The Brexit Thread

[ad hoc]

Also Fox, Grayling and Mourdant (surprised Hunt isn't in that shower). FT saying it knows "at least 20" letters have been sent:

Jacob Rees-Mogg
Steve Baker
Andrew Bridgen
Laurence Robertson
Nadine Dorries
Andrea Jenkyns
Adam Holloway
Anne Marie Morris
Henry Smith
Sheryll Murray
Maria Caulfield
Martin Vickers
Lee Rowley
Ben Bradley
Simon Clarke
Peter Bone
Philip Davies
James Duddridge
John Whittingdale
Mark Francois

Kind of makes May look better when you see such a list of some of the most horrible cunts in UK politics lined up against her

[Disco Child Ballads]

I hate the way the royals are forced to dress. The Duchess of Cambridge is a very attractive woman but she's obliged to wear the most unflattering clothes.

[Ginger Yellow]

Have you considered not thinking about them?

[Benjm]

Kind of makes May look better when you see such a list of some of the most horrible cunts in UK politics lined up against her

I am kind of hoping that the required numbers fail to materialise just to show Rees-Mogg, Baker & Co up as the empty puffs of wind they would never have been seen as anything but in a more functional system of government. Shortly followed by a piano falling on May's head.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Have you considered not thinking about them?

It's easy to spot the UK versions of Newspapers in an Irish newsagents. They'll be the one with a picture of the member of the royal family. It's become much worse since the lead up to brexit, but I just assume that when I catch a glimpse of Prince George, that it's going to be beside an article screaming that the Bedroom Tax and Universal credit are the only way to defeat Angela Hitler and save house prices.

[anton pulisov]

He's in a very difficult situation. He's a real live human being, with all of the bits and pieces associated with being a person, but his entire existence is to be part of the Front of House PR distraction for a pretty awful establishment. When He was younger he was one of the most photographed people on earth, and was quite handsome. But he's not aging well, and if you notice, the attention has switched from him to his wife and his kids. indeed you can even see this in how press photos are framed with them in the centre of the photograph, and this is a thing that is going to only get worse, and the process of Prince Charlesification is continuing apace. Soon he'll just be an odd looking middle aged man, waiting around for his Grandmother, and then his father to pass on.

Poor guy, there's no justice. Meanwhile his brother gets to be a party animal, marry an American actress, doesn't have to worry about the whole head-of-state thing, and didn't inherit the baldness gene from his particular father.

[Lucy Waterman]

Also Fox, Grayling and Mourdant (surprised Hunt isn't in that shower). FT saying it knows "at least 20" letters have been sent:

Jacob Rees-Mogg
Steve Baker
Andrew Bridgen
Laurence Robertson
Nadine Dorries
Andrea Jenkyns
Adam Holloway
Anne Marie Morris
Henry Smith
Sheryll Murray
Maria Caulfield
Martin Vickers
Lee Rowley
Ben Bradley
Simon Clarke
Peter Bone
Philip Davies
James Duddridge
John Whittingdale
Mark Francois

Christ, what an absolute cunt farm.

[Lucy Waterman]

You'd be forgiven for thinking they had different fathers or something.

Only if you don't look at the ears...

[Diable Rouge]

It appears Gove and Fox are only staying in Cabinet because they want to renegotiate the backstop.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Gove has bottled it, apparently.

Quelle surprise... Gove has landed a sinecure (Environment) and was never going to jettison it that easily IMO. I know it excites the media to big him up to the nines and pretend the Cunt is some sort of grand statesman but Gove really is all talk. When it comes to putting his weasely cojones on the grill, he’s certainly not your man.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Christ, what an absolute cunt farm.

Quite a few in reserve too. Rosindell, Paterson TC Davies etc.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Labour still persisting with the fundamentally dishonest line that a better Brexit deal would be possible.

Actually, as Brexit deals go, May's is pretty decently damage-limiting - though of course full of stuff that the Brexiters and Union-obsessed nutters will detest. It's just that it's obviously so much worse than Remain.

About time Labour showed some honesty and some balls and started acknowledging that the only better (much better in fact) option is Remain.

[Lang Spoon]

Or accepting FoM and full SM. I’m sure the EU would reopen negotiations for that.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Having read his pamphlet "Northern Ireland: the price of peace." which is very difficult to find now, I've got to say that the prospect of Michael Gove rolling up to a discussion with the EU excites me greatly. He doesn't understand anything about anything.

[Ginger Yellow]

Actually, as Brexit deals go, May's is pretty decently damage-limiting - though of course full of stuff that the Brexiters and Union-obsessed nutters will detest.

It's hard to see a better deal the EU would ever accept that maintains the red lines (I mean, this deal doesn't really maintain the no-Irish Sea border one that the DUP gave us, but it was never going to). It's a really bad deal for the UK, but that's the fault of those red lines. That's pretty obvious from the limited ambition of the political declaration, and even that is only going to be achieved by effectively giving up on independent trade deals.

