171–180 of 192 posts
I liked the Jon Snow exchange on twitter Jon Snow (British journalist): "A Lawyer contact tells me that the legal world is aware that the Attorney General said NO last night to the validity of Mrs May's 'new EU deal'...he been told to go away and find a way to say YES: A cohort of lawyers has been summoned" Attorney General: "Bollocks"
> MPs voted down her deal by 391 to 242 - a smaller defeat than when they rejected it in January. > The PM said MPs will now get a vote on whether the UK should leave without a deal on 29 March and, if that fails, on whether Brexit should be delayed. What happens if they vote "No" three times in a row (no deal, no no-deal , no postponement)? If this wasn't politics I'd say: See if you can simplify this function, bonu…
So the smart-arse new junior programmer, Clegg, refactored something he did not understand. The code review by Cameron signed it off to be pushed live.
We now pay the consequences. Repeatedly.
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I hope not; in addition to negotiating an exit deal, there's also a stack of legislative changes that need to be made before exit (deal or otherwise) which are stacked up and waiting. It's nearly impossible to see how that can be done even partially adequately at this point, so any exit would very likely be (1) with no deal (May's won't fly and there's no chance of negotiating another one this month) and (2) totally…
Is a second referendum really that likely? I feel like the way they're treating it it's a 5% likelihood.
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This 6 minute video by CGP Grey explains the different possible relationships with the EU available to the UK, and why the UK has so far rejected all of them ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agZ0xISi40E
I particularly liked his followup on the border options available [0]. They all have issues, with the general choices being "Northern Ireland doesn't actually Brexit", "the UK doesn't actually Brexit" and "Northern Ireland has troubles [1] again, because the UK just broke the Good Friday Agreement [2]". That situation's not looking great. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Yv24cM2os 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…
What the North and the South want to do is fundamentally at odds with how the EU works and unless the EU gives the UK a free trade deal which is something the UK would be happy to have it's going to cause lots of problems for the EU. It's kind of weird that the video ignores that the border is a problem for the EU the same way it is a problem for the UK. There is a fundamental symmetry. From the UK perspective I think a lot of people don't care if the porous border undermines trade policy (also, considering how the EU is talking about treating us post-brexit a porous border is going to be seen as a feature rather than a bug) because the Irish issue is more important. However, EU doesn't care as much about the Irish issue and cares more about stuff undermining its perfect union.
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Do you personally think that the UK will actually end up leaving the EU in 10 days? If yes, what are the chances of that happening?
I hope not; in addition to negotiating an exit deal, there's also a stack of legislative changes that need to be made before exit (deal or otherwise) which are stacked up and waiting. It's nearly impossible to see how that can be done even partially adequately at this point, so any exit would very likely be (1) with no deal (May's won't fly and there's no chance of negotiating another one this month) and (2) totally…
I also wonder how the EU's legislative arrangements compare to other post-war vassal states. Did Germany and Japan have a legislative mess they needed to clean up when the Allied occupation ended?
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> The vote is likely to be close again That depends very much what the question is. The vast majority of those pushing for a 2nd ref want it to be a choice between May's WA and Remain. In which case the majority of Leave voters boycott (because there'd be no Leave option as most people understand it) and Remain wins by a landslide. National support for the WA is down in the noise. Personally, I think that if you're g…
> Personally, I think that if you're going to do that you may as well just skip the referendum entirely, declare that the whole thing's cancelled and save everyone a lot of bother. I think it's significantly more democratic to have another vote. Most people thought remain would win the first one, but they didn't. If leave won again, we'd definitely definitely have to leave. > there'd be no Leave option as most people…
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I don't keep up with British politics much so this is me just taking wild guesses from nowhere but I feel like either they'll delay the exit or they'll exit without a deal. If there is another referendum I just can't see it happening the March 29 deadline.
I think a postponement is pretty likely at this point.
And not leaving after all won't happen either, British pride and dreams of Empire can't handle that humiliation.
