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Better Together ?


Kingsmills

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2 hours ago, Scarlet Pimple said:

I wish you all well but whether you like it or not there is no way back now. Good luck all.

The deal has only been signed off by the other EU heads.  

There is a vanishingly small chance of it being approved by Parliament.

Consequently, there remains everything to play for - for all sides of the debate.

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3 hours ago, Scarlet Pimple said:

Well,  courageous Elizabeth May is back with a deal in her hand.

I wish you all well but whether you like it or not there is no way back now. Good luck all.

As snorbens caleyman says, nothing is concluded yet and everything is still in play. Well; almost everything, ironically, the one option is that is utterly unlikely to prevail is the Prime Minister's so called 'deal'.

As for Elizabeth May, I see no harm in giving her a chance, she is unlikely to do any worse than her pathetically ineffective and feeble sister Theresa.

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If the deal fails to gain the support of MPs, as seems likely, the question is, what happens next?  Corbyn says there should be a general election after which a labour government would negotiate a better deal. But the reality is that Labour is also hopelessly split on Europe and if Labour stand on a platform of negotiating a better deal to leave the EU, Remain voters will desert Labour for the Lib Dems in their droves.  Even if by some miracle Labour did get elected, Corbyn is not going to get anything better.  The EU 27 have agreed the current deal and they will not be making changes to that.  Leaving without a deal is nigh on impossible because of the Irish Border issue.  

That leaves the option of a "people's vote".  That would probably be a choice between Remaining in the EU or leaving under the terms of May's deal.  Given that choice, I think there would be a  clear vote to remain as some Leavers feel the deal is worse than remaining in the EU.  A realisation of that may result in the hard Brexiteers in Parliament voting for the May deal after all as it is probably either accepting the deal or accepting we probably won't leave after all.  The vote might therefore be closer than some are expecting but I still think the deal will be rejected.

I therefore think the most likely outcome will be that we end up remaining within the EU (but I'm not risking a joker on that prediction).  May has always claimed that she was a Remainer even though any campaigning during the campaign was lukewarm at best.  If remaining in the EU is what she feels is best for the country and that is what we end up getting, history may conclude she played a blinder.

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Just one question then.

 In that event will Teresa  have to eat humble pie and apologise to the Europeans  and now kow-tow to them in some way in the future? Just asking.....?

Or will the European reps just say :-  "Better luck next time, old girl, here's our hankie and so now let's just move on.?" 

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7 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

That leaves the option of a "people's vote".  That would probably be a choice between Remaining in the EU or leaving under the terms of May's deal.  Given that choice, I think there would be a  clear vote to remain as some Leavers feel the deal is worse than remaining in the EU.

That is indeed possible, but down here in England there is also a strong wish to just get it over and done with. It could well be that some who voted Remain, but not ardently so, would vote to Leave in the hope of avoiding more years of argument. 

Those who wanted a hard Brexit - a substantial number down here - will have had their attitudes hardened over the last couple of years. And will be joined by many who think that May's deal is a non-starter. I think that "no-deal Brexit" would also be on the ballot paper.

To answer SP's question, the other EU leaders have always said - and are still saying - that it is a tragedy that the UK is leaving. If we were to decide to stay, they should therefore welcome us with open arms. If nothing else, it might dissuade other countries from thinking about leaving. 

Though I am sure that they would also make us pay, somehow, for all the trouble that we have caused.

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8 hours ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

That is indeed possible, but down here in England there is also a strong wish to just get it over and done with. It could well be that some who voted Remain, but not ardently so, would vote to Leave in the hope of avoiding more years of argument. 

Those who wanted a hard Brexit - a substantial number down here - will have had their attitudes hardened over the last couple of years. And will be joined by many who think that May's deal is a non-starter. I think that "no-deal Brexit" would also be on the ballot paper.

To answer SP's question, the other EU leaders have always said - and are still saying - that it is a tragedy that the UK is leaving. If we were to decide to stay, they should therefore welcome us with open arms. If nothing else, it might dissuade other countries from thinking about leaving. 

Though I am sure that they would also make us pay, somehow, for all the trouble that we have caused.

I have no doubt that the EU would have no difficulty in a United Kingdom volte face. They didn't want it to happen in the first place.

I think that is now a distinct possibility although very far from an inevitability.

However, even as an ardent remainer who believes strongly in the European Union, I do have a difficulty with that from a democratic point of view given that a majority voted to remain in 2016.

I believe now as I did then that they were thoroughly misguided in doing so but vote to leave they did and that was their democratic right.

While I still think that remaining in the European Union Is far better from almost every point of view, it would leave millions of people, especially in post industrial towns in the English Midlands, The North of England and South Wales feeling effectively even more abandoned and disenfranchised which was a big motivation for them to shaft the establishment in the first place.

A very dangerous state of affairs and all because David Cameron wanted to try to face down the right wing nutters in his own party.

