So we have Ireland threatening to veto the Brexit deal

[Suff]

At the same time Spain has got on its high horse and threatened to veto it if they don't keep their veto over Gib. Add in in Italy and their budge and the EU has about 1 snowball's chance in hell of actually getting the deal ratified. No matter how May bludgeons the UK government.

Then we have Corbyn, who's going to introduce HUGE stimulus by spending SHEDLOADS of money. Pity it won't stimulate much other than EU economies because all that public spending will have to be bid on under EU rules until we actually leave. Every time that happens large chunks of the money goes to EU economies.

Then, of course, it is against EU rules to "stimulate" your economy too much with public money. Only the EU is allowed to do that and they only do it for a decade. Witness the trouble for Ireland trying to keep the business post EU subsidies!

Talk about Unicorns and fairies, Corbyn is well beyond lala land.

We have a ringside seat to the greatest farce of our lives. Best enjoy it.

[Workingman]

A catastrophe wrapped up in a disaster and we are supposed to enjoy it?

[medsec222]

The catastrophe will be if the remoaners like Vince Cable et all, scupper Brexit for good and we will stay put, ensconced permanently in the bosom of the EU.

Nightmare

[Workingman]

Yeah, I know.

All those Spanish, Italian and Irish remainers working hand in glove with ~Mogg's ERG (European 'Remain' Group) to halt May's version of Brexit every single one of you leavers voted for.

We need a damned good whipping, a whipping I say, for spoiling all your fun. Best enjoy it.

[AliasAggers]

All those Spanish, Italian and Irish remainers working hand in glove with ~Mogg's ERG (European 'Remain' Group)
to halt May's version of Brexit every single one of you leavers voted for.

I didn't vote for May's version of Brexit, or any other version for that matter. I just wanted OUT.

[Suff]

I didn't vote for May's version of Brexit, or any other version for that matter. I just wanted OUT.

This is the whole problem. Leaving the EU has been wrapped into a sound byte and then warped into some nightmarish version of alternate reality, then presented as something people voted for.

We will be OUT of the EU. Whether or not we choose to bind ourselves back to the EU, for a trade deal, or not, is another matter. The fact that people like Blair are trying to use the lack of a deal to stop the UK leaving the EU is all anyone needs to know about what is good for the UK and what is good for Blair.

For now, that is the largest part of what everyone who voted to Leave needs to know. Yes, in reality, we need some more clarity on what things will need to be fixed and aligned post Brexit and if we don't get that clarity then the 6 months following our Exit from the EU are going to be fairly bumpy.

The big problem, as I see it, is that those who are delivering the "deal" don't really want to leave the EU, so they are using the lack of a deal to scare everyone (including the EU), into seeing things their way.

So I'm relying on the intransigents in the EU to screw it up and push us beyond 29 March 2019. Then it will be come very evident VERY quickly that in terms of goods there are about 10 times as much goods coming into the UK from the EU as are leaving the UK bound for the EU. Think Kent is going to be bad, Nord Pad De Calais is going to grind to a halt if we don't have a deal. At which point Macron is going to have his head served on a platter for making things worse, not better.

Perhaps it is better to remember that the UK economy is very heavily SERVICE orientated on our exports. Whereas the EU exports to the UK are massively PRODUCT based.

Contrary to the rhetoric going on today, services are agile, easy to move to other markets and don't require millions of trucks every year. Products are NOT.

I'm more than a little tired of the posturing. Who read the statement from Arlene Foster, yesterday, quoting the Irish Government and the EU that regardless of a deal, or no deal, the NI border would not be closed. It got air in the Belfast Telegraph, I didn't see it anywhere else.


The phrase "being sold a pup" comes to mind more and more these days and it is not Leave who are doing the selling.

Give it a decade or two, keep the politicians on their toes and the UK will be free and clear of the EU. I never expected to live it, much, but I do expect my children and grandchildren will.

[Suff]

Well it would appear that at least someone online agrees with me.

Even more interesting, in the linked article inside, is that following on whether we could unilaterally stop A50.

The problem for anyone wanting to avert No Deal is twofold: the first is that it isn’t clear whether the United Kingdom can revoke Article 50 unilaterally or only after negotiation with the rest of the European Union, though an important court case at the European Court of Justice will confirm that one way or the other. But equally importantly, it is the British executive that controls the legislative timetable and that makes it very difficult to see how Article 50 can be revoked unless whoever’s in Downing Street wants to do so. The current occupant, Theresa May, does not want to do that. Any replacement from within the Conservative Party is highly unlikely to be able to do that, even if they want to (and the dynamics of the Tory leadership election make it hard to see how any winning candidate won’t have had to pledge not to).

As I said. We are leaving, deal or no deal and that is the end of it. If people didn't understand that it is not my problem. If the press thought they could constantly undermine ANYONE trying to create a deal with the EU, destroy the UK negotiation position EVERY time and then expect that the parliament will reject the deal and, what? That we'll just not leave the EU? Then the press is raving in the dark.

