Oh well, then sadly it is leave on 31 October without a deal, or have a general election in the meantime, with the Conservative / Brexit Party alliance committed to delivering the will of the people against a self-evidently dictatorial EU, with or without a deal, Labour committed to delivering a jobs first Brexit which they will renegotiate with the EU, and the remain vote split between the Lib Dems and Greens. I don’t think that turns out well for remainers or soft brexiteers.
Or, just possibly, Labour elect a new leader who successfully campaigns for remain. That’s two big hurdles, and the clock is ticking remorselessly.
If the EU won’t renegotiate its demonstrably unacceptable withdrawal agreement, then the only options are leave with no deal or remain, and I don’t see any way through for remain from here, today.
I think you’re making too many unjustified assumptions.
Many will see creating a border between the UK and NI as breaking up the UK. You’re assuming this will be acceptable, but many Remainers as well as Leavers find it highly unacceptable.
You’re assuming that leaving the EU is inevitable, but I think it’s fairly likely that Brexit will be cancelled after a second referendum.
You’re assuming that the Bexit Party wants a deal, but they would actually prefer to leave with no deal. You say that no one wants no-deal, but that’s simply not the case. Both Faragists and the ERG want no-deal.
You’re assuming the Tories will make an alliance with the Brexit party, but I greatly doubt that. It would lead to a split in the Tory party if they tried.
Perhaps, if Britain can be trusted, both to implement them and then to keep its collective decision made. Can it?
Oh, wait, you answered that yourself:
Unless there’s a new and growing national consensus that has so far gone unreported, then yes, those “pointless impractical offers” are indeed all Britain can be expected to continue with - if even that. Your proposal, even if made by the government, would be just one more.
Tories who might have voted for him aren’t likely the type who forgive cocaine use. Not that Boris Johnson seems like the clean & sober type but at least he didn’t have the unforgivable indecency to get caught!
Quote from the article: “Fellow leadership contender and international development Rory Stewart has also apologised in recent weeks for smoking opium while at a wedding in Iran 15 years ago.”
I have a vague memory of autoerotic asphyxiation and gay sex scandals in that same party. Tories seem a little, hard-living or high-strung perhaps? Aren’t Mogg and Farage both millionaires from the financial industry?
Do all the Tories get together to watch Wall Street as an inspirational movie?
I doubt it matters very much at all. Even Andrea Leadsom has confessed to being a dope-fiend (for certain values of “dope” and “fiend”, of course).
This whole round of confession was kicked of by Rory Stewart saying that he’d smoked opium at a wedding in Iran. The disappointing thing is that he claims to regret it. He should just have said “It would have been very rude to refuse” and leave it at that.
Boris Johnson admitted to GQ magazine in 2007 he tried cocaine and cannabis as a teenager at Oxford: “I tried it at university and I remember it vividly. And it achieved no pharmacological, psychotropic or any other effect on me whatsoever.”
Among other PM contenders, International Development Secretary Rory Stewart, as you mentioned, has apologised for smoking opium at a wedding in Iran, insisting it “had no effect” on him “because I was walking 25-30 miles a day”. Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has said he might have once tried cannabis in his youth, telling The Times “I think I had a cannabis lassi (drink) when I went backpacking through India.”
They probably think that drug use makes them look ‘cool’ to the younger generation. It doesn’t.
David Cameron was accused of piggish behaviour at the Gaveston Club, a club which specialises in orgies and drugs. And who knows what David Cameron and Boris Johnson got up to while members of the Bullingdon Club, a club that specialises in drink, drugs, and trashing restaurants.
Sandwich, I’ve read your posts and I’m trying to understand something, as a distant observer.
My understanding is that the EU’s main point with Ireland was no hard border between the Republic and Northern Ireland.
But, that goal could be met by having a hard border in the Irish Sea.
But, the British government opposed that, because that would be seen as the beginning of ceding Northern Ireland to the Republic.
So, what do you think has changed to allow this “simple tweak” as you put it - the British government now agreeIng to an internal hard border between component parts of the United Kingdom?
Looks like I didn’t have the pulse of the Tory party. It can be difficult to find on a cold-blooded animal.
If your conservative party is like that, why is the UK so stuck up when it comes to drug laws?
