The Brexit Thread

[loose cannon]

Decent piece in the FT about Brexit & Tories

Noted that the EU has no incentive to give any concessions as they do not believe that May can get Parliament to approve anyway

[Tubby Isaacs]

Patience with Theresa May, yes.

A German MEP quoted by the BBC says "fed up with Britain". I suspect that unless a new UK government
goes for an established model (Remain, Norway, Turkey) there's no appetite for renegotiation, as Labour suggests.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Or it's May's deal plus some "clarifications".

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/1...zf4ua8tkxO7sIo

The above link is to a transcript of a speech by Ivan Rogers, a former British ambassador to the EU. It's long, and from a British perspective very depressing, but it sets out in forensic detail just how screwed we are going to be, in numerous ways, as a non-member of the EU, how fundamentally the idiots in the UK government and parliament have misjudged what is, or is not possible, and how mistakes by the Government since the vote (e.g. early service of Art 50 notice) have a made an inevitably dire outcome even worse. It also punctures the utter absurdity of the claims by some of the Labour front bench about their scope, within relevant time frames, for negotiating a better deal.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Bit late as a reaction, but Angela Rayner on Question Time - god help us.

[Nefertiti2]

Yes almost as bad as Alistair Campbell's tirade (after watching Rayner a working class woman ) about how " @jeremycorbyn and his posh boy revolutionary sidekicks will do everything they can to make sure @peoplesvote_uk doesn’t happen."

The likes of Blair and Campbell are the worst possible people to present the "people's vote" campagn. Momentum seems to be the only possible group ready and equipped to go to Working class Leave areas and ut a case for remain,

Blair of course seems quite happy to say that the EU are ready to renegotiate on Freedom of Movement - and those who support a people's vote seem to have no problem in swallowing his bullshit.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Who has said Blair is right about that, beyond maybe getting something underwhelming like Cameron? Or is "seem" doing a lot of work there?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Labour these days wins Canterbury and loses Mansfield.

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/institutegc/status/1073499986548146181?s=21

https://twitter.com/jarmania/status/1073494277412528128?s=21

https://twitter.com/thattimwalker/status/1073662251394129922?s=21

https://twitter.com/campbellclaret/status/1073866802155962369?s=21

[Toby Gymshorts]

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/1...zf4ua8tkxO7sIo

The above link is to a transcript of a speech by Ivan Rogers, a former British ambassador to the EU. It's long, and from a British perspective very depressing, but it sets out in forensic detail just how screwed we are going to be, in numerous ways, as a non-member of the EU, how fundamentally the idiots in the UK government and parliament have misjudged what is, or is not possible, and how mistakes by the Government since the vote (e.g. early service of Art 50 notice) have a made an inevitably dire outcome even worse. It also punctures the utter absurdity of the claims by some of the Labour front bench about their scope, within relevant time frames, for negotiating a better deal.

The most depressing thing about that (other than it all being self-inflicted) is that people who really need to read and consider it, never will. Or if they do, they'll dismiss it as "talking the country down" in precisely the manner mentioned within.

We're fucked.

[Sporting]

I have very little positive to say about this photo:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BsShXoqIAAA1BHk.jpg

[SouthdownRebel]

TG, my thoughts exactly as I read it.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

I have very little positive to say about this photo:

I've long been firmly of the view that she is by some margin the most obnoxious and appalling individual in history to become a Labour MP.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Tony Blair: In the last 30 months, European politics has been transformed. Freedom of movement and immigration is an issue all over Europe. If we said we were prepared to think again, Europe should present measures that would show people that they had been listened to

I have to concede, the ego-maniacal war-criminal with zero self-awareness is a iiability and an embarrassment both to any campaign for moderation in Labour policy and, more importantly, to the Remain/2nd ref campaign. Not only because of who he is and what he's done, but because that tweet is so wrong, perhaps deliberately dishonest, even if not quite wrong to the level of insane bullshit that Leavers peddle. As I understand it, there is very little sign indeed of many of the 27, either at government level or at popular level, conflating their antipathy to EU-external immigration with any serious doubts about free movement within the EU.

