[Politics] Brexit

BigGully said:

You weren't commenting on any future scenario it wasn't a forecast, you have just scrolled back over your timeline found some of your previous posts and somehow think they suddenly become valid as they fit in your mind what is happening today, you really are a numpty.

Click to expand...

Mellotron said:

Simple question for debate;

If No Deal loses by a BIG margin tonight, is Brexit over?

Click to expand...

WATFORD zero said:

Well it seems that 18 months ago, when HT tried to explain the pharmaceutical industry to you, you suspected that it was all being done in the background and would all work out fine





Well that all turned out fine

Maybe you should have asked Meg to borrow her crystal ball.

Click to expand...

Publius Ovidius said:

I personally believe corbyn is rubbing his hands every time there is a vote. His main aim is power...he wants a general election...he calls for one every time the government has a problem( which is pretty constant now)

If he went to the country for a GE I am not convinced he would get in.

Of course if she calls a ge! She would step down anyway as she said she would, therefore I expect the leader to be Hunt or some other chinless Tory wonder.

I would vote remain as I have seen what this uncertainty has done to my company who have lost people in their droves and customers move to European data centres out of the UK. Trouble is the horse has bolted and they are not coming back.

Click to expand...

BigGully said:

You still sitting in your spare bedroom that you call your office, doing international trade ??

Click to expand...

Green Cross Code Man said:

I won't have much respect for Parliament if they do not hold to the promises made in their manifestos.

Click to expand...

Blue Valkyrie said:

May can still bring a 3rd vote on her deal - and perhaps pitch it as her deal v No Brexit.

Click to expand...

nicko31 said:

So whatever happened to the EU blinking at the 11th hour? Any Brexiters on here still convinced they still implode as they need us more than we need them?

Click to expand...

Herr Tubthumper said:

Correct. When I posted my previous comment it wasn’t a forecast; it was my view at the time. The clue was in the tense. Country in crisis. Britain on the brink. Both were present tense. As for the rest of you’re post, as per usual, I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make.

PS do everyone a favour and get some English lessons.

Click to expand...

GT49er said:

Remain isn't specific. It doesn't cover future changes the EU might inflict upon us.

The options would have to be:
a).Remain (with a promise that we'll never join the Euro).
b).Remain (but with guaranteed no greater unification).
c).Remain (without a European army).
d),Remain (but without a & b)
e).Remain (but without a & c)
f).Remain (but without b & c)
g).Remain (but without a,b or c)

That would level the playing field somewhat - but I don't think our shyster parliamentarians would want a level playing field a second time around, would they.

Click to expand...

Hamilton said:

That ideology started 40 years ago when we conveniently started blaming Europe for all our ills.

Click to expand...

A1X said:

Poor old David Davies was adamant the German car manufacturers would come to our rescue. Last night he voted for the deal. It's kind of tragic really, the moment the hope left him...

Click to expand...

A few weeks ago, Amber Rudd was on a train to Warrington when she was accosted by a passenger shouting abuse. The work and pensions secretary, who no longer has the security that she had as home secretary, sat helpless as the woman screamed at her over and over again that she wished she would die. “That’s what happens when you allow some of the things that have been said about Amber being a traitor,” one friend says.

Ms Rudd has become the latest target for Brexiteer fury after she led efforts to force the prime minister to give parliament the chance to prevent a no-deal Brexit. There were reports that five cabinet ministers wanted her to be sacked and claims that she had destroyed her leadership chances by threatening to delay Britain’s departure from the EU. One newspaper column at the weekend described her as the “selfish Ayatollah of Remain” while a senior Tory was quoted as saying she was “about as popular as Himmler with the grassroots”.

It’s part of a pattern that has seen pro-Europeans from Philip Hammond, the chancellor, to Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, attacked and undermined. “Amber is the European Research Group’s latest lightning rod,” says one senior Tory. Some detect an element of sexism in the fact that she has been targeted more aggressively than her equally mutinous colleagues Greg Clark and David Gauke. There have also been attempts to attack her by association with her brother Roland, chairman of the People’s Vote campaign, as if a powerful female politician must be under the control of a male sibling. “It’s misogyny, one hundred per cent, and they see Amber as the biggest scalp,” according to a friend.

