| Brexit boom on 18:53 - Jul 5 with 2467 views | Jango |
That's b*llocks. Everyone voting to leave knew it wouldn't be an easy ride whilst negotiating the exit. It's just the bitter remain voters trying to use the current situation to justify their argument. It's a totally pointless and pathetic argument. Stop looking for every negative possible and just get on with your life while it pans out. youd swear prior to brexit that everyone was skipping around whistling with happiness and without a care in the world. | | |  |
| Brexit boom on 19:05 - Jul 5 with 2446 views | Shaky |
Boris has set the benchmark; a good deal is having our cake and eating it.
Anything less than that is punshment by mean spirited EU bureaucrats, who lack the imagination and the foresight to see the glorious future that awaits. | |
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| Brexit boom on 19:12 - Jul 5 with 2441 views | Shaky |
Actually there was just a very good if somewhat long article in the FT outling the thinking - if we can call it that - within the leadership bunker:
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Theresa May braced for a fall as Brexit tests loom;
Facing cabinet indiscipline and a divided party, European leaders wonder if the PM will survive long enough to negotiate the UK’s exit
by: George Parker
On the morning of Friday June 9, Theresa May walked through the black door of Downing Street and into an empty shell. Where once there was power, wielded through control and fear, there was impotence. Overnight, Mrs May’s attempt to win an electoral mandate to negotiate Brexit on her own terms had been eviscerated.
As the door swung open, an ashen prime minister was applauded by her officials. A few days later, in the Pillared Room of Number 10, Mrs May spoke with a catch in her voice as she thanked her staff for that act of kindness. But Mrs May’s leadership would never be the same again.
Downing Street had become a lonely place. Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, Mrs May’s chiefs of staff, did not accompany her into Number 10 on that morning and the next day they resigned. Several weeks later, eyewitnesses say her office is still depleted, key jobs unfilled. “The bunker seems almost empty and deeply disheartened,” says one.
Mrs May has cut a diminished figure. In Brussels for a European Council summit on June 22, she was allowed to give a brief presentation on her plans for safeguarding EU citizens’ rights while waiters cleared the dessert of macerated cherries and almond milk ice cream. Mrs May, who asked voters to give her “an equally strong mandate” to the landslide secured by France’s Emmanuel Macron, was then asked to leave. Cameras filmed the prime minister, head bowed, walking grimly to a waiting car.
At Westminster she has been reduced to cobbling together a deal with reactionary politicians from Northern Ireland to secure a fragile House of Commons majority, jettisoning many of the policies in the Conservative manifesto and apeing the anti-austerity policies of the Labour opposition. “Defeat in victory,” notes Nicholas Macpherson, formerly the top official in the Treasury.
Meanwhile cabinet ministers exploit the vacuum by publicly dictating terms to Mrs May on the future direction of policy on Brexit and the economy. The briefings and the jostling for succession become more audacious as the days pass. Mrs May’s election offer of “strong and stable” leadership is now a staple of the gallows humour that has enveloped Conservative MPs.
A Conservative minister laments: “There is no plan, no strategy, no direction.” The question being asked in Britain and Europe is simple: how long can Mrs May last and can she deliver Brexit?
Mrs May only survived the humiliation of last month’s snap election because Conservatives have decided that the alternatives to an enfeebled leader are even worse. On June 9 party grandees trooped into Downing Street to tell the emotional prime minister that she had a duty to party and country to stay.
Most Conservative MPs fear that if Mrs May is ousted, the party would face a leadership contest that would once again split it over Europe, this time between those favouring a soft or hard Brexit. There is no obvious frontrunner, the eventual winner would have no direct mandate from the British people and they might inherit a party in a state of nervous disintegration. There would be a clamour for another election, which the leftwing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn could win. Although Mr Corbyn is no fan of the EU, the Brexit process would be thrown into chaos.
“There is a general mood of seriousness and a sense that if we screw this up, a Marxist government steps into the breach,” says one senior Conservative MP. Another says: “The person holding the party together is Jeremy Corbyn. The fear of Corbyn is greater than any nuance in the Brexit negotiation.”
Under the most common plan articulated by Conservative MPs, the first aim is to get the prime minister through to the safety of the summer recess on July 20. Then, if all goes well, Mrs May would stay long enough to oversee Brexit in March 2019, taking the blame if it goes wrong. Then, her political use exhausted, she would hand over to a new leader to take the party into the next election in 2022.
It is an uphill and thankless task, but Mrs May insists she is up for it. “I will serve as long as you want me,” she told the party’s MPs on June 12. “I got us into this mess and I’m going to get us out of it.” One Conservative MP says: “She has the real sense of duty of a vicar’s daughter.”
Mrs May has stabilised her situation in recent days. Her parliamentary performances have been solid, while Mr Corbyn has failed to exploit her weakness. She has replaced the aggressive Mr Timothy and Ms Hill with a single chief of staff, the popular former MP Gavin Barwell. After her woefully misjudged visit to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire last month, where she failed to meet survivors, she has had a better few days. “She’s laughing again,” says one Downing Street insider.
But the reprieve may be temporary. Mrs May might get through to the summer holidays but her fragile grip on power will be tested again in what promises to be a dangerous October.
In the first test, Mrs May attends the annual Conservative party conference in Manchester. It will see cabinet ministers jostling for position in the leadership contest that they believe will take place in the following 18 months.
