The Brexit Thread

[Diable Rouge]

Peston also considers it likely:

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/0...et-against-it/

[Diable Rouge]

He has refused to present the backstop, so Karen Bradley filling in instead.

[Diable Rouge]

Backstop paper now NOT being sent to Brussels tonight, another instance of sheep in a heap.

https://mobile.twitter.com/bbclaurak...55939137732615

[Nefertiti2]

Commentary by Anthony Barnett- to my mind one of the best out there

In fact, a political revolution is the ineluctable consequence of the Brexit vote. There is no way back to how the UK was governed before 2016. The question is whose revolution will it be. Dominic Cummings, the mastermind of the Leave campaign, has just published a furious open letter to Tory MPs and donors on the “Brexit shambles” accusing them of failing to understand this. His devastating critique of the May government’s hapless approach to Brexit (“The Government effectively has no credible policy and the whole world knows it”) seems as unanswerable as his core argument: that “Brexit cannot be done with the traditional Westminster/Whitehall system”. His final warning: “If revolution there is to be, better to undertake it than undergo it… Best wishes”.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Lexiter Larry comes up with a corker of an article. I think he may have lost his mind.

[Tubby Isaacs]

He got the USSR in the first paragraph.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I missed this article by Owen Jones at the time.

It seems as though Owen is not immune from the talking hopelessly uniformed bollocks about the Euro either. I liked this paragraph

Italy’s problems cannot be blamed exclusively on the eurozone: but its strict fiscal rules have tied the nation’s hands. The ousted Democratic party was hardly leftwing either – despite its origins in the old Communist party, it is a thoroughly neoliberal outfit – but even its former prime minister Matteo Renzi called unsuccessfully for the rules to be changed to enable him to invest.

If italy has been unduly restricted by the EU's budgetary rules it wouldn't appear to be evident from this graph, where it would appear that Italy has been in breach of the Eurozone Budgetary limits every single year since the currency's introduction, bar 2007 and from 2014 on, and even then Italy is in breach of its agreed targets. It is true that Italy has suffered from underinvestment, but it should be considered that perhaps that is more down to them spending all of their available money and more on Pensions, which are among the Continents most unequal. (second only to Greece)

[ursus arctos]

No need to worry, Dacre will be in free in November and will take care of all of this.

[Nefertiti2]

More from Barnett:

Above all, we need to make the democratic impulse locked within Brexit our own. Confining the argument to economic consequences, especially when the Euro is on the edge of a meltdown and there could be another global financial crash, won’t cut through (nor should it). Brexit is about how we are governed not how much money the country makes. Like Adonis and Hutton, we must embrace the referendum’s verdict on the UK’s democratic failure - and come up with credible solutions to it. We need to begin this now or, if we have to scramble for unconvincing answers in October, we will be positioned as nostalgic for a failed status quo. We have to show, in a principled fashion, why the EU enhances our capacity to govern ourselves, how we can manage free movement, that we need not be afraid that Brussels will undermine our democracy or stop us improving our way of life, that there is no such thing as “our” oligarchs, and that fleeing into their arms in any EU crisis only leaves the fat for the fire. And we need to sum this up in a clear positive story.

Second, we must not indulge in infantile, self-defeating bouts of verbal terrorism against the other side that simply consolidate their sense of grievance and defiance. We must not treat them as if they are simultaneously venomous and inconsequential; A.C. Grayling, for example, tweeted that if we stop Brexit, the episode will evaporate like a “nasty, temporary, hiccup, soon forgotten” - as if the judgment of 17 million people was a mild outbreath of halitosis. Even those who take the forces of Brexit very seriously, like Timothy Garton Ash, can use language that implies it is a passing danger, as when he called on us to “foil” Brexit as if it was a mere thrust, potentially deadly but not in itself of lasting significance. This is especially important in terms of respect for Labour MPs. Some with North and Midland constituencies share what their voters feel. Our starting point for every argument about the need to remain in the EU should be “Brexit voters were right. The status quo is insupportable”.

