Brexited | the worst threads live the longest

Do you think there will be a Deal or No Deal?

  • Total voters
    194
  • Poll closed .
Adebesi said:
I agree whoever is in charge when we march off the Brexit cliff is going to have a very, very big problem. I guess the fact both sides appear to be doing everything they can to portray themselves as unelectable morons would support your theory that the Tories dont really want power (and neither, in that case, do Labour). It would explain why nobody is challenging May, despite the current leader having absolutely nothing going for her at all. You could ask who would want to lead the Tories now. But there is at least one person - Boris Johnson.

Actually I dont think politicians are that sophisticated. They want to win because they want power and they think they have the answers. I think one side of the Tory party is genuinely rabidly anti-EU and desperate for the chance to realise their career-long ambition of getting us out. And the other side probably think they are the only ones who can steer us safely though the minefield without blowing the country up, while saving us from descending into Trotskyism. And then you have Labour, who really ought to be the ones keenest to steer clear of the whole sorry business until after the issue has been settled, who must be determined to get their hands on power, having spent the past 3 decades assuming they would never lead anything more significant than a CND march.

So as much as it looks like everyone is doing their best to appear incompetent, in fact I suspect actually they all really are.
Click to expand...


I have to disagree there. I’ve witnessed situations were politics willingly sabotaged their leader because they believed they could do better or the party is better off out of power during such critical time. I am not enough well versed in UK politics to pinpoint many definitive examples of that. However I believe that the Brexiteers reaction to Cameron’s resignation is a good start. At that time Davies and Fox vanished in thin wind, Farage resigned, there was that ridiculous Gove and Boris childhood spat that couldn’t come out more choreographed if they wanted to not to forget Leadsom’s vile insult towards Theresa May which basically burned every chance of her winning. That’s not how politicians act if they really want the job.

There’s a similar situation at the moment. TM is being mocked both in the UK and in Europe, the Brexiters are on revolt, the Tory party are in turmoil and yet, the prime minister still linger to power. If there's someone who really want the job he would get it. Instead you've got Boris whose constantly making gaffes to keep himself out of the race and the Ihni binni dimi diniwiny anitaime who keep reitarating about what a good leader she is.


And honestly, I can’t blame them for not wanting the role. First of all, most of the Brexit promises were over exaggerations if not lies. Secondly since WW2 there was no worse time to start negotiating trade deals then now. I mean look around you. Russia is on the defensive and the ME/North Africa are in shambles. Not to forget that the US is led by a mad man who might or might not remain president for long and whose idea of making the US great again is to trample over the rest. That is leading almost everyone (EU, China, Canada, India etc) to the defensive and might degenerate to a trade war.

And who the hell would want to negotiate with such hostile man? One day he says one thing, the next day he say sanother thing and there’s no guarantee he won’t get impeached anytime soon which would then put everything either on hold or on heavy scrutiny. The only thing Trump is constant about is that he wants to screw the rest in favour of national interest, which of course, is bad news for the UK especially at a time when its desperate on its ally + is still relearning how trade deals are done. FFS up to few months ago the Brexit secretary didn’t even know that it wasn’t possible to make a trade deal with individual EU countries. These are the people leading the UK at the moment.
 
devilish said:
I have to disagree there. I’ve witnessed situations were politics willingly sabotaged their leader because they believed they could do better or the party is better off out of power during such critical time. I am not enough well versed in UK politics to pinpoint many definitive examples of that. However I believe that the Brexiteers reaction to Cameron’s resignation is a good start. At that time Davies and Fox vanished in thin wind, Farage resigned, there was that ridiculous Gove and Boris childhood spat that couldn’t come out more choreographed if they wanted to not to forget Leadsom’s vile insult towards Theresa May which basically burned every chance of her winning. That’s not how politicians act if they really want the job.

