UK Politics: Time Marches On

[Heartofice]

Just now, Mosi Mynn said:

Is anyone else feeling an impending sense of doom?

How can they rule out No Deal when they haven't got any idea what a Deal would like????

The only real way to rule out No Deal is to cancel Brexit altogether. That is clearly the motivation for establishing the vote on it.

[Mosi Mynn]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

The only real way to rule out No Deal is to cancel Brexit altogether. That is clearly the motivation for establishing the vote on it.

The only way I can see that being remotely accepted by the public is if we're distracted by a David Cameron show trial.

[mormont]

Leaving the EU isn't designed to be impossible. And it's been difficult largely for reasons of the UK government's own making. 

Article 50, after all, does not specify or attempt to specify when the two-year notice period must begin. We could have spent the last two years negotiating without starting the clock. The only reason the clock is ticking is that Theresa May decided to try to impress the British tabloids and her own backbenchers with how firm and strong she was being on Brexit. 

Even then, the main problem (the NI border) was one that is unique to the UK, was hardly talked about during the referendum and only really became intractable because Theresa May (you may notice a theme) tried to take advantage of what she thought was a favourable domestic political climate by holding a general election, cocked it up, and went cap in hand to the DUP for support. 

And even then, the big problem now (the backstop) was a solution the UK government proposed!

You'll look in vain among all this for the bit where the EU made this process difficult by design. 

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

You'll look in vain among all this for the bit where the EU made this process difficult by design. 

You're fogetting Brexiteer logic "The EU are making this difficult by not dissolving itself and giving us everything we want - even though we don't know what we want - even that is the EU's fault for being unelected - you can tell how unelected it is by all those EU elections that keep happening - La La La, I can't hear you La La La"

[Heartofice]

The ERG have released a statement on the backstop:

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The suggestion that “bad faith” by the EU could provide a legal route for the UK out of the protocol is not credible in practice within any determinate or reasonable timeframe. The AG’s advice at para 29 was that demonstrably bad-faith conduct on the part of the EU “would be highly unlikely; all they would have to do to show good faith would be to consider the UK’s proposals, even if they ultimately rejected them.” The threshold for demonstrating bad faith before an international tribunal is very high, and nothing in the documents make this a credible possibility.

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Any arbitration would be at best a lengthy and uncertain procedure which under Art.174 requires a reference to the ECJ of any questions of EU law involved. Even if the arbitration panel found in favour of the UK, para 14 of the joint instrument confirms that it would not enable the UK to exit the backstop.

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Any arbitration would be at best a lengthy and uncertain procedure which under Art.174 requires a reference to the ECJ of any questions of EU law involved. Even if the arbitration panel found in favour of the UK, para 14 of the joint instrument confirms that it would not enable the UK to exit the backstop.

Looks like they won't be voting for it then.

Edit, also the DUP have said they won't vote for it.

[Which Tyler]

So, with ERG and DUP both voting against, it leaves us with only one question; will the motion be rejected, or will May decide not to have a vote after all, and run the clock down some more.

 

ETA: Another question has just ocurred to me - Phillip May has arrived in the Commons Gallery - might she actually step down if defeated this time?

[Heartofice]

10 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

ETA: Another question has just ocurred to me - Phillip May has arrived in the Commons Gallery - might she actually step down if defeated this time?

Oof, could be. Lots of talk last week I heard of people saying if the May deal got rejected then she would basically have to step down. Hadn't really considered that as a possibility.

[mormont]

Walking out on the job two weeks before Brexit does seem like a very Theresa May move. A very modern Conservative party move, for that matter. 

[Which Tyler]

Talk of a general election being the Tory's preferred option - Which kinda sounds like a post-May election

[Heartofice]

Few more Tories who voted against first deal say they will reluctantly vote for this one. Maybe it will squeak through.

[Maltaran]

Unlikely - if both the DUP and ERG are voting against, she's not going to get enough votes from the opposition to make up for that, even if all the TIG vote for it.

[Nevarfeather]

if she walked, who would be interim leader? Lidington I presume?

[mormont]

This is what you get when your sole focus from day one has been to try to appease the radical Brexiteers and the incoherent rantings of the DUP. 

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

So far, 10 Tory MPs who voted against the deal last time have said they will now back it.

 

Only 108 to go!

[HexMachina]

6 hours ago, Jo498 said:

If one passes by a pond with a drowning child there is an obligation to pull it out. But there is no obvious obligation to patrol (or pay for patrolling) all ponds in the world (or even all ponds in the neighborhood) because there might be children drowning. One could debate if there might be an obligation for putting fences around the more dangerous ponds or warning signs. But that's it. Anything more is extraordinary and certainly not a "right".

