[Politics] Brexit

Kinky Gerbil · Jul 26, 2018

WATFORD zero said:
And, if we want option 2, we had better start negotiating for extensions to EU membership as it won't be ready for 29th March

Of course there's always option 3 - go for a vote of some kind (GE or Another referendum)

I wonder when Leavers will actually find out what they voted for ?

I guess at some point in the next 8 Months

Tick Tock

I can’t see another vote

They voted to make Nigel and Jacob richer.

WATFORD zero · Jul 26, 2018

Kinky Gerbils said:
I can’t see another vote

They voted to make Nigel and Jacob richer.

I wouldn't have thought so either, but as has been proven over the last 2 years, all common sense needs to be put on hold for the duration of Brexit :wink:

mikeyjh · Jul 26, 2018

Kinky Gerbils said:
So we have 2 options

1. Get a deal in which we have less control over everything and no say to stay roughly the same
2. No deal, in which the Government are stock piling vital medicines in case of and even team Brexit are no suggesting some type of pain.

Are we not at the point that we need to at least pause, take stock? Maybe this is the point where the Tory leadership admit that they got the referendum horribly wrong and the fact that they asked such a limp question is precisely why we're in this mess today. Maybe we do have to have a referendum with several options and then have a sensible non binary debate to decide the facts and the right direction. I've come over all idealist this morning....

WATFORD zero · Jul 26, 2018

mikeyjh said:
Are we not at the point that we need to at least pause, take stock? Maybe this is the point where the Tory leadership admit that they got the referendum horribly wrong and the fact that they asked such a limp question is precisely why we're in this mess today. Maybe we do have to have a referendum with several options and then have a sensible non binary debate to decide the facts and the right direction. I've come over all idealist this morning....

I refer my right honourable friend to the post above his :smile:

Two Professors · Jul 26, 2018

The EU's principles don't last long when Daimler's profits are threatened.Junker has agreed to take GM soya bean imports, and LNG from fracking.Wonder if chicken's on the menu?

Gwylan · Jul 26, 2018

WATFORD zero said:
I wonder when Leavers will actually find out what they voted for ?

That's a bit disingenuous. There was a reasonable assumption that the UK government would negotiate a deal that ensured disruption and economic hurt would be kept to a minimum. And that there would a careful, planned withdrawal from the EU.

Instead we had: a prime minister resigning (despite being told quite explicitly that this wouldn't happen). We had plans delayed by a leadership election and plans delayed further by another election (despite being told quite explicitly that this wouldn't happen). We've also seen the UK government tied to a party in Northern Ireland who put the kybosh on an agreed settlement on the tricky Irish border issue.

If that wasn't enough, we appointed a Brexit secretary who seemed more fond of a drink than meetings with his counterpart, a Trade secretary who'd already been sacked as a minister once and a Foreign Secretary who is comfortably the worst cabinet minister of my lifetime (and I'm old enough to remember George Brown).

If this wasn't enough, we activated Article 50 with little sense of planning, made no preparations for the added pressures on customs and border controls and have ignored the concerns of business. Again, that's something no-one could have expected of a government, particularly a Tory one.

We've had the unedifying spectacle of ministers behaving like toddlers, screaming and ranting that they can't get their own way. The only one who seems to have any sort of brain, Hammond, is treated like something the cat dragged in by the rest of his party.

I'm not sure how those who voted Leave can be blamed for any of this. I've been following politics for nearly 50 years and during that time there's been an assumption that cabinet ministers are broadly competent and they won't actively seek to damage the country. Those ideas appear to have been thrown out of the window but that's not something anyone could have predicted.

Garry Nelson's teacher · Jul 26, 2018

Gwylan said:
That's a bit disingenuous. There was a reasonable assumption that the UK government would negotiate a deal that ensured disruption and economic hurt would be kept to a minimum. And that there would a careful, planned withdrawal from the EU.

Instead we had: a prime minister resigning (despite being told quite explicitly that this wouldn't happen). We had plans delayed by a leadership election and plans delayed further by another election (despite being told quite explicitly that this wouldn't happen). We've also seen the UK government tied to a party in Northern Ireland who put the kybosh on an agreed settlement on the tricky Irish border issue.

If that wasn't enough, we appointed a Brexit secretary who seemed more fond of a drink than meetings with his counterpart, a Trade secretary who'd already been sacked as a minister once and a Foreign Secretary who is comfortably the worst cabinet minister of my lifetime (and I'm old enough to remember George Brown).

If this wasn't enough, we activated Article 50 with little sense of planning, made no preparations for the added pressures on customs and border controls and have ignored the concerns of business. Again, that's something no-one could have expected of a government, particularly a Tory one.

We've had the unedifying spectacle of ministers behaving like toddlers, screaming and ranting that they can't get their own way. The only one who seems to have any sort of brain, Hammond, is treated like something the cat dragged in by the rest of his party.

