So, it's another referendum. UPDATE

[victor]

Revoking article 50 would only suit Remainers

[Workingman]

You and millions of others, Jen, just as there are millions against a no-deal Brexit.

Please note that I am not talking about revoking it as a knee-jerk reaction to the current situation, but as a last resort pause if no agreement can be made at the end of any extension, no matter how long that might be.

If you have followed the many discussions, as I am sure you have, you will have noted that I have always said that revoking A50 is not the end game. Brexit is off and running and will not go away. If it has to be paused to allow all sides to get their houses in order that surely must be better than the current offerings that do not have a majority anywhere simply because an arbitrary date has been put on the calendar?

[Suff]

You then go on with your tying the hands of parliament proposal. and I do agree with most of that. Where we obviously differ is with revoking A50. If, after such a length of time, we look no nearer to a solution I am minded to think that unilaterally revoking A50 could be accepted by most of the public.

Possibly, but, then, they have been scared into it. It won't be "acceptable" to Leavers but they may feel that it is the only option because they have been told that leaving with No Deal will cause havoc, crash the economy and make us all paupers.

I note, today, that the ECB have had to increase stimulus to the banks because..... The German and Italian economies are struggling...

Yep, it's all rosy in EU land.

It will be what it will be. I've been travelling for a week and not really contributing. Crunch time is coming and the EU is, as expected, playing the English trick. If you don't get what you want just shout louder and more slowly...

Clearly the EU thinks that if they just keep on being intransigent about their deal, we'll unilaterally revoke A50 and all will be well again because nobody will ever invoke it again.

We may not understand them. However they very clearly do not understand us.

[medsec222]

I think they understand us very well Suff. Having tied Theresa May's hands by insisting no deal is taken off the table and committing to paying the EU £39 billion pounds, what has she got left to negotiate with. Perhaps the UK would never leave without a deal, who knows, but the agitators in Parliament should have left that option where it was - if it were still on the table the EU negotiators would not be sure that it would not be used.

[Workingman]

EU intransigence, what intransigence?

In the early days the EU offered a Norway style deal. The UK rejected it. May then went over the head of Davis and came up with the Chequers plan - her plan. It contained the backstop at the behest of May and both sides signed up to it. What is even more shocking is that she signed up to it before asking parliament.

In the eyes of everyone, Remainers and Leavers, it was a rubbish deal so that when eventually, and belatedly, it was put before parliament it was rejected in an historic defeat. However, instead of doing the sensible thing and dropping it May ploughed on, and on, and on. What we now have is May tweaking her deal, not the EU's, but the tweaks are not the substantial changes to make it a new deal. Without it even approaching a new deal the EU is sticking with the one it and May signed - May's Chequers plan..

So, who is being intransigent?

[Suff]

In the early days the EU offered a Norway style deal. The UK rejected it. May then went over the head of Davis and came up with the Chequers plan - her plan. It contained the backstop at the behest of May and both sides signed up to it. What is even more shocking is that she signed up to it before asking parliament.

NO the Chequers plan did NOT include the backstop.

When presenting the plan, May addressed the Irish border question, stating that there would be "[n]o hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and no border in the UK".[8] A "facilitated customs agreement" would remove the need for customs checks by treating the UK and EU "as if a combined customs territory". The UK would apply EU's tariffs and trade policy on goods intended for the bloc but would control its own tariffs and trade for the domestic market.[7]

The UK plan was to have an open border with the UK applying EU rules for EU trade and then allowing internal domestic trade to run under different rules.

The EU Absolutely Refused to entertain it and the EU came up with the Backstop and browbeat May into accepting it as they would not agree ANY deal without it.

Of course the EU offered Norway. The EU has been consistent form day 1. The UK may leave the EU but it may not leave the EEA and they will not accept anything else.

Yes May signed the deal without asking parliament. Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty without asking the people even though we had been offered a referendum on the constitution. In my mind I know which one is the worse betrayal of the British people.

You can view this any way you want but please don't alter history. The UK PM took over the negotiations because Davis was not offering the EU anything and the EU kept insisting that the UK offer them something. Had May left Davis to it, we'd have a deal we could sign today and it would all be in progress. Instead she tried to negotiate with the leaders of the EU member states to "curb" the EU. What happened was entirely predictable and Davis knew it would happen. She handed the upper hand to the EU, the EU ignored the leaders of the EU member states and continued doing what it does. Nobody could stop them because they have all devolved the power to stop them to the institutions of the EU, the country which is not a country.

So we are where we are.

The best result now? Leave, No Deal, let the EU panic and run around like the idiots they are until they fix the mess they created then we can all carry on.

Notably most of our MP's have not got the balls to do that. Which is the whole problem in the first place...

[Workingman]

I was not attempting to rewrite history, I simply made a factual error. The fact remains, though, that the deal with the backstop was signed and sealed but not delivered. That is why we are where we are.

[Suff]

I was not attempting to rewrite history, I simply made a factual error. The fact remains, though, that the deal with the backstop was signed and sealed but not delivered. That is why we are where we are.

I don't disagree that May should Never have signed a deal with the EU without the approval of parliament.

However I get heartily sick of having to hear, from the remain camp, that May actually set out to create the conditions of her tortured and twisted "deal". She did not. Because this is not her deal, it is the deal the EU handed to her and said "sign below". This was not negotiated, there was no time to negotiate 600 pages of terms. This was drafted up, before hand, by the EU and then imposed.

That is the problem and that is what needs to be avoided. The EU needs to learn that this is not how you deal with other countries. Sadly our MP's are such lily livered chickens that they'll never teach that lesson.

[Workingman]

FCOL of course it was negotiated. There was a Bill laid out in November 2017 to enshrine the future Withdrawal Agreement in UK law, and the details of the WA were agreed and finalised in November 2018. The 600 pages didn't suddenly magic themselves up out of thin air on the 13th of November.

It is another Leave myth / lie that the UK did not enter into negotiations and that it was pressured, one hand up its back and its testicles in a nutcracker, to sign the damned thing. Having said that it is probably true to say that the UK negotiators (D Davis and Oily Robbins and May) were and remain pretty crap at the job.