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Post by whiskeybrewer on Aug 9, 2019 11:38:17 GMT
anyone fancy joining me in a Coup d'etat? A cup of tea? Dont forget the Digestives
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Aug 9, 2019 11:41:47 GMT
anyone fancy joining me in a Coup d'etat? It's no joke. If Boris tries to impose a no-deal against MPs expressed wishes I think we will see people on streets protesting, the like of which we have never before seen in the UK. Poll tax riots and anti-Iraq war protests will seem like a picnic in the park in comparison. No its not, but stopping a No Deal Brexit, because some dont want to Leave the EU goes against the will of the people in the first place. If the EU arent going to reopen negotiations on a deal, then the only true options left are Taking the Deal we got under May or No Deal
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2019 12:23:19 GMT
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 9, 2019 19:05:51 GMT
It's no joke. If Boris tries to impose a no-deal against MPs expressed wishes I think we will see people on streets protesting, the like of which we have never before seen in the UK. Poll tax riots and anti-Iraq war protests will seem like a picnic in the park in comparison. No its not, but stopping a No Deal Brexit, because some dont want to Leave the EU goes against the will of the people in the first place. If the EU arent going to reopen negotiations on a deal, then the only true options left are Taking the Deal we got under May or No Deal But a no deal brexit is not, and never was, the will of the people. All the statements and literature of the leave campaign emphasised that we "would hold all the cards" "easiest trade deal in the world" frictionless trade, no backstop, etc. That was what 17.4 million people voted for and if that is delivered then, fair enough, brexit should go ahead with no further delay. However the 2 types of brexit on offer, and I agree with you that they are the only 2 types available, both fall short in important ways of what people voted for. No deal is not the painless break and frictionless free trade people voted for, while May's deal and the backstop are not the taking back control people voted for. The brexit promised by the leave campaign was a fantasy brexit that is never going to be delivered because it is simply undeliverable. May failed to deliver it, Johnon won't and neither can Corbyn. No PM or would be PM can deliver it because it is a fantasy. So 17.4M leave voters will inevitably be betrayed insofar they will never get the sort of brexit they thought they were voting for. So in those circumstances I think it is only sensible and reasonable to ask people if they still want to go ahead with something that is significantly different from and falls significantly short of what they originally voted for. And that's before we mention that opinion polls suggest people may have changed their minds or that the leave campaign only won very narrowly after they cheated. By which I mean that they breached spending limits in electoral law and were fined for it. Saying they only won after they cheated is not the same as saying they only won because they cheated, but it does raise a genuine question about whether the result might have been different had they not cheated and calls into question the democratic legitimacy of their narrow victory. And if they had been truthful about the reality of brexit instead of offering a fantasy brexit, would they still have won? And perhaps the most pertinent question of all - if brexiteers really do believe brexit is still "the will of the people", then why are they so afraid of a second referendum?
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Aug 10, 2019 12:36:37 GMT
Because a second referendum was never mentioned or planned for or anything before the first one.
And there was cheating and lies on both sides
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Aug 10, 2019 13:52:19 GMT
Look, I'm a Remainer but democracy is what it is, so I'm 100 per cent against a second referendum. Bear with me, I'm NOT against Parliament deciding "oh jiminy, this entire Brexit thing is nonsense, we're cancelling it", because Parliament IS sovereign, but I don't see anyone in Labour brave enough to do that, and the reasonable Tories are being isolated by the worst cabinet in quite some time. A second referendum is based on the biased notion that people didn't know what they were voting for the first time. This may be true but it isn't how democracy works. A political act like a vote should hopefully be guided by more than emotion and tribalism, but it doesn't have to be, as long as the vote legitimately happened then that's all that is required. Leave cheated? Yes, they did, but this isn't doping in the 100 metres, so we don't know if that cheating actually gave them a majority. Personally speaking I think it is more a case of Remain lost than Leave won, since so many so-called remain supporters that I personally know didn't bother to vote because "it'll never pass". I think that Leave got all it was ever going to get in 2016, it just happened to be enough. Oh, but Charles, it was only advisory. I know. An advisory referendum the result of which both major parties mandated to implement at the last election. Possibly another general election where Labour (a) mandate not to leave and (b) win a majority, might do it, but that still leaves a country riven with division even if economically safer.
