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It’s starting to end in tears.
The defeat of the government tonight was stunning. No government has had such a huge majority against it.
Clarity now at last begins to emerge.
Unless the EU makes major concessions, which they won’t, then the clock is still ticking to Brexit Day and we’ll be leaving without a deal.
Except…
the House of Commons will not let such an unprecedented catastrophe happen.
Scep…we didnt vote for a deal..we voted to LEAVE. Nothing on the voting paper about deals.. If push comes to shove..WTO.
Jane,
Thank you. It was quite refreshing to see someone make a reasonable point in a polite manner, without prefacing it with horrible insults.
You’re absolutely right.
And if we don’t leave, then it would be seen as a betrayal of democracy, as brexiteers such as yourself argue. I don’t agree with you about Remain, as is obvious, but I think you have a very valid point about democracy.
That’s the irresistible force.
The problem is that Parliament is aware that no deal is not simply about going onto WTO rules. The no-dealers are right that Britain could eventually adjust to this, but it would be painful, with carmaking ruined by the 10% tariffs that an EU faced with no deal would impose on British exports.
It goes well beyond WTO, though. Leaving with no deal doesn’t just mean no trade deal. It means the end of a whole web of legal arrangements with the EU. We’ be left without rules to govern the trade in radioactive materials, international electricity markets, financial-contract clearing, aviation, medicines regulation, immigration control etc etc.
Reneging on £39bn in obligations to the EU would destroy our international credibility. Reaching no deal on the Irish border would severely test the Good Friday Agreement, with the dangers of a return to armed conflict. And the violent dislocation of nearly every legal arrangement between Britain and Europe would affect daily life like nothing outside wartime.
Before Brexit Day, we could well see the effects, a panic buying of food and meds could well take place. I gather that the government has not been telling the truth about the availability of meds, and I know that hoarding of food is beginning. The poorest among us would be hurt most by all this.
So that’s the immovable wall, if you like.
Parliament had better find a way out of this, and soon, because when I say that the clock is ticking to Brexit Day, I mean that in a month or so there could be real fear in this country.
So some other way is now needed. The referendum said leave, but leaving without a deal would be genuinely catastrophic imho.They all know that. They’d better act on it and soon!
What some Brexiteers describe as a “clean break” from Europe would in fact be horrifically messy.
Again, many thanks for your reasonable disagreement.
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And as I said thousand times before. May take time. You will get your deal..this is politics at it’s best..make people worry. Worry starts hoarding, and fear. Stress hurts people. Running away never solves a problem. It is fear that helps political wars…
You’re welcome Scep. I like reasonable debate,no need to resort to insults to get your point across.
Did you realise that IF we leave without a deal,we owe the EU nothing? not a penny. The below quote was Jacob Rees Mogg talking on LBC radio.
Question: do you think,that if a brexiteer had been in charge,this would have been sorted a lot sooner? Or do you think it has turned into this chaotic shambles,because the Prime Minister is a remainer?
One thing is clear however…this whole thing has become a mess. God knows what the rest of the world must think of us.
Incidentally,I haven’t stockpiled food,medicine etc. Isn’t that a wee bit extreme?
As someone I used to work with would say….what a mucking fuddle. 😉
Jane,
I don’t think May is a Remainer. She was very quiet during the referendum campaign, and has always been most enthusiastic about cutting immigration – the Windrush scandal is down to her tenure, not Amber Rudd’s.
She has been passionate about pushing Brexit through, and seems to see it as her only chance of going down in the history books as having any credibility at all. I see no sign that she was dishonest in her negotiations, or that any different approach would have gained more. It’s a what-if, though, and like so many what-ifs in history (what if Britain hadn’t declared war on Germany in 1939 etc etc), speculation is idle.
What if she had pushed for a Norway-plus solution, or a permanent customs union, or a Canada-plus solution is idle. The EU have always been in a much stronger situation than we are, and a hardline approach would almost certainly have ended in disaster because there is no majority in Parliament for it.
