Zubeneschamali wrote: » Not the EUs problem, but we all know they won't be held properly accountable.
It'd be nice to imagine the Lib Dems winning an overall majority when Tory/Labour spoofery about Brexit is shown to be utter nonsense, but it will not happen. In 15 years, Corbyn's successor will be facing May's at the dispatch box, and the MPs will be yelling and hear-hearing, and Westminster will be as it has been for so many years.
They will just be arguing about a much smaller pie, and no-one outside England will much care anymore.
Thomas_IV wrote: » The EU is right to treat the present UK govt as grown ups cos they have to be held accountable for what they have done
EdgeCase wrote: » It was really shocking that May, despite everyone who knew anything about NI politics and the DUP warning her not to do it, just went ahead and did it anyway. It's made Brexit undeliverable, effectively extended the NI Assembly deadlock as the DUP have no incentive to share power, removed any perception of neutrality of the UK government as a guardian of the GFA and even has the potential to derail a delicately balanced peace that took about 30 years to achieve.
Zubeneschamali wrote: » No, I think after 2 years that the EU are well aware that the UK government are complete idiots. They were apparently very surprised to learn this during the talks, but they know now. They also know there is no point in trying to do the UK government any favours - they reluctantly agreed to May's request to extend the backstop CU to the whole UK from just NI... ... and not one person in the UK recognized it as a concession. In fact, they immediately started complaining about the EU demanding the UK stay in a CU.
EdgeCase wrote: » The problem with that strategy is the EU will also assume that the UK government and its negotiators are grown ups.
EdgeCase wrote: » They'll blame whoever the tabloids decide to blame and the finger pointing certianly will not be directed at themselves. That's the one thing you can be very sure of.
EdgeCase wrote: » This all stems from a notion that if the UK stands there holding a gun to its own head that the EU will have to give it everything it wants to avoid a financial meltdown. It's the most deranged and irresponsible diplomacy I have ever witnessed.
seamus wrote: » Davis is most likely another one who's moved all his money offshore. The UK holding out for unicorns is in his best interests.
igCorcaigh wrote: » They'll probably blame the EU and/or the government.
Labour grassroots step up anti-Brexit pressure on Jeremy Corbyn 200 party branches expected to support push for second referendum on leaving EU
EdgeCase wrote: » It's the most deranged and irresponsible diplomacy I have ever witnessed.
Trucks would face six-day queues to board ferries at Dover if new customs checks in the event of a no-deal Brexit were to delay each vehicle by just 70 seconds, according to government-commissioned research.
Leroy42 wrote: » Well, it is akin to the type of strategy followed by NK in terms of threatening the US. NK are well aware that any attack by them will lead to severe retribution, probably even massive death and destruction. But they gamble on the notion that the US will baulk at the threat of death and destruction to them as they have more to lose. The UK are following the same 'logic'. While the outcome may well be far worse for themselves, they are banking on the EU being the grown ups in the room and not opting for the cliff edge. It is desperate and shows a total lack of responsibility either to their own country of the wider international community, but at this stage they have nothing left to offer. Even the latest wheeze from TM, that she is looking for assurances that a FTA will be completed by 2021, and thus remove any need for a backstop, is pie in the sky. They couldn't agree on how to leave in two years, what makes them think they can carry out a far more detailed and complicated negotiation within that time. And as Ian Dunt points in his recent article, the same divisions within the government and the HoC will still exist when the time comes to ratify any trade deal. Why would things be any different at that point?
Thomas_IV wrote: » I think that this post sums it up really and the future prospect is rather bleak and more so when considering the reality that is to be expected when Brexit hits them (Brexiteers) home and they finally realise how much they've been led up the garden path.