There’s a similar situation at the moment. TM is being mocked both in the UK and in Europe, the Brexiters are on revolt, the Tory party are in turmoil and yet, the prime minister still linger to power. If there's someone who really want the job he would get it. Instead you've got Boris whose constantly making gaffes to keep himself out of the race and the Ihni binni dimi diniwiny anitaime who keep reitarating about what a good leader she is.


And honestly, I can’t blame them for not wanting the role. First of all, most of the Brexit promises were over exaggerations if not lies. Secondly since WW2 there was no worse time to start negotiating trade deals then now. I mean look around you. Russia is on the defensive and the ME/North Africa are in shambles. Not to forget that the US is led by a mad man who might or might not remain president for long and whose idea of making the US great again is to trample over the rest. That is leading almost everyone (EU, China, Canada, India etc) to the defensive and might degenerate to a trade war.

And who the hell would want to negotiate with such hostile man? One day he says one thing, the next day he say sanother thing and there’s no guarantee he won’t get impeached anytime soon which would then put everything either on hold or on heavy scrutiny. The only thing Trump is constant about is that he wants to screw the rest in favour of national interest, which of course, is bad news for the UK especially at a time when its desperate on its ally + is still relearning how trade deals are done. FFS up to few months ago the Brexit secretary didn’t even know that it wasn’t possible to make a trade deal with individual EU countries. These are the people leading the UK at the moment.
Click to expand...
As I said, I think most of this is genuine ineptitude, not conscious self-sabotage. Farage resignation is a red herring because he was not in a position of power even as leader of his party. The Gove - Johnson fallout was real, Im pretty sure of that. Johnson really is that much of a buffoon, its not an act, its consistent with his political career from the beginning. If Leadsom's comments about motherhood were designed to prevent her getting the leadership then fair play to her. But surely there are easier ways to destroy your own political career.

I agree people "supporting" May do not come across as sincere. And I agree few people would want her job at the moment (Johnson definitely wants it). But not wanting to be PM and not wanting your own party to be in government are quite different things. Especially if the alternative is the Labour party. I dont doubt that the right are genuinely terrified about what a Labour government would do to this country. And in fact the simplest explanation for their "pretend" support for May is they are petrified of another General Election that they would probably lose, ushering in the Labour government you think they want.

But anyway, we agree on the bigger point, that this country is up shit creek without a paddle and Brexit is going to be catastrophic.
 
devilish said:
I have to disagree there. I’ve witnessed situations were politics willingly sabotaged their leader because they believed they could do better or the party is better off out of power during such critical time. I am not enough well versed in UK politics to pinpoint many definitive examples of that. However I believe that the Brexiteers reaction to Cameron’s resignation is a good start. At that time Davies and Fox vanished in thin wind, Farage resigned, there was that ridiculous Gove and Boris childhood spat that couldn’t come out more choreographed if they wanted to not to forget Leadsom’s vile insult towards Theresa May which basically burned every chance of her winning. That’s not how politicians act if they really want the job.
Click to expand...

As Adebesi points out, it's worth remembering that these people really are very, very stupid.
 
Kentonio said:
As Adebesi points out, it's worth remembering that these people really are very, very stupid.
Click to expand...

Well I happen to know a former classmate of Boris (wife's colleague) and he insists that its all for show. I am not the only person in the UK who thinks that Brexiteers do not want to be part of the government whose negotiating Brexit. James O'Brien agrees with this idea too. It would explain why Boris is doing his absolute best to get kicked out of government and why no one has seriously challenging TM for the PM role.
 
devilish said:
Well I happen to know a former classmate of Boris (wife's colleague) and he insists that its all for show. I am not the only person in the UK who thinks that Brexiteers do not want to be part of the government whose negotiating Brexit. James O'Brien agrees with this idea too. It would explain why Boris is doing his absolute best to get kicked out of government and why no one has seriously challenging TM for the PM role.
Click to expand...

To be fair, Boris isn't stupid, he's just ridiculously arrogant.
 
Kentonio said:
To be fair, Boris isn't stupid, he's just ridiculously arrogant.
Click to expand...

