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

[snowychap]

FFS.

[StefanAVFC]

I haven't said a word on FB about anything to do with Brexit, pretty much since the ref.

But I've seen so many family and friends say too many sickening things. 

So I ranted.

Quote

I haven't said a word on Brexit on here for months, possibly years.

I'm terrified. I'm a UK citizen living in the EU and every single day something new happens in parliament. Last week, I felt like myself and the millions of other UK citizens living in the EU were facing a cliff-edge. Losing our rights overnight. Then No Deal was 'taken off the table'. Now, after today's votes, where again, parliament rejected everything, the cliff edge is back once again.

Yes, Leave won. I was furious with the result, but with a sensible plan and a COMPROMISE that a 52-48 split mandated, I could have got behind it. Customs Union? Continuation of FoM? Sure, it's a bit pointless but 52-48 is a close result so that's a fair compromise.

But now? 3 years on? Compromise has gone.

No Deal was NEVER a serious consideration during the referendum. The goalposts have been shifted further and further and we are expected to just accept that? No Deal is an absolute disaster. Not only for the economy, but for the millions of EU citizens who call the UK home and vice versa.

I have seen so many things on here that i've just had to bite my tongue about. Really imflammatory comments from friends and family. About whinging 'Remoaners', the death of democracy, 'we won you lost', Memes making fun of the Revoke petition, Endorsements of far-right figures because they agree with the leave position; the list goes on.

I've never seen the country so completely and utterly divided.

Democracy is a fluid process. Things change, data changes, opinions change.

I'm sorry. This post is a complete rambling mess. But this **** thing will actually affect the life I've worked **** hard to build up over the last 4 years. I'm sickened by the attitude of this country over the past 3 years. I'm sickened by the government. I'm sickened by parliament.

I used to be proud to be from the UK. Used to be.

And I'm fed up. I'm fed up and I'm completely and utterly done with it.

 

[snowychap]

1 minute ago, ml1dch said:

I'm sure you're right - did the thing the other day specifically change it to April 12th rather than leaving it open-ended?

If so, that's probably the stupidest bit of legislation of this whole shambles. 

Putting a date in there in the first place was one of the stupidest. Putting a new date in after you realised that it was stupid to originally put a date in is heroically dumb.

It gave two options: 12th April and 22nd May. The one that became Exit Day was dependent upon the outcome according to the EU Council Decision.

As the WA was not approved by the House of Commons by 29th March, the extension was given until 12th April.

They could only replace the existing date with another date, I'd have thought. The fact that there was a specified date was part of the Act, from which many other things flow(ed); the Act just allowed for the date to be amended by SI at a later date.

Exit Day from the Withdrawal Act feeds through automatically in to lots of other legislation so I'd imagine not putting in any specific date (even if that were allowed to be done) would have also caused issues.

[snowychap]

15 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

On the second question, I think the Tories will allow her.

Rather than allow an election, I meant would they really allow her to lead their party in to another election?

[ml1dch]

6 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Exit Day from the Withdrawal Act feeds through automatically in to lots of other legislation so I'd imagine not putting in any specific date (even if that were allowed to be done) would have also caused issues.

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. 

[StefanAVFC]

I guess it's a huge Catch-22 for Brexiteers.

They know they need to compromise (SM/CU) but they also know that SM/CU is worse than remaining so they refuse to.

*** ACCIDENTAL NO DEAL KLAXON ***

[Chindie]

"Accidental"

[snowychap]

1 minute ago, ml1dch said:

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. 

Maybe the legislation in to which the Exit Day date feeds was drafted after the Withdrawal Act had a specific date in there and so they based that subsequent drafting on this rather than having it as an unspecified date?

When I said not putting in a specific date would, I'd imagine, also have caused issues, I didn't mean at any time, i.e. they should have always had it in there. I meant that having had a specific date in there and having built all of the other stuff around that, i.e. there being a specific date, it may well have caused issues to have taken it back to an unspecified date/time (I think you remember the timeline correctly - that's pretty much how I remember it, too).

Of course, it could also have been mainly a political decision (to keep a specific date in there) and they asked the drafters to write the SI in consideration of that.

Actually, going back to the draft, was it presented with no specific date or with no specific date and the power to put in the specific date, later by SI as and when a date was set in stone?

[HanoiVillan]

47 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Rather than allow an election, I meant would they really allow her to lead their party in to another election?

Yes, I see - I probably didn't word my response very clearly. What I suppose I'm asking, in return, is how can they stop her? 

She has eight months' grace from a party VONC. 

I'm assuming that most of the payroll vote, and all of the Tories who have voted against a No Deal, would give her the VONCs she needs to get an election, if the alternative is a No Deal. Presumably these are the same members who voted for her, by and large, in the party VONC, so they have some faith in her leadership, and together with the vast majority of the opposition vote they would take her to over 66% of the House (but perhaps not by much). 

