the EU & the UK

[MyNameIsTerry]

Watching the latest on Brexit, I saw an astounding piece of insulting arrogance. A nonentity MP bloke was asked: if the referendum is re-run and it again returns a leave vote, what then? In true MP-style, the bloke didn’t answer the question, but said this (not verbatim): When the first referendum happened in 2016, no one knew what it really meant. Now we all know what it’s about there won’t be a repeat vote to leave …!!!

Has anyone seen this sensible question actually answered by someone who might know what they’re talking about? You see, if there were to be another Brexit referendum (please, NO) and it returned the same verdict, then surely we’d be in the same mired situation we have right here and now. Those worms are never going back in the can!

Diane Abbott and others seem fairly certain a re-run would produce an even larger ‘out’ majority (hence Labour manoeuvring for a general election instead). There seems to be a strengthening groundswell of public opinion that the EU is autocratic and unaccountable, and that we’re in real peril of being inextricably tied to a ship that’s going to sink sooner or later.

Anyone want to buy a yellow vest? I’ve got several I don’t need.

Don't worry, John Major has a solution. He says f@ck the people. Cancel A50. But then he is one of the guys that has led us to this place by shutting us out of referenda on important sign ups like Maastricht.

I have seen Remainers championing Major saying what a great PM he was. Did I miss that period? He was a mediocre PM with a party infighting as bad as it is now. He did well with NI, he was pretty woeful otherwise with issues like the rising problem of housing bubble. All of a sudden he is a visionary.

Cancel A50 and you just say Parliament don't care about your vote even though they were too cowardly to make a decision in the first place and sent it out to us for a vote. That's opening a can of more worms. Not too long ago Remainers were jumping up & down so much over Henry 8th powers that Gina Miller went to court to force the PM to hold a Parliamentary vote. Now all of a sudden that's no longer an issue and the government can quite easily revoke A50 despite it's triggering being subject to a previous Parliamentary vote. They can argue the referendum was advisory will they want but the same people are looking pretty hypocritical over this when it would go against the "will of Parliament". What can of worms is that opening on such a massive issue...not that it doesn't already happen in various guises

It's the usual mental gymnastics of a certain brand of Remainer. And that is not Tony on here, who is a reasonable bloke who is fair.

Whilst on Remainers something that has made me smirk about the same hard line types is that they are complaining about how bad the Tories are yet they champion EU membership almost solely due to the financial impact. Whilst I get that the impact to the economy means knock on effects across all areas these types are more arguing about trade i.e. making private money Crikey, you even see some of them complaining they can't get EU cleaners...well I'm sure they can pay a pittance for some African immigrants, god talk about how the other half live! I can't take that crap seriously, most of us clean our own backsides and don't consider ourselves to high a class to muck in.

I think we both know MP's like the one you mention are all part of the problem on the Remain end. They would deny us such rights and slam the door clearly shut. They only voted to give us a vote because they were so arrogant they believed it was a done deal. They are "People's Vote" types who would love a 3 option referendum so the leave voters are split between two which is just a rigged remain vote.

We've had enough of this short sighted kick the can down the road stuff. Isn't that why we are struggling now? Politics is often short term gain from career chasers. It used to annoy me greatly in my career as an improvement guy that no one was interested in the long term benefits, they just wanted the quick wins to impress their bosses. Ultimately it's the customer that loses out to that.

There are lots of polls. Many of them are clearing "iffy" from the questioning or the sponsor I'm dubious about all this public swing stuff. I's also very dubious about polls over "the deal" because there is a tendency to roll up questioning so that it appears we all hate it without pointing out some may still vote for it if it's the only leave option where otherwise we remain in and the question is put to bed again.

But like you say, it's too big an issue to close the lid. Anyway, we have still yet to hear we are all going to die and al young people will never change their political opinions so just delay it until we are all gone. Why not just go full Hitler (or Stalin) and bring out the euthanasia?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yeah Pain, I just at anyone whinging on about those too young who will become 18 before we leave the EU. The same happens in every GE. They say that GE's don't count as they can be changed but that's debatable when you consider the impacts caused by those governments on certain sectors. Consider student debt. If we vote in the Tories who want to slap the students with loads of debt who says a future government won't just change it back but also not rebate those who were affected by relevant government change of the time.

