The Brexit Thread

[San Bernardhinault]

I feel like I need to say, again, that "Avoiding No Deal" and "Remaining in the EU" are not the same thing. "Avoiding No Deal" and a "Soft Brexit" aren't even the same things.

[Snake Plissken]

Well. She's new. She should be safe in the job. I can't think that the Lib Dems would have someone waiting in the wings to try and get rid of a newly elected leader so quickly.

[Hot Pepsi]

The problem is that the current version of the British economy includes both hedge funds who can make money just by betting on outcomes and a core of opportunists who see the destruction of the welfare state as a business opportunity (private insurance and health care being prominent examples, as are commercial fishermen who always hated EU conservation schemes and other anti-regulation zealots).

Add to that the number of tycoons who have more money than they now what to do with and see an opportunity to prorltect their current tax advantages, and you have more than enough to fund Leave.

This is even more the case given that virtually all big business has been internationalized. A multi-national doesn't particularly care if its profits come from the UK or the Continent.

This may explain our current situation as well. I used to think we'd always have free trade (for better or worse) and a fairly liberal immigration scheme because it was in the interest of a lot of big corporations. That may still be true, but more and more "business" is unmoored from 20th century concerns like labor or shipping or producing anything useful.

Can't the Tories destroy the welfare state without leaving the EU? Isn't that what they've been doing for the last 30 years anyway? Or are you saying that the deregulation nuts are simply forming a coalition with the racists within the Tory party to get what they want. I suppose that's true here too. A lot of Trumpists just want lower taxes and don't care what else he does.

[ursus arctos]

It is very much what has been happening here.

They can destroy the welfare state much more effectively from outside the EU because they no longer will need to negotiate exemptions from or design ways around basic social welfare legislation.

It is why Rees Mogg demonises the Working Time Directive, for instance, and at the root of much of the Brexiteers' outrage at the ECJ, as they can't stand being told that they have to conform with EU law.

[johnr]

I feel like I need to say, again, that "Avoiding No Deal" and "Remaining in the EU" are not the same thing. "Avoiding No Deal" and a "Soft Brexit" aren't even the same things.

I don't think anybody here is in any doubt about either of those, SB.

[Eggchaser]

It is very much what has been happening here.

They can destroy the welfare state much more effectively from outside the EU because they no longer will need to negotiate exemptions from or design ways around basic social welfare legislation.

It is why Rees Mogg demonises the Working Time Directive, for instance, and at the root of much of the Brexiteers' outrage at the ECJ, as they can't stand being told that they have to conform with EU law.

Or indeed any law that interferes with naked profiteering.

[Antepli Ejderha]

It is very much what has been happening here.

They can destroy the welfare state much more effectively from outside the EU because they no longer will need to negotiate exemptions from or design ways around basic social welfare legislation.

It is why Rees Mogg demonises the Working Time Directive, for instance, and at the root of much of the Brexiteers' outrage at the ECJ, as they can't stand being told that they have to conform with EU law.

And all of these EU directives on worker's rights should have been clearly explained to people in the referendum about what the EU does for you.

They weren't.

It was all the sort of Johnson nonsense about the shape of fruit and veg.

Not teaching real citizenship in school is another reason we are leaving.

[Hot Pepsi]

And all of these EU directives on worker's rights should have been clearly explained to people in the referendum about what the EU does for you.

They weren't.

It was all the sort of Johnson nonsense about the shape of fruit and veg.

Not teaching real citizenship in school is another reason we are leaving.

That's by design. Citizens thinking as citizens are a threat to the power structure, especially if they're educated. But taxypayers thinking only as taxpayers can be manipulated into all kinds of backwards nonsense.

[San Bernardhinault]

Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
I feel like I need to say, again, that "Avoiding No Deal" and "Remaining in the EU" are not the same thing. "Avoiding No Deal" and a "Soft Brexit" aren't even the same things.

I don't think anybody here is in any doubt about either of those, SB.

I'm sure they aren't, but Remainers keep being told that supporting a Corbyn government is the only way to avoid a No Deal Brexit, as if avoiding No Deal would be the height of anyone's ambition.

[johnr]

No Deal is what's in front of us.

After that, Remainers can back Labour because it's offering a referendum in all circumstances, with Remain on the ballot against 'the deal' (unlike the Lib Dems, who want the current deal versus No Deal, afaics). I'm a Remainer, that sounds a pretty good deal to me.