EdgeCase wrote: » You also have to remember they've almost the polar opposite concept of what their relationship with the EU is to your average Irish person and have grown up in an environment that's almost always presented it as a negative or an external force that's been imposed upon them. You can't really grow up with that in the background for your entire life and it not to have rubbed off to some degree. The country is basically split down the middle and I find the divide is more about large urban and affluent vs small urban / rust belt areas. It was very easy to spend time in London, Manchester and plenty of other places and have absolutely no idea what was going on in mid sized northern cities and towns and so on. Ireland's actually FAR more homogeneous in terms of politics. We also have a system that was quite literally designed to create debate but always build consensus, rather than pitting two sides against each other in a tribal war. It's very hard to explain just how tribal the UK can be in terms of politics if you've never lived there. It's something that sometimes fades into the background and can then become very starkly visible when tensions build. You pick your tribe and apply your labels: people generally do quite strongly identify as a social class which can mean all sorts of things beyond the classic description. They also tend to describe the world in terms of class in a way that we don't and Americans don't. Even though it's a country with good social mobility it still clings to that in culture. I know people with PhDs who had two professionals as parents who would identify as hardcore working class because they're from "the North" and I've other friends who grew up in relative poverty but are social climbers and consider themselves middle class and then you've upper class types who are highly privileged and most just avoid mentioning it, unless you turn up at an event where everyone went to Eaton or similar and all of a sudden you're very much the outsider. That also jumps out in work environments in London - on several occasions it was fairly clear that there was an old school tie network alive and well and it's far, far more blatent than anything I've see in Ireland. I'm not saying we're immune to it, but it's just not quite as baked into culture. The class badge feeds into politics in a way that doesn't really exist here. You get people attempting to describe Ireland and Irish politics in terms of UK class divides and left/right dichotomy but it doesn't really work that. That creates political tribes and I think to a large degree Brexiteer Vs Remainer has kind of exposed that divide in much the same was as Tory vs Labour did in the past before both parties reached out to the centre. It defines what newspapers you read and defines all sorts of things about attitudes and behaviours and expectations. You've got working class / people who identify as such who include left wing and right wing and politically disaffected types, all of whom have identified as Brexiteers. They're perceiving remainers a middle class elite who go to university, sip lattes, read the guardian and watch newsnight etc Trump tapped the same divides in the US but in England that's even easier to do as it's a far more engrained divide. I would suspect what you'll see in England over the next few months is the beginnings of what will turn into something akin to the Poll Tax Riots, only far worse as it's brought out the far right this time. You can see the lines being drawn and the football hooligan type rhetoric building. You either get civil unrest due to the right wingers not getting what they think Brexit is. Or, you'll get it after a crash out Brexit should the economy become very badly damaged. Either way, I think you're in for turbulent times in England and you've also got inspiration for angry street protests coming from France, even if the English counterparts have a very different rational, they're adopting the same symbols and so on. I just think we're looking at chaos in England over the next few months, regardless of what the outcome is.
Peregrinus wrote: » No, plently of them (on both sides) are very despondent about it. On one view the Brexit movement has long been fuelled by people who think that British politics, and the British political system, haven't worked for them or for people like them for a long time, and are angry about that. And now they're matched by people who look at the clown-car-heading-for-a-cliff that is the UK political system attempting to engage with Brexit, and who also conclude that, yeah, the British political system is quite seriously broken. It's possibly one of the few things you'd find widespread agreement on that spans the Leaver/Remainer divide.
Hurrache wrote: » Don't know how Davis hasn't been pensioned off to a retirement home yethttps://twitter.com/PeterKGeoghegan/status/1082551727537221632
mickoneill31 wrote: » ... A mate of mine was showing me his mothers Facebook feed. She's English and is a fan of Brexit. Anything political in her feed is all anti EU and pro Brexit. Our social media encourages these bubbles. All she needs to add to that is read the Mail or Telegraph and she'll be pretty sure that Brexit is the what everybody wants. Then add in the mainstream media who seem to have Farage on or a Tory or Labour MP saying how Brexit is best for the country and you have all the bases covered.
Capt'n Midnight wrote: » Lift ? That "lift" means the libdems don't even have a quarter of the seats they had when the referendum was first promised.
EdgeCase wrote: » In my discussions with younger English relatives they largely either don’t care at all or they’re totally unaware of why this matters and think the world will just go on exactly as is and that it’s all a fuss about nothing.
Silent Running wrote: » Don't be too sure they don't want the UK to break up. I recently spoke to a Brexiteer in England. He would be quite happy for Scotland and Wales to be cut loose. He thought of them as dead weight and would be a brake on England's success after Brexit. Successful Mother England is the goal of Brexit in the mind of some Brexiteers.
Leroy42 wrote: » What the massive national debate going on when you were in your twenties? And what was the access you had to information at the time? We have 24 hour news, smartphones. Brexit is everywhere you look.
mickoneill31 wrote: » When I was in my 20s I wouldn't have had much of a clue about this kind of stuff.
