The Brexit Arms: Are We Nearly There Yet? 🇬🇧🚗↩️🇪🇺

[SingingLily]

No, not yet, but soon. Just 24 more sleeps until we legally leave the EU at 11pm on 31 January and finally enter the transition period after what seems like centuries of argument, dither and delay. We do so with hope, optimism and a determination to be a good friend and neighbour to the EU, but for now, no one said it better than Winston Churchill.

“This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning.”

The Pub Rule is the same as it always was: all welcome but only if you leave goadery outside. The first drink is on the house.

We just want to pick one anniversary to celebrate every year.
OMG. Every year? Why would you celebrate leaving a trading block? Why would you celebrate something half the population does not want. This is not a war victory or a religious festival, although it's probably closer to the latter in the minds of some.

Bear, I think you've asked those questions many times over the years. In keeping with tradition, I hope you're not expecting an answer beyond 'we have explained this multiple times and aren't going to say it all again.

I actually am hoping for specifics at this stage

If Brexit isn’t symbolic and it isn’t theoretical then, by now there must be specifics people are aiming to achieve.

Why would you celebrate something half the population does not want
Oh I didn't know you had to get permission from everyone before you were allowed to celebrate anything important to you.

Interesting that you mention 'aspirational' WC when only yesterday you and other posters were pillorying the Labour leadership candidates for being the wrong kind of working class (having mothers with good jobs in the NHS/marrying judges/living in the 'wrong' part of Manchester etc), although son-of-a-bus-driver Javid was apparently the right kind of aspirational WC come good.

No

The pillorying of Labour leadership hopefuls re the 'I'm so working class' thing is driven by the fact that they're being wholly disingenuous about it - using it as a costume, stereotyping it up a storm, & descending into four Yorkshiremen type parody

Several posters have said repeatedly, they don't give a toss how working, middle or upper class someone is - just don't pretend to be something you're not
It's patronising when they do that

Re the 'right wing' red wall voters - BJ is very much not exceptionally right wing

I agree with Copper earlier:
it is clear that the Workington Man people also need to be listened to. I don't think they are right wing or any wing.
They want a political party that reflects their needs and aspirations. Not much to ask really.

To keep painting people who voted for BJ's Tories as 'extreme right wing' is going to have the exact same effect as shouting down people who voted for Brexit as 'racist xenophobes', and people who don't believe women can have penises as 'transphobic TERFs'
It is nothing more than tedious, reductive & lazy stereotyping.

I am also hoping for specifics. If the government would kindly give us some, that would be a start. So far, all we've got is (paraphrase warning!): we are leaving the single market. Some businesses will survive, some will not. It's even rumoured that that's not really a specific, but just something Javid has come out with to make the EU think that we are when we're not really.

Oh I didn't know you had to get permission from everyone before you were allowed to celebrate anything important to you.
Oh, I thought you were talking about public celebrations like Big Ben Boings. Were you talking about a quiet celebration at home then, because you definitely don't need permission for that.

😍😍😍😘😘😘🥰🥰🥰😛😛😛

The Tories won because the opposition was unthinkable, not because they themselves were a fantastic choice

Perhaps

Which is why they're doing everything they can to hit the ground running & deliver as much as poss

They are not stupid - they know that if they don't get a grip & deliver they'll be out on their ear next time

Yes, Dusty.

I thought you were talking about public celebrations like Big Ben Boings

Don't imagine they will be every single year. But maybe bongs/ceremonies after 5/10/20 years etc like we do for all important national events.

Spend your money on a party if you must but spending half a million on recommissioning a bell just for this is utter madness

Meh 🤷🏻‍♀️

Most people have donated £10 or £20 at most

It's no different to the shedloads of cash chucked towards Led by Donkeys, Fox-Killer Molyon or the Lovely Gina over the last few years

People are free to donate whatever they want/can afford to whatever cause they want - one persons good cause is another's madness 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well, let's hope there's something specific to celebrate then, although, as mentioned above, someone (who?) will need to be measuring 'success' and as Brexit has no specific aim, I'm not sure what metrics will be used to ascertain whether Brexit is worthy of celebration or not. If we didn't all know by now that the bus thing was a lie, we could have used that as a measure of success, but alas...

