Brexit

I can see sense in Theresa May in pushing it to a cross party combo but given her intransigence is she really gonna compromise this time?! Otherwise we really risk the no deal this coming 12!
I've no idea if the EU27 will grant us any further extension or like D Tusk calls it a flextension well I do have hope for a safe future for all of us!

 

Me too, if she started earlier with that.

 

One problem with that is that if Labour support May's 'deal' or something similar, they will probably loose a lot of their voters who see it as facilitating a tory scheme which will leave us all worse off. That could help the tories get re-elected next election time which would be a total disaster for any kind of proggressive politics in this country.

In the last round of talks, May offered no concessions - and certainly nowhere near what many are calling for, a second vote with remain on the ticket.
Corbyn attracted a lot of support from younger people at the last election - I think he's already lost a lot of that through not taking a firmly pro-EU stand, or at least unreservedly backing a second public vote. The impression is that many Labour MPs, like their tory counterparts, are more interested in their own careers than the future of Britain.

It's pretty simple really, nothing has changed in all this - the best deal we can get is the one We have now inside the EU.

 

I do find the Poor Weak Britain argument a bit funny, as in laugh out loud funny, wasn’t the whole thing about us leaving the EU about Britain (or rather England) been so strong ‘we’ can go it alone.

That ‘we’ had all the cards that ‘we’ could bully the EU into a great deal for us (and not for them) I mean it was meant to be so easy ‘we’ would get all the benefits of the EU without any of the supposed drawbacks, easy so easy because ‘we’ were so strong

And now we seem to be getting another story about poor week UK been bullied by the big bad meany EU who will not let poor weak UK have the deal it wants.

Anyone that looked at the relationship objectively knew that the UK would find itself in a weak position and that of course the EU would want to make the deal as good for them and as bad for us – not only is that how international deal work but also one of the political imperative of the EU was to show that leaving the club had drawbacks and even serious consequences.

The thing is that we have one of the sweetest deal in the EU, we didn’t want the Euro ok we got an opt out, we didn’t want to be part of the Schengen agreement ok we got an opt out, we wanted a rebate ok we got it and so on. We got concessions because they wanted us in the EU and how did many in Britain (or rather England) repay their generosity well with scorn, derision and even hatred. The powers that be in the UK wealth and wealth owned newspapers never said anything about the benefits of the EU only the supposed drawbacks most of which were simply lies.

It sometimes seems to me that it’s like a fight between a drunken pub brawler and a professional heavyweight champion.

At the beginning the brawler thinks in his head that he is the meanest toughest fighter in the world and can win the fight, and has been shouting insults at the muscled young man in the blue and gold shorts

The people in the audience are either worried, appalled at the brawler’s lack of insight or just laughing

By the time the bell has rung the brawler has sobering up, he looks down at his belly hanging over the Union Jack shorts and the badly laced boots and begins pleading to be given an easy time because of his heart condition and bad knees.

What I’m sure is that once the brawler comes around after been knocked out he will blame the heavyweight for cheating.

 

Bill

Yes to that – I’ve meet many that seem very disillusioned with Corbyn, and the danger is that while they wouldn’t vote Tory at any future election they might just not vote for labour either letting the Tories in by default.

*

At this moment I’m just hoping we can have the European elections and get the remainers out to vote in it so we can drown UKIP in a sea of pro-European MEP’s.

 

That's a very good and apt analogy. I mean, WTF did they expect? That the EU would just say the UK can have all the benefits of membership but not have to play by the rules? Did they have even the most sketchy of plans? Clearly not. Britain is indeed 'led by donkeys'. And of course con-men.

I agree that one danger is that a lot of especially younger people just won't vote next time, having been switched off the political process by all we've seen recently, and the feeling there's no party that represents them - the Greens might but as no-one else votes for them, why bother..... and thus the tories get in for anothe 5 years of plunder, lies, and incompetence.

Goes without saying that I too want the Euro Elections to happen.

 

A man was stopped and detained at Gatwick Airport for refusing to remove a 'bollocks to brexit' badge.

Let's be clear: 'bollocks' is a word that is not considered obscene, following a judge's ruling on the Sex Pistols album 'Never Mind the Bollocks...' So it's cleary a political matter. A person being denied the right to peacefully express their political view, and prevented from going about their lawful business.

Doesn't bode well for the future of freedom of political expression in this country.

Man detained at Gatwick after refusing to remove anti-Brexit badge

 

OK so we get more fudge, some in the rest of the EU wanted to give the UK a long extension of a year or so and others wanted to have a short one (or none at all).

The compromise is the end of October, hell first we had April Fool’s Day as the first day of Brexit now it could be Halloween (you couldn’t make this shit up).

And the top rumour is that the May faction want to present her deal to parliament AGAIN, this seems a bit fucking nuts from people that are against the UK people having another vote (and with leavers sneering that all remainers want to do is vote until we get what we want).

It would have to be changed but again rumours are hinting that May will buy Labour off with a promise to put in some type of you know, like ‘customs union’ idea in the political declaration section.

Again the rumour is that she wants to push this through before the EU elections so that people are not allowed to show their mood by voting

But what if it passes?

Then we would BEGIN the HARD PART, the trade deals which could take years.

To repeat this will not be the end of Brexit it will just be the beginning of the next stage, with many more years of uncertainty and political bitching to look forward to.

Because to repeat no deal can be as good as the deal we already have so any other deal is going to cause problems for the UK.