[Ginger Yellow]

He doesn't understand anything about anything.

Seems to be a common trait for Brexit secretaries.

[Moonlight Shadow]

It looks like the EU need to re-state, another time, that this deal is pretty much it in term of concessions to the UK and that is only the withdrawal agreement which is time limited .

What follows is an entirely different matter and all options are on the table, be it a limited Canada style deal or EEA

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Labour still persisting with the fundamentally dishonest line that a better Brexit deal would be possible.

Actually, as Brexit deals go, May's is pretty decently damage-limiting - though of course full of stuff that the Brexiters and Union-obsessed nutters will detest. It's just that it's obviously so much worse than Remain.

About time Labour showed some honesty and some balls and started acknowledging that the only better (much better in fact) option is Remain.

The whole thing is based on a widespread misunderstanding in the UK political bubble about what this stage of the process was about. This is the Withdrawal agreement, which is basically a list of things that the EU wants the UK to do to settle up accounts before they leave. These things aren't a list of demands drawn up by an EU jealous of the UK's freedom. They're required by the EU's rules. It doesn't matter what party was in power, or what their ultimate brexit end goal was, this withdrawal agreement would have been exactly the same. If you expected a different agreement, then you didn't really grasp what was going on.

When theresa May says there's This deal, No deal, or No brexit, she really is telling the truth. Pretending that there is another deal, or that something different is possible is just nonsense. The inability to grasp this and move to no brexit, essentially is going to doom us to No deal

[Diable Rouge]

http://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1063444693252521984

[ursus arctos]

Edward Luce in the FT

If ever an ancien regime earned its place in history’s dustbin, it’s Britain’s ruling class. Although I’m watching Britain’s self-immolation from across the Atlantic, I confess to having some insight into its leading protagonists. Half of them went to university with me. The best way of describing them is the “essay crisis” generation — people who mastered the art of delivering their assignments in limpid prose that they had only started working on overnight. Whether you study classics, PPE (philosophy, politics and economics), English, or history, these degrees can offer an intellectually rich introduction to worldly affairs. They can also create a very false sense of complacency. If you learn young how to slip past Oxford’s best scholars, the rest of life ought to be a doddle. Some of the least impressive of this crop went into politics. I include David Cameron, the prime minister who insouciantly led his country into the disastrous referendum; Boris Johnson, who fronted the campaign against Cameron; Steve Hilton, the former “radical thinker” of Cameron’s government who turned on his boss and embraced Brexit; and Michael Gove, one of the Brexiter rebels who is hoping to replace Theresa May. Each of these was within two or three years of each other at Oxford.

Without doubt this is the most cynical, opportunistic and incompetent generation to lead Britain in modern times. Some compare it to that of Neville Chamberlain, whose name lives in infamy as the lead appeaser of Hitler and co-author of the Munich agreement. This lot are arguably worse. Chamberlain didn’t create the second world war: it was going to happen anyway. There’s some evidence that he bought time for Britain to re-arm.* At any rate, his means were cynical but his motives were lofty. He led a country that had recently been decimated in the first world war. In contrast, Britain’s exit from the EU is an entirely unforced error. I don’t want to stray into hyperbole: the fallout will not be anything like either world wars. But it’s worse in the sense that it was entirely avoidable. Incompetence has brought Britain to its knees. It didn’t need to happen.

So what will be the upshot? That’s impossible to predict. Anything from a disastrous no-deal exit to a people’s referendum is now possible. So too is a general election that delivers Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn to Downing Street. If the universe really has it in for Britain, we’ll get a no-deal Brexit and then a Corbyn government. If the Gods are smiling, there will be a second referendum that will result in a total repudiation of the result of the first one. Then Europe will welcome us back. I do hope it will be that last scenario. The odds are against it. But whatever happens, Britain needs to say goodbye to my generation of political leaders. Cameron will hopefully never return. I pray that the preposterous Jacob Rees-Mogg will somehow receive his comeuppance. The same applies to Johnson. As for Hilton, he is now living in Silicon Valley and hosting a weekly Fox News show about “positive populism”. Hilton is the epitome of a shape-shifting political class. He has morphed into an ardent Trumpian and rails against “globalists” and other enemies of the people. They say a nation gets the government it deserves. I find it hard to believe that any country could have deserved this bunch. Rana, feel free to contradict me. Perhaps I‘m taking this too personally!

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Amber Rudd is back. Didn't she just resign in disgrace?

[ursus arctos]

That was more than six months ago.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

You have to genuinely wonder just how shit most of the 150-odd Tory backbenchers must be if this lot keep getting recycled into the Cabinet. Are they all dribbling maniacs or something?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Rudd sort of took one for the team, or at least a certain prominent ex-Home Secretary. Not that it wasn't a shitshow on her watch, of course.

I'm surprised she wanted a front bench job now. Least of all one with shit hitting the fan like the DWP. Maybe she reckons she can talk Hammond into doing something about the WASPI issues, take the credit and be well placed in a leadership contest.

[N est à?]

Y