Brexit discussion thread XIII (Please read OP before posting)

LeinsterDub wrote: »

https://twitter.com/MPIainDS/status/1290292767852118016


And of course by 'Buried in the fine print, unnoticed by many' he means there in black and white but he failed to read it .

Not even just that, he also supported MP's having almost no time to scrutinize the WA before voting on it because they have had 3 years to discuss it as well.

https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1290614153888104448?s=20

To use a phrase James O'Brien us fond of, the Emperor is standing there naked and shaking his...you know at the people and still some will tell you that he is not doing that and it is body coloured stockings you are seeing.

RobMc59 wrote: »

Labour under Keir Starmer is a completely different proposition to the rudderless ship it was under Corbyn.Britain would`nt be in this situation if there had been a credible opposition party.

Too late now. In a couple years there won't be enough UK left that anyone will care. They'll have poor trade relations with the rest of the world, the best and brightest will learn to emigrate and their economy will be tourism with some remnant industries. Like fishing.

RobMc59 wrote: »

Labour under Keir Starmer is a completely different proposition to the rudderless ship it was under Corbyn.Britain would`nt be in this situation if there had been a credible opposition party.

So far, Starmer hasn’t made any major changes to Labour’s policies. And he is just as quiet on EU related matters as Corbyn tried (unsuccessfully) to be, even though - with a massive Covid recession looming - the timing for a “go it alone” Brexit couldn’t be worse.

Brexit has utterly shagged Labour. They may as well accept being in opposition for now and reformulate themselves around whatever the new normal is for Britain after it has fully left the EEA. That's what they get for having a voter base which straddles both the working-class north of England and more affluent London.

View wrote: »

Brexit is a vote loser for Labour because they spent the last four years fundamentally agreeing with the Conservatives that it was a good idea. Unsurprisingly, large parts of the electorate took them at their word and voted for Johnson’s “instant great idea” Brexit rather than Corbyn’s “let’s drag the entire process out while we renegotiate” Brexit. The Labour leadership’s “brilliant tactics” of trying to ignore Brexit as an issue as much as possible failed spectacularly for them. Labour continuing to pursue their failed strategy isn’t going to do them any good, since even if it proves a total failure, everyone and their granny will know that Labour was just as supportive of Brexit as the Conservatives were.

It's nuanced but Labour never supported Brexit. That is not to say that Corbyn might have thought it is a good idea, but the party never supported it. This caused the problem where the party tells you its a bad idea but when Corbyn talks about it he has no passion on the subject at all. This from a politician that is all about passion on the issues he believes in and the problem became obvious.

The 2017 election wasn't totally about Brexit and he excelled, Johnson was able to make 2019 about Brexit and with all the related problem Corbyn brought to the table, we saw the result.

Enzokk wrote: »

It's nuanced but Labour never supported Brexit. That is not to say that Corbyn might have thought it is a good idea, but the party never supported it. This caused the problem where the party tells you its a bad idea but when Corbyn talks about it he has no passion on the subject at all. This from a politician that is all about passion on the issues he believes in and the problem became obvious.

The 2017 election wasn't totally about Brexit and he excelled, Johnson was able to make 2019 about Brexit and with all the related problem Corbyn brought to the table, we saw the result.

Sorry but Labour unquestionably did support Brexit. They all trooped into the Parliamentary lobbies and voted FOR May being authorised to trigger art 50 knowing full well that was what she was going to do. And, time after time, in the last Parliament, there were always just enough Labour (supposed) “rebels” who crossed over and voted with the Conservatives, saving the Conservatives’ bacon - and none of those (serial) rebels were ever sanctioned by the Labour Party.

Lastly, in the 2017 GE, it wasn’t a case that Corbyn excelled, but rather that May self-destructed during the campaign, together with a manifesto that alienated Conservative voters.

I genuinely don't think that people in UK realise what is facing them now.

Am I wrong thinking that?

The worst fallout will hit those who are struggling already. And of course Covid has covered up a lot of this anyway.

View wrote: »

Sorry but Labour unquestionably did support Brexit. They all trooped into the Parliamentary lobbies and voted FOR May being authorised to trigger art 50 knowing full well that was what she was going to do. And, time after time, in the last Parliament, there were always just enough Labour (supposed) “rebels” who crossed over and voted with the Conservatives, saving the Conservatives’ bacon - and none of those (serial) rebels were ever sanctioned by the Labour Party.

Lastly, in the 2017 GE, it wasn’t a case that Corbyn excelled, but rather that May self-destructed during the campaign, together with a manifesto that alienated Conservative voters.

I don't think my post contradicts any of this. The Labour leadership supported triggering article 50, yet still 47 MPs voted against it.

Brexit: MPs overwhelmingly back Article 50 bill

MPs have voted by a majority of 384 to allow Prime Minister Theresa May to get Brexit negotiations under way.

They backed the government's European Union Bill, supported by the Labour leadership, by 498 votes to 114.

But the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats opposed the bill, while 47 Labour MPs and Tory ex-chancellor Ken Clarke rebelled.

So the leadership supported Brexit and Corbyn solidified his power in the party after the second attempt to get rid of him and then the 2017 election. You even confirm that the 2017 election was as much May screwing up their manifesto than Brexit. After 2017 it was a slog to get the leadership in line with the membership, they got there in the end but it was too late by then.

So no, the Labour party didn't support Brexit but their leadership did which contributed to their demise in 2019 as Corbyn just looked indecisive.

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

I genuinely don't think that people in UK realise what is facing them now.

Am I wrong thinking that?

