Westminstenders: And so it begins

[RedToothBrush]

Promises made that can not be kept.

We have already fallen at the first stumbling block: the desire for parallel talks on exit and future relationship that May wanted has been rejected. Not that this is a surprise seeing as we were told this.

This isn't two years of negotiations for a good deal. Forget any suggestions that it is. It's two years of damage limitation and domestic pr.

For both the UK and EU.

I do believe that May's attitude - which seemed to be more friendly in her speech and letter yesterday - has burnt all our bridges.

This talk of the world needing the EU's 'liberal democracy' isn't aimed at the EU though. Her use of the words that produced uproar in the HoC yesterday was deliberate. Why use it? It was always going to produce a reaction.

When May says she will have a consensus at home to achieve this goal one of two things must happen: to prove just how much we need the EU to make a political reversal possible at the expense of her head or to vilify the EU to a point that Remainers suddenly change their mind.

To get a good deal for the UK she can not satisfy her hard line Brexiteers. It is impossible purely because to do otherwise is like breaking the laws of physics. Trade is done mostly with who you are closest too. This is the inescapable truth. We are leaving the EU but not Europe as keeps being pointed out.

If we want to trade we have to accept EU regulations. If we do not, we do not trade. Rules we can now no longer influence by must obey.

We can not reduce immigration. We have had control of non-Eu immigration and that is not going down due to skills shortages. To combat this schools are getting less money.

In terms of sovereignty and British parliament we just gave that away. The 'Great' Repeal Act is a power grab by the executive. It seems to give the powers of the monarch to Mrs May and take them away from parliamentary scrutiny. At the same time we are forced to become beholden to Trump's America. A man who screws people for a living and has not a shred of honour.

Using security as our bargaining chip misses the obvious. If we do not cooperate we endanger Brits abroad and ourselves domestically. Are we really prepared to stop?

The opportunities of Brexit Britain are bleak. This will be normalised.

Good luck folks. We are gonna need it.

Brexit is not a football match. You don't just pick a side and follow it blindly.

Liked this thread from twitter
twitter.com/tony_nog/status/849648920313683970

It doesn't say anything that hasn't been said before on here, but still. I'm so fed up of hearing that the EU is going to collapse from one Brexiter I know.

1. short thread on what #Brexit is about and why its going badly.
   Historically the Leave leadership took 2 items as articles of faith

2. they believed
   a) Germany runs the EU & German car makers run Germany
   b) The EU & Eurozone are sick & are going to collapse any day now

3. as such, although they may bluster, behind closed doors the EU would be desperate for a free trade deal with the UK.

4. you can pretty much dispense with everything else said by Leave as noise. These are the 2 sacred beliefs at the heart of Leave

5. this, though most of us didn't know it, was the massive "put everything on lucky 13" gamble Leave were taking, that the EU would fold.

6. unfortunately, Germany was never going to prioritise a Deal with the UK over the stability of the EU

7. Especially because the EU represents a market 6.7X the size of the UK market.
   Any preferential deal for the UK would destabilise the EU

8. the second belief stems from an almost religious conviction. The EU is "bad", it must collapse, if not now then soon, its inevitable

9. but the EU isn't collapsing. And if anything, Brexit is making it stronger. It has issues, and difficulty in reforming certainly

10. but it is growing again.
    So, this is the issue we are facing. Brexit leaders hoped to exploit 2 "weaknesses" in the EU to force a deal

11. but those weaknesses don't exist. The belief system has collapsed.
    Now, the UK has a bit of a problem.

12. We thought we had a winning car in a Formula 1 race, but the top secret engine has gone missing along with the hi tech rear wheels

13. So now you see Farage spluttering in the EU parliament, calling the EU "the mafia" because its all going wrong

14. contrast this with the "you're in denial, give us a deal, we're leaving" cocksure speech he gave after June 23rd.
    Who's in denial now?

15. Finally no-one, barring absolute fanatics, thought we would leave with no deal and fall thru into WTO prior to June 23rd.

16. So when we see Johnson & co saying "WTO ain't so bad" - look at what they said back then.
    This wasn't supposed to happen this way.

17. for reference, compare "WTO is perfectly OK" from Johnson with this sunny picture from June last year

18. This may explain why brexiteers are in this unhappy cycle. The "intellectual" basis for Brexit has collapsed But no one told them

Also like how the guy described it as a "short" thread. Cheeky bugger!

Ah, thanks, Summer Lightning - was just going to attempt to post that. Here's the crucial diagram from the end of the thread:

Even in parliaments that use PR, you still need to have decent parties standing.

The Scottish Parliament voting system was designed not to allow any one party to have an overall majority (the SNP broke the system in 2011 and despite getting more votes in 2016, the proportions were more accurately reflected).

Ruth Davidson, for all her PR success at becoming the 2nd party, still only had 22% of the vote which is loess than Thatcher achieved. Labour are unfortunately now seen as a spent force. The LibDems are now the 5th party, behind the Greens doesn't stop the BBC going to the LibDems rather than the Greens for a quote as to why NS shouldn't be in the States

In theory, a minority government has to try to ensure compromise in order to get anything through. A coalition, depending on how well the initial agreement was set up can be a good thing, with the best from both (or more - but to date it has only been two parties) parties - but if one party is seen as dominant, then the smaller party may then be punished at the next elections (LibDems have learnt that to their cost), regardless of the good they did in the coalition.

I think it would take too? a long time for the UK electorate to get used to the less confrontational compromises involved in PR systems.

I was just about to post the thread too.

