Europe --- In or Out

[ewerk 26441]

So during the election campaign he either has to continue with this weak line that he can deliver the impossible Brexit or admit that he can't and push to stop Brexit.

I fear it'll be the former.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

46 minutes ago, ewerk said:

So during the election campaign he either has to continue with this weak line that he can deliver the impossible Brexit or admit that he can't and push to stop Brexit.

I fear it'll be the former.

 

He has little choice really if he wants to keep his membership and core voters onside.

 

 

[Renton 17822]

41 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

He has little choice really if he wants to keep his membership and core voters onside.

 

 

Most Labour membership, MPs, and voters are Remain. Latest evidence is even Sunderland is remain. Sick of this myth its northerners and working class that voted leave. The rump of the vote was middle England - tory voters. 

[Christmas Tree 3997]

37 minutes ago, Renton said:

Most Labour membership, MPs, and voters are Remain. Latest evidence is even Sunderland is remain. Sick of this myth its northerners and working class that voted leave. The rump of the vote was middle England - tory voters. 

 

You’ve been listening to Alistair Campbell too much. Labours own internal polling has them shitting themselves about losing the next election if they come out for a vote. Also John Curtis has put to bed the “myth” that there’s been any significant change in voting intentions.

 

Ideally Labour just need to sit back and see what happens over the next month and see if the Tories commit to a vote first.

 

 

[Renton 17822]

Corbyn can't win the next GE whatever his policies. Someone like David miliband would walk it on a remain manifesto, imo, of course. It is undeniable the core of labour is remain and also UKip are finished. 

[NJS 3984]

Centrists like Milliband are being destroyed all over europe because they have absolutely no answers to actually changing things for the better for the vast majority of the people.

 

They think a second vote is a foregone conclusion and don't give a shit about why people actually voted leave apart from the "lies/stupid" meme.

[Renton 17822]

1 hour ago, NJS said:

Centrists like Milliband are being destroyed all over europe because they have absolutely no answers to actually changing things for the better for the vast majority of the people.

 

They think a second vote is a foregone conclusion and don't give a shit about why people actually voted leave apart from the "lies/stupid" meme.

 

This is a lazy post on many levels. Centrists in Europe are being destroyed? Really? Then how come they form governments in Germany, France, Benelux, Scandinavia, Spain, and the UK {I can't stand May but she still broadly qualifies as centrist). Italy has crazy politics and doesn't count. Yes, populists and right wingers have gained, but they haven't destroyed the orthodoxy. I bet Trump is a one term president too, if that. 

 

You think leavers being lied to and not informed enough to realise it is merely a meme? It's the truth, fuck them if they find that patronising. And as for sticking it to the elites, this doesn't explain why they support, erm, elites, does it? Nor does it explain the huge swathes of people in the home counties voting leave does it? Affluent insular little englanders. 

 

I doubt anyone thinks a PV is a foregone conclusion after last time. Which is why I personally don't think no deal should be on the ballot. There are far too many people who are stupid/stubborn/venal/gullible enough to make it a risk not worth taking. I'd much prefer politicians to be honest and do what they know is best for the country. There's still a possibility this might happen. 

[NJS 3984]

4 hours ago, Renton said:

 

This is a lazy post on many levels. Centrists in Europe are being destroyed? Really? Then how come they form governments in Germany, France, Benelux, Scandinavia, Spain, and the UK {I can't stand May but she still broadly qualifies as centrist). Italy has crazy politics and doesn't count. Yes, populists and right wingers have gained, but they haven't destroyed the orthodoxy. I bet Trump is a one term president too, if that. 

 

You think leavers being lied to and not informed enough to realise it is merely a meme? It's the truth, fuck them if they find that patronising. And as for sticking it to the elites, this doesn't explain why they support, erm, elites, does it? Nor does it explain the huge swathes of people in the home counties voting leave does it? Affluent insular little englanders. 

 

I doubt anyone thinks a PV is a foregone conclusion after last time. Which is why I personally don't think no deal should be on the ballot. There are far too many people who are stupid/stubborn/venal/gullible enough to make it a risk not worth taking. I'd much prefer politicians to be honest and do what they know is best for the country. There's still a possibility this might happen. 

