The Brexit Thread

[Tubby Isaacs]

I reckon a referendum is still on. Matthew Pennycock (Stranger's deputy, I think) has said it is, if May rejects Labour's conditions.

I'm still dismayed that nobody has done any groundwork but I haven't given up.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Glad to see that Umunna, Owen Jones, and Lammy have tweeted their dismay at Corbyn's betrayal of the conference.

Lammy for Prime Minister.

Owen Smith.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Ah bugger, you're right Tubbs. And there I was thinking Jones had done something I could admire him for.

[johnr]

Glad to see that Umunna, Owen Jones, and Lammy have tweeted their dismay at Corbyn's betrayal of the conference.

Lammy for Prime Minister.

Edit: not Owen Jones, as corrected by Tubbs

If anybody can show me where Corbyn has betrayed the conference vote - given that it was 'all options', and this letter/strategy is clearly one of the options, as is a second referendum - I'd be grateful.

Edit: Keir seems to agree. https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/sta...92714908385280

[Tubby Isaacs]

Clearly?

Pennycook is saying so but is it normal for a junior minister to announce policy like that?

[Ray de Galles]

The line from the pro-second referendum wing of the Labour Party with regard to this offer from Corbyn seems to be "We have to be seen to be offering a compromise but know this will be turned down and then can move towards a second referendum"

[E10 Rifle]

I hate talking in terms of choreography and positioning - indeed, it's the antithesis of what gives Corbyn's movement its appeal - but I do think Labour has to be seen very obviously and publicly to be exhausting all other options before going full-on for a second referendum. To fail to do so would increase the chances of Leave winning again in that referendum, a possibility some hardcore Remainers seem to struggle with contemplating.

[Diable Rouge]

To be frank, I suspect any prospect for a second referendum died with the last set of Commons votes - not due to public sentiment, but purely because the chasm between European and British political perspectives has now become irreconcilable. If the UK did, somehow, vote to Remain, it would end up like Poland and Hungary as an existential gadfly on the European fringe, so perhaps the best outcome to be hoped for is a permanent customs union, with the single market relationship settled during the transition period.

[Etienne]

Yes, I think that E10 is right, as is johnr about the "betrayal of conference". Where Tom Brake says "He has chosen to forget that Labour conference voted for the party to campaign for a people’s vote after failing to secure a general election" that is what we can technically call a bare-faced lie.

[Lucy Waterman]

He wasn't the only one to interpret it that way, so bare-faced lie is imo harsh.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...john-mcdonnell

[Etienne]

From that article "He said the party had been meeting to discuss coordination with the Scottish National party, the Liberal Democrats and Caroline Lucas of the Greens. “If we can’t get a general election, people’s vote is on the table and that might be an option we seize upon,” he said.

Before that, Labour would offer its own versions of a deal, he said. “We’ll have to go through that sequence to show we’re doing everything we can,” he said."

[Diable Rouge]

Verhofstadt and Tajani emphasising that the backstop can't be changed, some tinkering can be done with the WA, and telling May to engage with the Corbyn plan.

[Etienne]

I mean, Labour policy is extremely vague and certainly open to criticism (I think the SNP criticism today is fair) but the conference motion explicitly doesn't say what Brake says it says.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I've just discovered that Donald Tusk is a Kashubian, an ethnic group I'd hitherto been unaware of.

There a Polish reality TV programme idea there just begging to be picked up.

Carry on.

[ursus arctos]

Kaszubi doesn't really work, though.

I'm also used to the English term being Kashub.

Our friend Macej must know some, as they are not uncommon in Gdynia.

[Toby Gymshorts]

I've just discovered that Donald Tusk is a Kashubian

Excellent. Any chance of him giving that Serge bloke a slap?

[Nocturnal Submission]

Kaszubi doesn't really work, though.

I'm also used to the English term being Kashub.

Our friend Macej must know some, as they are not uncommon in Gdynia.

As per Wiki:

The Kashubs (Kashubian: Kaszëbi; Polish: Kaszubi; German: Kaschuben; also spelled Kaszubians, Kassubians, Cassubians, Cashubes, and Kashubians, and formerly known as Kashubes)

I mean, that's just being greedy!

Yes, they're mainly to be found in North-Central Poland.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Excellent. Any chance of him giving that Serge bloke a slap?

Another angle! After "Life With The Kashubians" we could have a special, where Donald Tusk gives a ratty speech in Lambeth, "Kashubian - Live from Brixton Academy".

[Tubby Isaacs]

"Sources" apparently pushing back against Pennycook..

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...nna-calls-foul

But not too strongly. This could be a real shift carefully "choreographed". But it' is extremely late in the day.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I don't know anything about Kasabian, but I like this song.

It was on a youtube compilation the other day. I normally hate the music on those. Was a pleasant surprise to find one with proper music like the rest of us listen to.

[Snake Plissken]

Surely extension of Article 50 is inevitable now, however? Possibly by up to a few months.

May whipped her Party to kill the idea of it.

[Moonlight Shadow]

May is waiting for the formal offer from the EU to extend, she can not be seen to "capitulate"...Some clown will twist it as the "EU panicking"....

[Snake Plissken]

Except they don't have to extend. Nor do they seem willing to look like the weak ones in the situation.

[Tubby Isaacs]

It wouldn't look weak. It'll look like Ben Kingsley telling Ray Winstone "Not this time. Not this fucking time. All right, I'll make it easy for you. Will you do the deal?"

[Nocturnal Submission]

Gandhi did have some great dialogue.