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Saturday, 23 February 2019

Are we there yet?

No, I can't claim to have a clue to what's happening with Brexit. This is perhaps a 'wisdom of crowds' job, with all your views, from the blissfully optimistic to the darkest gloom of the Cassandras, to help give us an idea of where the median lies.

A. Leave on 29th March with a deal
Something spectacular must happen to make this a reality; the House has made it clear it will not agree a deal with the backstop. Either 'boomer' Cox wrangles a legally binding codicil to change its mind or MPs take fright and act like mice

B. Leave on 29th March with no deal
Dream option for many Leavers, and increasingly the public, who are fed up with Brexit and importantly fed up with Brussels and becoming more hostile. But unlikely. The Deep State hate this option - it weakens them. Consequently the DS and their dags in public life will do all they can to prevent this happening.

C. Ditto options but end of June
Any Brexit delay beyond June will mean EP elections in May in the UK. The EU certainly don't want UK MEPs back in July, and as Farage's BrexitCorp with 100,000 volunteer candidates will probably sweep the board (For Euro elections it would get about 70% of normal Tory votes, I'd guess - but only for the EP election) neither Conservatives or Labour want the humiliation. This is my guess - we'll go at end June. Regretfully with some mashed together deal.

D. Article 50 extended beyond June
This will mean UK MEPs in the new plenum - which no-one wants. Since any extension to Article 50 is entirely in the hands of the EU to grant (other than a total withdrawal - which we can do unilaterally before 29th March, but which would kill the Conservative Party stone dead within 24 hours) it's probably unlikely. 

54 comments:

Domo said...

A. Europe may still buckle, the fear in the national capitals is becoming palpable.
They are beginning to realise the UK is willing to pay a high price to leave and their citizens are not willing to pay such a price to punish us.
Low but possible, the problem is that they are out of time to take the actions a reasonable deal required.

B. Still the most likely outcome

C. Any extension requires a payment, and it's going to have to be convincing to get £350mn per day out of the HoC

D. As you say, it's just too complicated.

rapscallion said...

I'll opt for B. Mainly because of May's ineptitude and incompetence, but also because of the EU's intransigence. They simply will not, nay cannot, give us any kind of decent deal.

jack ketch said...

I still think May will get her deal through; maybe with some 23:59:58 concession from the EU leaders (although why they should is beyond me).

Domo said...

@jack
Will you be volunteering to join the border police in Ireland?
I wonder how long till the the first lot of them start being bombed?

Stephen J said...

I suspect that the deep state likes no deal more than it lets on, it just doesn't want to be seen to support the idea, just in case government ineptitude causes too much of an upheaval during April.

Think of all the new "grind down the plebs" government initiatives that they can spend said plebs money on?

A bottomless pit.

Cascadian said...

DisMay is not a negotiator or deal-maker, and she is a remainer as proved by the deplorable BRINO document. The EU cannot countenance any special deal. So it is a deadlock.

Impossible to logically choose any of the four options, I still believe there is some more can-kicking to be done so I will choose the option that destroys the Conmen party and elects a bunch of populists to create havoc within the EU-Option D.

A more likely scenario is a last minute 30-hour negotiation where DisMay surrenders and signs up to the EU again. Not kidding.

While this farce has acted out President Trump has defeated DAESH, reduced unemployment and foodstamp use, has the economy running at full capacity, nearly concluded a trade deal with China and cooled N.Koreas jets all while fighting a successful rearguard at home trying to delegitimise his presidency (hatched by some screwballs in yUK). DisMay is a do-nothing disgrace.

JohnofEnfield said...

I find it absolutely extraordinarily that people jump to use the threat of violence as an excuse for stopping BREXIT.

The utter intransigence of the EU in refusing to discuss a trade deal before we leave is the cause of all the uncertainty & doubt that exists about our future relationship. But that relationship will be between friendly allied states not enemies. Can it possibly be on any other basis? Will the rude arrogant & aggressive attitudes of Verhofstad Barnier Junkers & the rest (including Varadkar & Coveney) continue for one second after 29 March? Otherwise the EU are essentially declaring war on a neighbouring friendly state.

