Has Boris been outmanoevered? Will someone please tell me who is in charge?

[RedToothBrush]

Thread two from

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2670552-Has-Boris-been-outmanoeuvred?pg=1

[ObiWanCannelloni]

ChaLaLa

Liney They all seem to have been told to gently roll back the commitments now, don't they...

BBC have confirmed that Johnson is the Murdoch candidate. So there it is

I'm off to set up the Pet Unicorns party, sounds fab

[RedToothBrush]

Q: How many Brexiteers does it take to change a lightbulb?



A: WOOOOOOAHHHHHHH
I never said there was a lightbulb.

[CutYourHairAndGetAJob]

Just place marking as I have nothing intelligent to add, but the last thread has kept me sane for the last few days

[ChardonnayKnickertonSmythe]

Very True Ginger.

[LineyReborn]

Red, it's the government's job to come up a strategy for lightbulb changing. I imagine they must have one and know what they're doing. Right?

[duende]

thanks for this thread. It is the best source of information and humour and light in this horrible situation.

I thought some of you might be interested in this:

www.change.org/p/open-letter-to-eu-leaders-not-my-vote-6d330d54-369b-41ce-a569-47a312a8049f

[DoinItFine]

RedTooth

[noblegiraffe]

Are the papers soft-soaping Boris's (and Gove's) utter failure at having any sort of plan because he was a journalist?

Or because he might become PM? I don't get why it isn't a story.

[RiceCrispieTreats]

New thesis: Boris is going to be just fine.

He is an entitled bastard with no sense of responsibility, but he is made of Teflon.
He has a crony press in his pocket to gloss over his mistakes, distract attention from him when needed, and paint him as a jolly old fellow.
He implies so much, but without outright lying, that he is untouchable.
He is going to come out of this smelling of roses: lie low long enough for things to settle down, and step in to play the affable clown just right, just when it's time.

Quite probably as the next PM.

I've just been going over his Telegraph article, and realised that the slithery bastard never outright lies in it. For example, when he said he would get access to the single market without oversight by the European Court of Justice, he was right:

"The only change – and it will not come in any great rush – is that the UK will extricate itself from the EU’s extraordinary and opaque system of legislation: the vast and growing corpus of law enacted by a European Court of Justice from which there can be no appeal".

The country would be part of the EEA system. In the EEA, it's the EFTA Court that is the supranational judicial body. The EFTA Court is just as supranational and just as unappealable on matters of single market legislation, but it is not, technically, the European Court of Justice.

And once the blustering has died down from the angered 27, everyone knows that the best deal all round is EEA membership. It solves the Scotland and NI question, preserves all the trade deals, etc. All that PM Boris needs to do is ask for a cap on migration, which Switzerland has also asked for, so there's precedent (...Switzerland's request has not been granted yet, but whatever.) It's going to be the only point that actually needs to be negotiated, and some suitable EU fudge will be found, as per.

And Boris is going to be able to say that he fulfilled his mandate.

[ObiWanCannelloni]

noble I struggle with it, I mean why so firmly behind someone without substance, manifesto, morals and flying by seat of his pants, right?

I don't know if it's because he's guaranteed no integrity and has promised Murdoch and his establishment chums all the decisions they're hoping for

Or whether he's just going to be so headline/copy-tastic with guaranteed photo-opp per day that they really don't care that he'll also be the clown with his hands on the nuclear launch codes

[ObiWanCannelloni]

RiceCrispieTreat
This is my reading of it also, he's home and dry
We'll end up with a more expensive position paying to trade with EU, with no say over decisions and with some fairly meaningless points based form filling for Eu migrants... Which he'll trumpet as a huge success because we're independent. Just poorer and more powerless. But what do details matter.

Coz instead we'll all be able to smile at good old Boris mugging it for the cameras at the Opening of Parliament and making a funny old faux pas with a visiting foreign delegation.

[Chalalala]

Rice, sounds plausible to me

I've spent the past 2 days coming to terms with the fact that we actually need Boris to succeed in his mighty EEA fudge.

Because if he gets called out on the lies and hypocrisy, what's the alternative?

[MajesticWhine]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/stop-brexit-mp-vote-referendum-members-parliament-act-europe?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

This is the guardian article about the European communities act. Apologies if someone already linked it. Good article and gives me hope that MPs could vote this down.

[MitzyLeFrouf]

'He is going to come out of this smelling of roses: lie low long enough for things to settle down, and step in to play the affable clown just right, just when it's time.'