OP:
Aren’t the soft Brexiters the main problem here? The hard Brexiters might be wrong but the EU is a club and you can be in it or not and they’ve decided they don’t want to be in it. I think they’re wrong but they get to be wrong. Remainers are also plain enough, either wanting to retain current links with the EU or add to them.
Soft Brexiters, on the other hand, are a continuation of the British tendency to want to pick and choose, to have a custom-made membership just for the UK. There may be tiers to a club but a club that offers individualized memberships won’t be much of a club and will probably be constantly tied up in internal politics rather than whatever common project it may have (kinda like Parliament and the Tories right now). If soft Brexiters decided which side of the debate they’re on (in or out) instead of trying to sit on the fence, there would be a majority in Parliament.
That tendency to try to be shrewd but in a pretty base way, to try to maximize your individual gains while minimizing your individual contribution, playing it as close as possible to the line like the UK asking for exceptions, Cameron taking that stupid Brexit bet, May taking that stupid election bet and how many others. It seems like people in denial about the choices they have to make, what they can gain and what it may cost.
“…trying to understand…”: that’s not really the SDMB way now is it?
What’s significant is what hasn’t changed: half the population is still strongly committed to leaving. I for one didn’t expect this. I thought that faced with the entirely predictable reality of the last three years of chaos, nonsense and national humiliation, that opinion polls would now be showing say two to one for remain. This would allow Parliament to organise a ‘confirmatory’ referendum and for the people to vote overwhelmingly to remain. Some people seem to think that is still a possible path, but I don’t see that working any more.
This (apparently) means that a clear majority of Westminster constituencies still have a clear majority for leave, even if there is a small majority nationally for remain.
As we have seen in the European and Peterborough votes, plenty of people are happy to vote for the Brexit Party. This superficially appears to be a problem for the Conservatives, but it’s not, provided they don’t permanently alienate any Brexit voters, and if in the short term they can avoid having their vote split so that Labour win seats. The Conservatives realise this, and will shortly elect a leader committed to doing all they can to get us out of the EU. If and when that happens, then all their voters come back to them.
Less obviously, the cross party split on Brexit has already broken the Labour party. This isn’t just Brexit, there has been a general movement towards the right in England, and the rise of Scottish nationalism, which combined with Brexit means that Labour will struggle to get a majority in Westminster regardless of how badly the Conservatives perform. Today, tomorrow, and into next year, Labour cannot win a general election without both northern working class leave voters and urban remain voters both enthusiastically supporting the party. In the current polarised climate that is not possible.
Overall, I conclude that we are leaving, and that the Conservatives will win the next general election easily unless they take the blame for us crashing out with no deal. So the challenge for the next Conservative leader is how to avoid taking that blame. Note that, if we have already crashed out before the next general election, then we have already crashed out. It seems obvious when you state it bluntly, but a lot of commentary (not just on this board) seems to have an unspoken premise that crashing out somehow validates the remainers and gives them a victory, which is… odd.
Conversely, if the general election is held before Brexit, then it will be quite difficult for anyone to blame the Conservatives for taking us out of the EU with no deal, since we wouldn’t have actually left yet. Plus, Labour aren’t going to win the next general election anyway, see above.
Note also that the EU’s current deadline of 31 October is fast approaching. We may already have passed the point where a referendum can be called before then, and soon a general election will also not be practical, and the procedural default is that we crash out unless something stops us. Of course, the deadline could be shifted, despite EU protestations that this is our last chance, in the same way that further negotiations might take place if the UK says something substantial. But kicking the can down the road doesn’t achieve anything unless there is a change in public opinion on Brexit, and it’s hard to see what would change that now.
The other significant thing which hasn’t changed is that the Labour party is still not advocating remain or a second referendum. As I said in an earlier post, getting a fervent remainer into the leader’s role might be enough to get a referendum done and won before 31 October, but the road is fraught with political and procedural difficulties, even if the leadership challenge starts yesterday, which it didn’t. And, the Brexit Party won’t go away, and would win the next general election and then take us out anyway, because of the concentration of the remain vote in fewer seats than leavers.
The other thing to remember is that my suggestion that the withdrawal agreement be tweaked so that the backstop applies only to Northern Ireland is just one way that a new Conservative leader might successfully navigate the challenge of Brexiting and not taking the blame for crashing out with no deal. It’s just possible that a completely new withdrawal agreement could be negotiated, though clearly the EU really doesn’t want to do that. But the EU doesn’t want the UK to crash out with no deal either, if any sensible alternatives could be proposed.
