desensitized43

Exactly this. The same people who are espousing the "no deal" are the same people who 2 years ago were saying "no one is saying we'll leave the single market and customs union" / "we can be like norway or switzerland or canada". The whole thing is an extremely dishonest mission-creep from the extreme camp to try and get us out without any deal at all.

Pretty much. There's very little appetite with no deal in parliament (or in the country as a whole imo). I think May knows that it's disastrous as well. She's a lot of things but she won't willingly destroy the country. The deal is going to fail so I can only see 2 options. Either our glorious leaders show a little backbone and make a tough decision themselves (I know, right? Who'd have thought it?) or it goes back to the people.

I was agreeing with this 100% until this point. I know from a number of my friends and family that would categorise themselves as "old socialists" or "old labour" that there are definitely pro-brexit labour voters who support Corbyn completely. Just as an example, my uncle is unbelievably pro-Corbyn and pro-Brexit. Like you point out, he says it's a disgusting capitalist club and essentially a Thatcherite project. He wants to nationalise vast swathes of the UK infrastructure including power, transport, manufacturing...basically pretty much everything. He doesn't see a way we can do that under EU rules. When I've debated his stance with him in the past I've pointed out that capitalism isn't going anywhere and neither is the EU. We can leave their capitalist club and fall back to WTO rules which is only another, albeit more brutal capitalist club. Unfortunately, those on the far right of the Tory party and the far left of Labour are both living in a fantasy palace of their own construction, unwilling to compromise one iota.

Both are worse than our current arrangement. That is also unarguable. Let's hope we can get someone with some sense and enough backbone to do the right thing.

Haven't you heard. This is the best deal available therefore it doesn't need to be negotiated as it's impossible to get better than 'best', surely?

The whole thing is disastrous to the point of being pretty hilarious with a hint of terrifying, isn't it? It's hard to see how this can go on much longer as the government have zero credibility now. You can't spend days telling people that it's the only deal and it can't be changed only to go back and try to change it. You can't spend days telling people the vote will go ahead only to pull it. Then you have the whole election fiasco. I know its supposed to be a woman's perogative to change her mind but this is taking the piss now.

Commons statement from maybot at 3:30 today. Looks like they're pulling it and running back to Brussels for more talks... Entirely predictable this. Hope the EU stand their ground and give her nothing. Time's running out and it's about time May ran out of road.

One more reason to get maybot gone. If you ever needed another...

Just a quick skim through the "leaked" full text a few pages back that looks fairly convincing it has be said...found this lovely little gem... Basically, during the implementation period we won't be able to sign new trade deals with other countries and by the looks of this the ones we have currently, signed by the EU, won't have any "legal force" as far as we're concerned...Dangerous stuff. We'll be entirely reliant on the kindness of strangers to allow us to piggyback on the EU's deals but won't be legally bound to do so.

I agree that no deal is utterly moronic and we shouldn't even be discussing it but I don't see a way that another referendum with remain on the ballot can be politically justified without No deal being on there as well. It's desperate times and to get a "remain" I'll happily risk no deal at this point. We're drinking in last chance saloon.

It wouldn't win. I don't accept that 17.4 million voted for no deal last time and would again.

Putting it on the ballot denies the "liars and bullshitters" the cover they had with the question last time so it has to be on there. Otherwise, we'll have Farage et al saying if people they vote out they don't have to leave the common market, the EEA or can "do a norway" etc only to turn round after the fact to claim no deal is the "will of the people"

Now that's a referendum worth having! We should never have been given the choice to start with. Decisions like this where you have to look at the economics, the political implications with our neighbours and dependent territories, the complexity of disentangling decades of legislation, are why we pay people to make these decisions for us. They're paid to sit there and read 500+ page documents and more about such things. The everyman on the street was never going to be clever enough to weigh the pros and cons of this, which left us vulnerable to the hate-mongers like Farage and JRM. It was always going to come down to "how many brown faces I see in Tesco" wasn't it!? That being said, the result can't be ignored as it's done now but democracy doesn't begin and end in June 2016 and now everyone is a little clearer on what the options are it's time we did this again. If we can stack the deck in favour of a 'remain' by splitting the raving racists vote share then so be it. Those people shouldn't be allowed to breathe the same air as the rest of us so why should their vote count the same. I've spent the last 2 and a half years being thoroughly ashamed of this country.

If true this government has well and truly stitched up the next one and the people or NI and Gibraltar. I wonder what the Spanish price would be if they had a veto over the economic future of the country... When the process for this began I used to think that May's "No deal is better than a bad deal" line was complete hogwash and that No deal was the worst possible outcome...but we're all being sold down the river here.

Scientific research by NASA is never money wasted but the payback is often slow and sometimes difficult to quantify. Smoke detectors, Solar panels, LEDs, Velcro, Medical monitoring technology, Water purification systems. memory foam. All either invented or advanced significantly as a result of dollars spent by NASA.

Went a couple of years ago for Christmas. Fantastic city. Make sure to visit Hoffbrauhaus and Augustiner beer halls. If you have the time it's well worth making the trip out to Dachau concentration camp as well. Very eerie in the cold winter.

OP agrees this was the gist of the post . She's seemingly an expert at putting her fingers in her ears and repeating the same lines over and over.

I think we're seeing a rerun of "election maybot" where someone somewhere has come up with a soundbite and no matter how many people cringe, how many people snigger, or decide to make it into a sad bingo/drinking game she'll continue to shout "strong and stable" / "it's this deal or no deal" as often as possible. How, in a country of nearly 70 million, is this the best we can do?

When all other arguments fail you can always weaponise hate and fear of the other...

Exactly! I don't at all object to foreign aid for the less fortunate. It does slightly aggravate me that it gets used to grease the wheels of industry but that's the world and it won't change because we're in the EU or out. We will still need to pay it to make things happen.

Bloody money to tanned foreigners less fortunate than us! Take it all back.

Comments like this really annoy me. They're not anyone's "pals"...there are no "pals" here. When you say things like that it implies that people are by implication more loyal to the EU than they are to this country. It's not and has never been a binary "you either want us out or you're a traitor" argument. You can both want what's best for the country and want us to be in the EU. You're also making wild assumptions that the EU would both be able to stop/punish us if we decide to stay (that court case is ongoing, results tba) or would make demands of us to stay. I heard a quotte from the leader of one of the main parties in the EU parliament the other day where they suggested we'd be "charged the cost of the negotiations as we'd caused the problem". Sounds pretty reasonable to me. I've heard no mention from anyone on "their" side in authority that we would be made to accept demands giving the EU more powers. Please try to speculate based on facts rather than wild opinion.

I did for fear of rocking the boat too much. Atmosphere from management isn't great right now and I didn't feel it was wise to pick a fight over it.

They may never enforce it although they probably will as they need another person to certify now and I only went a month ago. I just wanted to see if anyone knew exactly how enforceable it was given the document is dated after I went on the course. I wasn't aware of the costs and terms etc before. If/When it comes up I'll probably see if I can talk them down on that basis to a lower figure and if not just pay it.

I haven't checked my generic contract. I know it's a fairly standard practice and I've signed similar agreements in the past with previous employers. I'd thought as the whole thing was about achieving the desired discounts with suppliers that they were making their money back that way. I did sign the form and didn't express my thoughts at the time as I didn't want to be seen as a "dissenter" as others had been labelled when they'd refused to go along with the management.