One way to stop her may be for the Brexiteers in Cabinet to threaten to resign en masse, and I'm not ruling that out, but the thing about a GE is that you need to win your seat back or you're out of a job, so open rebellion won't work for everybody. Ditto the threat to decamp to UKIP. 

Am I missing something?

[snowychap]

16 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Actually, going back to the draft, was it presented with no specific date or with no specific date and the power to put in the specific date, later by SI as and when a date was set in stone?

@ml1dch

Hoping this is providing a bit of distraction from the parliamentary impasse, here's an excerpt from the Library briefing paper on the original Bill:

Quote

The UK Government triggered Article 50 on 29 March 2017, beginning the formal process of negotiating the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU). The EUW Bill was published on 13 July 2017 and is designed to prepare the UK’s statute book for the day that the UK leaves the EU: exit day.

The EUW Bill specifies that there will be an exit day: clause 1 of the EUW Bill states that “the European Communities Act 1972 is repealed on exit day”. The European Communities Act 1972 (ECA) gives effect to the UK’s membership of the EU.

Clause 14(1) defines “exit day” as: “such day as a Minister of the Crown may by regulations appoint”. The regulations made under this power will not be subject to any parliamentary procedure.^[1] In the Delegated Powers Memorandum, the Government justifies this power, on the basis that the date of exit day is “dependent on the withdrawal negotiations with the EU”.^[2]

^{...much more on link}

It goes on to detail the process of amendments that made it a specific date and then a Letwin amendment that allowed for the date to be changed after the Act had passed by SI.

Reading in to all of that, it would suggest to me that the original intention was to have it as an unspecified date with a Minister allowed just to state when the date was and that was perhaps the only way to have it as an unspecified date, i.e. once the date was specified, it had to go through the SI procedure as laid down and be replaced with another (albeit via 'if and if not') specified date.

[snowychap]

37 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Yes, I see - I probably didn't word my response very clearly. What I suppose I'm asking, in return, is how can they stop her? 

She has eight months' grace from a party VONC. 

I'm assuming that most of the payroll vote, and all of the Tories who have voted against a No Deal, would give her the VONCs she needs to get an election, if the alternative is a No Deal. Presumably these are the same members who voted for her, by and large, in the party VONC, so they have some faith in her leadership, and together with the vast majority of the opposition vote they would take her to over 66% of the House (but perhaps not by much). 

One way to stop her may be for the Brexiteers in Cabinet to threaten to resign en masse, and I'm not ruling that out, but the thing about a GE is that you need to win your seat back or you're out of a job, so open rebellion won't work for everybody. Ditto the threat to decamp to UKIP. 

Am I missing something?

I'm not sure referring back to the situation as it was around the party vote of confidence now is necessarily helpful as I don't know that many people within the Parliamentary party would necessarily have had the same faith in her leadership in a GE campaign than they may have had in her leadership of the party within Parliament (versus other individuals) at that time, i.e. had a GE been seriously on the cards in December, I'm not sure they'd have weighed in behind her as they did.

Three months and a bit later, I can't think that their faith in her leadership has improved at all.

Yes, she has eight months' grace from a party vote being forced upon her but that won't stop people within the party properly pushing for her to go if they think that they are going to lose their seat because of her or that the party is going to suffer again because of her.

I get your points about how can they stop her - it does turn on whether she eventually relents and accepts someone else's point of view (the likelihood of that is very slim, I grant) - but I'm not so sure that the process of getting to a GE is simple enough that we should suppose that it goes through without issues or without something else surprising happening along the way.

What if she led them in a GE and returned to government with a majority? It would be a very big risk for the hard brexit gang and the ambitious wannabe leaders. She might be more difficult to get rid of and much more reluctant to go. Unless many more Baker/Francois types were also returned then they may not have the numbers to get her out against her will. It would also look very shit for a newly elected government (with a majority) to be removing the PM by force just over six months after an election victory.  They wouldn't want to lose to a Labour majority as it would be their dream brexit off the table so they'd be left hoping that they were still in government and, though the raw numbers were still the same, the balance within the party had tipped towards them.

Edited April 2, 2019 by snowychap

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

6 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

I guess it's a huge Catch-22 for Brexiteers.

They know they need to compromise (SM/CU) but they also know that SM/CU is worse than remaining so they refuse to.

*** ACCIDENTAL NO DEAL KLAXON ***

Whatever happens now the damage to the brand UK is irreversible IMO.  No deal or actually stay in the EU is irrelevant now,  a lot of money and investment has already left the shores and is not going to

 jump the channel overnight back in to the UK becasue some idiot's think option Z is the best way to go.

