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

[HanoiVillan]

 

[VILLAMARV]

On 03/07/2018 at 11:58, snowychap said:

your apparently mixed complaints about both the simplicity and complexity

genuinely baffled

On 03/07/2018 at 11:58, snowychap said:

My point is that there hasn't been that and there never was going to be that.  -----etc------

So my assumption was correct and my 'quite' was entirely genuine then along with the underlying sentiment, and we entirely agree great stuff. I do like common ground. And, tbh, I was surprised you questioned it in the first place.

On 03/07/2018 at 11:58, snowychap said:

Anyway, all of this is largely moot in my view.

The politics of the internal borders of the Schengen area will have much more of an effect on the EU and, by our physical proximity if nothing else, our medium term future than will the result of the referendum. The politics of our parliament ought to have had more bearing on our short term future than it has been allowed (and would probably ever have been allowed) but that has as much to do with all governments since the late eighties than those 'will of the people' gimps who never intended for anything other than a symbolic, claimed 'sovereignty' to be returned (that's not against all of those who voted on sovereignty issues, it's against the disingenuous ones like Mogg et al.). 

Quite (genuine )

And my point was that while everyone bickers about thicky in the corner this whole process appears to not only being lost in the ether but increasingly hard to even talk about it seems. God forbid we actually see through the divide and rule stuff, but for real - not just the bits we like - and focus our undivided attention on the re writing of the rule book that is happening for real. And I lean towards the view that whichever side of the referendum you plumped for you were shafted either way. The illusion of choice and all that.

But you know, they terk er jerbs.

[VILLAMARV]

On 03/07/2018 at 12:59, blandy said:

Basically, there are loads of "gammon faces/morons/whatever you want to call uninformed, uncurious, shouty, ignorant people who voted leave. As much as there are also intelligent types who did the same. Labelling them all as morons or gammons is daft, but there's a ton of them. It's equally daft to deny it.

I don't much like the EU, tbh, it's very flawed, but it's also the case that anything other than the softest of Brexits will leave us worse off. Gammons and Professors, morons and Doctors. It's not a "may or may not be true" situation. We're well past the speculating what might happen stage.

The last line is very salient, because we've done the exact opposite - instead of letting the people controlling health, science, business, research etc. generate informed and educated, balanced appraisal and policy, we let  a handful of self promoting, tax avoiding, dodgy  geezers, extremist politicians, racists, media and speculators hijack the debate and pander to the gammons. While we shouldn't put all cont rol in the hands of Airbus etc. we should be doing more than completely ignoring their alarms with a "**** business" comment and calling their concers "inappropriate". 

And to me, the reason we are seeing the EU debate like this is because *sings* "this is how we do it"

That is our entire societal structure right there.

And it is genuine madness.

(And I never denied anything - apart from just then )

[VILLAMARV]

On 07/07/2018 at 08:36, Davkaus said:

They can't possibly be inept enough to believe the EU would agree to I Can't Believe It's Not Brexit.

That Sir is a like for you. Wish I'd come up with that sentence Brilliant.

It deserves more love and attention

[VILLAMARV]

On 05/07/2018 at 07:58, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Only becasue things look like they are spinning totaly out of control and the reducing time line I am starting to think something doesn't feel quite right with it all.

Something is going on in that it can't be as bad as it seems,  if it is, the people involved in the brexit back rooms so to speak would have all jumped ship.  Effectivley we have a Titanic which is just about to sink,  they are all still on it. Why stay? 

Deal is done / May has a secret weapon?

It starts to look a little bit OTT now.  Closer to the Thick of it than reality at some points recently.  I am looking at it from afar also.  It looks so **** it cannot be still going can it,  the Tories are like the pickup truck hanging up in Top Gear studio that wont die.  It should be dead by now given the last 2 years in all honesty.

I am not explaining it very well.  It's not the subject it's the total unprofessionalism,  imagine if the EU had kicked us out for whatever reason or we went to war with someone.  Look how they are dealing with Brexit.

Does this sum it up?

[ml1dch]

The hardest working man in his own brain, David Davis has resigned.

[bickster]

 

[HanoiVillan]

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by HanoiVillan

[Chindie]

And nothing of value was lost.

[chrisp65]

David Davis has indeed quit his job and place in the cabinet.

He's currently negotiating to still be allowed to keep all the benefits, the pension, the car, access to the members lounge and all other privileges whilst not having to turn up in the morning.  

[HanoiVillan]

Seems that departmental minister Steve Baker has resigned as well. The other departmental minister, Suella Braverman, is also a Brexiter. Would be pretty amusing if all three resigned. 

[chrisp65]

strong and stable

strong and stable

strong and stable

[HanoiVillan]

30 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Seems that departmental minister Steve Baker has resigned as well. The other departmental minister, Suella Braverman, is also a Brexiter. Would be pretty amusing if all three resigned. 

Well, the update is she did resign, so there's no-one left in the department 

Regular reminder:

 

[Davkaus]

Mr 'no downsides, only considerable upsides'. What a prick. 

A year and a half doing **** all, they finally agree on the impossible, and start to fall apart within 48 hours. This is the strong and stable Conservative government. 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

13 hours ago, VILLAMARV said:

Does this sum it up?

