In a “letter to the nation” released Sunday, May said she would be “campaigning with my heart and soul to win that vote and to deliver this Brexit deal, for the good of our United Kingdom and all of our people.”
Because that’s how Vlad wants it.
This “deal” is, very predictably, a far cry from what was sold to the voters in the referendum. It keeps the UK largely under EU rules, but cedes any role in the making of those rules. The only right thing to do is a second referendum with three choices: this deal, a chaotic hard exit and remain. I am confident that remain will win easily now that the voters know what they are getting.
It needs to be put to a vote of the British people, with the option of either accepting it or staying in the EU. Given the amount of meddling that went into the Brexit vote and the desire of more than half the country now to stay in the EU, that’s what should happen and needs to happen. Labor needs to make a stronger push for just such an outcome, but Corbyn (who doesn’t impress me at all in so many ways) is loathe to do so, because he’s a Lexiteer.
From Marina Hyde (in the Grauniad):
[The] man who was Brexit secretary until 10 minutes ago now reckons the Brexit deal is worse than staying in the EU. Yes, mate. The great spectacle of the past two and a half years has been watching allegedly very clever people realise this incredibly slowly.
[…]
So get ready for Brexit advent, where every day in the December calendar will offer the chance to open the door on some new, exquisitely rendered political hellscape.
[…]
The immediate upshot is that “global Britain” is now the basket case of the world. Karma, surely. All around our former dominions, people are shrieking with laughter as they say: “Isn’t it terrible what they’re doing to themselves?” I guess we were always very strong at cocking up a country. When the British were just beginning to get their claws into India around 1700, the Mughal empire accounted for a quarter of the world’s economy. By the time we were forced to leave them to undo all our good work, India was punching at just over 3%. The UK taking back control of the UK may well turn out to be a similar success story.
Read this earlier this morning and WOW, just WOW. It’s all in there, the anti-semitism, Russian influence-YouTube better clean up it’s act, and a whole bunch of pricks that will be protected from the shit storm they started.
What happens if the deal isn’t endorsed? Does leaving get cancelled, or do things default to Hard Brexit?
Politically speaking I think the tories have almost entirely by stupidity put themselves in a position that is either suicidal or guarantees them dominance for a generation. My reasoning for this could be completely wrong, but goes like this:
The loony right, whose votes may needs to pass the deal on a party-line vote, are almost certainly willing to torch the country rather than vote for this. And their constitutents likely wouldn’t return them to office if they did. Which means, paradoxically, that it’s up to labor and/or lib dems to supply the votes. If they don’t, the right-wing messaging (supported by russian trolls et al) will be that the lefties destroyed the country by forcing hard brexit. If they do, they pretty much betrayed their entire Remain constituency. At least as far as the superficial messaging goes.
Of course, there could be enough of an even more thorough disgust with the right to avoid a catch-22 like that, but I don’t immediately see it.
Seems to me the only people not getting screwed by this, or won’t feel the utmost pain from this, are the ring leaders for Brexit.
This is urban vs rural. Urban elites who realize the great benefits of membership with the EU with those out of the urban areas who don’t. The problem is the lack of leadership among the elites to share the enormous benefits accruing to the cities with the countryside. We have a similar failure of leadership in the US. I am not talking about any individual, I am talking about the entire spectrum of leadership in both Great Britain and America.
We need to assess what is wrong at the core. Why can’t leaders based in London and Washington DC see the disparity that has developed between rich and poor and do something about it?
In England they have a thousand-plus years of history reinforcing the idea that the rich should be rich and powerful, and that the poor should be peasants. They have/had a fairly decent welfare state, but that was accomplished only because they heeded the french example.
In the US, it’s weirder, because in so many cases it’s the nominal representatives of rural areas who are making their constituents’ lives harder.
Fuck you Tory bastards.
Yet more proof that every idea, policy and action put forth by conservatives anywhere is always bad, wrong and destructive.
ALL this is related.
On a BBC Worldservice roundtable yesterday,(more interesting than the usual sabbath gasbags) much of the opinion was that this was a fig leaf for all parties concerned and that it will die in Parliament.
Impossible to know what will happen, especially when you get past the near future.
Right now May is talking about a vote in the Commons before Christmas. If she loses that vote, and if, as seems likely, the EU refuses to re-negotiate, then any or all of the following can happen: a new referendum is held; or Parliament is dissolved and a general election is called; or chaos.
Each of these possibilities brings its own uncertainties with it, making further prediction unwieldy.
I have a strange feeling there will be a second referendum, people will vote to Remain, and these past two years will have been reduced to bad political Kabuki theater.
And where did you get that view? I grew up in the Netherlands and also lived 5 years in Germany. I keep up with the place. Brexit will prove itself to be a bad deal for all but the UK will suffer the most. But will not be under the control of the EU post Brexit. The EU has no intentions of caving to the UK. They’re pissed. Post UK Brexit will find itself across the channel from a monster political and economic bloc it spit in the face of. There will be pressure. But they voted for it. Brexit will create a dozen problems for the UK for each it resolves. They voted for that.
Brexit is England’s “build the wall” . Stupid.
For Americans that may not keep up with Brexit this “deal” that’s being talked about is not whether or not the UK leaves. That’s a done deal. It’s about what exists after the UK goes. The EU granted member states privileges and advantages. The deal is about which of those the UK will keep and lose after it leaves.
The UK was NEVER a part of the Schengen Agreement ( open borders ) yet much of American journalism harps on Brexit as if they were. The UK did not have open borders with anyone. That is NOT a part of this.
It was also not in the EuroZone and kept its Pound as currency. The rules for how that pound will float against the Euro are part of the deal.
Northern Ireland is largely a part of the UK. The rest of Ireland is not and will remain in the EU. That leaves a part of the UK surrounded by the EU. Kind of like a Gaza Strip but in Europe. Resolving that is the biggest part of the deal.
But the back story that NO ONE is talking about is that Brexit ( BRitish EXIT ) is not as popular now as it was when it passed referendum. It was the product of the loony UK right ( their Tea party sort of ) and folks now wonder why do this? The argument and scare tactic used the most by Farrange and Johnson was immigrant hoards. Not happening.
Brexit was a rash move. It was done when the British feared phony threats and pushed by a bunch of wing nut lunatics. If you think the American Right is wacko you should go get a dose of the European variant. Le Penn in France , Wilders in my old home are way out there. It’s a global fever. Look what just happened in Brazil. It will run its course and then be gone for 70 years. I think the “far right” in America is near done. It won’t last 5 years in Brazil. Mainland Europe has suppressed it but that hasn’t stopped it from trying. Brexit is the last European wing nut idea.
The deal is essentially a wad of language assembled to deal with the disaster that is Brexit and to minimize the pain it inflicts.
That can’t happen under exiting law in GB. It is true that if that stupid Brexit trash was put up to the vote today it would get quashed. But that cannot happen.
No way another referendum happens. The outcome of it is near 100% known and the folks that pushed Brexit will not allow it. I imagine at the last minute the deal, modified from what it is right now, will pass. EU will say OK and let UK go. If not the British Parliament will self destruct and May, the best option they have right now, will be tossed aside for some nutcase.
Brexit is a remarkably bad idea. That’s why there’s so many problems with it. It was a rash idea by unthinking wing nuts that infected the larger British population. Like us electing Trump. It’s a lose, lose lose deal. That’s becoming clear to the British now so I think they’ll pull this off without lighting a fuse to do it.