The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[snowychap]

27 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

As I referred to the other day in some areas temporary arrangements  have already been put in place ( agreed ?)  in the event of No deal ... so for example , the fabled no planes in the sky won’t happen because an extension deal kicks in until the end of 2020 ... Simialr deals apply to other areas , finance , transportation and some rights of residence ( I’m sure there are loads of others ) 

it would , on paper at least , do as you say and allow deals to be rolled over subject to final agreement...  this one is easy , let’s agree on planes and that Eurostar drivers don’t need to have a EU operating license and a U.K. liencense .. job done and one less thing  to worry about

On the transport one:

Quote

Transport

The Commission has today adopted two measures that will avoid full interruption of air traffic between the EU and the UK in the event of no deal. These measures will only ensure basic connectivity and in no means replicate the significant advantages of membership of the Single European Sky. This is subject to the UK conferring equivalent rights to EU air carriers, as well as the UK ensuring conditions of fair competition.

• A proposal for a Regulation to ensure temporarily (for 12 months) the provision of certain air services between the UK and the EU.
• A proposal for a Regulation to extend temporarily (for 9 months) the validity of certain aviation safety licences.

I thought I read that the detail says that it is just for flying over EU airspace and for point to point travel between the UK and the EU?*

I'm guessing that for 'full interruption of air traffic between the EU and the UK', one could quite easily read 'fabled no planes in the sky'.

*Edit:

Yes, the wording in their proposal (it's not agreed, I don't think as the temporary legislation has to be adopted) is:

Quote

1. UK air carriers may, under the conditions laid down in this Regulation:

(a) fly across the territory of the Union without landing;
(b) make stops in the territory of the Union for non-traffic purposes, within the meaning of the Convention;
(c) perform scheduled and non-scheduled international air transport services for passengers, combination of passengers and cargo and all-cargo services between any pair of points of which one is situated in the territory of the United Kingdom and the other one is situated in the territory of the Union;

Link to pdf found on this page under Air transport (basic connectivity) 19/12/2018 – COM(2018)893

Edited January 17, 2019 by snowychap

[Chindie]

11 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I think this is the thing that makes me think she's so rubbish as a politician. The conventional wisdom is something like 'she's a dead woman walking', 'she's in a desperately weak position' and so on, and sure it's far from ideal. But I really think if she were a bit adventurous she would have used *tonight* to do something decisive, and I did wonder if she would take the step I outlined above to announce the revocation of article 50 in the absence of a deal. It would have put pressure on her backbenchers to back her deal, if she simply intends to keep presenting it again and again to the Commons, and what were the ERG going to do, march back into the chamber and demand a new VONC? The party has had two solid opportunities to ditch her, and has lined up behind her grumbling each time. She may well have to/decide to pull the same lever anyway in a few weeks, and it would have surely been least damaging *immediately* after the vote. 

EDIT: Sorry @Chindie, I see now you were saying something similar before and I misread your post. 

She does whatever is good for her immediate future, even if it ultimately makes things worse down the line. She doesn't want to end Brexit so there's no chance of her revoking A50 unless by some miracle doing so helps her survive another day (it's too late for me to even think of gaming out the exact way that could happen, if at all). She wants the elements of Brexit her deal gets her.

She has a history of making crap decisions for short term benefits. She's not a good politician, she's currently just lucky she's found herself in a Parliament crippled by division.

[Chindie]

3 minutes ago, snowychap said:

On the transport one:

I thought I read that the detail says that it is just for flying over EU airspace and for point to point travel between the UK and the EU?

 

I'm guessing that for 'full interruption of air traffic between the EU and the UK', one could quite easily read 'fabled no planes in the sky'.

Indeed.

Rabid Brexit fans lauded the EU making these arrangements as somehow showing the No Deal catastrophe outcome as being just more Project Fear tosh (spit). When actually it's the EU doing the bare minimum to prevent complete disruption from their perspective by offering reciprocal minor concessions.

[colhint]

so does that mean flying from Paris or Berlin to the US  planes would have to change their flight path to avoid uk airspace?

[HanoiVillan]

15 minutes ago, Chindie said:

She does whatever is good for her immediate future, even if it ultimately makes things worse down the line. She doesn't want to end Brexit so there's no chance of her revoking A50 unless by some miracle doing so helps her survive another day (it's too late for me to even think of gaming out the exact way that could happen, if at all). She wants the elements of Brexit her deal gets her.

She has a history of making crap decisions for short term benefits. She's not a good politician, she's currently just lucky she's found herself in a Parliament crippled by division.

I certainly agree that she's a very short-term thinker. The flipside of the plodding stoicism for which she is so boringly lauded in the media is a complete lack of creativity or ability to catch people by surprise. Imagine being such a catastrophically one-note thinker that you get the nation's political media assembled outside No 10, on a night when you've just won the confidence of the House, and you use it to issue some bland reassurances that no-one is convinced by and make the sort of low-level pop at Corbyn that sounds like a leftover from PMQ's. 