Finally caught up to the end....!!

I think the 'celebrate' aspect is largely driven by a feeling of utter relief that we're finally actually doing the thing that we voted for

For nearly 4 years we've had to witness gross subversion & slippery antics in Parliament by anti-Brexit MPs who were hell bent on stopping Brexit

It has been relentless

It is this which has riven such deep divides & entrenched people, not Brexit itself

By continually reinforcing a sense of hope to anti-Brexit supporters that it could be stopped completely, the sense of loss is far more acute than it would otherwise have been (and by contrast, the sense of jubilation for Brexit supporters who genuinely feel like they've had to fight every step of the way since the ref)

I'm not sure what metrics will be used to ascertain whether Brexit is worthy of celebration or not

I think that will become obvious with hindsight. People will make their voices heard and political parties will capitalise on Brexit success and celebrate it or be doomed to defeat if its Brexit failure.

Until then, remainers will blame every pothole and price rise on leaving and Leavers will look to any pluses to hail brexit a success.

Just back to the accountability thing, do you think the current cabinet actually care about the consequences at the next GE if Brexit is indeed a shit show? Surely the most sensible course of action if they did would be to keep a close alignment to the EU to minimise the negative effects of Brexit. Let’s face it, the MP’s who pushed for and are currently handling Brexit aren’t exactly going to need to visit the job centre if they do lose their seats in 4.5 years. Divergence would be utter madness and is likely to have a catastrophic effect on business, so it must be ideologically driven.

Limited Brexit minimisation risks standing in the middle of the road getting blamed by both sides. That didn't work so well for Labour. Therefore by the same reasoning as you I come to the exact opposite conclusion. It is necessary for Boris and co to demonstrably diverge.

do you think the current cabinet actually care about the consequences at the next GE if Brexit is indeed a shit show?
Yes I do believe cabinet actually care about this country. And even if they didn't they do care about being reelected at the next election. Either way they currently have the countries confidence of doing the best for the UK.

The big, glaring, obvious point being (as ever, and continually pointed out by posters here) that accountability is entirely in the hands of our elected UK Parliament

This is by far the biggest & most fundamental point of Brexit, and if you haven't yet grasped that then I'm at a loss tbh 🤷🏻‍♀️

It will be entirely up to UK the extent to which we align or otherwise
And it is entirely in the hands of UK voters as to who they want to represent them

The GE delivered a ✅ to BJ's vision in December
Ergo, he has a mandate

I do think it’s interesting that there are still no specific goals wrt Brexit though

I don’t understand how people expect their MPs to represent their constituents when it's not clear what they want

I wouldn't like to be BJ and his gang at all.
They are stuck between a rock and a hard place, either going for hard Brexit and tanking trade and jobs on the pretext that that is what "voters" want or aligning and being accused of "betraying voters".

And it is entirely in the hands of UK voters as to who they want to represent them
Not with FPTP.

My point was more about the individual MPs that have ideologically wanted Brexit for years and currently make up our cabinet. Once they have finally realised their aim of Singapore on Thames, what is it to them if they are no longer employed as MPs going forward? Many are independently wealthy with contacts. It’s not as if they need the job or the money, and everything they have been campaigning for for years has already been realised. I actually expect if we are doing badly in 4.5 years time many of them won’t stand again anyway, for the good of the party. The way I see it, simply not being an MP anymore isn’t sufficient inducement for those MPs to put what is best for the country above their own ideologically driven self interest, hence the plans to diverge.

Many are independently wealthy with contacts
And yet we still voted for them. So plenty of people have confidence that they will do the best for the UK. Their is no guarantees but Brexit is what we want and we are willing to take the risk.

Auld I think that is a false dichotomy. Mutual recognition is high alignment but according to some, including EU opening stance admittedly, it is "Hard" Brexit unless we are in the SM and CU.

I expect a lot of finessing which lands up with high alignment, at the very least for all exports and imports, with one side claiming UK autonomy and the other that we are actually still within the EU for all practical purposes.

However even the EU will want a solution with sufficient divergence to demonstrate that being outside the EU is different from being within it.