The whole shit show can hardly be blamed on Theresa May can it

[dawnacorns]

I'm hardly her number one fan but I can't see how getting rid of her is the answer. They just don't seem to know what they're doing. It's an absolute mess whichever way you look at it.

{Just say the deal is voted down on the 25th, the EU will bend, it does more trade with us than we do with them.}
They won't bend. A significant chunk of manufacturing in the UK is actually EU owned, they will either move or close it if it is not profitable. Similarly Japanese manufacturing, no profit they will walk.
The UK is not self sufficient in food and buying fresh produce from anywhere beyond Europe is not practical.
No doubt you will feel elated and crow that the EU are having problems with trade growth. This gives them an ideal chance to simply close car and other manufacturing in the UK so who is 'winning' here?
Higher education, free or subsidised across a fair bit of Europe or £9,000 a year in the UK.

@Talkinpeece

Leavers are anti expert, it stands to reason they would be anti education.

Putin must be paying overtime, his goal of pushing us over the cliff edge is so close. This will do more damage to the UK than any sanctions we could ever impose on Russia.

Sadly a good number of people in the UK are not politically aware.

I blame FPTP where no one needs to question anything especially in a safe seat. Leads to inertia, why bother, s/he will get elected anyway.

So political debate does not feature for many. Why bother, the outcome is known even before voting.

She’s my age and my height. Also my grey hair. I am feeling her vibes more than the vipers trying to snake her. Tory boys are quite nasty.

On the one hand I think she has been surrounded by a bunch of spineless goons who are essentially bullying her at work. On the other hand she created the ‘hostile’ environment, called a disastrous snap election, has expressed pride in ending free movement for UK citizens , and constantly put power and aggrandisement of the Tory party above what is good for the country. My sympathy is limited. And by the way Geoffrey Boycott is a miserable git to model yourself on!

It is really up to the people to complain within their constituencies. Can you imagine that happening ever.

I don't think people care because they cannot change anything really under FPTP.

Oh dear God, the Daily Mail has anointed her their new cover girl with toe curling interview about Philip (May not Hammond) making her beans on toast after everyone had been beastly to her (she opened the tin, presumably to prove how strong and stable she is)

read it here, all you May-lovers

The problem is that a Remainer should never have been allowed to lead us out of the EU.

The problem is that the Leavers weren't prepared to step up to the task.. Leasdom and Gove both put up for the PM's job - Gove didn't get far, and Leasdom put her foot in her mouth and ran away, as did the one who would have been certain to win, Johnson.
Then when a Leaver, Davis, was put in charge of negotiations, he was too lazy to bother to do the job.

So blame your own side for not being up to scratch.

The deal? To give a shitload of cash to unelected tosspots for fuck all in return? No ta. As for May? No, it’s not all at her doorstep, but if she was any good as a leader, she’d have whipped her Brexit negotiators into shape. The whole thing has been a shit ton of bollocks from start to finish and has showed me i wouldn’t trust any of them to run a bath.

1tisILeClerc

Of course the UK can leave the EU, no problem at all.

You sound like Dominic Raab, who apparently has existed for months/years without realising Dover and Calais are, you know, quite close to each other & quite important for importing crucial stuff.

There are many, many, many problems involved in “leaving” the EU. It will never be over. This deal isn’t even actually THE deal, it’s just a transition deal that more or less freezes everything as is. The reason for that is civil servants on both sides know how problematic it is to completely unpick the relationship between the UK and the EU.

She’s one strong lady I admire the courage of her convictions. She’s being bullied by the ‘boys brigade’ who are irritated that a woman is in that job yet non of them were prepared to take it on at the time at the time. Keep strong Theresa May the majority of the country, in my humble opinion, is behind you.

Did you vote to leave the customs union?
Did you vote to replace EU immigrants with commonwealth ones?
Did you vote to create huge job losses in the north and west?
Did you vote for more expensive food?
if not, what did you vote for?

Well, the leave campaign was based around us leaving the single market and customs union, so yes to the first two.

As for job losses and expensive food, the remain campaign talked not stop about economic consequences and polls showed that most leavers were prepared to accept an economic hit.

Personally, I voted to leave because the EU is becoming more of a basket case by the day. It has wreaked economic havoc across Southern Europe and just lurches from one crisis to another. Four EU countries have now worryingly voted in far right leaders as a result. It is also has zero appetite for reform.

I think leaving will cause us some short term pain but long term gain. The EU will one day collapse and we're better out than falling down with it.

The EU is a basket case?

Have you watched the news in the last 2 years?

The EU negotiators have acted with restraint and dignity while we have scrambled and scuffled and lied. The U.K. government is a shambolic laughing stock. We may not actually have a functioning government.

We haven't even left yet and we can't negotiate an exit from the proverbial brewery.

We are an embarrassment, the world is watching in open mouthed horror, but the EU is a basket case?

Tigerroo

Well, you say YOU voted to leave the customs union but we don't know how many others did since that was never a question on the ballot.
Out of the 52% who voted leave, it's quite possible that a minority imagined a Norway or Switzerland type situation. Even if only 1 in 20 did, that would be sufficient for the majority of the population to support staying in the customs union. Thus there is no mandate for a hard brexit since no one knows how many brexiteers actually wanted a soft one.

whipped her Brexit negotiators into shape

Because that's how good leaders work - they whip people. A bit of a talking to and you can develop all kinds of skills. A stiff word in your ear and 20 years of experience of something massively complicated just pops up.

