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

[StefanAVFC]

20 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

 it is possible that Brexit isn't a total economic disaster. 

Contradiction in terms - zero chance.

[ml1dch]

6 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

We're lobbying MP's to deliver a realistic Brexit which doesn't bury the economy for 50 years. 

Ok, go on.

A couple of examples of this realistic Brexit that is outside what the Government is currently able to achieve.

What are we lobbying for them to do?

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Just now, StefanAVFC said:

Contradiction in terms - zero chance.

Remaining in the Single Market and Customs Union would not lead to economic disaster. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

4 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Ok, go on.

A couple of examples of this realistic Brexit that is outside what the Government is currently able to achieve.

What are we lobbying for them to do?

Remaining in the Single Market and the Customs Union. 

I voted remain by the way and would do so today with an even stronger pen stroke. I am as far from a Brexiteer as you are likely to find. 

[StefanAVFC]

20 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Remaining in the Single Market and Customs Union would not lead to economic disaster. 

When immigration was pretty much THE reason we voted to leave (despite what those lovely 'I'm not racist' leave voters would tell you), single market membership is not an option.

[ml1dch]

26 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Remaining in the Single Market and the Customs Union. 

That is something that can be lobbied for at the moment. It's perfectly within their gift to pursue.

Given that the Government appears to be unanimous in this position of taking us out of the above (at least until they find out what it means), I fail to see how a few thousand extra letters to MPs is going to change this.

Edited November 27, 2017 by ml1dch

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Just now, StefanAVFC said:

When immigration was pretty much THE reason we voted to leave (despite what those lovely 'I'm not racist' leave voters would tell you), single market membership is not an option.

It's not an option in what sense? It depends on the politician selling it, surely? 

I've not kept up with this thread but I assume you're all aware of the existing powers the government has regarding immigration from EU members. There are ways and means we can reform our own benefit system to complement existing powers in order to sell it to the public. 

I know it sounds a bit have your cake and eat it, but for most of those people as long as we leave they won't really understand the implications of remaining in the SM and CU.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

1 minute ago, ml1dch said:

That is something that can be lobbied for at the moment. It's perfectly within their gift to pursue.

Given that the Government appears to be unanimous in this position of taking us out of the above (at least until they find out what it means), I fail to see how a few thousand extra letters to MPs is going to change this.

You underestimate the Tory desire for power, they need those votes. By turning it into a black and white argument we are making it too easy for them to pander to their chosen audience. 

What people seem to be suggesting is that Labour should play them at their own game and take up a diametrically opposed stance. Ignore the electorate and become the Lib Dems. Because that's really working out for them. 

[HanoiVillan]

I'm basically completely with @dont_do_it_doug. here. The only (possible, I'm not sure of his opinion) difference is that I would kick the can on the actual act of leaving further down the road to either mitigate as far as possible the economic damage or provide an opportunity for an electoral mandate in favour of changing track. 

But I think we need to be realistic here. The country voted, last year, in favour of leaving the EU. Then, in a subsequent general election, the party who favoured the hardest possible Brexit won the most votes from British people. It's not a small thing to just say, 'well youse are all wrong, actually we should just abandon the whole idea'. Once again, one recent opinion poll put the proportion of the population in favour of simply abandoning the whole process at 15%. If you want the Labour party to cease to exist and decades of Tory rule (the same Tories who brought us this whole mess in the first place!) then saying 'we only favour Remain' is the way to go. Otherwise, you need to make the slightest concession to political reality, and neither Bevan nor Attlee nor any other Big Name we can bring up would have deliberately flushed the party down the toilet either. 

None of this means that the parties are identical on Brexit. There appear to be two or three people in this thread who feel that 'well, they both favour Brexit' is sufficient political analysis. Well, per the budget last week, the Conservatives plan to put more money into building affordable homes and funding the NHS. So, would someone who had no understanding of British politics have an adequate or sufficient understanding if you said to them 'both Labour and the Conservatives favour building more housing and increasing top-line spending on the NHS'? No, of course they wouldn't. Does anyone have a sufficient understanding of British Brexit politics if they are told 'they are both in favour of Brexit'? Only if you think that it's pure irrelevance whether we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, whether we have a hard Brexit in less than 18 months, giving business no time to plan, whether the rights of EU nationals are of no importance to you, or if you are happy with the most surface understanding of the issue imaginable. 