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1 hour ago, dougiedanger said:

If nothing else, this shambles has shown Scotland and England are two completely different places, politically and socially.

Let's get the heck off this sinking ship while we can and chart our own course along with other modern, outward-looking social democracies.

That is, in my view, an obvious solution. This mess the United Kingdom has unnecessarily found itself in against the express wishes of almost two thirds of the Scottish people has, without doubt, strengthened the case for independence and brought that day closer.

Not much that is positive has emerged from this chaotic shambles but that is one beacon of light shining through the Brexit darkness.

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18 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

If the deal fails to gain the support of MPs, as seems likely, the question is, what happens next?  Corbyn says there should be a general election after which a labour government would negotiate a better deal. But the reality is that Labour is also hopelessly split on Europe and if Labour stand on a platform of negotiating a better deal to leave the EU, Remain voters will desert Labour for the Lib Dems in their droves.  Even if by some miracle Labour did get elected, Corbyn is not going to get anything better.  The EU 27 have agreed the current deal and they will not be making changes to that.  Leaving without a deal is nigh on impossible because of the Irish Border issue.  

That leaves the option of a "people's vote".  That would probably be a choice between Remaining in the EU or leaving under the terms of May's deal.  Given that choice, I think there would be a  clear vote to remain as some Leavers feel the deal is worse than remaining in the EU.  A realisation of that may result in the hard Brexiteers in Parliament voting for the May deal after all as it is probably either accepting the deal or accepting we probably won't leave after all.  The vote might therefore be closer than some are expecting but I still think the deal will be rejected.

I therefore think the most likely outcome will be that we end up remaining within the EU (but I'm not risking a joker on that prediction).  May has always claimed that she was a Remainer even though any campaigning during the campaign was lukewarm at best.  If remaining in the EU is what she feels is best for the country and that is what we end up getting, history may conclude she played a blinder.

How could anyone with an ounce of sense or judgement conclude that this chaos visited upon the country by the Tory party and a large number of English voters is anything but an unmitigated disaster.

May has 'played a blinder'?? She barely knows what she is doing from one day to the next, and still you have Scottish voters who would rather tie themselves to the sinking 'UK' ship and the Tories who have created this and multiple other disasters over the years.

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2 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

However, even as an ardent remainer who believes strongly in the European Union, I do have a difficulty with that from a democratic point of view given that a majority voted to leave [corrected your Freudian slip] in 2016.

I would argue that it's not undemocratic to have another vote two-and-a-half years after the first, because we all now have so much more information about what Brexit could mean, and also because the electorate has changed. I would also extend the vote to 16 and 17 year olds, since it's their immediate future at stake.

But maybe I'm just a sore loser ?

However - setting aside the democracy question - what do we do if Parliament cannot come to agreement on any course of action?

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2 minutes ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

I would argue that it's not undemocratic to have another vote two-and-a-half years after the first, because we all now have so much more information about what Brexit could mean, and also because the electorate has changed. I would also extend the vote to 16 and 17 year olds, since it's their immediate future at stake.

But maybe I'm just a sore loser ?

However - setting aside the democracy question - what do we do if Parliament cannot come to agreement on any course of action?

I think that that too is a valid argument. What would happen in the event that the Westminster Parliament can't agree on any course of action is uncharted territory but, in my view, in that event logic should dictate that the status quo should prevail.

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5 minutes ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

I would argue that it's not undemocratic to have another vote two-and-a-half years after the first, because we all now have so much more information about what Brexit could mean, and also because the electorate has changed. I would also extend the vote to 16 and 17 year olds, since it's their immediate future at stake.

But maybe I'm just a sore loser ?

However - setting aside the democracy question - what do we do if Parliament cannot come to agreement on any course of action?

and thank you for correcting my slip which indeed must have been Freudian!

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19 minutes ago, Kingsmills said:

I think that that too is a valid argument. What would happen in the event that the Westminster Parliament can't agree on any course of action is uncharted territory but, in my view, in that event logic should dictate that the status quo should prevail.

That is indeed logical, Captain.  Except that the status quo is that we are currently both in the EU and leaving it on March 29th! 

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18 hours ago, dougiedanger said:

How could anyone with an ounce of sense or judgement conclude that this chaos visited upon the country by the Tory party and a large number of English voters is anything but an unmitigated disaster.

May has 'played a blinder'?? She barely knows what she is doing from one day to the next, and still you have Scottish voters who would rather tie themselves to the sinking 'UK' ship and the Tories who have created this and multiple other disasters over the years.

