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

[PompeyVillan]

You'd have to question the intelligence of those commentators that bombastically proclaimed the UK had a strong hand in the Brexit negotiations. Plenty of right wing politicians were doing it to get in with the Brexit F-Wit brigade. You know talk about Agincourt, Crecy and that sort of nonsense.

May was intelligent enough to realise that the UK position was untenable and quite unconvincingly proclaimed over and over that 'No deal is better than a bad deal'. She didn't believe this herself, it's wasn't going to fool Europe. 

'No deal' Brexit was never on the table. Therefore the only card the UK had to play would never be played. And the EU knew this and also know that UK needs a decent trade deal to prevent financial meltdown in the UK. So they can quite happily make demands knowing that the UK will be forced to accept them. There's been no negotiation. It's a simple, one sided settlement. 

Such a stupid idea from the start. 

[darrenm]

1 hour ago, villa89 said:

I wouldn't be certain of that despite what the polls say. 

I think even with Labour polling way less in the last GE, they were about 2 seats away from power. Green, SNP and probably Lib Dem would form a coalition with them.

[ml1dch]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

It'll happen. The only thing undecided is the extent to which it happens - No Deal through to Brexit in name only, the best result (but one that is still a loss for the the UK - pay the bill, lose the seat at the table and keep paying with no vote). And No Deal is the default option.

Brexit will not be cancelled. Nobody is going to cancel it because it will end their career. If someone were to cancel it, they have 15 months to overcome all the weight for Brexit or risk sacrificing themselves and possibly their party. And it would ultimately not be their decision to revoke it - we've started a legal process, it'll both sides to agree to stop it.

With the current status quo, you're absolutely right - but a lot can change. Take the following scenario:

Something causes the Government to fall, and it doesn't seem impossible. The DUP withdraw their support. A few more MPs write the last half dozen letters to trigger a leadership contest. A couple more cabinet ministers are forced to resign in disgrace.

An election happens. Enough people are set in their minds like last time, but the nobbers who left UKIP last time go back, upset about how this is all going. Labour are the largest party, but there's still no overall majority. 

The SNP and Lib Dems make a second referendum ("first referendum on the deal" is how it is phrased) a condition of their support. Labour can claim that they don't want one, but their hands are tied (while obviously being perfectly happy). Maybe even cynically rig it (ask to stay / crash out / negotiate a deal) and split the leave vote.

Doesn't solve the underlying issues, but I don't think anything there is implausible. Apart from maybe the rigged question.

[peterms]

I thought this was a pisstake.

The address in Bishops Cleeve.  The reference to Churchill.  The call to put foreigners "firmly in their place" (ooh, matron!).  But actually, these letters to the Torygraph may be genuine.

Quote

SIR – Whatever Theresa May read at Oxford, it cannot have been history. Danegeld never works.

This Government and Parliament, dominated by Remainers, are betraying Brexit and allowing the EU to treat us with contempt.

Mrs May and Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, are the Chamberlain and Halifax of their day, but where is the modern Churchill?

Rodney G James
Brasschaat, Antwerp, Belgium

 

SIR – Charles Moore’s brilliant article on his disillusionment with our Brexit approach reflected an issue that is rarely mentioned, in the welter of acrimony about trade talks, but is the driving force behind my decision to vote to leave. That is: the loss of our national self-respect.

For years we have, in effect, been governed by foreigners. This is a state of affairs that would have appalled the millions who died in world wars defending this country’s freedom. The EU is now routinely insulting and humiliating us, with no apparent reaction. Am I alone in yearning for an aggressive approach from this country that puts them firmly in their place?

Clive Green
Bristol

 

SIR – Many who voted to leave the EU will be horrified to read of Mrs May’s latest giveaway proposal to allow the European Court of Justice to make rulings above our own Supreme Court (report, December 3).

She has already offered too many concessions and a lot of cash already without securing anything much. If she adds this latest offering to Brussels, she will effectively have reversed the will of the British people, and be known as the Conservative PM who led to the death of her own party.

Suzanne Greenhill
Bishops Cleeve, Gloucestershire

 

SIR  – Since its inception, the Supreme Court has followed the jurisprudence of both the ECJ and the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights). After Brexit, clarity and guidance are needed on how past judgments of the Supreme Court are to be regarded.

Whatever the future legal relationship between the UK and the EU, the judgments of both the ECJ and the ECHR will still be submitted and relied upon as persuasive authorities.

James Keeley, Barrister
London WC1

 

SIR – Mrs May now thinks Brexit doesn’t mean Brexit.

What does it mean, pray?

John K Greenwood
Southampton

 

SIR  – My congratulations to Theresa May and her Government for securing a new first for Britain, and indeed, for the world.

We are to be the first and only country in history to purchase a trade deficit.

