Tuesday 15 January 2019

15th of Jan - The Day Brexit dies

It has been a long time coming, but here we are. After 2 years of snakes and ladders, the Remain Parliament - now actively helped by the Speaker. Are going to vote down Brexit overwhelmingly.


The fact that the very outnumbered Tory Brexiteers (ERG) can't see this is a bit worrying. They are forlorn if they think we get no Brexit. From here the only route is an even closer Union with the EU from that agreed thus far. Full Customs Union and the Four Freedoms, plus ECJ overlordship.


At that point, for what it is worth, even I would rather we just Remained. There is no point in the whole kerfuffle just to not really leave or change anything.


The Remainers are going to win big today and we have many years to figure out what consequences it will have. Will the leading parties in Labour and Tory still stay that way when they both have the same policy, against the wishes of a majority of the Country? I can't see it but then first-past the post voting mitigates against any change - and after all, there won't be any more referendums in my lifetime after this!



19 comments:

John in Cheshire said...

I think the biggest problem with our electoral system is the way candidates are selected. We, the voters are forced to choose between a small number of people who have been presented to us. The selection of parliamentary candidates will have to change if we are to have a better class of people representing us in the HoP.

E-K said...

I just want the Tory party dead.

I could kill but I won't. (I could literally strangle May.)

Alas, apathy rules. You lot are just going to have to get used to Tory working class voters stopping voting.

Bill Quango MP said...

I suspect, it will go May loses.
Bercow insisting she hurries back with p,an B will actually be doing the procrastinator in chief a favour.
She will say, press on with her shit deal, and will try and get some concession from EU.

They will reluctantly offer figleaf II. Which will also be rejected, by a slightly small amount.
Which moves us to Feb and finally, figleaf MK III, which does time limit any backstop to a maximum period.
Just enough for the now panicking HOC and hysterical Project Rapture, to force an agreement for the May plan.

And so BRINO is passed.

E-K said...

Anyway. The big news is that Gillette have fucked up big time with their new advert. Anti white male.

Me: bet you can’t bankrupt your company with a single advertisement

Gillette: hold my soy iced vegan caramel mocha latte, son.

hovis said...

This will take years to play out;

Looking pessimistically the Leave element of the country will no longer vote (consent) or believe a word of the political class.

The biggest result of all this is the removal of the lie that we are a representative democracy. Governments will no longer have claim to popular legitimacy, (not they will care). The Political Class will carry on as if nothing happened, opposition will be marginalised leaving only option as violent protest. This however will likely be neutered by ever increasing use of anti terror laws, (they weren't brought in to combat Salafism after all, they get free pass.)

More happily, as I have said before, the Tories are toast. Labour are as split, they are more tribal but there is likely a cleave betwen metropolitans and the rest. We can but hope.

The EU's future is far from secure we can only hope (but not necessarily expect) it's current discord is the start of disintegration. Let us see what the long awaited financial crisis v2.0 brings. I see over at Guido's Germany already in technical recession.

I think the period '16/'18+ will be seen as one of those inflexion points of history.

andrew said...


May's deal will fail.

The country will not let her kick the can another 5 weeks down the road.
As BQ says, Bercow has (rightly) shot that rabbit.

BQ is wrong : The EU will not let the ROI down.
There will be some fudging of the backstop, but it will not be substantially amended.
If they do, trust between countries in the EU will be fatally undermined - for what is the point of the EU if they do not stand up for each other against outsiders(*).

(* as for insiders, well, greece can tell you all you need to know)

May will hang on come what may (she will not resign)
After all, who will replace her - all the cons think little of her,
but the remain/exit factions hate each other much more.

There will be no motion of no confidence, or if there is it will narrowly fail.
Lab have it worse. If they do get the no confidence motion there would be an election and they would have to commit to brexit (or remain). That will alienate half of their support one way or another.

There is no majority for anything.
Parliament will fail. There will be a referendum.

We will then argue about the referendum and the questions for a long time.

At the end of it all I cannot tell whether May is up there with Metternich / Otto von Bismarck and planned to run brexit into the buffers,
or is a stupid person who authored an entire country's misfortune though a combination of bad luck, timing, planning decisions and just not listening to anyone.

Anonymous said...

@E-K

Regarding bankrupting your company. If you recall that Gerald Ratner did it with a misplaced phrase. You might also recall it was done at a Tory Party event.

T-M is just trying to outdo Ratners by bankrupting the country with her own interpretation of "Brexit means Brexit"

And as the "government" is appointed by her, and Parliament is appointed by us, you can only ever put any blame in one place.

Raedwald said...

Peckers up, chaps!

Change and uncertainty is good. Chaos is positive.

No, I haven't the faintest idea how this will all turn out. Battle bowlers on and prepare for anything.

There's going to be a short window in which just about anything can happen - be ready to move!

Anonymous said...

"This will take years to play out"

Last time, it took most of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Don Cox

Nick Drew said...

the 8th Law:

"A narrow victory is more significant than a landslide, which betokens little more than that everyone knew what the result was going to be and piled in behind the obvious winner"

So - back to the negotiating table - only 6 weeks later than originally scheduled ...

E-K said...

Well I called that one wrong.

Thud said...

I just want to never hear about any of this ever again, I'd agree to friggin anything.

E-K said...

Almost Lilliputian.

"Halt. Who goes there ! Inny or Outy ?"

Anonymous said...

So what's everyone's prediction for what will happen next.

Given both May and the EU love can kicking, article 50 extended so all this nonsense can carry on?

Nick Drew said...

The editorial writers don't know what to say (beyond Graun howling "R2", which just reinforces the point). May / govt is still the only real game in town. No obvious reason why she won't stomp "forward", one day at a time, in current unimaginative mode. There's always something to fill the day with.

In such circumstances you'd ordinarily wonder about her health (1956, 1963), but she seems to have a constitution as strong as her stubbornness and sense of duty

assuming there's no practical chance of a GE, it will be intersting to see whether the Lab ranks start to waver. There are quite a lot of people who are genuinely frightened by NoDeal

Edward B said...

If there was clarity on the future relationship, people could stomach a bad withdrawal agreement as only being temporary. The lack of clarity means that MPs want the withdrawal agreement to rule out their (different) worst nightmares relating to the future relationship. The solution is probably a much stronger political statement and timeline on the future relationship.

dustybloke said...

Nick, I bet she feels that old!

Jan said...

One thing she has achieved is complete unity amongst the other EU countries which is quite a feat I should imagine and just goes to show how little she ruffled their feathers and how useless our negotiating position must have been.

Display Name said...

39b to pay, 72 days till brexit, i'd put a sunset clause on that WA and tell the eu for everyday they don't accept it i'll put half a billion into no deal planning.

People want a leader here, if May had the balls to show some conviction people would soon follow her but her abysmal lack of anything/everything has meant that parliament has turned on her.