The Brexit Arms

[BrexitArmsLandLady]

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Article 50 has been triggered (finally!).
Now we move onwards to the future 🍻

All welcome, as ever...

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Aw, that's sweet, time! Pretending to be worried about the person you just slagged off.

I notice YouGov (the polling company that pulled a blinder with their new model and called he hung parliament consistently in the weeks running up the election) have now posted a poll showing that it is now 51% remain to 49% leave.

Do you have a link to that?

there is no evidence that the general election vote was a resounding yes for brexit

The 2 main anti Brexit parties, libdems & the SNP, were crap in this election. The SNP lost seats fgs. Do you actually know what you're talking about?

No, genuine question as she says she is tired. No slagging off either I just made a comment.

surfer

I think the point is that a lot of people are not fixated on brexit

No one told them that this election was a referendum re run

They kind of thought it was a general election, you know, where you vote for the party you want to lead the country. The one with the least worst options

Could anyone that is honestly convinced that this means the country is behind brexit please let me know when general elections STOP being about voting for brexit

Will that only happen when we have finally left?

surfer, where on earth can your confidence in May have come from? Does anyone, anywhere have a shred of confidence left in her??

Theresa May will pull this off I guarantee it.
She's battered & bruised but she'll dust herself down, learn from it, & get on with the job.
Brexit aside, I'm glad labour did well, we have to look after our most vulnerable people, the disabled, the sick, the poor, they need far more help than they're currently getting. I hope TM takes this on board.

what kind of Brexit we get was always up for negotiation, so nothing has really changed

Exactly Surfer!

The cries of outrage when anyone who doesn't support Brexit has the temerity to post on a Brexit Arms speaks absolute volumes.

Get over yourself - not supporting Brexit is one thing, coming onto these threads just to be a cunt to people who voted Leave is completely different.

I have said repeatedly over the last year that EEA/EFTA style deal or remaining in single market but clamping down on immigration within the rules that are already there is what I expected as an outcome initially.

But then again, I'm a pragmatic leaver - there are more of us than hardline Brexiteers - just like there are more pragmatic remainers than intransigent remoaners.

surfer, you don't agree with Osborne that she's a 'dead woman walking' then? I thought it was a bit gratuitous and unpleasant but also true - the Tories will boot her out as soon as they line up a successor.

Remember your thread asking what Remainers would do after the Tory landslide? They lost their majority. You can't have it both ways - a Tory victory would have been an endorsement of Brexit. We got a hung parliament with Brexit hanging right in the balance.

Osborne is doing what Osborne has always done Captain...

Being a smug, arrogant twat who openly & without shame will slice & finish anyone or any group who doesn't fit with his own privileged & entirely self-revolving narrative.

He hates TM & she ditched him from her cabinet - he's been acting like a petulant, tamtrumming toddler since he left his role as MP.
He's a nasty piece of work & is loving this.

The cries of outrage when anyone who doesn't support Brexit has the temerity to post on a Brexit Arms speaks absolute volumes

I think that is really unfair. Most leave posters are quite happy to debate with remain voters in the arms. What I, for one, am not happy about is someone posting a load of patronising guff accusing us of all being blinkered, only seeing things from one side, and essentially not open to thinking the issue through from other points of view (oh, the irony).

I've said it before, I'm quite happy to talk to people who see me as their moral and intellectual equal, but I have no interest in talking to someone who sees themself as superior to me, and I feel I have nothing to learn, politically, from people who don't approach others who have different views from them as their equals.

Well
This is marvellous 😁

Charm I absolutely agree with your summation of Osborne. But he isn't the only person saying May is finished.

Osbourne is almost licking his lips with pleasure isn't he?
😂

I have several questions for those who think the election result shows there is no support for a "hard Brexit"

1. The Labour manifesto includes a commitment to ending freedom of movement and therefore leaving the single market (EU say four freedoms are indivisible). If Labour had won, do you think they would have honoured this commitment or not?

2. If you think they wouldn't have (which kind of seems to be what some are saying - that they said it, and people voted for it, but they didn't mean it) then why did they put it in their manifesto? Does it matter what parties put in their manifesto or can they just print any old stuff to get the votes, and then do what they choose?

3. If you think they wouldn't, do you forsee any problems, for Labour and for democracy, if they don't honour a key part of their manifesto?

4. If two parties have the same policy on an issue, can you see that people might say that that issue was not key in their decision which to vote for, but that doesn't mean the issue is unimportant to them? It means they see that issue as decided.

Yes, I predicted a landslide for TM - Which would have happened if she'd had a bit more of a personality, gave a few more details on Brexit, & their manifesto had been better regarding the older voters.
But Brexit is still happening & she'll do a great job I'm sure.

And who's George Osborne?

They kind of thought it was a general election, you know, where you vote for the party you want to lead the country. The one with the least worst options

...the one where you vote for whoever you think is going to at least try and save the NHS, schools, etc.

I think this was a great result. TM has been shown up for what she is - especially now she's trying to get into bed with an anti-gay, anti-female bunch of creationists because no other party is prepared to get on board with the Tories - and Labour will not have to deal with (take the blame for) Brexit. I'm hoping to see some real opposition now to the Tory austerity programme and - hopefully - some meaningful debate about Brexit, rather than endless, meaningless soundbites.

