mistercrayon wrote:

I’m always a little bit more forgiving for the one who has to handle the shit show than the one who decided it was worth a punt.

There’s no real playbook for this whole situation.

If there was an easier solution I’m sure it would have been seen in the indicative votes or a single stage labour policy.

The easier solution was cross party talks to build a consensus on how to proceed, and not invoking Article 50 until that was achieved.

If there has been a way to make this more difficult, May has selected that option every step of the way. Shes used up all of her political capital, and every last vestige of trust to keep her party in power rather than to try and deliver the referendum.

Thete is a playbook for the situation - the Welsh devolution referendum. But May hasnt been interested in even hearing thoughts from the other side, let alone trying to bring them in. She alone is responsible for the entrenched positions each side are now in, leavers wedded to absolute fantasies, and remainers opposed to the very idea of any Brexit. No compromise is possible because of one person - Theresa May.

This should probably go in the Brexit thread, but British politics and Brexit are the same thing now. There is no Dana only Zuul. No Britain, just Brexit.

I’ve been looking at the state of play and I can only realistically see one outcome from where we now are. May gets replaced by a harder Brexit Tory (probably Johnson, let’s be honest) and a second referendum goes ahead. ‘No deal’ is given as one of the referendum options, because Johnson is a fucking dangerous egomaniac. It wins, by a landslide, because the majority of the British public are intent on self-flagellatory patriotism. Officially, planning for ‘no deal’ has been cancelled, so we crash out into an actual nightmare scenario failure of the entire country. Where we go from there is a total mystery, but a further rise of the nasty far right seems likely.

You hold on to your shred of faith in humanity there, I’ll keep my cynicism thanks.

I have no idea. Gut feeling is all. Put ‘no deal’ on a referendum slip and I think it would win.

And I believe many of the hard brexit Tory shites who are lining up to take over as PM are arrogant enough to put it on there.

We are a nation in desperate need of some humbling.

I saw a recent op-ed that described British political leaders as addicts. Interested only in surviving until their next fix – their next day in power. Selling impossible fantasy policies without care for the reality of implementation – because implementation is tomorrow, and only today matters.

It held Farage up as the ultimate ‘political crackhead’ – functioning purely by selling impossible fantasies, with full knowledge that he will never, ever be in a position to have to implement any of them.

May is clearly incompetent, but I'm not sure anyone would've coped well with the absolute shit show that is the Tory party in this situation. She basically walked into the position because no one else wanted it, which itself is a sign of hubris, I suppose. I guess it also hasn't helped (from their perspective) that Labour isn't New Labour anymore - the idea of negotiating anything with Corbyn is anathema to half the cabinet.

There's nothing anyone can do with Brexit, especially in charge of the Tories. As evidenced by the vid of that dumbass woman having a pop at David Davies. As soon as you choose a Brexit, one or two other Brexit groups line up against you because it will be the wrong type of Brexit. May has lasted three years which I bet is going to be longer than her successor lasts.

UKIP got 27% of the vote last time. I expect the Brexit party to do better than that, but not substantially better. Maybe 30% or a little higher.

I saw a tweet on the Grun live feed earlier that seemed to suggest BP would get 7-8mil votes.

That is the number that needs pouncing on. If they cant get half of 17.4mil then it can be argued there is no mandate for no deal.
They have quoted 17.4mil non stop, it was on a flyer I received today. Use their weapons against them.

I think that in most people’s minds it has very much become a proxy referendum on Brexit, and I fully expect it to be interpreted as such by our pols as well.

From the sounds of things, the knives are out for May.

Bingo

Yossarian wrote:

RedDave2 wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

There is an easier solution, it’s been staring her in the face the whole time: a referendum on the deal, actually supported and whipped for by the government. That’s the way out of this and it has been for months.

Is that a ref with no brexit as an option? Because I reckon that would be as a damaging to your country as no deal brexit.

Yep, with no Brexit as an option.

And yes, I’m sure it will be damaging, but if parliament won’t pass this, the only deal on offer, which they have made quite clear they won’t, then the only other options are a referendum and revoke. Of those remaining options, a referendum is the least damaging and the only one that can claim any type of legitimacy.

There’s simply no other choice.

Oh I disagree. Much as I wish it wasn't the case, there isn't enough on the side of remain to make staying in a good choice. Your politicians will spend the next few years still arguing, someone like farrage will lead a party into continuously undermining both the UK government as traitors and the EU as evil overlords from abroad. There doesn't seem to have been nearly enough of a sway to remain despite this shit show.

That 7 to 8 million voting for brexit don't represent a brexit vote. They represent the no deal, burn down the House vote. There will still be conservatives and ukip votes which are solid withdrawal, albeit maybe with a deal.

Get it down and things can move on and Britain can rebuild itself or at least evolve. Maybe without the EU monkey on your back there will be less excuse for the inevitable tory government. I doubt it though. The referendum was a disaster but at this point leave looks to be the only realistic option. If you had labour fully behind remain and they had a solid base, than you can make the argument that a change in government will change things but that's not the case.

Get ready for October, 2019 will likely be a grim Xmas.

RedDave2 wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

RedDave2 wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

There is an easier solution, it’s been staring her in the face the whole time: a referendum on the deal, actually supported and whipped for by the government. That’s the way out of this and it has been for months.

Is that a ref with no brexit as an option? Because I reckon that would be as a damaging to your country as no deal brexit.

Yep, with no Brexit as an option.

And yes, I’m sure it will be damaging, but if parliament won’t pass this, the only deal on offer, which they have made quite clear they won’t, then the only other options are a referendum and revoke. Of those remaining options, a referendum is the least damaging and the only one that can claim any type of legitimacy.

There’s simply no other choice.

Oh I disagree. Much as I wish it wasn't the case, there isn't enough on the side of remain to make staying in a good choice. Your politicians will spend the next few years still arguing, someone like farrage will lead a party into continuously undermining both the UK government as traitors and the EU as evil overlords from abroad. There doesn't seem to have been nearly enough of a sway to remain despite this shit show.

That 7 to 8 million voting for brexit don't represent a brexit vote. They represent the no deal, burn down the House vote. There will still be conservatives and ukip votes which are solid withdrawal, albeit maybe with a deal.

Get it down and things can move on and Britain can rebuild itself or at least evolve. Maybe without the EU monkey on your back there will be less excuse for the inevitable tory government. I doubt it though. The referendum was a disaster but at this point leave looks to be the only realistic option. If you had labour fully behind remain and they had a solid base, than you can make the argument that a change in government will change things but that's not the case.

Get ready for October, 2019 will likely be a grim Xmas.

What does leave mean though?

Parliament’s rejected no deal and May’s deal, and heavily. There’s no more majority for leave than there is for remain, hence the paralysis.

If you can come up with some method to break that deadlock aside from going back to the people, please get yourself over to Downing Street ASAP.