Pretty much,   that is a poll in the cabinet though.

Well I said people will jump the Titanic,  I was a few days early it seems.  

I think they should stick to what they are good at cladding, strong and stable stuff,  leave the negotiating to the grown up's. The Government should fall for this but they won't.  You cannot say "Everyone is happy with it" when it is a lie.  

 

[Chindie]

Davis, like a number of Brexiteers in Parliament, has clearly wanted a no deal result. So he's spent the better part of 2 years doing **** all. This of course has nothing to do with his relationship with Tate and Lyle, who would benefit from the EU going away.

Good riddance. Perhaps some other Brexiteer fools can join him.

Now, which disgraced MP will take the position... I only went on holiday honest Patel?

[sharkyvilla]

7 hours ago, bickster said:

 

How is it even that close still?  It's pretty much the same as before the referendum I think.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

8 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

How is it even that close still?

It was never about Customs,  relationships,  borders or the Economy or any other important stuff.  

What made people vote the way they did in whatever form still exists for them and so it wont change IMO.

 

[HanoiVillan]

Rather depressing take:

Shit Hits Fan

'Despite Boris Johnson's definition of it as a "turd", the Chequers' statement remains very much an example of "cake". Behind the verbiage, there is still a belief that the UK can be simultaneously in and out of EU. For example, there will be a "common rulebook" for goods and agri-food but Parliament will retain the right to diverge on those rules. That is either common in name only or sovereignty in name only. As has been usual with Theresa May's initiatives as Prime Minister, the statement gives the impression of having no viable existence beyond its utterance (remember "the just about managing", "strong and stable", a "compliant environment"?). The cynical view is that the statement is merely a holding operation until next week's white paper, which will in turn be a holding operation until the EU's rejection of it in the coming months. That cynicism extends to the assumption that the chief Brexiteer cabinet ministers, specifically Johnson and Gove, are treading water until the UK's formal departure in March next year, at which time a sovereign Parliament will be able to diverge from whatever hollow withdrawal agreement finally made it over the line towards the end of this year.

An even more cynical interpretation is that the Brexiteer ministers believe that a deal with the EU other than BINO - Brexit in name only - is unlikely, but that the softest of Brexits can't get over the line because it would be impossible to sell to leavers both among party members and voters. In this scenario, May would be obliged to try and make the most of no-deal, the ultra's preferred outcome, which would call her own position into question because, if it has done nothing else, the Chequers' statement has finally flushed her out as a supporter of the softest possible Brexit: she has made her choice between Johnson and Hammond and sided with the latter. In other words, none of Davis, Johnson or Gove expect the statement to actually form the basis of the final outcome, so their current manoeuvrings should be seen in his light. Johnson is positioning himself as the prophet in the semi-wilderness (a la Churchill - again), Gove has made it clear that his eyes are on the prize of getting to next March in one piece (at which point the sharpened knife will presumably reappear), while the silence of Davis was a good sign that he was considering his position. The Chequers' statement shows that Number 10 is wholly in charge of Brexit policy, calling into question the purpose of DExEU as a distinct ministry. Davis's resignation in the last few hours has an obvious logic.

Though the statement has been widely interpreted as a commitment to a soft Brexit, it shouldn't be assumed that this makes it any more palatable to the EU27. While they now have something of substance to critique, or at least will have when the white paper is published on Thursday, the continuing constraint of the UK's red lines (out of the single market and customs union and no ECJ oversight) means that the proposed relationship remains opaque at best and an affront to the institutional framework of the EU at worst. While domestic critics accuse the government of heading for BINO and thus "vassalage", it should be borne in mind that a deal based on alignment and reciprocity is also a challenge for the EU as it entails the UK gaining the maximum benefits with the minimum of obligations - our old friend, cherry-picking. The sticking point won't be the quid pro quo of financial contributions for benefits equivalent to continued membership, but the UK's insistence on its absolute right to unilaterally enact exemptions and opt-outs from the common rules. It wants to continue using the gym, and will pay a discounted fee for access, but it rejects the obligations of membership and further wants to ignore the general rules for all users when it suits it.

The most startling part of the statement is perhaps the government's confidence that the backstop agreed in respect of Northern Ireland last December will be irrelevant by this October, envisaging a relationship which ensures "that the operational legal text the UK will nonetheless agree on the 'backstop' solution as part of the Withdrawal Agreement would not need to be brought into effect". This is not only a heroically optimistic interpretation of the "Facilitated Customs Arrangement" and the "common rulebook" as a solution, but a position that simply refuses to countenance the possibility of any pushback by the EU27. It is hard to see why they would commit to an alternative that would require trusting the UK's future intent (maintaining alignment) while ignoring the legal reality (the ability to diverge at will). The issue of the Irish border has led many remainers to imagine that BINO is inevitable. Here is Simon Wren-Lewis: "The need to avoid a hard border in Ireland, now accepted by the UK government, dictates that we stay in the Customs Union (CU) and at least part of the Single Market (SM). That is what the UK government signed up to in December, without apparently realising what it had done. The only alternative, which is to take the deal offered by the EU for Northern Ireland and have a border in the Irish Sea, is not politically acceptable to the Prime Minister and many in parliament."