So, what has changed to make an NI limited backstop more palatable:
it has become clear to many northern Labour MPs that they could easily lose their seats to the Brexit Party or a revitalised Conservative Party if they oppose Brexit, to the extent that it seems likely that a general election will lead to a hard Brexit government with a clear working majority
it has become clear to all Labour MPs that EU opposition to renegotiating the withdrawal agreement applies as much to them as to the Tories
it should have become clear to all Labour MPs that the Labour Party’s proposals for their version of a cake-and -eat-it-Brexit is never going to happen
it should be clear to all MPs that if we are leaving, as it seems we now must, then a negotiated deal is optimal. However, the current proposed withdrawal agreement is not workable, it really is remain in disguise, and won’t fly with leave voters
it seems likely that crashing out with no deal is an option, if the EU won’t renegotiate even with a realistic and pragmatic UK government. If so, then in the fullness of time Scotland and Northern Ireland will leave the UK anyway, so we may as well bite the bullet on Northern Ireland now
a customs border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and Great Britain needn’t be the end of the union anyway, if the people of Northern Ireland don’t want it to be
British people have started paying attention to Irish issues. Previously, British opinion on Irish nationalists (and by extension the Republic of Ireland) was viewed through the prism of the Troubles, when the Irish were disgusting and cynical mass murderers of entirely innocent British people. Now, we see and know that Northern Irish unionists vote in some bizarrely bigoted and outlandish political representatives in the shape of the DUP, and that the Republic of Ireland (and by extension Irish nationalists in the north of Ireland) is full of entirely reasonable and charming people with entirely normal political views. Maybe it is time for Britain to finally leave Ireland to the Irish?
TL;DR: it was arguable in June 2016, and even June 2018, that one way or another Parliament would steer the nation back to remain or at least to BRINO (that is, Norway ++). In June 2019 that isn’t such a credible position to take,* if only because Parliament manifestly has not done so*. So the question is, do we crash out with no deal, or is there any workable deal? That is, one which avoids any substantive border in Ireland, while leaving Great Britain free to make wonderful, excellent, brilliant deals with third countries such as Mr Trump’s USA. I think there is.
This post was made in reply to my assertion “there is a relatively minor tweak to the withdrawal agreement which would satisfy the EU, the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, British voters and most Northern Irish voters.”
The irony of all of this, is that we have had months of remainer MPs (allegedly a large majority in Parliament) whining about how they want a close future relationship with the EU after Brexit, and the Labour Party’s official policy is for a very close relationship. And yet, not once, not twice, but three times Parliament overwhelming rejected Mrs May’s withdrawal agreement, apparently on the grounds that the backstop committed the UK to too close a relationship with the EU. Mrs May had to resign because it was clear that Parliament would reject her proposal for a fourth time if she brought it to a vote. So, even though there was an easy way through for Parliament to have achieved its stated objectives, done and dusted months ago, Parliament chose not to.
Perhaps I should have said ‘should’ not ‘would’?
Sometimes politics is funny. Funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha.
You seem to think that the withdrawal agreement was an acceptable solution, but it wasn’t. It would have left the UK closely tied to the EU and having to follow most EU regulations, but without any say in them, and unable to pursue independent trade deals with other countries. There would have been no any way of exiting that situation unless the EU agreed.
It was far worse than simply remaining in the EU, with a good possibility of being trapped in that situation indefinitely.
The ‘simple solution’ doesn’t exist, unless the UK goes for ultra-soft Brexit, like EEA + Customs Union - which would be a pointless Brexit. Might as well stay in.
To my knowledge opinion polls show Remain between 55% and 60%, so it’s approaching two thirds.
The trouble is many Leavers still think there’s some perfect fudgy deal out there that can square the circle. There isn’t, except for pointless Brexit.
That’s one of the dishonest parts. Refusing to remain because of the “mandate from the people” which was pretty chancy while only being willing to deliver a Brexit that’s in name only. So they can say: “We delivered Brexit” even though it’ll be a worse outcome from the point of view of both remainers and leavers so what’s the point? It’s like there’s a steadfast refusal to consider the conceptual substance of Brexit and only wanting to be able to claim to have obeyed the letter of the people.