Regarding the former paragraph, of course I agree that she doesn't want to stop Brexit or revoke Article 50, but she also doesn't want No Deal either. I'm constantly unsure where she actually is on the scale of 'not wanting No Deal' because of course if you get taken along by the rhetoric, she doesn't seem bothered at all, but then in some substantive ways she seems understandably afraid of it. However, wherever she stands, this decision is very likely coming towards her at a rapid speed at this point. Tonight would have been an opportunity to at least push *others* out of their comfort zone for once, but of course not taken. 

Edited January 17, 2019 by HanoiVillan

[snowychap]

1 minute ago, colhint said:

so does that mean flying from Paris or Berlin to the US  planes would have to change their flight path to avoid uk airspace?

The offered temporary arrangements by the EU are based on an expected equivalence of rights granted by the UK to EU air carriers.

[tonyh29]

13 minutes ago, snowychap said:

On the transport one:

I thought I read that the detail says that it is just for flying over EU airspace and for point to point travel between the UK and the EU?

 

I'm guessing that for 'full interruption of air traffic between the EU and the UK', one could quite easily read 'fabled no planes in the sky'.

I thought the “arrangement “ was saying we would basically be capped at 2018 flight levels to each EU country  ... with airlines predicting a growth for 2019 this would mean they would have to to cancel some potential new routes / schedules ... but the cap is number of flights not number of seats so nothing to say you couldn’t hypothetically run an a380 between London and Paris to make up for the lost extra flight you can’t add !!

[snowychap]

6 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I thought the “arrangement “ was saying we would basically be capped at 2018 flight levels to each EU country  ... with airlines predicting a growth for 2019 this would mean they would have to to cancel some potential new routes / schedules ... but the cap is number of flights not number of seats so nothing to say you couldn’t hypothetically run an a380 between London and Paris to make up for the lost extra flight you can’t add !!

There are lots of things in the arrangement (which can be read on the link to Air transport (basic connectivity) on this page as per my edit above) but the below is the bit about capacity:

Quote

the total seasonal capacity to be provided by UK air carriers for routes between the United Kingdom and each Member State shall not exceed the total number of frequencies operated by those carriers on those routes during respectively the IATA winter and summer seasons of the year of 2018;
 

 

Edited January 17, 2019 by snowychap

[Chindie]

3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I certainly agree that she's a very short-term thinker. The flipside of the plodding stoicism for which she is so boringly lauded in the media is a complete lack of creativity or ability to catch people by surprise. Imagine being such a catastrophically one-note thinker that you get the nation's political media assembled outside No 10, on a night when you've just won the confidence of the House, and you use it to issue some bland reassurances that no-one is convinced by and make the sort of low-level pop at Corbyn that sounds like a leftover from PMQ's. 

Regarding the former paragraph, of course I agree that she doesn't want to stop Brexit or revoke Article 50, but she also doesn't want No Deal either. I'm constantly unsure where she actually is on the scale of 'not wanting No Deal' because of course if you get taken along by the rhetoric, she doesn't seem bothered at all, but then in some substantive ways she seems understandably afraid of it. However, wherever she stands, this decision is very likely coming towards her at a rapid speed at this point. Tonight would have been an opportunity to at least push *others* out of their comfort zone for once, but of course not taken. 

On her position... She doesn't want No Deal, she's not quite stupid enough to think that's a good idea. She knows it's the only tiny bit of leverage we have though, so tiny as to be useless in all reality but it's there nonetheless, and also that it is the inescapable result if no other arrangement is made by the deadline.

I just can't see her revoking A50. She may not want No Deal but she seems more scared of losing her precious opportunity to bin off freedom of movement and get away from the ECJ, as well as terrified of the referendum result, than she is committing the country to disaster. I suspect she's confident the car crash would be in slow motion in the main if it came to it, and she/government could spin it away.

I can see an extension being requested shortly. That's as far as it'll go until she's at risk somehow.

[jackbauer24]

Why do you hear so little common sense from politicians?! Forget which side of the argument you're on and there is one absolute, irrefutable truth that is so quickly dismissed because it doesn't play in to an angle for politicians who are all just playing a game. May, Corbyn, the lot of them.

Fundamentally the referendum was flawed. That is irrefutable. Remainers wanted to stay. There was no division amongst that. So 48% of the population want to stay. If we pretend there was only two possible versions of a Brexit despite the seven plus there actually are (customs union/no customs union) it means one of those options needs to have about 95% support from the leave group to still be the country's favoured position. That so clearly isn't the case. We've just had hundreds of Brexiteers voting against a version of Brexit.

