To think this could be the end of brexit as mps take control of the process from the PM

[quittinaeete]

Theresa may now really cant go for a hard brexit, anyone else think it's brexit cancelled?

Few are immune to the corrupting influence of power and so we need to hold politicians to account as much as possible, we should expect the best from them and we should be on the lookout for corruption

Precisely - that’s why earlier posts by people saying they want to be governed by the intellectual elite and people who are cleverer than they are made me uncomfortable. It all sounds a bit like we should be in thrall to our great leaders, when actually we should be taking a far more cynical view and ensuring we scrutinize their every move. Also, highly intellectual doesn’t always equal common sense or an understanding of the real world unfortunately - something the current crop of MPs seem to be severely lacking in.

I worked in the House of Commons many years ago when I was surrounded by people who inspired respect. It’s a very different place now.

Ah okay Langrish. When was that if you don’t mind me asking?

The threat of violence is unfortunately stereotypical of how leave voters are thought of. What i don't get is how would they even know who was remain/ leave?

But it will affect them..... ultimately
those in power, those at the top of society are only there because they can freeride on the hard work done by those below them, what good is your mansion your rolls Royce your private jet when the infrastructure around you is crumbling

I'm a remainer and I won't ever trust a politician again either, whether Brexit is cancelled or not. We should never, ever have found ourselves where we are now.

It's really depressing how much hatred their is around but Brexiters are very much mistaken if they think their anger is more powerful than remainers'. It most certainly isn't.

DongDingDong

“Ah okay Langrish. When was that if you don’t mind me asking”

1989-1991, used to sneak in and watch QT with Thatcher. Barking mad, clearly, but my intellectual superior without a shadow of a doubt 😁 I worked for a member on the opposition benches but the place was full of people of really high calibre on both sides, they knew their brief and listening to many they really did seem to be driven by a compulsion to serve. Of course there were exceptions, always will be (mine was one I decided which is why I left) but at ministerial level and certainly when you got to Secretary of State there was real intellect and knowledge evident, even if you disagreed With their ideology.
That’s why I’m so damned depressed now. Cameron should never have handed the decision to an ill-iformed public but he did, we are where we are and the absolute shower in the Commons now is lamentable.
I mean Williamson, Javid, Truss, Corbyn, Rayner. Good God I could go on and on. It’s desperate, our country is in jeopardy whichever side your viewpoint is and i just don’t know how we recover.

I’m not naive. I feel I should be able to look to my politicians for leadership. That’s what they’re for! But I can’t. That is the problem.

I tell you what we'll all get...fucking stomach ulcers from the internalized rage and anxiety.
See I'm wrong.

lolaflores

Agreed. Constant, low level anxiety, there all the time, bloody relentless. Dread to think what it’s doing to the coubtry’s already shaky mental health.

Langrish, you are not wrong, more's the pity and no solution in sight. It does make one fearful, the rise of the Right across the West, the duplicity of our elitist (sorry, but appropriate use for once) politicians such as Rees Mogg and Johnson - heard earlier that Rees Mogg and cohorts refer to themselves as Grand Wizards, god save us. The boneheaded stupidity of brexit cultists who can't acknowledge what happened with the Leave campaign and how they've come to be where they are. Combined, its hard to take. Still, hopefully some grown ups will turn up.

Longwayoff: how is it that the ERG is even allowed to exist, a party within a party? So wrong. Political analysis on the radio the other day with James Naughtie saying this situation, this tail wagging the dog, could simply not arise in European politics where such arrangements are just not sanctioned. He said that in France, for example, they would have been unceremoniously ejected long, long ago (which Major should have done, hey ho) and would now be the Front Nacionale, which of course is what in reality they are. The same presumably would be so with Momentum, hijacking (for the second time) another once great party.
The only grown up voices I’ve heard during this embarrassing charade have come from Europe. People like Nathalie Louseau, intelligent, consummate professional. Simply refusing to be drawn on frankly ridiculous questions by British journalists who ought to know better, refusing to engage in rhetoric and speculation, sticking to facts and procedure. I love this country but I shall feel embarrassed travelling in Europe this year. Davies, Raab, the Grand Wizards. equally appalling on the opposition benches, is Starmer really the best they can offer up by way of a so-called “big beast”
Oh Good grief, help us all!

