Credit Where It's Due Part 1637.6

[ToraToraTora]

Just listened to Jezza's response to the PM, he's bang on, this is a bungled and botched deal. We have screwed it right up. From a position where we should have had a good hand to play to this disaster. As much as I hate COB Labour and all they stand for, it seems we must rely on them to stop this disaster making it through the house and ensuring we leave with no deal.

[jim360]

I was going to suggest the Lib Dems instead, but I did want to be taken at least partly seriously :)

[youngmafbog]

:-)

[Zacs-Master]

The notion that a Labour government should be voted in just to get rid of May is moronic."

You need to make the distinction between calling someone a moron and their opinions moronic. Its important in a grown up debate. If I called you, or anyone, a moron it would be against Site Rules.

[youngmafbog]

Yes of course ZM.

But we all are clever enough to know there are ways around those rules and that certain methods are continually used by some to circumnavigate them.

I shall leave it there as it is derailing TTT's thread.

[emmie]

so without more to do, where are we, does anyone know. Leadership challenge, or go through with a deal no one wants. Nothing on earth could persuade me to vote Labour, absolutely nothing.

[jackthehat]

The blame for this omni-shambles lies squarely with the previous administration.
They were soooo convinced that the nation would vote to Remain in Europe that apart from spending weeks and ££££s on making sure that the question on the paper was even-handed and couldn't be later challenged by the losing side, that they didn't even bother attempting to establish any mechanisms by which leaving the EU could be achieved.
Their granting of the Referendum was done in such an off-hand and dismissive manner...."Oh, for heaven's sake, alright then! We'll have a referendum just to shut you all up and then once that's done and dusted we'll get on with business as usual...."
Once Cameron realised that the nation had chosen a direction for which his Cabinet were wholly unprepared he ignobly jumped ship leaving it to others (equally ill-prepared) to sort out the mess.
It seems that May secured the premiership due to that time-honoured tradition of everyone else in line taking a step back. The 'Brexit-Premier' was always destined to be given a good kicking.
I don't believe that *any* Prime Minister would have been able to steer us successfully and satisfactorily (to all) through these waters; with the ship having been holed below the water-line years before by the indifference and complacency from those at Westminster.
The dissent in our own Parliament has handed our EU 'partners' a wealth of crowbars to insert into an ever growing number of cracks.

[emmie]

so we sink without trace, is that what you are saying JTH

[jim360]

No, there are ways out of this mess, but Theresa May is sticking firmly to the idea that all of them are off the table.

[jackthehat]

No.
But I think we have choppy waters ahead of us because too many people are now mutinying and/or trying to grab hold of the ship's wheel to steer it in a direction of their own choosing, conveniently ignoring the destination chosen by 52% of the passengers.

:o)

[BANANASPLITS]

JTH eloquently put..spot on.. David Cameron has a lot to answer for ...he seems to have disappeared!

[anotheoldgit]

emmie
/// so we sink without trace, is that what you are saying JTH ///

No we limp back to the EU with our tail between our legs, and then our European masters punish us harshly for daring to step out of line.

Open borders, The Euro, and soon the European Army.

[jim360]

We won't have to accept the Euro; nor will we have to accept open borders. The EU army is an idea that, too, would require our consent as a member.

Put bluntly, the alternative isn't "hard remain", either. Status quo ante bellum, perhaps, but no need to fear capitulating entirely.

[New Judge]

Why is that [a “no deal” departure] the best option?

It depends what your motives were when you voted Leave. Mine were simple: to extract the UK from the EU and all its institutions and to allow the UK Parliament to regain control over our borders, our money, our trade and our laws. Nothing much else mattered to me. I knew that in the short term the EU would try to create difficulties; it didn’t matter to me that I “might” be a few pounds worse off or that I might not be able to take my dog to Benidorm for a fortnight. The UK’s sovereignty is not for sale – at any price.

I knew there may be short term disruption until common sense prevailed. But I also knew that any “compromise” would weigh heavily in the EU’s favour (though not quite as heavily as it would if this deal is agreed). For me, the only way to achieve my objectives was to leave with a clean break and no deal. That’s why it’s the best option for me. Others may think differently. They are obviously prepared to sacrifice the long term wellbeing of this country, along with its sovereignty, for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver (which the UK will pay for anyway).

The problem is that everybody who has had anything to do with this has viewed their role as a damage limitation exercise. They have reluctantly accepted that they must honour the result of the referendum but have tried to retain as many of the advantages of membership as they can. The EU is (quite understandably) having none of it and this deal leaves us in the EU in all but name for as long as the EU decides. There is talk in some of the Press of the deal being “the best we can hope for”. Well the UK wasn’t built on hoping that foreigners would treat us well; it was built by the people in it having principles and sticking to them even if it meant a few unpleasantries along the way.

[New Judge]

"We won't have to accept the Euro; nor will we have to accept open borders."

It depends how the EU treats our renewed supplication. If they deem we have left and reapply as anew member it will mean both of those things. New members of the EU have no opt out from the euro or Schengen.

[emmie]

would a leadership challenge, change, help or hinder matters.

[BANANASPLITS]

How did we mange before join Europe?

[jim360]

It's unlikely, in the scenario that AOG offers, that we'd ever have left. More plausible is that the deal is voted down (or never voted on at all), a new PM suggests a pause in A50, the EU gratefully and immediately accepts it, and then a second vote overturns the 2016 decision. Then we withdraw A50 altogether and preserve the status quo. No need to invent scenarios in which we're punished like a naughty schoolboy.

[jim360]

Not very well, Bananasplits, which is why we basically spent 15 years trying to get in before finally being admitted.

[New Judge]

Fine. And what happens if (as I suspect) a second vote returns the same result? And do you really think that the EU will not seek some retribution for our disobedience? If so your opinion of that wretched organisation is higher than mine. They have spent two years faffing about trying to accommodate our wish to "leave - but not really".

[emmie]

what a bloody shambles.