UK Politics: It's Life Pfeffel but not as we know it

[Maltaran]

19 minutes ago, argonak said:

As an outsider, the new PM looks like a fox pretending to be a goofy rooster to sneak into a henhouse.   What do actual brits feel about him?

More like the other way round, he thinks he’s cunning like a fox but it’s all hot air and squawking 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

I still can't believe the price your politicians are prepared to pay for delivering something that no other country is even remotely interested in. 

Clearly our British friends are both jealous of and enamored with our free dumb.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

18 minutes ago, Maltaran said:

More like the other way round, he thinks he’s cunning like a fox but it’s all hot air and squawking 

Just keep repeating this to yourself to feel better: “At least he’s not as dumb as Trump, at least he’s not as dumb as Trump, at least he’s not as dumb as Trump.”

[redriver]

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So have the Irish settled on a material for Arlene's bust in the National Museum of Ireland?

Marble looks a bit too posh for her, imho, but in line with great historical figures like Cesar, who knows. Granite certainly has to come into consideration. The material of tombstones, so for her as the person who delivered to final blow to the unionists in the Northern Ireland, I can see the appeal. Porcellan or ceramic, you kow, like a toilet bowl, that would be the most appropriate material for the Arlene Foster bust.

Perhaps we can be creative and fashion a bust using ash?

 

[Which Tyler]

Catherine Blaiklock of the Brexit National Party

https://mobile.twitter.com/blaiklockbp/status/1156137033506668544

 

Quote

Someone told me this is happening . This is a text I received. ‘Major operations are sold in Pakistan and performed by the NHS in London. Patients arrive at Heathrow and are collected and taken to Slough General. Everyone is on the take abusing the system.’

 

 

I'm guessing that "someone" just so happened to be called Steve Bannon, because tours straight out of his playbook of lies.

Please note, not only  is the above completely implausible (it's the other way round, NHS will sometimes pay for operations overseas), but Slough General doesn't exist. Also notice,  Pakistan is not in the EU

 

ETA: What is it with this forum and the quote function?

[Ser Hedge]

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Just keep repeating this to yourself to feel better: “At least he’s not as dumb as Trump, at least he’s not as dumb as Trump, at least he’s not as dumb as Trump.”

 To be 'fair', Trump has as much low cunning as he is dumb. And obviously he's a relentless, hyper-aggressive bully.

While BoJo might be slightly less dumb, he falls short on the other two 'attributes'. Definitely way short when it comes to Trump-style bullying. And just as well, since he's in no position to bully anyone really. You need to be able to print the world's #1 reserve currency, have plenty of nukes (with delivery systems to go with it), a proven track record of willing to spend hundreds of billions on long pointless wars and the world's biggest economy for that.

But to get back to the point, unless the EU are convinced BoJo and his crew are genuinely crazy enough to go through with their bluster and give him a better deal than the one available, then it's all going to end very badly.

[Mentat]

49 minutes ago, Ser Hedge said:

But to get back to the point, unless the EU are convinced BoJo and his crew are genuinely crazy enough to go through with their bluster and give him a better deal than the one available, then it's all going to end very badly.

I'm wondering how likely this is, even under the assumption that the EU believe Boris is happy leaving with no deal. My guess is not at all. The EU would lose a ton of face. The general perception would be that Boris Johnson has beaten the EU by being tough (and he would most likely then win a general election by a landslide).

Parliament might rebel and try to force Boris to request a further extension, but, even if it can pull it off, I personally can't see the EU granting it (unless they do so tactically to finalise some last minute No Deal preparations of their own). What would be the purpose of said extension if the PM of the UK is not willing to negotiate any further? A VONC on Boris Johnson's government and a GE might do the trick, but then it might not, as it seems unlikely it would lead to a situation different from the current one which could break the impasse.

I think when Theresa May said the only three options were her deal, no deal or no Brexit she was right. Some people have made their peace with one of these options (either by supporting May's deal or embracing no deal), but a lot of MPs, including most of the opposition, hasn't, and I don't think the general public has either.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 hours ago, Ser Hedge said:

But to get back to the point, unless the EU are convinced BoJo and his crew are genuinely crazy enough to go through with their bluster and give him a better deal than the one available, then it's all going to end very badly.

