Labour’s u-turn on supporting the Brexit Referendum result.

[TheaSaurass]

Can anyone believe a policy this party campaigns on for votes at a general election?

Media supporters may call it a ‘shift’, but it’s a honking great u-turn, as weeks ago Corbyn on a Sunday political programme was asked to clarify Labour’s actual position (as attracted Leave and Remain votes at the last election) and he stated that Labour's position was that the UK WAS leaving the Single Market, otherwise we wouldn't be leaving.

And while the man currently setting Labour policy Keir Starmer says the time for “constructive ambiguity” is over this totally undermines the government’s position ahead of EU negotiations resuming next week.

Instead of getting on with Brexit, Labour will only support a transitional period from 2021 to 2023 (leaving open the option to stay in for good), so while May did not get the election result she wanted, who can say she wasn’t right not to trust a parliamentary Labour Party pretending they supported Brexit, to get government legislation through parliament.

Clearly they NOW feel there are more votes for leaving the question if we leave the EU, open.

“Labour makes dramatic shift on Brexit and single market”

”Labour is to announce a dramatic policy shift by backing continued membership of the EU single market beyond March 2019, when Britain leaves the EU, establishing a clear dividing line with the Tories on Brexit for the first time.”

”In a move that positions it decisively as the party of “soft Brexit”, Labour will support full participation in the single market and customs union during a lengthy “transitional period” that it believes could last between two and four years after the day of departure, it is to announce on Sunday.”

”This will mean that under a Labour government the UK would continue to abide by the EU’s free movement rules, accept the jurisdiction of the European court of justice on trade and economic issues, and pay into the EU budget for a period of years after Brexit, in the hope of lessening the shock of leaving to the UK economy. In a further move that will delight many pro-EU Labour backers, Jeremy Corbyn’s party will also leave open the option of the UK remaining a member of the customs union and single market for good, beyond the end of the transitional period.”

”The decision to stay inside the single market and abide by all EU rules during the transitional period, and possibly beyond, was agreed after a week of intense discussion at the top of the party. It was signed off by the leadership and key members of the shadow cabinet on Thursday, according to Starmer’s office.”

I read this last time you posted it.
It lists all the Liabilities of The EU.
But not how much of each we should be taking.
Also no Assets listed.

Since we will be out of the EU why do we have to pay all the Agency Bills?
Investment and Developement funds. These should be EU liabilities not UK once we leave.

As said where are the assets, the wine, the fixtures and fittings, the buildings, the other things the EU parliament own, should we not have a share of the good as well as the bad?

From another thread - I am most interested in the interview you watched, Mummy. The one from which I lifted the well known phrase 'rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic' that you have apparently never come across before...

Who was it being interviewed?

I never said I had not heard the phrase before.
It was on the BBC News and you seem to have taken rather a lot of what was said from the whole interview, DUP comments as well.
Which you still won't agree about, as usual you take one phrase from my comments and fixate on that, funny you didn't choose the DUP and Labour bit... wonder why!

where are the assets, the wine, the fixtures and fittings, the buildings, the other things the EU parliament own, should we not have a share of the good as well as the bad?

If the UK wants these things to be included in the financial settlement, then they need to be included in a document that clearly sets out its negotiating position. Are they?

We the public have not seen them, so don't know if they are included.
Seems there was a 3 hour reply by UK about the EU bill.
Wish it had been made public.

If there is any secrecy about this, then it's on the UK side. Why not write to your MP, or consider a request for information under the FOI act?

Because I want to read it as I am nosy, but in reality I realsied that if Davis published everything they thought then they have nothing to use to gain a better deal.

I do think the EU are using the holidays as time waster, as once the EU Parliament are back do you really not thing the MEP's won't have some say on what is happening. We can't agree a deal on how much we pay then have countries wanting things written into the deal that might cost us only for the EU to say the Bill is fixed but we want 50% of your fishing rights for nothing.
There has to be give as well as take, but EU are all take right now.

You told me that the phrase was lifted by me from something you had read (or seen) recently, implying very strongly that you did not know it was a common phrase and/or that you had never come across it before.