I've worked with politicians and arrogance is a common trait. You need to be arrogant to think that you can manage a country. However, arrogance is not the issue here. The trouble with Boris is that he would do absolutely anything to advance in his political career. Such obsession is so relevant in his book about Churchill. In that book, he sort of hinted that Churchill went toe to toe against the Nazis not because of morals or principle but because it was good for his own career.

Someone like that, would do anything to advance (ie lying, throwing people under the bus etc) and would never allow anything to wreck his career. If that means stepping back a little, allow other to be blamed for his mistakes only to pounce back when the environment is 'more appropriate' then so be it.

I mean, seriously, look at him. There's no better time for him to take the top job so what is he waiting for? Brexit Theresa May is so weak that even a drift of wind can wipe her away from Westminster. Instead of launching an serious bid to take her place, he's seems focused on his weekly gaffes all of which are serious sackable offenses. Last time round we was at a whisker away from power only to have his former Brexit best mate Gove backstabbing in what looked like a school boy's brawl. That basically ruled them both out of the PM race. That script was more predictable then predicting who would win in a football match between La Liga Stars and Redcafe XI. There's no way Gove and Boris would have done that without knowing what the consequence of it would be.

Most Brexiteers in the Tory party don't want to be in the Tory Brexit government anymore. They know its a bad thing and when the jury is out they want to be as far away as possible so he can shift the blame to others (TM, JC etc). Rees-Mogg is doing the same thing. Brexit is good, I would do things differently BUT Im 100% loyal to Theresa May as she's the most appropriate player for the job. Let TM or JM takes the slack and then return to blame someone for their mistake.
 
Last edited:
devilish said:
I've worked with politicians and arrogance is a common trait. You need to be arrogant to think that you can manage a country. However, arrogance is not the issue here. The trouble with Boris is that he would do absolutely anything to advance in his political career. Such obsession is so relevant in his book about Churchill. In that book, he sort of hinted that Churchill went toe to toe against the Nazis not because of morals or principle but because it was good for his own career.

Someone like that, would do anything to advance (ie lying, throwing people under the bus etc) and would never allow anything to wreck his career. If that means stepping back a little, allow other to be blamed for his mistakes only to pounce back when the environment is 'more appropriate' then so be it.

I mean, seriously, look at him. There's no better time for him to take the top job so what is he waiting for? Brexit Theresa May is so weak that even a drift of wind can wipe her away from Westminster. Instead of launching an serious bid to take her place, he's seems focused on his weekly gaffes all of which are serious sackable offenses. Last time round we was at a whisker away from power only to have his former Brexit best mate Gove backstabbing in what looked like a school boy's brawl. That basically ruled them both out of the PM race. That script was more predictable then predicting who would win in a football match between La Liga Stars and Redcafe XI. There's no way Gove and Boris would have done that without knowing what the consequence of it would be.

Most Brexiteers in the Tory party don't want to be in the Tory Brexit government anymore. They know its a bad thing and when the jury is out they want to be as far away as possible so he can shift the blame to others (TM, JC etc). Rees-Mogg is doing the same thing. Brexit is good, I would do things differently BUT Im 100% loyal to Theresa May as she's the most appropriate player for the job. Let TM or JM takes the slack and then return to blame someone for their mistake.
Click to expand...

I don't think people are going to be forgetting Boris's role in Brexit any time soon.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
I don't think people are going to be forgetting Boris's role in Brexit any time soon.
Click to expand...

I think he knows that. However if he manages to somehow get out of the government then he will able to blame the disastrous outcome of Brexit not on Brexit itself but on how the negotiations had been conducted or the JC effect on UK economy.