But we all know if Remain won the only people shouting about lowering the age for voting would be pro Leave groups if polling showed younger groups voted leave. It's no different than the SNP wanting to lower to 16 because they know there are more SNP voters in there. Corbyn is just as snakey on this as he knows he has a good youth movement so it's just more voters for him,

To be honest, most of us never had a clue about politics at 18, 25, etc. The lower you go the worse that will be. Isn't that a boon to popularists? Promise them the earth and know they are too young to understand how governments don't do what they promise?

Someone will always want to increase their vote share. Maybe we should slap a polling card on them as they are delivered by the midwife?

And the same who go on about age groups also believe only the over 70's voted leave. They forget the swing happens more around 40. And they also conveniently refuse to remember that the swing occurs to all those ex Labour voters from their twenties/thirties.

I tend to get sick of hearing "Labour voters voted for Remain". No, they didn't. Polled Labour members did. The vast majority of Labour voters don't join the party. Is this a Southern thing? The vast majority of Labour voters further up the country voted leaved. They likely won't be members because...who joins a political party? What value does that bring for the money you pay out. Naff all. They join a union for the protections they provide, if they didn't represent your rights their memberships would be dead in the water as people would have better uses for their cash. Labour strongholds are up here and always have been due to the working class regions we have.

It's just all slippery eels being disingenuous. Ironically this is something that has led to where we are now. The obvious disconnect. How we don't count up here until election time and then they forget about us all again. In that respect we share some common ground with many Scots.

Major. I remember an episode of Drop The Dead Donkey where one of them (Damian Day, I think) said "why not hire a John Major-a-gram", another character ask what he does, to which Damian replies "he just turns up, stands in a corner, nobody notices and he goes home"

Major's time was dominated by fighting and Euroscepticism...yet I keep hearing the EU is only an issue because Farage made it one later...and polls show most people weren't bothered about the EU before 2016. You can't beat a bit of revisionism.

[Carnation]

Would they consider a re-run if the verdict was 'IN'. I don't think so.
In my opinion, whether needed or not, is 'OUTS' will still vote 'OUT'.
So, a re-run is a complete waste of time or maybe 'TIME' is the operative word here. They are playing for it.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Would they consider a re-run if the verdict was 'IN'. I don't think so.
In my opinion, whether needed or not, is 'OUTS' will still vote 'OUT'.
So, a re-run is a complete waste of time or maybe 'TIME' is the operative word here. They are playing for it.

Oh no, absolutely not! It's funny to see hardcore Remainers moaning at Leavers that Farage said he would continue his "unfinished business" if we voted remain and at the same time moaning they want a re-run.

It's interesting, and this is a point Pain has mentioned above, that when discussing this re-run some indicate they want a minimum % win threshold (which should have been there for the initial one but hey ho the politicians were so arrogant they thought they had it in the bag ) so if Leave wins again they can't actually leave unless they reach the %. But really shouldn't that be we revert back to the 2016 and it's Remain who need to reach the minimum % I bet they wouldn't want that % threshold in place then

[mezzaninedoor]

I do get fed up with people labelling Remainers moaners Terry.
I don't consider myself someone who is moaning, just someone who is still prepared to put my point of view, to still make a case for the opposite of Brexit.
I accept the vote and though unhappy appreciated that the Government needed to get on with it.
The problem here is that the failure is not of the Remainers making its of the Government not coming back with a deal that Parliament are happy with and that they have misjudged aspects like the backstop. They should have had more foresight than that.
The one thing that Im very strongly against is the No Deal scenario as I feel that puts the economy at risk. Trading on WTO rules, we have been told by the WTO that we would be trading in the WTO 4th Division & even if we made trade frictionless by 0% tariffs into the Uk we would still have tarriffs on exports into the EU.
The wider implications of No Deal for peoples pensions pots are not inconsiderable and the likes of Rees Mogg who favour No Deal, make money by shortening on the pound every time an Brexit crisis happens and the common man sees his pension affected and inward investment affected
I hope that makes sense
I dont consider myself a Remoaner but there does come a point where with 31st March 2019 looming we need some out of the Box thinking and a 2nd referendum might have to be part of that

[MyNameIsTerry]

Sorry Tony I thought I made it clear in my earlier post where I referenced "hardcore Remainers" and said I didn't consider you in that (hoping it wouldn't appear to include you). Apologies if that wasn't clear. Pain was right, thanks Pain.

