Will we stay or will we go?

[Guest The Beer Baron]

I loved watching that program! Think I could give that assault course a good go nowadays.

[Teuchter]

8 hours ago, SanguinePar said:

I believe the next plan is to settle all disputes with Europe via a pan European episode of the Krypton Factor.

Jeux Sans Frontieres surely and not the Krypton Factor?

Successful negotiations would give the UK the right to call it It's a Knockout.

[SanguinePar]

Just now, Teuchter said:

Successful negotions 

I was with you until this ;-)

[Vinnie]

10 hours ago, SanguinePar said:

MPs argue about whether they should have a right to vote on a range of Brexit outcomes, then decide they do, then have the votes (on 8 possibilities) and reject them all.

You sound surprised?  Glory hunting politicians all looking to raise their profiles by being the one who strikes a Brexit deal that the EU are disinterested in renegotiating anyway? 

No solution is going to suit all of the people all of the time.  We've all agreed as much for months now.  There is a negotiated deal agreed (albeit it seems in many aspects its on the EUs terms rather than ours), evidently its not the deal some hardline Brexiteers wanted, so they wont vote for it, while Remainers believe voting down Mays deal will slow down the whole process.  May has already stated that there will be no second referendum to ratify her deal, or reverse Brexit entirely.  The EU have allowed an extension, I can imagine it'll get to a point where the EU will turn around and tell us that they cant wait for us to get our house in order and they'll decide the Brexit date.  

[Guest The Beer Baron]

And rightly so. Nobody in the EU wanted the UK to leave as far as I know. Get on with it or get out should be the message now.

[Vinnie]

The markets are all quite volatile at the moment due to the continued uncertainty.  At least, once we have a outcome, the markets will settle and we can get on with moving forward and "fixing" the country.  

[Guest The Beer Baron]

Whatever that means. Not a dig personally, but it's one of those cliche statements.

[Vinnie]

13 minutes ago, The Beer Baron said:

Whatever that means. Not a dig personally, but it's one of those cliche statements.

Whatever what means?  "Fixing the country"? 

It is a bit of a cliche, but after Brexit, there will be some adjustments to be made - whether we leave with a deal or not, there is likely to some sort of short term pain while we get used to being a standalone country.  Whether thats creating jobs lost by foreign companies moving out, whether thats creating new trade deals, whether thats repairing society after the various fall outs, whether thats fixing Westminster and getting back to having a Parliament that folk could put more faith in?  All of the above, and more, to varying degrees?  

[Guest The Beer Baron]

Fair enough.

[SanguinePar]

4 hours ago, Vinnie said:

You sound surprised?  Glory hunting politicians all looking to raise their profiles by being the one who strikes a Brexit deal that the EU are disinterested in renegotiating anyway? 

Not surprised at all, though I don't agree with your glory-hunting accusation either. That line was merely an attempt at levity in this darkly comic situation.

4 hours ago, Vinnie said:

No solution is going to suit all of the people all of the time.  We've all agreed as much for months now.  There is a negotiated deal agreed (albeit it seems in many aspects its on the EUs terms rather than ours), evidently its not the deal some hardline Brexiteers wanted, so they wont vote for it, while Remainers believe voting down Mays deal will slow down the whole process.  May has already stated that there will be no second referendum to ratify her deal, or reverse Brexit entirely.  The EU have allowed an extension, I can imagine it'll get to a point where the EU will turn around and tell us that they cant wait for us to get our house in order and they'll decide the Brexit date.  

If we're using 'things that May has stated' as some predictor of the future we're in real trouble... 😉

After all, she said over 100 times that tomorrow would not shift as leaving day, yet tomorrow she will (or maybe won't, who knows?) bring her deal before the House for the 3rd 'Meaningful Vote' (meaningful votes being another thing she said wouldn't and shouldn't happen - despite saying at the start she would engage with Parliament and then pointedly and repeatedly resisting doing so - until the courts told her otherwise) in an attempt to extend to 22 May, before which she (now) says she will quit (yet another thing she said she wasn't going to do).

The only certainty in all this seems to be that whatever she says won't happen, is almost destined to occur. Given which, I welcome her insistence that there'll be no 2nd referendum because that only seems to make it all the more likely.

She has to get it through by tomorrow though or we default to 12 April instead - time at last for her to compromise on a proposal that I think would get through parliament by adding a confirmatory referendum (so far the most successful Brexit proposal with 268 votes last night) onto her deal, with Remain as the other option.

She does that, she gets the vote passed, and the people get to vote on something concrete and agreed rather than something almost entirely undefined which was open to more than a dozen interpretations as to its true meaning - as witnessed in the indicative votes process yesterday.

 

 

[SanguinePar]

1 hour ago, Vinnie said:

Whatever what means?  "Fixing the country"? 

It is a bit of a cliche, but after Brexit, there will be some adjustments to be made - whether we leave with a deal or not, there is likely to some sort of short term pain while we get used to being a standalone country.  Whether thats creating jobs lost by foreign companies moving out, whether thats creating new trade deals, whether thats repairing society after the various fall outs, whether thats fixing Westminster and getting back to having a Parliament that folk could put more faith in?  All of the above, and more, to varying degrees?  

On that last point, I think Parliament is absolutely proving its worth here by holding the government to account and not simply rolling over to May's instinct to bulldozer her plans through. That's exactly what it's there to do.

[SanguinePar]

On reports that the government may now try to hold a vote tomorrow on the Withdrawal Agreement but not the Political Declaration (which the law says have to be voted on together not separately):

Quote

 

"The House will need to know more about what it is debating, and what it isn't debating," Speaker John Bercow says.

"I would hope that more clarity will be given at the end of the day," he adds.

Labour MP Chris Bryant calls out that the government providing more clarity is "unlikely".

Mr Bercow then says: "I’m not betting on it."

 

I love John Bercow 🙂

[Superally]

It's the 29th March, have we left yet?

 

[Vinnie]

Been discussing this in the office today.  Out of twenty staff, half say they dont understand it or they dont care and are bored of it.  It staggers me that folk dont try to follow it, or just give up when it becomes a little bit more complex.

 

 

[Guest The Beer Baron]

48 minutes ago, Vinnie said:

Been discussing this in the office today.  Out of twenty staff, half say they dont understand it or they dont care and are bored of it.  It staggers me that folk dont try to follow it, or just give up when it becomes a little bit more complex.

 

 

Sadly, that's all too common now. Not enough people actually pay attention to the really serious issues, but what was Kim Kardashian wearing last night?!