Look around you.

a- Cameron resigns
b- Gove and Boris engage in that stupid spat despite being quite evident that it will sink them both
c- Leadstom's vile attack on May basically ruined her chance of becoming PM
d- Priti Patel's antics knocks her out of government
e- Boris engage himself in weekly gaffes which are often sackable offenses
e- Rees-Mogg criticise the Brexit negotiations in every way but his tone changes radically once someone suggest that he could do a better job then Theresa May

The rats are indeed escaping the sinking ship
 
712 said:
I can see how it might appear that way, but it's consistent with UK politicians' position throughout, they simply don't understand that by and large the EU negotiators and spokespeople mean what they say.
Unfortunately and embarrassingly that's an alien concept to our lot.
Click to expand...

Nah they're genuinely just chatting bollocks to appease likes of Mogg. Wouldn't surprise me if in private their on their knees begging the EU
 
December: There will be no hard border in Ireland and no hard border between NI and the rest of the UK (e.g we must be staying in the customs union or some equivalent replacement)

February: To be clear, we will not be staying in any customs union.

Honestly the incompetence/ineptitude and dereliction of duty by this government continues to astonish.

We are 19 months into the process. And at every fork in the road Theresa May continues to insist that we can go both left and right simultaneously. All while a countdown, that she initiated, is getting perilously close to completion.
 
Untied said:
December: There will be no hard border in Ireland and no hard border between NI and the rest of the UK (e.g we must be staying in the customs union or some equivalent replacement)

February: To be clear, we will not be staying in any customs union.

.
Click to expand...

Rather depends doesn't it. Is the Sweden Norway border hard?
 
rcoobc said:
Rather depends doesn't it. Is the Sweden Norway border hard?
Click to expand...

I just realized that I have never corrected that part, we are mixing hard border with regulated border. At the moment the EU allows open borders between members meanings that you don't have to regulate but there is a legal need to have the tools to regulate them. Norway and Sweden have that tool they can regulate the flows between them, most of the time they don't because Norway follow the same rules but sometimes they do and it's their discretion, same thing with France and Belgium, a regulated border was put around 2016 in certain areas.
 
In my opinion, the more pressing issue about Brexit is that the government seem yet to decide what it really want from the EU and how it plans to achieve that. They keep arguing with one another while the clock is ticking. The UK is becoming increasingly dependent on this transitional deal and that there's a real risk for the EU to pin every expense to that deal removing the only positive card the UK has left for something that is indeed temporary. After the transitional period is over, the UK will have no card to play and the EU will then dictate any future relationship between the two.
 
rcoobc said:
Rather depends doesn't it. Is the Sweden Norway border hard?
Click to expand...

Trucks need to fill paperwork when crossing. Because of the size of the border there are also unmanned points of crossing where goods are not allowed to be transported through and they are monitored by ANPR. Mobile customs units would then stop suspected traffickers. The biggest smuggling problem between Sweden and Norway is alcohol. I can imagine tobacco and alcohol will also be between Ireland and NI/UK if we were to have even an unmanned "soft" border.

I cannot see it in any way shape or form how Ireland and NI economies can operate on vastly different terms. It isn't viable and quite frankly no one would accept it, Varadkar or the DUP.
 
Adisa said:
Click to expand...

They've been doing it for 30 years. If Boris knew how much he's been listened to on the continent (while lying about it), he'd never even think of visiting. Let alone try negotiate, or claim anything about "my friends".
 
devilish said:
In my opinion, the more pressing issue about Brexit is that the government seem yet to decide what it really want from the EU and how it plans to achieve that. They keep arguing with one another while the clock is ticking. The UK is becoming increasingly dependent on this transitional deal and that there's a real risk for the EU to pin every expense to that deal removing the only positive card the UK has left for something that is indeed temporary. After the transitional period is over, the UK will have no card to play and the EU will then dictate any future relationship between the two.
Click to expand...

Agree with that. The British problem is that they allowed the EU to dictate the terms of negotiation from the start, so the EU could draw their red lines and push the UK more and more into the position of plaintiff having to do all the asking.

What May should have done is declare Britain was planning for a hard brexit, but was more than willing to consider any proposal for trade or cooperation that the EU might make.

