May's Brexit Plan

[Nick Jones]

Beast of Balsover......

Agree that he’s an honourable man and would agree with his views on many things. However, I reckon he was wrong to think Corbin would make a decent leader and obviously I think he’s wrong about Europe......

As for the rest of them, the farce continues 

[Toronto Tim]

Just when you thought that Parliament might grasp the nettle and determine a way forward when the government is unable to... they completely whiff on their task.

Farce piled upon farce.

They are now against May's deal, against no deal and, when asked to propose their OWN deal, vote against all those deal options too.  Still, at least that's in keeping with the UK voters - they only managed to vote against something too.

It just goes to prove how easy it is to say that you're AGAINST something, but how hard it is to take responsibility FOR something.  Problem finders, not problem solvers.

Anyone got an idea what happens now?

 

[RogerH]

Hi Tim,

I think the problem started with the Gov't (particularly Cameron) as they allowed a referendum with no proper guidelines in either direction.

You shouldn't let people do their own thing willy nilly because it is far too complex an issue.

Everybody should have been given 'true' impartial facts (that sounds silly)  There was nothing of substance for the exit bunch and a load of rubbish for the remainers.

 

The Gov't then compounded their errors by going, ill prepared cap in hand top the EU asking for the crumbs. 

They should have had a completed to put forward with the option of saying bye bye.

We now have the Labour and SNP making political gain with no regard to the referendum result.

 

It is no longer a farce.  Brian Rix made the farce something to enjoy. This is not enjoyable.  We are being humiliated.

You wouldn't run a car club like this - actually !!!!!!!!

Roger

 

PS - it was good meeting up with you the other day.

 

 

 

[JohnD]

It wasn't that they "allowed" a referendum, Cameron assumed in his entitled state that he would succeed in persuading the EU to revoke their most basic tenets, free movement in particular.   He saw no problem with fulfilling his promise, as he would never have to do so.   How could He not win?

And then, when he didn't, he ran away, leaving the Tory Government with the biggest liability since WW2.    Which they, hampered by the Fifth Column of the ERG, who should be the ones labelled traitors and "enemies of the people", went ahead and arranged, on the most virulent of party lines.  No, "We should think this through first", just "OK, Dave, whatever".     No leadership from top to bottom, and holes below the waterline by the irresponsible sniping from its own backstabbing members.

Meanwhile, the Labour party which in any sensible system would have taken up the opposition role and opposed Brexit, was first distracted as so often by a leadership election, and then by accusations of bias against Jews.     So prolonged and so bitter was the second that, following the America's Trump election and the Mueller Enquiry, we should suspect was fomented by the Russians.       The Western left wing has long provided "Useful idiots" for them, and they have done it again.

John

PS "Entitled"   - Cameron is the only Tory PM who has NOT been offered a knighthood or lordship on resignation.     That says much about the opinion of his 'peers'.

 

[oldtuckunder]

1 hour ago, RogerH said:

You shouldn't let people do their own thing willy nilly because it is far too complex an issue.

Everybody should have been given 'true' impartial facts (that sounds silly)

polls have suggested for a long time that given a vote (particularly after some horrendous event) the public would bring back hanging, another type of exit that parliament would never approve.

what should gave happened was the referendum should as it was enacted have been advisory. the government should have acted on that and then negotiated with the eu on what a future relationship would look like(yes might have taken a couple of years, but there would have been no bitterness or time pressure, and hey we have blown 3 years getting nowhere anyway). then the people being much better informed could have been given a second binding vote, remain or exit with new deal, if it was exit then article 50 should have been triggered, the settlement agreed, smooth transition towards an agreed destination. 

[Janner]

5 hours ago, oldtuckunder said:

polls have suggested for a long time that given a vote (particularly after some horrendous event) the public would bring back hanging, another type of exit that parliament would never approve.

what should gave happened was the referendum should as it was enacted have been advisory. the government should have acted on that and then negotiated with the eu on what a future relationship would look like(yes might have taken a couple of years, but there would have been no bitterness or time pressure, and hey we have blown 3 years getting nowhere anyway). then the people being much better informed could have been given a second binding vote, remain or exit with new deal, if it was exit then article 50 should have been triggered, the settlement agreed, smooth transition towards an agreed destination. 

Where were you when you were needed?

John

[JohnD]

34 minutes ago, Janner said:

Where were you when you were needed?

John

I was a voter.    Where should  have been?

j.

[Janner]

2 minutes ago, JohnD said:

I was a voter.    Where should  have been?

j.

John

I was refering to oldtuckunders suggested course that the question of leaving, should have taken

I thought it had merit

My question was simple, where was he when he was needed?

