The Brexit Countdown Echochamber of Exasperation

[Sharp]

Labour have basically enabled this by shitty political fence sitting for the whole thing and are still trying to use it as a political football rather than actually taking a real position.

Scottish Labour at FMQ's today decided to ask questions on things that aren't devolved (UC) rather than go on Brexit.

Both can burn.

[Largi]

Letters of no confidence are going in!
Its going to be GE time!

[Sharp]

No guarantee of that as she may well survive the vote. Even if she doesn't they can select a new leader without a GE.

I don't give a shit about a GE. Both Labour and Tories will run on Brexit at all costs and say they'll get their unicorn brexit.

Edited November 15, 2018 by Sharp

[Dave]

Letters have no bearing on GE, it's an internal Tory affair. No one wants the job anyway

[Tiran]

Yeah, seems unlikely we'll see a GE, its too short notice and the public don't want it. If there is demand for anything (and even that is dodgy) it's for a second referendum.

[dangphat]

I have given up on idealism. At the moment all I want is stability, and this draft exit proposal seems to me to be the only choice we currently have to give some stability. It does not give what brexiteers want (good) or what remain wants(unfortunately but we do not have a path to a second reformendum) but it does give a basis for industry to plan for the medium term. If party politics rejects it then we may end up with no deal, at which point my job and my assets are at serious risk. 

[Sharp]

Pretty much. 

The deal is not great, but its infinitely better than no deal, and much as I want us to remain, I don't see that happening. Labour don't support remain, the Tories don't support it, there's no way we get there. There's no time for another ref and no guarantee that that if we did have one that it will not return a worse result. Thats not even going into how toxic and hate filled that could potentially be. A general election will be too much upheaval at the worst possible time and both parties will run on leave anyway. Labour aren't likely to get anything better if they negotiate.

My job isn't directly tied to the EU but a lot of my clients are, I've got friends with jobs that are and I don't want any of those risked more.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Sharp

[Lagrosh]

I haven't posted so much here or anywhere, because it angers me so much.

I'm angry with all involved here quite honestly, and I seriously believe from start to finish this has been caused by people thinking about their own political career, rather than attempting to lead in any way. From Cameron to Bojo to May all the recent quitters.

What people don't seem to understand is that lives are at stake here.

What the hell does a no-deal mean for people in hospital, for food, for those of us living in the EU, and for other EU citizens living in the UK.

What a colossal fuck-up.

 

I can tell you the external view of the UK is as of that of the US atm. A bunch of short-termist morons who have no idea of the realities of their situation.

 

Angry & afraid.

[Nacey]

Robert Peston:

Quote

According to senior Labour sources, Corbyn is close to agreeing that shortly (days) after the loss of the meaningful vote by May, he would formally make his party the champion of another referendum or People’s Vote - on the basis that if there is no consensus in parliament on what comes next, the question has to go back to the people.

[Nacey]

Every day I think this whole situation can't get any more ridiculous but then the next day happens.

[Brynneth]

Prediction: May will scrape through with a small majority of 20-30 votes, decline the conventional logic to resign because of a desperation to keep shit together until Brexit happens, Corbyn calls a no confidence vote against the government tomorrow. 

[Sharp]

And Corbyn likely loses unless he can get the DUP onside or enough Tories are willing to risk a GE, potentially with May still at the helm.

[Kryton]

Can I just clarify what happened last night?

Plan A had already been defeated so we were onto Plan B (which a lot of commentators imply was Plan A with a sunglasses and a fake tash). However, Plan B was most notably different in regard to NI border and isn't the version that the EU have agreed to. Last night the vote was that we should now take Plan B to the EU and get them to agree? Is that right?

[Tiran]

Basically yes.

MPs have voted that they do not want no deal, and do want to try returning to the EU and getting them to change the backstop arrangements. The EU have previously said this is not up for negotiation but perhaps they could be persuaded.

[Kryton]

This whole process is such a farce. Ignoring personal opinions on whether any kind of Brexit is a good idea or not, everything appears to occur in completely the wrong order.

First we are asked to vote on leave or remain without knowing what the terms of leaving would be and hence could not be expected to make an informed decision.

Having made that choice, we then spent 2.5 years working with the EU on a deal, only to decide we don't like it at the eleventh hour and try to push our own version back on them.

[Sharp]

The problem is, the NI Backstop is basically there as the government cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith (particularly after David Davis' antics.

We then prove this by going back to the EU and saying "That agreement we both agreed was good, we don't like it anymore, change it". May suddenly urging people to vote against it having pushed for it before as "the best deal" doesn't help.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Sharp

[Nacey]

5 hours ago, Kryton said:

Can I just clarify what happened last night?

Plan A had already been defeated so we were onto Plan B (which a lot of commentators imply was Plan A with a sunglasses and a fake tash). However, Plan B was most notably different in regard to NI border and isn't the version that the EU have agreed to. Last night the vote was that we should now take Plan B to the EU and get them to agree? Is that right?

Some slight confusion here though the gist is the same. It depends how and when you want to name the various "plans" (calling some of them an actual plan is quite generous).

Let's run over the last few weeks.

May agreed the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) with the EU and brought it back to parliament in December. Realising that it would no got through she pulled the vote and went back to the EU to get changes on the backstop. The EU made some minor tweaks of language to the Political Declaration (PD) which is a non-legally binding statement about what happens after Brexit with regards to our future relationship with the EU and brought that back to parliament claiming this this had legal weight, which it does not, it only has political weight. As such this was a waste of a few weeks and May put the exact same WA to parliament who duly voted against it.