Brexit isn't the problem, friends. Brexit is just the beginning. The UK as an entity is dying, because of Brexit. You can't legitimately argue for leaving one union and then deny that right to others. Scotland is determined to leave, and the Brexiteers are doing the SNP's job for them. Northern Ireland? The backroom lawyers can correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I can see the UK is about to, let me caps and bold this bit, VIOLATE AN INTERNATIONALLY AGREED TREATY, ie the GFA, something that Leo Varadkar in Ireland has gone out of his way not to do, not to be the ones who broke the GFA. But apparently trying to abide by the treaty both countries agreed on is Ireland being vindictive? So who wants to trust the UK after that? As for Wales? I like Wales but if anyone stays it's the Welsh. Oh, I dunno. A clean slate of politicians is needed.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,819
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 10, 2019 17:37:25 GMT
Because a second referendum was never mentioned or planned for or anything before the first one. And there was cheating and lies on both sides The remain campaign was not fined £60,000 by the electoral commission for breaching electoral law.
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Aug 12, 2019 11:32:09 GMT
Because a second referendum was never mentioned or planned for or anything before the first one. And there was cheating and lies on both sides The remain campaign was not fined £60,000 by the electoral commission for breaching electoral law. That is true But there were lies on both sides about what we would get or what we were owed. I voted Remain, but accepted the result. But if Remain had won and Leave voters were shouting for another referendum, would anyone listen thats the thing
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,819
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 12, 2019 12:32:58 GMT
The remain campaign was not fined £60,000 by the electoral commission for breaching electoral law. That is true But there were lies on both sides about what we would get or what we were owed. I voted Remain, but accepted the result. But if Remain had won and Leave voters were shouting for another referendum, would anyone listen thats the thing I accepted the result at the time and I think most Remainers did. I think that following the referendum there was a certain amount of ... goodwill would be too strong a word, but I think there was a willingness to give brexiteers the benefit of the doubt, i.e. OK you won and we lost, so let's go ahead and leave the EU but the onus is on you brexiteers to deliver the promised benefits and avoid the threatened costs. That "goodwill" [for want of a better word] was why the Lib Dems' campaign for a 2nd referendum in the 2017 general election never really got them anywhere.
Leave won because people believed what they said about the costs/benefits of leaving the EU and we are entitled to hold them to those promises. If it turns out, as any fair-minded observer would have to concede it has turned out, that the costs are much higher and the benefits are much lower then the brexiteers are the ones betraying the referendum result by not delivering. Nobody voted for brexit for its own sake, people voted for the benefits they expected to get from brexit and were promised by the Leave campaign.
As for the remain campaign lying, well I'm sure there were probably some statements made by some individuals that were untrue at some points. The difference is Remain lost so they don't have to deliver what they said. Leave won, so they do have to deliver. And the voters, regardless of how they voted in 2016, are entitled to hold them to account to deliver the sort of brexit they promised.
The best analogy I can give would be if the 2011 referendum on changing the electoral system to AV (Alternative Vote) had been passed but the government had then gone on to legislate to introduce STV (Single Transferrable Vote). Both are forms of PR (Proportional Representation) and both would do away with the existing First Past the Post system, so the government could argue it was delivering on the referendum result. Except they would not be delivering what people had actually voted for.
People were promised a brexit that would enable us to continue trading with the EU as we currently do, but would bring forth additional benefits such as control of our own borders, no longer being subject to EU laws and EU courts, plus the opportunity to become even more prosperous by trade deals with the rest of the world which were better than any deals we would get as part of the EU. It was all upside with no downside, who in their right mind wouldn't want that? And if that is what a government (either Tory or Labour) can deliver then I am 100% fine about that going through without any need for a 2nd referendum - it is simply honouring the 2016 referendum.