I suggest that he had not been invited to Westminster, to offer advice on how the question of leave/remain, should be structured.

John

[zetecspit]

6 hours ago, oldtuckunder said:

what should gave happened was the referendum should as it was enacted have been advisory. the government should have acted on that and then negotiated with the eu on what a future relationship would look like(yes might have taken a couple of years, but there would have been no bitterness or time pressure, and hey we have blown 3 years getting nowhere anyway). then the people being much better informed could have been given a second binding vote, remain or exit with new deal, if it was exit then article 50 should have been triggered, the settlement agreed, smooth transition towards an agreed destination. 

I reckon that just would not happen.

Yes, debates would have happened in parliament, but there would have been the same issue of nobody agreeing to anything, and it would have been a similar, ongoing open wound. And there would have been mounting pressure from UKIP who would have continued to grow in support once they smelt blood. 

As it is the genie is out, and IF article 50 gets revoked, or we get indefinite delays, the strength of UKIP type groups will grow. Just as the voice of opposition to Brexit has grown in the last year or so. Whatever happens, we are in for turbulent times. And long delays are worse (probably) than any of the alternatives.

Edited April 2, 2019 by zetecspit

[JohnD]

As OTU says, the referendum WAS "advisory".   It could not be other, as far back as 2010 the Lords Constitution Committee said that " because of the sovereignty of Parliament, referendums cannot be legally binding in the UK, and are therefore advisory”.

Yet, forced by the ERG Hisbollah, and fearful as ever of party (forget national) unrest, the Tories took it as the Voice Of The People, and set to to implement it, as said by Tusk without any idea of what they actually wanted.   There is indeed a special place in Hell for them, the Opposition Benches, if it were not for the Useful Idiots who currnetly run L:abour.

John

PS The phrase was originally American, but was used by the Italian Communist party after WW2 for non-communists who supported their cause, implying that they did not understand the true implications of Comunnism.

Edited April 2, 2019 by JohnD

[oldtuckunder]

24 minutes ago, Janner said:

My question was simple, where was he when he was needed?

 

screaming at them from deepest Wocestershire 

23 minutes ago, zetecspit said:

Yes, debates would have happened in parliament, but there would have been the same issue of nobody agreeing to anything,

actually no the executive would have been given a mandate to negotiate and propose further legislation on a deal to be put to the electorate. parliament wouldn't have had a say in that, the only reason they have a vote this time is because ms whats her name went to the high court who ruled that parliament should have the final say (remember traitor judges headlines) and the only reason she went to the high court then was that we were already into May Way or  No Way and silly red lines that was blindingly obvious would be disastrous, otherwise there would have been no great panic over brexit without a clock ticking. and who knows there might have been a sensible proposal for our change in relationship with eu that not only got the fuck jonny foreigner vote, but almost might have looked reasonable to many who wished for a sensible closer relationship. but we will never know now thanks to May's pig headedness and her need to appease the erg and keep the UDF on side

alan

sorry should have been UDP, but not 100% certain there is clear blue water there?

[Nick Jones]

1 hour ago, zetecspit said:

And there would have been mounting pressure from UKIP who would have continued to grow in support once they smelt blood. 

I hardly think policy should be set by a fear of the far right...... I don’t think that leads to a UK any of us wants. They need to be contained and dealt with and giving them their way doesn’t do this!!!

[zetecspit]

Indeed, but UKIP was getting a significant proportion of the vote, and could have grown further. The UKIP message had a strong appeal to a great many people, and their message could again be resurrected, gaining a large amount of support. All in just the same way Jezza got massive popularity when he was appearing a festivals etc. The country chose to be divergent having had too many years of beige centralist government. But being reflective, Jezza was dead against the EU, though he won't be admitting to that now. So centralists seem to like the EU and stability, the more extreme groups don't. My politics are mildly either side of the middle. Too far away is bound to lead to disappointment.

[Nick Jones]

So much of the UKIP "message" is based on falsehoods, peddled by that mendacious little twerp Farrage.....  Just like the brexit message.

[zetecspit]

But an appealing message all the same. Start talking sovereignty, independance and chuck in a few daily mail headlines and it all seems a great idea. To some. Quite a lot of smoke and mirrors involved.

[Nick Jones]

4 minutes ago, zetecspit said:

Quite a lot of smoke and mirrors involved.

Yes, and depressingly effective on top of years of EU bashing from the "top" down.

A Guardian link (to annoy the Torygraph readers), which I found quite amusing (as far as I can find anything about this whole sorry saga amusing)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/02/macho-drama-queens-brexit-steve-baker-mark-francois

But more relevant perhaps is this contribution in the comments it provoked from one Harvey John Brown:

"Mark Francois is the Westminster equivalent of one of those zoo chimps, probably driven mad by confinement, who furiously masturbate in front of tourists.

