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Brexit

Westminstenders: Oh Look is that a fire in the Italian Capital?

994 replies

RedToothBrush · 14/02/2019 21:20

Next stop: 27th Feb.

Where we will apparently have Cooper-Boles II which apparently will pass but still assumes that
a) the EU will grant us an extension despite our fuckwittery
b) that it will prevent accidental no deal, which it doesn't
c) glosses over the minor point that the only way to 100% prevent no deal is to say you'll revoke if everything else fails

Meanwhile in reality we leave in law on 29th March, despite the rest of the law having zero chance of being ready in time. Withdrawal Agreement and No Deal alike.

All that is actually happening is the Tories and Labour fighting amongst themselves. Corbyn is still pretending that Brexit isn't really that important and hoping it will just go away. May is still trying to compromise with the ERG - whom if you paying attention 18 months ago were obviously were never going to compromise on anything - cos they are fuckwitted swivel eyed loons.

Meanwhile the entire country has no other alternative but to assume no deal and act accordingly.

A deal on the 21st March (as is the planned date of the Meaningful Vote) is simply too late for planners. For them no deal has already happened even if it does never come to pass.

The strategy of brinkmanship has destroyed us. We just don't know it yet.

A Split in the Tory and Labour parties may well make matters even worse going forward with further political polarisation.

Where next for Brexit?

Who knows and does it even matter now? The damage is irreversible and will take at least a generation to heal wounds. Economically it may never be recoverable.

FUKD.

OP posts:
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BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2019 12:08

Excellent recap by Tony Connelly of how we ended up with this WA on the table

He stresses that the all-UK backstop was something May deliberately leveraged, using NI in order to help UK goods exporters
So it is totally perverse that she so quickly tried to renege on something she herself requested and then signed

The E27 went to the limits of what they would concede
Hence any last minutes "changes" will just be explaining further that the EU wants a future trade deal and the backstop is only a backstop, not their desired end state

https://www.rte.ie/amp/1015924/?

BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2019 12:11

We must keep remembering that the ERG said the backstop is only #1 is their list of demanded changes

Many MPs have worked themselves up a lot of nationalist froth over this, but even resolving this wouldn't satisfy the ERG

LonelyandTiredandLow · 15/02/2019 12:14

BigChoc yes I reminded leaver friend of this today - that we did negotiate something the EU didn't want, the backstop, but then we shot ourselves in the foot by not agreeing to it. We now both agree that Corbyn and ERG want No Deal as much as each other which is why there has been confused opposition. She is still sure something will be negotiated the day before the deadline...I am still sure we are No Dealing.

BiglyBadgers · 15/02/2019 12:15

I have four sewing machines

I used to have ...... a few. I only have one now because of lack of space. I suddenly really miss them all.

I may or may not be now watching a hand-crank singer on eBay. Wink

Stilltalkstotrees · 15/02/2019 12:17

I have a basic (cheap) sewing machine, nothing fancy but meets my needs. I also have an overlocker, which is the dog’s gonads Grin

Hi again and thanks again Red. Popped away for a couple of days and missed at least 2 threads. Same shit, different day.

Unlike most, it seems, I was actually quite heartened by yesterday’s debate. I didn’t watch it all so maybe only saw the good bits? I was struck by how many thoroughly decent, rational, passionate back bench MPs we have. I hope they succeed in blocking a no deal Brexit and I think they just might.

BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2019 12:17

Peter Foster Retweeted Raphael Hogarth@RaphaelHogarth

EU rationale is 4-fold imo:

  1. UK will cave
  2. If UK doesn't cave before 29/03, it will cave when it experiences no-deal
  3. If UK doesn't cave, all blame for hard border will be on UK
  4. EU has held the line so firmly that it now damages long-term EU credibility for EU to cave.

< omits the most important point 5, imo:

if the EU abandons a small member country, in favour of trade with a large non-member,
then all 12 small member countries will know the EU won't have their back when it really counts
and the EU would be more gravely damaged than by any possible drop in UK trade >

DGRossetti · 15/02/2019 12:20

The problem is the ERG have no interest in helping British exporters whatsoever. They're the privilege wing of the Tory party and they want to shit all over the nouveau rich industrialists, much as they have done for 3 centuries.

We return to the acutely observed Le Comte de Frou Frou in Blackadder:

Edmund: No, no, I won’t. [propositioning] Now, listen, Frou Frou … Would you like to earn some money?

Frou Frou: No, I wouldn’t. I would like other people to earn it and then give it to me, just like in France in the good old days.

Edmund: Yes, but this is a chance to return to the good old days.

BiglyBadgers · 15/02/2019 12:22

Many MPs have worked themselves up a lot of nationalist froth over this, but even resolving this wouldn't satisfy the ERG

I firmly believe that the ERG will find any excuse to refuse to support any deal at all. Unless May chucks the ERG we will no deal and that's that. If she went for a softer brexit with CU+ than I'm pretty sure she would get labour MPs supporting that, even if Corbyn refused.

Unfortunately for us May has tied herself to the ERG and so we're screwed really.

prettybird · 15/02/2019 12:23

I got this from a friend a few years ago when we were helping him to clear out his parents' house. He was about to take it to the coup! Shock

Westminstenders: Oh Look is that a fire in the Italian Capital?
BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2019 12:24

lonelyandtired Tell her that WTO rules mean that to give the concessions the UK wants, the EU would
either

  • have to force Ireland to effectively Irexit or
  • it would have to dismantle its Single Market on which its whole prosperity depends
  • and which is a hugely complicated legal treaty negotiated 1980s & 1990s and agreed by the 27 EU countries & the UK.
it would take several years to do.