I can't think why any Remainer would support any other option, given that revoke is very very unlikely at the moment.

[San Bernardhinault]

If merely avoiding No Deal was anyone's goal, they could have voted for May's WA.

I'll add that I'd support a Corbyn-led coalition right now. But I can see why people wouldn't. And the argument that "it's the only way to avoid No Deal" is incredibly weak sauce. If Labour committed to actually offering something positive in their renegotiation of the WA - tying it to EEA membership, for example - it would be much easier to support them. At the moment there's no evidence that it's going to be much different to May's.

[johnr]

It's not about supporting them to do anything other than stopping No Deal and calling a GE though. The rest is for after.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I think I might give up reminding people that passing the WA, on its own, would have precisely zero legal effect in the UK.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I'm not convinced by Corbyn's letter / Labour's plan either, as it goes. Gambling on an election result + a referendum result v gambling on a referendum result.

(And a more minor point, which is that "a public vote on the terms of leaving the European Union, including an option to Remain" doesn't actually make sense, and that upper-case "r" is really silly.)

[Antepli Ejderha]

If merely avoiding No Deal was anyone's goal, they could have voted for May's WA.

I'll add that I'd support a Corbyn-led coalition right now. But I can see why people wouldn't. And the argument that "it's the only way to avoid No Deal" is incredibly weak sauce. If Labour committed to actually offering something positive in their renegotiation of the WA - tying it to EEA membership, for example - it would be much easier to support them. At the moment there's no evidence that it's going to be much different to May's.

That was May's argument for three years.

[Lang Spoon]

Whatever happens now it's hard not to be full of lip smacking schadenfreude at the sheer mendacity and strategic incompetence of Jo Fucking Swinson as she's being shown up for the useless and dangerous fool she is. The kind of Lib Dem fuckwit Minister for Small Victories who thought a plastic bag tax a fine trade off for killing off (non Lib Dem voting) Feckless Poor through needless unjustifiable austerity.

to think Chris Deerin, Dan Hodges Evil John McTernan and the rest of the Sensible Mob thought her Prime Minister material a mere month back.

She's a despicable human being and was lucky to get a prime SNP unexpected winner in 2015 fuckwit in John Nicholson to run against so she had a chance of regaining her seat in 2017.

but then I remember what's going to happen next when we crash out and the laughs get hollow. It's a weird fuckin irony where the party fully engaging with Corbyn's proposal is the one that wants to break up the UK, while Stout Remainers CDUK and the LibDems still look like they might back Johnson (or abstain like spare pricks) in a vote of no confidence.

[Lang Spoon]

She's also a terrible indictment of the middle class "politically engaged" of my generation (or maybes the folks a few years younger as she's not yet 40). Vapid careerist fuckers that grew up complacent and lazy in attitude under Blairite hegemony and the Long Boom. Full of fuzzy platitudes where critical thinking should be, coasting to a 2:1 in the Warm Arts. Post ideology, post class analysis, post Taking Life Too Seriously. Thinking watching Have I Got News For You makes you clever and edgy. Irony as reflex. Feeling Your Pain but denying any structural causes of said pain. Nothing Wrong with Aspiration. The Poor Are Always Among Us, lets wring our hands, for a Hand Up, not a Hand Out.

[Nefertiti2]

I understood every word of that.

[E10 Rifle]

Tremendous rant, Lang. I concur.

[Lang Spoon]

Please tell me Frances Wheetman is a centrist parody twitter account.

[anton pulisov]

Swinson is part of what I call the powerpoint generation.

Alistair Campbell without the number crunching ability.

[anton pulisov]

I wonder if EU plan is to let No Deal happen. Everything instantly goes to absolute shite, Johnson and Tories are thrown out within a few months, and UK rejoins EU within six months, without rebate and with Schengen and Euro.

[Nefertiti2]

I don’t think anyone has a plan of that complexity.

[Amor de Cosmos]

UK rejoins EU within six months,

No chance of it being that swift. Six years, maybe.

[hobbes]

I wonder if EU plan is to let No Deal happen. Everything instantly goes to absolute shite, Johnson and Tories are thrown out within a few months, and UK rejoins EU within six months, without rebate and with Schengen and Euro.

I'm a pretty hard core remainer but even I'd vote to stay out if rejoining meant joining the euro.
A sovereign currency is about all that's kept the UK going on a number of occasions.