Current Affairs EU In or Out

[Disgruntledgoat]

Ha, good point, i didn't notice @Khalekan tagged in

Still, Wallonia aren't dictating, they're using rights afforded to member states to ensure the eu respect their National, and even regional interests.

They mysteriously got over this objection after being bunged a few billion in "Infrastructure funds" to ensure nobody in Wallonia will have to get a job for another few years.

 

[tsubaki]

The reason being she rather liked being Prime Minister and really rather wouldn't like to see Corbyn or Johnson deliver the role in her place.

The ERG would have been totally emasculated if a deal had passed, though. She would probably still be PM.

 

[abelard]

The ERG would have been totally emasculated if a deal had passed, though. She would probably still be PM.

From what I understand/am led to believe, her reasoning was that risking the breakup of the Conservative Party would be even worse than a No Deal Brexit.

Which is obviously a bit ironic in light of what's happened since..

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

From what I understand/am led to believe, her reasoning was that risking the breakup of the Conservative Party was an even more serious threat than the risk of No Deal Brexit.

Which is obviously a bit ironic in light of what's happened since..

This. She did her best with a terrible hand, did May.

Still not awfully impressive but Britain's relationship with Europe is the Tory leader's third rail. Touch it and you die.

 

[abelard]

This. She did her best with a terrible hand, did May.

That is... not the conclusion I was going for.

She took a bad hand and immediately made it much, much worse, by invoking Article 50 without the hint of a plan, imposing idiotic and unattainable 'Red Lines', purposely alienating the opposition upon whose votes she was ultimately relying, and determining that flattering (unsuccessfully) Rees-Mogg and the other nutters' egos was more important than actually resolving the crisis.

 

[Tubey]

This. She did her best with a terrible hand, did May.

Still not awfully impressive but Britain's relationship with Europe is the Tory leader's third rail. Touch it and you die.

You're neglecting the fact that she chose her own hand by putting ridiculous and totally unforced red lines in her negotiating position immediately, through nothing but total arrogance.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

That is... not the conclusion I was going for.

My apologies if I misrepresented you.

My take was that May simply could not succeed, as a remainer committed to deliver something she didn't believe in, in delivering a Brexit deal that would satisfy the loonier elements of her party who had rather a lot of support coalescing around them.

On the other side, she could never succeed to deliver a Brexit deal that would satisfy the negotiators from the European Commission in that part of their logic has always been to deter other would be leavers for a generation or so.

She had to walk a tightrope and did so by trying to please everyone and, of course, pleasing no one.

 

[Khalekan]

Belgium Walloons block key EU Ceta trade deal with Canada

Belgium cannot sign a landmark EU trade deal with Canada, Prime Minister Charles Michel says, because of objections led by its Wallonia region.

www.bbc.co.uk

Ha, good point, i didn't notice @Khalekan tagged in

Still, Wallonia aren't dictating, they're using rights afforded to member states to ensure the eu respect their National, and even regional interests.

Thank you, Orchard.

I didn’t have time this morning to give @peteblue the detailed answer his post requires.....but you have touched on it and reminded me I need to address Peter’s concerns.

Peter.......that example is not about Wallonia vetoing an EU deal.

It us about the Belgian sovereign government doing so, having been persuaded so to do by one if its own devolved administrations.

And as such it flies in the face of a central plank of Brexiter victim culture.......that the UK had to do whatever the heck the EU told it to do irrespective of the wishes of the British people.

You have posted evidence that this is demonstrably not the case.....in effect you have sawn off the branch on which you and other Brexiters have been perched since 2016.

Because we have the power to do what the Belgian government did when faced with opposition from one of its own “tinpot” regional assemblies.

Substitute Wales for Wallonia and Britain for Belgium and that could be us.

This “deal” Johnson cooked up is nowt remotely like the Wallonian situation which you have linked us to.

The NI Assembly would have the power to veto the arrangement without recourse to the middleman (in this case the UK government).

It would be a matter to be decided between Belfast and Brussels

And they would have the power to disrupt the EU every four years.

That way lies madness my friend.

Chaos, economic uncertainty and lack of inward investment because no company would know what lies beyond the next “Petition of Concern”.

This is why the power of veto should never be given to a handful of fanatics.

And it is why the EU will not accept it.....which of course Johnson kniws and that is why the clause was inserted in t’ first place

Thanks again, Orchard...lI had forgotten I needed to reply to Peter

 

[abelard]

My apologies if I misrepresented you.

My take was that May simply could not succeed, as a remainer committed to deliver something she didn't believe in, in delivering a Brexit deal that would satisfy the loonier elements of her party who had rather a lot of support coalescing around them.

On the other side, she could never succeed to deliver a Brexit deal that would satisfy the negotiators from the European Commission in that part of their logic has always been to deter other would be leavers for a generation or so.

She had to walk a tightrope and did so by trying to please everyone and, of course, pleasing no one.

She did deliver a deal (or at least the withdrawal agreement) that satisfied the EU though?

The problem was that she valued the Conservative Party (which is to say the ERG) more than she valued the future of the country as a whole, while provoking Labour leavers who might otherwise have signed on to the point where backing her became impossible.

To say nothing, as @Tubey notes, of brainlessly putting herself in that position to begin with.

 

[Tubey]

My apologies if I misrepresented you.

My take was that May simply could not succeed, as a remainer committed to deliver something she didn't believe in, in delivering a Brexit deal that would satisfy the loonier elements of her party who had rather a lot of support coalescing around them.

On the other side, she could never succeed to deliver a Brexit deal that would satisfy the negotiators from the European Commission in that part of their logic has always been to deter other would be leavers for a generation or so.

She had to walk a tightrope and did so by trying to please everyone and, of course, pleasing no one.

She could have easily done it. All she had to do was acknowledge the make up of the Commons was towards a moderate Brexit at best and tell the ERG to accept it or Brexit won't happen at all.

Instead, she veered more and more to the right.

 

[tsubaki]

This. She did her best with a terrible hand, did May.

She absolutely didn’t. The decision to make the choice of her deal vs no deal made it impossible for her deal to pass. If she’d made it her deal vs no Brexit (or a 2nd ref) the ERG would not have voted it down.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

She absolutely didn’t. The decision to make the choice of her deal vs no deal made it impossible for her deal to pass. If she’d made it her deal vs no Brexit (or a 2nd ref) the ERG would not have voted it down.

Or left the party and no confidenced her. Which was the result May feared more than anything. Politician puts party before country shocker.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

She could have easily done it. All she had to do was acknowledge the make up of the Commons was towards a moderate Brexit at best and tell the ERG to accept it or Brexit won't happen at all.

Instead, she veered more and more to the right.

Again, typing between working has made me unclear.

It was impossible for her to deliver a deal satisfying BOTH of those parties.

But, as ever, I stand to be corrected.

 

[tsubaki]

Or left the party and no confidenced her. Which was the result May feared more than anything. Politician puts party before country shocker.

They did that anyway though.

Also, as they never stop reminding us the people voted to Leave; it would have been really difficult for them to have not backed leave if that was the only way of getting it.

 

[dwightschrute]

Ireland cannot agree to Johnson's plans - Ireland's deputy premier

The magic deal that Johnson has been cooking up for weeks in secret and ran a ticket on to become PM has been shot down within a day, impressive even by his standards