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Finally, after 2 hours of silence from No10, a statement: DexEU spokesman: "We have not, and will not, agree to the House of Commons binding the Government's hands in the negotiations". Grieve et al thought the PM just had.
Comments
Theresa needs to resign and her successor (Boris) needs to go immediately to the country and seek endorsement for their version of Brexit.
This needs to happen before October.
Everyone should stop playing silly buggers and just get the hell on with it.
She is all things to all people.
She is vacillating.
She says what the audience wants to hear, regardless of contradictions.
This makes her a classic libdem.
Fertility rate certainly has a relationship with economic growth, but it is chicken and egg. I would regard a declining fertility rate as evidence of a mature economy, rather than as a cause of it. Largely both economic performance rising, and fertility rate falling are caused by women working outside the home.
She is doing what she always does: doing whatever is necessary to ensure the immediate hurdle is jumped, before moving onto and worrying about the next.
AI could throw much of this out, on both sides of the equation.
The worst offender is Mrs May herself. She has lost the trust of absolutely everybody.
The Conservatives cannot possibly fight a general election in a coherent manner while they are still papering over the cracks.
Thank God for the World Cup starting. A penalty shoot out may be the most sensible way out.
Of course we could have had these rows before triggering A50.
Or even before we voted.
Indeed much employment growth is in semi skilled service occupations, from care homes to hospitality. These are not readily automated, or at least not in a way customers like.
My guess is that the Tory party would go for soft, EEA-ish, in the Single Market but outside the Customs Union. Then the government would have to try and win that from the EU, and if they fail, the voters would punish them in 2022.
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That's unless the MPs can work out a way to stitch things up by orchestrating an uncontested leadership election, which sounds like a tough problem for a party that's fighting like ferrets in a sack.
A. A constitutional crisis
B. A national emergency
C. Civil unrest
Or maybe a combination of all three... I don't think we have time to wait for boundary changes.
This mess is starting to get serious now...
One clear benefit for a post Brexit future is then the cruel 5% VAT on fuel bills could be abolished,A 5% cut universally in everyone's fuel bill will prove there is a Brexit dividend and I suspect be very popular.
Imagine a manifesto that pledges an extra £350m a week for the NHS and the abolition of VAT on fuel after we leave the EU.
Whoever had the guts to do it would romp home...
Personally, I was always skeptical of her abilities to be PM but ended up voting for the Conservatives in 2017 because I could not contemplate Corbyn as a viable PM.
But I still fail to see the sense in pissing off both sides at once.
And why on earth do you think trying to hold another snap election isn’t playing silly buggers.
But yes, May’s departure is beginning to look inevitable. Putting off any sort of decision, yet again, in the absurd hope that something might turn up and make the decision for her, isn’t even ridiculous any more. Just pitiful.
As nothing is achievable apart from car crash Brexit, or to exit to the December transition, with a final agreement on trade along the road, we need to choose between those two. So we either stick to our word on the Irish backstop (therefore indefinite CU) while the final deal is arranged or we crash out.
In reality the choice is that simple binary one. Nothing else could be agreed in time apart from A50 being withdrawn.
It's a good thing for the Tories I'm in a safe seat for them, because they aren't getting my vote next time.
The only thing keeping her in place is the Tory party's inability to settle on an obvious Brexiteer (or Remainer) to replace her.
We are headed for a long hot dangerous summer. I can see all possible outcomes, from No Deal to No Brexit.
2. Because this Parliament is not viable for the task it's trying to achieve. In normal times, OK, we'd be able to soldier on but these are anything but normal times. It was obvious on 9th June 2017 that it wouldn't be a viable Parliament for exiting the European Union and so it has proved.
The only way Brexit can be delivered is with either a unity government (non starter with Jezza leading Lab) or one party to have a healthy enough majority to withstand the loons on either side holding it to ransom.
Look at the election results in 1923 and 1924, worlds apart. On the other hand the two in 1974 came away with similar outcomes so you just never know.
But this Parliament is not a viable parliament to deliver Brexit so they've got to try something.
She cannot rely on parliamentary arithmetic, and it is increasingly difficult to see how she gets her party's rabblerousers to keep backing her.
No one else has time to try anything else (it seems obvious they lacked the guts to move earlier, and are now relying on blaming her for the whole mess down the line)
Trying to arrange another new election does not guarantee a positive outcome for either the country or her party
Add all that up, and she needs to take the choice out of parliament's hands somehow so it at least has a chance to get passed, and with the added benefit there is greater chance of Labour's divisions on the issue being exposed as much as her own for a change, so it's a stalemate between them at least.
I simply don't see how she manages to get any sort of deal through this parliament, given the various stances and how things have been managed, nor can parliament realistically sort it all out in time should said deal not work.