I'm not sure how those who voted Leave can be blamed for any of this. I've been following politics for nearly 50 years and during that time there's been an assumption that cabinet ministers are broadly competent and they won't actively seek to damage the country. Those ideas appear to have been thrown out of the window but that's not something anyone could have predicted.

= shitstorm

Gwylan · Jul 26, 2018

Garry Nelson's teacher said:
= shitstorm

Yes it is. But it needn't have been and I don't see how that's the fault of people who voted Leave.

That's like my paying £1000 into a bank and the clerk, instead of banking it, blows it on the 3.30 at Kempton Park. I'd have a reasonable expectation that the bank would handle my money properly but according to you and Watford Zero, it would be my fault that I'd lost my money as I should have predicted it.

Fitzcarraldo · Jul 26, 2018

Gwylan said:
Yes it is. But it needn't have been and I don't see how that's the fault of people who voted Leave.

That's like my paying £1000 into a bank and the clerk, instead of banking it, blows it on the 3.30 at Kempton Park. I'd have a reasonable expectation that the bank would handle my money properly but according to you and Watford Zero, it would be my fault that I'd lost my money as I should have predicted it.

You voted to leave the EU, which is what we are doing, which is exactly what you voted for. You didn't vote for how we go about it. You voted for us to leave. That is what was on the ballot. Own this mess. You voted for it.

Herr Tubthumper · Jul 26, 2018

Gwylan said:
I'm not sure how those who voted Leave can be blamed for any of this. I've been following politics for nearly 50 years and during that time there's been an assumption that cabinet ministers are broadly competent and they won't actively seek to damage the country. Those ideas appear to have been thrown out of the window but that's not something anyone could have predicted.

In the referendum possibly. But voting Tory in the last election I disagree, Tory selfishness and incompetency were very much known.

Kinky Gerbil · Jul 26, 2018

Gwylan said:
Yes it is. But it needn't have been and I don't see how that's the fault of people who voted Leave.

That's like my paying £1000 into a bank and the clerk, instead of banking it, blows it on the 3.30 at Kempton Park. I'd have a reasonable expectation that the bank would handle my money properly but according to you and Watford Zero, it would be my fault that I'd lost my money as I should have predicted it.

Remain warned of this before and it was written off as project fear, people chose to ignore the experts and warnings.

Farage/Gove/Johnson etc had no plan beyond saying it was all easy and you sided with these guys.

Trufflehound · Jul 26, 2018

Herr Tubthumper said:
In the referendum possibly. But voting Tory in the last election I disagree, Tory selfishness and incompetency were very much known.

Tory selfishness and incompetence were very much known before the referendum.

Hotchilidog · Jul 26, 2018

Gwylan said:
That's a bit disingenuous. There was a reasonable assumption that the UK government would negotiate a deal that ensured disruption and economic hurt would be kept to a minimum. And that there would a careful, planned withdrawal from the EU.

Instead we had: a prime minister resigning (despite being told quite explicitly that this wouldn't happen). We had plans delayed by a leadership election and plans delayed further by another election (despite being told quite explicitly that this wouldn't happen). We've also seen the UK government tied to a party in Northern Ireland who put the kybosh on an agreed settlement on the tricky Irish border issue.

If that wasn't enough, we appointed a Brexit secretary who seemed more fond of a drink than meetings with his counterpart, a Trade secretary who'd already been sacked as a minister once and a Foreign Secretary who is comfortably the worst cabinet minister of my lifetime (and I'm old enough to remember George Brown).

If this wasn't enough, we activated Article 50 with little sense of planning, made no preparations for the added pressures on customs and border controls and have ignored the concerns of business. Again, that's something no-one could have expected of a government, particularly a Tory one.

We've had the unedifying spectacle of ministers behaving like toddlers, screaming and ranting that they can't get their own way. The only one who seems to have any sort of brain, Hammond, is treated like something the cat dragged in by the rest of his party.

I'm not sure how those who voted Leave can be blamed for any of this. I've been following politics for nearly 50 years and during that time there's been an assumption that cabinet ministers are broadly competent and they won't actively seek to damage the country. Those ideas appear to have been thrown out of the window but that's not something anyone could have predicted.

All of that was predictable. The referendum campaign was high on slogans and soundbites and woefully short on any sort of detail on what a post-Brexit Britain would be like.

We had a conservative government so we were going to get an ill-defined conservative Brexit, which they have wasted two years trying to dream up.

The leave vote was not homogenous, people voted out for many different reasons be it immigration, sovereignty, lexit, a push-back against the establishment and these voters were not offered a clear vision of what it was that they were voting for. The ensuing chaos is the natural outcome of competing interests and motivations.