There is NOT a single version of Brexit that out numbers the percentage of those that wish to stay. However, assumptions from both sides mean we face a deadlock; those that believe that everyone who voted Leave would choose any Leave deal over a Remain (not true for everyone), and those that believe if people don't get their deal they'd rather stay overall (not true for everyone either).

So the ONLY way to solve this impasse is to get all the Leave people together, exclude the Remainers for now, and for them to come up with the actual leave they want. Once the actual Leave version is decided you ask the public - the finalised leave position (positive and negative for all leavers but agreed) or remain? But could leavers ever come up with a consensus?! A leave consensus HAS to be decided before a In/Out vote. 

Why is this so hard to understand/face up to? Why are so few politicians pushing for it? A leave vote was for a multitude of reasons and, rightly or wrongly, some of them are simply incompatible with others so no one knows what the second choice is.

It's like asking the Premier League to vote for next years Champions and asking 'Man Utd' or 'Someone else'? Obviously 'someone else' would win - but who is that team? You have to put forward your 'champion' for it to be a proper question. Something that was so ridiculously ignored (or exploited) from the original referendum.

Drives me insane this completely obvious flaw is not being properly discussed/ understood.

Edited January 17, 2019 by jackbauer24

[tonyh29]

Not checked the maths but the Internet seems to be saying May won the VONC by 52% to 48 %

 

Twitter presumably will start the campaign for a rerun of the vote tomorrow

[chrisp65]

Just now, tonyh29 said:

Not checked the maths but the Internet seems to be saying May won the VONC by 52% to 48 %

 

Twitter presumably will start the campaign for a rerun of the vote tomorrow

Now the 52% can argue for 2 years about what exactly gives them confidence in May and exactly what everyone meant by confidence.

Confidence means red white and blue confidence.

 

[tonyh29]

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Now the 52% can argue for 2 years about what exactly gives them confidence in May 

 

Confidence that she isn’t Jeremy Corbyn seems to be the answer to that one

 

[colhint]

13 minutes ago, jackbauer24 said:

Why do you hear so little common sense from politicians?! Forget which side of the argument you're on and there is one absolute, irrefutable truth that is so quickly dismissed because it doesn't play in to an angle for politicians who are all just playing a game. May, Corbyn, the lot of them.

Fundamentally the referendum was flawed. That is irrefutable. Remainers wanted to stay. There was no division amongst that. So 48% of the population want to stay. If we pretend there was only two possible versions of a Brexit despite the seven plus there actually are (customs union/no customs union) it means one of those options needs to have about 95% support from the leave group to still be the country's favoured position. That so clearly isn't the case. We've just had hundreds of Brexiteers voting against a version of Brexit.

There is NOT a single version of Brexit that out numbers the percentage of those that wish to stay. However, assumptions from both sides mean we face a deadlock; those that believe that everyone who voted Leave would choose any Leave deal over a Remain (not true for everyone), and those that believe if people don't get their deal they'd rather stay overall (not true for everyone either).

So the ONLY way to solve this impasse is to get all the Leave people together, exclude the Remainers for now, and for them to come up with the actual leave they want. Once the actual Leave version is decided you ask the public - the finalised leave position (positive and negative for all leavers but agreed) or remain? But could leavers ever come up with a consensus?! A leave consensus HAS to be decided before a In/Out vote. 

Why is this so hard to understand/face up to? Why are so few politicians pushing for it? A leave vote was for a multitude of reasons and, rightly or wrongly, some of them are simply incompatible with others so know one knows what the second choice is.

It's like asking the Premier League to vote for next years Champions and asking 'Man Utd' or 'Someone else'? Obviously 'someone else' would win - but who is that team? You have to put forward your 'champion' for it to be a proper question. Something that was so ridiculously ignored (or exploited) from the original referendum.

Drives me insane this completely obvious flaw is not being properly discussed/ understood.

Or is it a bit like divorce instead? You'll probably be worse off for a while. So why not ask the rest of the family who are probably all hoping you would stay together. I mean they might have to put up with your kids, or help out financially, or see you upset, but  whatever it will affect them. So they are all of one mind, it's bad for the rest of us if you split up. So stay together. Unfortunately a larger portion of the population thought they would be better off to get divorced. As do a large proportion of brits. Even though they know it'll cost them more than any brexit ,deal ,no deal, or stay in.

[HanoiVillan]

Sadly you have to be registered to read it (it's free, but I haven't yet done so). 

[LondonLax]

5 hours ago, jackbauer24 said:

Why do you hear so little common sense from politicians?! Forget which side of the argument you're on and there is one absolute, irrefutable truth that is so quickly dismissed because it doesn't play in to an angle for politicians who are all just playing a game. May, Corbyn, the lot of them.

