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

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, LondonLax said:

From my understanding there are still a lot of bills the UK government need to debate and pass regardless of whether the government agrees its dream unicorn Brexit or wants to fall back on a WTO ‘no deal’ arrangement but there will not be enough time left to do the work required to pass them. 

I’d say an A50 extension, for purely procedural reasons if nothing else, is fairly likely.

Why would the EU27 be that concerned about whether the UK has got its internal house in order?

As long as there's nothing which directly impacts upon them then I'd have thought that they'd tell us to sod off. They might not, obviously.

The government is still claiming that they've got enough time so I can't see them saying they haven't and asking for more until the very last moment. That may also make the EU27 agreeing to an extension less likely especially if it's a no deal situation.

[LondonLax]

23 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Why would the EU27 be that concerned about whether the UK has got its internal house in order?

As long as there's nothing which directly impacts upon them then I'd have thought that they'd tell us to sod off. They might not, obviously.

The government is still claiming that they've got enough time so I can't see them saying they haven't and asking for more until the very last moment. That may also make the EU27 agreeing to an extension less likely especially if it's a no deal situation.

Well the bit in bold is the point. A disorderly brexit does impact on them to one degree or another and an extension for a clearly defined goal would have no downside for the EU. 

Whether the UK needs it is another question I suppose but from what I was reading it was an almost impossible volume of work to get through for a well running united government, let alone the current disorderly one. 

[LondonLax]

1 hour ago, sharkyvilla said:

If the other option was no deal then we would have to consider it.  Like I said the other day, this is the test of the Brexiteers mantra that they need a deal as much as we do, if this is literally the only deal May can get through parliament then they would have to consider it, even with this mythical 'alternative arrangement' thrown in.

Well not quite, the EU don’t need a deal as much as the UK does but you’d have to say a ‘no deal’ scenario is a worse result for the EU than this new proposal of May’s deal with no backstop would be for them.

Afterall, ‘No Deal’ also has no backstop (and not even a transition period for finding a solution to avoid the need for a backstop) so there is definitely a possibility they will fold in this current game of chicken.

It would be a pretty risky move for the UK to push it all the way to the deadline though. 

Edited January 30, 2019 by LondonLax

[snowychap]

1 minute ago, LondonLax said:

Well the bit in bold is the point. A disorderly brexit does impact on them to one degree or another and an extension for a clearly defined goal would have no downside for the EU. 

Whether the UK needs it is another question I suppose but from what I was reading it was an almost impossible volume of work to get through for a well running united government, let alone the current disorderly one. 

Yes, that is rather the point. The degree to which something might impact on them. One shouldn't assume that all disorderly brexits are the same.

Just because various SIs or legislation may not have been passed which may leave holes within the internal legal framework of the UK isn't necessarily of any concern to the EU27.

I'm not suggesting that the UK government's position (about being able to get everything done on time) is one to have any faith in. My previous posts have called in to question the likelihood of getting all of these things done (and therefore questioning how sensible it is to be pissing time away like the government and others are doing) and that I think it's potentially a serious issue for the UK*. I'm not so sure it is a serious issue for the EU27. It is surely becomes less of their business and concern if there is not a WA and transition period? If we leave without a deal then the level of disfunction from that would make anything from uncompleted parliamentary business rather irrelevant.

My point is that it's not really the EU27's job to accede to requests on the basis that we've been so crap that we haven't got all of our homework done on time unless it's going to cause them real problems. If it were something that was going to cause them real problems then I'd think their first retort would be, "You've still got a week - get your arses sorted out and pass the absolutely necessary stuff before the deadline."

Again, I may well be wrong.

* More serious than not getting things done on time is rushing everything through without the necessary scrutiny. I'm cynical enough to think that there may still be some intent on behalf of the government behind this.

[snowychap]

18 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Again, I may well be wrong.

Having said all that I have above, I wouldn't write off the possibility that if we're hurtling towards no deal, the EU27 might step forward in the last week of March and see whether there is any value in them offering an extension of A50 in order to avoid that scenario.

[Xann]

Quote

 

Why the UK cannot see that Brexit is utterly, utterly stupid

The British press helped condone austerity. It's now blinding us to the stupidity of Brexit.

If you talk to almost anyone overseas, except those at the right-wing extreme (like Trump) or part of a tiny minority of the left, their reaction to Brexit is similar that of the former prime minister of Finland. What the UK is doing is utterly, utterly stupid. An act of self harm with no point, no upside. Sometimes outside opinion is based on incomplete or biased information and should be discounted, but on Brexit it is spot on. So why are so many people in the UK unable to see what outsiders can see quite clearly?