M J W Daley
London W4    

 

[peterms]

All together now: "You don't know what you're doing!"

 

[chrisp65]

 

[HanoiVillan]

4 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

So the DUP veto the deal that the Irish and Prime Minister May thought would work. That means we're in a difficult position where May says what's right for the country as a whole is wrong for the DUP, but if May follows that principle and goes against the DUP she'll lose their support, her government will crumble and we'll be heading towards an election which as of right now would put Corbyn in power. 

We're somehow managing to make Brexit even worse by having to resist the best options now available to us in order to protect the PM and party politics in the most absurd and obvious way.

 

 

Once again, we see that the Tories cannot solve the problem, because the Tories are the problem.

[HanoiVillan]

4 hours ago, snowychap said:

I was surprised how things have gone today.

It seemed that there was some sort of a deal going to be announced (with 'regulatory alignment') and then after the DUP statement and a 'phone call, it's 'not quite ready'.

If May consulted the DUP before she went over to Brussels then they either agreed with her and later reneged or they didn't, she told them to lump it and they made the statement they did when they did to tell her that she couldn't get away with it.

Or she decided to 'take control' personally of the negotiations without consulting the party that helps to keep her government afloat about what they would countenance. She couldn't be that incompetent, could she?

Well, it's not like she has any previous in announcing that a deal has been done with the DUP without checking if they're actually on board, is it?

[blandy]

36 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Once again, we see that the Tories cannot solve the problem, because the Tories are the problem.

They’re most of the problem, but Labour, in not being part of the solution, is also a part of the problem (and that’s being kind).

[LondonLax]

It is a bit amusing that this latest falling out seems to have focused minds on the Northern Ireland problem when everyone could have just read this thread to get a heads up on the issue months ago

[HanoiVillan]

5 hours ago, blandy said:

They’re most of the problem, but Labour, in not being part of the solution, is also a part of the problem (and that’s being kind).

I'd say yesterday moved us a step closer to an election, to be honest. Certainly I don't see how the Irish question can be resolved in any way that doesn't involve a hard border, with the government as currently constituted. Labour have a better chance of moving this mess forward, for better or worse. 

[TheAuthority]

10 hours ago, peterms said:

I don't understand it.  It seems the RoI govt was content with various forms of words, and you can only assume that DUP agreement was sought beforehand.  But as we see, and as Seymour and others point out, those terms wouldn't be acceptable.

Even tbough May is notorious for being secretive and failing to bring people onside, it's unthinkable that the diplomats would not have satisfied themselves that there existed a majority for this.  The DUP position is hardly a revelation.

So I really don't get how she got to this.  Unless it was just a case of assuming the transparent fudge would buy a bit of time to get it sorted.  I suppose at least that approach would be consistent with the way the rest of this farce has been handled.

Maybe she's just thought "Sod it, I want out of this sh*t. I worked hard my whole life to become PM and it's been a complete nightmare from beginning to end. Therefore I'm going to expedite the end of my tenure as quickly as possible." 

That's the only feasible explanation I can come up with for her utter and repetitious incompetence. 

[blandy]

44 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'd say yesterday moved us a step closer to an election, to be honest. Certainly I don't see how the Irish question can be resolved in any way that doesn't involve a hard border, with the government as currently constituted. Labour have a better chance of moving this mess forward, for better or worse. 

I'll grant you that I can't see the tories resolving anything, but suppose there were to be another election soon, there's no kind of guarantee or certainty that we wouldn't end up with another situation where no party has a majority, and whoever forms the next gov't wouldn't also be beholden to various rebels and so on.

I mean the way things are going, it's a proper snafu and getting more so.

[Xann]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

I mean the way things are going, it's a proper snafu and getting more so.

Putin's absolutely pissing himself.

Who needs an army?

Facebook and Twitter.

Get the mugs to cut their own throats.

 

[peterms]

Another angle on the DUP is that they were the channel for a large and secret donation to the Brexit campaign, as revealed by openDemocracy.

Quote

... A number of major political donors have denied they are the source of a controversial £435,000 donation to the DUP’s Brexit campaign, openDemocracy can reveal today – with only one person refusing to distance themself from the secret donation...

...The UK government announced earlier this year that it will change the law to end donor secrecy in Northern Ireland, but has rejected calls to backdate the law to 2014, so that the source of the DUP donation could be revealed. Government and DUP sources have rejected accusations that this is ‘protection’ for the DUP, as part of their £1 billion deal to keep the Conservatives in power...

