All this is true, and this is why there needs to be a second referendum.
I’m not advocating any specific outcome from this referendum, but we have to have one because it’s now the only way of getting a decision. Any other course of action will result in Hard Brexit by default, which actually is the least popular ending.
To do a referendum we need time. This requires Parliament to seize control from the government, ask the EU to postpone Article 50 – which they will happily do for 3 months.
I feel Charlie Stress only got the date wrong in Halting State (which is a good read, even if it’s kid of dated now). But otherwise, his view of Scotland having the Euro and both the US and English economies collapsing seems to be on track.
Not just the lesser educated - everyone was blatantly lied to by the leave campaign - May’s Government of All The Talentless has just compounded the lies.
Adding to previous replies - the sooner the no confidence vote is called, the more likely it is that Conservative MPs will vote to support the government (rather than abstain or even vote against).
The thinking is that they will want to reassert their party loyalty after the crashing vote against the deal (which is after all government policy and their party is in government).
That’s why Theresa came out after the vote and basically forced Corbyn into calling the motion immediately.
If it’s going to happen eventually, better to get it out of the way as soon as possible, rather than let the complete inability to agree anything over the next few days and weeks wear away support even further.
If she wins, then she’s essentially yet again pointed out to Parliament that no one likes her deal but no one has anything better.
If of course Corbyn hadn’t tabled the motion in response to Theresa’s challenge, then she could have made hay with his reluctance to do so.
It’s a nice bit of political close-in-fighting.
Whether it works is another question but you have to play the odds.
I suspect Corbyn did himself no favours as far as a general election goes with his rather histrionic speech after the vote…
That was the moment to appear calm and statesmanlike.
The ECJ ruled in December that the UK can unilaterally withdraw its intention to leave, as long as it does so before any withdrawal agreement comes into force (or, in the absence of such an agreement, as long as it does so within two years – plus any agreed extension period – of giving notice of that intention).
I’m not sure about that.
I suspect the house is so hopelessly divided that they will dither themselves to ‘no-deal’.
I know they’ve passed a bunch of motions which tinker around the edges but I don’t think there’s the support for anything which actually takes ‘no-deal’ off the table or which stops (rather than delays) Brexit.
No, we’re not threatening it. It’s a promise…
Big part of that is Trump’s been so thoroughly incompetent he hasn’t been able to do much. The economy is, by and large, still coasting on from Obama years, and things like the massive tax cut haven’t had much effect yet. (It was carefully set up to front-load its benefits to the big business and the ultra-rich, with the damage to the economy and the pain for the average American coming in later.) Even the ridiculously stupid trade war shit hasn’t done much… yet.
So in the short term, things haven’t been that bad for investors, even if the US markets came down hard at the end of the year. But if you take a broader view, there are all sorts of uncertainties piling up, and the shutdown adds a considerable strain on the US economy, directly and indirectly. I’m a fairly minor investor, and I’m far from serene; in fact, I’ve been moving my investments out of stock market into other, hopefully less volatile assets for a while now.
And this is what pisses me off.
Any potential change in law should have a majority vote in favour. Any failure to do so should indicate a continuation of the status quo, which in this case is remain in the EU.
Think of it as a variation on Denison’s rule.
Alas, they got a majority vote in favour of leaving with no deal. That’s the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.
Parliament voted to leave. It also voted to get to approve/reject the withdrawal agreement. It did not approve. So what next?
We move on to s. 13 (4).
Subsection (4) provides that a Minister of the Crown must, within the period of 21 days
beginning with the day on which the House of Commons decides not to pass the resolution
mentioned in subsection (1)(b), make a statement setting out how Her Majesty’s Government
proposes to proceed in relation to negotiations for the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the
EU under Article 50(2) of the TEU.
Subsection (5) sets out the format of a statement made under subsection (4), saying that it
must be made in writing and be published in such manner as the Minister making it considers
appropriate.
