Yes, but exactly the same arguments could have been (and were) made when May’s deal was put to Parliament, and yet they were not sufficient to get May’s deal ratuified.
I think the best hope for any deal that Johnson does put to Parliament is that a lot of the illusions that enabled people to vote against May’s deal in the expectation of something better have by now been burned away, and therefore they may be more actuated by the fear of something worse.
The problem is that the deal that Johnson is shaping up to put to Parliament is itself signficantly worse than May’s deal. Economic modelling suggests that it will do much more harm to the UK economy than May’s deal would have done. That makes it really difficult for those who voted against May’s deal to vote for Johnson’s. This consideration doesn’t apply to those who have an ideological commitment to hard Brexit and who are simply in denial about the adverse economic impacts. But there may not be enough such people in Parliament to get the deal through.
Looks like the DUP were brought back on board. These things seem to be announced on twitter these days so:
The revised Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration are apparently attached to Juncker’s letter. I’ll post a link when someone gets hold of them.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Johnson told Juncker one thing and Arlene Foster quite another. He’s already thought u “Schrödinger’s border”. “Schrödinger’s majority” isn’t too much of a leap for his imagination.
The EU have ensured that whatever happens they can’t be blamed for obstructing a deal.
Whether it will get through parliament is another question. After all, Theresa May also had a deal… and Corbyn has just issued a statement saying that it’s “an even worse deal than Theresa May’s”.
They’ve not actively obstructed, they don’t have to. However, they will have certainly made sure that the deal is not possible to pass in the UK parliament. They don’t want a deal to pass because, as we already know, they don’t believe the UK will trigger a no deal and so remain continues to be possible.
That’s the calculation anyhow, but it is a gamble.
I don’t even think it’s that. I think the problem is literally that there is no possible deal that would be agreeable to the EU, the Government (including the DUP) and Parliament. Theresa May managed two out of three briefly but even that required a **lot **of compromise.
The EU aren’t “obstructing”; they’re just not willing to accept a deal that isn’t remotely to their benefit, whereas the Government wants a deal that contains at least one big “win” and Parliament wants something that won’t actively damage the country. There’s no overlap there.
well it also has to satisfy the will of people who originally voted as well. That has been the problem from the start. Parliament is heavily skewed “remain” and has been angling to prevent any form of Brexit from the start, they still are, it isn’t a huge mystery.
And bubbling below the surface, no matter what happens, is a simmering resentment from the substantial part of the population that feels their voice has been ignored.
Yeah, Boris Johnson is leading the UK out of Europe, which is precisely what he said he’d do and is in alignment with the wishes of the British people expressed in the referendum. I see no problem here at all, unless of course you believe that lawmakers know better than the people who elect them.
This is a big problem, even accepting that you’re not counting Remain voters as contributing to the will of the people. 17.4 million people don’t have one will that can be satisfied. Some of the 17.4 million will be satisfied with being outside the customs union, some will not. Some will feel that having a border in the Irish Sea reflects what they voted for, some will not. Some will affirm that they voted to remove the current legal framework covering workers’ rights and environmental regulations, some will not.
Any deal will be against the will of the vast majority of Remain voters, and an unknown proportion of Leave voters. The chances that this adds up to “satisfying the will of the people” are vanishingly small.
Up to a point, Lord Copper. In July, to pick only the most recent example, Johnson specifically said that he could never countenance any kind of border in the Irish Sea. Now, he’s saying that having one is a great deal. Nobody voting to Leave expressed any kind of wish about whether or not Northern Ireland and Great Britain should have different customs agreements with the EU - a vote to Leave could cover total unification, utter separation and everything in between. The idea that the Leave vote is a blank cheque which the government can fill in as it sees fit and still guarantee to be fulfilling the wishes of the people just doesn’t stand up. If it turns out that the deal is a bad one that makes life for people in the UK materially worse, the response of the people will not be “This is exactly what I wanted; thank you for fulfilling my wishes.” They will say, quite accurately, that while they voted to Leave, this particular shitshow was not what they wanted and certainly not what they were promised.
Hence, it’s incumbent on both Government and Parliament to find the best deal to Leave the EU that is consistent with minimising disruption and harm to the UK - not just to sign up to any deal that superficially satisfies the need to Leave regardless of its impact on the people both institutions are set up to serve.
Well…yeah? I mean not just in respect of Brexit, but as a matter of general principle, knowing more than me about the detailed impact of specific policy choices is exactly what I elect lawmakers to do. That’s literally their job - to put forward, debate and approve (or not) concrete policies. It requires a level of knowledge, expertise and time commitment that, what with having a day job, I’d struggle to apply to just one minor area of government policy. Having lawmakers who only know as much as I do - at best! - about, say, effective environmental regulation, seems like a recipe for disaster. How could it not be? Do you vote for people who know less than you?
There will be no extension, according to Juncker. So Boris can be forced by Parliament or the courts to write all the letters they want, and we will still leave on the 31st. Unless Parliament actually get of their arses and do something.
A pinch, perhaps, but it will only take one country to ensure no extension, and Juncker having said this will make the handful of countries that are against an extension much more likely to stick to that position.
I don’t think it means anything, he really couldn’t have said anything else. It is perfectly non-committal whilst *sounding *decisive. A politicians answer of course.