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B0ycey wrote:I am quite aware of May's red lines @Nonsense. And clearly they are not compatible with the EUs red lines.
There is an aura in the air from commentators that someone will blink at the last minute. This is fantasy. May isn't listening to anyone despite asking leaders from other parties advice. And the EU stands with Ireland who are not flinching with the backstop at all. So May will go to Brussels, get no where and MPs will demand a deal anyway that cannot be made. So where is the solution? The solution is the CU. So Rich is wrong in thinking May's deal is getting through, because without the DUP, the backstop is never getting past parliament. It really is that simple. The only way a deal can now be made is a CU, which is against May's red lines.
),would allow a 'solution', if the people voted to become one nation, within the E.U.B0ycey wrote:Keep smoking bullshit Rich. You are high on absolute nonsense at the moment.
She is in checkmate and only you think this was what she was planning all the time in order to get her deal over the line.
Her deal will never pass with the backstop. The only way she can make a deal with the EU now is by siding with Labour and taking the CU option.
Beren wrote:
B0ycey wrote:
The creator of this not only has Brexit spot on but deserves an Oscar.
B0ycey wrote:I haven’t addressed you as a Tory, @Rich. Although I do question your adoration for both May and Cameron for the Brexit clusterfuck. How can you see what is happening as anything other than a disaster? It certainly isn't planned in some form of masterplan to get May's deal through the commons.
As for May's deal, if we are to have Brexit, it really is the best deal the UK could ever have realistically expected. Far better than I thought possible. In fact, it is better than a CU. So if such a good deal as May's deal cannot get through parliament with a whooping 230 vote margin saying fuck you, then it never will by just a few extra warm words from Brussels. Also it is important to know that not only have the Tory Brexiteers got to vote for it, so do the DUP. Labour will never vote for May's deal because they are the opposition who deep down know that Brexit is a poison chalice. Better to be the opposition through Brexit than in power - because whatever happens after March there will be a negative impact on the economy and the public will blame the people in charge not the voices who question the directoon that was taken.
B0ycey wrote:because whatever happens after March there will be a negative impact on the economy and the public will blame the people in charge not the voices who question the directoon that was taken.
Potemkin wrote:The Tories suffered meltdown as a party in 1997, and it took them more than a decade to claw their way back to power. People simply forgot how terrible they were. Hopefully, this Brexit fiasco will be sufficient to refresh their memories, and the Tories will spend another decade in the political wilderness before the trauma wears off again.I well remember the Tory faces being interviewed after the 1997 GE. Oh so, earnest they were, so chastened, how they promised time and time again to listen to the voters. That didn't last long. The tories have assumed their usual mantle of we-know-best arrogance. Now we are stuck with another Tory Prime Sinister, an even worse one than Major.
Nonsense wrote:
I disagree with your premise, it pre-supposes that damage will be done post-leaving the E.U.
We haven't left yet, but, for anyone with a minimal interest in economics would know that, not only is economics 'cyclical', despite artificially kept low interest rates, of which the effect is rising levels of unsustainable debt-at the expense of currency values that also causes inflation, (which will exacerbate the debt 'problem' in time), but that, companies make business decisions of all kinds, well before BREXIT, but which happen all the time, that affect their position in any market & has little or nothing to do with the decision to leave the E.U.
When companies say they will 'up-sticks' & leave the U.K, that's good for the business(though costly at times), it's also good for our economy, because it presents opportunity to jump ahead of the competition.
We do not 'need' foreign investment, we do want British investment, not only to compete globally, but also to satisfy domestic demand, that would help our balance-of-payments situation, whereby the large deficit causes the currency to fall on the markets, as it becomes increasingly plain that we are consuming beyond the means of a slow performing economy.
Every government tries to avoid recessions, but, they serve a purpose as a safety valve, that can avoid greater economic adversity if debt is allowed to continue rising at the current rate, in that sense, they 'correct', with some cost, what, otherwise would be far worse.
Project 'Fear' is, what to remainers is\was, the 'lies' were with referendum buses by leavers, there is no end to that project, until 29 March at the 11th hour, the reality is that on 30 March 2019, that day will be no different to the day before, save for one thing,change is coming.
Littaleng_Lander wrote:I well remember the Tory faces being interviewed after the 1997 GE. Oh so, earnest they were, so chastened, how they promised time and time again to listen to the voters. That didn't last long. The tories have assumed their usual mantle of we-know-best arrogance. Now we are stuck with another Tory Prime Sinister, an even worse one than Major.
