It is often the way with seemingly intractable negotiations that novel solutions frequently pop-up late in the day. So with Brexit. Now it is becoming clear that the Robbins Treaty will not clear the Commons - a fact which, for those who watched it, even became clear to Mrs May yesterday. Her Commons announcement and the questions following was another Duracell moment, but a quiver in the metallic voice, a slight tic and shivering of the Kevlar exomembrane, indicated that she faced six hundred MPs only one of whom offered her any comfort, and that this lack of Parliamentary confidence in the Robbins Treaty was sinking in.
It doesn't mean she's giving up. She is said to be banking on big business and the Daily Mail to secure a tsunami of public support in favour of the deal, which she can then use to pressurise MPs. Unfortunately, a series of emails from the CBI saying essentially "May's deal is crap - but she made us clap her" has leaked, and the Daily Mail's change under Geordie Grieg to a Remoaner rag has unfortunately cost it a spectacular drop in sales and online readership. It is unclear what else Mr Robbins can do at this stage to keep his flawed and damaging plan afloat.
The trick of a doable deal is that all sides know quickly that it is a good fit. The suggestion now being made is that a way forward to which we can all sign-up is emerging. Fraser Nelson sets it out in the Telegraph. If Parliament rejects the Robbins Treaty by a large enough margin, which looks more likely by the day, we can go for the Clean Brexit for which May has signally failed to prepare, but postpone it for a year to allow both us and the EU to get ready.
No-one now believes that the Irish border is a 'thing'. It is a non-problem that was weaponised by Brussels to screw Robbins, and it worked.
Well, I can buy into a Clean Brexit in March 2020. We'll be out of the EU next March, but just won't implement the change for a year. The EU will get another £10bn, which they need, and we will be gone before their fake elections next May - which could produce a populist EP with no power sniping at a Federast Commission that holds all the cards. If Italy hasn't brought it all down.
Robbins has to go of course. People say he's bloody clever and I reckon that's true - after all, he's managed to draft a treaty which is unacceptable both to the people of Britain and our Parliament. You have to be bright to do that.
31 comments:
The Irish border has indeed been weaponised but I believe it was Mrs. May/Mr. Robbins who came up with the idea so that Parliament would eventually be voting to either to lock us permanently into the EU or be forced to leave with a really terrible trade deal where our fishing grounds are given away for a second time or no Brexit at all.
There are ANPR cameras at the main border crossing between Dublin and Belfast to monitor customs duty as well as VAT etc. and Mr. Varadkar and Mr. Juncker have already guaranteed there wold be no “hard” border in the event of a “no deal” :
https://order-order.com/2018/10/18/juncker-varadkar-guaranteed-irish-parliament-no-hard-border-event-no-deal/
I see little point in extending the transition by a year if it leads to the rEU hoping we will suddenly 'see the light' and rejoin the Empire or if it gives hope to those Remainers wanting a Rejoin Referendum.
Offer £10bn for a years' grace to sort out details perhaps... but only if it is paid at the end of the negotiations, and only if they are successful.
The alternative is to go Clean Brexit, continue talks over administrative details and a trade deal, and use the £10bn for our own purposes. The best negotiations will be if both sides have something to gain and shouldn't need a £10bn bribe to bring people to the table.
It isn't only the CBI leaked emails which have undermined the Robbins/May strategy. The Oral Evidence given by Hans Maessen, Brexit adviser at SGS Government and Institutions Services to the NI Committee has made it perfectly clear that existing technology in use in the EU means that there is no need for a hard border between NI and Eire. Existing technology and procedures are sufficient.
When Robbins locked the Irish Border weapon, he didn't ensure it was loaded. It isn't.
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/northern-ireland-affairs-committee/the-land-border-between-northern-ireland-and-ireland-followup/oral/92519.pdf
I wonder if CONservative MPs are waking up to the electoral tsunami that will be heading their way if they allow Treason May's Surrender Document to pass? A Clean Brexit is what WE voted for. Another year to prepare and then completely out is vastly preferable to the Vassal Status she and Robbins cooked up.
Radders - I sincerely hope you're right.
However Oily Robbins will only cease to be a threat once he's nailed down at a crossroads with a stake though his heart, and Treason May has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
We will have to wait on developments.
Doesn't extending the transition require EU27 permission?
decnine - yes, but since the economic impact on the EU will be far worse from a March '19 Clean Brexit than a March '20 one they may go for it. If not, so be it.
Playing devils advocate for a moment.
If Robbins wanted to get a Parliament stuffed with remainers to vote for a clean exit, what would be have done differently?
Why wait a year?
To quote John Cleese in "Clockwise": "It's not the despair, it's the hope!"