Dominic Grieve managed to get an amendment passed which required May to come back to parliament and present her next steps within a few days. This did not require any actual action but the statement was amendable meaning parliament could make changes to it to try to push the government in a specific direction. That brings us up to last night where MPs were voting on those amendments.

Since May is incapable of getting any changes to the WA (the EU have repeated on an almost daily basis that it will not be reopened or modified at this point) and she faced losing on a couple of amendments which took power away from her with the goal of preventing a No Deal outcome, she whipped the Tories to vote through an Amendment which says that the backstop should be replaced with "alternative arrangements", without specifying what those arrangements might be. It's worth pointing out that no such arrangements actually exist with which the EU will agree as no such arrangements actually exist which do not break the Good Friday Agreement which both the UK and Ireland (and therefore by extension the EU) are signatories of - other than staying in a permanent customs union, staying in the single market, or staying in the EU, but all of those defeat the point of Brexit so the government will not consider them). She did this to avoid losing another vote but the outcome is meaningless nonsense. She has told her own MPs to vote against her own deal so that she can demand that the EU give her what she has, until now, argued that the EU will definitely not give her.

May will now bring the deal back for another vote on 13th February. It's obvious to everyone that this will be the same deal again. She will apparently spend the next two weeks negotiating with the EU, except that not only have the EU made it clear today that there is nothing to negotiate but they in fact made this clear yesterday before the vote even took place, as well as, of course, repeatedly for the last month. So there will be no negotiation.

The ERG (the hard-right Brexit-loving faction of the Tory party led by Jacob Rees-Mogg) want to leave with No Deal and are just trying to run down the clock to achieve that. May, given the choice of breaking the Tory party in two, or putting the entire country at risk, chose the latter, because of course she fucking did.

So Plan A was the same as Plan B and plan C is the same thing again. Meanwhile parliament cannot find a majority for any other single plan of action. And the clock ticks down. And while I don't really think May will allow No Deal to happen when it comes down to it, the only way we can guarantee that is by revoking A50, saying "fuck it all" to the referendum, and trying to pretend the whole thing didn't happen. Is she willing to do that? After last night I just don't know any more what she's willing to do to save the Tory party.

[dangphat]

Alternatively she has intentionally delayed the parliament vote, and will delay subsequent votes until those within parliament who don't want a no deal Brexit have no choice but to vote for her deal. I'm not saying it's a good plan, but I'm hoping she has any plan.

[Sharp]

One issue is no one knows how Labour might vote if it comes to the wire. Would they support her deal? Would they abstain as to not support the Tories and try and put any result on them?

[Nacey]

13 hours ago, dangphat said:

Alternatively she has intentionally delayed the parliament vote, and will delay subsequent votes until those within parliament who don't want a no deal Brexit have no choice but to vote for her deal. I'm not saying it's a good plan, but I'm hoping she has any plan.

Oh absolutely that is the case, I guess I missed that part, but yes, that is what she is trying to do. But the question is what she will do if her plan fails and it comes down to No Deal happening.

[Kryton]

@Nacey It sounds then that the only two possible outcomes are a No Deal Brexit or no Brexit at all. Both of which totally doom the Tory party and result in the high chance of a general election. If that were to happen I would expect Labour to win (either outright or with help) as the Tories will have pissed off one side of their voters or the other. The end result is a Labour government which exactly what Cameron was trying to avoid when he promised the referendum in the first place (only difference being that we've wasted a lot of money, damaged the economy, destroyed the Tories and pissed off the EU in the meantime).

[Brynneth]

What May is hoping for at this point is that if she keeps putting forward the same deal over and over, enough of the "anything but no deal!" crowd both in her own party and in Labour will switch sides at the last minute to prevent the disaster of No Deal. There's actually a pretty good chance she'll manage it. 

[Nacey]

As Gaz says, there is a strong possibility that Labour MPs will end up backing May's deal if they think they she won't blink first and would allow No Deal. That's exactly what May is playing for. What she's doing now in placating the ERG has two goals but neither of them are to actually solve the problem. She wants to keep the Tory party together/happy and she wants to run down the clock towards the threat of no deal. In the end it is the pro-remainer Tories and Labour rebels who will get her deal through, not the ERG (because they don't actually want a deal).

In normal times you would expect Labour to hold together under their leadership and resist this nonsense and call May's bluff. Unfortunately Labour currently do not have coherent leadership so their MPs are all over the place on the question of what should happen next and May will quite possibly be able to pick off enough of them to win a final-hour vote.

Worth noting that if a deal is approved we'll immediately ask the the EU for an extension to A50 anyway because there is not enough time to pass the required legislation. There's no possibility of us leaving the EU on 29th March with a deal. But the EU would approve that if the deal was agreed and it was just a matter for timelines rather than uncertainty.

[NATO]

Substantive content as well I guess. It all comes down to how much appetite there is for no brexit vs no deal. Given that the commons leans remain and how weak both leaders look I wouldn't be shocked for A50 to be revoked ... that may be just my wishful thinking.

Edited January 31, 2019 by NATO

[Lagrosh]

And while we play this game of stupid, I have now had to sign up for what hopefully amounts to a temporary residency of 3 months, and my company saying they're not sure what it means about paying me in April.

I'm in the process of getting to the point where I have to decide whether to switch to German citizenship instead, because fuck this sinking ship.