Third, mobilising to march through London, speeches that rally the converted, poster campaigns that reposition the EU in a positive way, exposing the economic dangers especially to employment, are well-tried methods of strengthening one’s own side and shifting opinion. But what is happening is unprecedented and Brexit will not be reversed by traditional techniques alone. We need to be gathering in Leeds, where 49% voted Leave, as well as London, or Doncaster (69% Leave) as well as Westminster. We need to talk with those who think anyone seeking to stay in the EU is trying to “kill democracy”, see January’s vivid Guardian survey. We could create more citizens assemblies on Brexit like the Manchester one and give them national publicity. We need to learn from last month’s Irish referendum. As Fintan O’Toole describes, those who won decided to “talk to everybody and make assumptions about nobody” and they did not “jeer back”.

[Lang Spoon]

That’s all fine, but Labour hasn’t really mobilized or prepared groundwork for anything like that. They are still spinning rainbows of Norway plus racist immigration. There’s also the fact the EU owes Stupid Britain nothing, and had no incentive to give us anything other than a status quo deal. The problem that culminated in Brexit has been less the EU than the shit country Britain is compared to almost everywhere else in Northern Europe. This is a domestic power imbalance as much as anything.

Why are Starmer, Corbyn etc still lying about the EU blocking State Aid etc? They are either fools or knaves. Time is running out to pivot. If you really are a credible govt in waiting, you can’t keep this Brexit coalition of neither one thing or the other together. It’s not enough to wait for the Tories to fail, you could just end up delivering no deal or hard Brexit with them. And for the millionth time, the Northern/Midlands MPs should be more worried about alienating Labour remainers than the mere third who voted Leave. even Oop North. Those fuckers should be force fed a course in statistics by my man Curtice.

[Lang Spoon]

Agree Grayling can die in a fire but.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

what is going on in this article? In what world is the EU going to set up a new customs union with new institutions for the UK?

[Lang Spoon]

Where do they find these insular dicks? It would be crazy for the EU to give bespoke fuck all while Italy is going mental again and Central and Eastern Europe is wandering down that path as well.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Exceptionalism is a worm that exists inside every nation, but nowhere is it fatter and more long-lived than in nations that once regarded themselves as world leaders. Even if it was almost a century ago.

[ursus arctos]

I'm old enough to remember when diplomats from the the US and UK used to snicker about the French in that regard.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I can imagine. Nationalist tunnel vision seems to have no sell-by date.

[Ginger Yellow]

What on earth is Davis's plan with insisting on a backstop end date? Surely even he realises that the backstop isn't a backstop if it ceases to operate at a fixed time, and the EU isn't going to have any of it. And it's not a battle that they can win now, because they signed up to a backstop in December.

[Eggchaser]

Exceptionalism is a worm that exists inside every nation, but nowhere is it fatter and more long-lived than in nations that once regarded themselves as world leaders. Even if it was almost a century ago.

If that's an original quote, bravo!

If you pinched it, bravo anyway for finding the perfect summary.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The white paper is out. I suspect it will be shot down by the EU before 4 o'clock.

[johnr]

I think it's some technical amendment thing, not the white paper. But yes, the fudge that is contained in it won't last long.

[Ginger Yellow]

The UK is clear that the temporary customs arrangement, should it be needed, should be
time limited, and that it will be only in place until the future customs arrangement can be
introduced. The UK is clear that the future customs arrangement needs to deliver on the
commitments made in relation to Northern Ireland. The UK expects the future arrangement
to be in place by the end of December 2021 at the latest. There are a range of options for
how a time limit could be delivered, which the UK will propose and discuss with the EU.

Christ, they can't even get their impossible demands straight.

[Lang Spoon]

Haha. Just fuck off, Britain.

[Diable Rouge]

Liam Fox with his finger on the pulse: "The Irish government need more time to sort out the practicalities".

[Lang Spoon]

Fuck off ya Foxy Fucker. Stuff your practicalities up yer arse.

[Tubby Isaacs]

.

Hugh O'Connell
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