Expect more common sense analysis to come out in the following months about what our choices are. Expect that to become more "we're leaving" and less "we migh not leave" followed by just how much chance there is of a deal when we do leave.

[Workingman]

What a disjointed load of twaddle!

... It is certainly true that there is no majority for no deal in the 2017 parliament. But the problem is there was a majority for no deal in the 2015 parliament, which gave Theresa May the right to trigger Article 50 without adding any riders or stipulations to prevent a no-deal exit. The default state of the Article 50 is that, absent agreement, we leave without a deal.

So, in the 2015 GE, Cameron, the Cons drop from 78 majority (with LDs) to 12, and that equated to a majority for a no deal in a referendum that was only a promise and had not passed parliament? However, in the 'opportunistic' 2017 GE, May, the Cons drop to 0, and that gives May the right to trigger A50.

There isn't a majority in this parliament to stop Brexit. There isn't a majority for a second referendum or for an exit into the EEA, absent a big change in the political priorities of both the Tory and Labour leaderships. There isn't – any more – a majority for no deal, but there doesn't need to be. All that needs to happen for a no-deal exit to take place is for the EU and the UK to fail to reach terms.

Ah, got it! There is no majority to stop Brexit or for a second referendum, or for the EEA or for a no deal. The implication is that there is also no majority to remain. That leaves the question: What is there a majority for?

Parliament has to do something proactive to prevent a no-deal exit (and crucially it has to do something acceptable to the other side of the Brexit negotiations) and it is far from clear if there is a parliamentary majority to do anything proactive.

So what is the plan, this absent 'proactive' plan?

The problem for anyone wanting to avert No Deal is twofold: the first is that it isn’t clear whether the United Kingdom can revoke Article 50 unilaterally or only after negotiation with the rest of the European Union, though an important court case at the European Court of Justice will confirm that one way or the other. But equally importantly, it is the British executive that controls the legislative timetable and that makes it very difficult to see how Article 50 can be revoked unless whoever’s in Downing Street wants to do so. The current occupant, Theresa May, does not want to do that. Any replacement from within the Conservative Party is highly unlikely to be able to do that, even if they want to (and the dynamics of the Tory leadership election make it hard to see how any winning candidate won’t have had to pledge not to).

This part I like. It is almost word for word what I have been saying for ages. The difference is that when I, a Remainer, say it it gets blanked or nobody wants to engage with it.

[Suff]

Yeah I was a bit sceptical about the whole more mandate under Cameron for No Deal. A better mandate for a referendum, certainly, hard brexit?? who knows.

The last part though. Does everyone forget the competence on A50? ONLY and I do mean _ONLY_ the PM can invoke A50. Not the parliament, not the HOL and, possibly, not even the Queen. It is the PM and it is written into the TEU. So, regardless of the assessment of the CJEU, the PM would have to Unilaterally withdraw from it because it is a sole competence of the PM. This is something May has said she has absolutely no intention of doing.

Nor will any other Tory PM should she be ousted. So the whole "We might not be leaving thing" is just a room full of hot air.

Mind you, I want to know where this Guardian Op ED was during the referendum.

As I recall the Guardian was Remain all the way and a wonderful mouthpiece of Remain on the "disasters" to the economy and the budget.

It must be a bit of a slap in the face for all those who took the Guardian at face value??

[Workingman]

So, regardless of the assessment of the CJEU, the PM would have to Unilaterally withdraw from it because it is a sole competence of the PM. This is something May has said she has absolutely no intention of doing.

Nor will any other Tory PM should she be ousted. So the whole "We might not be leaving thing" is just a room full of hot air.

Correct in substance, but is it just a room full of hot air?

Ok another few quotes, we all like quotes:

Last week May said: “When you strip away the detail the choice before us is clear – this deal which delivers on the vote of the referendum, which brings back control of our money, laws and borders, ends free movement, protects jobs, security and our Union, or leave with no deal or no Brexit at all.”

And at PMQs she said: "It will either be more uncertainty and more division or it could risk no Brexit at all’.

These references to "no Brexit at all" are interesting. May is a Remainer at heart and despite her soundbite "No deal is better than a bad deal" there is not one molecule in her body that supports a no deal.

If her deal is accepted, or not, by the EU (no guarantees) and falls in the Commons (an almost certainty) and no deal is where the buffers are (it is) she is in big trouble. If she perceives that a 'no confidence' vote or a GE is in the offing, both of which could destroy her and the Tories, she might be tempted to go for "no Brexit at all" by whichever way looks most promising. A backstop?

Is is highly unlikely, and I would not be for it, but it is not an impossibility. Some time ago Brexit ceased to be about the country and moved, mainly, to being about the state of the Conservatives. Meanwhile the day-to-day running of the country has taken the back seat.