Well someone will, won't they? The amazing thing is the way that Brexit has proved the most extraordinary catalyst for radical political change in this country since the First World War. It has changed absolutely everything and I do think that's sort of wonderful.Originally Posted by Sir C
Of course that will leave us with the tricky question of who to vote for. And who gets to govern.There doesn't appear to be anyone, you know, competent.
Change can be wonderful, of course, but that depends on what the changed thing changes into.
Ask Gregor Samsa for his views of metamorphosis and see what he has to say on the matter.
Well we all have a chance to shape that change, don't we? Indeed, those of us who voted Leave voted explicitly for change. Now we couldn't have foreseen that our established order - rather than doing the wise and historically tried-and-trusted British thing of allowing evolutionary change to prevent revolutionary change - has dug its heels in and thus effectively guaranteed the latter. But given that that has been the case, it's clearer than ever that change is necessary and desirable.
The Peterborough by-election result will be such fun. Some will dismiss it as a protest vote and something which can happen from time to time in the middle of a parliamentary session. This is not the SDP in the early 80s - this is a sea change in politics.
I despise May's deal, but that would have been the evolutionary change of which you speak.
Instead, it was voted down by the ERG no-dealers.
Two score rabid Tories does not the established order make.
The idea that it was the ERG who kept us in Europe is possibly the stupidest take remainers come up with.
The EU have explicitly and gleefully said - on camera, mind - that this deal was designed to and did make us a colony of the EU. It was not leaving in any meaningful sense and kept us in the mechanisms of the EU. It was specifically designed by remainers to effectively keep us under the heel of the EU.
The bottom line is that had the ERG voted with the whip, we'd be out of the EU now.
The EU have explicitly and gleefully said - on camera, mind - that this deal was designed to and did make us a colony of the EU. It was not leaving in any meaningful sense and kept us in the mechanisms of the EU. It was specifically designed by remainers to effectively keep us under the heel of the EU.
During the 2016 vote, none of the leave campaigns advocated no deal. Farrage openly discussed being in the SM (Norway) and the CU (Switz), both of which would have made us rule takers, and as such, just as much a "colony."
So 52% voted for a from of Brexit which would have involved some form of vassalage. May's govt put this to Parl 3 times. The only reason it didn't pass was because the ERG voted against said Govt.
There is no way that a no deal Brexit could be described as evolutionary change by historical British standards. It would be completely revolutionary. You'd have to go back to 1649 to find such a break with the existing order.
So please explain simply what deal you'd have tried to get 2016-19 with the EU that would be both "evolutionary" and avoid making us, to some extent, "a colony of the EU", to the extent that as opposed to pooling sovereignty, we would take rules over which we had no say.
And that's before we mention the Irish border.
There's no such thing as an "evolutionary" no deal Brexit. And that, coupled with the Irish border, has been the crux of the problem.
If this logic held up for a second, Leave voters would be angry with the ERG, wouldn't they? But they're not. Instead, they're angry with the Remainer establishment that deliberately scuppered Canada-style deals offered by the EU in order to facilitate Chequers and the WA, which were only ever Remain by any other name. This is a matter of public record, by the way. Number 10 and the Cabinet Offic repeatedly undermined the DExEU's negotiations in order to pursue their appalling WA. This was a Remain stitch-up from day one.
The Irish border has always been a non-issue that the EU has been able to exploit mercilessly because May was stupid enough to make it one of her 'red lines'. Had she not done so, the fact of the matter is that ultimately the EU would have been faced with the need to either establish a border itself against the wishes of the RoI and the UK (not possible) or reach an accommodation. But for May's idiocy, an accommodation would have had to be found.
I must have missed something then. According to the description of May's deal that I read, had it been approved on March 29 we would have left the single market, no longer be obliged to pay the EU fees, have complete control of our borders and no longer been subjected to ECJ decisions except in a few trade related areas. That sounds an awful lot like leaving in many meaningful ways, does it not?
The only thing it did not achieve was a clear path to an exit from the customs union as this was meant to be achieved through the negotiation of a free trade deal. And the motivation for the EU to achieve a free trade deal was significant given that during the negotiations the UK would be the only country in the world to have tariff free access to the single market while having control of its borders and not having to pay any EU fees, a situation which the EU could clearly not accept on an ongoing basis.
I'm still not too sure what was so wrong with the deal, if I'm honest.
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