The days when Leavers talked about the sunlit uplands are over. Liam Fox has not even managed to replicate the scores of trade deals the UK will lose when we leave the EU. As for independence, Leavers cannot name any laws imposed on the UK by the EU that they do not like. Since the referendum, even public attitudes to immigration have become much more favourable.

Instead there has emerged one justification for reducing real wages, for allowing our economy to lose over 2 per cent of its GDP, to allow firms to make and enact plans to leave the UK: the 2016 referendum. People voted for it, so it has to be done. It is described as the “will of the people”. Yet few bother to note that almost half the people voted the other way, with those that would be most affected not even having a vote ­– and that this victory was won by illegal means. All of that is brushed aside.

But what is really remarkable is the way that what this vote was originally for has gradually mutated over time. Just before the vote, the Leave campaign talked of many ways of leaving, with Norway (which is in the EEA) as one option. They did this for a simple reason: every time Leavers came up with a feasible way of leaving, other Leavers didn't like it. Yet within little more than a year Leavers were declaring that the vote was obviously to leave both the Customs Union and Single Market. During the referendum campaign the Leave side talked about the great deal they would get from the EU, but within two years, many of the same people were seriously pretending that voters really wanted no deal. A vote for the “easiest” deal in history has become a vote for no deal at all, apparently.

In much the same way, as Alex Andreou notes, what was once described as Project Fear transforms in time into “the people knew they were voting for that”. Claims there will be no short-term hit to living standards made before the referendum have now become “people knew there would be a short-term cost” – remember Rees-Mogg told us that short-term means 50 years.

Meanwhile, warnings from important UK businesses become an excuse to talk about WWII, yet again. What people from outside the UK can see that too many inside cannot is how the case for Leaving has become little more than xenophobia and nationalism. What people overseas can also see but we seem unable to is that there is a world of difference between a vote to Leave the EU in an unspecified way and a real, practical plan. Which means that the first referendum, particularly as it was narrowly won, needs to be followed by a second referendum over an actual, realistic way of leaving. In other words, a “people’s vote”. When Jonathan Freedland says “the notion that a 52 per cent vote for a hypothetical, pain-free Brexit translates into an unbreakable mandate for an actually existing Brexit is shaky at best”, he is wrong: the notion is simply incorrect.

Some of the arguments against this are so dumb, yet are allowed to pass as serious. “Oh, well, why not just have a best of three”: because there is no reason for a third referendum. That having a second referendum means that “politicians have failed the people”: most politicians voted to Remain because they knew that any realistic way of leaving would be bad for people. They have been proved right and a majority of the electorate might well agree. “The first referendum was an unconditional vote to leave”: of course, it could never be. Suppose we found out that everyone would lose half their income under any specific way of leaving – would you still argue that in 2016 voters voted for that? 

But by far the worst excuse not to hold a people’s vote is that a second referendum would be undemocratic. Orwell must be turning in his grave when he hears politicians say in all seriousness that a second referendum would undermine faith in democracy. This is the language of dictators and fascists, but few seem to mind. Given the difference between the final deal and the promises of the Leave campaign the case for a second referendum is overwhelming, but you would not know that from the UK public debate. There is only one way to make sense of the “people’s vote = undemocratic” equation, or the “will of the people”, and that is that the first referendum effectively disenfranchised Remain voters.

That is exactly what happened after the 2016 vote. Those wanting to Remain to all intents and purposes ceased to exist. If we are just talking about Leave voters, then of course most will be disappointed by a second vote. Is this why Labour MPs just worry about Leave voters in their constituencies, because Remain voters no longer matter? It is why we get endless vox pops from Leave constituencies, and no mention from EU citizens who have lived here for years who are worried sick because the computer might say you have to leave?

How did Remain voters become effectively disenfranchised? Why is the lunacy of what this country is doing only apparent to foreigners? Answering this question is not hard for anyone who has read my book The Lies We Were Told. What we have that foreigners do not is a public discourse shaped by a handful of newspaper proprietors who just happen to be intensely hostile to the EU. Partly through intimidation by that same press and their political allies, the BBC follows this discourse. This is where the “will of the people” came from. It was this press that puts rebel Conservative MPs on their front pages, and that uses language like saboteurs and traitors. It is intimidating MPs in order to influence the democratic process, but of course few in the media call it that. 

