The Brexit Thread

[Duncan Gardner]

I saw Jon Pienaar's bit from Walsall yesterday. What annoyed me, as usual, was the anecdotal and ingratiating 'how we feel' guff he was coming out with. You aren't 'we', Jon, you're the Establishment, the ones 'we' resented enough to commit hara-kiri just to spite. It's a bit late now but the BBC might do better to atone for its failures by actually trying to educate and inform rather than asking people how they feel based upon a decision that they made two years ago amid staggering ignorance and misinformation. The Guardian are constantly at this too; 'Why we came to distrust elites'. You are the fucking elites, you narcissistic clowns

Good rant Sir. Slightly more cheerfully, did you check out the lifesize Sir Nodwald in Lego when in Brummagem the other day?

[Benjm]

Slightly more cheerfully, did you check out the lifesize Sir Nodwald in Lego when in Brummagem the other day?

My date with Nod is this afternoon! Hair colour doesn't quite do justice to our hero's strawberry blonde magnificence in the photo I saw but great art is best experienced up close and in the room.

[Moonlight Shadow]

That poll in the previous page is staggering...

Each time I hear one of those Vox Pop, i find myself hoping for about as catastrophic No Deal as possible. It really seems the only way people are going to understand things. Then I remember lots of people will suffer real hardship and hope for the opposite...

[Me Old Flower]

I see some Brexit voters are dreaming of a yellow jacket-style violent response to the situation.

[George C.]

MS,
Isn't it just saying there's no majority for anything regarding Brexit?

[Diable Rouge]

Paragraph 26 of the legal advice: "The GB elements of the customs union should fall away, leaving only NI in the EU customs territory as the minimum"

http://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1070288602037448705

[Moonlight Shadow]

Except to go back to Bruxelles to renegotiate. Which is a non-starter so...

[Snake Plissken]

Looks like the legal advice may not have actually existed until Parliament asked for it.

May really is a step away from being a dictator.

[Ginger Yellow]

That partial abandonment of the protocol point seems to be new (at least in the context of tightening the customs territory), but so far all the stuff I've seen being commented on was clear in the summary advice, and for that matter on the face of the withdrawal agreement.

[Diable Rouge]

Article in the Times posits a Gough Whitlam scenario, whereby after the deal is defeated, Labour could table a Humble Address, asking the Queen to sack May, and invite Corbyn to attempt to form a government.

[ursus arctos]

David Allen Green echoes GY

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1070291972643000321

[Satchmo Distel]

Were they keeping it secret for the sake of keeping it secret, because that's what governments do?

[Ginger Yellow]

Basically, yes. The government always tries to keep advice to ministers secret, and legal advice in particular. Even the existence of legal advice is exempt from FOIA requests, for instance.

[Eggchaser]

Yet a-fucking-gain, for the umpteenth time, the BBC News last night took soundings from the people by sending its reporters to a massively majority Brexit-voting shithole. Have they *ever*, even just once, done any similar soundings in Remain strongholds to find out about people's distress at the catastrophe that is Brexit?

Even the Remainers they find seem to be in the "resigned to it" camp.

[hobbes]

It's just a diversion. The more time wasted on this shit the less people trust.

[ursus arctos]

I see Letwin is claiming that there is a Commons majority for "Norway plus".

That strikes me as very unlikely.

[Ginger Yellow]

In the abstract there probably is. In practice, for Norway plus backstop?

[ursus arctos]

I thought the "plus" was for including a customs union on top of the Single Market. Does one need the backstop in that case?

[anton pulisov]

Indeed. There is a frictionless border between Norway and Sweden. I've driven across it at 100 km/hr.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Let's be clear and lucid as to what lenghth the No Deal crew will go to achieve their aim, this is seriously deranged stuff...

http://politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/12/...threatens-cons

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Indeed. There is a frictionless border between Norway and Sweden. I've driven across it at 100 km/hr.

You're not a truck though.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Article in the Times posits a Gough Whitlam scenario, whereby after the deal is defeated, Labour could table a Humble Address, asking the Queen to sack May, and invite Corbyn to attempt to form a government.

That's not really a Gough Whitlam scenario? In that case Kerr sacked Whitlam, appointed Fraser and then had Fraser immediately call a general election (despite not having the votes to survive a confidence motion).

The House would have to vote on a Humble Address - and in that case it would make much more sense in that case to table a No Confidence Motion - which, under the Fixed Term Parliament Act would give two weeks' grace to find an alternative government before a general election is held.

By convention, I think Corbyn would get first go at forming a new government, but he almost certainly doesn't have the votes, so it'd be up to Theresa May, or whoever the Tories installed as leader to try to salvage a coalition.

I honestly can't see at this stage May failing a confidence motion because the people who have the power to topple her want a harder Brexit and hate Labour even more than May. They don't want to risk a general election if they can get rid of May without one.

[Ginger Yellow]

There are customs checks between Norway and Sweden. Not ones that would be a meaningful impediment to "frictionless trade", but certainly ones with infrastructure at the border.

Also, depending on what the rules are for leaving the EEA, presumably the backstop might be needed to ensure a soft border should the UK change its mind down the road.

[anton pulisov]

You're not a truck though.

True enough.

Although the thing drives like a truck.

[Ginger Yellow]

Irony readings off the charts as Greening decries Labour putting its narrow party interests ahead of the country on Brexit.