UK Parliament votes not to leave EU without a deal

boing
83

Sort of.

There’s a contingent who believes that no-deal wouldn’t be that bad, or in fact is what they wanted all along. Those tend to be rabid free traders, hopped up on US-style libertarianism and US lobbying funding.

They do want the world to burn because they think it’s currently a shitty world (views differ on whether there was ever a time when it wasn’t shitty and if so, when that was - some say the 1950s, some say the 1850s, some say before 1066) and everyone who isn’t either made of asbestos or buying asbestos from them and their mates should hurry up and burn instead of taking up resources which “better” people could be using more effectively.

There’s a contingent who think that the EU won’t allow a no-deal and all that’s holding the EU back from caving in and giving the UK everything it wants is that they think we’re scared of no-deal, so if we show them that we’re not, the EU will cave. Call it the psychopath’s version of MAD theory. I think Rees-Mogg veers between this and the first view as does Nigel Farage depending on his audience (not that he’s currently relevant except as the boogeyman lurking in the corner - which is to say he is petrifying to large parts of both parties).

There’s another contingent who think that the chaos and disruption of a no-deal, no matter how bad is better than either staying in the EU on current terms or the offered deal. They have various reasons for thinking that.

To add to @Ministry’s reply - I’d say there’s a reasonable chance.

The motion put forward is not straightforward and who knows what it will look like when it actually gets put to the vote.

The motion text is:

The amendments put forward are here:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmagenda/ManuscriptAmdts1403v1.pdf

they are basically:

A - hey, we in Scotland and Wales exist too!

C (there is no amendment B - no there is it’s just out of order) - tell the Government to revoke article 50

D - negotiate an extension to allow for an in/out on May’s deal terms referendum

F - extend to allow for in/out referendum, Scottish IndyRef

H - extend to allow for leave on terms to be determined by Parliament or stay

G - extend to allow the UK to change "it’s negotiating team’ (Is it just me or is that a cheeky way of saying - have a new prime minister?)

I - complicated procedural amendment which as best as I can work out would mean that any group of 25 MPs which includes at least 5 MPs from 5 different parties can put forward motions about leaving the EU and ensure that motion is debated

E - Parliament doesn’t like the deal, doesn’t like no deal so extend to allow the House to work out what it does want. (Good luck with that, Jeremy)

K - note the previous votes and instruct the government to extend, leave out the rest

B - add “no second referendum”

J - add note that parliamentary rules state that a motion that has been presented once cannot be presented again in the same form. So sod off with your deal, we’ve told you twice now that we don’t like it. Try something else. (No, we don’t know what either, that’s why you’re Prime Minister, sort it out)

And the hardcore Brexiters know that none of this is in any way binding.

8 Likes
85

Soooo if I’m reading this correctly, all of these Brexit consequences won’t happen if the UK simply stays a member of the EU.

Why don’t they just do that?

9 Likes
86

If we don’t drive this car over the cliff now, we won’t have a chance to drive it over the cliff for years, if ever again!!!

This button here? Oh, that’s for my ejector seat. And yes, my Saville Row suit is looking a bit crinkled, wearing a parachute will do that.

No, you don’t have those. You stay in the car all the way down. I’ll wave this little union jack as you go.

15 Likes
87

That would require a sudden outbreak of common sense in parliament.

15 Likes
88

8 Likes
90

image

5 Likes
91

(I’m not going to like that, I just can’t.)

8 Likes
93

I’m just doing my part!

3 Likes
94

I remember this. You have to go into your own brain and remove your common sense particle.

The trick now is to find Marvin, and he’s in his pantry, behind the screening door. First, get the real deal. You automatically drop the No Deal. But, you don’t have your common sense anymore, so…pick up the No Deal! Now, you have both Deal and No Deal at the same time!!

Go to the Screening Door. Open it. The Door, impressed by your being able to have both Deal and No Deal will let you through! However, WAIT!!! Don’t go through the door yet! If you set foot in the pantry, you will be overwhelmed by depression! So, that magic moment has arrived, the moment you’ve been waiting for ever since you left Earth: drink the real tea!! (Ahhhhhh, good to the last drop!)

7 Likes
95

Indeed - Like the weakened, minority government should have done from the start - not build a deal on the insane assumption that EVERY conservative and all the DUP would vote for it.

Now that deflying a three line whip is no longer a big deal - the moderates from all sides can build a super-soft EEA/EFTA kind of transition that will enable a majority.

One of today’s amendments is an example of the coalitions that are forming (Tory, Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, Green etc support)

image
image.jpg511×735 155 KB

3 Likes
98

Of course. The thing you either don’t understand, or refuse to face, is that all that trade and investment and travel and so on requires agreements and pacts and deals. All of which the Britain will lack if it crashes out of the EU, because for several decades now it has been part of the EU and has been conducting trade policy etc. as a member.

Even in the best-case scenario with a soft, controlled Brexit, the UK will not have as good a deal with the EU countries (which, in 2017, accounted for 44% of UK exports and 53% of UK imports) as it enjoys now. This is a basic fact: the EU will not grant the same benefits to a trade partner outside the EU, as it would to a member state.