As I discuss in my book, I have seen this before in a milder form at least twice in recent times. In the first the UK convinced itself that austerity was the only way forward, despite most academic economists saying otherwise. It was the media that promoted claims that governments were just like households, even though first year economics students are taught why this is not true. And then it was the media that pushed (or left unchallenged) the idea that austerity was the result of Labour profligacy: it was a straight lie but it played a critical part in the 2015 election.

 

New Statesman

[snowychap]

Beeb:

Quote

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Tuesday's vote had "overturned a defeat of 230 into a victory", referring to the crushing defeat of Mrs May's deal in the Commons earlier this month.

[Dodgyknees]

17 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Beeb:

Papers are calling it a success too. The media are so **** corrupt - and they are as much to blame as any of the main political parties. We need a revolution.

I'm deeply ashamed of my country.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Dick

[Stevo985]

It's amazing the way it's being spun by some parts of the media.

[bickster]

Its the mid game of the "it's the nasty EU's fault" narrative

[Chindie]

It's all about trying to change the narrative. It's been bubbling away for a while but last night it got it's push - it's the EU's (as Dublin's) fault. It's trying to make the EU look the unreasonable party.

It'll work too. It was already there barely under the surface, now it's getting it's mainstream push. Because the Tories know when the shit hits the fan, people will remember who was at the wheel. They're over estimating how much it'll harm then though imo.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, snowychap said:

Why would the EU27 be that concerned about whether the UK has got its internal house in order?...

The government is still claiming that they've got enough time ...

The UK Gov't absolutely hasn't got its house in order and they are absolutely lying, flat out lying to say they've got enough time. They haven't. Nowhere near.

There is nowhere near enough time to pass the various legislation which is essential, however we leave (deal, no deal, whatever).  No deal is much harder and more of a problem than a deal, in terms of time. Because a whole swathe of our Laws (the EU ones) will no longer apply on 29th March. They have to be replaced with something. There are 14 or 15 bills necessary to do this, that have been making their way through parliament for the last 2 years. 5 have been compelted, the other 9 or 10 are nowhere near completed. The Trade bill is stuck in the Lords, and has been for ages because they said (paraphrasing) it was a half arsed rush job missing key detail, and the GOv't in al lthis time has not provided the missing detail and structure etc.. Without it we cannot trade, even on WTO rules. Most of the other bills are further behind and in a worse state.

And all that King Henry stuff and transposing EU rules into UK laws as and where necessary - that's not been done, either. There was a thousand or so things that needed doing, and they've not done them. There's not time to do all that stuff in the next 9 weks or whatever it is, even if they worked 24 hours a day at it, and didn't spend the next month or whatever it is dicking about with the latest clusterpork of a mess that arose out of yesterday's kicking the can down the road, decision bottling shower of gov't and opposition incompetence.

The missing legal stuff is not trivia - it's the basic and essential laws covering Trade, Transport, FInance, Security and stuff like that.

There might be a quarter of a chance of somehow muddling through all this if they eventually opt for a May deal, or a Norway style one, but there's no chance if this idiotic no deal brinkmanship carries on.

Parliament has monumentally failed.

 

[villa4europe]

surprised more wasn't made of it before yesterday, the EU stated they wouldn't be willing to make any more amendments but our plan B was to have a vote on what amendments we want to make, it was utterly pointless, an exercise in lets do something that also doesnt work but at least doesnt look like our fault this time

 

[Chindie]

There's failure everywhere.

Government has acted in its own self interest from the get go (and across the board there, the list of shit its pulled is obscene).

Parliament has proven itself to be spineless. Ignored and sidelined by a particularly nasty Government, given every opportunity to assert itself and it falls back to party lines and fear for their hides.

Our media is a **** disgrace. Lies go unchallenged. The government line is taken and spun at every chance. There's little understanding of the depth of the issues they're meant to present, instead parroting what the government has told them. Even when it's so flimsy you could cough through it (like this morning).

Britain needs an intervention. It's lost it.

[bickster]

21 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

surprised more wasn't made of it before yesterday, the EU stated they wouldn't be willing to make any more amendments but our plan B was to have a vote on what amendments we want to make, it was utterly pointless, an exercise in lets do something that also doesnt work but at least doesnt look like our fault this time

 

I saw some BBC News on it last night (By accident or osmosis or something), I was screaming at the TV within a minute asking why they weren't even mentioning that May took this to the HoC an hour after Juncker confirmed ditrectly to her that there would be no negotiations. Disingenuous reporting at it's best

[snowychap]

29 minutes ago, blandy said:

The Trade bill is stuck in the Lords...Without it we cannot trade, even on WTO rules.