Wrong, I thought Brexit would kill Labour. If they got in, I expect they would have honoured their commitment to Brexit but perhaps negotiated a better deal by virtue of not blustering in with May's 'no deal' approach. I expected a Labour Brexit to be soft. I expected they would have to compromise on FOM and justify it on the basis that no one's manifesto could really promise the terms of Brexit as it depends on negotiations with the EU. I don't think that has terrible ramifications for democracy; find me a party who has never broken a manifesto promise? Democracy keeps on rumbling on.

This election was about austerity
The cuts to the nhs
The cuts to education
The cuts to disability benefit
I would argue that the austerity measures brought in by the Tories since 2010 are directly responsible for then brexit vote;
Anger towards the govt so any voted leave as a "fuck you"
Anger due to cuts which affected them and their kids which they incorrectly blamed on "All the immigramts"
Anger that their kids will be poorer than them...the first generation since the war to be so

I don't expect anyone on this thread to agree with this ^

But that's why she lost seats - and let's be honest some results were uncomfortably close!!

I think voters have shown quite clearly they don't want the brexit that TM and right wing loons want

Even John major refused an alliance with the dup as henfelt.itnwould jeopardise peace on NI. Their views are abhorrent and this will damage the Tories.

I welcome any leader of any party that will give us a soft brexit.

Charm I absolutely agree with your summation of Osborne. But he isn't the only person saying May is finished.

You have absolute consensus from me on that post Captain!

I think she's finished too - she's lost the confidence of the country, which is important.

I wonder if Ken Clarke could swallow his resolute remainer stance & become a pragmatic leaver tbh.
I think he would be the best solution for Tory leader & PM for at least the next 5 years.
He appeals to all sides & is a safe & honest pair of hands.

If he says:

I recognise the result of the ref & stand by Leave, however I propose that we do it sensibly & over a long term.
That is, we have a quick divorce by leaving, but by coming to an EFTA/EEA style agreement, or indeed remaining in the single market for the immediate future.
Any further elections can be honestly run on specific terms of extraction.

Then that is sensible & palatable to most.

It's nice to think that there is one issue that unites us all be we Leaver, Remainers, Labour or Tory: that George Osborne is a knobhead and we despise him - or, in surfer's case, are in blissful ignorance of his very existence

The Labour resurgence was very much about domestic issues - NHS, social care, anti austerity. The gutter press and their own "project fear" was defeated. Remarkable. People are starting to see that the EU is not a bogeyman responsible for the UK's problems. The tide is turning.

I voted Labour, I am pro EU. The issues above are more important to me than Brexit. I would expect Labour to build bridges with Europe and have a "sensible" Brexit. May pandered to the tabloids, the Tory hard right and UKIP and she lost heavily. As did UKIP. The hard Brexiteers are worried as hard brexit is off the table, the mandate is lost. Hard brexiteers are in denial.

But Brexit is still happening & she'll do a great job I'm sure.

The brexit arms reaches project desperation.

Of course Ken Clarke can't do that. He was the only Tory remainer to vote with his conscience for what he (and most other Tories) believed to be the good of the country. Country before party, unlike the rest of the Tories or most of the Labour MPs.

Wrong I have strongly in favour of remaining in the EU but I voted Labour not Liberal Democrat. I had no problem with the content of their Manifesto. Here's why:

My priorities were:

• to oust my local Conservative MP, who supported leaving the EU. The best tactical way for me to achieve that was to vote Labour not LD, although I like Tim Farron and have been impressed by his campaign;
• to ensure a maximum number of pro EU MPs in parliament;
• to wound TM so that she understood the arrogance of assuming that she could walk into a majority government.

I don't know anybody who believed Corbyn could win a majority, but I know lots who believed that he could eat away at her existing majority, and that the best outcome for a Brexit that was better for jobs and economic stability was one where she suffered a loss of power.

Before the election, my own ambition was for TM to reduce her existing majority - not for Corbyn to win.

I wasn't at all bothered by the Labour Manifesto, because I went to listen to Kier Stammer speak on a panel alongside Vince Cable and Frances O-Grady and I came away feeling much more comfortable with the idea of KS as our lead Brexit negotiator.

Although I support TF, I don't support the idea of a second referendum. I think many people share my view that this country should never ever have a referendum on anything, ever again. We have learnt the hard way the value of parliamentary democracy. I think Tim Farron called for a second referendum in the heat of the moment, and probably regretted it. I have heard senior LibDems move away from the idea of a second referendum. But given their history viz university fees etc, the LDs could not possibly be seen to move away from an important commitment, once publicly aired, so he was stuck with it. However, I am not sure how much damage it actually did him. I think the LDs were more thwarted by the existing parliamentary FPTP system in an election in which the overwhelming desire of so many people was to punish the Tories and send them a message about the unpalatability of a hard Brexit and the importance of prioritising jobs and economic stability. It is certainly not the case, as some - e.g. Michael Fallon, are suggesting, that people supported Labour because they don't want to see a change in the approach to Brexit.

I am delighted by the success of Ruth Davidson.

I wasn't expecting the rise of the DUP - but I don't see how this sort of alliance can continue, even if it just "confidence and supply".

I think most people's voting reasons will be nuanced. It is simply not possible to read this outcome as a vote for no change to Brexit just because of e.g. the statements in the Labour manifesto. Sorry this is a bit long and waffly.