I don't watch BBC News so I will have to take your word for it that someone or other may have stated views similar to mine.

It wouldn't occur to you that more than one person could hold the same common sense opinion, I suppose.

I did address your silly comment on Labour with my remark that engaging in petty party political gamesmanship at this point in time is akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Negotiation is a collaborative process, Mummy.
It's not a case of blindsiding your 'opposition' with some brilliant move that will make them fall on the floor and run to their mothers sobbing, 'We give up!'

if Davis published everything they thought then they have nothing to use to gain a better deal.
You see some cleverness and cunning on the part of the UK in overt antagonism here, and its failure to be forthright about what it wants, or how it proposes to solve the issues that are being discussed. The rest of the world sees a government that is clueless, and the sight is appalling.

their determination to interfere in the Irish border problem, which is none of their business

Priceless piece of idiocy there.

Thea When I first started posting I was basically told by several no-doubt ‘elite’ Mumsnet posters that I could not string a sentence together, am I English, my poor granma? was shit, all trying to discredit both my input and views – I assume the next step up of my Mumsnet ‘right of centre passage’ – is to be told I am now ruining the board with pesky facts.

Nope - it was more like begging you to post with proper syntax and grammar the better to understand your views.

As I remarked before to you, life is too short to waste so much time picking through your passages for whatever point may buried in there.

Nice jab with the word 'elite'.

It was interesting to see you take such umbrage at the suggestion that English is not your first language. The suggestion that English is not your first language is not an insult. Why would the implication of foreignness be such a dreadful slight?

Math, you know its bad form to chase posters round threads.

Nobody forces anyone to read long posts. Swipe on by. Id still defend Theas right to post, whichever style or manner she chooses. Were not quite at entry level testing of language being a requirement here at MN.....despite protests.

I dont have a problem reading them and seeking out the pertinent points. Some do. Thats fine.

This principle, that DD repeated this week, is still being lost on some.

‘We are a country that meets its international obligations and will continue to do so but those obligations have to be well specified and they have to be real. The Commission has set out its position and we have a duty to our taxpayers to interrogate it rigorously.’

DD is not refering to leave voting tax payers. He refers to all tax payers. That is first and foremost what our government are tasked to do. We agree to pay a tax and to live under laws to ensure a civil society. We created a government to 'manage' our governance, and they then govern at the request of the people, not despite them.

DD is absolutely right taking the position he has, and indeed has been far more diplomatic than we are, by not pointing out the EUs position hasnt actually specified anything in value terms. Im sure theyll get round to it. What is clear, is as many have pointed out for decades, these are not business men running the EU, theyre politicians. They see a 'win' as gaining agreement for a pension donation for example, even if that donation is then £50.

Back to labour, so Tom Watsons ploughed in this week........ JC is surprisingly quiet. Are his followers desperately waiting for leadership? If so, as the unions have tabled further changes to labour party leadership rules for the upcoming conference, are the unions indeed getting behind a firm, no freedom of movement position, but behind Tom Watsons eternal access to the SM ? Does anyone want to quietly point out the EUs position on this?

Indeed, will Labour have finally decided what their position is going to be by March 2019 (though it may have been prudent to have thought about all this prior to the referendum LOL) or is it heading the way it looks, and theyll still be bickering years after we've left?

I would just like to know what the government's negotiating positions will be. I think tm, dd let alone any other member of tories don't have any clue what is happening even at this moment. I'm starting to think they're just flipflopping around until everybody's given up on brexit completely.

On threads like this, where the discussion attracts posters who also post on similar threads, one recognises names. After a while one gets to know the named posters, in the sense that one picks up snippets of information about their backgrounds, occupations and family - and one gets a "sense" of them as a person, even an idea (probably wrong!) of what they look like. They include both Remainers and Leavers.
However, there are those who I certainly can't get a "handle" on at all. They are those like the OP, who post reams and reams, are heavy on the formatting and who seem to have a distinct style of argument which has been described well on here, better than I can do. My mental image of them is a cartoon or caricature, not a real person. So though they might be real people, I am sceptical of their authenticity as simply Mumsnetters with an interest in politics and a point of view.

