A Political Thread

[TRF_heineken]

I never understood why the death of Guy Fawkes is celebrated... instead it should be a day of national mourning if you ask me.

A lot of historic tragic or nearly tragic events has caused some pretty good movies and adaptations to be made. V for Vendetta is one of my Favs!!

Managed to catch the voting on Tuesday night on BBC, and I have to say, I like the British Parliament's Speaker. He's such an upgrade to the pathetic one we have here in SA.

 

[ncurd]

Managed to catch the voting on Tuesday night on BBC, and I have to say, I like the British Parliament's Speaker. He's such an upgrade to the pathetic one we have here in SA.

He's a bit a controversial figure as some don't consider him as neutral as he should be. Most of the recent problems tend to do with him not being a government stooge and trying to assert parliaments sovereignty, sadly a fact lost on those that supposedly cared about such guff.

 

[Thingimubob]

Well this is a mess.

I did enjoy Theresa May trying to use the 1997 Referendum about establishing the Welsh Assembly as an example of "respecting a referendum with a slim majority" earlier this week.

Not only did she get the basic facts and figures of the majority wrong, but completely forgot that she herself literally did not accept the result by voting against establishing the Assembly when implementing the referendum result was put to Parliament...

Funny thing is arguably the main lesson to be learned from that '97 Welsh Assembly referendum is actually about making sure you gain "losers consent". The "winners" were worried that such a small majority would lead to questions of the legitimacy of the result, so they took a cross party approach from the start and made sure to involve the opponents of devolution throughout the process of establishing the Assembly.

Obviously the Assembly is nowhere near perfect, but opposition to devolution has fallen greatly since it's establishment, likely due to all sides being involved in it's establishment allowing for fears and concerns to be taken into account.

This is the complete opposite to May's approach to the EU Referendum result - Remainers are simply told "get over it" "you lost" "leave means leave" etc. and it just furthers the divisions by completely disenfranchising 16 million+ voters.

A Cardiff University academic wrote an excellent thread on twitter about this if anyone is interested anyway: https://twitter.com/RWynJones/status/1084721238809997313

 

[ncurd]

She wants cross party consensus, yet when all opposition parties tell her she has to take no-deal of the table for the process to begin she refuses to do so.....GREAT WORK THERESA!

 

[General Melchett]

This cross party consensus that she is seeking is doomed. Labour, SNP and the Lib Dems are all insisting that No deal be removed from the table which she is refusing to do as she risks Hard Brexiteers defecting in future confidence votes. SNP and Lib Dems are also backing a People's vote while Labour will move towards that position too if Corbyn is put under enough pressure by party members. Even the DUP won't back her deal as long as the backstop is there.

Corbyn is pinning his hopes on Tory or DUP defections which would swing further confidence votes in his favour and force a GE. She wants to keep the threat of crashing out with No deal as the ace up her sleeve in attempt to scare MPs into backing her deal which they won't do. I can see her extending Article 50 for a few months in an attempt to run down the clock further. A very messy deadlock.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

To be fair to Corbyn/Labour their stance was always:
A) general election
If that fails then b) People's vote

If they hadn't pushed the no confidence/GE stance initially then they're going against their party plan from their last conference
Now we've just gotta see if they follow through with the people's vote line

 

[General Melchett]

As long as she keeps 'No deal' on the table then she won't get a deal through as she won't be able to overturn the 230 deficit.
Corbyn needs to put forward the motion for a People's vote which probably will get backed as 70% of MPs in the HoC are Remainers. Plenty Tories will defect in that vote. It's a matter of when he is willing to come forward and confirm that as Labour's position.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Corbyn writing to the Parliamentary Labour Party asking them not to engage with the government until no deal is taken off the table.

No deal may be right, it may be wrong. Whatever the viewpoint, the offer of dialogue is now there and he should be taking it. This is bigger than party politics and individual egos.

 

[General Melchett]

He only wants No deal taken off the table because he knows it will split the Tories and give him the General Election he craves. While not a fan of May, she is quite right to refuse to take it off the table at this stage because it's obvious what Corbyn's political game is.

MPs will have the chance to put forward motions on 29th January. It'll be interesting to see if removing No deal as an option will be one of them or even a people's vote after May's cross party talks come to nothing.

 

[Amiga500]

No deal may be right, it may be wrong. Whatever the viewpoint,

No deal is madness. Utter madness.

Anyone who thinks that "no deal" is actually a feasible option in the timeframe really doesn't comprehend the scale of what they are saying!

On that day, does:
- the gas pipelines stop?
- the electricity inter-connector stop?
- air traffic control shutdown? (indeed, what about overflight status)
- what are the standards applied to anything produced in the UK? How do these equate to those in the EU? How does the likes of Airbus/Nissan/Land Rover/etc move parts or finished products from one jurisdiction to the other?
- what are the financial regulations governing the likes of City of London? Do these mirror EU regulations? Can a UK organisation trade in shares of an EU organisation? Where does the transaction go through? What are the regulations for that?