So don’t try to be cute; your argument is nonsense.

14 Likes
100

(shouty voice) “BECAUSE BREXIT MEANS BREXIT! YADDA YADDA DEMOCRACY YADDA YADDA UNEQUIVOCALLY-EXPRESSED WILL OF THE PEOPLE!”

The theory is that if they fail to implement the preference that a slender majority of a carefully-selected part of the electorate expressed for a nebulous and poorly-explained option in a supposedly ‘advisory-only’ referendum marked by questionably-funded disinformation campaigns and outright lying on a scale never seen before, then the electorate will ‘lose faith’ in democracy.

The idea that the electorate had any faith in British democracy – even before the last two years of increasingly bitter farce exploded the notion forever – is one of those ideas that might be endearing under other circumstances, but at present merely reveals the depth of the disconnect between Britain’s ruling classes and the rest.

12 Likes
101

The Independent summed this up:

“The details are extravagantly complex, and if you can’t face them all, the key bit to remember is that Theresa May planned to defeat herself, then decided not to defeat herself by defeating herself, then lost. To herself.”

I mentioned it on another topic: a friend of mine texted me yesterday they would “predict a riot”. Today, a new text came. “I do not understand why there are no protests”.

I whish I could succinctly explain to them why. But I catch myself reading the BREXIT news for their amusing content. Maybe the UK takes this as an bemusing experience. IDK.

9 Likes
103

Is country music a thing in the UK?

8 Likes
104

I don’t think there is much danger of a second referendum.

It’s clear that May’s strategy is to make Parliament vote on her deal again and again and again until they give the right result.

Then no second referendum will be necessary.

However, if there was a second referendum, Leave supporters should have no worries about the dreadfully anti-democratic idea of a popular vote on their proposals.

I am sure that the enticing prospects of the May Deal or No Deal will triumph over Remain.

1 Like
105

At the moment, the nutters all seem to have seized on a wizard wheeze of asking the Queen to sort it all out.

This was a while back but the meme is starting to pop up with callers again.

That’s the ones that aren’t advocating starting a war with Ireland.

That’s us declaring war on them.

That’s someone advocating they should declare war on us. Oh and all the other former colonies/imperial hangovers should do the same. Obviously a bit of an anti-imperialist.

8 Likes
106

I’m not sure I catching your drift.

2 Likes
107

Anti-revolutionaries trade in “steady as she goes” politics. The thing about Brexit is that there is steady-as-she-goes option left. The default is currently to radically reshape society in two weeks. So it’s no surprise that this particular issue is bringing out the revolutionary approaches at this point.

But I think despite the referendum, the problem goes back to not actually listening to what the people of the UK want.

One of the ways the leave side won was by driving a bus around with a big lie about more NHS funding on the side of it. How many people one the remain side would like the politicians to do things to improve the NHS? If this were really about giving the people what they want, then parliament would have spent the last two years improving health services and the country would appear united rather than divided. That’s just one example of the many things that Leave and Remain agree on

If you give people bad options they will have to made a bad choice. The thing is, “Leave” and “Remain” were both bad choices, since both options were implicitly “do nothing to find our common interests and points of disagreement and build a consensus.” The US is in the same situation with politics having come down entirely to for-or-against-Trump while the majority is actually in agreement about a bunch of policies that could be enacted by an actually democratic government.

Note for clarity: I’m not saying that the problem is with the remain camp not listening to the leave camp. You can’t seek consensus with a person who is presently trying to blow up your house, the house-blowing-up issue takes precedence. I just see people of various nations being locked in these struggles for survival against themselves that keep them from noticing that there is enough to go around and that they agree. I’m good at noticing problems, not suggesting solutions.

The EU exists in some significant part to stop Europe from going to war with itself. If the driving force behind leaving was to start a war with Ireland, I would at least have to admit that leaving is the only way to accomplish that.

10 Likes
108

Amendments selected:

H (Second referendum), if that doesn’t pass I (the 25 MP motion business). If that doesn’t pass E (delay to come up with something else).

And J in any event (not the current deal again).

3 Likes
109

“Something else” being Corbyn saying “let me take the reins, because I’ve been so effective thus far in trying to head off this omnishambles”.

Fingers crossed for H. It’s really the only hope for ending this agony quickly.

ETA: Here’s the live blog. DUP is pissing its pants now that they realise the Tories will give Northern Ireland the shaft. Meanwhile, Labour MPs still dithering about supporting a People’s Vote, with some essentially saying: “sure, it could solve the entire problem before the 29th, but let’s wait a little longer because a lot of my constituency are morons and I don’t want to lose my seat.” Second referendum proponents also saying this isn’t the time, since this is really about an extension, but at this point the EU will only grant an extension for a second referendum.

At this point it looks like amendment I plus (I hope) J. Assuming that the EU accepts the extension (which they likely will), the few adults in the room will try to come up with a Brexit deal (one that crosses several of May’s red lines, including free movement of people – probably a Switzerland-like deal) that will form the basis of one of the People’s Vote questions.

4 Likes