“I give up. Therefore, please let me win.”
It’s a bold strategy, Cotton.
Boy, she is really committed to not having a revote on the issue.
It’s not your choice anymore, Prime Minister.
“I’ll resign - but only over the UK’s dead body!”
Hey trump, are you going to better that?
Try it
Resign for the sake of ending healthcare in this country and we will put a crown on
your headstone.
please believe me. I never lie:
She will crawl across broken glass before admitting fault
Which is rather bizarre, because May was pretty firmly in the “Remain” camp.
This proposal is as laughable as it is desperate.
How about just resigning because of egregious failure? Why would anyone care enough about getting May’s resignation that they would trade away losing on a key issue that will likely bring her resignation in any event?
Well, the problem with a second referendum is that all of the accusations the Brexiteers would then levy at May (and more specifically at Cameron) would be absolutely true: the original referendum was intended as a bullshit show-vote to pacify the UKIP dead-enders, and was not supposed to offer Britons any actual control over their nation’s destiny.
Which is another reason that allowing a simple-majority popular referendum to dictate something so profoundly weighty as Brexit was a colossally stupid idea. That’s not how law is supposed to be made in the UK – if some group of people thought they could win a Parliamentary majority on an anti-EU platform, let them campaign on it. And UKIP always did, and UKIP was always a rump garbage fringe party.
David Cameron is such a goddamned idiot, but cheese means cheese!
“I’m such a terrible person that me leaving might just be enough to sweeten an international deal, so that people will go ahead and eat that shit sandwich. I am that hated. It might just work.”
Lots of stuff going on in Parliament today. The Parliament has essentially taken over the Brexit process. There are 8 amendments being debated on in an open session. 6 of these amendments are full alternatives to May’s Brexit plan. There is an 8th amendment which says that whatever Parliament decides must be approved by the people in a 2nd referendum. There is also a ‘no deal Brexit’ crash the ship into the iceberg version of Brexit.
The ones that have the best chance of passing are 3 that are centered around the UK staying in the customs union/single market.
Theresa May is now publicly dangling her resignation if wayward Tories will vote for her plan (which has failed twice). The big issue is that the Speaker of the Parliament is not going to allow her plan to come for a 3rd vote b/c of a Parliamentary rule that the gov’t cannot bring a measure that has failed twice for a 3rd vote unless it is substantially changed.
The debate is very robust and I get the sense that despite May’s latest gambit to rally the party, I think there is a sense that the UK doesn’t want to be split 52-48 and wants a measure that can more accurately reflect a view that people on both sides can get behind. That appears to be centering around these various proposals to stay in the common market and customs union and remove itself from the EU political institutions. It’s not an ideal solution, but it’s better than May’s plan.
The #1 goal of Parliament is to avoid a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Margaret Beckett of Labour has delivered perhaps the best speech of the entire debate, talking about how the UK is sacrificing its sovereignty by leaving for no good purpose. It’s her amendment which requires that any decision by Parliament be ratified by the people in a second referendum.
It’s still possible that May’s plan could pass if May can get all the Tories behind her and buy off some votes from pro-Brexit Labour votes (tough with Corbyn whipping against it) or the DUP (Northern Ireland). The DUP, however, appears to be revealing its cards that they’re much closer to no Brexit at all. A key DUP member said he wants a 1 year delay because the results for Northern Ireland would be catastrophic if there is a ‘hard’ border with the EU. May will have one last stand (maybe?) but I think as members vote tonight, they’ll find that there may well be a majority for staying in the single market/customs union.
The current situation is bizarre. Both sides are afraid of losing a revote. The Remain camp sees how badly May’s camp is floundering and seems to want to bet that the Brexiters will never figure this out on their own. But a revote in their favor would give them a mandate they currently seem to lack. On the other side, the Brexiters can read the polls and know that the public is less in their favor now than they were at the time of the vote, so they want to try to argue that they must adhere to the result of the initial vote. If they had a revote and lost, the movement would be dead in the water.
The Leave camp seems to think that their best chances are without a revote. And the Remain side is watching this circus act and seem to be better that it will soon self-destruct, so why do anything?
May’s personal motivations are obscure. She’s going to have to resign pretty soon, one way or another. This mess isn’t going to magically take a turn that will help her.
Thanks for the cogent summary.
I can understand “Remain” being antsy about a re-vote given the likely of further meddling from Putin and his allies.
But then the only healthcare we would have would be a dirty Q-Tip…
But the Barr summary says conclusively that Russian tampering couldn’t, doesn’t, and wouldn’t ever occur?
So when is “earlier than she intended”? The day before never?
This has turned into such an amazing disaster. And many of the alternatives, it’s not clear whether the EU will accept them.
The problem with Parliament’s proposed amendments is the E.U. position that Brexit negotiations have been completed. The U.K. will have to convince the E.U. that these amendments are also to the EU’s advantage - or they will be rejected and the British Government will be back to square one - either approving the current deal or accepting a Hard Brexit.
EU has hinted at flexibility.
As predicted, the DUP has come out firmly against supporting May’s plan. She lacks the votes to get it over the line unless a bunch of Labour folks hop on board.