a sense of duty. Your average bloke might have said, months ago, ‘you know what? This is never going to work is it? Let's forget it and go down the pub’. However, having become leader in the way she became leader she has had no option other than to plough on…..

So there you have May, elected leader and made PM….Her first difficulty was that the EU refused to negotiate until article 50 had been enacted. What I would have done would have been to not fire off article 50 until parliament had agreed what parliament wanted. You may recall that these days people are saying this should have been done as a cross party thing. But recall the fevered atmosphere after Brexit. A lot of this was anti labour emoting, so no tory PM would start out by inviting a cross party plan. Why share ‘victory’ with the enemy? The other problem May faced was the massive pressure to enact article 50 quickly. Right wing journalists and politicians were claiming that the EU would come begging to make a great deal for the UK, because they ‘need us more than we need them’, So she could not hold off article 50 for long…..

With hindsight this is what I would have done…..immediately after coming leader I would have said to parliament:

“We have been tasked to leave the EU. We now need to decide how to do this. As PM I can simply tell parliament what will happen. But I would rather carry parliament with me – it will be tricky enough striking a deal with the EU. Remember, we can’t just rock up empty handed and say ‘what are you going to give us?* We have to have clear and precise plans on trade, immigration, rights of abode, and the border in Ireland. We have to decide exactly what we want, get the EU to agree, then leave. So my first task is to ask parliament to agree a process. The last thing we want is for me to agree a deal with the EU then for parliament to vote it down**. One issue that will be difficult is this. We could leave the EU tomorrow with no deals. This would mean, immediately, passports and visas for travel to France. This means a halt to cross channel imports and exports. It will mean, immediately, the construction of a 200 mile fence to separate Ireland from Norther Ireland. It would mean immediately the loss of residency right and expulsion of thousands of British ex pats living in Spain. It will result immediately in the expulsion of French German, Italian and other EU citizens living in the UK. Yes, some of these issues can be resolved in days (as long as other EU states take pity on us and act in a kindly way; others like passport control and the Irish border can’t) but all resolution requires negotiation. I would rather we negotiate before we leave the EU. If we can agree this point then all other points and processes follow logically. And ultimately it would be best we have a Brexit plan agreed by parliament that we put to the EU at the time we fire the gun of Article 50 – so let’s not do that till we are clear about what we are doing. We also need to empower the negotiating team to modify aspects of what parliament agrees if the EU requires this. We cannot have a situation where the EU vetos any deal offered by us, and parliament votes down any amendment required by the EU. In short we can’t negotiate Brexit in a triangle of EU, my negotiating team, and parliament. Something has to ‘give’ and it must either be my negotiating team or parliament. You can see the logic here…..my negotiating team cannot deliver Brexit. It has to be delivered by parliament. This means that parliament will not only have to approve a deal, it must actually write it *** . What we cannot do is go through the triangle of failure and cobble together some sort of reluctant cross party initiative at the eleventh hour****. If we do this already having fired off article 50, while the EU sits back while we tear ourselves apart, it will be a national tragedy***** If we do end up in this dire situation we may have to go back to the people and explain exactly the consequences of a hard Brexit, and explain that the only form of Brexit we can deliver is the one offered by the EU, which means we cannot keep the Irish border open unless we sign up to the single market and EU employment and migration laws (the alternative is to throw Ulster, and their loyal British citizens to the wolves – unacceptable******). One thing we have established from the EU is that they cannot allow a soft border between Ireland and Ulster.

This leaves me in a difficult position. Either you allow me and my team to negotiate something, and accept whatever I deliver, or you hand the power and planning to parliament. In order to ensure we don’t end up in stalemate, I propose that if we find ourselves without any deal in, say, 2 years time, and no prospect of progress, we should have another referendum – hard Brexit the following week versus no Brexit. Of course this latter scenario will never come to pass because everyone thinks the EU will agree to whatever we want, and indeed parliament is far too sensible to allow the UK to stumble into crisis over 2 years – so this second referendum backstop, triggered by impasse, is a bit like meteor insurance – low risk and but worth having just in case *******”

At this point anyone with half a brain will realise that Brexit is undeliverable. It is a unicorn. Back in 2016 if May had come out with any of this she would have been immediately finished. Half the country thought Brexit would be like flicking a switch.....

*This is exactly what David Davies did – the EU negotiators thought he was taking the piss.
**This is exactly what has happened
***This is supposedly what is happening now, with May and Jezza sipping tea at number ten, looking balefully into each others’ eyes
**** This is exactly what is happening now
*****And there we have it
******This truly is unacceptable. I can understand devolution but we cannot throw ulster out of the UK.
******* Ho ho ho…….

I have no sympathy for May after her treatment of British people whilst in the Home Office, and then the treatment of EU citizens since she triggered Article 50. She is a xenophobe.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I have no sympathy for May after her treatment of British people whilst in the Home Office, and then the treatment of EU citizens since she triggered Article 50. She is a xenophobe.

That's as may be (see what I did there? ) but I am focusing purely on how she has managed Brexit. I really don't think she had much wriggle room without coming up against the raucous 'You have Betrayed Brexit' contingent, early doors. But I have thought from day 1 that Brexit is undeliverable by negociation, and unthinkable by hard flounce. A national tragedy, of which May has been nothing more than custodian.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

Fair enough again and each to their own. I suppose a better example of my bemusement would be to compare it with someone from Comunidad de Madrid or Castilla La Mancha wanting independence from Spain.

Haha, I would prefer to talk about Catalonia!

