Westminstenders: Don't Panic!

[RedToothBrush]

It's official

Brexit is like an episode of Dads Army with the government, being Captain Mainwaring's trusty band of elite forces doing battle against the evil Mr Barnier.

Yesterday Parliament gave back control to the executive as it surrendered parliamentary sovereignty to Janus faced May. Grieve, it has to be said, truly did look like a broken man as he gave his speech in the commons. Not that we should have too much sympathy. After all he did just put party before country.

So where are we now? The ERG are happy. They have successfully bullied enough until everyone else gave up and folded. They now have no incentive to compromise, as they know that no one can stand up to them. They want no deal, and it's no deal they will force.

The EU are thoroughly fed up and it's difficult to see them do anything but cut us loose saying Brexit means Brexit, this is what you wanted. They have stepped up planning for no deal and their plans were already much more advanced than ours.

We go into the next round of talks with a solution to the Irish Border looking further away than ever. Not helped by the fact that brexit nationalism is restricted to England alone, with many being happy to let NI be sunk into the Irish sea and the favour the rebuilding of Hadrian's wall in order to keep out the foreigners.

It's hard to resist simply sitting down wailing "we doomed". But try to resist and keep saying, you are against this crap. If only so history books don't just say we all agreed to this clusterfuck.

Here have a fluffy bunny to help comfort you.

DG Rosetti that quote is apocryphal and has no basis in any analysis.

but it's one way of summing up what BCF said. Illustrations don't need to be factual, just illustrative. Bearing in mind the nature of Brexit "democracy" is that 51% of the population can tell 49% of the population that they've had a vote, and it's the 49% job to support the 51%.

In fact, that's an idea for the next two referenda :

Should women support men ?

or

Should men support women ?

Whatever the outcome, it's the will of the people, and cannot be challenged. And in the spirit of the EU referendum, anyone who is claiming self-identity won't be allowed a vote.

Even with that level of farce, it still would be nowhere near the asininity of the June 2016 referendum.

I kind of care about Leave voters who did it because they already had nothing and so felt they had nothing to lose.

Who I can't forgive is the highly educated, intelligent, usually well-informed person I know (I don't think I can say 'friend' any more) whose given reasons for voting Leave included bendy bananas and eggs by the dozen (yes, really) and some woolly stuff about the UK being able to make its own decisions.

He has no excuse.

I don't care about any Leave voter who did what they did whatever the motive - and I keep this to myself because I have Leave voting friends and family.
They were all adults when they voted. They could all read.

[The blame will all come on the EU for punishing,]
They can blame who they like but blame in itself won't put food on the table.
Maybe it is going to be like Star Wars and we are flying at warp speed towards the end of the canyon and at the last microsecond 'May the Genius be with you' will pull back and cancel A50 and everything will be roses and unicorns.........Or not.

Brexit has split my family right down the middle. On the poor / retired side, they all, bar my father-in-law, voted Leave, and are still absolutely sure it's right. In fact they're insufferable racists and bigots.

On the rich side of my family, they all voted Remain, because they all work in the City and know what a clusterfuck it will be.

My partner and I are making contingency plans to get out. He at least will be very likely to lose his job. I may not, but I wouldn't want to stay in the UK if it tanks and the fascists take over anyway.

The rich side of my family will be fine - they can all get out easily. The poor side, well I hate to say it, but they voted for Christmas and they're going to be stuffed. They won't listen to me, so there's nothing more I can do.

My worry now is, if we don't leave before the end of March, will we still be able to get out afterwards? My partner doesn't want to go until we know it's definitely going to be bad, which I do understand (and feel the same, I'm just surer that it is going to be bad). Maybe we'll know in October.

But will we still be able to get out of the country?

We're on the poor side of the family btw. It's all or nothing for us, if we do go through with our Brexodus.

I ain't leaving despite my Irish passport. Unless I am thrown out. Smug bastards will have to spend the next 50 years justifying this stupid mistake.

I’ve heard someone saying they were going to vote Brexit because then we could go back to inches and Lund rather than meter and kg....
Never mind that the move to the metric system predates joining the EU.

If they voted Brexit to get inches back they have handy skills for measuring the dole queue they've created. Ignorant bastards.

DG I’ve come across that quote about democracy.
I would hope it won’t descend into a dictatorship. But there is something to ask abiut what IS a democracy and can it work?
Eg I’m really wondering if we can actually have everyone voting or if it should be only a select few (Athenian style). Too many people with no enough knowledge and understanding to take decisions the one from the referendum.

I also think democracy worked well when politicians weren’t there to just stay in power but because they genuinely wanted the best for the country.

That quote about democracy is used by right wingers to justify all sorts of things. From falsely attributing it to the reason Bush beat Gore, or the reason poor people voted for Obama etc.

Its a piece of propaganda and bears no scrutiny.