What makes the latest bout of Tory infighting particularly toxic is the suspicion that some of the nastiness has been licensed, or even inspired, by No 10. Although Ms Rudd has been one of Theresa May’s most loyal supporters, Downing Street aides have started to suggest, privately, that the prime minister now regrets bringing her back into cabinet. “The attacks are definitely co-ordinated by No 10,” says a supporter of the work and pensions secretary. “They’ve been calling people and dumping on Amber. It’s disappointing.”

During the 2017 general election campaign, Ms Rudd stood in for Mrs May during the leaders’ television debates, only hours after her father had died, but has not done a live broadcast interview since Christmas. One ally says she has been “banned” by No 10. In one embarrassing moment in January, Jeremy Hunt asked her why they had both been on the Today programme on the same day and she had to explain that while he was allowed to do the 8.10am live slot, she had been told by Downing Street that she could only do a pre-recorded interview on welfare reform. As an ally puts it, she’s gone from being seen as “an ultra-loyalist to on the naughty step”.

The work and pensions secretary is said to be sanguine about the black ops campaign against her — “she’s warm but very tough”, says somebody who knows her well. But it seems bizarre that one of the government’s strongest media performers is being sidelined. It’s also foolish for a minister with cross-party appeal to be silenced when the prime minister is trying to win over Labour MPs. A cabinet ally thinks the attacks have gone too far. “I’m so furious,” he says. “It’s totally outrageous. You would think that people would realise that now is a time to come together and resolve differences.” Another minister describes the briefings against Ms Rudd as “disgusting”. “She’s a very good minister. She’s also brave and principled. Unlike the other five leadership wannabes in the cabinet she doesn’t say what the PM wants to hear in cabinet and then rush to brief everyone with something different as soon as we leave the room.”

Of course, Ms Rudd has infuriated Downing Street with her campaign against a no-deal Brexit that she believes would be catastrophic for the country. But she and her fellow pro-Europeans only went public with their threat to resign because the prime minister refused on multiple occasions to give them private reassurances.

Far from being a betrayal, it was brave and honest to put the national interest before their own political advancement. Despite No 10’s protestations, the impact on the negotiations will be negligible because parliament had already made clear its opposition to crashing out and was ready to seize control.

The truth is the tensions go beyond Europe. According to one senior Tory, No 10 was “irate” when Ms Rudd linked rising demand for food banks to the introduction of universal credit, which she has seen at first hand in her Hastings constituency. The prime minister and the chancellor have also rejected her appeals for the benefits freeze, which has one more year to run, to be scrapped.

Having been forced to resign as home secretary, then brought back after only a few months, the work and pensions secretary has been outspoken in her demands for changes to the welfare system. Perhaps she feels she did not do enough to overturn Mrs May’s “hostile environment” on immigration, which contributed to the Windrush scandal that triggered her resignation last year. She seems liberated by her return to high office but the Tory party has become increasingly detached from the compassionate Conservatism she champions.

I am told that Ms Rudd has decided not to stand for the Tory leadership if a contest takes place this year because she thinks a pro-European like her could never win the support of the party members. Indeed, she would never have come out so stridently against a no-deal Brexit had she been trying to woo the increasingly Eurosceptic grassroots. “She’s a leader and always has been,” says one cabinet minister, “but if Amber had been thinking of personal ambition she would not have done what she did.”

She will, of course, be a powerful kingmaker. There is talk that she could stand on a joint ticket with Boris Johnson or Michael Gove. “She thinks that the next leader has to be a Brexiteer and sometimes it’s better the devil you know,” one friend says. But a party that wanted to attract new voters, stand on the centre ground and put the Europe rows behind it would be looking for someone like Ms Rudd to represent it.

If the Conservatives were serious about resembling modern Britain they would not be denigrating one of their most talented women, or threatening to deselect Sam Gyimah, an impressive black MP, or discussing ousting Nick Boles, an intelligent gay politician. While David Cameron had an A-list of candidates to promote diversity, Theresa May seems to be presiding over a hit-list of moderates that will only narrow the party’s appeal. The treatment of Amber Rudd is just another symptom of the terrible state the Tories are in.

Click to expand...

Thunder Bolt said:

She wasn't forced to stand for leadership, and her husband has done rather well with his businesses whilst she has been the leader.

Click to expand...

spence said:

There should never be a second vote.

Click to expand...

heathgate said:

Nope... they will want a split in the Leave vote and they are so full of their own self importance, they think that the general public won't notice their skullduggery.

Click to expand...

lawros left foot said:

If we have a Sussex King and Queen shouldn’t it be someone who has been to the county more than once?

Click to expand...