Maths, if you wrong, no one at a negotiation where both sides want something lays out all the card for the other side to see while the other keeps things on hold.
We want to know what we are bring asked to pay, not just what for, it really is being asked for a blank cheque right now as the EU also have no idea how much it as, as they know the amounts can differ.
How can we talk about a Bill when the trade deals will alter the amounts. and the different funds they want money for, `have elements that are nothing to do with us, their going to have a blacklash from all the 27 countries over bits that a particular country can't live with, so what will they give us a refund or demand MORE cash to sort something they forgot about...
Get real, there will be no deal, and then it will be a case of talking trade and bills at the same time, something we should be doing right now.

born that's really perceptive. The formatting kinda detracts from the substantive point.

So we've spent 43 years being part of the EU, which means that a significant part of the legislation and institutions we either proposed or at least agreed with. Now we want to leave and pretend, it seems, that we never had 43 years of input.

Math, you know its bad form to chase posters round threads

Yes it is, Carolines, but I am not chasing anyone. If Thea had not brought up the matter of her unintelligible posts I would not have mentioned them unless I ran across an egregious example. The length is not the problem. I would love to understand what she is saying. I do not inhabit her echo chamber so I can't join the dots as you can.

The conclusion I draw from this relentless focus on Labour, including silly speculation on the Labour leadership, is that the Tory Brexit hawks are spooked by the possibility that the opposition stance on Brexit has popular support, and that the Labour stance mirrors the less frothing-at-the-mouth position of a good few Tories.

newsthump.com/2017/08/31/theresa-may-drunkenly-announces-intention-to-fight-general-election/ It's funny because it's so close to the bone.
The only party leader whose position is built on the proverbial sands is Theresa May. Corbyn led Labour to a most unexpected position in the GE, which was a disastrous miscalculation on the part of May from start to finish, and on top of that the election campaign delayed negotiations with the EU. May is only hanging on because a leadership race held in public would damage the party.

What is the Jacob Rees-Mogg publicity of recent times all about? Clearly it is designed to keep up pressure for the hawkish positions on Brexit, to be followed by a massive assault on the powers of Parliament once Brexit is accomplished. It is also designed to keep TM from doing what the electorate really wants, and what is in the best interests of the people and businesses of the UK.

newsthump.com/2017/09/01/liam-fox-claims-he-is-being-blackmailed-into-paying-mobile-phone-contract-he-voluntarily-entered-into/
Wrt that divorce bill...

Even the Express thinks the bill will be paid.
www.express.co.uk/news/uk/849117/David-Davis-UK-Brexit-bill-pact-EU
This is because everyone knows deep down that Brexit will be a disaster without some continued trade on reasonable terms with the EU, which is the UK's biggest trading partner, the fulminations of the Rees-Mogg faction and Farage notwithstanding.

IT was a remainer who posted the rant about the DUP, and how they were not to be trusted, just reminding you that Labour wanted to share with them to hang on to power, you can't have it both ways.

Also Labour seem to be able to say anything and it's allowed, or a mistake, a perk of not being in power.

I don't want it 'both ways'.

I don't care what Labour wanted or might have done in the past.

I don't care about the petty party-political point-scoring you are determined to engage in.

Hanging onto power by the skin of your teeth by bribing a reprehensible party whose voters burn effigies on enormous bonfires every year, while stamping your foot and insisting that your MPs toe the hard Brexit line, insisting that this is 'the will of the people' when the vote was actually 48-52 is a spectacle that is making the UK look like a banana republic.

www.cnn.com/2017/09/01/opinions/uk-us-brexit-david-davis-oped/index.html

This is what wanting things both ways looks like.

It is also a good example of sucking up to someone you are desperate to do business with.

The US will drop the UK like a hot potato once Brexit is accomplished. The only reason the so-called 'special relationship' exists (and even at that, mainly in the delusions of the UK) is that the UK was always America's back door into Europe, both in political and business terms. Once passporting goes, and once the UK loses its seat in Brussels, the US will no longer be interested. President Obama did not warn against voting to Leave the EU on a whim.