Major declared, 'England will always be a place of cricket and warm beer'. Talk about exposing how shallow you are. What sort of 'English' politician comes out with a soundbite that exposes his ignorance about how to serve malt beer? That, it seems, sums up the lack of quality of ivory tower Westminster politicians. They expect to be taken seriously even when it's blatantly obvious they're spouting utter twaddle.
To Americans continentals and British ambulance crews in Alexandria, and others who are used to drinking ice cold beers, English beer will seem warm. You would think A British politician would appreciate the fact of this false perception.
Reference
CAMRA, 'in the pub'
http://www.camra.org.uk/in-the-pub
never misses a chance at PMQ's to make that clear.New Statesman-JONN ELLEDGE wrote:
The Donald Tusk affair shows that Britain is in an abusive relationship with the EU – and we’re the abuser
Brexiteers liken European leaders to Nazis and Soviets, but the minute they answer back, they've somehow crossed the line.
Here are some things that have genuinely happened during the last three years.
In May 2016, just a few weeks before Britain held that referendum on its membership of the European Union, Boris Johnson told his once and future employers at the Telegraph that the EU was attempting to create “a European superstate” in the same way as “Napoleon or Hitler” had. The interview noted that the man still then described as “the former mayor of London” was a “keen classical scholar,” as if this somehow qualified him to recognise a Nazi superstate when he saw one.
Later that day, Iain Duncan Smith agreed with him. So did Jacob Rees Mogg.
In the months that followed the referendum (if you’re just joining us: we lost), Remainers and compromisers were regularly referred to as “quislings, collaborators or traitors” – language that pitches the EU not as a club run by some of Britain’s closest allies, but a hostile force with which we were at war, an impression aided further by all the cringemaking comparisons between Brexit and the Blitz. Then last October, Jeremy Hunt – who, as a former Remainer with leadership ambitions, presumably felt under some pressure to prove he was not one of said collaborators – compared the EU to the “prison” of the Soviet Union.
At regular intervals throughout this mess, leave supporters have implied, or sometimes simply stated, that the solution to the Irish Border problem is for the Republic of Ireland to stop pissing about with its pro-European leanings, and meekly follow its former coloniser out the door. It was obnoxious enough when it was Nigel Farage doing this, but over the last few months the mystifyingly un-sacked John Humphrys has started getting in on the act too.
Throughout this, EU spokespeople and European politicians have been, not calm, exactly: on more than one occasion they’ve been visibly exasperated. But they’ve not been unreasonable in their exasperation. They’ve not, based on the comments of a few British politicians, questioned the sanity or motivations of all British politicians, let alone all British people. Britain has been spoken of like a friend working through some difficult issues, not an enemy which must be crushed at all costs. In other words, Europe’s politicians have been a lot nicer about Britain than Britain has recently been about them.
Anyway, a couple of hours ago European Council president Donald Tusk said there was a “special place in hell” for “those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely,” and the entire British establishment totally lost its shit.
Two things strike me about Tusk’s statement. One is that he wasn’t talking about leave voters, but the politicians who misled them into thinking this would be easy, which it very obviously isn’t. Odds are, if you’re reading this, he wasn’t talking about you.
The other is that he’s very obviously, and uncontroversially, right: the people who promoted Brexit didn’t have a plan, and the no deal Brexit of which we’re currently looking down the barrel will lead to food and medicine shortages, and when it does there is a significant chance that some people will quite literally die. Some of those people will have voted Leave. I’m not a religious man, but I imagine that, if there were a hell, then these charlatans are exactly the sort of people that it’d be for.
But that hasn’t stopped Tusk’s comments being reported as if he’s made some terrible slur against the British people, or the brain geniuses of British politics from describing him as “spiteful” (Andrea Leadsom) or an “arrogant bully” (Nigel Farage).
The most impressive response of all, for a certain value of impressive, was this strangely sexually charged effort from the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, which described Tusk as a “devilish euro maniac... doing his best to keep the United Kingdom bound”. “All he will succeed in doing is stiffening resistance,” Sammy concluded. I’m not the only one who can see this, surely?
Anyway: the lesson here is clear. Pro-Brexit politicians and commentators think it’s entirely reasonable to describe European leaders as Nazis, Soviets, or whatever other historically inept slur leaps to mind, and just expect them to take it. But the minute they answer back, even politely, they have somehow crossed the line into indecency, sir, and this shall not stand.
Somehow, Britain has ended up in an abusive relationship with the European Union – and Britain is the abusive partner.
There are 51 days to go until Brexit.