Fundamentally the referendum was flawed. That is irrefutable. Remainers wanted to stay. There was no division amongst that. So 48% of the population want to stay. If we pretend there was only two possible versions of a Brexit despite the seven plus there actually are (customs union/no customs union) it means one of those options needs to have about 95% support from the leave group to still be the country's favoured position. That so clearly isn't the case. We've just had hundreds of Brexiteers voting against a version of Brexit.

There is NOT a single version of Brexit that out numbers the percentage of those that wish to stay. However, assumptions from both sides mean we face a deadlock; those that believe that everyone who voted Leave would choose any Leave deal over a Remain (not true for everyone), and those that believe if people don't get their deal they'd rather stay overall (not true for everyone either).

So the ONLY way to solve this impasse is to get all the Leave people together, exclude the Remainers for now, and for them to come up with the actual leave they want. Once the actual Leave version is decided you ask the public - the finalised leave position (positive and negative for all leavers but agreed) or remain? But could leavers ever come up with a consensus?! A leave consensus HAS to be decided before a In/Out vote. 

Why is this so hard to understand/face up to? Why are so few politicians pushing for it? A leave vote was for a multitude of reasons and, rightly or wrongly, some of them are simply incompatible with others so no one knows what the second choice is.

It's like asking the Premier League to vote for next years Champions and asking 'Man Utd' or 'Someone else'? Obviously 'someone else' would win - but who is that team? You have to put forward your 'champion' for it to be a proper question. Something that was so ridiculously ignored (or exploited) from the original referendum.

Drives me insane this completely obvious flaw is not being properly discussed/ understood.

The way to resolve this is with a transferable vote referendum.

List the options on the ballot (as many as you like). It could be:

• remain
• no deal,
• Norway/Swiss
• May's deal
• some other model(?)

The voter then numbers them on the ballot, 1 to 5,  from their most favourite to least favourite.

The winning option must get at least 50% of the vote but with 5 options on my ballot it is likely the vote will be split with no single clear option getting at least 50%. 

 When this happens the votes from the option that came last (i.e. the most unpopular version of brexit) have their ballots reexamined and those votes get redistributed to whichever option they put as second. It might be the case that from the remaining 4 options there is still no clear favourite, so you go again and take the least favourite option and redistribute those people to their second/third choice.  

At some point, when the most unpopular options are removed and redistributed, an option will emerge that at least 50% would accept (which might be remain). 

It is pretty straight forward and prevents the brexit vote being split amongst the different brexit options which might cause the remain vote to win even if the majority of voters actually wanted to leave. 

The trouble is it's all a bit late in the day now. The UK should have worked out what option it was gunning for before triggering A50, there are only a few weeks left and no one has any clue what is going on. The only real resolution I can see is to revoke A50 then have another go at working out what to do with Brexit, having the benefit of all this hindsight and no critical deadline looming. I can see that that would not be popular with a lot of people though  

 

Edited January 17, 2019 by LondonLax

[TheAuthority]

5 hours ago, colhint said:

so does that mean flying from Paris or Berlin to the US  planes would have to change their flight path to avoid uk airspace?

If the government shutdown carries on over here there may not be any planes flying from the US. The Air traffic Controllers haven't been paid for a month already.

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

5 hours ago, jackbauer24 said:

Why is this so hard to understand/face up to? Why are so few politicians pushing for it? A leave vote was for a multitude of reasons and, rightly or wrongly, some of them are simply incompatible with others so no one knows what the second choice is.

The reason so few people are pushing for it is because in order for the Leave side to be able to come with their own plan they would need to be in a position to negotiate a deal on their terms with the EU, ie. in power. Otherwise, as is now, whatever is proposed is just met with a 'this is just not possible, the EU will never agree to that'. I would suggest the status quo suits the remain camp far more than the leave one.

 

20 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

The way to resolve this is with a transferable vote referendum.

Whilst in agreement with the principle, a referendum with 5 options on the paper just isn't going to happen. It may seem simple to you but you have to remember we are talking about the British electorate here! Given the hoo-ha with regards to spending limits (and its perceived influence on outcome) in the last referendum, I doubt creating a system where Leave campaigns can legitimately outspend Remain by 4 to 1 would be the smartest move either.

 

[OutByEaster?]

7 hours ago, jackbauer24 said:

Drives me insane this completely obvious flaw is not being properly discussed/ understood.

There's nothing being discussed. There's nothing that can be discussed - May has successfully closed down all discussion of options except her big fat stupid deal - she's currently an obstacle to Parliament being able to debate a way forward. 

 

[djdabush]

7 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

Not checked the maths but the Internet seems to be saying May won the VONC by 52% to 48 %

 

Twitter presumably will start the campaign for a rerun of the vote tomorrow

 

I hear Corbyn is planning another VONC which is laughable really. We all know that if you win by 52% then there should never ever be another vote and the will of parliament has spoken.