UK Politics

Speaking of petty political games, Jeremy Corbyn just stormed out of a meeting with the PM and opposition leaders because "the terms of the meeting had been broken" i.e. Chukka Umuna had been invited, one of the MPs who recently quit Labour in protest at Corbyn's leadership and Brexit stance. Sad!
 
A couple of tweets from an SNP MP on Jeremy Corbyn's antics this evening:

I mean honestly, nine days until the country he wants to be Prime Minister of leaves the EU and @jeremycorbyn has gone full ‘you can’t sit with us’. This isn’t Mean Girls. Get a grip of your life, man!


I mean, can you imagine him at a meeting of the UN? It’s filled with objectionable governments. Would he walk out of that?
 
So, for you folks who are closer to the details, what would you say the odds are of a hard Brexit at this point? And if that happens, what do they do with the Ireland / Northern Ireland border? Makeshift border checkpoints for customs and immigration enforcement, I guess...? I’d assume a softer border like the U.S. / Canada one rather than U.S. / Mexico...?
 
Jer said:
So, for you folks who are closer to the details, what would you say the odds are of a hard Brexit at this point? And if that happens, what do they do with the Ireland / Northern Ireland border? Makeshift border checkpoints for customs and immigration enforcement, I guess...? I’d assume a softer border like the U.S. / Canada one rather than U.S. / Mexico...?
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My money is on no deal at this stage. The Tories don't have the numbers in that parliament to get the deal through without support from the opposition, and the various opposition groups know this and are gambling for either a) may calling a general election to solve this (Corbyn) or b) May calling another referendum or aborting Brexit (SNP, some Labour, all the others). May won't call the election because honestly I don't think anyone could predict how it would go, an election would essentially be a referendum on brexit either way and all parties would have to clarify exactly where they stand. I can't see either Labour or the Tories coming up with a united position internally.

And therefore we have stalemate, which can only lead to no deal.

Re: Border, I remember the old border (albeit there was a ceasefire in place the first time I crossed it), I've never been to the US so don't know how it would compare. There's going to have to be customs checks. I'd imagine there will have to be passports checks too, otherwise it would defeat the whole point of Brexit as anyone could come to Ireland skip across the border to the north and then on into the UK. It could possibly be done sensibly but nothing so far in the entire Brexit process has been done sensibly.
 
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I honestly don't know. The idea of exiting next Friday, with the UK Parliament having not even passed all the legal apparatus that it needs to have in place at exit, is frightening. I just can't imagine this happening. No working arrangements? Absolute lunacy.

I think the EU will provisionally offer May a short technical extension provided she successfully gets her deal voted through early next week. How they think she'll be allowed to do this, when Bercow has said he won't allow it, I don't know. I think they'll possibly also offer her a far longer extension if that third vote fails (or doesn't even happen); but it might be conditional on a whole raft of things i.e. referendum, election, etc. The extension will be long enough to allow that. And I don't think May will stay in place if that happens.

In respect to the border: the EU is just as likely to start checking goods in/out of Ireland itself to avoid the problem of the Irish internal border; in the short-term.

People are openly talking about the "nuclear option" of revocation of Article 50.
 
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srfc said:
My money is on no deal at this stage
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I expect this too. It'll be next week.

srfc said:
may calling a general election to solve this
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A General Election is basically required at this stage. Neither May nor Corbyn have control of their parties and both have the threat of imminent frontbench resignations hanging over them. I reckon Corbyn will put forward another No Confidence motion next week and it might pass this time. Enough remain supporting Conservatives are fed up the situation that they might support the motion or just abstain. One of the Conservative whips even said last week that the only way to break the deadlock in Parliament I to have a general election. This might not solve much though as we could have basically the same MPs give-or-take 20 and the same party divisions. At least give us new leaders of the Conservative and Labour parties. They are both fucking useless.

srfc said:
Re: Border, I remember the old border (albeit there was a ceasefire in place the first time I crossed it), I've never been to the US so don't know how it would compare. There's going to have to be customs checks. I'd imagine there will have to be passports checks too, otherwise it would defeat the whole point of Brexit as anyone could come to Ireland skip across the border to the north and then on into the UK. It could possibly be done sensibly but nothing so far in the entire Brexit process has been done sensibly.
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The Good Friday agreement states something like that there should be no hindrance to the movement of people and trade across the border so any passport/customs checks would violate that. Not that this was ever considered by the anti-EU Tories when this whole nonsense kicked off.
 