Remain voters however knew exactly what they were voting for, the status quo, and for some the possibility of changing the EU from the inside.

The current mess is on the Leavers inability to put together a coherent and deliverable vision of Brexit. If you could not see this coming then you need to get your eyesight checked.

Lincoln Imp · Jul 26, 2018

Garry Nelson's teacher said:
= shitstorm

A sober summary from Gwylan but isn't there an element of chicken and egg here?

You could have foreseen that Cameron would have walked (whatever he said before) and that the Tory Party would have appointed an agnostic to replace him in the vague hope that he/she would pull the party together.

The Leave vote produced the situation where the prime minister had a very small pool of Brexit big hitters from which to chose those three senior ministers. Johnson, Fox and Davies have been lamentable but what was the choice? Competent and experienced politicians who are also Brexit uber-enthusiasts are thin on the ground - the phrase is practically an oxymoron. The lunatics might not have taken over the asylum but we shouldn't be surprised to see the screaming toddlers in charge. There wasn't much else available.

Gwylan says that this situation - incompetent ministers prepared to damage the country - could not have been predicted. I think it could. I think it was. Running the country on the back of a ill-thought-through Crazy Idea was never going to work, as those now labelled traitors, dissidents, collaborators and enemies of the people have often pointed out.

But he's right that you can't blame everyone who voted Leave for this. As I said on here before the referendum - the Leave campaign had all the sexy songs. Its messages were beguiling. And they were pitched in a way that meant they could mean whatever the listeners wanted them to mean.

WATFORD zero · Jul 26, 2018

Gwylan said:
That's a bit disingenuous. There was a reasonable assumption that the UK government would negotiate a deal that ensured disruption and economic hurt would be kept to a minimum. And that there would a careful, planned withdrawal from the EU.

Instead we had: a prime minister resigning (despite being told quite explicitly that this wouldn't happen). We had plans delayed by a leadership election and plans delayed further by another election (despite being told quite explicitly that this wouldn't happen). We've also seen the UK government tied to a party in Northern Ireland who put the kybosh on an agreed settlement on the tricky Irish border issue.

If that wasn't enough, we appointed a Brexit secretary who seemed more fond of a drink than meetings with his counterpart, a Trade secretary who'd already been sacked as a minister once and a Foreign Secretary who is comfortably the worst cabinet minister of my lifetime (and I'm old enough to remember George Brown).

If this wasn't enough, we activated Article 50 with little sense of planning, made no preparations for the added pressures on customs and border controls and have ignored the concerns of business. Again, that's something no-one could have expected of a government, particularly a Tory one.

We've had the unedifying spectacle of ministers behaving like toddlers, screaming and ranting that they can't get their own way. The only one who seems to have any sort of brain, Hammond, is treated like something the cat dragged in by the rest of his party.

I'm not sure how those who voted Leave can be blamed for any of this. I've been following politics for nearly 50 years and during that time there's been an assumption that cabinet ministers are broadly competent and they won't actively seek to damage the country. Those ideas appear to have been thrown out of the window but that's not something anyone could have predicted.

Although a lot of the points you make are fair and valid, I think that where we fundamentally disagree is that you believe there was a Brexit option somewhere between the Softest of Soft that TM is trying to negotiate and a hard Brexit under WTO.

I'm afraid that a lot of remainers said that these were the only two options before the vote (and, I think, a fair few of us thought 2 years wasn't long enough for a 'no deal'). The Ireland/NI border, regardless of the DUP, cut out a lot of other options. And although we've come to it in a roundabout way, we are still exactly where a lot of us thought we would be. I believe that all the senior politicians, civil servants, businessmen etc etc always knew this which is why the Government kept fudging for 2 years. This was all confirmed on 8th December last year in the Phase 1 agreement.

But the point still remains that a lot of leave voters thought they knew what they were voting for (and I don't include you in this) when, as proven on this thread, they had no idea whatsoever :shrug:

I would be interested to know your thoughts as to where you think we could go from here, though :thumbsup:

Garry Nelson's teacher · Jul 26, 2018

Lincoln Imp said:
A sober summary from Gwylan but isn't there an element of chicken and egg here?

You could have foreseen that Cameron would have walked (whatever he said before) and that the Tory Party would have appointed an agnostic to replace him in the vague hope that he/she would pull the party together.

The Leave vote produced the situation where the prime minister had a very small pool of Brexit big hitters from which to chose those three senior ministers. Johnson, Fox and Davies have been lamentable but what was the choice? Competent and experienced politicians who are also Brexit uber-enthusiasts are thin on the ground - the phrase is practically an oxymoron. The lunatics might not have taken over the asylum but we shouldn't be surprised to see the screaming toddlers in charge. There wasn't much else available.

