They will though. Bad deal is EU punishing us. Oh god this is a mess. As atrocious and ineffectual as May's leadership has been, I'm not sure who could've fared better, given the massive divides within all parties. We are limping into oblivion. We might as well peg GBP to XRP, it's that ridiculous.
Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
- Thread starter Silva
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No deal is us asking for the cake and eat it option which we will never get. That is not a fault of the EU. I'll quote an earlier post in this thread which I think nicely sums up Brexiteer demands:
Oh yeah I know this is a problem entirely of our own making and we seem hellbent on making impossible demands so we can blame the fallout on the EU, as that unnamed MEP is said to have confirmed. Hell of a strategy.
My biggest concern is that they actually believe this head in the sand "deals will come" is an effective approach.
This whole process shouldn't have been party led it should have been devolved completely to cross-party and cross-nation teams. At the moment they give guidance thats just laughed off. Country being led down the shitter by a handful of influential tories.
This whole process shouldn't have been party led it should have been devolved completely to cross-party and cross-nation teams. At the moment they give guidance thats just laughed off. Country being led down the shitter by a handful of influential tories.
Yeah I dont really blame May. As you said she's been rubbish but at least she turned up. Where were all the actual Brexiters when the Tory party and the country needed leadership. This process would have been quite different if we had been led by someone who actually believed in what we were doing. We'll never know whether the outcome would have been better, in all likelihood it wouldnt because what we want is impossible - and maybe in that sense it would have been worse as we would actually have followed through with the "no deal is worse than a bad deal" nonsense.
I think it was an audience member on QT last week who pointed out that the PM - like pretty much everyone else - talks about Brexit as an unfortunate reality we have to manage, rather than an opportunity to be seized. Dont get me wrong, I agree with that position (I feel the need to say that in every post on the subject to avoid confusion) but it really cant be helpful, either in terms of negotiating or in terms of national morale. More than half the country want this, and while MPs that do are in a minority there are some that do. One of them should have stood up when needed to lead us to this supposed promised land. And I refuse to believe the responsibility should have fallen to Andrea bloody Leadsom either.
Its like going to war with a pacifist general who keeps saying: "Many of you will have to give your lives today. This war is kind of pointless, I very much doubt this battle will do anything to resolve the differences between our countries, so I cant promise the many deaths there will be today will mean anything in the great scheme of things. But we cant very well surrender, and this is the job you signed up for. Individually the odds of any one of you seeing your families again is around 50/50 - according to the most optimistic projections - which arent the worst odds in the world. So chin up. On my whistle I want you to go over the top and run forward. If you get disorientated, head towards the sound of machine gun fire. Good luck."
Hardly inspiring.
Barnier just had a press conference on his own , I missed the beginning but believe the British (presumably Davis) couldn't make it due to diary congestion - just to make sure the UK government have got their priorities right.
Edit:
English version of Press conference:
https://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/player.cfm?ref=I150723&sitelang=en&lg=EN
Edit:
English version of Press conference:
https://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/player.cfm?ref=I150723&sitelang=en&lg=EN
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Eh? Most stood for leadership and failed - a lot in cabinet, hardly ‘running away’.
Johnson did to be fair to him. Gove technically did, but come on. He torpedoed Johnson and had no chance in those circumstances. I have no love for Gove but he might well have been the best choice of the lot if he had gone about it in the right way. I cant believe he seriously thought he stood a chance. I cant believe he backed Johnson for as long as he did and waited till literally the worst possible moment, in terms of the damage it would do to Johnson, to change his mind.
And then Liam Fox who never stood a chance, and Andrea Leadsom who most people had never heard of until she had one good debate on Brexit.
My overriding memory of the time is that press conference Johnson and Gove gave after the referendum where they looked absolutely terrified about the situation they had found themselves in. The most sombre occasion imaginable, the overriding message of which was not "we've won, we are now going to deliver on these promises we have made" but "dont panic, nothing is actually going to happen for ages."
I just think the Brexit people should have been more organised and put forward a viable candidate who they could rally behind and who could make exactly this case, that a Brexiteer needed to lead the country into Brexit. Most of the media thought that should happen, a lot of the public bought into the logic at the time.
It might not have been cowardice so much as incompetence. But in the end no Brexiteer came close, despite a strong feeling among very influential people (publishers mainly) that the job had to be taken by one. So no, I dont think Brexiteers stood up when needed.
And let's not forget, Johnson is a man who days before he came out as pro-Brexit wrote two articles, one for Leave, one for Remain. He must be, literally, the least committed Leaver of the lot. His only loyalty is to his own ambition. So whether he would have actually qualified as the passionate advocate for Leave that I was talking about is itself debatable. His personality is such he would probably be more enthusiastic than May is being, but the chances are he would have had reservations, just like May does, about actually going through with it. I expect in terms of substance things might well have followed a similar trajectory.
May and this current Tory incarnation led me to vote Labour at the general election for the first time, as I've said before.
I agree that it's an impossible hand and those damning economic projections must make any leader feel like, to borrow your military analogy, the general on Starship Troopers telling they are marching into near-certain death.