Hardcore Remainers are those I see on political forums posting endless doom & gloom, calling leave voters thick xenophobic racists and appearing to be very conscious of money. I find it strange that these types are complaining about financial loss on one hand while crying "boo Tories" across everything because if it's all about making money the Tories are surely their natural home?

[mezzaninedoor]

sorry Terry
I didnt mean that you consider me a Remoaner I meant that with some any Remainer is a Remoaner
To be fair that can be equally applied to Brexiteers who are so driven by ideology that they won't consider any sort of compromise in order to have a smooth Brexit

I think the result of the referendum 52/48 shouts that it shouldn't be a full on hard Brexit but as weve all said the referendum wasnt very prepared for and wasnt clear

[Carnation]

You've got that one right Mezzaninedoor...
'The referendum was NOT prepared.
They underestimated the percentages of the 'outers' and 'inners' making their forecast as reliable as their promises. And a brexiteer is not going to change their mind for another re-run. They have been thinking this way for a very, very long time, so no matter how many re-runs you have, the percentage will still remain marginally divided. That is unless we run out of homes, work, money and hospital beds. And then, we'll you could have anarchy!

[MyNameIsTerry]

sorry Terry
I didnt mean that you consider me a Remoaner I meant that with some any Remainer is a Remoaner
To be fair that can be equally applied to Brexiteers who are so driven by ideology that they won't consider any sort of compromise in order to have a smooth Brexit

I think the result of the referendum 52/48 shouts that it shouldn't be a full on hard Brexit but as weve all said the referendum wasnt very prepared for and wasnt clear

That's understandable, people generalise. If people won't listen then I just write them off as the hardliners, the bigots & ignorant. We have them on both sides of the vote like any other.

The hard Brexit thing was never an issue before the ref, it was just Brexit. We had Boris & co floating the idea of EFTA. For me, Brexit is not WTO rules, that is a failure to reach any agreement. I want a trading relationship with the EU as it's beneficial to us both.

I also see a massive benefit in various agencies within the EU like the EMA. We need agreements for travel (flight is an obvious one). Security is something that should be close regardless of any trading relationship. Immigration should continue at manageable levels and not necessarily at the cost of non EU countries (this is one where I regard the EU as nationalistic themselves, just on a federal level like the US).

There are soft options within the EFTA which I could go for. I'm not concerned with this "top table" and "they tell us what to do" nonsense because that's just how any relationship works. We trade with the US but their input into our own rules has to remain distanced. We can't be involved in changing EU rules if we aren't in and that's right just as the EU can't be influencing ours.

This point does fall apart due to NI though and the EU will cynically use the Irish to get their way (it's been notable that the Irish backstop issue has been side-lined to get things moving...and Merkel recently indicated she wasn't concerned about it).

I do not agree with the EU controlling our trade agreements. If we sign up to use theirs (a Customs Union) then we have to abide by that but if not we shouldn't be held back and not even getting the benefit of their agreements. That's just the EU trying to contain our trading for their own financial advantage.

The PM is in a no win situation no matter who she supports. Bridging the gap seems just as impossible as now both sides are complaining it doesn't fit.

Services is one of the biggest worries. I can't say I'm too concerned about standing in a longer queue or having to show an extra card to EU countries like I've seen some right moaning about from Remainers (Londoners maybe? Where they get on tube trains every few minutes and don't have to wait in the rain ages for buses? ) That's part of todays "now now now" culture.

---------- Post added at 03:20 ---------- Previous post was at 03:19 ----------

Trading on WTO rules, we have been told by the WTO that we would be trading in the WTO 4th Division & even if we made trade frictionless by 0% tariffs into the Uk we would still have tarriffs on exports into the EU.

Both sides could reimburse businesses for those taxes. They only need to levy & collect them first.

---------- Post added at 03:23 ---------- Previous post was at 03:20 ----------

Mezz… Perhaps Terry is referring to those relentless remoaners who keep appearing on TV – The highly disrespectful Soubry immediately springs to mind (but there are loads more).

It's funny to watch the hardcore Remainers moan on one thread about "boo Tories" whilst championing Soubry on another. Her voting record is hardly compatible with Labour voters.

Does she still have that big frame of Maggie hanging above her desk?