The 2016 referendum was not a vote for a no-deal brexit, nor was it a vote for something like May's deal - and it did not give a mandate for either of those. So I would argue that the 2016 referendum is irrelevant to the 2 kinds of brexit that seem to be on offer now, since neither of them were what people voted for, and a new referendum is needed so whichever form of brexit we end up with can get its own mandate.
I guess it boils down to whether you see the 2016 Leave vote as a blank cheque to deliver any kind of brexit at all, so long as it is brexit, or whether it was a narrower mandate to deliver the specific kind of brexit articulated and promised by the Leave campaign. As a Remainer I accept the result, but I only accept it as a mandate to deliver the specific kind of brexit that was promised. That's partly because I am a Remainer so I would think that, but partly because I genuinely believe that if voters had had an accurate picture of what would happen after article 50 was invoked and the 2 options that would be on offer, then they would not have voted to Leave.
Now, I accept brexit can never be 100% identical to what was promised and it's not realistic to hold the brexiteers to that, but if the eventual brexit we get is materially different - and the 2 forms currently on offer certainly are - from the one promised, then I don't think the referendum result counts any more.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,819
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 12, 2019 14:25:37 GMT
Look, I'm a Remainer but democracy is what it is, so I'm 100 per cent against a second referendum. Bear with me, I'm NOT against Parliament deciding "oh jiminy, this entire Brexit thing is nonsense, we're cancelling it", because Parliament IS sovereign, but I don't see anyone in Labour brave enough to do that, and the reasonable Tories are being isolated by the worst cabinet in quite some time. A second referendum is based on the biased notion that people didn't know what they were voting for the first time. This may be true but it isn't how democracy works. A political act like a vote should hopefully be guided by more than emotion and tribalism, but it doesn't have to be, as long as the vote legitimately happened then that's all that is required. Leave cheated? Yes, they did, but this isn't doping in the 100 metres, so we don't know if that cheating actually gave them a majority. Personally speaking I think it is more a case of Remain lost than Leave won, since so many so-called remain supporters that I personally know didn't bother to vote because "it'll never pass". I think that Leave got all it was ever going to get in 2016, it just happened to be enough. Oh, but Charles, it was only advisory. I know. An advisory referendum the result of which both major parties mandated to implement at the last election. Possibly another general election where Labour (a) mandate not to leave and (b) win a majority, might do it, but that still leaves a country riven with division even if economically safer. Brexit isn't the problem, friends. Brexit is just the beginning. The UK as an entity is dying, because of Brexit. You can't legitimately argue for leaving one union and then deny that right to others. Scotland is determined to leave, and the Brexiteers are doing the SNP's job for them. Northern Ireland? The backroom lawyers can correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I can see the UK is about to, let me caps and bold this bit, VIOLATE AN INTERNATIONALLY AGREED TREATY, ie the GFA, something that Leo Varadkar in Ireland has gone out of his way not to do, not to be the ones who broke the GFA. But apparently trying to abide by the treaty both countries agreed on is Ireland being vindictive? So who wants to trust the UK after that? As for Wales? I like Wales but if anyone stays it's the Welsh. Oh, I dunno. A clean slate of politicians is needed. I talked about why I believe in a 2nd referendum in my previous post and why I would argue that a 2nd referendum could even be considered to be respecting the referendum result, so I'll not repeat myself. Re your point about a general election, the problem is that under our first past the post system 40% of the electorate can prevail over the other 60% - just look at the % vote share of the winning parties over the last 30 years. So depending on what electoral pacts there were potentially 40% of remainers could prevail over 60% of brexiteers OR the other way round 40% of brexiteers could prevail over 60% of remainers. And that even assumes Labour come to a clear enough position to enable their votes to be counted as definite leave or remain, which is unlikely. So a general lection is not a very satisfactory way of resolving brexit and whoever wins could well create very strong feelings of perceived injustice and undemocratic outcomes on one side of the divide or another.
With regard to the GFA an open border is not in the Good Friday Agreement GFA. But don't take my word for it - google the GFA and read it, it is not long. Or if you don't want to do that look at the Reality Check article on BBC website
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46988529
The key quote is from the BBC article is:
"What does the Good Friday Agreement say about a hard border? A lot less than you might think. The only place in which it alludes to infrastructure at the border is in the section on security ... that included "the removal of security installations". That is as far as the text goes. There is no explicit commitment to never harden the border, and there is nothing about customs posts or regulatory controls".