Actually, perhaps not the people because it’s doubtful the Tories have any problems wielding power over the general population. Perhaps what they crave is having behaved according to the expectations of Tory members, colleagues and each MP’s social circle. I can’t imagine what kind of dreadful toffs Tory MPs have as friends.
May seemed panicked the whole time, she even cried during her quitting speech. It’s like she needed someone to reassure her even though she ran for fucking Prime Minister. When you’re PM, you’re the captain of the ship. You show humility and consult with others but you also make the decisions yourself and take that responsibility on your shoulders. What positive difference did those 3 years actually make?
So, we all agree that in our opinions, it would be best if Britain remained in the EU. We can all articulately criticise all the arguments which leavers make and show them to be lacking. It’s nice that opinion polls are apparently running at 55% to 60% remain. A second referendum with 60%+ remain would be decisive and would largely put the problem to bed with us all living happily after. However, we should note that the opinion polls overstated the remain vote before the 2016 referendum, that turnout could be decisive, and that enthusiasm will be decisive. Also, we should not assume that because it is all rational and sensible to have a referendum and vote decisively to remain, that that will therefore happen.
“Acceptability” is not relevant.
Firstly, I think there is now a material chance that Britain will shortly exit the EU chaotically, with no agreed deal. This would likely be disastrous. The new and surprising thing is that this could happen with the Tories emerging as the heroes and all the blame falling on the opposition parties, the EU, and the Tory rebels.
Secondly, against received wisdom, I set out a relatively straightforward mechanism for a new Conservative leader to achieve a revised withdrawal agreement and take us out of the EU smoothly. I noted that once we are safely into a long transitional period, then all options remain open for the long term. That wouldn’t be a bad place to be. There may be other paths to a managed exit, not just my suggestion, but it is important to recognise that this could happen. Again, the Conservatives have the initiative and seem in a reasonably good place to be.
Thirdly, we have reached a consensus that a very soft Brexit is pointless and demonstrably worse than the status quo ante. Nevertheless, some people seem to be in denial about this. For example, it remains the Labour Party’s official policy, despite their being no obvious way to reach it except through Mrs May’s repeatedly rejected draft withdrawal agreement. Some remainer commentators seem to be confused on this issue, seemingly arguing for a soft Brexit as a means to somehow not exiting at all. This includes, but is not limited to, dreams that Parliament will somehow prevent a chaotic no deal exit without finding an alternative outcome. Equally, picking holes in other people’s analysis of what might happen next, without offering a credible alternative outcome, while seeming to imply that therefore remain must win. The opposition to Brexit, whether the official opposition in Parliament, other parties, or the commentariat, seem to be losing their way, again with the initiative and benefit passing to the Tories.
Fourthly, clearly it is theoretically possible that there could be a second referendum which decisively rejects Brexit. That would be lovely. I believe that the window of opportunity for that to happen is closing rapidly and may indeed have already closed. Again, some people seem to think that this is a likely outcome, which seems unjustifiably optimistic given the current positions of the Conservative Party, the Brexit Party, the Labour Party, the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament, and the British electorate. The Europeans, in particular, are not going to ride to our rescue on a silver horse, to save us from ourselves.
Fifthly, I note that any form of Brexit, chaotic, hard or soft, need not be the end of the matter. In particular, any managed Brexit (that is, one with a long transitional period where for most practical purposes it is as if we are still in the EU) could easily be unwound. Tantalisingly, once we are officially out then re-entry would jeopardise the current favourable terms which the UK enjoys in the EU. Personally, that would be my preferred outcome. I am the hardest of hard remainers, and would be delighted if in a few years the UK is a full member of the EU, with no opt-outs from the Schengen agreement, the euro, and social legislation. Personally, I even want the UK to lose its rebate, but that is on condition that the EU’s funding is reorganised so that all the rich member states contribute fairly to material fiscal transfers to all the poorer member states. We are all strongest together, and doomed to failure if we stand alone.
The potentially surprising thing, is that this currently seems like a reasonably good position for the Tories, and a bad position for the opposition, despite how it is all presented in the press and discussed online. Perhaps that is why there is so much competition for the Tory leadership? It is easy to mock politicians, but most of them are smarted than average, and all of them are much more political than the average person, obviously, and perhaps they do see through the fog of politics more clearly than the rest of us?
Sandwich
(today’s special is brie and pancetta on ciabatta)