I pray that BREXIT does happen on 29 March whether we “crash” “stumble” out or just “accidentally “ leave.

The consequences of everyone having to instantly act like grown ups to avoid a complete catastrophe on both sides will be profound. Are there any grown ups still around - let alone any statesmen?

DeeDee99 said...

Regretfully, I think she will get a deal (A) but we will leave at the end of June (C) since it is impossible to get legislation through both Houses by end March.

A combination of soft-Remainer, soft-Brexiters and anti-democrats in Parliament will block a No Deal departure, thereby demonstrating once again the the country consists of lions led by donkeys.

The CON Party will come to regret allowing Treason May to become, and remain, Prime Minister when her incompetence and unsuitability for the role is so obvious.

Rossa said...

With the European elections in May, the EP will be dissolved for campaigning. So what good would an extension be? Also, as far as I’m aware, the legislation to enact Article 50 stated Britain’s exit is on 29 March. How would an extension to that date occur? How could the EU extend a date set in our own legislation?

Got our own local elections in the summer. Tories will be wiped out if the electorate feels cheated out of the Brexit they voted for.

DiscoveredJoys said...

I have hopes that we will accidentally, or accidentally-on-purpose, leave with no deal on 29 March. If May lost a confidence vote and called for a GE could she still extend the Article 50 deadline?

People have suggested that May is secretly working on getting a customs union with the EU (somewhat against the manifesto and many of her party members and some MPs, but favoured by some big businesses). The Chequers Agreement implied this and the Withdrawal Agreement is a 'bridge' to this. And worryingly, even if we left with no deal there are people at the heart of government who would *still* work towards a customs union.

Even when we have left we will still have to resist being dragged down by the undertow.

Raedwald said...

DJ - that fifth column of Remainers are lost either way - and will do neither the UK nor the EU any favours.

A clean break and the EU will enjoy the best of our British character - shake hands, and let's be friends and work together

A sabotaged drawn-out compromise, rather as the Irish Free State was the precursor to the inevitable Irish Republic, will give plenty of oxygen to all we EU-phobes on social media to continue our attritional assault on Brussels, drip drip drip every single day until we really Leave, will leave anti-EU parties viable - and when the EU gets into trouble, as it will, the UK will kick its prostrate form and tear the ropes away. We'll also set the tumbrils going for the fifth-column patrician establishment. It won't be pleasant.

These Deep State remainers do their own nation no good, themselves no good and deprive the EU of a potential valuable ally.

Dave_G said...


The Backstop was only ever brought up to distract from the other 500 pages of the dWA and has shown itself to be successful in what it was meant to achieve.

The cliff-edge hysteria has grown to a point of unbelievable proportion but whether or not the public believe the scaremongering is irrelevant - the MEDIA have wrought it such that the Government believe it and it will convince enough MPs to vote the dWA through with the Backstop watered down or 'dismissed' as achievable using technology.

The Government will then claim they did their best, avoided the cliff edge, avoided the Backstop and still served up 'leave' - and they won't even have the grace to blush as they spout this despicable lie to us.

And that's my optimistic view......

Anonymous said...

Perhaps all these remainers fighting among themselves will force a confidence vote on May, who will lose, leading to a dissolution of parliament and general election. Which means that there won't be anyone to do anything in March so we might just manage to do a proper leave.

Of course, unless the new government has a UKIP and allies majority, the bees will promptly begin negotiations to sign us up to the full Euro/no rebate/driving on the right package!

Union of Air Traffic Controllers said...

I would take guidance from the air traffic controllers in the US. No deal, panic, cave in.

Don't forget, Mr. Trump got 1.3bn in funding for his "wall". This was far less than the Democrats were proposing ($1.6bn) during the Fall/Autumn.

The question then will be CU/SM via the back door, painted in passport blue colours. And then, how many years to Art. 49.