My money is on the no deal exit, even though that implies the hard border to Ireland.
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I wonder why though, since she voted to stay..? I wouldn't be that excited about carrying out my competitor's plans (unless of course I wanted to sabotage them, which sometimes I wonder if she wanted to do).
I’ve nominated myself for work stuff I really didn’t agree with in the past, it was because I thought I could help said stuff not be a total disaster. Leading a country through brexit is a hell of a sword to fall on though. :/
Makes sense I guess :-)
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I particularly liked his followup on the border options available [0]. They all have issues, with the general choices being "Northern Ireland doesn't actually Brexit", "the UK doesn't actually Brexit" and "Northern Ireland has troubles [1] again, because the UK just broke the Good Friday Agreement [2]". That situation's not looking great. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Yv24cM2os 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…
It kind of glosses over that part of the problem is the EU is pushing for a hard border between the South and the North and the UK doesn't actually want this. The EU has much more to worry about from a porous border than the UK. But it is all kind of irrelevant because the EU has no way of enforcing a border that neither the South or the North want. If the UK stays in some form of relationship they will try to threat…
At the start pro-Brexit politicians were saying the border issues can be resolved to a large or at least good enough extent with technology. Number plate recognition cameras, better IT systems, pre-registration, trusted trader schemes. A bunch of stuff together that'd mean no need for a hard border of the sort of that would set off the IRA blowing people up again.
The EU dumped all over these ideas very publicly, laughed at them, described them as "unicorns", told the UK to get real etc.
Two problems with that attitude:
1. It was a lie and they knew it was a lie. Barnier admitted it would work just a few months ago, after holding the position for years that it wouldn't. France just announced a very similar set of measures to handle the France/UK border. Borders experts had testified that the schemes were workable. The UK doesn't care if there's some leakage anyway so it doesn't even need perfection.
2. It has reinforced the idea in the UK and amongst the population that the EU is willing to go to any lengths to get what it wants. It has literally said to the UK: we insist that the price of leaving us is either terrorism and deaths, or annexation of large chunks of your territory. Entirely reasonable attempts at finding compromise were all rejected with insults and arrogance. This behaviour has not surprisingly infuriated many people, including many members of Parliament.
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> The vote is likely to be close again That depends very much what the question is. The vast majority of those pushing for a 2nd ref want it to be a choice between May's WA and Remain. In which case the majority of Leave voters boycott (because there'd be no Leave option as most people understand it) and Remain wins by a landslide. National support for the WA is down in the noise. Personally, I think that if you're g…
> Personally, I think that if you're going to do that you may as well just skip the referendum entirely, declare that the whole thing's cancelled and save everyone a lot of bother. I think it's significantly more democratic to have another vote. Most people thought remain would win the first one, but they didn't. If leave won again, we'd definitely definitely have to leave. > there'd be no Leave option as most people…
Leave already won twice. In the first referendum, and then in the general election called by May in which the Lib Dems ran on a "cancel Brexit" platform and lost most of their votes as a consequence.
What we now see is that many of the politicians who claimed they supported leaving the EU and would work towards implementing Brexit have turned around after winning re-election and announced they had lied, they would work to stop the UK leaving. MPs who said "a second vote would be undemocratic" are now saying "we must have a second vote".
The brutal reality is that there is no difference at this point between Remain as a position, and supporting the formal end of democracy in the UK. If a certain argument wins a referendum and then a general election in which both main parties claimed to support it and then Parliament simply tears up all the manifestos, public statements, conventions and speeches, people will conclude there is no democratic way to ever exit the EU and thus the country has been conquered by a political class that is apparently impossible to remove - because if they are willing to lie about their intentions to win election, how can you be sure you're voting for a "real" Brexit supporter?
If even 1% of the people who are watching their winning votes get torn up stop believing democracy works, and turn to extremism or violence, there could be massive problems for the UK. But the EU as an ideology has a sufficiently powerful grip on most MPs that they are apparently willing to take any risks, do anything at all to ensure its victory.