She’s not been dishonest. From her days in the Home office through the Brexit negotiations, she’s suffered from the problem of being over-rigid, uncommunicative, and dependent on too narrow a circle (first, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, then Olly Robbins), refusing to listen to anyone else. There is the possibility that this deal may still be accepted in the end – she doesn’t show much sign of changing tack. But I’m not sure a better deal could have been reached if she had been more open and more ‘political’ in her approach.
I’m interested in Rees-Mogg’s statement that we can cancel the £39bn debt legally. My understanding is that it’s quite complicated, but his interpretation of the legal advice given him may be worth me looking up. I know that the economic advice given to him about how no deal would be no problem is very controversial (using a polite term), to say the least.
on hoarding – I haven’t hoarded either, but there are people who are doing. There are websites on it, and Diana Coyle, the Professor of Public Policy at Cambridge, has admitted that she’s one of a growing number starting to do so. I totally disagree with this, but I think it’s only the beginning of a problem which could get much worse if we approached Brexit Day with no deal in sight.
I was going to write about hoarding in more detail, but if you don’t mind I’m going to wait a few days because we may be about to see that no deal is ruled out as an option. That idea (ruling out no deal)led to a near-explosion in the Cabinet on Tuesday afternoon, by all accounts, and according to Norman Smith of the BBC (I personally find him the best of the BBC commentators), the men in grey suits have been seeing May with a demand that the option is taken off the table. She’s resisting this vehemently, insisting that no deal has to be a weapon in the armoury of her strategy. The hardline brexiteers would blow up if the option were ruled out, but Parliament may well force her to rule it out next week, after she presents her alternative proposal.
If it’s not ruled out in the next week or so, then I’ll post about hoarding and why it’s likely to happen. Otherwise, we end up in a speculative discussion of what might have been.
Glad we’re keeping this tone. Helps keep the discussion clear.
Jane,
as a matter of interest, why would you think that with a Boris Johnson or a Rees Mogg in charge of negotiations – presumably taking a highly confrontational approach – we would be in any better situation.
Of course you could say that we hadn’t even tried.
But if we had, then we could well be saying now why didn’t we try a more conciliatory approach. The EU had all the cards on their side, and their trading teams are the toughest in the world. All they had to do, mind you, was sit back and watch as the UK fought itself for two years and more. If the hardliners had been in charge, do you think the UK’s internal fighting wouldn’t have happened?
We could have been heading for national disaster without any brakes on. At least there’s a chance now of stopping the worst happening.
Sorry skep about asking you about stockpiling soup on the wrong thread firstly.
But this does intrest me about the people you no hoarding food.
Not many foods have a shelf life just intrested what they are stockpiling.
Teresa may is driving in the countryside in a chauffeur driven car.
Suddenly a cow runs out in the road and they hit it full on.
Teresa in her normal charming manner, says to the chauffeur,
You get out and check you were driving.
Yep the cows dead said the chauffeur, you were driving you go tell the farmer says may.
6 hours later he returns totally drunk, hair ruffled, red faced, sporting a huge grin.
Good lord said Teresa what on earth has happened to you?
Well says the chauffeur when I got there the farmer opened his best bottle of malt whiskey, wife made me a slap up meal, then the daughter made love to me!
What on earth do you say asks Teresa?
Well I knocked on the farmers door he said and I said hello im Teresa mays driver and I just killed the cow.
Well it does seem all will survive for now!
I do really hate that term. “Told you so…”
In a view from this side and a bit of knowledge of politicians..exactly said this before on other political threads. last minute..votes be flipped..the good would come out in long run and takes out the possible or may possible.. which would be result in the bad consequences resulting in less benefits more so in the end. I think when things really heat up..people consider options..down deep their conscious really look the whole package over..not nit pick it if you will. The good may not be all you desire..but a platform for time needed to restructure..focus..find other means in making it beneficial for all in some form equally sharing a slight win…. again I hope make sense. You still have a way to go..but it a start to try to refresh…
I said to some one few weeks back..when bigger government has this type of havoc..you note the market..values…
I saw this morning news, wall street..Seems value of money your way slightly improved..it was slowly spiraling down. I was watching it close for awhile.
They are all fueled together..
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