A Political Thread

[TRF_Olyy]

Why do people still keep saying "project fear"

It's "project reality" at this stage. Even the Tories own findings are showing how devastating Brexit will be on every level.

 

[General Melchett]

So read this, this evening.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46460194

Theresa May called the Brexit vote the biggest democratic exercise and I remember others at the time saying things like the greatest democratic exercise in history etc... and something to show how wonderful democracy can be.

However when you look back you have...

A referendum called to win back voters that went wrong.
Two campaigns that didn't fully inform voters, one using project fantasy, the other project fear.
Uninformed voters (due to lack of accurate information) who voted based on emotion rather than facts
A result that was so close it split the country (most other countries require 60-70% majorities to make major constitutional changes)
Dodgy finances for one side which if breaks electoral law should mean the vote is null and void and should be rerun.
A P.M who jumped ship
A pathetic excuse for a leadership contest where Gove stabbed Boris in the back and we ended up with the person who barely campaigned for either side.
No one agreeing how to proceed
A P.M who triggered article 50 with no actual plan in place
A botched opportunistic election that ruined a majority.
A bung to the DUP
Legal challenges showing that despite what politicians said, the referendum was never legally binding and only advisory (who knew politicians lie and get things wrong)
Boris as foreign secretary
Two years of pathetic negotiations after being told it would be over in a week and that we had the stronger hand.
A deal that satisfies no one.
Labour having no clue as to a genuine alternative
Extreme Brexiteers having no clue as a to genuine alternative
Some ridiculous parliamentary group called the European Research Group that was basically a place for Brexiteers to conspire.
Apparently a group that could easily force a vote of no confidence that we then had to wait over the weekend for and then never actually happened.
The government being held in contempt of parliament
A potential vote down of the deal that leaves with either staying in or no deal.

So yeah, let's inspire countries around the world to adopt democracy.

P.S Let me know if I missed anything.

That's quite a list. The bung to the DUP and the overall cost of Brexit thus far doesn't get enough headlines IMO. Both are ultimately paid for by the taxpayer and are a result of two monumental misjudgements by the Tories - Cameron for agreeing to the referendum and May for calling a snap General Election.

I also couldn't fathom the euphoria around Corbyn during the snap general election campaigning. I honestly think that many of his supporters have no idea what he stands for and simply backed him in protest against the Tories/Brexit.

 

[Which Tyler]

Calling this a historic vote is right in one sense - it really will go down in history.

 

[General Melchett]

Here's how I think it will play out.

1. May's deal gets defeated in Parliament.
2. She stands outside no.10 and announces that despite previously ruling out a 2nd referendum, the only way to break the deadlock is to go to the people and let them decide how to proceed.
3. Article 50 gets extended to accommodate second referendum
4. Choices are 1. May's deal, 2. Remain in EU and 3. Leave with No deal although I have a feeling that no.3 may not be offered such is the chaos it would cause.
5. Remain wins and May ends up resigning as her deal was defeated.
6. New Tory leader/PM appointed.
7. Possible snap General Election so that new leader gets mandate from the people and attempts to get majority Government although this will be dependant on the polls at the time.
8. And that's all folks.

 

[ncurd]

I also couldn't fathom the euphoria around Corbyn during the snap general election campaigning. I honestly think that many of his supporters have no idea what he stands for and simply backed him in protest against the Tories/Brexit.

I think he had a rabid fanbase that inflated his popularity, he still got less vote than the Tories and managed a vote share less than Blair managed in 2001. It should be also noted that the last election was the first time since 1970 that at least one third party did not command over 10% of the vote on their own.

Nope the reason for his campaign going so well was how utterly **** poor the Tories one was. Candidates were ****** off, supporters were ****** off, nobody could find anything nice to say about their manifesto. They saw the polls and thought they didn't have to try, that Corbyn was so toxic it didn't matter what they said. They were wrong.

 

[ncurd]

Here's how I think it will play out.

1. May's deal gets defeated in Parliament.
2. She stands outside no.10 and announces that despite previously ruling out a 2nd referendum, the only way to break the deadlock is to go to the people and let them decide how to proceed.
3. Article 50 gets extended to accommodate second referendum
4. Choices are 1. May's deal, 2. Remain in EU and 3. Leave with No deal although I have a feeling that no.3 may not be offered such is the chaos it would cause.
5. Remain wins and May ends up resigning as her deal was defeated.
6. New Tory leader/PM appointed.
7. Possible snap General Election so that new leader gets mandate from the people and attempts to get majority Government although this will be dependant on the polls at the time.
8. And that's all folks.

I still have no idea how a three way poll works unless you offer AV without a 50% mandate this will forever churn. Hell without a clear mandate of 60% or poossibly more every option will likely be fought hard. Its a right **** up.

I'm not convinced 5 will happen. 7 I'm certain won't we are due a general election in 3 and a bit years I suspect any leader will focus on trying rebuild the Tories over that period. They are in no position currently to fight a GE and that's why Corbyn wants one they certainly won't be after another referendum. But he won't ask questions at PMQ's about Brexit and I think a lot of supporters have seen through that now.