The icing on the cake is that this will all be accomplished by a sovereign parliament.

Saito said...

Replying to rapscallion

EU can't give you a deal until the UK withdraws. 2 years of information on the subject and you still haven't figured it out.

There again, it took Jo Johnson about 18 months to get there so perhaps I am being harsh.

Anonymous said...

Late April when the first 7bn odd out of 45bn is due - that's the date to watch.

Budgie said...

A. Theresa May's (ie Robbins'/Selmayr's) Withdrawal Agreement - at 70% (up from my previous 60% I think) chance of the dWA being voted through by the Remain HoC, at the last minute. Leads to a decade of constitutional turmoil, followed by England (UK broken up) pleading to return to the EU and accepting everything the triumphant EU imposes.

B. "No deal" ie no all encompassing Withdrawal Agreement - almost nil (5% at most). Our stupid MPs will blink first.

C. Three month delay - 80% chance; leading to Ac (dWA, and consequences) at 90%; and Bc ("No deal") at 0%.

D. Some years delay - 20% chance, leading to increased likelihood of a second referendum, general election, political turmoil. No MEPs - the EU will say we are leaving (ha ha) so we're not entitled to MEPs. And what the EU says our establishment always agree to.

Budgie said...

Sorry, typo:
C. Three month delay - 60% chance; leading to Ac (dWA, and consequences) at 90%; and Bc ("No deal") at 0%.

Bill quango said...

The three month delay looks most likely.

As we know, the EU when given an opportunity to make a very bad situation worse, will choose that option. Every time.

For instance, Dave only needed the softest of temporary halts to EU integration and harmonising plans. He only required, maybe one year of migration with some very minor form of check. A numbers cap. Something he could sell. With the promise of the EU “examining these ideas for the longer term.” Something they would never have to actually do.
Just a little bit of give and the UK would be in the EU forever. Having voted to stay.

Instead, they gave nothing. In fact, they demanded we give them something, for our cheek. They handed Cameron bogus tax bills that he was forced to pay. And encouraged an additional million migrants to flock to Europe. So almost guaranteeing the overburdened uk put down a strong leave vote,

So. This time. Will be the same. No deal on all sides. No deal until the deadline has passed. And the pound and euro tank. And business panics. Then. Still no deal. The Irish in turmoil as the Eu insists on checks. The big delays and the weakness of both the Eu and uk’s plans for ND revealed.
Then. A “delay” and a”compromise.”. Which will only be the backstop codicil anyway. And all will agree. Though millions will have suffered while they played silly buggers.

That is the EU way.

That is why we want to leave.

mongoose said...

Dave-G has it spot on. It is a panto. Do not get drawn into the silliness. The backstop will be called something else and victory will be declared. The war will be fought again over the next couple of years and for each step out two will be taken back in.

Evidence? The three Tory "deserters" have not been hung, drawn and quartered and are thus eligible to be welcomed back to fold. Nothing has been risked, nothing has been lost. It is a game.

If you are a Conservative voter, consider the scale of the opportunity just lost. The party united; the European boil lanced; Labour in tatters for twenty years; massive realignment of employment with the world as it is rather than what it was. Such selfish stupidity.

rapscallion said...

@Saito.

Really? Then WTF have we been doing for 2 years then? Haven't we been trying to negotiate a deal with people who actually don't want to give us a fair deal but to punish us instead. You've had two years of watching this and still you haven't figured it out.

Neither have any of the remainers, so perhaps I'm being a bit harsh

FarkhemHall said...

Teresa May - a negotiator so shrewd she’d leave DFS with a full-price sofa...

Budgie said...

Saito said: "The EU can't give you a deal until the UK withdraws".

Cobblers. The EU could "give" us a deal if it wanted to. But it doesn't want to. That's the reality. We have 47 years evidence that shows the EU is hostile to the UK, and still you haven't learned. Moreover a deal is a deal - a fair exchange - not something the EU "gives" as a result of our feeble pleadings, like crumbs off a rich man's table.

Saito said...