We don't have the skills or the people to negotiate Brexit - leavers were told this again and again. Trade negotiations are complicated and require people who know what they are doing we had about 5 civil servants with the skills necessary when we voted leave.

This mess was entirely predictable - in fact it was predicted but was dismissed as project fear.

Personally, I think it's really cute how Leavers have (as I predicted in recent months) segued smoothly from:

"Businesses leaving? Food shortages? Planes grounded? Stockpiling medicines? It's Project Fear!!! It's just like the Millennium Bug! All Fake News! Absolutely nothing bad could possibly happen due to Brexit! TheyNeedUsMoreThanWeNeedThem! I'm going to call people posting about making preparations Hysterical Fearmongers who by prepping in 2018 will be the ones causing panic-buying in 2019! I BeLeave sooooooo much that I'm going to type angrily on an internet forum, whilst not actually pledging to not prepare myself... mumble mumble..."

to

"I've always wanted No Deal, it was exactly what I had in my mind as I put my cross in the box in 2016! I knew there would be lots of bad things happening due to Brexit but it'll be worth it One Day! I was eagerly expecting and looking forward to an unknown period of food shortages, lack of medicines, economic contraction, job losses and uncertified airplanes! It'll be great for our patriotic BlitzSpirit! And anyone who isn't stockpiling frantically, now they are the traitors!"

The problem is that nobody has managed to work out how to leave the EU.

Nobody has suggested a better deal than May’s and nobody has explained what magical circumstances will make it possible to change the terms of relations at the end of the transition period.

You hear a lot about attitude but no details.

‘No deal’ hardly leaves the U.K. in a position to make good deals with other countries. If you think the EU is bad imagine the countries that will be racing to make trade deals with a country that is economically weakened, and tied up in legal wrangles with the world’s biggest trading block.

In or out of the EU the U.K. has always been inextricably linked to events in Europe. You can’t change that by leaving the EU.

whipped her Brexit negotiators into shape

Is this a medieval concept? Whip enough Brexit negotiators and God makes Ireland disappear?

derxa I am not sure why you think that British kids losing access to the Erasmus scheme is ridiculous.It is a fantastic way for young people from all over the continent to live and work and learn in other countries
and is massively valued by everybody except Brexiters

Firstly I'm not a Brexiteer- I voted Remain. I value education highly. I'm sure the Erasmus scheme is marvellous. However I got irate because in the grand scheme of things it's not that important when the country is teetering on the edge of disaster. It has made it even clearer to me the thought processes of people on here and why people voted to Leave. On the day of the Remain march there was a vox pop from a young woman who was marching because she was a medical student who was worried she couldn't work in mainland Europe after she qualified.

Well, the leave campaign was based around us leaving the single market and customs union, so yes to the first two.

Funnily enough, I distinctly remember Danial Hannan, Tory MEP, declaring that 'No one's talking of leaving the Single Market', the night after the Referendum result was declared. This was a reasonable declaration because it was clearly stated in the Tory 2015 GE Manifesto, so you imagine that Davis, Fox, Johnson, Rees-Mogg, Redwood, Grayling etc. agreed with this too.

I do of course, remember the slogan 'Take back control' and talk about 'Sovereignty' although Theresa May we never lost them.

I think leaving will cause us some short term pain but long term gain.

I won't be around in the 50 years time that Rees-Mogg was talking about, and my grandson will be coming up to retirement then. It's a long, long time to wait for improvement. Nor does it square with 'easiest deals in history' etc. which all imply it will all be done quickly.

The EU is a basket case?
Have you not watched the news for the last 2 years?

Haven't you? It's an organisation in permanent crisis. The EU negotiators are nothing to do with how the EU is actually run.

Well, you say YOU voted to leave the customs union but we don't know how many others did since that was never a question on the ballot.

Well seeing as the whole leave campaign was based around us leaving the customs union and single market, and that the Government wrote to every household in the country and said "if we leave the EU this means leaving the customs union" I'd say that was pretty clear wouldn't you?

There are many, many, many problems involved in “leaving” the EU. It will never be over. This deal isn’t even actually THE deal, it’s just a transition deal that more or less freezes everything as is. The reason for that is civil servants on both sides know how problematic it is to completely unpick the relationship between the UK and the EU. I think this is it in a nutshell.

No it isn't all her fault. David Cameron slipped neatly off into the sunset (or shepherd's hut). As for all those male MPs, Gove, Ree-Mogg at al. It is like a school playground. And as for Peter Bone claimer of expenses to employ his wife and girlfriend, standing up and saying she would lose the Conservatives millions of votes...She is clearly a woman of backbone, which none of them seem to have.
And no, I am not a Conservative voter.

It's Cameron's fault, followed by Gove, Johnson, Rees-Mogg er al. I think they wAy the public were misled is appallingly and I think there should be another referendum now people are a bit better educated. We're fucking things up :(