Langrish is that like the book?
I just have visions of all the ingredients of the French Revolution, Russian and the English Civil War...shitty leadership, self absorbed self serving fools entirely disconnected from the reality outsie the gate.
Then popular surge against the ruling hieracy and he ho its blood running in the gutters and terrible destruction for generations.
That might be an exaggeration but the tide has turned so far from common sense in favour of ego, faction fighting and bloody mindeness that all common sense and any plan to execture something int he best interest of the whole nation might actively ignored.

@langrish my DH had an interesting take on it regarding the difference between politics of the UK and other European countries - that one of the (many) disadvantages of FPTP is that loony left/right smaller parties don't tend to get the opportunity to work in coalition, both because FPTP delivers more majorities in parliament and because the smaller parties really struggle to turn geographically dispersed support into MPs. That means that they are never tested, politically - they never have to engage with Realpolitik, they don't have to horse trade or be accountable for delivering really anything at all. I think that's true. If likes of Momentum and the ERG had to actually take part in government instead of sniping from the side they might grow up a bit, and their supporters too.

I mean I know the ERG and Momentum aren't own parties, but if we had PR, they probably would be...
Anyone else remember how utterly deserted the polling stations were that day we voted on PR? I still think the lib Dems were right to try, it would have massively improved British politics if they'd managed it.

Has anyone got David Millibands number?
Is he contactable in the wilderness.
Can he stride into parliament, smack some heads together and just be a voice of reason.
Am I off the mark here but he has sounded so sensible the last few times I heard him on the radio talking about his work in Lebanon and sytria. Is he a possibly good idea? WOuld he even consider it?
Help

cant wait for corbyn and abbott to have a bit more power !

I always voted for politicians in in the belief that they had a knowledge and understanding of the important issues of the day extending way beyond my own. Therein lies the problem. I want to be governed by an intellectual elite, by people considerable smarter than I am.

Actually I think it’s just this sort of attitude that sent us up shit creek in the first place.

Being book smart does not necessarily make you sensible, practical or useful. Most people who’ve worked as academic support in universities can attest to that.

Some of our greatest politicians like Aneurin Bevan were failures at school and weren’t intellectuals.

We’ve ended up with a hugely out of touch political class of professional politicians who have no idea what the real world is like.

lolaflores,

Ask yourself this question: if you were an intelligent, pragmatic still relatively young potential politician, would you want to stride in right now?
Plus the minor inconvenience of him not being an MP . He could lead a party from the Lords of course, not unheard of, but, erm, he’s not a lord either.
This is the problem we have though. Most capable, ambitious, intelligent people with scruples steer well clear of politics these days.
Shame Dan Jarvis didn’t want to put himself forward in the last elections, he’s one of the exceptions in the current crop, I think.

Ohhhhh, this really is dire. How to gain a dictator in several simple steps. Into such a power vacuum, any of the aforementioned creatures (not David M who would wisely stay away I think) can step, 'for the good of the country', only X can save us, give him/her free rein, someone strong and forthright, etc. A la Mussolini. Or Trump. Just a few years ago I would have laughed at this as absurd. Now feels like a possibility.

BejamNostalgia

Actually I think it’s just this sort of attitude that sent us up shit creek in the first place.

We’ve ended up with a hugely out of touch political class of professional politicians who have no idea what the real world is like.”

Don’t blame me, thanks! grin]
the Commons simply wasn’t like this when I worked there. Most MPs had come to politics later in life, after often stand out careers in the real world. Today’s motley crew are increasingly career politicians.