I also don't get why some citizen from western Europe who is caught with some petty crime or maybe with drugs in Russia, Singapore or Indonesia should have to face local justice system (usually with far harsher sentences and conditions than the home country) whereas people who openly renounce their home country and join a terrorist organization (in some cases including fighting and killing for such organizations) should not have to face Iraqi or Syrian institutions of justice but be brought back to Western Europe.

Nitpick, or rather clarification, but under English law at least there's no legal obligation to rescue the drowning child. Morally of course, but legally no (save the various exceptions where one is under some kind of duty to intervene).

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

The whole 'peoples vote' argument has been going seemingly forever, but its often argued that if you have a second referendum to reverse the first one, before you have even implemented the result of the first vote.. then its nothing more than a 'vote until you get the answer correct' device. 

Indeed. However, it has not yet been established why this is a bad thing.

If you hold a second vote and the people vote the same way a second time, perhaps with an increased majority and with three years' greater understanding of the situation, you can proceed with greater confidence. If people vote a different way, then you can put the breaks on and re-examine the situation, with a continuance of the status quo in the meantime.

This comes back to the bizarre perception some people have that democracy is have one vote one time on one subject and that then remaining locked in stone for some indeterminate period of time before people can have another vote. Democracy is a permanent, ongoing conversation.

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Indeed. However, it has not yet been established why this is a bad thing.

If you hold a second vote and the people vote the same way a second time, perhaps with an increased majority and with three years' greater understanding of the situation, you can proceed with greater confidence. If people vote a different way, then you can put the breaks on and re-examine the situation, with a continuance of the status quo in the meantime.

And then obviously you would have a 3rd, 4th, 5th.... vote just to make sure everyone is still happy to continue. 

Clearly the obvious answer is just don't have referendums to decide major political decisions that can radically change the country. It was a stupid idea to have the vote in the first place, but its happened now. 

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This comes back to the bizarre perception some people have that democracy is have one vote one time on one subject and that then remaining locked in stone for some indeterminate period of time before people can have another vote. Democracy is a permanent, ongoing conversation.

You need to at least wait for the first vote to be implemented.  Should the Irish have a second referendum immediately on abortion because some people don't like the result? Should that happen every year?

[maarsen]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

And then obviously you would have a 3rd, 4th, 5th.... vote just to make sure everyone is still happy to continue. 

Clearly the obvious answer is just don't have referendums to decide major political decisions that can radically change the country. It was a stupid idea to have the vote in the first place, but its happened now. 

You need to at least wait for the first vote to be implemented.  Should the Irish have a second referendum immediately on abortion because some people don't like the result? Should that happen every year?

The stupid part was going through with the negotiations after the referendum. The proper thing to do is to declare that the previous PM was an idiot, we have a representative democracy, and that Parliament will deal with the issue as it  comes up. 

[Werthead]

Just now, Heartofice said:

And then obviously you would have a 3rd, 4th, 5th.... vote just to make sure everyone is still happy to continue.

Indeed, just as we held a vote in 1975 and it was not set in stone for all eternity, so we held a second vote in 2015 because the situation had evolved and a greater understanding of the situation had developed. Holding a third vote would therefore self-evidently be fine if the situation evolves further and an even greater understanding of the situation develops, which some would strongly argue has now happened.

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You need to at least wait for the first vote to be implemented.  Should the Irish have a second referendum immediately on abortion because some people don't like the result? Should that happen every year?

 

Yes, but the first vote was on a question that was so vague as to be essentially meaningless, for which we can thank Mr. Cameron. The outcome was effectively undeliverable because no-one had effectively defined the terms involved.

The comparison with the Irish abortion referendum is anodyne. There was a very specific, legislative question asked with straightforward, practical and actionable outcomes (not to mention that Ireland's stance was problematic with respect to the European Court of Human Rights). The EU referendum was vague in what it mean by both "Leave" or "Remain".

[Heartofice]

5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Indeed, just as we held a vote in 1975 and it was not set in stone for all eternity, so we held a second vote in 2015 because the situation had evolved and a greater understanding of the situation had developed. Holding a third vote would therefore self-evidently be fine if the situation evolves further and an even greater understanding of the situation develops, which some would strongly argue has now happened.

Yes, and there is a bit of a gap between 1975 and 2015. There were also major political decisions taken regarding our relationship with Europe which didn't involve a referendum. But at the very least you need a period of time to see how the effect of being outside the EU is.