There was a legal challenge to brexit on the basis of the GFA quite early on in the whole saga, but it was unsuccessful. As I understand the legal position is that the GFA requires the consent of the people of NI to any change in their constitutional status, but that only applies to one particular change (joining a united Ireland). The ruling was that the requirement for consent does not apply to any other change, i.e brexit.
Sometimes the Irish government says a hard border is in breach of the GFA - which is nonsense - and other times they say it is in breach of the spirit of the GFA - which is a legitimate argument to make. To argue that a hard border with inspection posts will cause huge upset and anger in some quarters and that this could in turn lead into a downward spiral of violence is a perfectly valid argument for the Irish government to make, but it's not the same thing as saying brexit breaches an international treaty.
The problem is the GFA was a delicate balancing act and brexit upsets that balance. If brexit goes ahead a new equilibrium has to be found and both sides in NI want that new equilibrium to be in their favour, i.e. keeping the bits of the GFA they like and jettisoning the bits they don't. Any new equilibrium has to be agreed to by both sides for it to work - and the backstop fails that test because it is not acceptable to unionists. (To be fair, so too do the DUP's preferred options which are not acceptable to nationalistts). It is a conundrum that will take years to resolve. That is one reason why I am a remainer who wants a 2nd referendum. The GFA took 5 years from the 1993 Downing Street Declaration to 1998 and it really took a further 9 years to 2007 before it actually delivered stable and durable local government in Stormont and all the pieces of the jigsaw were finally in place (decommissioning, republican support for police, etc). So the idea that a new post-brexit equilibrium can be found quickly or that any of the options currently on the table - other than the UK remaining in the customs union and single market - amount to a new fair and balanced equilibrium is pie in the sky. As I said before, that is one reason why I am a remainer who wants a 2nd referendum.
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Aug 13, 2019 11:26:56 GMT
That is true But there were lies on both sides about what we would get or what we were owed. I voted Remain, but accepted the result. But if Remain had won and Leave voters were shouting for another referendum, would anyone listen thats the thing I accepted the result at the time and I think most Remainers did. I think that following the referendum there was a certain amount of ... goodwill would be too strong a word, but I think there was a willingness to give brexiteers the benefit of the doubt, i.e. OK you won and we lost, so let's go ahead and leave the EU but the onus is on you brexiteers to deliver the promised benefits and avoid the threatened costs. That "goodwill" [for want of a better word] was why the Lib Dems' campaign for a 2nd referendum in the 2017 general election never really got them anywhere.
Leave won because people believed what they said about the costs/benefits of leaving the EU and we are entitled to hold them to those promises. If it turns out, as any fair-minded observer would have to concede it has turned out, that the costs are much higher and the benefits are much lower then the brexiteers are the ones betraying the referendum result by not delivering. Nobody voted for brexit for its own sake, people voted for the benefits they expected to get from brexit and were promised by the Leave campaign.
As for the remain campaign lying, well I'm sure there were probably some statements made by some individuals that were untrue at some points. The difference is Remain lost so they don't have to deliver what they said. Leave won, so they do have to deliver. And the voters, regardless of how they voted in 2016, are entitled to hold them to account to deliver the sort of brexit they promised.
The best analogy I can give would be if the 2011 referendum on changing the electoral system to AV (Alternative Vote) had been passed but the government had then gone on to legislate to introduce STV (Single Transferrable Vote). Both are forms of PR (Proportional Representation) and both would do away with the existing First Past the Post system, so the government could argue it was delivering on the referendum result. Except they would not be delivering what people had actually voted for.
People were promised a brexit that would enable us to continue trading with the EU as we currently do, but would bring forth additional benefits such as control of our own borders, no longer being subject to EU laws and EU courts, plus the opportunity to become even more prosperous by trade deals with the rest of the world which were better than any deals we would get as part of the EU. It was all upside with no downside, who in their right mind wouldn't want that? And if that is what a government (either Tory or Labour) can deliver then I am 100% fine about that going through without any need for a 2nd referendum - it is simply honouring the 2016 referendum.
