You mustn’t omit the rest of that quotation: “except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.”
And you’re fantasizing if you think Her Majesty is going to weigh in with substantive political action that her elected government doesn’t advise her to take.
The Maybot has turned into the Terminator. She just keeps going… and going… and going… with an utterly one-track mind, and utter certainty that she is right… no matter what gets thrown at her. 
More likely, she’s shitting herself, overcompensating over inability (“Stable and strong!”) and confusion (“Brexit means Brexit”). The kind of people who want to become PM aren’t the kind who readily quit positions of power unless they have to and no one else wants the job enough at this time to throw her out. So she keeps on trying to do something about the biggest problem she has.
I don’t know if I’m looking with rose-tinted glasses but UK politics, including its leaders, seems pathetic in the last few years. Speaking from Canada, it’s like a 30-year-old seeing his parents go lumpen and senile.
Er… not me. Here’s the Guardian’s attempt
One thing that I’ve just thought of is that, although obviously the Irish government has been key to the business of the “backstop” and the Irish border situation, there hasn’t been any mention of Gibraltar, although the EU27’s original opening statement put down a marker that the Spanish had to be satisfied about the implications for Gibraltar. Or maybe that’s one more thing that’s kicked into the transition period negotiations. Or maybe the Spanish dropped that in favour of insisting on access to fishing.
It’s was May’s speech this afternoon that made me think of the Terminator.
I agree about UK politics. There is nobody in any of the parties who looks remotely like a capable leader.
Yep, that’s what I saw too. Remarkable candour I guess.
There’s a fair bit about Gibraltar in the Annexes to the WA, and also about the Sovereign Bases on Cyprus. The detailed Gibraltar stuff starts on page 496.
That article lists four things Cameron asked for. Two were agreed (opt out from “closer union” and commitment to reduce red tape), one was a compromise (rules on benefits for eu immigrants agreed but with relaxed timings), and the last was mostly agreed (no UK commitment to the Euro, but also no special rules for UK finance).
Sounds like he got a fairly good deal. Which bit do you think was unfair and condescending on the EUs part?
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Not getting every exception that was to the UK’s benefit while retaining all the advantages of EU membership? Anything less is tantamount to letting one of those lecherous frogs piss on the grave of Saint George Himself!
She is quite good at looking glamourous, accepting flowers from children and saying ‘How do you do’ and pretending to be interested in people at Royal events. She is growing big with child and they are not divorced yet. So far so good.
What we need is someone who knows how to strike a great deal with the European Union. If only we had some successful big business guy with his own hair and teeth who can tell the French a thing or two.
Indeed! May’s speech was the some format as ever. Lots of waffle and lists of things, optimistic platitudes, many stating the obvious. Her current favourite phrase is ‘in the nations best interests’. She never gives anything away, there is no detail. No direct question ever gets an a direct answer. She is controlled, unexpressive and quite boring. She gives nothing away, least of all any personality.
I do wonder what she is like away from the public gaze trying to control that bunch ferrets in her Cabinet. Does she swear like a trooper or leave it to one of her henchmen.:eek:
That is a pretty fair description. There is no-one who looks anything like a statesman or stateswoman with leadership qualities. It is dominated by party hacks interested only in advancing their own careers and stabbing each other in the back. No vision, no ideals, no principles and no talent. That goes for Labour as well as the Conservatives.
UK politics is going through a very lack lustre period, the parties are consumed by their own internal wrangles and with Brexit they have let it spill over into national policy that looks as it is going to seriously damage the economy.
It is an appalling state of affairs. :mad:
I think it was the Continent forgot to hail the specialness of the very special Unitedness of the special kingdom with the right special words.
So it made the getting the good deal very insulting and has forced the united kingdom to take itself as the hostage and threaten to shoot itself in the leg.
Okay, now tell me what he got turned down for? You’re not being specific. Where’s the pat on the head? What did you want to be the outcome?
Fish don’t care about borders. Stopping boats traversing coastal zones simply denies British fishermen their catch. Tragedy of the commons.
And I thought the Navy was intended to defend the Realm, not be squandered picking fights with fishing vessels. It’s a daft, expensive, pointless idea.
I’m sure one of the Vanguard-class submarines could be spared to show Johnny Foreign-Fisherman what’s what, what?
The territorial waters of the UK are quite different from (and much smaller than) its fishing grounds, and the fact that you confuse even this basic point suggests that the issue is not quite as simple as all that. Big issue is that most fish caught in UK waters are landed at non-UK ports and sold into non-UK markets, while most fish landed/consumed in UK is caught outside UK waters. Different fish species in each case. So if fishing is carved out like this, either the British learn to eat different fish and like it, or they pay tariffs on imported fish, and suffer tariffs on exported fish.
Either of these is doable, and the likely outcome would be some combination of the two. But net effect is not necessarily positive for British fishing industry.
At a time like this, you have to play to your strengths. I agree there’s an appalling dearth of leadership in the UK at the moment (on both sides of politics), but May isn’t entirely talentless; she has one superpower, which is the ability to cling to office like a limpet in circumstances where most prime ministers would be long gone. It’s not much, but it’s all there is to work with.
So here’s a scenario:
EU: Council endorses the deal when it meets on 25 November.
Deal fails to secure majority in UK Parliament in early December. General election does not ensue, because of Fixed Term Parliaments Act. May does not resign, is not sshafted by party.
EU says always happy to talk but, basically, we see no need to depart from deal already negotiated and accepted by HMG and by European Council.
Markets drop because of increasing risk of no-deal Brexit. Corporates begin to execute no-deal plans, leading to economic disruption. Markets drop some more. Sterling tanks. Increasing public disquiet.
UK negotiators secure cosmetic changes to agreed deal and, in say mid-January, the cosmetically changed deal is put to UK Parliament again. Pressure on MPs from party funders (Tory) and constituents (Labour) to avoid no-deal Brexit is now much greater. MPs know that if they vote in a way that delivers no-deal Brexit, they will be crucified at the next election. Parliament accepts deal.
Basically, May has two things going for her:
Her ability to cling to office.
Brexiteer fantasies are unrealisable and the closer Brexit-day gets, the clearer this becomes.
All May has to do is to hang on until reality triumphs. Or, at any rate, that may be her strategy at this point.
It’s as if we speak the same language but the net effect is as comprehensible as if it’s Swahili.
On what basis do you make that assumption? Aren’t you simply projecting your own valeurs onto her? Cité, please, that HM has ever expressed any personal opinion on the Brexit issue ?
Thereby doing tremendously worse damage to the constitutional structure of the United Kingdom than any mere trade dispute could ever do.
Members of Parliament, political animals all, in quest of power, in one of Europe’s longest-running democracies, just shrug their shoulders about being gelded
by a Royal Coup after the fashion of Emperor Napoleon III? And the committed Leavers and Remainers just say “Right, that’s done. What’s on the telly? Oh, Coronation Street!”
Pure fantasy, worse than anything that the most extreme and delusional Leavers or Remainers have come up with.