Portugal has gone quite to the left and is doing well. Spain is centrist but in coalition with socialists who have forced some decent stuff getting results.

 

In France, Macron is massively unpopular as his help the rich agenda is exposed, Merkel has packed in after the CDU were decimated in state elections so I don't think its a stretch to say centrists are running out of time.

 

Soubry said something interesting yesterday - I think she's full of shit but she said May hadn't reached out to the 48% at all which is true but on the other hand the FBPE and PV lot have been the same - we'll just undo the vote and everything will be okay - they have no interest in discussing addressing some of the reasons leave voters voted as they did. I do think ignorance, lies and  racism affected the leave vote but you don't address those things by just telling people they are thick. If people in the north voted leave because they feel their lives are shit and nobody cared then maybe we should look at how 40 years of centrist/right wing governments have led to that instead of just sneering at them.

 

 

[ewerk 26441]

4 minutes ago, NJS said:

the FBPE and PV lot have been the same - we'll just undo the vote and everything will be okay - they have no interest in discussing addressing some of the reasons leave voters voted as they did.

 

This is completely wrong from what I’ve seen.

[Renton 17822]

11 hours ago, NJS said:

Portugal has gone quite to the left and is doing well. Spain is centrist but in coalition with socialists who have forced some decent stuff getting results.

 

In France, Macron is massively unpopular as his help the rich agenda is exposed, Merkel has packed in after the CDU were decimated in state elections so I don't think its a stretch to say centrists are running out of time.

 

Soubry said something interesting yesterday - I think she's full of shit but she said May hadn't reached out to the 48% at all which is true but on the other hand the FBPE and PV lot have been the same - we'll just undo the vote and everything will be okay - they have no interest in discussing addressing some of the reasons leave voters voted as they did. I do think ignorance, lies and  racism affected the leave vote but you don't address those things by just telling people they are thick. If people in the north voted leave because they feel their lives are shit and nobody cared then maybe we should look at how 40 years of centrist/right wing governments have led to that instead of just sneering at them.

 

 

 

Trouble is, leavers voted for a multitude of reasons, many of them based on lies. How do you address a reason that was based on lies? Surely first you have to show it was a lie, but many leavers, like CT, are impervious to this. There's also not a member in this board, other than CT perhaps, who doesn't want an end to austerity and fairer redistribution of wealth. Where we disagree is how we get there. You believe Corbyn can deliver. I don't. I'm convinced a party led by a moderate could succeed. 

 

All hypothetical of course and it'll be interesting to see where this car crash is going this week. 

[PaddockLad 14623]

37 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

 

All hypothetical of course and it'll be interesting to see where this car crash is going this week. 

 

Does what happens next week depend on the severity of the defeat for Mays deal on a Tuesday?... Less than 30 and apparently there may be a bit if wriggle room to go back to Brussels to try to renegotiate the backstop. If it’s calamitous she’s gone and then it will depend on who comes in. I think at this point, if UK democracy is to have any credibility in the future,it has to be someone very keen indeed on leaving.  That may indeed mean, for the sake of the Torys keeping power at all costs and despite his unpopularity at Westminster, that utter cunt Johnson. If they fudge it though with a compromise like Javid then there will be a second referendum.At which point democracy becomes very poorly indeed, despite our belief that Brexit is fuckin madness. That’s not taking into account what MPs will do on the back of Dominic Greive’s amendment. I do think it’s best if we avoid another referendum.  But now the ERG goons are back under their stones Gina Millers PV fusiliers can see their chance and like the ERG they won’t give up without a fight...

 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2018 by PaddockLad

[PaddockLad 14623]

Robert Peston this morning..

 

You may have thought the vote in Parliament on Tuesday night was an important moment and deadline for how and whether the UK leaves the European Union.

I did. But I was wrong.

Because tomorrow the prime minister may decide to pull the vote (which she can do pretty easily, I am told by a minister, because of the way the motion for the vote is worded).