For whom?

For the EU it would be really unpleasent, for the UK it will be nothing short of a disaster economically. This is the entire problem with the Trumpian approach to Brexit, Pfeffel simply does not have the economic clout of the American economy/market behind him, but just the UK's. Once you have established the asymmetry in the relationship between the UK and the EU 27 in the negotiation, you can see how this tactic is simply not going to work. All the bluster can't hide it, and it's also not going change it.

Then we have the political dimension. There's no way the EU can afford to give in to the demands of that motley crew of deranged right wing lunatics. It would send a bad message if the UK were able to manage to bully the EU into an unfavourable deal. And we also mentioned, that there's very little good will or trust on the EU side of the table towards the Brexiters. And their key demands really amount to putting the woes and wishes of a parting member state (the UK) over the interests of an actual member state (Ireland). Simply not going to happen.

So if you think this has a happy ending, you have not been paying attention.

[Ser Hedge]

29 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

For whom?

 For the EU it would be really unpleasent, for the UK it will be nothing short of a disaster economically.

Yes, for the UK I meant of course. Ireland as well, btw.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

7 minutes ago, Ser Hedge said:

Yes, for the UK I meant of course. Ireland as well, btw.

Yes, for the ROI, too. However, they can somewhat reliably expect the remaining EU states to somewhat soften the blow for them. Likesay with some special EU Brexit fund, and some special arrangements, or something like that. And I think they already poached some of the service sector jobs from the UK. Not just the Banksters, but also insurers

So hopefully that somewhat softens the Brexit blow for them a bit.

[Which Tyler]

So many pure, outright lies from the Brexiteers today. I think we need some help from American Democrats - they've had a few years to get used to the Bannon playbook, and develop strategies to combat it.
How successful those strategies are is up for debate; but they've got a better idea than we have whilst we sit here incredulous that anyone could lie so obviously and so shamelessly whilst refusing to acknowledge the lie.

We live in a society and political society where calling someone a liar is worse than saying the lies in the first place - Banon really has found the achilles heal for democratic countries.

We also know, that we can't trust the likes of facebook, twitter, instagram etc to police content; fact-checkers come in too little too late, and mainstream media are too mendacious to tackle the issue at source.
Twas ever thus, of course "Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it" Jonathan Swift, 1710

[Werthead]

9 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yes, for the ROI, too. However, they can somewhat reliably expect the remaining EU states to somewhat soften the blow for them. Likesay with some special EU Brexit fund, and some special arrangements, or something like that. And I think they already poached some of the service sector jobs from the UK. Not just the Banksters, but also insurers

So hopefully that somewhat softens the Brexit blow for them a bit.

The current estimate is that a No-Deal Brexit could cost 50,000 RoI jobs. That's bad (especially in a country of only 4.8 million) but it's not as bad as the post-crash financial crisis and recession in Ireland, so Ireland knows it can roll with it. There's also a lot of new possibilities opening up from enhanced trade with the rest of the EU (with the new direct transport links to France that don't go through the UK) which could mitigate that even in the medium term. The consequences for Ireland aren't great, but nowhere near as bad as they potentially are for the UK.

Quote

 

So many pure, outright lies from the Brexiteers today

 

"Brexiters." "Brexiteers" makes it sound like they are honourable warriors fighting for a good cause, which is what they like to think of themselves as but nothing could be further divorced from factual reality.

[The Anti-Targ]

13 hours ago, Mentat said:

I think when Theresa May said the only three options were her deal, no deal or no Brexit she was right. Some people have made their peace with one of these options (either by supporting May's deal or embracing no deal), but a lot of MPs, including most of the opposition, hasn't, and I don't think the general public has either.

So I'm reading this as being the largest number of UK people want the outcome that is least likely to happen (remain). Seems like politics as usual.

[Varysblackfyre321]

23 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Catherine Blaiklock of the Brexit National Party

https://mobile.twitter.com/blaiklockbp/status/1156137033506668544

 

ETA: What is it with this forum and the quote function?