I can remember Soubry having her tantrums after the vote. She said her own constituents wouldn't know an immigrant if they saw one. I guess we don't have immigration up here, only in London, someone had better tell the Black & Asian communities that have been coming to the Midlands for quite some decades now.

---------- Post added at 03:31 ---------- Previous post was at 03:23 ----------

Mezz… Perhaps Terry is referring to those relentless remoaners who keep appearing on TV – The highly disrespectful Soubry immediately springs to mind (but there are loads more). I only know one bloke who voted remain (not a remain area round here) and he’s now moaning he made the wrong choice.

You and T-on-T are both right – there should have been far more preparation beforehand. Details of how Brexit would proceed should have had at least a rudimentary framework prepared well in advance of the actual vote. But arrogance ruled the roost – David Cameron and all his advisors KNEW he couldn’t lose (read Craig Oliver’s Unleashing Demons for the background to this). Then he did!

Lots of folks are over-worrying the No Deal position. The worst of these are the nay-sayers who want Brexit to fail. If you listen carefully to their pronouncements, what are they really saying? That the UK is useless and can’t stand on it’s own two feet…? That we have to be spoonfed by nanny EU…? Alarm and despondency!

Yes, a sensible, properly devised and implemented Brexit arrangement would be a good thing. But it won’t happen as long as the EU is intransigent on everything, and our own politicians and civil service think arguing from a position of weakness is an eminently acceptable strategy. Both the UK and the EU could benefit from Brexit in ways that aren’t even being contemplated. This is blinkered – the UK and the EU are blindsided by ingrained, inflexible attitudes.

The economy, investment and the money markets all run on that intangible commodity ‘confidence’. Present a confident, self-assured profile and make money. Look like a loser and become one. But there has to be more to this than money. Isn’t there at least some significance in the fact that many of the poorest areas of the UK voted ‘out’?

Thinking outside the box:

As the NI/RoI border is the ‘current’ sticking point, that’s the priority. Here’s a solution: Reinstate the devolved NI Assembly with greater autonomy (at least to that of Scotland). Hand over responsibility for the border to the Assembly, with the strict proviso that NI must cooperate in administration of the border with RoI but without interference from the EU.

Second Brexit referendum? Answer my Brexit Catch 22 and off we'll all go on another magical mystery tour.

The trouble with the NI Assembly is the NI parties. Their two party system needs breaking up. They just refuse to work with each other. It's baffling how they have let their country slip into this mess. I guess they may naturally grow out of it as the generations change.

I was thinking about the point of proper preparation before the ref. There is one problem we haven't considered. Would they approach a deal with the view to crafting the worst one they could to scare people into voting to stay in? More Project Fear stuff.

So, perhaps the problem we have now might have just happened earlier with the result it locks us in?

Oh yes perception management. I hated that in my workplace. This is one where we are really failing with everyone fighting with themselves in a room whilst the EU sit outside rubbing their hands with glee laughing.

It's a funny thing, Pain, but some of the poorest countries on Earth aren't in the EU and yet they go on. Will we become one of them? But then there are highly successful countries that are also no in the EU. I don't recall Japan ever being gobbled up by them, for instance

[mezzaninedoor]

A rumour has been quashed that Mrs May has been receiving ‘secret’ advice from David Cameron on the Gordian knot that is Brexit. The following is my guess at what happened in a recent phone call (based on an idea by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis).

Mrs May (in desperate tone): David, remember all those favours I did you in the past. Well, seeing as you created this Brexit mess for me, what can you do to get me out of it?

Mr Cameron (with dismissive exasperation): Theresa, there’s only one piece of advice I can offer you, and when I’ve said what I’m going to say, you must never ever contact me again.

Mrs May: Anything you say, David.

Mr Cameron: Get the lectern and microphones set up outside your front door.

Mrs May (eagerly): Yes, David.

Mr Cameron: Go outside. Put on a sincere sorrowful expression. Then say quite clearly “I resign”. This worked really well when I did it in similar circumstances. Now go away and leave me alone…. (loud noise of receiver being slammed down).


Mr Varadkar is again saying that the RoI has got to have some sort of extra-special EU veto on any Brexit deal if he doesn’t personally like it. Didn’t a DUP bloke answer this same ‘demand’ a few months ago with those immortal words of diplomacy “Wind your neck in!”