Current Affairs EU In or Out

[BlueToff]

It is, but again it should be pointed out that May had a deal and that Boris (and Rees-Mogg) voted against it twice. Others in the Cabinet voted against it three times.

If anyone betrayed Brexit, it is the Brexiteers.

When that deal came out, Remainers and Brexiteers hated it.

It wasn't a good deal economically, even I knew that. But I'm also not so politically dim to know that any deal won't have a negative impact. But it's better than no deal.

 

[tim cahill]

Lets hope the brexiteers dont manage to fillibuster the bill in the HOL. Think they have tabled 85 amendments!

They won't be able to stop it, but the fact that this is going on shows that parliament needs to be updated. They're literally trying to bore people into submission.

 

[Kurt.]

Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing though. We have a government and through shenanigans from the speaker, the opposition is in charge.....

Again that’s your view of it .... I respectfully disagree with you though.

 

[dholliday]

We're past the point of no return now. Can people really think the EU negotiators will just let us revoke Article 50 without serious repercussions, after all the uncertainty? You'd be living in cloud cuckoo land.

I would reckon there is quite a good chance they would let us revoke.

what binman said...the EU are gagging for UK to give up and request Art50 be revoked. With Brexit, the EU stands to lose a lot of fund management (that infamous number on Boris's red bus wasn't actually wrong per se), plus if the UK are seen to be doing well post-Brexit, then the EU is in a lot of trouble.

 

[peteblue]

it was 102 at dinner time one tory had put 11 in.
rumours on the tv before that a deal has been offered Johnson will let it through end the filibuster if Corbyn will go to a GE, little bit on newsnight before

I’m sure there will be a bit of give and go....

 

[Emlynsqueakyvoice]

He arrived into this thread a hour ago pissed as a fart, immediately quoted one of my posts and called for me to be banned, then launched into a long winded personal diatribe against me. The man cannot hide his bigotry against Irish people. It's been like that for a long time on here.

Pretty much my take. Hasn't he been requested to stay off one of the Irish threads?

 

[BlueToff]

I would reckon there is quite a good chance they would let us revoke.

Let us, but the cost of admission - so to speak - would go up.

Three years of ifs and buts. They are playing it so hard as it is as they don't want other nations leaving. They need to show they have the upper hand and there are repercussions.

There's no chance we just get to 'revoke' and that's it forgotten.

 

[peteblue]

Again that’s your view of it .... I respectfully disagree with you though.

And I respectfully disagree with you.....


Isn’t it nice to have a respectful conversation......

 

[tim cahill]

Good point, for me the answer is yes. Perhaps you should also ask the Remainers....

The remainers made clear they didn't think it was worth it when they voted to remain.

 

[tsubaki]

The EU have been showing signs of a dictatorship for years. Their Presidents are not elected by the people, and they allow little room for debate. Ursula von der Leyen has been voted in as the President of the European Commission, that's the most politically-powerful position in Europe. Yet in Germany she's seen as a failed Minister where she had only modest gains as Family Minister before making a balls-up of the Defence Minister role. She was in Bulgaria this week preaching EU values and refused to take journalist questions.

Christine Lagarde is President of the European Central Bank, yet she has dodgy financial controversies in her history (check her Wiki page for more details). Juncker, Tusk and Schulze have not been shy in being overly-confrontational with UK ideas, at best this is undiplomatic behaviour not befitting EU Presidents.

Something stinks up there in EU chiefland. What can EU members do about it?

People forget why David Cameron allowed a public referendum on Brexit: it's because he recognised this stink and requested EU work towards reforming some of their top-level processes so that they be more transparent to the public. This was arrogantly rejected by EU chiefs. Cameron's reaction by allowing the UK public to vote on EU membership was in theory a fair and rational thing to do, but he underestimated how fervent the pro-Remain crowd would react. We've thus had 3+ years of poisoned shouting rather than rational informed debate. It's been so poisonous that a lot of us are asking if it was worth even having the referendum in the first place. Better the devil you know and all that...

Brexit would force the EU to reform in ways that Cameron had suggested (more transparent), as the EU would not want to risk any other members pushing for their own Exits. That's the position of the left/liberal-minded person who supports Brexit.

No, he didn't. There is a lot wrong with the EU but none of what Cameron proposed to do (either in his "negotiations" beforehand or in the referendum) was designed to reform it for the better; that is why he lost, and why the moment it became clear he'd lost, he ran off.

The irony is that we actually probably are the best placed nation to reform the EU in the way you describe, even now - we have the oldest, most stable, most powerful and most aggressive legislature of the 28 states. A smart PM could have looked at the problems with the EU, recognized that the leadership will never try and fix them (and they won't, because they would lose out), and recognized that the way you deal with that is via the Parliamentary route (just as we did between 1660 and the mid 1800s).

If that hypothetical PM was able to build a movement that could win a genuine majority in the EU Parliament, everything you cite as a problem could then be fixed - the legitimacy that control of the Parliament would give would inevitably sweep away anything that stood in its path; it would become sovereign (as ours is).

 

[Scillachi]

What does the Kinnock amendment do for things?

 

[BlueToff]

It’s an absolute farce all around. I remember way back when the result of the referendum was announced... the Tories were full of themselves and telling us how they were going to the Eu with a list of our demands and if that bloody Eu knows what’s good for them they will listen and give us what we want.

There began the problems... when they went in with their little englander demands right at the beginning... it was as laughable then as it is now and it just set the time for the 3 years since.

I agree.

But we also had remainers (MPs) crying and screaming, and remainers and leavers in the general public split down the middle.

Wouldn't it have at least made sense for the MPs to work together for the past three years.

I'm not blaming either side less than the other here.

 

[davmaher]

Sorry for my ignorance but can option 2 really happen - overturn a supermajority requirement with a simple majority vote?

Yes, I think it can. It would mean amending the Fixed Term Parliament Act, which itself went through on a simple majority. There would be at least 2 potential problems, though. Firstly it looks unlikely that Johnson could achieve even a simple majority. Most of the opposition parties abstained tonight and if you add their votes onto the number who did vote against the election tonight they would win fairly comfortably. Secondly, because Johnson decided to prorogue parliament last week there is little time available to get the bill, if it passed, through the Lords before next Monday, which is the final day of business for parliament before the proroguing takes place and it shuts. His only option then would be to reverse his decision on proroguing parliament and go hot-foot to the queen to ask her to reverse his decision.

 

[peteblue]

Pretty much my take. Hasn't he been requested to stay off one of the Irish threads?

No my friend. I offered to stay off it. If you want I will post again, just say the word......

 

[Barnfred 55]

The SNP position is actually quite interesting. For the second independence referendum to be won, they will need no deal to be avoided.

It sounds counterintuitive given no deal would seem to make a yes vote more likely in Scotland. However, if Scotland is an independent member of the EU (as would be likely) and the UK is in a no deal position, we just end up with the same backstop debate as for NI but along the England Scotland border instead, meaning there would need to be a hard border in place for customs reasons (or at least until a trade deal is reached).

My view is that Scottish independence will now happen and the UK will break up. It’s just a matter of time.

My original question was that the SNP was happy to leave the UK in 2014 knowing that it also meant leaving the EU. But suddenly, membership of the EU became all important. What happened to affect that change in opinion.

Or has it always just been about leaving the UK at any cost?