Also agree that even a Brexiteer leader would've struggled, pinning their faith in ideology over fact and reality. That doesn't wash at the negotiating table.
The talk from the EU today about Northern Ireland staing in the customs union and single market is interesting. Doubt the Tories and DUP would go for it, but surely having a backdoor route in must be a good thing? Maybe I'm clutching at straws.
Daft thing is my mother, and others of her ilk, will say the economic damage projections are just 'project fear' and it's worth it to 'take back control'.
I get an awful lot of that, great post.
Wait so you on one hand say they did stand but you didn't take them seriously, but on the other hand say they 'ran away'? I genuinely don't get your point. You're talking as if they all stood down from politics or something!
Plus loads of lay-man opinion e.g. they looked terrified once they won etc etc...
That's the second time you've quoted me as saying "ran away." I don't think I said that? I think I said they didn't show up. And I don't think they did.
They did look terrified in that press conference and it was widely noted at the time. They looked as shellshocked as 49% of the country.
Apologies - the ‘ran away’ is probably an echo of other Remain friends. I still don’t understand re ‘not shown up’. You talk as if Brexiteers made themselves unavailable for cabinet positions, resigned as MPs etc. They haven’t. Very unfair IMO.
In fact likes of Farage etc are practically gagging to get involved and be part of the negotiating team. Sure if there’s any blame it lies solely with the utterly inept deluded leadership (ala May, Hammond and Davis)?
But that’s neither here nor there!
It revealed that they were thinking shit, now we have to go through with this lunacy.
Said a lot to me. Didn't Boris virtually disappear for a few days too? When you would have been expecting him to be claiming credit for his victory?
Opinion, next...
If he did, it’d be like ‘oh look he’s grandstanding, he should be serious, calm, and working it out behind the scenes in a civilised manner etc’ if he doesn’t then ‘he’s not taking credit for his victory’ - there’s just no pleasing some is there?!
Brexit was a moronically stupid idea two years ago and is still a moronically stupid idea now.
None of the Brexit politicians had any clue how to effect the leaving of the UK two years ago and they still have not the faintest idea how to do it now.
They will keep reiterating that they are perfectly clear that all they want is to keep the benefits but not follow any rules or pay anything. At which point do they stop the ridiculous charade and wake up to reality. Eight months to smell the coffee.
None of the Brexit politicians had any clue how to effect the leaving of the UK two years ago and they still have not the faintest idea how to do it now.
They will keep reiterating that they are perfectly clear that all they want is to keep the benefits but not follow any rules or pay anything. At which point do they stop the ridiculous charade and wake up to reality. Eight months to smell the coffee.
Luckily, everyone that ever voted Tory will soon be dead.
I belive Brexit is disaster capitalism on a grand scale. A shit exit and crash in the pound open up many cheap buying opportunities for the people who are bankrolling Brexit, both of private and public assets
The last Tory PM I voted for was John Major who was also my MP at the time and he was and still is very pro-EU.As I've said many a time when the Tory leader is a remainer at heart and the Labour leader is clearly a leaver party loyalties are rather muddled. Furthermore I don't personally know one traditional Tory voter that voted Leave but I know many traditional Labour voters who did.
I can, however, categorise the leave and remain voters I know and it's nothing to do with party loyalties or age.
The gullibles think Banks, Murdoch et al are fighting for the little guy.
As I've said many a time when the Tory leader is a remainer at heart and the Labour leader is clearly a leaver party loyalties are rather muddled. Furthermore I don't personally know one traditional Tory voter that voted Leave but I know many traditional Labour voters who did.
I can, however, categorise the leave and remain voters I know and it's nothing to do with party loyalties or age.
respek for admitting that in public. Was it the spitting image puppet that swayed it for you?I'm only 41
I voted Labour at the last election for the first time anyhow and I really like my local MP and will vote for him again.
Probably Kinnock as the alternative might have swayed it. He was a really nice bloke, lived a couple of miles away, used to see him a lot in Tesco.I'm waiting for someone to admit they voted for Blair.
Kinnock is pro eu so you went for the less charismatic tory for what reason? I voted for Blair and had the most prosperous time in my life while in the uk.
I'm waiting for someone to admit they voted for Blair.
I knew that you were one of Satan's minions. Sad.
The EU was not even a question at that time, I despised the nanny state under Blair, if I had needed one thing convince me to leave the UK, then Blair would have been it.
Blair was one of the most middle-of-the-road business-as-usual political leader there's ever been on domestic policy. Retrospectively painting him as some kind of extremist is bollocks.
That's cos you like you PM to send in the horses and batter people half to death to get the result you want.
He did kind-of go make youth culture the enemy on multiple occasions.
Hoodies, ASBOs, Chavs etc
Blair was middle of the road if you discount his attempt to abolish our currency, ruin education and defence, start an unjust war and bend over for the IRA
On the Northern Ireland thing Blair was simply following in the footsteps of one of the 20th centuries most radical and divisive of political leaders John the Cannibal Major
Quite and I opposed him on those issues at the time but we were talking about things that would motivate somebody to leave the country. Disagreement on rhetoric when it comes to youth criminal justice is a bit of a stretch