Spectator-Katy Balls wrote:The most revealing part of Tusk’s press conference wasn’t about Brexiteers going to hell
Westminster is in a flurry this afternoon over Donald Tusk’s comments at a press conference this morning with Leo Varadkar. The European Council president used the platform to declare that he had been pondering of late what that ‘special place in hell’ for ‘those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it safely’ looked like. Tusk even went on to tweet out his comments – just in case anyone had missed the moment in the conference. Adding insult to injury the EU Council president has also been caught on mic laughing about the likely angry response from the British.
Tusk is at least right that his latest outburst has landed badly in the UK – with Andrea Leadsom the first Cabinet Minister to publicly criticise him in response. At a time when EU officials and leaders – including Angela Merkel – have been calling for compromise and goodwill on both sides to resolve the remaining issues and achieve a deal, Tusk’s comments appear to do the opposite. However, the most telling part of the press conference actually relates to something else he said. We already knew that Tusk isn’t much of a fan of Brexit – nor the people who campaigned for it. What is new is Tusk saying that those pushing for a second referendum – or simply for the UK to remain in the EU – are misguided:
‘I know that still a very great number of people in the UK, and on the continent, as well as in Ireland, wish for a reversal of this decision. I have always been with you, with all my heart.
But the facts are unmistakable. At the moment, the pro-Brexit stance of the UK prime minister, and the Leader of the Opposition, rules out this question.
Today, there is no political force and no effective leadership for Remain. I say this without satisfaction, but you can’t argue with the facts.’
This is significant. Up until now, there has been a belief among lead figures in the EU and at the Commission – including Tusk – that if they pushed the UK far enough, the result would not be no deal but a second referendum where Remain would win. Take for example Tusk’s tweet after the deal was defeated last month:
It seems that the past few weeks of votes in the Commons and statements from Labour – have finally been enough to show Brussels that – for now – Remain is not a likely option. Instead, a majority in the Commons want the UK to leave the EU at the end of March – preferably with a deal. It follows that despite the anger from Tusk and his hell comments, today could actually mark a turning point for the negotiations.
noemon wrote:New Statesman from the left...
....and the Spectator....from the right
JohnRawls wrote:This message was sent for a reason. This was not an accident nor was it not calculated of sorts. It is a sort of last chance message to the UK.
noemon wrote:Indeed, that is why the hard Brexiteers are so incensed.
Thing is everything is going downhill very quickly. Today I have been flooded with emails from companies laying it out for no-deal Brexit but I was already aware of it when I tried to register a British jet-ski in Greece last year and I am Greek and still couldn't because Britain has been cut off from all common services.
Delingpole: Let’s Not Delude Ourselves – Brexit Is War and the EU Is the Enemy
Finally I understand everything: why Brexit is proving so impossible to negotiate; why Leave voters are more determined than ever to get the hardest Brexit possible, preferably No Deal; why Theresa May keeps caving to Brussels; why the political class is so out of touch with the electorate; why this can only get uglier…
Actually, I knew the answer to all this before. And so did you.
It’s really very simple: the European Union is a totalitarian superstate run by sharp-suited, hatchet-faced technocrats who have no interest whatsoever in freedom, fairness, justice, probity, logic, first principles, or economic reality. Their project is — and always has been — an end in itself: a conspiracy against the people by the liberal elite to subsume them, whether they like it or not, into a vast, anti-democratic, politically correct, socialistic, borderless supranational bureaucracy with its own government, military, currency, tax regime, rules system.
Why am I repeating this obvious truth? First because it pays always to know your enemy. Second because our Remainer elite — from Westminster to big business to our largely supine mainstream media — has been putting up so much chaff of late that it’s easy to lose sight of the basic fact.
And third because I’ve just watched the first episode of the BBC’s documentary Inside Europe.
Did you see it?
It was extraordinary. This viewer caught perfectly my reaction – and, I suspect, your reaction too.
Produced by the great Norma Percy — whose documentaries have an extraordinary knack for getting access to all the key players, talking frankly — this documentary concerned the run-up to the EU Referendum: why David Cameron (to his great subsequent regret) promised the public the Referendum; how — lol — his friends at the European Union bent over backwards to give Cameron such fabulous concessions that the British public would never in a million years vote to leave this benign and caring institution…
Yes, obviously I’m joking about the second.
Though I’ve never had much time for David Cameron — at least not since our dope-smoking days at uni — I sat through this documentary feeling almost sorry for him.
Off he went, several times, to Europe with his begging bowl. “Give me something, anything to offer voters so that all us Remainers don’t lose this Referendum,” he pleaded.