 

[General Melchett]

I still have no idea how a three way poll works unless you offer AV without a 50% mandate this will forever churn. Hell without a clear mandate of 60% or poossibly more every option will likely be fought hard. Its a right **** up.

I'm not convinced 5 will happen. 7 I'm certain won't we are due a general election in 3 and a bit years I suspect any leader will focus on trying rebuild the Tories over that period. They are in no position currently to fight a GE and that's why Corbyn wants one they certainly won't be after another referendum. But he won't ask questions at PMQ's about Brexit and I think a lot of supporters have seen through that now.

I think there would be outrage if the Leave vote is essentially split into two options. A three option vote is not really viable as there would be too much tactical voting going on. I have a feeling it'll be Remain v May's deal with many Brexiteers abstaining because they hate both options. I think there is enough of a consensus that leaving with no deal would be too catastrophic.

I agree there probably won't be a snap General Election as the Tories will be too damaged and the risk of Corbyn winning would be too high. I think the next PM might effectively be a caretaker until the next GE by which point things may have settled down a bit.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

when Corbyn is still behind May in the YouGov polls, despite EVERYTHING that is happening, sums up everything wrong with the country currently.

 

[Which Tyler]

I still have no idea how a three way poll works unless you offer AV without a 50% mandate this will forever churn. Hell without a clear mandate of 60% or poossibly more every option will likely be fought hard. Its a right **** up.

IF we learn from other countries experience (and we've shown no sign of doing so) you'd essentially have a 2-step referendum; after the first vote; only the 2 most popular choices go through for the second round. This can take care of most issues with having more than 2 options on the ballot; without having to decide your second choice without knowing which 2 will go through (not necessarily necessary if there are only 3 options). 2nd vote could be declared unnecessary if one of the options achieves 50% in the first round.
The alternative wold be preferential voting; but that can be a right bugger's muddle; especially if there are more than 3 options on the ballot.

 

[Reiser99]

Here's how I think it will play out.

1. May's deal gets defeated in Parliament.
2. She stands outside no.10 and announces that despite previously ruling out a 2nd referendum, the only way to break the deadlock is to go to the people and let them decide how to proceed.
3. Article 50 gets extended to accommodate second referendum
4. Choices are 1. May's deal, 2. Remain in EU and 3. Leave with No deal although I have a feeling that no.3 may not be offered such is the chaos it would cause.
5. Remain wins and May ends up resigning as her deal was defeated.
6. New Tory leader/PM appointed.
7. Possible snap General Election so that new leader gets mandate from the people and attempts to get majority Government although this will be dependant on the polls at the time.
8. And that's all folks.

I honestly can't see how no deal can be left out. There is already a massive feeling from Brexiteers that this has been planned from the start and the establishment were never going to vote Brexit through. Now I personally think it's ridiculous that people want to leave for sovereignty reasons at the expense of economic reasons when our own politicians are clearly so incompetent. However that is their right in democracy, to vote for stupid decisions and live with the consequences. If no deal is not on the vote there would be too much outrage for the tories to survive.

Honestly at this stage I have no idea what will happen because if it's no deal the country's economy will plummet and it will take decades to revive. May's deal will just be the worst of both worlds and I can see the E.U getting favourable terms again to avoid or let us out of the back stop. Remain will destroy the publics trust in democracy and lead to even more ridiculous outcomes in elections, possibly leading to the rise of the far right. We put ourselves in this situation despite all the warnings, but all 3 will have dire consequences and I don't know which is worse at this stage.

 

[General Melchett]

I honestly can't see how no deal can be left out. There is already a massive feeling from Brexiteers that this has been planned from the start and the establishment were never going to vote Brexit through. Now I personally think it's ridiculous that people want to leave for sovereignty reasons at the expense of economic reasons when our own politicians are clearly so incompetent. However that is their right in democracy, to vote for stupid decisions and live with the consequences. If no deal is not on the vote there would be too much outrage for the tories to survive.

Honestly at this stage I have no idea what will happen because if it's no deal the country's economy will plummet and it will take decades to revive. May's deal will just be the worst of both worlds and I can see the E.U getting favourable terms again to avoid or let us out of the back stop. Remain will destroy the publics trust in democracy and lead to even more ridiculous outcomes in elections, possibly leading to the rise of the far right. We put ourselves in this situation despite all the warnings, but all 3 will have dire consequences and I don't know which is worse at this stage.

From a democratic perspective no.3 should be included but I don't know if it will have enough support from MPs as most are saying it'll be a disaster economically (apart from the likes of JRM and BoJo (who personally wouldn't feel any impact as they're silver spooned multi millionaires). The voting options for the second referendum will be determined by MPs as Parliament would have to vote on having another one in the first place. If May won't call a GE (which is what Labour want) then a 2nd ref is the next best thing and most MPs will support it as a way of breaking the deadlock or .

Honestly, it's just a huge and expensive damage limitation exercise.