While waiting a year to prepare and then having a clean break sounds fantastic, I can't believe it will be that easy. May needs to go since she is the one guilty of not preparing us for no deal or a clean break. But all the usual suspects will not give up their efforts to thwart it so we will have another year of fighting their toxic influence. Perhaps those long in the tooth Remoaners such as Soros, Heseltine, Clarke, Major, Bliar, Campbell, May and Rudd is not looking too good, will be dead by then! LOL about her hoping the Mail will help. I dropped my readership in the run up to the Referendum and restarted it when it was won but again last week I dropped it and found I was a part of a mass exodus. Some people can't help shooting themselves in the foot.
Up is down, right is left, nearly finished polishing the turd.
Send more money. Kick the can down the road.
The lazy civil service and dismal politicians would have you believe they can be ready to implement BRINO in one year when their proven output over two years is zero readiness.
Perhaps Spain can save you from yourselves. yUK is obviously incapable.
Cascadian - The UK govt and civil service are obvs. incapable.
You will find that the British people are more than capable of coping whatever happens.
On the contrary Cascadian, the civil service has been working harder than ever to remain in cahoots with its continental headquarters...
Never were so many of their jobs and pensions threatened as now, they are determined to remain in their sinecures.
I just wish Mrs. Thatcher had not wasted so much time with the miners, their input into the destruction of Great Britain (if you will excuse the pun) was minor. No, it was the right policy directed at the wrong target, the group that were undermining our nation were then and are now, the Great British bureaucracy.
Mrs. Thatcher admitted it herself, she claimed that she hadn't realised how deep their treachery was ingrained, but not until they had used one of their EU friendly pawns to wield the knife.
CLEAN LEAVE, NO SURRENDER!
We should have left in July 2016. Clean Brexit and iron out the issues over the next few months. Extending another year will serve no purpose other than fuel the raving Remoaner loons to even higher levels of Harpy shrieks.
If we were dealing/negotiating with honourable people, I'd probably be in agreement for a short extension. But since we have had to put up with all the rats emerging from their holes since we voted to Leave in 2016, I don't want to give them any more time for their plotting and scheming. Consequently, I vote for a full Leave in March next year, no payment to the EU and use what we are saving to make proper arrangements for trade, fishing grounds protection, border control and full control over our laws and governance.
Also, if there was to be a referendum on whether we should be hanging the traitors, from Mrs May and commie Robbins down to Mr Clark, Mr Heseltine, Mr Adonis et al, I would be voting for it to be done and done quickly.
A year? Another 12 months of EU and BBC/media propaganda about "how it's not working..... the difficulties..... the expense..... won't someone think of the children?"
Money talks - and if/when business are faced with complications due to a Freedom Brexit they WILL sort them out. It won't take a year - most likely it will take a phone call between bosses - and any 'insurmountable' problems could be set aside for the interim required to fix them.
All it takes is the will. Business has it. The Government don't. Yet.
John Cheshire makes a good point.
We aren't in this position because the problem is difficult. We are in this position because the people working on it are trying to frustrate it. Most private sector entities are ready for no-deal (it was always at least 25% prob). More time just gives more opportunity for another bad faith attempt to lock us in.
The one to watch on no-deal is that some emergency legislation isn't pushed through that - again is massive over reach rather than fixing a narrow problem, and again has no exit. Slippery f****ers.
I've just been reading a history of south african politics from late 90s and they had the concept of personal liability for civil servants and politicians who recklessly wasted public funds. I think Olly is going to need the EU role he is destined for in order to have the funds to pay that claim.
What a great plan, I'm sure it will work...honest.
There never was going to be a "deal". A deal is an agreement by two or more parties for a mutually-acceptable set of arrangements going forward. The EU could not almost by definition allow the Uk to get their side of that. It it were possible for a country to leave the EU, why, the very notion wrecks the gig, does it not? And so there can be - and should be - no deal. I actually think that the EU know that they have to have what we used to call two speeds. The Empire at the centre and the satellites. This was was a poor opportunity to fashion a model for that.
So March comes, the UK leaves, and nothing having been agreed no money changes hands. The birds will not fall dead from the wing. The next day, the UK PM could write to the EU saying that "the UK is prepared to consider ongoing arrangements for trade and a precise and limited range of sundries. All to be agreed by midnight on this day one year hence. There might even be some money - possibly. In the meantime, we will be getting on with our work."
It was also always going to come to the last minute before the real bargaining began. The EU even have said as much. The skill, if skill it is, is to wear down your opponent and cause as much political damage as possible before the real work begins. If the fifth columnists can wreck the job in the meantime - excellent (eg at various times: Ireland, Greece, Denmark, Netherlands.)
But do not worry. Whatever happens, the EU project just died. It is the end of the beginning.