I'm not saying it isn't a disaster!  The whole Brexit saga has been a fiasco but it isn't May who got us into this situation.  It was Cameron.  When Cameron called the referendum the Conservative party, whilst badly split on the issue, was officially pro-European.  Had he imposed his authority in line with that position and produced some detailed impact papers to inform the debate, the UK might have voted differently.  Instead we had a divisive debate  with people quoting figures without any evidence to back them up  and no understanding on how issues like the Good Friday Agreement would impact on future arrangements. Virtually every economic analysis done since the referendum shows we would be better off remaining in the EU.  All I'm saying is that if the end result of the saga is that we end up staying in the EU and if that is what May wanted all along then that would be some achievement.  Hopefully some lessons will also have been learnt about how matters of major constitutional change should be addressed in the future.

On the independence issue, I understand your frustration, but the reality is that the polls appear to have shown a slight drop off for independence since the Brexit vote, which is not what I would have expected.  The last 2 polls showed a gap of 10 and 9%.  

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22 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

I have no doubt that the EU would have no difficulty in a United Kingdom volte face. They didn't want it to happen in the first place.

I think that is now a distinct possibility although very far from an inevitability.

However, even as an ardent remainer who believes strongly in the European Union, I do have a difficulty with that from a democratic point of view given that a majority voted to remain in 2016.

I believe now as I did then that they were thoroughly misguided in doing so but vote to leave they did and that was their democratic right.

While I still think that remaining in the European Union Is far better from almost every point of view, it would leave millions of people, especially in post industrial towns in the English Midlands, The North of England and South Wales feeling effectively even more abandoned and disenfranchised which was a big motivation for them to shaft the establishment in the first place.

A very dangerous state of affairs and all because David Cameron wanted to try to face down the right wing nutters in his own party.

100% reflects my view too.  A referendum is not like a general election where you can reverse it a few years down the line if you feel the side you voted for misled you, or it just isn't working as expected.  Therefore, it is important that people can vote in an informed way.  We now know a lot more than we did and have a better idea of what is involved in a post Brexit UK.  I usually take the view that in a democracy, you always accept the view of the majority, but I have slowly come to the view that a 2nd vote is appropriate in this situation.  The 2016 vote was not a binding one and that gives Parliament the right to ignore the advice of the people if they think the situation justifies it. Government has acted to implement the wishes of the electorate by negotiating a Brexit deal.  If the People's representatives do not think that deal is in the best interests of those they represent then it seems reasonable to me to put it back to the people to affirm their decision in the light of the negotiated deal.  

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The Prime Minister shows further contempt for Scotland by spending less than three hours in the country in her tour round the UK to try to sell her doomed Brexit deal.

When pressed, she could not explain how the deal paid any regard to Scotland's distinct needs and interests repeating her redundant mantra that the deal was in the interest of the whole United Kingdom.

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10 minutes ago, Kingsmills said:

The Prime Minister shows further contempt for Scotland by spending less than three hours in the country in her tour round the UK to try to sell her doomed Brexit deal.

When pressed, she could not explain how the deal paid any regard to Scotland's distinct needs and interests repeating her redundant mantra that the deal was in the interest of the whole United Kingdom.

Come on Kingsmills did you really expect anything else?  She is not interested in Scotland it was just a token gesture!

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1 hour ago, Kingsmills said:

The Prime Minister shows further contempt for Scotland by spending less than three hours in the country in her tour round the UK to try to sell her doomed Brexit deal.

When pressed, she could not explain how the deal paid any regard to Scotland's distinct needs and interests repeating her redundant mantra that the deal was in the interest of the whole United Kingdom.

We don’t matter and never will until we wake up and become the progressive modern state we need to be.

Scotland does not exist.

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7 hours ago, dougiedanger said:

We don’t matter and never will until we wake up and become the progressive modern state we need to be.

Scotland does not exist.

Agree with the first paragraph. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, of course Scotland exists, it's just that, for 90% of the time, unless it suits them, the UK establishment choose not to see us. They saw us when, on the race of the independence refereendem, it looked like we would take our place once more in the community of nations.

Believe me, there will will come a day when they will see us again and hear our voice loudly and clearly.

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Whether you fall on the Leaver or Remainer side of the argument, surely you can't fail to acknowledge that the whole thing as got out of hand and lost direction/purpose?

It feels like May, once a Remainer, is taking the strop and going...."So you want to leave, do you....well I'll get us out of Europe and we'll see what you think then".  It's became a case of "leave at all costs" and not, as was promised, "leave for our own benefit".

I gone from having doubts about the current governments ability to govern...to having no doubts whatsoever because I am absolutely certain they don't possess that ability.  The biggest worry is that the only immediate alternative for a UK government is no feckin better...which leaves Scotland with only one other option.  It might not be a perfect option, but it is better than anything else on offer.

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  • 1 month later...
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So; the Labour Party is publicly riven. Today's developments make it inevitable that the United Kingdom will be governed for at least another decade by an increasingly extreme right wing Conservative Party probably headed by Dominic Raab, Andrea Ledsom, Boris Johnson or Jacob Rees Mogg. Almost certainly out with the EU and subject to enormous trade tariffs.

There may be risks and challenges of independence but surely that must be preferable to the certainly of what otherwise lies ahead.

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