She will do that, her colleagues inform me, if she is facing defeat by the kind of colossal margin that would completely undermine confidence in her ability to govern - so more than 100 votes. 

And right now, the margin of her personal humiliation looks considerably greater than that.

So what would it mean to pull the vote?

Well there is zero chance of her securing the kind of concessions from EU leaders this week at the regular EU council meeting that could turn that scale of Commons defeat into victory.

Sources in European capitals say the most EU government heads could offer would be some non-binding warm words about how they, like the prime minister, hope that the so-called backstop - so hated by Northern Ireland's DUP and Tory Brexiters - will never be implemented or will be of short duration.

Such friendly and supportive words will not turn the DUP and Tory Brexiters from enemies of the Brexit plan to its supporters. All they care about is the legal text of the Withdrawal Agreement. And absent that being opened up and changed - which it won't be this week - they will continue to stand in implacable oppositions to her Brexit plan.

So what can and will she do?

Well - and please move away from the ledge (NOW!) - she could try to re-open negotiations with the EU in a more fundamental way over Christmas and in January.

Because the hard deadline for her is in fact 21 January - which is when (under yet another successful Dominic Grieve initiative, enshrined in the EU Withdrawal Act), if there is no agreed deal, she is obliged to present a plan to parliament about what on earth she does next.

Now it is possible that her own Tory Brexiter MPs will not tolerate her shelving the vote. They want her plan dead and dead now. So they may - finally - see any further prevarication as all the cause they need to try and oust her.

That is the big risk for her, personally.

If she is to keep them on side, she may have to claim that she has been converted to their cause (yes I know that seems implausible).

One idea - put to me by a Whitehall rather than political source -  is that she could tell the EU that unless the EU abandons the backstop, the UK would simply leave the EU on 29 March without a transition and via what is known as a hard Brexit, BUT that the UK would refrain from imposing any checks at its borders, either in the island of Ireland or at any of Great Britain's ports.

This would call the EU's bluff: it would mean that if Brexit were to be chaotic and economically disastrous, and if the border in Ireland were to harden in a way that promoted crime and terrorism, that would be at the EU's discretion, not the UK's (it's not a million miles from the tough negotiating stance currently being used by the Swiss, in their attempt to ward off the EU trying to give a greater role to the European Court of Justice in adjudicating single-market disputes - but the Swiss have less to lose than the UK). 

This would he the ultimate in hardball negotiating, by May (so yes, implausible again).

It would keep onside most of the Tory Brexiters. But it would probably alienate a majority in parliament, because of the risk that it could all go horribly, appallingly wrong (it could lead to a disastrous Brexit, and could also damage diplomatic relations between the UK and EU for years to come).

The point, which you surely know by now, is that there is no Brexit available that doesn't alienate at least one constituency deemed important by the prime minister. 

She attempted a Brexit whose explicit aim was to reconcile irreconcilable groups (Brexiters and DUP on the one hand, Remainers on the other; the EU 27 and Brexit voters). That failed. Her negotiated plan is in the dustbin of history. 

To Brexit is to choose. May can duck her choice no longer (or at least not for very much longer!).

[ewerk 26441]

11 minutes ago, PaddockLad said:

I do think it’s best if we avoid another referendum.

Why?

Also that cunt Johnson was on Marr this morning giving off about the backstop. A backstop that can be unilaterally ended is not a backstop, he knows that but continues to peddle lies to the public to boost his chances of being PM.

This could be easily sorted imo by reshaping the backstop so it applies to NI only.

[Rayvin 4964]

1 hour ago, Renton said:

 

Trouble is, leavers voted for a multitude of reasons, many of them based on lies. How do you address a reason that was based on lies? Surely first you have to show it was a lie, but many leavers, like CT, are impervious to this. There's also not a member in this board, other than CT perhaps, who doesn't want an end to austerity and fairer redistribution of wealth. Where we disagree is how we get there. You believe Corbyn can deliver. I don't. I'm convinced a party led by a moderate could succeed. 