She'll never get that past her Cabinet much less her backbenchers....
http://survation.com/conservatives-labour-neck-and-neck-in-our-initial-post-local-election-polling/
But frankly it still seems more plausible than expecting to have the numbers for a deal after deceiving MPs (or so several are now claiming - and that matters more than whether May feels she did deceive them), or that parliament will magically be able to resolve its factional complications in the event May's deal collapses, which it clearly will.
B ) Accept the deal and Leave
C ) Reject the deal and Leave on WTO terms
Conducted under AV
The Tories fall in the eye of the crisis, Corbyn doesn't get the support to form a government and a unity candidate emerges from the midst.
Depends not only on enough support for the unity candidate to gain confidence, but on the exact parliamentary rules governing precedence of trying to form a government, e.g. could Corbyn run the clock down and prevent a candidate from emerging?
Such an administration would last no more than 3-6 months on a very limited mandate.
I have wondered aloud whether Vince Cable represented slight value for covering in the next PM market at 125/1: last I saw be is in to 100/1. Select committee chairs look in partp like a cabinet in writing. You may count that as one of my pet theories on the edge of sanity, if you wish.
This is NEW investment, not stuff already committed before the vote.
http://www.cityam.com/287193/uk-tech-industry-pulled-more-than-three-times-much
Hmm.
PS - this might explain why, to me, walking around the place, London still feels like a huge boomtown. Seething with people, dynamism and ideas, and far livelier and more inventive than any other great European city.
That said there are more ominous, distant signs, euro-clearing moving to Frankfurt, etc.
We shall see.
No doubt coming up with the question is another major complication, but if they cannot agree even within a cabinet this far down the line, they aren't going to do so in the remaining time we have, in which case let May try to get what she can, and have it presented to the people to break the deadlock.
Hardly ideal.
He don't need to be good, it may be enough to simply be there when the time comes.
***
"Boris has charisma which is probably the most important attribute needed in any political leader today so I would certainly not count him out"
***
I was a big fan of Boris but he hasn't been a huge triumph at the FCO. He has charisma but he seems to lack some X factor - Churchill had charisma but ALSO had serious gravitas, when needed.
Boris doesn't do serious very well. He's ALWAYS looking for the neat gag or the biting sarcasm or the witty way out of a difficult question.
And right now we want serious.
But who else is there? It's a pretty poor choice. Gove is unelectable. Davis is so diminished.
Priti Patel, Sajid Javid or maybe Raab? Fuck knows.
Assuming she somehow survived a leadership contest and was able to push on with her second referendum plan you think it would get through Parliament as it currently stands?
It would just finish up in deadlock like everything else.
There is NO MAJORITY in this Parliament to do anything radical like leaving the EU or having a second referendum to try and over-turn the first referendum.
Be sensible.
Maybe a thread to illuminate us on how it would work?
As Trump, Thatcher, Corbyn, Berlusconi, George W Bush etc have showed if you have some charisma and get your supporters out to vote for you it does not matter if the other side think you are the spawn of Satan or a complete imbecile
This website is a safe space for us all to debate the issues... in real life it's so much harder. I know where most of my friends and family stand on the Brexiteer/Remainer scale and I now choose not to even talk about the topic with those of them who are on the opposite side to me - it's not worth the hassle and I'm certain they feel the same way. I think this scenario is playing out all over the country as we all edge away from engaging with the other side and just discuss the issues with those who agree with us.
Goodness knows, I've tried to understand what makes Brexiteers tick and I just can't get into that mindset. I'm sure that Brexiteers have also tried to understand what motivates we Remainers too and reached the conclusion that they'll never understand us.
So what now? I've always said, on here and elsewhere, that I accept the referendum result. But, in my case, accepting it goes very much hand-in-hand with resenting it. My belief in democracy is strong but it's of no comfort at all weighed against the extreme bitterness that I feel towards all Brexiteer politicians (but not, I stress, against ordinary Brexit voters).
Brexit is going to happen and, when it does, the Brexiteer politicians need to get off their lazy backsides and show the rest of us that it can work. If it doesn't work then they will have broken the country beyond repair.
“With world-class universities and a diverse international talent pool, London is a centre for creative energy and innovation.”
This takes us back to perhaps the best piece ever published on PB:
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/06/13/guest-slot-the-impact-of-leaving-the-eu-on-londons-technology-start-up-scene/
A government that wants to reduce net immigration to 100,000 a year, and that refuses visas to doctors we desperately need, has to come up with a post-Brexit immigration that keeps the talent flowing in.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/12/government-relax-immigration-rules-overseas-doctors
I predict the next move will be to take students out of the stats. It's basically only TMay who opposes this move, and as she weakens (or falls) the change will be made.
Javid has a bit of the John Major boy from Brixton about him and Priti Patel has something about her too and having a BAME leader would annoy the hell out of Corbyn so if not Boris I would go for one of those two
Or maybe just a busy time on the allotment
By all accounts he did well.
"The what now? I've been making jam!"