And it wouldn’t settle anything – the same Brexit faction, the ERG and UKIP will just go back to saying that we have to have a Brexit a ‘real’ Brexit – claiming that if we had just ‘left’ everything would have been just great and a lot better than what is happening, with others saying that any problems caused by leaving are all the fault of the evil EU that ‘forced’ the UK into a ‘bad deal’ - lies that will be believed by many of the ill-informed and even supported by the right wing wealth owned press.

So we could just go back to the politics we had pre-referendum, just meaner and nastier, in a country suffering from the hardships that that referendum has caused.

A right still demanding Brexit (a ‘real’ no deal Brexit) more xenophobia, more hatred, more austerity more blame, more corrupting privatisation, more people been left behind, more hardship, more corrosion of workers’ rights….

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever.”

We have to join together and stop that from happening?

 

Positive things that could come out of the extension - the 3 'R's - referendum, revoke, remain.

On the negative side it gives the tories long enough to get rid of May and replace her with one or other hard brexiteer demogogues who could then crash us out.

Whatever the outcome brexit is going to be with us for a long time - if we remain the brexit mob will no doubt cause trouble again - but I think the scare stories about a virtual far-right uprising are pure nonsense, the brexiteers own version of 'project fear'. We have to come out 'cause Farage and his chums won't like it if we stay in'.

If we do leave, probabaly a swift, deep and crippling economic recession, rising unemployment, no trade deals in sight, a further degradation of UK politics (which has already sunk pretty low), and probably more misery for the poor whose numbers will be greatly increased.We can also kiss bye bye to the NHS as we've known it.

For the time being, I'm just a bit relieved that on saturday morning I can drink my coffee as a proud citizen of the EU.Also as we're now probably going to hold EU elections, a chance for the public to indicate some kind of verdict on this entire shambles.

 

Bill

Yes I was going to put that in my earlier rant – that we have this limited time and if the Tories are really nuts they will waste much of it having a leadership battle were some 100,000 Conservative Party members (a lot of them UKIP infiltrators) will vote in a new Prime Minister.

Maybe they are that stupid, but if they do that I think it teeters on the dangerously reckless, any belief the British people had in our political system is nearly dead and I think that would be the last nail in the coffin.

And when people lose confidence in their political system they look around for quick fixes and the examples from history where that has happened have not all been that great.

But yes there are very stupid people in the Tory party so…..

 

Our system here is just such a mess.

On @itvpeston Jeremy Hunt just said that a future tory leader, which he hopes will be him, wouldn't be bound by any agreement reached with labour over a deal.

Remind me what we pay these people for? Just to exchange empty words, have meaningless votes, claim expenses...........

Labour need to come out for a PV. The tories can't be trusted. Hunt just said so.

 

People need to get ready

Local Elections 2 May – one place were the people's voice can be heard

European Elections 23 May – every Remainer needs to send a message and elect the most pro Europeans to the European Parliament

Here are the Constituencies and who is representing them at the moment

2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

My hope would be to unseat all the Brexit supporters

 

A good alternative would be the Greens

“The Green Party stands ready to fight EU elections. We plan to use these democratic and proportional elections to mobilise one of the strongest pro-EU movements anywhere on the continent and champion a fairer, greener, more democratic EU.

"A strong vote for pro-European candidates will massively increase the chances of winning a future People’s Vote so we can begin to heal our divided communities and our relationship with our EU neighbours.

“Politicians could and should also use this time to address the causes that gave rise to feelings of powerlessness, alienation and being left behind which prompted so many to vote leave in 2016.

“Of course, many will seek to use this period to further ferment hatred. We must be on our guard against the forces that will continue to mislead, misrepresent and undermine our democracy. It is also essential we continue to expose those who lied, cheated and broke the law in the European referendum campaign of 2016.”

The Green Party of England and Wales has in recent weeks been preparing for European elections by selecting their list of candidates. The results from each region will be announced over the next two weeks.

I will post that list when it's announced

 

I would strongly urge people to consider voting Green in both Local and European Elections. Even if you are hesitant about voting for them in a general election.

That would send a strong 'Remain' signal to the current bunch of ne'r-do'wells in Parliament, and be a blow for nature against extinction and environmental meltdown.

 

This worries me

Brexit’s Irish border problem, explained.

 

It worries a lot of people here who don't want to go back to the troubles. There's a real risk of that if a hard border were to be imposed.

 

Labour not offering a second vote on Brexit in their Euro campaign. Corbyn ready to facilitate a tory brexit by the look of things.That could see poor people, and in fact all non-rich people hit badly, and the sell off of the NHS. The only hope is that they will get trounced at the Local and Euro level which may lead to a change of direction. However, I don't think so.

I'd urge people to vote for a Remain party at the coming elections. Labour are fast becoming a sick joke.

 

Bill

Yes I was going to post about this but it’s so depressing.

Basically the Labour leadership are chasing their own unicorn of Labour coming out of the EU fuck up victorious, been elected in a landslide and bringing about a socialist utopia

But the thing is this seems like a betrayal of the regular labour membership and labour supporters in general and I’ve already meet two Labour voters that say they wouldn’t vote for a Corbyn led Labour party.

In this atmosphere and lacking any real remain leadership I am fearful for the upcoming elections.

 

It isn't looking good I agree.

All we can do is vote for our principles. Corbyn has ensured that any thought I had of voting tactically is now dead. So I'll be voting Green.

Labour seem to be delusional.