Bevan was an extraordinary and exceptional person. There are very few like that, which is precisely why he is so often used as an example. Populating the Commons with a group of school drop outs who’d experienced life from behind the check out at Bejams (wouldn’t be ideal either. It’s perfectly possible to be intelligent, well educated and an efficient politician. Those people appear to be very thin on the ground across all parties right now.

thst is my issue. I exoect intelligent, capable people to be running the show on my behalf. Is that so much to expect?

Langrish Bevin. Keir Hardy. Manny Shinwell...self educated. Grafted. Perhaps idealists but with a healthy dose of reality.
Politics is entertainment now what with scandals being the grit of fodder for newspapers and mags. WE love to destroy them. Its like a kind of game but the prey (politicias) have wised up and are making up their own rules.
We now sit on the sidelines, powerless watfching the ultimate reality show game of chicken, barely aware we voted the sods in, demanded the Brexit and the raft is sinking.
And Yes. David Miliband is off doing something actualy worthwhile in the real world so why the blithering fuck would he want anything to do with the rolling side show that is Parliament.

I have to say that everyone I know who voted leave is either dead, over the age of 80, are hideously racist, or believed all the shit Farage spouted (and still believe it now!)

Lolaflores

Some confusion here I think. Yes, intellectual giants, every one of them. I’m not associating intelligence and capability with background and/or class at all, haven’t suggested that at all? Other posters have brought that in. I don’t care where my leaders come from but I do think I have a right to expect them to have greater intellectual vigour than I have, however they’ve acquired it. Many on both front benches today are complete idiots.

Neither have I criticised David Miliband, far from it. I’m saying precusely what you are, that he is far too smart to get involved in this quagmire.

We’re arguing about nothing: I’m desperate for great leadership, bring on the Bevsns, Hardys, Wilsons. I don’t even care what party they are right now, I just want them to be capable. That’s precisely what I’m saying. Where is this calibre of person now?

I said exactly what you did. We’re suffering at the hands of mediocre, career politicians when we’re all desperate for great leadership that just isn’t there.

When I started voting nearly 4 decades ago, I could look up to politicians and, mostly, trust that they had the country’s interests at heart. I saw that in person as late as 1991. I I dont have that trust any more: that is exactly my point! The current state of politics is the most depressing it’s ever been in my lifetime.

I don’t read papers and magazines, no interest whatsoever in scandal. I just want competence.

And Lola, waves flag, I didn’t demand Brexit!

One thing MN has taught me: there are at least 17 ways of interpreting one sentence 😂

Personally I don’t think it’s all about intellect. Looking back over the past we had conviction politicians, I loathed Thatcher but she genuinely and passionately believed that her way was for the good of the country. I don’t know when it changed and self interest and party over country began but they’re an immoral, selfish lot these days. Hence a lot of leavers doing so to give them a bloody nose.

Hushabyelullaby

I have to say that everyone I know who voted leave is either dead, over the age of 80, are hideously racist, or believed all the shit Farage spouted (and still believe it now!)”

My mum’s in her 80s and a remainer.
I used to feel really angry towards leavers. Funny, not so much now because I slowly realised that many of them were just trusting enough to believe what they were told by politicians, I think stats show most 75+ voted to remain, it was the 50/60/70 year olds who were predominantly leavers (I bucked the trend!). Most of those people had been brought up to believe politicians were trustworthy. Also, a lot of people in those age groups were not just shameless racists. Personally, We’re in a massively white, British area (ie very little immigration at all of any kind) and it’s just not an issue. What reeled them in was worry about their increasingly dodgy health and the lies about how much better off the NHS would be if we left. Bloody ironic that, as all of the fantastic European workers leave or fail to come in the first place.

I dont know many leavers at all but of the couple I do who’ve changed their minds, I actually feel quite sorry for them. Not great feeling to realise you’ve been shamelessly lied to, played like violins and swallowed it hook line and sinker. Unfortunately, of course everyone will suffer because of their decision, which probably makes it feel even worse.