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UK Politics: Deal, or No Deal. To May and Beyond.


A Horse Named Stranger

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Collusion!  (Though one might think that a person over 80 years old in 2022 might indeed be ready to step down?  May, though, will be only 66 in 2022, would still be only a kid judging by the scale of white guys' ages among the rulers of the ruling classes.

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3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Collusion!  (Though one might think that a person over 80 years old in 2022 might indeed be ready to step down?  May, though, will be only 66 in 2022, would still be only a kid judging by the scale of white guys' ages among the rulers of the ruling classes.

Only by American standards - 66 is older than any PM in recent history (Thatcher was 65 when she resigned).

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10 minutes ago, Maltaran said:

Only by American standards - 66 is older than any PM in recent history (Thatcher was 65 when she resigned).

What about those on the benches?  I wasn't thinking of PMs, I was thinking of the members.  But maybe they're all younger than that too?  Which doesn't seem likely over the longer historical view (which is what I was doing, as I do do, all the time!), but this is now, and not the thens.

 

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4 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Average age of MPs over the last 30-40 years is fairly consistently around 50. 

Your senator's average 61. At least you can blame your fuck ups on senility. 

Well, you can blame it on British on beef. You just have to show a picture of Boris, and everybody will believe in the mad cow defense.

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Excellent run-down of the state of current affairs:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/13/dont-pity-theresa-may-immigration-mess

Quote

 

. . . . Absent a change of government, the only thing we can be certain of is failure. Either Brexit will fail and we will stay in the EU or it will succeed in some way we either do not want or had not anticipated, and the country will fail. The politics, at this point, appears to be centred upon who will be blamed for that failure. Few in the polity seem to be talking about what success would look like beyond the narrow litigation of the close result two years ago. The leave victory was not only, in part, the product of alienation; the way in which the political class has dealt with it has produced even more cynicism.


So if May’s superpower is survival, her signature achievement has been to produce a deal that satisfies few, which she cannot get through parliament and which she cannot improve on. Given the demands of her party and her interpretation of the referendum, she could do no better. She was the best leader they had and she came back with the best deal a Tory leader could get. That’s the problem. For the Tories it doesn’t get any better than this. And nobody, including them, thinks it’s good enough.

They no more have a plan for their party than they do for the country or they did for Brexit. Having won a parliamentary majority just once since 1992 – and held it for all of two years – they precipitated this entire fiasco in a self-indulgent bid for unity that backfired. What started as an internal wound is now infecting the country as a whole.

The Tories have now proved themselves strategically incompetent at home and abroad. Having assembled a circular firing squad they decided to first shoot themselves in the foot. They have weakened their leader in parliament but not replaced her. They have weakened her hand in negotiations but have nothing to offer instead. The vote still stands no chance of being passed. It’s difficult to imagine how it could be worse than this. But then I thought that on Monday, and the week is not quite done yet.

 

Dayem! this sounds ... familiar ... so familiar it could be ... home . . . .

Alas.

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5 hours ago, Zorral said:

Excellent run-down of the state of current affairs:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/13/dont-pity-theresa-may-immigration-mess

Dayem! this sounds ... familiar ... so familiar it could be ... home . . . .

Alas.

This story also sums up much of the current state of British politics:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/commentary-heard-the-one-about-the-bus-stop-its-tories-going-blue-on-blue-a4015356.html

"The mood in the Tory ranks was perhaps summed up by former Labour minister Jim Murphy, who tweeted:  “I’m standing at bus stop in central London and just overheard 3 men arguing with one another. I turned around when one called the other a c**t. It was only then I noticed it was 3 Tory MPs going ‘blue on blue’. I’m not so sure that this Brexit thing is going to end well.”

4 hours ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Heh. Inaction hero is now my new favourite word. Survives everything, fails to accomplish anything.

It's starting to feel as if there's a danger the same description could apply to Jeremy Corbyn.

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So May will (predictably) return from Brussels with nothing. She can't get her deal thru parliament, and she can't be ousted by her party either. And Labour is busy... doing nothing.

To go back to the point why Corbyn did not launch a vote of no confidence. The best explanation I've hard is this:

He doesn't want to (duh). If he did and lost, he would then be forced to go for that second referendum (as in Labour policy that's what he is supposed to do if he can't get his General Election). And that's the last thing he actually wants to do. He doesn't want a second referendum, plain and simple. If you look at it from this angle, it made perfect sense for him not to go for the no-confidence vote.

So May's deal May or May not get shot down in January, with a no-deal crash on the horizon. Looks like you got yourself into a proper mess there.

I mean Westminster is such a confusing mess.

(Assuming) The deal won't pass. Then the MPs passed an amendment (leaving aside how much it is worth actually), that no deal shall be avoided. Oh, and there shall be no border in the Irish sea. But also, Brexit.

Good luck with sorting that one out. Yes, Norway+ would more or less achieve that, but there's really not much Brexit left. And welcome back to FoM, ECJ and whatever other silly red line the Tory party put out.

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

What is the EU's reason for not adding reassurances about the backstop? It is seemingly the big sticking point. Some clarification and legal assurance around the term 'best endeavour' seems pretty reasonable?

I assume 'fuck em, they asked for it, why should we help them out'?

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First what do you mean by reassurances?

Those assuarances won't be legally binding (in contrast to the WA) - neither is the declaration on the future relationship (obviously). If you don't see why a legally binding assurance, contradicting the preceding legal(ly binding) treaty is not going to fly, then I am afraid you might have eaten the very same conterminated beef that Boris had for dinner a few years ago.

The head of states said, we don't want to use the backstop, it is a last resort (as the name backstop implies). There you have your reassurances. There won't be anything more than those calming words. See above.

Second why should they?

It won't make May's deal pass parliament, will it? Her party will tell her, oh right, we'll take that, and now go back to Brussels. The EU and the UK (represented by PM May) have agreed to that deal less than a month ago. And May seems to be unable to get anything thru Westminster, so what's the point of placating the Primeminster's own party, not even her entire party, but rather some parts of it.

On a general note, and informative links.

This one seems be rather good, I haven't come around to read it, as it is rather lengthy. But given it is Ivan Rogers, it is probably time well spent (as in he actually knows what he is talking about).

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1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

The head of states said, we don't want to use the backstop, it is a last resort (as the name backstop implies). There you have your reassurances. There won't be anything more than those calming words. See above.

Why would anything think that 'calming words' would ever be acceptable to the UK in a situation where they could be locked into a backstop permanently. 

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58 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Why would anything think that 'calming words' would ever be acceptable to the UK in a situation where they could be locked into a backstop permanently. 

Why would the UK think that they have the leverage to get anything better than what's offered? 

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2 minutes ago, Alarich II said:

Why would the UK think that they have the leverage to get anything better than what's offered? 

It’s amazing isn’t it? People still haven’t grasped that when you’re one nation against a union of 27 nations, you don’t have the upper hand. We never did.

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Just now, DaveSumm said:

It’s amazing isn’t it? People still haven’t grasped that when you’re one nation against a union of 27 nations, you don’t have the upper hand. We never did.

but  they need us more than we need them!   or some such bullshite

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