*slow hand clap for von Battenberk* Niiiiice move there by UKIP /sarcasm, should help May get her form of Brexit through the House as you've just managed to indelibly link a 'No Deal' brexit with someone perceived by many MPs and Sheeples to be a Nazi. Way to put the sig runes in BrexSShite there, Jerry. The joke of it is, Tommy yacking-lemon, 'far right' or not, probably does know a great deal about Muslim rape gangs.
No wonder Farage is livid, UKIP has handed Tory MPs the 'moral' reason to vote for May's abortion of a deal.
It's a real pity that the filthy traitor Heath won't be around to see it.
The real war looks like it's about to begin though. The Italians look they are going to tell the Reich to get fucked.
In this it really will be to the death as one side has to totally defeat the other. At least the B-liar disease and that old degenerate Heseltine will be around to see this.
Jack Ketch
‘sheeples’ eh?
I know a dozen leave voting farm labourers here in Suffolk who would relish the opportunity of meeting you to discuss that.
I doubt that 1 in 1000 of the public have ever heard of, of care about Tommy Robinson.
Those who voted UKIP from a passionate belief in leaving the EU not be swerved by this relative non-event; so the core will be unchanged.
Anyway, tomorrow it will be yesterday’s news.
@ Radders - any details on "and the Daily Mail's change under Geordie Grieg to a Remoaner rag has unfortunately cost it a spectacular drop in sales and online readership"
I'm not disputing it (I'm on the verge of cancelling my delivery), but would be interested in numbers. Only a week ago the paper edition was crowing about their lead over everyone else...
I doubt that 1 in 1000 of the public have ever heard of, of care about Tommy Robinson.- Anon
Every Tory Mp has heard of him,as has every journalist in the land, that was my point, not whether those who voted UKIP will be swerved..they are probably beyond help.
By 'sheeples' I wasn't referring to them either...that would be a far too kinder term but for once I shall try not to kick Malcolm X's kennel overmuch.
To "personalmusing"'s "the people working on it are trying to frustrate it" I would add that those supposedly working on Brexit for 2+ years have shown levels of incompetence, gutlessness and cynicism that Yes Minister never even began to touch upon.
Then there's Jack Ketch: every Net forum has its resident 4th former. If one can penetrate his wilfully obscure jargon - intended to be gay, witty, that sort of thing, one assumes - his persona is one that would have normal people reaching for the bucket of sewage, or a cricket bat, were he a double glazing salesman approaching the front door.
UKIP? I respect Nigel Farage, Gerrard Batten, and Tommy Robinson, in different ways and for very different reasons. If sectors of the MSM dislike one or other of these - all three in the case of the Beeb and The Guardian - it confirms my contempt for those sectors of the MSM. They try their damnedest to make life difficult even for the most mildly nationalist group such as UKIP, possibly a key reason we don't have a Geert Wilders or a Matteo Salvini here. More's the pity: I'd vote for either gentleman like a shot.
Dave - abc figures for the change period won't be out until mid dec but rumours are down 15% on the print edition.
latest figs at https://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/49165308.pdf
Fraser Nelson said he "expects" to see Theresa May's DWA Treaty (and presumably subsequent "Relationship" Treaty) rejected by Parliament, not that it is clear or a fact that it will be (paywalled). The DWA is at version 0, and it has errors within it (never mind the politics), so inevitably it will change. But the changes will not be in the substance.
The DWA follows Chequers of course. Which was supposedly dead. And the most likely outcome at the moment is Parliament will accept it. The establishment have invested two years work in it, so it won't be dropped for a so-called "novel" solution (if any such exist by now). Relying on hope, a "novel" solution, and a newspaper article is extraordinary.
All the technical preparation we need has already been done, as the DWA shows. All we need do is ditch the deep and special relationship crap and we could leave tomorrow. There is nothing novel about that.
One problem is there is no Transition period without a deal. So that would have to be asked for and agreed by all parties first
Anon, Why do we need a transition period?
Go back to Fantasy Island and dig your grave Ketch. Tory MPs are cowardly crawling remainiac trash anyway. The fact that--like dross such as yourself--some of them are Yaxleysnobs too is neither here nor there.
Batten is the only one facing the imported 3rd world takeover issue head on. Farage did good work in the past but buggered off before sealing the deal. He should focus on the job he left half done not forment trouble about the next big battle.
Jack the dog......it is because I have a high regard for the typical working-class Brit that I believe they deserve more than just "coping". They have been "coping" throughout the last seventy years of managed decline, why not aim higher?
Right writes-I wrote a similar comment to yours months ago. This shambles is very obviously an attempt by the bureaucrats to maintain their cushy sinecures. The appalling political class is quite comfortable with this as long as they do not have to indulge in any hard work. Once again you need to aim for higher returns on your electoral investment. ie DO NOT vote for the May ConMen and most assuredly do not vote for Corbyn.
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