This interpretation assumes that an Irish Sea border is a non-starter, but is that necessarily so? While alienating the DUP would obviously spell the end for May's current administration, unionism is no longer an article of faith for her party. The Conservatives stopped being explicitly unionist under John Major when the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 stated that the British government had no "selfish strategic or economic" interest in Northern Ireland. The die-in-a-ditch unionists on the Tory benches are few in number and largely overlap with the Brexit ultras who must necessarily be defeated if any form of soft Brexit is to succeed. With the exception of a handful of eccentrics like Kate Hoey, I suspect Labour would have few qualms about accepting a separate deal for Northern Ireland based on the Customs Union and the Single Market for goods, as proposed by the EU27. Its concerns over EU constraints on nationalisation and investment are minimal outside the Single Market for services, and they they would have less salience in a region where much of the infrastructure (e.g. gas, electricity, transport) is already integrated on an island-wide basis for simple reasons of geography.

Wren-Lewis argues that the EU27 might be persuaded to allow the entirety of the UK to remain within the Customs Union and a limited Single Market (without Freedom of Movement), but his case heavily depends on two assumptions: that the EU27 could be persuaded to agree to an arrangement that many of its members would consider to be preferential treatment for a non-member, and that the UK government could not accept special treatment for Northern Ireland alone. To this end he is as guilty of cakeism as anyone else: "[Theresa May] needs to impress on the EU, face to face, that a border in the Irish Sea is not possible, and that therefore the UK is also special in that particular sense". A border in the Irish Sea is possible, and arguably desirable given that in a post-Brexit world a new customs regime will have to be implemented anyway. A regime based on port access to Great Britain will be a lot easier to implement and manage than one with the cumbersome addition of a land border on the island of Ireland. One issue among many that the Chequers' statement avoids mentioning is that of smuggling. Given that the Facilitated Customs Arrangement assumes differential tariffs, the scope for illegal arbitrage will be huge, not just in Northern Ireland but across the UK.

The EU27 aren't going to jeopardise the integrity of the Single Market, and nor is there any reason to believe that they will be attracted to "creating at enormous expense, in unknown timescales and with unknown efficacy a customs system to replicate something that already exists and works". They will make an exception for the special circumstances of the region of Northern Ireland, and they will fudge agreements with countries whose ultimate trajectory is assumed to be greater integration, such as Ukraine, or those who have been held up on the road, such as Switzerland, but they won't set a country-level precedent for a state whose trajectory is heading out beyond the exit. To do so would change the EU's dynamic from one of ever closer union to one of ever greater diversification, and that simply isn't going to happen. Special treatment for problematic regions is part of the grammar of the EU, and member states can exercise opt-outs in many areas, but compromising the Single Market calls the existence of the EU into question. While Brexiteers might insincerely pine for the simplicity of the EEC, the EU27 have no wish to turn the clock back a quarter of a century and call time on the Maastricht project.

As has been clear for almost a year, Northern Ireland is the sticking point: "unless the UK government can get the backstop through Westminster, the UK will go over the cliff edge in March next year". I believe the DUP's opposition to a hard border is insincere and that they would be happy with a hard Brexit that would help undermine the Good Friday Agreement. This would be deeply unpopular in Northern Ireland, so the DUP are obliged to mask their real intent. Brexit in name only would give them the justification to bring the government down, but they would never do anything to facilitate a Corbyn administration, so their pressure is more likely to be indirect - i.e. encouraging a Tory coup once May is perceived to have compromised on her already soft position under pressure from the EU to implement the backstop in full or even to commit to staying in the Customs Union for the UK as a whole (as Tony Connelly puts it, May is "tortuously, yet deliberately, inching her government along the spectrum, away from Canada and towards Norway"). Their reaction in the next few days will arguably be more crucial to May's ability to go on than any number of coded speeches and uncoded briefings by Boris Johnson, though I suspect they may keep their powder dry for a while yet.

The Brexit ultras have frequently given the impression that they are unwilling to strike - to put the knife in - but I don't think, contrary to many centrist commentators crowing over the Chequers' drama, that this is because they lack an alternative plan. Their problem is that their preferred outcome - no deal - is simply too terrifying for most of the Tory party in the Commons to willingly accept. The ultras appear to have come round to a position in which they have invested their hope in the intransigence of the EU27: anticipating either than May will be forced to accept BINO, which will prompt a popular backlash, or that she will be so frustrated by the other side that she will talk herself into a no-deal outcome. The resignation of Davis and a couple of other junior ministers this weekend is probably not the harbinger of a coup but a message to May that she has gone too far already in trying to meet the EU27 halfway. Johnson and Gove will probably stay on board but with the understanding that further compromise is unacceptable. The current position will be further watered-down and the possibility of an agreement with the EU will recede. Meanwhile, the DUP will smirk.'

http://fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2018/07/shit-hits-fan.html

[bickster]

1 hour ago, sharkyvilla said:

How is it even that close still?  It's pretty much the same as before the referendum I think.

That might explain it, The over 50's