The 2016 referendum was not a vote for a no-deal brexit, nor was it a vote for something like May's deal - and it did not give a mandate for either of those. So I would argue that the 2016 referendum is irrelevant to the 2 kinds of brexit that seem to be on offer now, since neither of them were what people voted for, and a new referendum is needed so whichever form of brexit we end up with can get its own mandate.
I guess it boils down to whether you see the 2016 Leave vote as a blank cheque to deliver any kind of brexit at all, so long as it is brexit, or whether it was a narrower mandate to deliver the specific kind of brexit articulated and promised by the Leave campaign. As a Remainer I accept the result, but I only accept it as a mandate to deliver the specific kind of brexit that was promised. That's partly because I am a Remainer so I would think that, but partly because I genuinely believe that if voters had had an accurate picture of what would happen after article 50 was invoked and the 2 options that would be on offer, then they would not have voted to Leave.
Now, I accept brexit can never be 100% identical to what was promised and it's not realistic to hold the brexiteers to that, but if the eventual brexit we get is materially different - and the 2 forms currently on offer certainly are - from the one promised, then I don't think the referendum result counts any more.
Yeah thats true. Thats what we were promised, then the EU went "NOPE" lol
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Aug 13, 2019 16:09:50 GMT
Look, I'm a Remainer but democracy is what it is, so I'm 100 per cent against a second referendum. Bear with me, I'm NOT against Parliament deciding "oh jiminy, this entire Brexit thing is nonsense, we're cancelling it", because Parliament IS sovereign, but I don't see anyone in Labour brave enough to do that, and the reasonable Tories are being isolated by the worst cabinet in quite some time. A second referendum is based on the biased notion that people didn't know what they were voting for the first time. This may be true but it isn't how democracy works. A political act like a vote should hopefully be guided by more than emotion and tribalism, but it doesn't have to be, as long as the vote legitimately happened then that's all that is required. Leave cheated? Yes, they did, but this isn't doping in the 100 metres, so we don't know if that cheating actually gave them a majority. Personally speaking I think it is more a case of Remain lost than Leave won, since so many so-called remain supporters that I personally know didn't bother to vote because "it'll never pass". I think that Leave got all it was ever going to get in 2016, it just happened to be enough. Oh, but Charles, it was only advisory. I know. An advisory referendum the result of which both major parties mandated to implement at the last election. Possibly another general election where Labour (a) mandate not to leave and (b) win a majority, might do it, but that still leaves a country riven with division even if economically safer. Brexit isn't the problem, friends. Brexit is just the beginning. The UK as an entity is dying, because of Brexit. You can't legitimately argue for leaving one union and then deny that right to others. Scotland is determined to leave, and the Brexiteers are doing the SNP's job for them. Northern Ireland? The backroom lawyers can correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I can see the UK is about to, let me caps and bold this bit, VIOLATE AN INTERNATIONALLY AGREED TREATY, ie the GFA, something that Leo Varadkar in Ireland has gone out of his way not to do, not to be the ones who broke the GFA. But apparently trying to abide by the treaty both countries agreed on is Ireland being vindictive? So who wants to trust the UK after that? As for Wales? I like Wales but if anyone stays it's the Welsh. Oh, I dunno. A clean slate of politicians is needed. I talked about why I believe in a 2nd referendum in my previous post and why I would argue that a 2nd referendum could even be considered to be respecting the referendum result, so I'll not repeat myself. Re your point about a general election, the problem is that under our first past the post system 40% of the electorate can prevail over the other 60% - just look at the % vote share of the winning parties over the last 30 years. So depending on what electoral pacts there were potentially 40% of remainers could prevail over 60% of brexiteers OR the other way round 40% of brexiteers could prevail over 60% of remainers. And that even assumes Labour come to a clear enough position to enable their votes to be counted as definite leave or remain, which is unlikely. So a general lection is not a very satisfactory way of resolving brexit and whoever wins could well create very strong feelings of perceived injustice and undemocratic outcomes on one side of the divide or another.