I just don't know about that. I mean he may well get to No 10 but once he's there he'll no longer be perceived as the 'loveable mop topped rebel', he'll be the person in charge and he'll be expected to deliver on his promises. A fair amount of people will accept a compromise on Europe but a significant number of people will be furious with anything less than all that was promised. But of course he won't be able to deliver on that so their shitstorm of rage will come his way.

Not forgetting his own Tory enemies. He may get to the top of the Tory heap but as long as he's there it will always be a divided party. And God knows they're a scheming lot.

[RiceCrispieTreats]

Just a point. If we can't trigger negotiations until Article 50 is triggered, then how can we say what the free trade agreement deal will be?

I think what's going to happen is that the next PM will ask Westminster for a mandate to negotiate an EEA-like deal with Brussels, then take that to Brussels.

By this time it will be pretty clear whether or not the Council will wear it, so it will be safe to trigger Article 50 then.

[LadyofDispleasure]

Interesting thread. For what it's worth, I am becoming more and more convinced we won't leave (and I don't think that's just wishful thinking ... although it may be!)

Article 50 won't be activated for awhile. In the meantime, it will become undeniable to everyone except the most staunchest of UKIP supporters that Brexit is a bad, if not terrible, idea - and I think (hope!) public support for leaving will wane.

I think one of the following will happen:
-Article 50 will just simply never be triggered. This scenario leads to the most uncertainty though economically so probably not the best.
-Second referendum, with the question not remain/leave but remain/trade agreement (which would include freedom of movement etc). Probably the most democratic way to get out of this mess and it is not a straight re-run of the previous referendum (as the question is now about the model for leaving the EU), so could be more accepted rather than being seen as sour grapes.
-General election, with major parties (assuming all except UKIP) having membership of the EU as part of their manifestos. Not sure about this option - could be risky if public support for leaving is still high, perhaps?
-MPs vote against the legislation required to allow Article 50 to be triggered. Riskiest of all - MPs in danger of looking increasingly out of touch with the electorate and not listening to the people, over-riding democracy, etc.

Whatever happens, it's looking increasingly clear it is not over and all is not lost

[noblegiraffe]

But, re MPs voting it down, from what I saw of Cameron in the Commons today, there was talk of having to accept the vote, of having to accept that parliament was out of touch with voters and also having to accept that voters didn't feel that parliament/politicians actually represented them.

In that climate, to then stick two fingers up to the ref outcome and sail on as normal would be to do exactly what voters had apparently just voted against, and to entrench the feeling of disenfranchisement.

I'd love for MPs to vote it down, that would be the easy way out, but I think for it to be stopped would really require another vote. Either a referendum on terms of exit, or a general election on a remain platform.

[DoinItFine]

some suitable EU fudge will be found, as per

No chance.

They will not cut a deal like that for post-Brexit Britain.

And they will certainly not be doing any fudging to help out a man who is utterly reviled in Europe.

He compared the EU to Nazi Germany. There is pretty much no bigger insult he could have offered to these people.

If we send Boris to negotiate, we will get the square root of fuck all.

We might not even get access to tye EEA, even with a decent pro-Europe leader at tye helm.

Nick Clegg could negotiate that, maybe.

But the Tories are shit at Europe.

[MitzyLeFrouf]

Keith Chegwin was very pro Leave. I wonder if he's free at the moment.

Cheggers Plays Brexit Strop

[Chalalala]

Two problems if Parliament refuses to trigger Article 50:

1. it won't solve the question, which will continue to poison politics for the foreseeable future
   
   
2. the EU will somehow yet again get the blame for ignoring a popular vote, feeding into problem 1.
   
   For the UK to stay in, we need either a GE and a victory for a party with a clear mandate to stay in the EU, or a second referendum. Or it could get very nasty.

[Thegirlinthefireplace]

I think it's time to accept we are leaving and hope for an EEA deal. Now I've resigned to us leaving I want the deal in place asap so business can get back to as close to usual as possible.

[DoinItFine]

there was talk of... having to accept that parliament was out of touch with voters and also having to accept that voters didn't feel that parliament/politicians actually represented them.

This chills my blood.

The idea that anybody gets to just decide that our parliament no longer represents us is terrifying.

[noblegiraffe]

I read today that Johnson and Gove had offered Osborne Foreign Secretary to support Johnson's leadership bid. On the job scale, is Foreign Secretary better than chancellor?

[RiceCrispieTreats]

the Tories are shit at Europe.

Yes. And reviled. And by rights, Boris should be punished.

But nonetheless I think it's a political inevitability that he won't be.

After all, the Tories have gotten all their self-interested shit past the Council for the past 43 years. Nobody liked it then either. It was still the only politically expedient thing to do.

[Sierra259]

Rice, that sounds like a likely scenario unfortunately. Crafty fucker