Replying to Rapscallion and Budgie

"WTF have we been doing?"->> navel gazing with no logically coherent proposal. The latest example is tariffs on food imports (Gove), no tariffs (Hammond, Delingpole on Andrew Neil's show). Which is it? Would you be so kind as to take 30 minutes to specify what 'leave' means i.e. more that a 2 sentence aspiration and no invocation of magical unicorns or uninvented technology.

"Cobblers. The EU could give us a deal" -> read the rules, the ones that the UK had a hand in formulating. You might not like the way things are turning out but you are caught in a process that you can't wriggle out of. The likes of John Redwood understand this, hence his investment guidance to short the UK.

Budgie said...

Saito, Since when has the EU stuck to the rules (even its own rules) when it doesn't suit?

However, if you think there is a rule which directly forbids negotiations for a trade deal, and/or forbids the signing of a trade deal, then cite it. And no, Malmstrom's opinion isn't adequate. A trade deal signed at 11:01pm on 29 March 2019, is still a trade deal as far as I'm concerned.

Neither Article 50 TEU, nor Article 218 TFEU prohibit a trade deal. Art50 even includes: "... an agreement ... setting out the arrangements for [the UK's] withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the [EU] (50/2). The future relationship includes trade.

Personally I would have neither a Withdrawal Agreement nor a Trade deal with the EU. They cannot be trusted.

I should be very surprised to find that Dr Sir John Redwood has given general "investment guidance to short the UK" as you claim. "Shorting the UK" is a preposterous, not to say meaningless, statement. In fact, his view of the UK's prospects is vastly more optimistic than mine. And I doubt he gives investment advice to the public at all.

terence patrick hewett said...

This conflict is about Power and Who Shall Wield It. All this discussion on the economics is so much balls - you either hand over power to a foreign entity or you order your own business. You either believe in democracy or you do not.

We do not want the un-audited EU to have control over us, not through ignorance but because in the grand abstract terms of the Enlightenment, the legitimacy of government derives from the consent of the governed, and therefore no government should have the right to hand over its authority to some external body which is not democratically accountable to its own people. So when the framers of the EU arranged for the nations of Europe to do exactly that, they were repudiating two centuries of political struggle for the rights and liberties of ordinary citizens and of governance "of the people, by the people and for the people."

There is a fundamental difference in the constitutional history of the United States, the United Kingdom and the history of the great continental powers. France has a Bonapartist tradition and Germany has a Bismarckian one.

The Anglo-Saxon tradition is that of liberal democracy, hammered out in the United Kingdom after 1688 and the United States after 1776: the German philosopher is Hegel; the English is Locke.

The British understand the American constitution, but we do not understand well the European constitutions. Nor do the Europeans understand or want the Anglo-Saxon concepts of liberal democracy. The European Union does not pretend to have a liberal constitution; perhaps the Lisbon treaty can best be described as an authoritarian federal bureaucracy, seeking almost unlimited powers.

We are heading for an economic war with the EU after No Deal 29th March where the EU will do it's best to destroy the UK: and there will only be one winner - and it won't be the EU.

Anonymous said...

"an authoritarian federal bureaucracy, seeking almost unlimited powers."

Much the same as China.

Perhaps we should apply to be a province of China. The left wing would like that.

Don Cox

Anonymous said...

What do you mean "are we there"?

EU exit is the beginning, not the end, of the UK's journey.

Probably to a destination of international irrelevance, and of its subjugation to bullying powers. To the moral, and material impoverishment of its people. To the indifference, contempt, or ridicule, of more happier lands.

Bernie said...

I disagree with all those who think Mrs May has not done well. Yes, it is messy, but how could it be otherwise when the EU has to make things difficult to save its own skin?

She promised that Brexit would happen, and I see no reason to doubt that it will, and as scheduled.

Mrs May and Mgt Thatcher are heroes. Flawed, of course, but heroes none-the-less.

Hold tight Britain!

jack ketch said...