With regard to the GFA an open border is not in the Good Friday Agreement GFA. But don't take my word for it - google the GFA and read it, it is not long. Or if you don't want to do that look at the Reality Check article on BBC website
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46988529
The key quote is from the BBC article is:
"What does the Good Friday Agreement say about a hard border? A lot less than you might think. The only place in which it alludes to infrastructure at the border is in the section on security ... that included "the removal of security installations". That is as far as the text goes. There is no explicit commitment to never harden the border, and there is nothing about customs posts or regulatory controls".
There was a legal challenge to brexit on the basis of the GFA quite early on in the whole saga, but it was unsuccessful. As I understand the legal position is that the GFA requires the consent of the people of NI to any change in their constitutional status, but that only applies to one particular change (joining a united Ireland). The ruling was that the requirement for consent does not apply to any other change, i.e brexit.
Sometimes the Irish government says a hard border is in breach of the GFA - which is nonsense - and other times they say it is in breach of the spirit of the GFA - which is a legitimate argument to make. To argue that a hard border with inspection posts will cause huge upset and anger in some quarters and that this could in turn lead into a downward spiral of violence is a perfectly valid argument for the Irish government to make, but it's not the same thing as saying brexit breaches an international treaty.
The problem is the GFA was a delicate balancing act and brexit upsets that balance. If brexit goes ahead a new equilibrium has to be found and both sides in NI want that new equilibrium to be in their favour, i.e. keeping the bits of the GFA they like and jettisoning the bits they don't. Any new equilibrium has to be agreed to by both sides for it to work - and the backstop fails that test because it is not acceptable to unionists. (To be fair, so too do the DUP's preferred options which are not acceptable to nationalistts). It is a conundrum that will take years to resolve. That is one reason why I am a remainer who wants a 2nd referendum. The GFA took 5 years from the 1993 Downing Street Declaration to 1998 and it really took a further 9 years to 2007 before it actually delivered stable and durable local government in Stormont and all the pieces of the jigsaw were finally in place (decommissioning, republican support for police, etc). So the idea that a new post-brexit equilibrium can be found quickly or that any of the options currently on the table - other than the UK remaining in the customs union and single market - amount to a new fair and balanced equilibrium is pie in the sky. As I said before, that is one reason why I am a remainer who wants a 2nd referendum.
A thoughtful and considered answer, as usual, so that's appreciated. Just one thing, you are specifically referencing the backstop, I am not. I believe the Brexit vote violates the GFA beyond that. The border IS a problem, one that is going to cause more problems, and let's all pray that it's ONLY economic problems. But no, not specifically in the letter of the GFA. Something as simple as the right to have an Irish passport now becomes the right to have an EU passport, which is probably going to be another issue along the way in some way, and I despair of the swivel eyed loons in the DUP dealing with that when they can't get their heads around an Irish Language Act, despite equivalent Acts existing in Scotland and Wales, and the effective founder of NI, Lord Carson --big statue of him outside Stormont, can't miss him -- having been a proud speaker of that language. Oh, I don't know. I'm mostly practical, if your second referendum were to come to pass then I'd vote in it, I'd be a fool not to. And I so wanted the FPTP system to die a death but we are where we are. Trouble is, where the hell is that?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2019 11:13:00 GMT
According to the law of our fair land, when Prime Minister BJ said we could give £350m a week to the NHS after Brexit, he was in fact not abusing public trust. So that's alright then.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,819
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 16, 2019 12:39:42 GMT
Looks like Corbyn has set the cat amongst the pigeons this week.
But on thinking about it a new government of national unity looks like the only sure way to stop a no-deal brexit. The problem is that as long as Boris remains PM he still holds all the best cards.
Legislation to compel Johnston to ask for an extension, even assuming it passes, could be sabotaged by Johnston who could ask for an extension if required by law, but then in his next breath threaten to do everything in his power to sabotage the EU's workings from within if the EU grant it. Which would make it very hard for the EU to grant. Likely result = no deal.