EU industry - specifically including all chiefs of German Industry - have repeatedly said that the EU must prioritise safeguarding the Single Market over safeguarding trade with the UK

BiglyBadgers · 15/02/2019 12:26

That is gorgeous pretty!

I used to have one like that I got from a charity shop when I was a student. They are just so lovely.

bellinisurge · 15/02/2019 12:27

I also have a treadle machine in a bespoke cupboard. Because I am hard core!!!
Very jealous of the overlocker. Cursing myself for not saying yes when my late father offered to buy me one!

LonelyandTiredandLow · 15/02/2019 12:29

I have BigChoc but she seems to ignore that every time we have a new conversation. Eventually it will sink in, like the rest has, but it literally takes months. She was saying today that what Thatcher agreed was fine in her eyes (EEC), it was just the "ever closer political union" and the army she doesn't like. She's getting far more moderate. Even suggested that EU is protectionist against darker skinned countries which is why it isn't truly global (although she does see the sense in us trading with geographical neighbours and I suspect this was just to reassure me she 'isn't racist!') Wink

BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2019 12:29

pretty After my mum died, I put her 1950s Singer sewing machine - looking just like that ! - among the 10 tons of Hopper bags that the clearance firm removed from outside my flat where she had been living for many years.

Unfortunately I didn't imagine then, which when Brown was PM, that so many voters would wish to return to the 1950s - or maybe 1850s

Cherrypi · 15/02/2019 12:29

Anyone hear yesterday’s brexitcast? Laura Kuenssburg said she’d asked two people close to Theresa May whether she’d no deal or extend article 50 in the event of not getting the WA through. She had two different answers back. Note revoke not an option.

LonelyandTiredandLow · 15/02/2019 12:30

I have two Singer machines and an electric that I just remembered I need to change the needle on Blush

I want to make a dinosaur fleece coat for my dog but fear the season for him wearing jumpers may be over.

1tisILeClerc · 15/02/2019 12:31

I would like at add a 6th point to RTB's list in that although No deal is not what the EU wants, as time goes by whether it is no deal or a deal becomes less relevant as the EU get prepared.

DGRossetti · 15/02/2019 12:36

I would like at add a 6th point to RTB's list in that although No deal is not what the EU wants, as time goes by whether it is no deal or a deal becomes less relevant as the EU get prepared.

The EU has grown up and realised it's no deal. It's been able to separate the wish and the reality. It's only a cross section of 650 MPs who haven't yet twigged. British business has, as have people who have been following the whole sorry process since before the referendum.

The time to stop no deal passed without anyone noticing.

I see the BBC are headlining a rise in January sales. That'll be stockpiling (sorry "forward planning") kicking in. I bet it'll be interpreted as "everythings alright, ignore the naysayers". Especially by people that (a) want it to be true and (b) don't really know much about much (Brexiteers).

BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2019 12:36

So, lonelyandtired If she agrees to what MrsT signed up for, she must be in favour of an SM Norway+++ Brexit

This is because the SM, with its 4 pillars of the free movement of labour, goods, capital & srvices, underpinned by the ECJ was MrsT's brainchild more than anyone else's

MrsT hated the "social chapter" of workers rights & environmental law which as added to it, to make the SM muh better for ordinary people, not just businesses

Hence your friend shouldn't demand the EU wreck the SM by dropping the backstop in the WA

  • presumably she doesn't want a 2-year extension to negotiate a different WA before Brexit and then a transition period following that
prettybird · 15/02/2019 12:37

I haven't actually used it since I got it Blush

It's actually an original electric Singer sewing machine from 1936 (someone gave me link to a site which tells you if you put in the model number) Smile

My mum was given a treadle Singer machine as a wedding present as Dad's farm didn't have electricity Shock When we came to the UK, she had it converted to electric, but she sold it when we were in NZ and bought a Bernina (which is still going strong; dad has kept it, as his lady friend sometimes sews when she is visiting).

Mum was a brilliant seamstress - she made my beautiful wedding dress Smile. I wish I'd learnt more from her. Learnt the basics, but that was a looooong time ago Blush

DGRossetti · 15/02/2019 12:37

The light at the end of the tunnel is a train.

1tisILeClerc · 15/02/2019 12:37

{I also have a treadle machine in a bespoke cupboard. Because I am hard core!!!}
I am beginning to wonder about some people on this thread, closet machinists.

I have a feeling that Singer made millions of machines that were used in India which helped the decline of British garment manufacture. I could well be wrong.

EthelFechan · 15/02/2019 12:37

My brother (strong remainer who threw in the towel the day after the referendum) says the EU often blinks at the last minute and a deal will be done.

Do the EU have form for this?

EthelFechan · 15/02/2019 12:38

I was struck by how many thoroughly decent, rational, passionate back bench MPs we have

Same here.

BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2019 12:39

Sabine Weyand Retweeted Pablo Pérez@PabloPerezA

'Barnier is working' is always the answer to 'where is Barnier?'.
He meets everyone, he explains, he listens, he takes note, he meets them again to update on development.
Did I say that he listens?^

It is the best possible #Brexit negotiator the EU could have.

< Barnier is working: such a contrast to DD especially, as well as Raab - too arrogant to actually work >