Mrs May and Mgt Thatcher are heroes. Flawed, of course, but heroes none-the-less.


Maggie was a heroine and we shall not see her like again, May isn't fit to even carry her handbag.

I have voted only twice in my life, once for Mrs T when I was a teen and once for a lib-Dem MP because he was a family friend (until he lied to my face). I do not see myself ever having cause to sully myself by entering a Polling Station ever again although if by some miracle Ken Clarke was made leader of the Tories I might, just might, be persuaded...

John Brown said...

The EU are quite capable of changing their rules when it suits them.

So I can see Article 50 being extended indefinitely but since the UK has technically left the EU it will have no representation or veto on any new EU legislation.

During this time the UK will continue to make all budget payments, be within all EU institutions and be subject to all EU laws and the ECJ etc..

The DS and the majority of Parliament will be happy with this, as well as the EU of course, and Parliament will continue to vote that we cannot leave without a deal.

"Negotiations" will continue until the next GE (May 2022) with Parliament finally agreeing to a surrender deal just before which will ensure nothing changes until the “Future Relationship” is agreed.

By this time there will have been a total re-alignment of MPs into completely different groupings.

The following Parliament will have the task of “negotiating” our “Future Relationship” with the EU which will be many times more difficult and far longer lasting than that for the WA as there will be no reason for the EU to conclude a deal.

In fact since the EU and the DS are in charge it will be never-ending.

terence patrick hewett said...

Power, power, power and who shall wield it:

Sorry to break it to you but no-one believes all that John Lennon, multi-culti, EU-utopian BS: not the Russians, not the US, not the Chinese, not the Japanese, not Visegrad and certainly not the cynical Italians, French and Germans. And the voters of Ireland and the UK do not fall for it either – they know it is all about power and who shall wield it – and they would rather it was them not some unelected, unaccountable, unprosecutable dipsomaniac in Brussels.

But joking aside: and it’s hard not to poke fun at the acres of garbage written about Brexit – what counts in finance are law, skills, technology, networks, heritage and people: London has all of those and most other European cities don’t. The result - the City will carry on much as before – and they know how to deal with “difficult” prime ministers like Corbyn.

Anonymous said...

Terence, the EU has no policy on multiculturalism. Like far and away most law, it is a sovereign matter for the nations.

The French, for instance, have always emphasised assimilation, integration, that is, over voluntary apartheid, as the British seem to favour for some. Their laws reflect this, and one must swear solemn allegiance to the Constitution and more to acquire citizenship.

The Irish are generally quite happy, seeing the English Tory-kippers being pushed about all over the place at their behest by by the EU too, whatever a few might claim.

Dave_G said...


Slightly off topic but maybe worth consideration....

With the current exodus of MP's to 'new' parties, will this force a move from FPTP to proportional representation or will we be stuck with an eternal succession of coalition Governments where nothing gets done?

Given the propensity for kicking the EU can down the road and the UK NEVER leaving I see the FPTP method remaining and even used as an excuse to keep kicking....

Raedwald said...

..the EU has no policy on multiculturalism. Like far and away most law, it is a sovereign matter for the nations.

That's simply not true.

See my blogpost 20/12/18

"Peter Sutherland, the Godfather of Globalisation, died earlier this year having already seen his dream of a world without borders, in which benign global corporates reduced the world (except for the elite 1%, natch) to an equality of semi-poverty, shattered. Sutherland happily accepted that the price for raising billions out of absolute poverty would be the pauperisation of Europe, the US and the old Commonwealth, the hollowing out of the old middle classes. When he appeared before a House of Lords select committee in 2014 he was quite explicit - the EU had a mission to undermine the cultural identity, the congruence, of nation states, and millions of migrants was the way to achieve it.*

My loathing, resentment and anger is reserved for Peter Sutherland and those of his kind, and so should yours be. Sutherland, ex-Chairman of Goldman Sachs, ex-EU Commissioner, ex-Irish government minister, typified the symbiotic links of a corporatist-governmental complex working to impose globalism on unwilling peoples."