The worst fallout will hit those who are struggling already. And of course Covid has covered up a lot of this anyway.

Not wrong, no. Except that it's not so much that Covid will act as a cover-up, but that it will make things very, very much worse.

A comment piece in the Guardian discusses the impact that the pandemic is having on the level of personal indebtedness in the UK, and makes this observation:

many households face a perfect storm of cratering incomes and rising cost pressures, as payment holidays come to an end and the furlough scheme winds up. Many of the newly unemployed have piled up rent arrears and personal debts, which will become impossible to pay back. Some figures suggest that less than half of all rent owed was being paid during lockdown. When the ban on evictions is lifted, a wave of homelessness is likely to follow.

These debt burdens will not only ruin lives: they will also drag back the economic recovery itself. The UK risks getting trapped in a downward spiral. If indebted households have less to spend, and indebted businesses close or shed jobs, demand will be sucked out of the economy. This will prolong the recession, which in turn will tip more people into problem debt, which in turn will worsen the recession.

I'm coming around to the idea that Covid-19 is not the fortuitous calamity that some say it is for the Brexiters. It has diverted attention on both sides of the Channel from the business of wrapping up Brexit, with the EU essentially saying "fekkit, we've got bigger problems now; let the Brits sort out their own mess" and leaving the Brexiters with no chance to play their silly buggers blame game for a year. Instead, GB will either go full WTO at the end of the year, or stagger into a bare-bones deal that does them no real favours. Between that and the Covid after-effects - such as the debt-collections and evicitions referred to in that Guardian piece - in three years' time, the British will still be living in an economic wasteland while looking at green shoots sprouting on the faraway hills of the EU. That won't bode well for the Tories come the next election.

AllForIt wrote: »

That's just some domesday scenario.

The idea that the UK's economic system is doomed is just ridiculous.

It's really weird that some would wish it so.

The disaster for the EU is that the UK will continue on as it always has and it will be shown that being part of the EU makes eff all economic difference to them.

Huh? This makes no sense. Whether Brexit is a disaster for the EU doesn't depend at all on how the UK fairs after Brexit. We really don't give a stuff how the UK gets on after Brexit. Why would we? It's not our problem. What the EU is interested in is how we are affected by Brexit, not how the UK is affected by Brexit.

But, for what it's worth, the possibility that "the UK will continue on as it always has and it will be shown that being part of the EU makes eff all economic difference" is not a scenario that the EU needs to spend much time contemplating. Brexit has already had a significant adverse economic impact on the UK, and the overwhelming consensus is that it will continue to, long-term. Any disagreement is about how adversely the UK will be affected, not about whether it will be adversely affected. Nobody, literally nobody, with any expertise or credibility is modelling that Brexit will be economically beneficial for the UK, or even that it will "continue on as it always has".

It doesn't matter that the doomsday scenarios may not come true. The real damage to the UK from Brexit is not risk of cataclysmic chaos when transition ends, but the year-on-year, grinding, cumulative effect of consistent underperformance, steadily falling further and further behind comparable countries from the extra cost, extra bureacracy, extra barriers to trade, extra tariffs and other disadvantages that it has imposed on itself. It reverts to being the "sick man of Europe", the condition which it escaped by joining the EU in the first place. There is no plausible scenario in which this works out well for the UK, economically speaking.

AllForIt wrote: »

The disaster for the EU is that the UK will continue on as it always has and it will be shown that being part of the EU makes eff all economic difference to them.

You think the devaluation of the pound, the 10s of 1000s of jobs that were lost and the 1000s that are still being lost weekly (e.g. https://twitter.com/uk_domain_names/status/1291120673419595777), the billions that the UK is spending in preparation for Brexit or all of the trade deals that have to be replaced will have eff all economic difference to them.

I agree that the average man in the street won't understand the cause or will deflect the cause to whatever the government wants to blame at the time. They'll have less money in their pocket or will have less jobs but they didn't understand the EU benefits so won't understand that Brexit is the reasoning behind their standard of living falling.
Obviously it won't affect the rich. They have the capabilities to mitigate against Brexit or even benefit from it and there's plenty of evidence of them doing that so far. They don't really care about the economic affect on the average person.

Obviously not all of the jobs being lost now are due to Brexit. I think we'll find that Covid is blamed for most of the economic downturn over the next year or two. Obviously it deserves a lot of the blame but Covid on top of Brexit is a catastrophe. Actually Covid by itself is an economic catastrophe but having the two of them together will extend the affects for several more years before recovery starts.

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

A second referendum was in the manifesto. Labour intended to negotiate a Brexit deal with much closer alignment than proposed by the Tories. The deal would then have been put to another referendum. Starmer is pro Europe as are the large majority of Labour MPs. Starmer is staying quiet on Brexit for tactical reasons. When your enemy is busy trying shooting themselves in both feet, it's best to say and do nothing

Labour, in their own manifesto, described their policy as “Labour’s plan FOR Brexit”. That was a pro-Brexit position that they stood on, not a neutral one, much less an anti-Brexit one.

And, Labour could easily have stood on an anti-Brexit position given that: a) the referendum was an advisory only one, and, b) by the time the 2019 GE came around, it was abundantly clear that many issues that Brexiters promised during the referendum, either were not going to be resolved the way they promised they would be, or else they were going to be in ways that were the complete opposite of what they promised.

And, sorry, but a person can’t be described as “pro Europe” if they vote to authorise the triggering of art 50 and they stand on a pro-Brexit platform and they still don’t oppose Brexit happening knowing we are all heading into a Coronavirus recession.