 

[McTallshort]

Should have just said we were leaving and that everyone had 18 months to sort out things under the WTO rules and negotiated a new deal later.

 

[ncurd]

Ah the mythic WTO rules and the fact they achieve absolutely nothing that we require to make a success.

The reality is we need out of any deal,

No border in NI, Irelands and Rest of UK - NI's peace relys on the fact for most part Republican's can pretend their Irish and Unionist's can pretend their British. If either side objects its a slippery slope.
A no border requires two things no Tariffs and Freedom of movement. Anything else requires some form of checks and no magic technology that hasn't been invented yet is not the answer.
Now you can't have both of those and have a hard border in UK with the rest of Europe everyone will just travel or move goods through NI

EFTA really is the only option combined with EURATOM to solve the problem and sign up to Schengen/Common Travel Area/or whatever. Problem is we have to agree to their rules without being able to make them because thats how those agreements work. Some laws in turn have adjudicated by a supernational body as its an international agreement.

WTO achieves a clean break sure but we run a major risk on the relative peace in Ireland if we do so.




Its a **** show and a vote should of never occured without a clear plan in place.

 

[Which Tyler]

Should have just said we were leaving and that everyone had 18 months to sort out things under the WTO rules and negotiated a new deal later.

Personally, I'm not a fan of severely damaging the country financially for probably multiple generations to come; potentially restarting the troubles; or of opting for something we know for a fact doesn't have "the will of the people" behind it.

 

[General Melchett]

Personally, I'm not a fan of severely damaging the country financially for probably multiple generations to come; potentially restarting the troubles; or of opting for something we know for a fact doesn't have "the will of the people" behind it.

I think many people have no idea about the severe level of unrest that could develop across the country over the next few years as a result of the economic pain from a no deal Brexit. If they think things have been bad under Tory austerity then they ain't seen nothing yet.

The referendum was almost like forcing a family to decide on whether they should sell their house without telling them where they're allowed to move to and what house prices will be like when they eventually sell/buy. Madness.

 

[Reiser99]

For me the issue that people keep being misled on is the notion that we will sign these fantastic trade deals almost immediately. First of all they take a while to negotiate, so we have to start now to be ready for after the transition and secondly do people genuinely think we will get a fair deal. Supposedly we had the stronger hand compared with the E.U and look what we got. When we go around the world begging for trade deals they will go, 'You need a trade deal, we don't. Here are our terms' and we will have bugger all to negotiate with. It will be even worse than this deal the Theresa May got.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

For me the issue that people keep being misled on is the notion that we will sign these fantastic trade deals almost immediately. First of all they take a while to negotiate, so we have to start now to be ready for after the transition and secondly do people genuinely think we will get a fair deal. Supposedly we had the stronger hand compared with the E.U and look what we got. When we go around the world begging for trade deals they will go, 'You need a trade deal, we don't. Here are our terms' and we will have bugger all to negotiate with. It will be even worse than this deal the Theresa May got.

The other weird one is thinking we would randomly increase our trade with the Commonwealth and USA... Some were acting like the former is just a continuation of the empire that we can just tap into when we want without any regard for what they want and the latter is run by a guy who has repeatedly shown he rules by ego and has no desire whatsoever to make a negotiation he thinks benefits the other party more than what they currently have. These all ignored that many countries traded with us for our access to the EU, access we will lose.

Seriously, the way some Brexiters have talked it's like there are huge markets out there desperate to buy British goods and the evil EU intentionally prevents that happening. Once Brexit happens they will be falling over themselves absolutely begging us to send our as yet non-existent products to their countries at favorable rates as the whole world (except the EU) wants what is best for Britain. Remember, what is best for us is best for the world. How anyone could claim we held all the cards against the EU is staggering and shown to be false. Why do these people think our negotiations with other countries will be any different? How many fuckups do we need before people realise that we are the party in the weaker position, we are the ones that will have to go around begging for deals and we are the ones who are therefore going to taken advantage of. Add in politicians short-termism and the desire to be seen to make a deal, no matter how bad, I just don't understand how anyone could honestly believe we approached this from a position of strength.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I like how Norway have come out and **** all over leavers as well.
Said something along the lines of "We told you 18 months ago that we did not want you. The Norway model may be in your best interests but you joining is not in ours. We are very surprised that you still talk as if this is an option after years of us saying no."

 

[MarkyH]

We've ****** up the economy with all this uncertainty anyway. We should just cancel brexit, May doesn't want it, most reasonable politicians voted against it, then educate the morons that voted for it (all offence intended) and watch our economy rise from the steaming pile of poop it is. The boost would be incredible.

 

[General Melchett]

We've ****** up the economy with all this uncertainty anyway. We should just cancel brexit, May doesn't want it, most reasonable politicians voted against it, then educate the morons that voted for it (all offence intended) and watch our economy rise from the steaming pile of poop it is. The boost would be incredible.

And also educate the moronic politicians who somehow concluded that the uninformed masses would be best placed to decide something this huge, based on not very much actual information.