* https://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-committees/eu-sub-com-f/GAMM/EvidencevolumegmmFINAL.pdf Page 263

Budgie said...

Bernie said: "[Theresa May] promised that Brexit would happen, and I see no reason to doubt that it will, and as scheduled".

Have you actually read the draft Withdrawal Agreement, the Chequers (Robbins/Selmayr) White Paper, and the Political Declaration?

If you had, you would see that every time Mrs May gets on her hind legs and brays about delivering Brexit she is lying through her teeth. Mrs May is a worse liar than even Tony Blair. And that's saying something.

Anonymous said...

You are presenting one man's opinion as fact, and ignoring a mountain of objective evidence, which a six-year-old could verify in a few minutes searching, yet again, Raed.

The fact is that the Lisbon Treaty leaves such matters alone completely.

It was Enoch Powell, notably, who as health minister in the 1960s precipitously ramped up immigration from Asia and the Caribbean, nominally as cheap labour for the NHS. You can't really blame the EU for that, can you?

Raedwald said...

Oh come on. As Sutherland makes perfectly clear the EU has an overt framework of regulation driven by a far more powerful and influential covert policy forum; what is enacted by individual States, and imposed by EU coercion on the less willing, is part of that utterly confused, mistaken and damaging 'global forum' agenda.

Don't be an idiot or take others for idiots. His testimony - and that of dozens of others giving evidence - makes quite clear this was a conscious EU migration policy from Blair onwards.

Anonymous said...

The.
EU.
Institutions.
Have.
No.
Immigration.
Policy.

Read.
The.
Lisbon.
Treaty.

Raedwald said...

The EU 'speaks with a single voice' at the Global Forum

"If one looks at the key arguments and issues relating to the need for migration, the demographic is the most fundamental for many countries of destination. The demographic challenges in a number of European Member States, however difficult it may be to explain this to the citizens of those states, are absolutely unquestionable. They are vital in terms of a crucial dynamic for economic growth. A declining and ageing population is destructive of prosperity—forgetting entirely about the moral aspect of migration. That is particularly relevant to a number of countries in central Europe—Germany has a major issue—and some southern Member States. So demographics are a key element of the debate, and a key argument for the development of—I hesitate to use the word because people have attacked it—multicultural states. It is impossible to consider that the degree of homogeneity which is implied by the alternative argument can survive, because states have to become more open in terms of the people who inhabit them, as the United Kingdom has demonstrated."

Dress it up whichever way you want; it is a clear and unmistakeable EU policy to destroy European cultural 'homogeneity' by mass migration.

Not everything the EU do is in the Lisbon Treaty, dear. We know they're a cabal of crooked, feral crims, frauds, thieves and blaggers interested only in power - and to achieve it, they'd destroy the nations of Europe. The facts, the evidence, is out there.

Raedwald said...


And again

" First, there is no doubt that there are differing attitudes to migration, and different elements in the Member States of the European Union at present in terms of attitudes to it. We have seen in some of the most liberal societies in Europe, to everyone’s surprise, the development of political parties that have a significant role in governance and which have policies that can only be described as racist. I accept that bringing about a full agreement between Member States of the European Union on issues such as migration that are apparently so politically toxic is difficult to achieve. Having said that, the degree of co-operation that can be developed between Member States can have an enormously beneficial effect on the level of domestic debate on important issues relating to attitudes to the development of migration policy. I think that the EU, through its expertise and the experience that it has throughout the European Union, can be of great help in developing common positions."

That's how things work in this crooked 'rules based organisation' - public virtue and private vice; one set of lies for the citizens, another set of actions for the cabal's capos

jack ketch said...

and back on topic sorta: it seems that this coming week will bring no further clarity.

Theresa May has said MPs will not be given the chance to vote on her Brexit deal this week.

The Prime Minister today ruled out putting a "meaningful vote" to the Commons this week, but insisted one would be held by March 12.
Evening Standard

jack ketch said...