That's quite a leap.

Sure, Fox said that without it we wouldn't be able to sign up to the GPA without its provisions (though I'm not sure we ought to believe what DFDS Fox claims about anything) but that doesn't equate to 'not being able to trade'.

As I've said time and time and time again (and I'll say it once more here just to 'be clear' in the language of the Brexit debate), the amount of legislation that still needs to be passed (and whether the requisite amount of scrutiny will be given to it) is a real problem given the short amount of time until exit day as it is now.

29 minutes ago, blandy said:

There was a thousand or so things that needed doing, and they've not done them.

The original estimate was a thousand or so. That estimate has been revised down a number of times since.

At the last count, apparently 300 of the SIs have been laid before parliament, I believe.

If you'd like to go back and search for a previous post in which I brought this up, there was a link to a dashboard of how much progress was being made on them.

Edit: I'll save you the time - here's the link to the Hansard Society page.

Quote

How many Brexit Statutory Instruments does the government plan to lay before Parliament?

Government ministers initially said that they expected to lay between 800 and 1,000 Statutory Instruments (SIs) to prepare the statute book for exit day, primarily using powers in the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018. In September 2018 ministers indicated that the final figure would probably be closer to 800 than 1,000, and in November 2018, this figure was revised down to approximately 700 SIs, although it was stressed that this figure might also be subject to fluctuation in the weeks ahead. In January 2019, the number of Brexit SIs needed by exit day was revised down again to “fewer than 600”.

How many Brexit SIs has the government laid before Parliament so far?

350 Brexit-related SIs have been laid since the EU (Withdrawal) Act received Royal Assent on 26 June 2018. Of these:

252 have been laid using powers in the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 only;

41 have been laid using powers in other Acts of Parliament;

57 have been laid using a combination of powers in the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and in other Acts of Parliament.

...

Which Brexit SIs have completed their parliamentary scrutiny?

Of the 350 Brexit SIs laid before Parliament so far, only 108 have completed their passage through Parliament.

 

Edited January 30, 2019 by snowychap

[bickster]

Dear BBC, this is how journalists are supposed to behave. Someone lies, pick them up on it, they change tack but Lie again, pick them up on it. 

 

[NurembergVillan]

I can't put into words how much I hate that man.

And this one -

 

[Mozzavfc]

Brexit means Brexit 

[blandy]

39 minutes ago, snowychap said:

That's quite a leap.

Sure, Fox said that without it we wouldn't be able to sign up to the GPA without its provisions (though I'm not sure we ought to believe what DFDS Fox claims about anything) but that doesn't equate to 'not being able to trade'.

As I've said time and time and time again (and I'll say it once more here just to 'be clear' in the language of the Brexit debate), the amount of legislation that still needs to be passed (and whether the requisite amount of scrutiny will be given to it) is a real problem given the short amount of time until exit day as it is now.

The original estimate was a thousand or so. That estimate has been revised down a number of times since.

At the last count, apparently 300 of the SIs have been laid before parliament, I believe.

If you'd like to go back and search for a previous post in which I brought this up, there was a link to a dashboard of how much progress was being made on them.

Edit: I'll save you the time - here's the link to the Hansard Society page.

 

I wasn't arguing with you! I quoted you because you mentioned the Gov't (lies) about time being OK.

On the WTO, there's a whole bunch of nations objecting to carrying on with the UK allocated part of the EU quota staying the same, there's all the stuff to be defined about what trade tarrifs we lay down on any WTO trade - i.e. do we charge lower tarriffs. It has to be set in our laws, T.May can't just ad lib it or wing it.

And on the King Henry stuff, thanks. SO they've done around half of what needs to be done, with just a few weeks of the 2 years left. IT's not going to happen is it? Your detailed stats back up what I said.

And there's still the busines of the serious bills s on Security, Trade etc. which either haven't even got as far as the Lords or are stuck there awaiting Gov't input - 2/3rds of them are nowhere near complete. 2 months to complete 2/3rds of what has to be done, when 1/3rd has taken nearly 2 years.

Clusterpork. Lies, delusion, fantasy. Incomeptence.