A house on the north Antrim coast would do me fine

Just looked online at Co Antrim. It is beautiful. But it's Northern Ireland. Or are you assuming NI will in some way stay in/aligned with the EU –or that Ireland the island will unify?

I also have Irish ancestry one generation too far back but would probably otherwise be on my way to some wild coast by now.

Next few years definitely dreadful but couldn’t there be some unintended positive consequences eventually? An economy focussed on London financial sector was not helping the rest of the country have a role. May we eventually appreciate the EU more and treat it better in the future. Could we start to appreciate some of our current achievements instead of always harking back to ww2 and the sixties?

At the risk of harking back, Churchill described democracy as absolutely the worst form of government apart from all the others. Let's hope common sense will make things better. Eventually. Until then, I say every mumsnetter for themselves.

Yes, I agree Cherrypi to some extent. We should not underestimate human nature. I still believe that most people are decent. I also hope that the younger generations are more outward looking and international than the current 50+ generation seem to be.

If we destroy the NHS in its current form, maybe we will start to look after our health more, and then reinvent something better? That might be a tall order because much ill health is still dictated by poverty.

Your considerations about leaving are similar in some ways to those of businesses Andshestepped

You need have no conscience about what happens to the turkeys though.

You could wait until it is very probable there won't be a deal, say January latest,
However, if Brexit is a risk to your OH's job, maybe apply for jobs abroad now, before the panic starts.
Before Brexit you don't need a work visa; afterwards your employer would probably need to apply for one.

It's a real problem knowing what to do about your house(s), if you own any
I would open a foreign bank account now and before January transfer over any large amounts of capital you currently hold, in case the UK imposes emergency capital controls.

Much easier to move to the EU before Brexit, rather than after
both wrt legal rights to work there and wrt transporting yourselves & household belongings
You would probably be granted leave to remain in any EU country, even if there is no Withdrawal Agreement specifying this.

Indeed, BigChoc, these are all things I've considered, and feel really stuck.

We only have about 10k in savings, but I do already have a Euro bank account in another country, so we'll move it over.

The house is the main sticking point, apart from my partner's job. Will we even be able to sell it if No Deal becomes a reality? Most of our wealth is tied up in the house and we'd need it if we moved abroad.

peregrina If the NHS goes under, then healthcare in the UK will be - at best - like that in the USA:

• Just basic emergency care for about the poorest 15%
• A good chunk of the wc and mc thinking they have adequate private healthcare …until a long, serious illness / accident happens, or they lose their job
• The top 5% having brilliant private care

After an Ultra Brexit, I doubt if the Uk could (successfully) adopt a European-style mix of private & public health care

andshestepped I emigrated immediately after the ref - I got nearly full price for my Thames flat - because I was concerned about a price fall later.
I accepted that it was worth 15% less in Euros than before (thanks, turkeys), but I had decided to permanently emigrate and feared the £ might fall a lot more

• it's a gamble, but sterling has continually depreciated since the 1930s, so longterm it's a reasonable bet.

However, I had to grab the offered job immediately, being almost 60 then and also my pensions were already in Euros since long before the ref.

You are presumably still young(ish), have more job options and probably pensions fully in sterling
So different circs to consider.

I predict some noise when we leave then a sludgy economic grumbling for far too long rather than a collapse.

Never mind that the move to the metric system predates joining the EU.

If more MPs had been interested, we'd have gone metric in the early 1900s.

Oh, I missed that - burying bad news on the day of the LHR vote ?

May has informed Donald Tusk that the UK Government's Brexit proposal will not be ready for the European Council meeting on 28-29June

That's the heads of govt meeting that was supposed to agree the basics of the Withdrawal Agreement, so that it could be finalised and put in text by October.

We're now in over-time
but the politicians will be having their summer break soon

tick-tock, no deal is looking ever more likely

That quote about democracy is used by right wingers to justify all sorts of things.

Well it's also used by pinko left wingers like me .

Anyway, it may - or may not - be true. However, it's an interesting assertion, and thinking about it can bear fruit.

Ken Livingstone - who used to be worth listening to - once pointed out that when society is hierarchical and pyramid shaped ... so 2/3rds "working class" outvoting the remaining 1/3 middle + upper classes, then a socialist (for the UK read "Labour") victory was inevitable.

He then noted that the "genius" (sic) of Mrs Thatcher was that she managed to trick "working class" people into thinking they were middle class. At which point they started voting middle class.

Again, you may or may not agree. But it's not complete pish. Unlike anything Brexiteers come out with.

I remember someone on Brian Hayes' R2 show (might even have been Brian Hayes himself) describing democracy as, the rule of the majority with the consent of the minority . Actually, even then, that was wrong as in actuality (with WM's FPTP system ) it is the rule of the minority with the consent of the majority

And latterly, not even that .....It's either (or both ) " without the consent of the majority " or " thanks to the apathy of the majority"