 

All hypothetical of course and it'll be interesting to see where this car crash is going this week. 

 

What evidence is there that a moderate could succeed in those things given that moderates are actually responsible for their implementation?

 

You let the centre off way too much with this shitstorm. The right told the lies that got us here, the left was invisible, but the centre enacted the motherfucking policies. Fucking own it. You guys are not the answer until you do what NJS is saying and actually start listening to people.

 

The centre needs to move left and embrace a left wing economic vision over and above neoliberalism. Until it does this, and i see no evidence so far that it has, it will continue to ignore the needs of the people who voted leave almost by default.

 

[Renton 17822]

26 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

 

What evidence is there that a moderate could succeed in those things given that moderates are actually responsible for their implementation?

 

You let the centre off way too much with this shitstorm. The right told the lies that got us here, the left was invisible, but the centre enacted the motherfucking policies. Fucking own it. You guys are not the answer until you do what NJS is saying and actually start listening to people.

 

The centre needs to move left and embrace a left wing economic vision over and above neoliberalism. Until it does this, and i see no evidence so far that it has, it will continue to ignore the needs of the people who voted leave almost by default.

 

I see no evidence there is an electoral appetite for corbynism. I've got current empirical evidence of this, you've no evidence that a left centrist leader couldn't prevail. Yeah, Ed Miliband wasn't elected because he couldn't eat a bacon butty. He was the wrong choice too. 

 

Anyway, the Marr show was like a unicorn farm today, ridiculous from all sides of the 'debate'. We're fucked lads. 

[Rayvin 4964]

48 minutes ago, Renton said:

I see no evidence there is an electoral appetite for corbynism. I've got current empirical evidence of this, you've no evidence that a left centrist leader couldn't prevail. Yeah, Ed Miliband wasn't elected because he couldn't eat a bacon butty. He was the wrong choice too. 

 

Anyway, the Marr show was like a unicorn farm today, ridiculous from all sides of the 'debate'. We're fucked lads. 

 

A moderate could certainly get elected. But they wouldn't actually fix anything.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Only centrists can ever run the country well. It’s about making sensible realistic policy decisions using a very limited pot of money and an ever increasing set of demands.

 

To far right and it’s dog eat dog, too far left and it’s unicorn world.

 

The vast majority of MP’s on all sides understand this to be true.

[Rayvin 4964]

7 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

Only centrists can ever run the country well. It’s about making sensible realistic policy decisions using a very limited pot of money and an ever increasing set of demands.

 

To far right and it’s dog eat dog, too far left and it’s unicorn world.

 

The vast majority of MP’s on all sides understand this to be true.

 

[Rayvin 4964]

I will never understand how people from all sides of the discussion, after fucking eons of centrist rule, and the resultant chaos, can look at the situation and go 'you know what'll fix this? the same shit that we've been doing for the past 30 years'.

 

It's absolute, unmitigated bollocks. And it comes from being in the position of having a relatively comfortable life.

[ewerk 26441]

Okay, what did Corbyn promise in the last manifesto that would have made a real change to people's lives in this country?

Edit: That wouldn't be provided by a centrist Labour government.

Edited December 9, 2018 by ewerk

[Renton 17822]

24 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

I will never understand how people from all sides of the discussion, after fucking eons of centrist rule, and the resultant chaos, can look at the situation and go 'you know what'll fix this? the same shit that we've been doing for the past 30 years'.

 

It's absolute, unmitigated bollocks. And it comes from being in the position of having a relatively comfortable life.

Things went to shit after the tories got in. What are your gripes before then? 

 

[Rayvin 4964]

17 minutes ago, ewerk said:

Okay, what did Corbyn promise in the last manifesto that would have made a real change to people's lives in this country?

Edit: That wouldn't be provided by a centrist Labour government.

 

He was going to in effect, end austerity.

[ewerk 26441]

And a centrist Labour government wouldn't be promising that right now?

[Rayvin 4964]

They certainly weren't promising it pre-Corbyn.

[ewerk 26441]

And I think we can all agree that Corbyn and Brexit have shifted things.