And what was the EU’s response?
It went something like this:
“Tell you what, Dave. Since we’re feeling very very generous and we greatly respect you and your country — and we promise this has got nothing to do with the £350 million you pay us every week for sod all in return — here is what we’ll do. You know that bowl of soup with the hunk of stale bread we give you every day in your cell? Well instead of pissing in it every day, we’ll only do it on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Can’t say fairer than that, can we? That’s the whole of Tuesday we’re offering without a trace of urine in your soup. When the Czechs and the Latvians and the Poles get to hear of this deal they’ll kick up a massive stink. But don’t worry, we’ll square it with them. Because we care.”
Poor Dave, of course, had been hoping for a bit more substantial than that. Instead, he came up from his 2016 whistlestop tour of all the EU member states, with a set of concessions so pitiful it made Neville Chamberlain’s piece of paper from Adolf Hitler look like the deal of the century.
The only gift the EU was prepared to offer Dave was a giant, ribboned freebie for Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Farage got to laugh the offer out of court for the meaningless sop it was.
Rees-Mogg to to make one of his more withering statements to the House of Commons:
“My Right Honourable friend has a fortnight, I think, in which to salvage his reputation as a negotiator.”
Dave looked like a schmuck.
But what did he expect? The message that came across from the various EU bosses and heads of state interviewed on the documentary could not have been clearer or more unanimous. It boiled down to: we don’t do negotiations.
Former French President François Hollande summed it up well. Dave entertained him at Chequers — the Prime Minister’s private country residence — which is full of historical relics which used to belong to Napoleon (gifted by a former Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington). But despite the schmoozing and the nostalgia trip to the brief period when France counted for something, Hollande could offer nothing in return.
As he explained on the documentary:
“Any concessions made to the UK on freedom of movement in the EU would be equally requested by other member states. I said to him honestly, if he got a special deal for the UK… then other countries under populist pressure would try to organise their own referendums.”
Note that characteristic contempt of the Euro elite for the ordinary people — “populist pressure”.
But what Hollande is saying here, at least from the EU’s perspective, is absolutely logical and makes perfect sense.
The EU is not a club which retains its members by keeping them happy and rewarding them with all manner of perks. It’s run much more like a prison, in which the benefits of staying in consist largely of incentives like: “Well if you don’t try to escape, we won’t shoot you…”
Compared to some of the members of the Euro elite interviewed, Hollande was positively charming.
The reptilian lush Jean Claude Juncker, sounded like a slightly less reasonable Don Corleone when he described some pettifogging concession he had made to Cameron.
“I said ‘This is the price to pay. I didn’t like the price. But my feeling was that we had to agree.”
To put it another way, even when offering Cameron next to zilch — just the right, for seven years, not to have to pay welfare for EU immigrants; exemption from ever-closer union; a promise not to destroy the City of London (which probably wasn’t in the EU’s power anyway) — the EU’s technocratic elite insisted on playing the hardest of hard ball, keeping Cameron waiting and making him beg.
Angela Merkel, for example, kept Cameron and his negotiating team waiting 26 hours before leading a delegation straight to his room with barely a second’s notice. “Is David here?” she asked. Then grudgingly gave him a tiny bowl of watered down gruel which no way was Dave going to be able to sell to a British public ravening for roast beef and all the trimmings.
These people our enemies. Never forget this. We have no beef with the people of France or Germany or any other European state — I certainly don’t. But the leaders involved in the European project are different: jumped up little tics like Nicolas Sarkozy and Emmanuel Macron, though they may not look it, are every bit as great a threat to our sovereignty and independence and freedoms as Napoleon was; Chancellor Merkel, in her mumsy, patronising way, is really no more friendly to Britain’s national interest than one of her toothbrush-moustached predecessors was. The fact that they don’t threaten us with force of arms is just a reflection of their preferred methodology and of the times — not of their intentions. They mean to crush us and bend us to their will not with Voltigeurs and Imperial Guard en ligne or with Stuka bombers, this time, but with endless red tape and directives.
We’ve beaten these bastards before — many, many times more than they have beaten us. We can beat them again.
This is an independence war we are fighting for the future of our country. In such circumstances, almost any amount of inconvenience, even suffering, is worth it for the end prize of victory — and freedom.
Ter wrote:https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/01/29/eu-enemy-like-napoleon-it-must-be-defeated-brexit/
Well that sounded quite aggressive. but fun to read.
It’s really very simple: the European Union is a totalitarian superstate
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