To think that Teresa May's speech this evening was an absolute fucking disgrace?

[Livingtothefull]

'You, the public, have had enough.
“You’re tired of the infighting, you’re tired of the political games and the arcane procedural rows, tired of MPs talking about nothing else but Brexit when you have real concerns about our children’s schools, our National Health Service, knife crime'.

“You want this stage of the Brexit process to be over and done with. I agree. I am on your side. ”

So: 'You’re tired of all the shit that my party and my government have caused eg through years of cuts to the health and police services. It's not my fault that Brexit has been so appallingly badly handled, I'm only the Prime Minister and it's everyone else's fault. So why not just let me have my way and things will all get better? I am a mindreader and presume to know what you want, even though I display zero empathy in my public utterances, and I know you all want Brexit (even though only a small proportion of the electorate actually voted for it, 3 years ago)'.

We’re finished as a country if this is the best we can do, it is just heartbreaking that our country has been brought to this. I cant believe that this woman is in a position of such power and represents our country.

I don't WANT you on my side, just get away from me.

I think she is doing her best. And that’s the problem as she is so far out of her depth that her best is just not good enough.

I notice they've shut down the parliamentary petitions web site "for maintenance".

WSPU - but no one else, other than Andrea Leadsom was willing to take this on. So, to my mind, the fact that she knew this was a poisoned chalice yet still took it on and still stuck with it, is to her credit. How easy it would have been to have walked away. Nothing to do with arrogance in my view. I actually think she has integrity.

Mummy I am not questioning their intelligence in any way , I am simply pointing out that there were and still are differing opinions amongst those 17.4 million, as you would expect with such a complex issue.

Do you agree that the 29th of March is only the beginning of years of further Brexit shenanigans regardless of no deal or if the WA somehow passes a third vote ?

If you click on 'get petition data' you can see votes per country and per constituency. That data doesn't scream bot-work.

TM is maybe doing her best but her best is a single minded my way or the highway best, which is, well, like a dictator.

I have to disagree, mummymeister. I think May is dishonest, and now her husband is even richer.

3 years ago people voted to leave-and thats that- but then leaving conditions were not clear then, couldnt be clear.
after 3 years it appears leaving is not so easy, clear cut and there is a WA on the table and no deal exit.
there can be another peoples referendum on WA or no deal exit. because MPs couldnt agree on that.
TM did her best.

Though I am no Tory and a Remainer, I have said for some time that May is doing a staunch job at a thankless task. However at this point, to try and bring her deal back with no valid change is bonkers and the speech today just confirms that she is utterly myopic. I hear that she has very few advisers that she listens to and I think this is a massive problem. This task is not a single-handed one, it should have been undertaken by a committee of expert civil servants at the very least.
And why the fuck does she have to keep flying to Brussels, wasting more of our money, when these conversations can be had by phone or Skype?
The country is being brought to it's knees in the world stage by this fiasco. And for what? The result of an advisory referendum that was a narrow victory for one side? Article 50 should never have been triggered until a plan was in place.

i dont believe TM is dictator.

after watching brexit millioners i lost my respect for Jacob Rees whatever. such opportunist.
there is no one better than TM atm. i hope she wont go.

I think her speech was spot-on. We would be deluded if we tried to pretend that there hadn't been a barrage of factional plotting, posturing and self-interested political games, and she was only stating the obvious. I expect that she'd really like to grab Junker's fag and shove it down his throat, but I'm sure she'll be the model of diplomatic self-control today. She's doing something that no-one has ever done. There isn't a blueprint or a template to work from and everyone is willing to carp and heckle having never been in the situation themselves.

...and before you all wade in, I voted Remain.

Whoever created the bot is an idiot.

Or wants to discredit the petition. Or wants to give the impression there's a much larger majority in favour of revoking.

Or, win-win for a disruptivist: both.

idiots on 4chan about who can get the most votes on the petition for a joke.

The people who seeded this idea may not be idiots. They may have had a fair idea what they were doing.

This is what the disinformation world looks like. I expect to see a lot more of it in the next few weeks as disrupters make hay in this fraught situation, and bots/trolls get repurposed to turn up the heat in the UK.

(If anyone has the brain space left to cope with this at the moment, here's an illuminating report on recent Russian disinformation techniques. Of course the Russians aren't the only ones at it. securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/a-view-from-the-digital-trenches-lessons-from-year-one-of-hamilton-68/ )

No I don't have any answer for this. Other don't believe all you read, and always look before you leap.

her job is very difficult no other would want to take on. they just blame her at every opprtunity.

She didn't want it, neither did the rest of the cabinet. David Cameron expected people to vote remain. They were ill prepared, and then dumped it on Theresa May who was/is a remainer.

Everyone is sick to the back teeth of Brexit, and it is a massive shit show because none of the politicians have the backbone to execute the referendum result.

Instead of arguing how to get out of it without looking undemocratic to the general public over the last three years they should have been working together on an exit strategy that would not cost the UK in terms of trade, etc.

I don't understand all the vitriol for TM. No-one else wanted to step up to the mark and attempt to deliver Brexit.

If you click on 'get petition data' you can see votes per country and per constituency. That data doesn't scream bot-work.
I asked about that and was told the map shows from postcodes whoch are entered when you ‘sign’, which are generated randomly when they generate the names and emails from databases, hence the more even spread now. At the Start I think the petition was showing strong trends in certain areas, but since the 4chan competition it’s more evened out from what I’ve witnessed.
I mean they’re showing results in the discord. It’s definitely being botted. I’m just not sure if they’re exaggerating how much.

all the others make her job very difficult, too.

AutumnCrow - so will you stand for election next time then?

will any of the remoaners, "we want to reverse Article 50" , "we want a second vote" "we want a general election" lot on MN stand for election as an MP.

If you don't like the job that they are doing will YOU do it?

And she had the unmitigated gall to reference knife crime!

Also I thought her speech last night was decent. Said what a lot of people are thinking / saying.

I think she's still in thrall to the appalling Nick Timothy. The language of May last night and in Timothy's article in the Telegraph today are very similar:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/03/21/new-brexit-extension-mps-must-finally-do-jobs-make-decision/

(You can see enough before the pay wall hits to get the gist)

I wasn’t thinking about me being asked, I was thinking about MPs. As far as I can see there hasn’t been any attempt to figure out what there is a majority in parliament for. She sort of promised a series of indicative votes this week, but I don’t see that happening now. And it shouldn’t really have been happening less than a fortnight before the 29th anyway.

I’m not sure it even needs to be a vote. Just about any approach to find out what MPs want and what they’d accept would have been better than just ploughing on with the ‘will of the people’bullshit.

mummymeister
AutumnCrow - so will you stand for election next time then?

What, again?

I think she's still in thrall to the appalling Nick Timothy.

My thoughts exactly.