 

[Thunder Bolt]

That's as may be (see what I did there? ) but I am focusing purely on how she has managed Brexit. I really don't think she had much wriggle room without coming up against the raucous 'You have Betrayed Brexit' contingent, early doors. But I have thought from day 1 that Brexit is undeliverable by negociation, and unthinkable by hard flounce. A national tragedy, of which May has been nothing more than custodian.

She went into it, with eyes wide open, and still, 34 months later, unwilling to listen to anyone.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

That's as may be (see what I did there? ) but I am focusing purely on how she has managed Brexit. I really don't think she had much wriggle room without coming up against the raucous 'You have Betrayed Brexit' contingent, early doors. But I have thought from day 1 that Brexit is undeliverable by negociation, and unthinkable by hard flounce. A national tragedy, of which May has been nothing more than custodian.

You may be right, Brexit may be undeliverable. And for that, although May has done her best with a poisoned chalice, I will forever blame the previous generations of politicians for allowing our country to become so intractably enmeshed in the EU in the first place.

 

[ManOfSussex]

I have no sympathy for May after her treatment of British people whilst in the Home Office, and then the treatment of EU citizens since she triggered Article 50. She is a xenophobe.

Whatever the phobia is for not liking the police and the Police Federation - May's got that one too.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Whatever the phobia is for not liking the police and the Police Federation - May's got that one too.

I would include the whole Justice system in that, the number of courts and prisons, that have been closed, decimation of staff in the CPS, and privatisation of the Probation service.

 

[Lincoln Imp]

If a lot of the folk on here are from Brighton, then that voted heavily for remain unlike a lot other Sussex areas iirc.

You're right about that but I was responding to JC's jolly implication that NSC Leavers are much more likely to be hard at work whilst us Remainers lounge around in retirement. Every last bit of national research suggests that Leavers are much more likely to be retired than Remainers. I believe that the current age point at which people become more likely to vote Leave then Remain is 50, a few years higher than in 2016.

 

[KZNSeagull]

Onto Brexit. Does anyone see this six month extension making a blind bit of difference? I don't, because it feels that nobody is incentivised to move on their positions. It seems to me that the obvious solution is for a soft Brexit because that is the only thing that can be agreed. A full-on no deal has no mandate whatsoever and repealing article 50 is undemocratic.

I wish our MPs would just get on with putting together the obvious fudge.

I doubt it will make a difference either. The only way that it will is if these talks between TM and JC actually lead onto something positive, but the only way that will happen is if they lay aside their party politics which is highly unlikely. Labour want TM to compromise, but her deal is already a huge compromise which is why very few people like it. When Labour are asked what they will compromise on, they do not answer.

As far as I can make out, they are actually very close to a solution. Labour do not fundamentally object to the Withdrawal Agreement, which we know from the EU is not going to be changed. So there is no point in arguing about that anymore.

What I would like to see is a proper debate surrounding the issues of a Customs Union/Arrangement and why, for example, the customs arrangement in the WA cannot be used as a future basis for a permanent solution. One of TM's biggest failures is her inability to sell this aspect of the WA and one of Labour's biggest failures is being unable to explain what their objections to this are. This is a highly technical issue which I hope is being debated in detail somewhere in Westminster, but in public it never has been (which is my main objection to a 2nd referendum - if MP's don't explain it fully and in detail, then how the hell are the general public supposed to make a decision. I am actually beginning to think that many MP's don't actually understand it fully anyway!).

Ironically, what I think will throw a major spanner in the works in this 6 months is if TM is kicked out. No one likes or trusts her, but those who want a soft brexit would rather have her in charge than any of her likely successors. The chances of the Tories getting a moderate leader in after TM are nil.

I actually thought that we may actually get something moving last week, but this extension will stagnate things again. I agree revoking and a 2nd referendum are not options. MPs need to step up and make a positive decision for a change. We elected them to make decisions, they have much more information about everything than the general public do, so stop effing about trying to pass the buck back to the public and get on with it.

Anyway, that's enough of that nonsense. Smash the 'muff tomorrow and all will be well.

 

[WATFORD zero]

You may be right, Brexit may be undeliverable. And for that, although May has done her best with a poisoned chalice, I will forever blame the previous generations of politicians for allowing our country to become so intractably enmeshed in the EU in the first place.

Brexit is deliverable in two forms.

Staying in the Customs Union avoiding a hard border in NI. But according to a proportion of leavers (no one knows what proportion), this isn't Brexit.

Leave with 'No deal'. If we had begun preparing immediately after the referendum, by investing the 10s of billions required in putting customs posts on the NI border, building lorry parks at all ports, negotiation of our new schedules and quotas with the WTO, putting in the IT infrastructure, the design, building and testing of the new IT systems to run the new tariffs and rules and the recruitment and training of the new staff to run the new systems/rules etc, it may have been possible operationally by now, 3 years later. (Personally I doubt that 3 years is sufficient, but you could argue the case, if it wasn't now irrelevant). Then we would only have to worry about the economic impact of the new tariffs and procedures which I think would adversely effect us for many years to come.

So it is deliverable, but until 'the people' decide what they want, there is no way the government can deliver what 'the people' want

 

[CHAPPERS]

You're right about that but I was responding to JC's jolly implication that NSC Leavers are much more likely to be hard at work whilst us Remainers lounge around in retirement. Every last bit of national research suggests that Leavers are much more likely to be retired than Remainers. I believe that the current age point at which people become more likely to vote Leave then Remain is 50, a few years higher than in 2016.

The age you're more likely to vote Tory than Labour has risen by 4 years from 47 to 51 since 2017, which is a bit of a worry for them you'd think.