[SouthdownRebel]

From the Ivan Rogers speech:

For every other Member State, without exception, free movement is not at all the same business as external migration. And their crisis is about external migration. And for them, the British response to that crisis from both the last 2 Prime Ministers – has essentially been: we have an opt-out from that one. What you 27 do via common policies is up to you. We’ll help out with aid in the affected regions.

It still amazes me that virtually the entire British political class still thinks that it’s free movement obsessions are about to be shared in the 27. They aren’t.

[Duncan Gardner]

I've long been firmly of the view that she is by some margin the most obnoxious and appalling individual in history to become a Labour MP

Even more so than the egomaniac warmonger in yer next post?

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's correct, freedom of movement is going nowhere and to make out it might will backfire, as happened with Cameron.

Are we agreed, all things considered, that Rayner's contribution was very poor? I'm stressing it because we're told Labour are playing a chess game, not just being scared of Brexit pensioners. To be clear, I don't say they definitely aren't. But Burgon, Gardiner and Rayner (who I otherwise rate) aren't reassuring me.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Very important point about FoM above, the only other country that shares a similar anguish is...Switzerland...

[Snake Plissken]

The People’s Vote movement got hijacked very early into an anti-Corbyn movement. The fact that they’re still being listened to despite their entire nominal reason for existing having timed out is infuriating.

[Diable Rouge]

Even more so than the egomaniac warmonger in yer next post?

If TB had simply handed over to Brown after term one, history would have delivered a far more favourable verdict on his tenure.

[Satchmo Distel]

Wasn't their agreement that Blair would always do two terms?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

The People’s Vote movement got hijacked very early into an anti-Corbyn movement.

WTF? I suspect that for most of the several hundred thousand people I was marching with on the People's Vote march a month or so ago, as for me, the only angle we care about in relation to Corbyn is the Brexit angle, namely (i) our extreme frustration at his obstruction for much of the last two years of what appears to be the will of a large majority of the Labour membership (including most of his supporters), namely finding a way to stop the Brexit catastrophe and (ii) his continued peddling of the dangerous Lexiter nonsense that a good Brexit is possible. Other than on Brexit, pro/anti Corbyn arguments are a very long way down my priorities list and I haven't seen any indication, from any of the People's Vote campaigning, that it's much different for anyone else.

[Diable Rouge]

Wasn't their agreement that Blair would always do two terms?

Wouldn't know, but it was only from 2001 on that evident rot set in.

[Diable Rouge]

WTF? I suspect that for most of the several hundred thousand people I was marching with on the People's Vote march a month or so ago, as for me, the only angle we care about in relation to Corbyn is the Brexit angle, namely (i) our extreme frustration at his obstruction for much of the last two years of what appears to be the will of a large majority of the Labour membership (including most of his supporters), namely finding a way to stop the Brexit catastrophe and (ii) his continued peddling of the dangerous Lexiter nonsense that a good Brexit is possible. Other than on Brexit, pro/anti Corbyn arguments are a very long way down my priorities list and I haven't seen any indication, from any of the People's Vote campaigning, that it's much different for anyone else.

The only way that Brexit can possibly be resolved within 104 days is through some form of cross-party consensus across the House of Commons, so far too late now to be arguing the May-Corbyn toss - only an EEA Brexit or a second referendum are feasible at this stage.

[Snake Plissken]

Several of the leading lights disrupted Labour rallies and were posting against Labours position on Brexit far more than they were against the Tories. Even now the focus is on Corbyn to deliver a second referendum (how?) than on May. (See Jarmanias tweet on the previous page. Or Will Dry’s entire Twitter history. Or a lot of the official People’s Vote account. Or the entire #FBPE hashtag.)

That march where people were slamming Corbyn for not going?

Don’t get me wrong, I support a second referendum if we can’t stop Brexit another way, but I’m of the opinion that the people at the head of it have been using people in much the same way the Leave leaders did. Even now they are still calling for something that cannot actually happen and blaming Labour much more than the Tories for not heeding their call.