...Henry Angest is a Swiss-born banker with an estate in Bridge of Cally, Perthshire. He is chairman and chief executive of the private bank Arbuthnot Latham, owner of the firm Flowidea, and a former treasurer of the Conservative party. He has given over £1.9 million to the Conservative party and made headlines when he was given a knighthood by David Cameron, causing what the Daily Mail called a “cash for titles storm”. He made headlines again when, in 2013, it was revealed that Secure Trust Bank plc, of which he was chair, owned the controversial high-cost loans company Everyday Loans, which was reported to charge interest at an average of 74.8% APR. His bank sold the company in April 2016.

Angest’s firm Flowidea gave £100,000 to Better Together in 2014, and £10,000 to the “North East says No” campaign, against devolution to the North East of England, in 2004. His Arbuthnot Banking Group gave £20,000 to the Vote No campaign in the referendum on the Alternative Vote in 2011. In 2016 alone, Arbuthnott gave £68,500 to the Conservative party, Flowidea gave £185,000 and Angest himself gave £2,000 to the Perth and Kinross Conservatives. 

Angest publicly backed Brexit, and, we are told, has long been involved in the Eurosceptic movement. Despite being a prolific donor to the causes he believes in, neither he, nor Flowidea, nor Arbuthnot, nor any of the 22 companies he is currently or has ever been a director of, are listed with the Electoral Commission as having registered any donations to any of the Leave campaigns in Great Britain.

However, investigations by The Observer in 2010 showed that he had given funds in 2006 to the Freedom Association – a right-wing group which has a number of ties to the Constitutional Research Council, through which the DUP donation was channelled. Steve Baker, the current Brexit minister, was a member of the Freedom Association until “around 2013”, the organisation told openDemocracy. Baker took a donation from the CRC in December 2016 for his work with the European Research Group. As openDemocracy has previously revealed, Richard Cook, CRC chair, has spoken at Freedom Association events, and was the Scottish representative of the Campaign Against Political Correctness – an organisation with very close links to the Freedom Association. In 2007, the two key DUP MPs, Jeffrey Donaldson and Sammy Wilson, were involved in a Freedom Association ‘fact-finding mission’ to Northern Ireland. Donaldson was the DUP’s Brexit campaign manager.

Angest, like the Marquess of Salisbury, has also previously funded the group Open Europe, whose former staff members (as mentioned above) include Christopher Howarth, who now runs the CRC-funded European Research Group, and Raoul Ruparel, now a special adviser in the Department for Exiting the EU.

Finally, Mr Angest has also been a donor to the controversial organisation Atlantic Bridge, which brings together the British and the American neo-Conservative right and whose UK director was listed in 2009 as the Scottish businessman Adam Werritty, whose links to Liam Fox caused the latter to resign in disgrace as defence secretary in 2011.

Angest’s office eventually responded to our attempts to contact him, saying that they “have no comment on this matter”. We informed him that he was the only known Brexit-backer in our survey not to distance themselves from this donation, and asked again if he wanted to comment. His office didn’t reply.

So there is a question about the continuing links between secretive Brexit donors and the DUP.

If I were Mrs May, I'd be looking very carefully at what the disgraced Liam Fox and his cabal is up to.

[snowychap]

 

[markavfc40]

9 hours ago, blandy said:

They’re most of the problem, but Labour, in not being part of the solution, is also a part of the problem (and that’s being kind).

They in opposition and doing quite well in the polls. I think they are playing the game of trying to appease everyone. That is the beauty of being in opposition in that you can be non committal. They are also allowing the Tories to hang themselves.

That changes as soon as they get into power. They are nowhere near as divided as the Tories are over Brexit and if, as I think would be likely, they become the largest party but have no overall majority they would get in bed with the Libs and SNP who are both pro remain.

I think negotiations would either go way better under Labour for the simple reason they, either alone or with the Libs and SNP would be way less divided than the Tories, or they would hold another referendum. One thing is certain is that they would be an improvement on the clueless comedy show we are witnessing now. Imagine being on the other side of the table and negotiating with this mob.

Edited December 5, 2017 by markavfc40

[peterms]

 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

19 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

That is the beauty of being in opposition in that you can be non committal.

I wonder what the beauty of been in Government is for the Tories at the moment ?

[peterms]

Anyway, I'm sure this is just a minor setback, a simple miscommunication.

Think what problems could have been caused if our leaders had not had the foresight not to give a running commentary or give away our negotiating position.

Quote

The Government will keep key details about Brexit negotiations secret from Parliament, the Cabinet minister in charge of leaving the European Union has warned.

David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, told parliamentarians on Monday afternoon that full transparency would not be in the country’s best interests.

“Clearly there is a need for Parliament to be informed without giving away our negotiating position. I may not be able to tell you everything, even in private hearings,” he told the House of Lords EU select committee.

The Government has refused to so far give details about what Brexit would entail or even give a definitive answer about when negotiations for leaving the EU would begin. Theresa May and those around her have consistently said they will not “give a running commentary” on Brexit and that “Brexit means Brexit”.