It does get ever so confusing to the simple folk of the land. I thought leave just meant leaving as in bye, see ya later! All these negotiations are tedious. Stay in this, stay in that, leave this, leave that etc etc. Didn't Liam fox say it was going to be easy?? With nobody having a Scooby do on any deal or what will be agreed, if there even is any agreement, it really does start to make a mockery of 'democracy' and the referendum. For arguements sake, if May and the EU manage to finalise some form of deal, then have we truly left as voted for?
My answer to that, Bob, is that if we leave the Customs Union and can therefore enter into trade agreements with countries around the world without restriction, and if we leave the Single Market and can therefore end freedom of movement of people and are free to choose whom we want to bring in, and if there are no more payments to Brussels and we make our own laws, then we will leave as the majority voted in the referendum.
Good reply mate. So let me get this right...anything less than the above mentioned will (to the majority who voted) be not what they voted for?
Yes, that's right. I've had this discussion with Strolls before. It was made plain during the referendum campaign by Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, Gove etc that leaving the EU meant leaving the Single Market and Customs Union. So all this stuff from Remain MP's that "it wasn't on the ballot paper" is disingenuous because it was made clear before the vote what the implications were for a Leave vote, and 52% voted for it.
........and we won't all be poorer (no one voted for that), and the NHS gets an extra £350m per week (many believed that lie), and there's no Irish border (which there will have to be if we leave the Customs Union)…….etcetera As you know Goldie, I'm contractually obliged to point out here that anything Cameron and Osborne said was Project Fear and therefore not to be believed, whilst many on the Leave side were saying that 'no one is talking about leaving the Single Market' and that Norway was a perfectly good option. Anyone else noticed that all the lies (both sides) were told by Tories? And Farage, of course.
If I recall, you put Hannan's name forward as a Leave supporter who mentioned Norway, Strolls. Not that influential! True about representations and exaggerations coming from Tories. I can barely remember any position taken by Labour. Apart from one or two notable Labour leavers, Labour was mostly passive and heavily conflicted, as it is still
Ellers probably knows more about this than most - having John Redwood as a family friend, IIRC - but some people are saying the Conservatives are actively preparing for another General Election. Apparently (I haven't seen it myself, I'm not in that loop) Mrs May has sent out a missive to people in, or connected to, the party asking for contributions towards a "war chest", making broad, undefinable declarations about promoting various Conservative policies and "a Brexit that works for everyone". Smells like they know the DUP will use their current position as the governments mercenaries to stop any form of Brexit that the Conservatives might be able to shape into something reasonable for the rest of us. So Mrs May is preparing to ditch them and have another go at getting enough seats so they don't need to bribe the DUP to stay in power. That won't be a distraction at all, will it?
I'm no fan of the DUP, but on the border issue they are spot on imo. What they and some others are trying to do is stop May reneging on a vote by 17.4 million people to leave the customs union and single market.
The DUP don't want NI to be treated differently to the the rest of the UK, but they also don't want a hard border with the Republic (at least they say they don't). How would you avoid a hard border without the UK remaining in the Customs Union, Col? It seems to me that Brexit will accelerate the break-up of the Union (with both Scotland and NI leaving) and the re-unification of the island of Ireland (a good thing imo), but the DUP obviously don't want that either. In my view, May should just face them down and tell them that they cannot dictate to the British government. Surely Leave voters should applaud that?
I think she may well be preparing to face down the DUP. If they then vote down the budget (as they have threatened), a GE would happen quite soon. May might see some extra seats and an overall majority in parliament as her only hope of getting a Brexit deal through parliament, so better to go for it now. A highly risky strategy, but when an article in the Torygraph describes you as PRINO (Prime Minister in name only) there really is nowhere else to go. Her appeal for a 'war chest' might not get a great reception, though. I read an article last week which suggested that Tory activists are so disillusioned with May that they are struggling to drum up candidates for the next election.
My tuppence worth..... May should have the balls to stand up on Wednesday and say to the other 27 leaders and the bureaucrats who run the EU that the UK government has offered up their solution of how the leave should be concluded and that the EU negotiators have blocked every move and tell them that that's it, the UK is off, bye.........also saying to each leader that the UK is open for business and her government would love to do a trade deal with each country and all they have to do is pick up the phone........off course we all know this won't happen. The EU negotiators are the one's who are using the Irish border as an issue, neither London nor Dublin want a hard border but the Irish PM Veradker is too lily livered to step out of line with his EU paymasters to say anything, he's only there for photo opportunities, he's known here as # as he's more interested in his profile than actually doing anything......... The border issue is also playing into Sein Fein hands as they want a united Ireland and they hope that this will make it happen by the back door, their new President Mary Lou McDonald is just a reincarnation of Adams, just trying to destabilise Westminster as is not to be trusted as far as she can be thrown...... All in all it's a mess, but from what i can see the UK is big enough to go it alone and the EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU........
I am not ITK regarding JR but I do know that the Tories are confident of winning another election. It will come down to would you want Corbyn as leader? I have also just received an official letter from the local Conservatives asking for donations. For what it's worth I don't think Corbyn would ever get in. He will have everyone against him. He reminds me of a bad Micheal Foot...unelectable.
If we had just one viable alternative to vote for, all of the current leaders would be unelectable. The problem I see is that the ones who look viable from one aspect of their views and abilities are swivel-eyed loons in other areas - yet people may ignore those faults just to get someone fresh in.
I listened to a calm intelligent German minister today on Sky. Although I didn't agree with everything he said he did come up with some interesting points. He said it would be 'disastrous for both sides" and "Brexit would never had happened if they had cut Cameron some slack". He blamed the EU for not adapting (funny heard that before). He went on and said that the "EU should change and offer the UK something whereby we can control movement". Furthermore "the EU needs the UK. Losing the UK is like losing 19 countries from the EU". The money we put it in is massive for the EU. He went on to say that someone should step in and say "Stop! let's sort this out". The bit that I didn't agree with was his reference to another referendum and him thinking Brexit was all about immigration.
Can you believe Labour are 5 points behind the Tories after the last 2 years? That tells us that Corbyn is unelectable. Worse leader they could have had. Libs are too weak as are Greens and Tories for me are the safe bet even with all this Brexit stuff.
It wasn't the only issue, but there can be no doubt that immigration was the issue that swung the result. Don't forget that Labour were 20 points behind a few weeks before the last election.