No deal might be an option if both sides had about 36 months notice to sort the answers to the bigger questions - and get the infrastructure in place to implement those answers.

No deal with a few weeks notice will result in an awful shock to the system.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

The Growing consensus seems to be that May is rigid and is the worst PM for compromise and no Government can get any Brexit deal through Parliament.

Corbyn writing to the Parliamentary Labour Party asking them not to engage with the government until no deal is taken off the table.

No deal may be right, it may be wrong. Whatever the viewpoint, the offer of dialogue is now there and he should be taking it. This is bigger than party politics and individual egos.

A bit ironic seeing as he keeps banging on about talking to people he disagrees with, even terrorists.

 

[Reiser99]

The Growing consensus seems to be that May is rigid and is the worst PM for compromise and no Government can get any Brexit deal through Parliament.

I've likened May to a doctor who everyone applauds for not giving up on a patient who's been dead for 2 hours. It's admirable you're still hanging in there, but you're doing bugger all and wasting everyone's time. My friend likened her to a cockroach.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

The Growing consensus seems to be that May is rigid and is the worst PM for compromise and no Government can get any Brexit deal through Parliament.



A bit ironic seeing as he keeps banging on about talking to people you disagree with, even terrorists.

Terrorists?

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Terrorists?

Yep, IRA, HAMAS etc... Corbyn's mantra is that he is willing to talk to them because he argues ultimately any conflict is supposed to lead to a peace settlement and in his mind "you need to talk to people you disagree with". So why doesn't he apply the same logic to Brexit, even if May is being an obtuse woman?

 

[Amiga500]

A bit ironic seeing as he keeps banging on about talking to people he disagrees with, even terrorists.

Its going to be a very sort talk. Talking involves (actually) listening.


JC: "First off, we want there no-deal to be ruled out."

TM: "No. But I'm really listening to you."


JC: "Hmm, OK, well then we want a customs union."

TM: "No. But I'm really listening to you."


JC: "Right... this is going well, finally, we want people's rights and protections to be secured."

TM: "No. But I'm really listening to you."


JC: "Was there any point in us coming here?"

TM: "No. But I'm really listening to you."



TM: "After much productive discussion among all parties, here is the deal we concluded: MY PRECIOUS in size 13 font instead of size 12 font. So if this deal fails, blame everyone else apart from me."

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Until there is a opposition that is standing for Remain and is unified with a leader that could actually win an election, May will lean to No deal over anything else.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Yep, IRA, HAMAS etc... Corbyn's mantra is that he is willing to talk to them because he argues ultimately any conflict is supposed to lead to a peace settlement and in his mind "you need to talk to people you disagree with". So why doesn't he apply the same logic to Brexit, even if May is being an obtuse woman?

Ok, I didn't know he had a relationship with HAMAS, I'm pretty sure he agreed with the IRA's reasons for continuing the conflict in the North though.

 

[General Melchett]

Do the Government have a mandate for a No deal Brexit? I suspect not. Pretty sure it was made clear during the referendum that a withdrawal agreement would be negotiated with the EU. I personally think they're bluffing with No deal and would in the end, albeit last minute, extend article 50 to buy more time. Either that or the Speaker and a host of MPs will wrestle control away from this awful Government

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Its going to be a very sort talk. Talking involves (actually) listening.


JC: "First off, we want there no-deal to be ruled out."

TM: "No. But I'm really listening to you."


JC: "Hmm, OK, well then we want a customs union."

TM: "No. But I'm really listening to you."


JC: "Right... this is going well, finally, we want people's rights and protections to be secured."

TM: "No. But I'm really listening to you."


JC: "Was there any point in us coming here?"

TM: "No. But I'm really listening to you."



TM: "After much productive discussion among all parties, here is the deal we concluded: MY PRECIOUS in size 13 font instead of size 12 font. So if this deal fails, blame everyone else apart from me."

No doubt it would be. I am not in anyway not putting the blame on May. But the point I was making was for Corbyn (the leader of the opposition and so called PM in waiting) to preach about talking to people he disagrees with (including so called terrorists) as being one of his best virtues and then to turn round and say I won't turn up to talks on the biggest issue facing this country unless no deal is taken off the table stinks of hypocrisy.

 

[Amiga500]

No doubt it would be. I am not in anyway not putting the blame on May. But the point I was making was for Corbyn (the leader of the opposition and so called PM in waiting) to preach about talking to people he disagrees with (including so called terrorists) as being one of his best virtues and then to turn round and say I won't turn up to talks on the biggest issue facing this country unless no deal is taken off the table stinks of hypocrisy.

But what is the point in talking if May is unwilling to change any of her "red lines" which are clearly unpalatable to Labour?

The talks would only be a waste of very precious time - by entering them you'd perhaps encourage May that there could be a successful conclusion without her modifying any of her red lines. Staying out of the talks only ramps up the pressure on her to actually listen, rather than play lip service.