I know it seems strange for the weaker party in a negotiation to take the stronger line, but I believe we would have got more at the end of it, and by more I just mean less bad of course.

I suppose such a line was never going to come from this divided government with it's weak leader though.
 
Instead of the UK government stating that they won't be part of any custom's union why not just say that they want a hard border, customs checks in Ireland and the Channel ports , they want to lose a large chunk of the City and they want to have WTO rules because that's what it means and anyone thinking otherwise is living in cake and eat it dreamworld.

The four freedoms are non-negotiable, how many times does the EU have to say it.
 
Paul the Wolf said:
Instead of the UK government stating that they won't be part of any custom's union why not just say that they want a hard border, customs checks in Ireland and the Channel ports , they want to lose a large chunk of the City and they want to have WTO rules because that's what it means and anyone thinking otherwise is living in cake and eat it dreamworld.

The four freedoms are non-negotiable, how many times does the EU have to say it.
Click to expand...

It's very repetitive all round ain't it?
 
Last edited:
712 said:
It's very repetitive all round ain't it?

You're not wrong,
Click to expand...

Barnier's gone to meet Davis today, they'll probably announce something else after the meeting then a couple of days later, the UK government will state something completely different, in the meantime the UK have got around eight months to negotiate something.
 
Paul the Wolf said:
Remain got about 72%
Click to expand...
Wow. I didn’t pay it much (any) attention at the time, but I vaguely recall thinking well I don’t live there so it would be unfair to vote. Wonder how sentiment would go now? Even stronger, probably.
 
Tincanalley said:
Wow. I didn’t pay it much (any) attention at the time, but I vaguely recall thinking well I don’t live there so it would be unfair to vote. Wonder how sentiment would go now? Even stronger, probably.
Click to expand...

I'm not convinced that too many people would change their mind, they may well do when reality smacks them in the face but it's really too late anyway unless May, the hardliners and Corbyn disappear.
 
Paul the Wolf said:
I'm not convinced that too many people would change their mind, they may well do when reality smacks them in the face but it's really too late anyway unless May, the hardliners and Corbyn disappear.
Click to expand...
Yes - sorry I meant in the Caf. In the real world I suspect Remain would shade it now; just. I guess the Redcafe lean towards Remain is explained by the numbers of non UK Caftards?
 
712 said:
Agree with that. The British problem is that they allowed the EU to dictate the terms of negotiation from the start, so the EU could draw their red lines and push the UK more and more into the position of plaintiff having to do all the asking.

What May should have done is declare Britain was planning for a hard brexit, but was more than willing to consider any proposal for trade or cooperation that the EU might make.

I know it seems strange for the weaker party in a negotiation to take the stronger line, but I believe we would have got more at the end of it, and by more I just mean less bad of course.

I suppose such a line was never going to come from this divided government with it's weak leader though.
Click to expand...

I don't think the EU is dictating anything tbh. In my opinion they have no clue what the UK wants.

If you ask me, I see two parties here. On one hand there's a unified EU whose willing to negotiate (the degree to that is, by all means, debatable) with the UK and on the other hand there's a government whose too busy negotiating internally to come out with a realistic option. It reminds me of that steriotype South American player SAF would occasionaly moan about. He would be interested to sign a player only to find out that he had multiple agents each with different ideas about the deal. Most of the time it ended up with United switching to other targets leaving the player and his 101 agents arguing whose fault it was for losing such unique opportunity in playing with the best team in the world.

And its the UK whose leaving and its the one whose obsessed with this 'close colaboration and frictionless trade' between the two. If the UK does what you're saying than there's a hell of a chance that the EU will come back with a simply good bye and good luck. What happens then?
 
Last edited:
Tincanalley said:
Yes - sorry I meant in the Caf. In the real world I suspect Remain would shade it now; just. I guess the Redcafe lean towards Remain is explained by the numbers of non UK Caftards?
Click to expand...

I think the Caf generally leans towards the left even amongst Brits on here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.