The Brexit Thread

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Peter foster?

[Lang Spoon]

Careful now.

[Nefertiti2]

Labour On Brexit

This one’s for Tubby

Where May has been hostile, Corbyn has been open. The prime minister has spent months of precious negotiating time antagonising her EU counterparts. Her promise, along with Michael Gove’s at the weekend, that nothing is decided for definite, is a move intended in part to placate Brexiter backbenchers. But it’s also one that could annoy the European Commission.

Meanwhile, Corbyn has been making trips to Brussels to form relationships with the same negotiators May has little problem in upsetting, in case Brexit responsibilities should fall to him. With a Conservative government obsessed with its own internal feuds, Labour has the only grownups anywhere near the British side of the Brexit talks.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Labour's open to having the same benefits as now? That's not quite where we are.

Is continued Freedom of Movement on the table?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Tubby, I don't think that that is how dying societies always see things.

I'm not sure that David Davies has cost the UK anything, or shut anything off. He's just forced the EU to spell out for everyone, really clearly that they consider all of this binding. Essentially, by blabbing his mouth off, he's made it much more difficult for Theresa May to pretend to her own party that this isn't binding, and probably hastened the end of her govt.

There isn't an obvious backlash against May. The Mail (her favourite paper) went for "Yippee! We're leaving!" They got a small boost in the polls. And the best they can do for Hard Brexiters is Lord Lawson.

Not sure it'll last, but the penny hasn't dropped yet.

[Lang Spoon]

The Tories still want 20 impossible things before Brexit. So do Labour mind, but I can understand their reluctance to have anything like a coherent Brexit policy while they are in Opposition and we aren’t at Election Battlestations. But I really hope to fuck that they are behind the scenes saying something very different to Brussels. I just don’t understand how they can plausibly perform a u-turn in Freedom of Movement etc.

I keep thinking back to the Stephen K Bush piece on Abbott, where McDonnell was the driving force of appearing against FoM as the price for being in the SM (not fucking “a” - no bespoke shit, please get that through yer sturdy British heids). Corbyn apparently sympathetic to Abbot’s arguments to keep FoM, but still the fear of the Revolt of the North and Midlands won out. (On the back of some very questionable psephology. Again, the best thing Labour could do would be to spend five fucking minutes listening to my man Prof John Curtice).

Some point very soon Labour will have to decide to throw either its old base under a bus (even if it saves them from Economic suicide), or its new young/Southern MC remainer vote. And next election won’t be term time, if the Govt can control the date.

Fucked is still the way we walk I fear.

[Tubby Isaacs]

May's got a lead on best PM- 37-28 as of today, and probably a useful one on negotiating Brexit.

The problem with Labour being "flexible on Brexit", is that it's another way of saying "waiting", while the PM is on the TV doing stuff. Why not call it all out? Accept something very similar to freedom of movement, or we're out on arse.

I'm not pinning all this on Corbyn. He's fine with freedom of movement, everyone knows that.

[Nefertiti2]

"Someone's getting it wrong. Survation has support for second referendum at 50%. YouGov has it at 33%."

[Lang Spoon]

Who is underweighting young people?

[Lang Spoon]

Croppies lie down redux from Adam “Cromwell” Boulton:

http://twitter.com/adamboultonSKY/st...54504989192192

[Ginger Yellow]

Grieve's amendment being debated now.

[Ginger Yellow]

Cooper doing a sterling job, though to be fair there's really only two Brexiteers sticking up for the government.

[Diable Rouge]

At least it wasn't an Irish bookshop:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-new...-36404292.html

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

His line on things was that he was just challenging Simon Coveney but if you watch the interview he's not challenging him, he's just pushing the british govt line. It's a kerfuffle, the Irish govt rushed out to announce stuff prematurely and that upset the DUP, and should the Irish Govt be feeling a bit guilty. He's not eliciting information about the Irish position, and at no point has he considered the lunacy of the uk govt line on those talks. He should be able to ask relevant questions without looking like part of a propaganda machine.

I'm sure he was getting a load of nonsensical abuse because of twitter being twitter, but in his situation, saying "You irish" is pretty much the worst thing that an english person could possibly say.

I'd be more worried about this being what passes for serious political interviewing on the BBC

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

At least it wasn't an Irish bookshop:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-new...-36404292.html

That flag is nice and pink isn't it?

[Kevin S]

Quite a few Tory heads popping up in support of the amendment. Wonder how the numbers will stack up.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ken Clarke's enjoying himself. Just told Europhobe backbencher John Baron he's talking "social media rubbish".

[Lang Spoon]

Andrew Marr is emblematic of easy received bullshit wisdom, a worthless gimp without an original thought in his head. His “Battle for Scotland” thin tome twenty years back was just about the worst thing I ever had to read at Uni.

[Diable Rouge]

4% growth expected in the Irish economy for 2018, and this year was the strongest in tourism numbers, so should be some insulation against future developments:

https://www.rte.ie/news/economy/2017/1213/927015-esri/

https://www.independent.ie/life/trav...-36405109.html

[Tubby Isaacs]

Quite a few Tory heads popping up in support of the amendment. Wonder how the numbers will stack up.

They're all sitting together- Clarke, Soubry, Sandbach, Heald, Grieve etc- so maybe not as many rebels as it looks.

Bill Cash says something about "technically defective".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha, ha. This aint going to happen.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...al-tory-rebels

In an indication of the toxic atmosphere at Westminster as Theresa May seeks to avoid an embarrassing defeat over MPs’ demands for a meaningful vote on the Brexit deal, at least one potential mutineer was warned by the chief whip, Julian Smith, that they could be sued if they made defamatory comments about the whips’ activities.

[Duncan Gardner]

I'm sure [Boulton] was getting a load of nonsensical abuse because of twitter being twitter, but in his situation, saying "You irish" is pretty much the worst thing that an english person could possibly say

Exaggerated outrage. You'd think he compared them to ISIS or similar.

[Ginger Yellow]

Christ, Letwin is a disingenuous arse.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah. That was a pathetic attack on Chris Bryant.

Antoinette Sandbach asks if a gobshite behind her can shut up. Who is it? Redwood?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Actually, can't see Redwood in there. No idea who the gobshite was.