Trust me here, it does not look good from the outside and the feeling I get from NL is they have had enough,  don't forget that NL is usually on the UK's side in a lot of things so this is a new thing in the last few day's.

The only ray of light for the UK is that I believe it will cope just as well as the EU and possibly better when we get the next recession (2 or 3 years away I suspect).  It will hurt a big block more than an individual country that can twist a bit quicker with rates etc.  Another small ray of light is that the UK should be on it's knees economically at the moment and that is just not the case so the fundamentals seem to be OK for now.(Imagine how it would be without Brexit in terms of Germany struggling with manufacturing output,  it could have been doing really well now and could have positioned itself quite nicely(The UK))  

 

[Demitri_C]

WE should Be allowed to sack our own mps for this shambles . It’s a utter farce. 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Demitri_C

[RadioTom]

I had an early night last night feeling comforted by the fact that if Brexit wasn’t going to be cancelled all together, at least everything was pointing towards a softer option, which would protect free movement, trade and jobs. 

I’ve woken up this morning, checked the results and now I’m terrified that we’re inching towards an inevitable cliff-edge from which the country will struggle to recover. 

I’m ashamed to call myself British. 

I just can’t work out how a ‘Leave’ campaign, that has been found in breach of electoral law, which has admitted that it ‘embellished’ its arguments, and that pounced on the poor and vulnerable in society’s desire for something better, has the gall to try and flush us all down the toilet. 

I’m fuming. 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

1 minute ago, Demitri_C said:

WE should Be allowed to sack our own mps for this shambles . It’s a utter farce. 

Actually,  they should be all made sit in a room and get some normal members of the public (Pick them at random from entries to a site or something) to tell actually tell them what they think of their actions over the last few years.  Not in terms of remain / leave / Tory / Labour but just there overall conduct and utter contempt for the public office they are highly privileged & lucky to work in.  It is not a good example for kids to see people mis-behave on the news and not to apologize is it?  We are quick enough to march a 5 year old down the newsagents to apologize becasue they nicked a sweet.  They can all have 1 minute to plead forgiveness on a 600 + minute program to continuously play on BBC2 for a week.  They need to pay for this no matter what happens,  they are all partly guilty now IMO.

[sharkyvilla]

2 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Actually,  they should be all made sit in a room and get some normal members of the public (Pick them at random from entries to a site or something) to tell actually tell them what they think of their actions over the last few years.  Not in terms of remain / leave / Tory / Labour but just there overall conduct and utter contempt for the public office they are highly privileged & lucky to work in.  It is not a good example for kids to see people mis-behave on the news and not to apologize is it?  We are quick enough to march a 5 year old down the newsagents to apologize becasue they nicked a sweet.  They can all have 1 minute to plead forgiveness on a 600 + minute program to continuously play on BBC2 for a week.  They need to pay for this no matter what happens,  they are all partly guilty now IMO.

I'm not sure the public have been much better to be fair.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

1 minute ago, sharkyvilla said:

I'm not sure the public have been much better to be fair.

Agreed,  but the public, they do it for free you see (Being the public) becasue the majority can't be trusted to make decisions .  That's why we pay MP's to do it for us apparantley.  

The public can be doing whatever,  they still paid for a service and did not receive good work and we need to send round Rogue Traders or get May on Watchdog at the very least.  

 

[StefanAVFC]

46 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Trust me here, it does not look good from the outside and the feeling I get from NL is they have had enough,  don't forget that NL is usually on the UK's side in a lot of things so this is a new thing in the last few day's.

I get exactly the same feeling here in Poland. 

People are both dumbfounded and taking the piss in equal measure. 

[Demitri_C]

28 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Actually,  they should be all made sit in a room and get some normal members of the public (Pick them at random from entries to a site or something) to tell actually tell them what they think of their actions over the last few years.  Not in terms of remain / leave / Tory / Labour but just there overall conduct and utter contempt for the public office they are highly privileged & lucky to work in.  It is not a good example for kids to see people mis-behave on the news and not to apologize is it?  We are quick enough to march a 5 year old down the newsagents to apologize becasue they nicked a sweet.  They can all have 1 minute to plead forgiveness on a 600 + minute program to continuously play on BBC2 for a week.  They need to pay for this no matter what happens,  they are all partly guilty now IMO.

Agreeed they are a complete and Utter failure. I didnt think Ken Clarks idea was that bad to be honest. It's not perfect but I think would have been best option on table and these fool's rejected that. 

What do they want?? They are making us look like laughing stocks

[StefanAVFC]

A customs union and not ending FoM would be ideal Dem, but then we have to ask ourselves. 

What was the point? We ‘leave’ but we still follow their rules with no way of our own. All of this reputational destruction, division, toxic rhetoric for nothing; for less than nothing  

Leave/remain was an unbelievably destructive way of framing the question