I got a text from someone saying Blailock on weekends hunts and flays women with Ramsey Bolton at the Dreadfort in Westeros. The text also says she kills kittens with Joffrey Baratheon. This person’s claims seems to be as credible to that of the ones Blaiklock so willingly regurgitated. Though I thankfully had the wherewithal to know Westeroes doesn’t exist, and swiftly blocked the number of the person who sent the text. Shame Blailock couldn’t demonstrate the same common sense.

[Werthead]

Six Tories reportedly considering defecting to the LibDems. Phillip Lee is the first to go public and is apparently the closest to going. Assuming the LibDems win today's by-election, that would wipe out the Conservative majority. If the others go, that would give the combined Tories/DUP 5 seats less than needed to form a government, and Labour could then topple the government at will by calling a vote of no confidence (assuming that all the other opposition parties support it, which they probably would).

High stakes time.

[Werthead]

If we want Boris Johnson to be the shortest-serving Prime Minister* of all time, we have until 21 November to get him out.

 

* who only served one term and was actually able to form a government

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Meanwhile.

Remember when during the referendum campaign Brexiters screamed about project fear, when an emergency budget was mentioned as a Leave result. Project fear got promoted to project maybe.

Meanwhile at Labour. Do you see why people (including sincerely yours) was sceptical of Labour now having a logically coherent position.

Quote

[...]

The party’s current position is to back remain over no deal or any Tory-brokered deal, but Corbyn has left open the option of Labour backing leave in a referendum on a deal negotiated by a Labour government – or potentially remaining neutral.

 

[Erik of Hazelfield]

So as I understand it, Boris wants to get rid of the backstop but he has no idea what to replace it with, and he demands that the EU opens the deal for renegotiation or else the UK will crash out without a deal? 

In other words he's making demands while holding a gun against his own foot.  While this position is itself worthy of ridicule, you have to wonder what his actual plan is. He's probably not dumb enough to believe that the EU will make any concessions on the issue of the backstop... So what does he plan? Another extension? Crash out and blame the EU? 

[Werthead]

24 minutes ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

So as I understand it, Boris wants to get rid of the backstop but he has no idea what to replace it with, and he demands that the EU opens the deal for renegotiation or else the UK will crash out without a deal? 

In other words he's making demands while holding a gun against his own foot.  While this position is itself worthy of ridicule, you have to wonder what his actual plan is. He's probably not dumb enough to believe that the EU will make any concessions on the issue of the backstop... So what does he plan? Another extension? Crash out and blame the EU? 

The backstop was a compromise proposed by the British negotiating team to overcome the problem that an open border would allow non-EU goods to enter the EU by the back door and vice versa. It was reached after three years where all of the alternatives, including those now being pushed forwards by Boris (various unspecified "technological solutions") were shot down because they were unworkable, unaffordable, impractical or didn't actually exist. So saying no to the backstop now is a complete non-starter from the EU perspective. They've spent three years discussing alternatives to the backstop and they do not exist, and the problem cannot be overcome by "vigour and good intentions." From the EU perspective ditching the backstop and not having that cover on the border is potentially worse than a no-deal Brexit, so they will not compromise on the issue.

Boris' plan is to crash out of the EU and blame any and all hardship afterwards on the EU, and it's astonishing how many people are falling for this bullshit.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

22 minutes ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

So what does he plan? Another extension? Crash out and blame the EU?  

1. That's anyone's guess. However...

2. To what end? I mean there can't be extension after extension, after extension for the sake to have an extension. So there's got to be something to justify it; likesay another referendum.

3. ...going back to point 1. that seems to be his gameplan. I don't think this is gonna fly with his majority of 1. So I think @Chaircat Meow is probably on the money. He is provoking a vote of no confidence to fight an election on a no-deal Brexit. Hoping to swallow the Brexit votes whole, and banking on the split remain vote, and the fecklessness of Corbyn's Labour party.

Anyway wrt to possible defectors. Good for Lee. But wasn't he more or less ousted thru entryism anyway? However I am curious who the other five @Werthead mentioned are. I think one of them is probably Greening (I assume that's a pretty safe bet). Grieve and Letwin are also good bets, I think.