ml1dch

It was a mad conspiracy theory. The claim was that he couldn't possibly go to Sweden to face accusations of rape, because they would obviously just send him to the USA. The rebuttal to that claim was that an extradition request was no greater a risk in Sweden than it was in the UK. If today's events are linked to a potential extradition to the USA, you'd surely agree that he was actually under no additional risk back when Sweden wanted to talk about sex offences with him, just like many people on this thread claimed at the time?

If he's been arrested due to an extradition request to the UK from the USA, doesn't it make a bit of a mockery of earlier claims that he was only going to Sweden because they would send him to the USA?

Unless I've missed a memo, nothing that he's been arrested for is in conjunction with what he's published? If and when that changes, I'll probably join you on the barricades (depending on the charge), but until then? Due process can carry on.

Apparently we'll be asking for the next extension in October.

A question: The final legislative session of the current European parliament is April 18th. The withdrawal agreement cannot be incorporated into EU law without the agreement of the European parliament. What happens if the withdrawal agreement is passed by the UK parliament after the final sitting of this European parliament? When does that necessary vote happen?

The Spartans of course ended up subsumed into a larger empire, with the warriors reduced to whipping each other in public for the amusement of foreign tourists.

Leadsom is completely correct in what she says. fantastic /fanˈtastɪk/ adjective imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality. "fantastic hybrid creatures" synonyms:fanciful, extravagant, extraordinary, irrational, wild, mad, absurd, far-fetched, nonsensical, incredible, unbelievable, unthinkable, implausible, improbable, unlikely, doubtful, dubious

European elections are definitely a thing then.

As he stated himself- things have now changed. And Tory MPs might now vote differently, now they know things they they didn't know before.

As an aside, I watched that again a few months ago - it's very hard to see it getting past a BBC commissioning editor now. The bit about the sex with the boss's wife being part of the negotiations would probably be removed. The bit about the boss's 12 year old daughter to replace his wife "to be phased in by 1996" would probably cause the whole programme to be cancelled. And having Chris Langham starring in it gives the whole thing a pretty uncomfortable edge, with 21st Century hindsight. A quick scout of YouTube suggests that it's now been purged from history.

Well, it's nice to know that we can at least reach common ground on that. Shall we both go and sign up for our Change UK membership now?

Sidebar - would you take that, if offered as a "result of this battle"? Nothing stopping anyone who still wants it from trying again...

With apologies for the copy-and-paste... I expect that in a practical "what do the EU actually do about this in two weeks time" sense, you basically do two things: First, you go full Trump and do Article XXI of GATT (a different article to one to the one that Farage bangs on about): ...nothing in this Agreement shall be construed . . . to prevent any contracting party from taking any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests . . . taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations It's not a long-term solution, but works until someone important kicks off about it. And you're unlikely to have the US kicking off about something that Ireland wants. Diaspora etc. So you suspend your checks on the immediate border until you're actually concerned about the UK deviating from the current regulatory standards. Second, you state that any UK-sourced product used by Irish businesses needs to be able to demonstrate that full tariffs have been paid and full regulatory compliance has been met (with the burden of proof being on the Irish business), with spot checks and penalties for non-compliance. Basically prevent it being in the interest of Irish companies to source goods of any sort from the north or the rest of the UK. Pretty horrible solution for everyone involved. And that paragraph above basically shits all over the the spirit of the Belfast Agreement. But crucially not the legality of it. But then they're having to clear up someone else's dopey mess, so there's bound to be mess to be cleared up. And as long as the world knows that the blame is situated in Westminster, not Brussels or Dublin then they make do.

Even if the Government had said that things were "sorted" (they haven't, obviously), it takes a remarkably trusting soul to look at a statement from the current Government and say to oneself "well they've said this will all be fine, so why would I doubt them?"

And the first thing we'd be told to do (and then we would do) is ratify the withdrawal agreement.

If only someone capable and competent who thought it was a good idea had been in charge. There was that one guy...no, hang on. What about...actually, no. Maybe the right person was...no. I think I've found the stumbling block here.

On the cross-party talks:

Would you prefer red or brown sauce on your high-fat, emulsified offal-tube sandwich?

Chris Heaton-Harris resigns as a DExeu minister. Should really be another on the "who?" list, but he was previously famous for half an hour for being that bell-end who wrote to all the universities demanding they send him all their course literature so he could check they weren't biased. Back in the innocent times when this was all just slightly embarrassing for the country rather than a full-blown national humiliation.

Rumour from cabinet is that if / when the talks with Corbyn go nowhere, Parliament votes using Alternative Vote on May deal / Corbyn deal / revoke / no-deal. Presumably that sees one of the middle two squeaking through?

Speaking as a massive sceptic of Labour's policy on all this, they're probably the party that have been the most flexible and compromisey in all of Westminster over the last couple of weeks. They've shifted positions to find a compromise more than any other party has. Still not as much as I'd have ideally liked (Cherry motion etc), but they do seem to be* trying harder than anyone else (some individual MPs notwithstanding) to turn a catastrophe into just a crisis. *although I'm not completely discounting that "seeming" to move to a position they're never going to need to act upon could just be political manoeuvring.

All hail the new chief negotiator.

A lot of people were. Problem is if you have people who are absolutely convinced that German car manufacturers won't tolerate anything changing for the UK so it's all inevitably going to be fine, it's pretty hard to get them to see otherwise. It's the same logic as we're seeing now. Of course no deal will be fine. Companies across Europe will insist that the leaders back down and just let the UK have everything it wants. Just wait and see.

That's the only bit I'd disagree with - our exit is dependent primarily on the EU treaties ceasing to apply to the UK. We need to get domestic law in order, but the mechanism that terminates our membership is at EU level. So rather than "March 29th", "April 12th" etc - why wouldn't "from the day on which the EU treaties cease to apply" work equally as well? Case in point - the EUWA18 (as nobody is calling it) was drafted and presented to Parliament with no specific date. It was only due to an amendment from one of the Moggites that added a date if I remember rightly.