That's how things work in this crooked 'rules based organisation' - public virtue and private vice; one set of lies for the citizens, another set of actions for the cabal's capos
-Raed

In the quote I see nothing 'sinister' rather an assessment of the present situation and a possible partial 'solution' ie 'co-operation' rather than an 'almost impossible' to achieve 'agreement' . Certainly no 'set of lies'. *puzzled as to why you quoted it*(and bear in mind I am quite happy to believe all sorts of skullduggery of the EU...and anyone else for that matter).

Raedwald said...

Jack - the point is that there *is* a co-ordinated EU approach to facilitating inward migration - or rather, there was in 2014 - when Sutherland is preparing the way for Merkels's Million. By an informal agreement not to have external border controls - an agreement broken after 2016 by Austria, Italy, Hungary - it was a nudge nudge wink wink open door. Together with an explicit recognition that the primitive prejudices of the dumb voters would have to be overcome.

Well, the voters are clear - and much to the Berlaymont's fury, Shengen is suspended throughout much of Europe and Italy's Closed Border is working.

jack ketch said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Span Ows said...

A: more and more unlikely
B: more and more likely
C: no
D: no, needs legislation

Anonymous said...

"a move from FPTP to proportional representation or will we be stuck with an eternal succession of coalition Governments where nothing gets done?"

The result of proportional representation is firstly, months of negotiation to form a coalition, and then a hamstrung coalition government with excessive influence from small extremist parties, who would lead to a fall of the government if they pull out.

Don Cox

rapscallion said...

Replying to Saito.

I don't need 30 minutes to specify what "Leave" means, I can do it in 30 seconds. Leave the EU. By definition it means leave ALL of it. The EU itself, the SM, the CU and oversight of the ECJ. It is not a pick and mix type arrangement, and as Herr Schauble stated, "You are either in or out"

It is exactly what 17.4 million of us voted for, and just because its a result you hate doesn't make it any less legitimate. Ultimately, the point about leaving is about regaining our national sovereignty, where we decide who governs us according to OUR laws, and not those made up by people we did not vote for, cannot remove and who are not accountable. I know its a difficult concept for you to get your head around, but if you think even for a moment that the worlds 5th largest economy is going to struggle, then you haven't been paying much attention.

Budgie said...

Rapscallion, Exactly right. But because many Remains are thick as well as silly I usually spell it out for them - Leave means leaving the EU treaties.

Anonymous said...

Of course it does, Budgie. That is defined in the Treaties.

But you were never asked what arrangements the UK should make with the EU after it had left.

So you can't claim any kind of betrayal re those. Why don't you just button it on the subject therefore?

Budgie said...

Anon, What is defined in which treaties? Where have I ever claimed betrayal re those arrangements the UK should make with the EU after we Leave? Provided, of course, we actually do leave the EU treaties and do not re-join, then the UK could have as distant a relationship as we do with North Korea, or as close as we have with Russia.

Cascadian said...

DisMays MEANINGFUL vote is so important that it can be kicked down the road like an old tin can every couple of weeks.

Meanwhile preparations for any substantial change are stalled or ignored. Important potential trading partners (Japan) give the chancellor the bums rush for daring to suggest that yUKs piss-poor preparation somehow means that emergency negotiations are required.

Its laughable that anybody expects that DisMay or the Conmen could propose any kind of solution, good or ill.

Saito said...

Responding to rapscallion.

Ok 30 seconds to say leave the EU. But that's not possible without first reworking the GFA (an international treaty), or separating NI from the union. I may have missed something unless you are advocating that the UK goes 'rogue'.

Budgie said...

Saito, Wrong. Another option is Eire could re-join the federal UK as one of the devolved nations. That would make most sense though is historically unlikely.

However it is totally false for you to claim that the GFA needs "re-working" or that the UK of Gt Britain and Northern Ireland must be broken up. The GFA is still valid for the UK and Eire whether the UK, or Eire, is in or out of the EU. Unless, of course, you're saying that Eire is no longer a state with enough independence to keep an international treaty?