Maths we all understand that your still bitter about the vote, but that is how things are done in the UK.
We voted to have a EU Referendum by voting in the Torys.
We voted in a Referendum.
We didn't vote in Labour when we could a have.

How many more chances do you want to get the future to fall the way you wish?

In March, tories were on 45% Labour on 26%

Now:
LAB 43% (+2)
CON 38% (nc)
LD 7% (-1)
UKIP 4% (-2*)

Tory conference should be good for a few more Labour percentage points.

I am not at all bitter. It is no skin off my nose whatever way the vote went.

You did not actually vote to have a referendum by voting for Cameron's government.
The points of Cameron's 2015 manifesto were:
(1) An economic plan to help you and your family
(2) Jobs for all
(3) Cutting your taxes, making welfare fairer, and controlling immigration
(4) The best schools and hospitals for you and your family
(5) Securing your home and your neighbourhood
(6) Dignity in your retirement
(7) Keeping our country secure

Buried on page 72 is the commitment to the Referendum.
Also on page 72 is the following:
"We are clear about what we want form Europe. We say: Yes to the Single Market. Yes to turbo charging free trade. Yes to working together where we are stronger together than alone. Yes to a family of nation states, all part of a European Union - but whose interests, crucially, are guaranteed whether inside the Euro or out. No to 'ever closer union'. No to a constant flow of power to Brussels. No to unnecessary interference. And no, of course, to the Euro, to participation in Eurozone bailouts or notions like a European Army...

...We will protect our economy from any further integration of the Eurozone. The integration of the Eurozone has raised acute questions for non-Eurozone countries like the United Kingdom. We benefit from the Single Market and do not want to stand in the way of the Eurozone resolving its difficulties. Indeed, given the trade between Britain and the Eurozone countries we want to see these economies returning to growth. But we will not let the integration of the Eurozone jeopardise the integrity of the Single Market or in any way disadvantage the UK...

...We want an EU that helps Britain move ahead, not one that holds us back. We have already succeeded in exempting our smallest businesses from new EU regulations, and kicked-off negotiations for a massive EU trade deal with the USA, which could be worth billions of pounds to the UK economy. We will build on this. We want to preserve the integrity of the Single Market, by insisting on protections for those countries that have kept their own currencies. We want to expand the Single Market, breaking down the remaining barriers to trade and ensuring that new sectors are opened up to British firms. We want to ensure that new rules target unscrupulous behaviour in the financial services industry, while safeguarding Britain as a global centre of excellence in finance. So we will resist EU attempts to restrict legitimate financial services activities. We will press for lower EU spending, further reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and Structural Funds, and for EU money to be focused on promoting jobs and growth."

So as you can see, there is either outright lying going on there, or a case of a manifesto deliberately promising something for everyone in full knowledge that an In/Out vote could leave a large chunk of your own membership gnashing their teeth while another group danced in the streets.

You chose to see the Tories championing Brexit, and that is a huge pity.

Incidentally, how do people in this day and age fall for a manifesto that includes the header 'Jobs for all'?

s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/manifesto2015/ConservativeManifesto2015.pdf
Read it and weep.

but that is how things are done in the UK.

Primarily, it's not how we do things in the UK. Switzerland, Ireland, yes, both govern by Referenda. We have a Parliamentary democracy.
With the exception of war time we accept that a Parliament's mandate lasts either until the Govt loses a vote of Confidence or for five years.
With the Referendum it appears that the advice the General Public gave to Parliament of a slight preference to leave the EU, has gained the status of being like the Ten Commandments, handed down from on high. Yet in the subsequent and unnecessary election, May's loss of a majority would leave many to believe that her version of Brexit is not wholly acceptable. As yet, we haven't been offered an alternative.

As far as I am aware countries which do govern by Referenda are quite happy to do some more negotiation and then go back to their electorate to ask their opinions on the revised terms. Either they get agreement or the proposed change dies a death. It's not a question of xxx years ago, people wanted this, and tough luck to the current electorate.