I agree with it.

www.ft.com/content/79c75f54-1963-11e7-a53d-df09f373be87
The ‘Brexit betrayal’ poses a hazard for Theresa May

Some MPs do not want a deal with the EU and will try to force her hand

Well, yes. Its as obvious as knowing that Barry Manilow is gay. We don't need him to come out to know the truth.

Brexit....Could It Be Magic?

howabout You made what for me is a very important difference, at least what we see on MN Leaver & Remainer threads:

Most MN Remainers, although prepared to compromise and form multi-party coalitions, won't ally with the far right or the far left.
We'll sometimes wince but will allly with NS, the Greens, the Liberals, Remain Labour & Tory.

Most fervent MN Leavers seem prepared to tolerate a hard right govt for the duraion of the A50/Brexit process, even defend the proto-fascist Farage, because they prioritise Brexit totally.
They won't risk damaging the govt that promised to deliver Brexit.
In fact they seem to find no serious fault with the govt.

Some posters, who I always thought of as of the left, have even been defending Trump and cheering on the far right in E27 elections. All because they think it helps Brexit

This is logical for those who are themselves of the hard right, but is totally baffling in those who claim to be of the left, who claim to be concerned about inequality, benefit cuts, nhs cuts - or wrt Trump, about torture and blatant discrimination against peaceful Muslims.

BCF agreed re far left and right. In my view it is due to their autocratic leanings

Politics is a circle. I always remember how much Benn and Tebbit had in common. Never took to either. Batshit in my view

Good point, well made, BigChoc.

In Germany - and I expect others in E27 countries can chime in - everyone votes for who they really want.
But then they expect there to be negotiations after the election, to form a govt that represents more than 50% of voters.
Often much more than 50%.

It's not winner takes all
It's about compromise and building a broad consensus, so a govt is acceptable to most of the population

imo it reduces resentment - except for the minority who want the extreme left or right - and helps have a broadly consistemt policy over the decades.

Of course, that is within a properly functioning PR system and country - PR doesn't work so well in Italy !

FPTP used to work well in the UK, when Labour or Tory could win 50% of the vote - and also before Scotland and England diverged politically to such a huge extent.

One shouldn't change an electoral system every few years, but sometimes you can see over many years that a system is increasingly past its use-by date, because the country has changed so much.

I'll tout again my proposal for a Federal UK

• HoC for England (& Wales if they choose). They can decide whether FPTP or PR with say the NI / Scotland system
• Holyrood to have full powers, including taxation, except for defence & foreign affairs
• HoL replaced by a Federal Senate of 100 seats - equal 25 seats for each UK country. To vote on defence & Foreign affairs, with vetos on military action except in emergency (in emergency, the govt can act alone for say 21 days without Senate Approval)
• The RoI to have increasingly a more equal say with rUK about NI, now that Catholics will soon be as numrous as Protestants and Sinn Fein probably soon the largest party.

If there is to be a PLP Remain grouping who would lead it?

David Lammy is the first who springs to mind.

But I think BCF made a good point: few of us have strong ties to one party. I'm a left-of-centre former Labour voter who recently joined the LDs. I'm broadly of the left on social issues, more centrist economically. I don't have a vote now, but if I get my vote back (as the Tories have promised) then presumably I will vote in my former constituency, which happens to be David Lammy's. While I would like to see the LDs become the party which brings together moderate voters who support EU (since Labour seems to have abdicated this role), in practice I would happily lend my vote to Lammy.

Brexit is not a football match. You don't just pick a side and follow it blindly.
Well said, Ninon.

Ah but it is in some people's view. Like having blind faith Southend on Sea will win the FA cup

Up to even just a few years ago, I'd have supported that BigChocFrenzy - but I think that opportunity for that approach has passed an arrogant Westminster by.

Devo Max wasn't on the Indyref ballot for a reason.

Full Fiscal Autonomy (which is part of your federal proposal) was discussed as an option in the Smith Commission but resisted by all the Establishment parties - Labour being the most resistant

After seeing bile-spreader Farage insult everyone in the EU parliament today, while Paul Nuttalls of the UKIPs gazed at him in admiration, how nice to have Catherine Bearder, MEP to demonstrate that not all Brits are narcissistic fuckwits.

And having to supper Southend on Sea forever more

.....or to amend the analogy slightly, telling Man U fans that they now need to support & get behind Man City from now on because they won the Cup (and BTW stop moaning about losing)

pretty I still think, because of the economic consequences to Scotland of leaving the UK, that a Federal UK would be much better for Scotland than Indy.

However, you may be right that politically Scotland may just have been pissed on once too often by arrogant Westminster oiks and PMs, as well as the toxic rightwing Uk media.

Catherine Bearder's son Timothy is standing for Oxfordshire County Council, for the Lib Dems, and hoping to unseat the incumbent Tory. Normally, you would say, 'no chance' in his seat, but after the Witney by election, where there are still a lot of pro-Remain Tories who are angry that Cameron let them down, who can say?

This poor lady. Whilst there seem to have been additional issues in her life. Worry about deportation due to brexit was a serious concern to her

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/05/woman-found-dead-in-bristol-feared-deportation-after-brexit-vote

Woman found dead in Bristol gorge 'feared deportation' after Brexit vote

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/05/woman-found-dead-in-bristol-feared-deportation-after-brexit-vote

cross post sorry.

S'ok ghost. Poor lady. It's local to me

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/04/exclusive-conservative-poll-showed-party-would-lose-seats-liberal-democrats
Exclusive: Conservative poll showed party would "lose seats" to the Liberal Democrats

Lynton Crosby is warning Tories would lose seats to LDs in early GE.

(No Shit! It cost you how much to work this out?)