Subsection (6) provides that a minister of the Crown must make arrangements for:
• a motion in neutral terms, to the effect that the House of Commons has considered the matter of the statement mentioned in subsection (4) (on how the Government proposes to proceed in relation to negotiations), to be moved in that House by a Minister of the Crown within the period of seven Commons sitting days beginning with the day on which the statement is made;
and
• a motion for the House of Lords to take note of the statement to be moved in that House by a Minister of the Crown within the period of seven Lords sitting days beginning with the day on which the statement is made.
All from the explanatory notes here:
All of that just means that Parliament gets to look at and approve/reject any proposed deal.
If they keep rejecting, we either leave on no-deal or the government goes ahead and ratifies the Withdrawal Agreement without Parliamentary approval.
That is theoretically possible.
see the last section.
At that point, they stated that the withdrawal agreement is unlikely to be ‘an exceptional circumstance’ but given that we have now had:
a) a Tory party internal vote of no confidence - which May won.
b) a Parliament voting against the deal - but no indication that there is any Parliamentary consensus in favour of anything else,
and we are likely to have the government winning a vote of no confidence triggered by the rejection of the deal by the largest government defeat in history,
it’s hard to see how that isn’t exceptional circumstances.
It still seems vanishingly unlikely but I could see Theresa doing it.
The rhetoric of “this is the only deal on the table” and the bits in her statement after the vote about “tonight’s vote tells us nothing about what [the House] does support” and how they would discuss with members of the House “ideas that are genuinely negotiable and have sufficient support in this House” could nicely set up an argument that if they can claim to have done that and the House is still unable to come up with anything they agree on, the Government should/must act without Parliament’s approval.
It would be incredibly autocratic but with May’s record…
So, if I understand you correctly, the game many may be playing is to force May to ratify without parliamentary approval, a gambit of looking good to the constituents back home whilst hoping the PM falls on her sword for the good of the nation instead of just letting the fuckers have what they voted for and catch the next plane to Turks and Caicos.
You are right. It doesn’t mean I don’t count it among the many fucking idiotic decisions made over the last two years.
What I suggested isn’t law, It isn’t even a guideline. It was just a potential way of avoiding the situation that we are in now without overruling democracy.
No, I don’t think any of the MPs are planning for that.
I think it’s genuinely a complete cock-up where no one can agree on anything.
I think’s it’s overwhelmingly likely that we end up with no-deal but I’m not ruling out a bit of Maybot despotism. There has to be some civil servant somewhere tasked with suggesting a solution and that one will have to come up. I would hope it gets rejected immediately as politically unthinkable but you never know.
I can answer that: because it was a choice between stasis and an undefined change. Leaving the EU didn’t say whether free movement of people or goods was to be maintained, what kind of trade arrangements you were going to have, what relationship with EU laws, actually I’m going to stop because what it didn’t say was endless. It was a choice between one known thing and an unknown thing. In countries that have referendums on constitutional issues it is reasonable to expect that someone will bring it to court to see that it is enforced and courts can do this because it is a legally defined thing which can be enforced by an order of the court. This is not the case here. It is a self-generated constitutional crisis which was waiting right from the minute the quite unbelievably stupid text was set.
This is not new news here.
Came to note that the ingrained social phrase is in fact ‘scot-free’ and perhaps kennykb was also correcting you.
A little research showed why someone of a USanian persuasion might think the ingrained social phrase is ‘scott-free’, due to an ingrained mistaken assumption.
(Important to read more than the first couple of paragraphs!)
Possibly, but the frothing maniac quota is higher on the Leave side. Perhaps not so good for conflict involving modern military weaponry but when it comes to bottling, headbutting and sawn-off shotgun use, I think the Leavers are ahead on pints. (no, that’s not a typo)
Make imports expensive but on the plus side it would make exports competitive! I’m not sure the Tories have a plan for, you know, developing actual industry or anything like that.
I guess a Dyson cleaner might be affordable in the future? They’re supposed to be nice. That’s all I’ve got right now.
Making your mind up … and revealing the truth about what’s REALLY going on underneath it all, only half-way through. Yep - that’s Brexit!
Dysons are imports. They’re made in Malaysia and Singapore.
I mean you couldn’t have a leading Brexiter actually make stuff in the UK, could you.
You’re so right. The astonishing level of cynicism of the leave campaigns never stops giving.