Which is exactly why David Cameron hired him to break the Tories away from the largest Centre right EU group in the Parliament, create the European Conservatives and Reformists Group , choosing Polish and Hungarian neo-Nazis, homophobes and antisemites as their fellow members in 2009, as this paper reported:
Cracks appear in David Cameron's EU parliamentary group 
Edward McMillan-Scott
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/may/04/cameron-euro-alliance-tories?fbclid=IwAR1Tt8CEe2DlmYTgVjX3KYK2yRvYmr1tvJq9-vK8a_wXGLD9nWRXrSUJdB4

Where's Atlantic Bridge member and Father in law to Dave, Lord Astor?
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/The_Atlantic_Bridge
Dave? 
Where's Dave?
Here is David Cameron, soon after the ERG/Atlantic Bridge group of his Party had voted him as Leader, fulfilling his part of the deal to them and calling for an EU Referendum.
David Cameron Promised EU Referendum in 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ2n7oMcSi0
Guy Verhofstadt January 2013: “[David Cameron’s] speech [laying out his vision for a new U.K.-EU relationship] was full of inconsistencies, displaying a degree of ignorance about how the EU works… [He] will not succeed if he attempts to hold his European partners to ransom. He seems to be jeopardizing the interests of his country for internal party stability. Britain has suffered over the years from the chronic failure of politicians to make a positive case for Europe and counter the untruths in much of the populist press.”
Ukip hadn't won a seat and the EU was 10th on the order of Uk public's concerns until son of an offshore Banker and ex-ITV PR man, David Cameron pushed for an EU Referendum soon after his meteoric ERG-voted in rise to Tory Leader.
In 2013, Dave Cameron personally wrote to the then president of the European council, Herman Van Rompuy, to prevent offshore trusts from being dragged into an EU-wide crackdown on tax avoidance requesting that trusts should not automatically be subject to the same transparency requirements as companies.
The EU had planned to increase transparency on the dealings of offshore bodies by publishing a central register of their ultimate owners but, in a letter unearthed by the Financial Times, Cameron said,
“It is clearly important we recognise the important differences between companies and trusts … This means that the solution for addressing the potential misuse of companies — such as central public registries — may well not be appropriate generally.”
Rather than holding trusts to the same standards as companies by forcing them to make their owners publicly known, the Prime Minister argued that the EU should ask the Organisation for Cooperation and Development and the G20 to agree on a global framework for transparency agreements.
However, despite these protests, the EU has now moved forward with these plans, and rules are set to come into force in 2019. The UK has had legislation on the marketing of tax schemes since 2004, but these new rules would force all EU Member states to share details of all tax schemes every three months to be displayed in a central directory of avoidance schemes. These plans would tighten up restrictions on UK based intermediaries that take part in off-shoring and tax avoidance, of which Britain is a global leader alongside the US and Hong Kong.'
https://medium.com/the-jist/was-eu-tax-evasion-regulation-the-reason-for-the-brexit-referendum-980ba88a8077?fbclid=IwAR3mTqm5SZM07mj7BoYA8VqqV-Gt4lo7s1B_cPoer2tOrxkCwVy_Mxp15TE"

Helps explain why the rich boys want us out of the EU....

[Nick Jones]

As for sovereignty..... I fear far more of that is being handed over willingly if unknowingly to the corporations and tech giants than was ever "taken" by the EU.  And the EU is trying to reign them in.  That also goes a long way to explain the money behind leave - and could ultimately prove the undoing of the EU with the money buying useful idiots all over the EU.

[zetecspit]

Sovereignty, or rather perceived sovereignty, is a genuinely important issue to most people within the UK, the EU and wordwide. We all like to feel we belong to a country with its own special characyeristics, and, err, football team. 

The nonsense within the UK started years ago. When I was at Uni, flats were not allowed to hang a Union flag outside a window. But a Jamaican one and accompany that with some sweet smelling smoke? no problem. International students could hang their flags out. But the Brit majority? No, as it was racist/xenophobic. It was like admitting to being British was a dirty/guilty thing. And that is the sort of stupid thinking that perpetuates the UKIP thinking. 

And yes, once you get above football/sport, food etc, the world is ruled by the multi-nationals. British Airways, the obvious company that most think of as doing business here, just doesn't. But they are small fry compared to the countless others most of us know nothing of. They are the ones pulling the strings, and I do wonder if they, like the more secretive bankers, see an advantage in the UK being out? Not much noise coming from them, or maybe what we do makes little difference to them?