Black Wizard said:
The Good Friday agreement states something like that there should be no hindrance to the movement of people and trade across the border so any passport/customs checks would violate that.
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
In respect to the border: the EU is just as likely to start checking goods in/out of Ireland itself to avoid the problem of the Irish internal border; in the short-term.
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And there's the catch 22. If the EU were to do as Cried says, to solve what Black Wizard says it would effectively mean Ireland is out of the single market and freedom of movement which would be impossible to accept for Ireland.
 
srfc said:
And there's the catch 22. If the EU were to do as Cried says, to solve what Black Wizard says it would effectively mean Ireland is out of the single market and freedom of movement which would be impossible to accept for Ireland.
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srfc said:
And there's the catch 22. If the EU were to do as Cried says, to solve what Black Wizard says it would effectively mean Ireland is out of the single market and freedom of movement which would be impossible to accept for Ireland.
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I meant "just as likely" in an I honestly have no clue at this stage kind of way. A lot of this is really, really going to slip from the UK's control very quickly. In the end, the EU will do what it wants in respect to the border. I don't think, ultimately, the EU really cares about NI being separated off (in respect to trade) vs. breaching the Good Friday Agreement. The former isn't that important to some people in mainland UK; the latter is politically sensitive for pretty much everyone.
 
I'm more drunk than I've been in a long time, and this whole Brexit thing still seems silly to me.
 
Bah, I had not expected this razorsharp demand by the EU (Tusk) which sounds unfair and dumb in the current circumstances:

"Accept deal you cannot change and yeah we know Bercow might not allow a vote! Sort that out. Or else a hard Brexit."

Fucken' hell. This is what not to do when a nation shits on you. Or is it?
 
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
I meant "just as likely" in an I honestly have no clue at this stage kind of way.
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I wasn't having a go, what you suggested is one of only 3 real options. It's an option that would be impossible for us to accept but I believe it's one that people like the ERG believe they could convince the EU to force on us.

The only other options are, one, that the UK has checks at ports and airports on goods coming from the island of Ireland. This would have been the easy option and would have been passed a long time ago if the DUP didn't hold the balance of power.

Or the hard border option.
 
Forostar said:
Bah, I had not expected this razorsharp demand by the EU (Tusk) which sounds unfair and dumb in the current circumstances:

"Accept deal you cannot change and yeah we know Bercow might not allow a vote! Sort that out. Or else a hard Brexit."

Fucken' hell. This is what not to do when a nation shits on you. Or is it?
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But it's not a case of the EU playing hard ball there are only 3 real options as I said above. He's just stating the very obvious facts, albeit in a no nonsense manner, but who can blame him at being pissed off at this stage.

Either the EU screw one of it's members, i.e. Ireland effectively out of the single market and customs union. Let's be realistic, they aren't going to do that as it would undermine the integrity of the EU. So this option is a non runner.

A no deal is an option that is always there.

So the only other option is some variant of the backstop, personally I think a Northern Ireland only backstop deal is the best solution as the rest of the UK would be out of the backstop and there's only something like 6 ports in Northern Ireland anyway, but this is a red line for the UK government.
 
May's red lines are the problem; the only reason we have so few options is down to her narrow interpretation of what Brexit is. The backstop exists & is a necessity because of her red lines. The idea that the present situation is the only situation we could ever have found ourselves in is pure political spin. Not saying I'm looking around & seeing a whole lot of leadership anywhere else right now, someone who could have done better; but a Parliamentary concensus wasn't beyond the realms of possibility & that would have put the UK in a far stonger negotiating position with the EU throughout these talks. The UK is so unprepared to leave next Friday. It's hard to believe even the hardline ERG guys would have wanted to exit in this manner.
 
Yeah for such an important decision, some sort of national government to negotiate the deal would have been better instead of party politics. I see a lot of the papers talking about how this could cost May her job. Hello! this is a much bigger issue than who leads a government for a few years.
 
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