Gwylan says that this situation - incompetent ministers prepared to damage the country - could not have been predicted. I think it could. I think it was. Running the country on the back of a ill-thought-through Crazy Idea was never going to work, as those now labelled traitors, dissidents, collaborators and enemies of the people have often pointed out.

But he's right that you can't blame everyone who voted Leave for this. As I said on here before the referendum - the Leave campaign had all the sexy songs. Its messages were beguiling. And they were pitched in a way that meant they could mean whatever the listeners wanted them to mean.

Pretty much spot-on in my view. One day - one way or another - this whole sorry tale will be behind us and I think we'll need to re-set and try to stop blaming the other side. Which is going to be hard given the views of some Leavers - and possibly some Remainers - on this thread. (Unless one lot goes into voluntary exile.) But for the present it's all just too raw, I guess.

The Clamp · Jul 26, 2018

Of course you can blame leave voters. They should have done their due diligence and had a little think about the motives behind it and what could go wrong. Fine, claim as many admirable reasons as you wish why you voted leave, that's your affair. But don't for one second pretend you KNEW what you were voting for and anyone that votes for the utterly unknown is partly to blame for the outcome.

If it had been a massive success you can bet Leave voters would be claiming credit for it but now it's an abject failure everyone but the leave voters seem to be responsible. It's the remainers, the party politics blah blah blah. It's you. Own it.

Gwylan · Jul 26, 2018

WATFORD zero said:
Although a lot of the points you make are fair and valid, I think that where we fundamentally disagree is that you believe there was a Brexit option somewhere between the Softest of Soft that TM is trying to negotiate and a hard Brexit under WTO.

We could have stayed in the EEA for a start - or something similar. Or negotiated another customs union deal.

Some way back in this thread I pointed out that the negotiations were all based on the premise that we could have our cake and eat it - that was always a non-starter. But we could have accepted that we'd have to give way on various points - maybe free migration, maybe the ECJ, maybe the customs union, maybe financial passporting, maybe CAP etc etc. But we treated negotiations like a poker game with the winner taking the pot and that was never going to end well.

I'm afraid that a lot of remainers said that these were the only two options before the vote (and, I think, a fair few of us thought 2 years wasn't long enough for a 'no deal').

Two years is crazy. There should have been planning beforehand and Article 50 should have been implemented about now - with an extension on the table.

The Ireland/NI border, regardless of the DUP, cut out a lot of other options.

It could have been a customs union in the Irish Sea - the government could have accepted that if the DUP hadn't stuck its oar in.

But the point still remains that a lot of leave voters thought they knew what they were voting for (and I don't include you in this) when, as proven on this thread, they had no idea whatsoever

I thought we were voting for an orderly withdrawal, staying on good terms with our European friends but free to strike our own path too. I certainly didn't voted for 'adequate food supplies'

beorhthelm · Jul 26, 2018

Hotchilidog said:
All of that was predictable. The referendum campaign was high on slogans and soundbites and woefully short on any sort of detail on what a post-Brexit Britain would be like.

it wasnt just the leave campaign high on slogans and sound bites, both sides painted thier vision of future possibilities. both were/are wrong.

the current state was not really that predicable. we could reasonably expect the leaders of leave to have some ideas and strategy sketched out, working groups, think tanks and other policy wonks to have outline plans for implementation on leaving, new trade policy, dealing with alternative scenarios. turns out they'd done sweet fa of this. or at least anyone that had (because i know some have) where ignored or overlooked. and the government deliberately prevented civil service from making any provision, which they would normally do to plan for future events. it didn't need to be like this.

generally, we have all been let down by politicans here. quelle surprise.

WATFORD zero · Jul 26, 2018

Gwylan said:
We could have stayed in the EEA for a start - or something similar. Or negotiated another customs union deal.

Some way back in this thread I pointed out that the negotiations were all based on the premise that we could have our cake and eat it - that was always a non-starter. But we could have accepted that we'd have to give way on various points - maybe free migration, maybe the ECJ, maybe the customs union, maybe financial passporting, maybe CAP etc etc. But we treated negotiations like a poker game with the winner taking the pot and that was never going to end well.

Two years is crazy. There should have been planning beforehand and Article 50 should have been implemented about now - with an extension on the table.

It could have been a customs union in the Irish Sea - the government could have accepted that if the DUP hadn't stuck its oar in.

I thought we were voting for an orderly withdrawal, staying on good terms with our European friends but free to strike our own path too. I certainly didn't voted for 'adequate food supplies'

You've made a lot of very sensible points.

Unfortunately (and there is no way of knowing) I suspect that you don't represent a large proportion of the leave voters and that your preferred exit would be seen as one of the 'softer' options.

However, we are where we are and the main thing that is really worrying me (and lots of others) now though, is how do we go forward from here ? Because I am really struggling to find a way out of this position causing minimum damage.

Any ideas ?

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