What was interesting is we had some friends down over the weekend. One runs a business importing stuff from Australia, 4.5% tariff at present I think he said. He sells within the UK and a few other EU countries. He is not at all worried. He mentioned another company who started exporting after the financial crash a few years ago, and how they managed by exporting heavily into Europe and now worldwide. They have made arrangements by setting up an office in Eire, which somehow negates virtually all export issues. I don't pretend to understand exactly how this all works, but it seems that small businesses at least CAN prepare and not be afraid of leaving. At least that is what I have now heard from somebody whose living depends on it. 

Sorry, idle thoughts on the past and future...

[Janner]

Something else to interest the little grey cells;

BBC R4's The Today prog reported at 07.16 this AM that our good friend JR-M voted for Mrs Mays exit plan, third time around. 

 

John

[zetecspit]

He was on telly a few days ago saying he would. Think he (and others) realised that voting for would be the only way Brexit would happen, and then once through etc I expect the Brexit Bunch would intend to apply a "few tweeks".

[Nick Jones]

Maybe the light is slowly seeping through the dense bone and entitlement shields of the heads of the ERG pot that Mays “plan” (which is in fact only a plan to have a plan at some point) might be their only shot at their holy grail....

[oldtuckunder]

4 hours ago, zetecspit said:

They have made arrangements by setting up an office in Eire, which somehow negates virtually all export issues. I don't pretend to understand exactly how this all works, but it seems that small businesses at least CAN prepare and not be afraid of leaving.

yes they can and we did! ironically last thursday (pre brexit day) we completed what had been a two year journey to transfer our software business into a friend and long term partners german software company (we hadn't been in a rush and recent non brexit issues had made us get our skates on and finish it). as a software company our imports/exports between eu and usa are normally almost invisible as consulting,maintenance/support and the software itself all slides invisibly and electronically, nobody at a border ever opens a packet!  its really just knowledge and money that moves. like a lot of british companies we were a bridge between partners and their customers in europe and partners and their customers in north america. the americans liked dealing with  a british partner on projects rather than a number of eu ones, and via us being in the eu any usa supplied services just sailed through an invisible frictionless border from which we took a decent slice of revenue. likewise for our eu partners we provided an english speaking front face and contact point for american business customers, who to this day are far more insular in outlook and hate having to do any transactions in foreign currency. being in the eu also meant that we were free to come and go and work if necessary in europe with partners on projects.

the trigger that started our planning was after the brexit vote when our largest american partner asked us if we would guarantee that if we were out of the eu that they wouldn't suffer from any tariff/duty/import hits.

at that time we couldn't guarantee it, and whilst i'm certain we could have navigated our way around what 2+ years ago(and funnily enough  "or not"  still today) is a completely unknown future uk/eu relationship. it was a catalyst that made us look at the complete business, and decide for a whole host of reasons that  changing the whole model made sense so started planning to do it!

major impact on british economy? no a couple of registered companies disappear, an unnoticeable amount disappears from the uk gdp, corporation tax that would cover the repair of a few pot holes is lost, a bit of paye,ni and pension contributions are lost, maybe £50k's of small company services like payroll, accountancy, legal, insurance, and all the little office supplies is no longer uk sourced.

as individuals the little band of us there were will no longer be directors/employees, but rather self employed (which does actually have more advantages than we first realised) and a slightly complex revenue/royalty formula will keep the wolf from the door and us out of what ever bizarre model of eu/uk cross border employment freedom of movement arises after a hard/soft/no brexit.

my long winded point, if it makes sense for a very small company triggered by brexit to make changes, i can't believe there aren't a lot of larger ones with far more at stake that haven't or aren't doing similar things, which may or may not have an impact on the uk economy regardless of the brexit outcome now.

alan  

[PaulAA]

I heartily recommend taking a peek at the free bits over at telegraph.co.uk, which is so incensed by the latest turn of events that it may implode in a whirlwind of righteous indignation.  Since truth has long been a largely forgotten commodity at The Telegraph, the confusion of reality as their imaginary ship floats away is amusing.

Paul

[oldtuckunder]

i see what you mean

1. 

   03 Apr 2019, 2:06pm

   Britons beware, you won't be able to take your favourite foods on holiday with you if it's a no-deal Brexit

   PREMIUM

[PaulAA]

Alan

Register and you get one free article a month.  I registered as Boris Johnson (fnar! fnar!), but I see that my comments btl disappear as soon as I post them.  Another bar I'm barred from...

Back to the one free article: aim for either Asa Bennett (mad as a box of frogs) or Allison Pearson - both are a complete hoot and fully paid up members of the Reich Mogg for God fanclub.

Paul