Looks like May's having to cave on the amendments to the trade bill.

[WES]

We're having these negotiations because our leaders are too weak and remain-focused to have negotiated properly. Hard Brexit (ie walking away) should always have been our basic negotiating position, allowing for concessions to be made where both sides could agree. Instead, our government has gone into negotiations trying essentially to remain in the EU in all but name - something for which they had no mandate and which they could never deliver.

Partly true. But we're also having them because the question in the referendum allows them to. Had it explicitly been a hard Brexit option, as it should have been, this would not have been an issue.

[Monty92]

Ok but while there remains the possibility of a GE before March 19 a soft Brexit can’t be ruled out.

A no-deal brexit (currently the most likely outcome) cannot be voted down by Parliament. It is, by its nature, not a deal and therefore cannot be voted on.

[Burney]

I said before the referendum that they should not have been given the opportunity to vote for the leap in the dark. We negotiated the terms of staying, we should have set out the issues and requirements of leaving.

The interesting point is where does the legitimacy of parliament sit if it fails to ever agree a brexit deal? What is the shelf life of that referendum? Can it be surpassed by an election where a clear mandate to drop all this nonsense is given?

After all, the sovereignty of parliament is what this is all about isnt it.....

It goes a bit deeper than that. Essentially, you're saying is that EU membership has eaten so deeply into the bones of this country's democracy that it is simply too complicated and damaging to separate the two without killing the patient. This rather confirms what every Eurosceptic has been saying for the last 40 years.

If we cannot democratically unhitch ourselves from this monster, we are admitting that our democracy is not just undermined, but actually dead. The inescapable conclusion would be that the people may not govern themselves because the politicians and bureaucrats have sold their democratic birthright for a mess of pottage. The notion of national self-determination would be dead and we would effectively be told we must accept vassalage.

The consequences of such an admission are potentially disastrous - far more so, I would argue, than any negative short-term economic consequences.

[Burney]

Partly true. But we're also having them because the question in the referendum allows them to. Had it explicitly been a hard Brexit option, as it should have been, this would not have been an issue.

Hard and soft Brexit are terms that have only come to exist after the vote, though, as remainers have tried to water down the initial vote into something they prefer. I would argue that there was a vote for a hard Brexit - it's only remainers who pretend there wasn't.

[Sir C]

It goes a bit deeper than that. Essentially, you're saying is that EU membership has eaten so deeply into the bones of this country's democracy that it is simply too complicated and damaging to separate the two without killing the patient. This rather confirms what every Eurosceptic has been saying for the last 40 years.

If we cannot democratically unhitch ourselves from this monster, we are admitting that our democracy is not just undermined, but actually dead. The inescapable conclusion would be that the people may not govern themselves because the politicians and bureaucrats have sold their democratic birthright for a mess of pottage. The notion of national self-determination would be dead and we would effectively be told we must accept vassalage.

The consequences of such an admission are potentially disastrous - far more so, I would argue, than any negative short-term economic consequences.

Have you woken up in 1362, dear chap?

[Burney]

Ok but while there remains the possibility of a GE before March 19 a soft Brexit can’t be ruled out.

Who's going to force a general election? The Tory remainers don't have the numbers and the ERG is currently in control of the party and has no interest in pushing for one.

I'm not ruling it out, but it's far from the most likely scenario. May would literally have to decide to take the entire party down in flames for it to happen - and she doesn't strike me as being that bold.

[Burney]

Have you woken up in 1362, dear chap?

The first one is yer actual King James Bible (as well you know), while the second accurately describes what would be the feudal nature of our relationship with Brussels/Berlin.

[Peter]

You could make that argument about literally any conceivable vote ever, even something as seemingly binary as for or against the death pelanty.

After all it’s highly unlikely “ordinary people” would truly understand the moral and ethical complexities behind the issue.

That example shows you really don't understand what is going on here. Ok, the rest of us don't either but we are self aware enough to know it.

[Peter]

It goes a bit deeper than that. Essentially, you're saying is that EU membership has eaten so deeply into the bones of this country's democracy that it is simply too complicated and damaging to separate the two without killing the patient. This rather confirms what every Eurosceptic has been saying for the last 40 years.

If we cannot democratically unhitch ourselves from this monster, we are admitting that our democracy is not just undermined, but actually dead. The inescapable conclusion would be that the people may not govern themselves because the politicians and bureaucrats have sold their democratic birthright for a mess of pottage. The notion of national self-determination would be dead and we would effectively be told we must accept vassalage.

The consequences of such an admission are potentially disastrous - far more so, I would argue, than any negative short-term economic consequences.

No, I am not saying that. I am asking whether a parliament that continues to frustrate and betray the will of the people was worth fighting for in the first place.

If we want to leave to protect the sovereignty of parliament, where does it leave us if it becomes clear that we cant trust our own parliament to represent us? You talk frequently of the politicians and bureaucrats as though it is some Brexit conspiracy. THat is just how parliament works. It is what 'the likes of me' having been saying for years. You are fighting for the primacy of a backward, insular, self-preserving political elite that kept your biggest issue off the ballot for 40 years.

[Burney]

No, I am not saying that. I am asking whether a parliament that continues to frustrate and betray the will of the people was worth fighting for in the first place.

If we want to leave to protect the sovereignty of parliament, where does it leave us if it becomes clear that we cant trust our own parliament to represent us? You talk frequently of the politicians and bureaucrats as though it is some Brexit conspiracy. THat is just how parliament works. It is what 'the likes of me' having been saying for years. You are fighting for the primacy of a backward, insular, self-preserving political elite that kept your biggest issue off the ballot for 40 years.

Oh, if you're arguing that Brexit has revealed our parliamentary system, party structures and civil service to be wholly unfit for democratic purpose, you have my full agreement. Large-scale restructuring seems inevitable over the coming years, starting (I'm guessing) with the dismantling of the House of Lords and major changes to our parties.