A vote of no confidence without a new PM being able to show he or she has a majority of MPs would lead to Boris remaining PM and having to call an election, the date of which he could set for after brexit day. This could be challenged in the courts but there is no guarantee of success. Likely result = no deal.
A vote of no confidence, followed by a vote to demonstrate that someone else commands the confidence of a majority of MPs, looks like the only sure way to stop a no deal brexit because the new PM would then hold all the cards Boris currently holds.
And despite the current row over who should lead the hypothetical government of national unity, that is not actually their biggest problem. What would it do? Beyond securing an extension and enacting the necessary legislation for an extension, what then? Corbyn says an election but if Boris and Nigel form an electoral pact they could well win any subsequent election with 40-45% of the vote. The only chance of stopping them would be an equivalent pact on the other side of the debate - Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid, Greens and rebel Tories - but how likely is that? So the anti-no dealers could win the battle by stopping no deal on 31st October, but lose the war by bringing about a general election that Boris and Nigel comfortably win on a no-deal mandate. And if no election then what? The government of national unity is only united on the short term goal of stopping a no-deal brexit, if you force them to choose between a 2nd referendum and some form of soft brexit they will likely fall apart. Plus, if it lasts into 2020 they will need to bring in a budget for the 2020/21 fiscal year and imagine the arguments that would cause. And that's all assuming they can agree on who should lead it in the first place.
So really, it looks as if there are no good option and no certain options. A government of national unity may be the surest short term quick-fix to prevent no deal on 31st October, but it doesn't by itself solve the bigger problem of finding a permanent solution to the brexit crisis unless that government's component parts can agree amongst themselves whether to go for a 2nd ref or a soft brexit which kept the UK in the customs union and single market.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2019 23:11:16 GMT
National unity? I haven't seen much of that in the coverage we've been getting over here... is there really a significant enough group of MP's in the UK that can agree with each other long enough to actually govern the UK?!!! From the outside it seems more like national disunity is the order of the day!
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Post by sherlock on Aug 20, 2019 11:18:36 GMT
So Johnson wrote to the Commission with his gripes about the deal and suggestions. It’s gone about as well as anyone could have expected.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,819
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 21, 2019 8:30:48 GMT
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Post by sherlock on Aug 28, 2019 8:19:48 GMT
Government has announced plans to extend the conference recess till 14 October and hold a Queen’s Speech that day. This would significantly limit the amount of time for rebels to push legislation for an extension.
This will be a big row.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 28, 2019 8:44:09 GMT
Government has announced plans to extend the conference recess till 14 October and hold a Queen’s Speech that day. This would significantly limit the amount of time for rebels to push legislation for an extension. This will be a big row. Wow! Things are really hotting up. Fasten your seat belts for the next few weeks, folks ...
Actually, the government's greatest political strength is the disunity of its opponents. But if they push their opponents too hard they risk pushing them together so that they overcome their disunity. And then the government could be in trouble.
Plus although mid-October leaves no time for legislation to prevent no deal it does still leave time for a vote of no confidence and installation of a new PM. So the government is raising the stakes, but the danger for them is that without a secure Parliamentary majority they are ultimately bluffing and if the anti-no dealers - not a nice term,. but can't think of a better one - can unite to call their bluff then the government will lose.
So the big question is can the anti-no dealers unite? They are fatally split between Remainers who want a 2nd referendum and soft brexiteers who want to leave with a deal of some sort and that is their biggest weakness. If they unite to stop no deal, but can't agree on the next steps then they simply hand the initiative back to Boris et al, who will ruthlessly exploit it.
But I imagine the government's main purpose in doing this is to put pressure on the EU to make concessions, as the EU would have held back in the hope MPs would be able to prevent no-deal.
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Post by Digi on Aug 28, 2019 10:35:03 GMT
Not only is he asking to suspend democracy to ram through Brexit (which I have zero doubt would fail if another referendum were held, and No Deal Brexit at that) -- now they're saying they also intend to ignore any No Confidence vote until after they've rammed it through.
"Will of the people" indeed.
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