I also think, by the way, that this 'Brexit was always going to be a disaster' line lets the Tories off the hook for their incompetence. Yes, it would have been (much) better to Remain, but in no way have the Tories handled this well. It's their disaster every step of the way. Cameron resigned, rather than owning the mess; May appointed incompetents to high office based entirely upon political expediency for her; she invoked Article 50 before the party had reached any kind of agreement on what it wanted or What Brexit Meant; she called an election rather than getting on with the process and wasted about five months of a time-limited period; she is so weak that she has to appoint Brexiteers to cabinet position they may not be qualified for to maintain some sort of spurious Cabinet balance; the incompetents and idiots in her Cabinet with specific responsibility for thinking about these issues refuse to engage with reality. Was all of this 'inevitable'? Has it made no difference to the process?

Don't let them off the hook. 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

You underestimate the Tory desire for power, they need those votes. By turning it into a black and white argument we are making it too easy for them to pander to their chosen audience. 

What people seem to be suggesting is that Labour should play them at their own game and take up a diametrically opposed stance. Ignore the electorate and become the Lib Dems. Because that's really working out for them. 

And what you seem to be suggesting is that we lobby MPs for a "Nice Brexit" when in fact we don't want that we just don't want it all. Paradox much?

[bickster]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

. Then, in a subsequent general election, the party who favoured the hardest possible Brexit won the most votes from British people.

 

Nigel Farage is Prime Minister, why didn't I notice?

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

Nigel Farage is Prime Minister, why didn't I notice?

Consider that nit picked. 

[bickster]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

Consider that nit picked. 

ACtually my bad, it would have been the Bad Bootle Meff

[darrenm]

12 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

leaving the European Union.

Apologies I'm not getting my point across very clearly.

If you're saying it's clear that from Labour's manifesto and stated official stance that they are pro-brexit then we need to be clear on what brexit is.

And what is brexit? Is it leaving the EU and all associated treaties e.g. the single market, the customs union, the ECJ, euratom, EMA, etc as proposed by the Tories? If so, no, Labour aren't pro-brexit.

Is it leaving the EU but retaining membership of the SM & CU and other associated treaties? If yes, then they are (officially) in favour of that using your own yardstick of the manifesto and stated positions.

Common sense says that the 2nd option is entirely pointless and is a symbolic leave only as you'll just be giving up your vote in the European Parliament.

It stands to pretty obvious reason to me that if it wouldn't wipe them out in the poorer, tabloid reading, high immigration areas, then Labour would fully oppose the Tories on everything brexit. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

36 minutes ago, bickster said:

And what you seem to be suggesting is that we lobby MPs for a "Nice Brexit" when in fact we don't want that we just don't want it all. Paradox much?

Not really. 

I don't want Brexit but have been forced into a position where I have to accept Brexit.

Why do you think people voted for Brexit? We might want to pop them into a neat little box along with the fascists but I can assure you that when you step outside the metropolitan elite bubble that is not the case. There are huge swathes of the country that have been left in ruins and completely disenfranchised by decades of underdevelopment, by Thatcherism if you like and the previous New Labour government that did little but continue the trend. You can argue with somebody who lives in Blackpool till you're blue in the face about the funding the EU provides them, they're just going to laugh at you and ask you to look around at the decay.  

They were finally given an opportunity to kick back at the system and that I personally think they were conned is irrelevant. We should have listened to them at the time rather than labeling them all racists, which I note is still happening, and I include myself in that.

Either way my point stands - if Labour were to stand on a platform of the party who will cancel Brexit it would bury the party for decades and I don't need to tell you what that will mean. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

46 minutes ago, darrenm said:

It stands to pretty obvious reason to me that if it wouldn't wipe them out in the poorer, tabloid reading, high immigration areas, then Labour would fully oppose the Tories on everything brexit. 

This 100 times over. It cannot be understated. 

Being principled is one thing. Being principled to the point you give the Tory Party carte blanche to do whatever the hell they like for the next 20 years and an opportunity to save their crumbling ideology isn't worth it. 

Death of Neoliberalism > Brexit. 

[bobzy]

55 minutes ago, darrenm said:

And what is brexit?

I think we all know by now that Brexit means Brexit.  Duh.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm basically completely with @dont_do_it_doug. here. The only (possible, I'm not sure of his opinion) difference is that I would kick the can on the actual act of leaving further down the road to either mitigate as far as possible the economic damage or provide an opportunity for an electoral mandate in favour of changing track. 

More or less, yes. It's all about presentation and perception though and at the moment the Tory 'Us vs Them' narrative is being swallowed up by remainers as well as leavers. 

[darrenm]

2 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I think we all know by now that Brexit means Brexit.  Duh.

Not so. It means breakfast.

[darrenm]

Despicable Labour supporting the Tories' hard brexit