It has started already. In recent days potential leadership contenders such as foreign secretary Boris Johnson have taken to publicly unpicking the government’s austerity programme by calling for an end to the 1 per cent cap on public sector pay. Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the House of Commons who fought Mrs May for the party leadership in 2016, made an unannounced visit to Grenfell Tower to meet survivors, in a move seen by Number 10 as a blatant attempt to show she possessed more empathy than the prime minister.
But these acts of cabinet insurrection are nothing compared with the public battle raging between ministers over Brexit, with Mrs May apparently unable to stop it. The hard and soft Brexiters will make their pitches to the Conservative faithful in Manchester, just weeks before Mrs May has to make up her own mind on how she hopes to execute Britain’s departure from the EU.
A Brussels summit on October 19-20 will be the crunch point by which Britain hopes to have concluded preliminary talks on the divorce settlement in order to move on to the future UK-EU relationship. Chancellor Angela Merkel, if she wins September’s German elections, will want to know what Mrs May has in mind.
Before the election, policymaking on Brexit was straightforward: it was set inside Mrs May’s fortress by an inner circle with Mr Timothy and Ms Hill at its heart and presented to the cabinet as a fait accompli. The “chiefs” controlled all access to the prime minister; unwelcome advice or overly “pessimistic” officials were kept at bay.
Ivan Rogers, Britain’s former EU ambassador, was briefed against and then forced out of his job for presenting uncomfortable truths. Chancellor Philip Hammond, according to Downing Street insiders, was also seen as too gloomy about Brexit and was abused by Ms Hill at meetings. He expected to be sacked too, had Mrs May won her expected election landslide.
So when Mrs May set out her “red lines” for the Brexit negotiations at last year’s conference in a speech written by Mr Timothy, there had been no thorough cabinet consultation. Her insistence, for example, that the European Court of Justice could have no future role in a Brexit settlement came out of the blue and left Brexit secretary David Davis “hamstrung” in negotiations, according to James Chapman, his former chief of staff.
Mr Timothy, anxious to court working-class voters, was determined that big business should also be kept at arm’s length from Mrs May. The prime minister’s allies now admit this was a mistake: on Friday business leaders will be invited to a Brexit summit at Chevening, a country house near London, hosted by Mr Davis. Business voices are now starting to fill the policy vacuum.
The post-election ousting of Mr Timothy and Ms Hill – the latter was notorious for spying disloyalty in colleagues and sending critical texts – has removed the fear that hung over Mrs May’s administration before the election. During that time ministers were banned from giving interviews or setting out their own views: now it is a free for all. “We can talk now,” joked one minister last week. “Fiona’s gone.”
In place of paranoia has come a remarkable reappraisal of what exactly Brexit should mean. “There wasn’t really any debate before,” admits one minister. The only problem is that it comes a bit late in the day: Britain voted to leave the EU more than a year ago and the clock is ticking down to an exit in March 2019.
“It would be nice to know exactly what we want from Brexit,” confided one government insider.
No senior minister has yet directly challenged the central tenets of Mrs May’s “hard Brexit” strategy set out in her January Lancaster House speech, which called for Britain to leave the single market, customs union and the jurisdiction of the European Court. But the soft Brexiters are starting to chip away at the edifice.
Mr Hammond is pressing for a long transition during which Britain would retain close ties to the EU, including remaining in the customs union. The Treasury is challenging Liam Fox, international trade secretary, to prove that the deals he hopes to secure when Britain eventually leaves the customs union more than offset an expected loss of trade with the EU. Mr Hammond is vehemently opposed to Mrs May’s threat – or bluff – that Britain could walk away with no deal at all.
Mr Davis, who is said by colleagues to be “more flexible than you think”, is exploring ways in which the ECJ might have a limited backstop role, allowing Britain to continue participating in European regulatory bodies, rather than recreating them at great expense at national level.
By October, Ms Merkel and Mr Macron will be expecting answers from Mrs May: is she going to seek a softer, more protracted Brexit, spread over several years, or the harder, quicker version favoured by some in her party? If she tacks away from a hard Brexit, she risks incurring the wrath of the Eurosceptics.
All the while Mrs May will aim to push Brexit legislation through the House of Commons when she has a working majority of only 13 and is vulnerable to rebellions by pro-European Conservatives pushing her towards a softer version of Brexit and disarming her threat to walk away with no deal.
The poison is already running around the system. “We can work with half the Labour party and crush the fcukers,” says one Conservative MP, referring to his Eurosceptic colleagues. A leading pro-Brexit MP says he would not tolerate threats from the “w@nkers” on his party’s pro-European wing.
Faced with implacable opponents in Brussels, a breakdown in cabinet discipline and a party torn over Europe, one can now see why Mrs May hoped to maintain the iron control that would have come with her expected “stronger mandate” on June 8. Instead she must try to hold it all together and deliver Brexit – a policy she initially opposed – as her last gift to a party counting down the days to the moment when it can finally oust her.
The replacements: May’s survival bid helped by a lack of alternatives
Theresa May is, according to the former Tory chancellor George Osborne, “a dead woman walking”: her survival time as prime minister is measured by most Conservative MPs in months rather than years.
Already the positioning for the succession has begun, but Mrs May is helped by the fact that there is no clear alternative waiting in the wings.
David Davis, Brexit secretary 3-1 (latest odds with William Hill)
The 68-year-old was favourite for the party leadership in 2005 but looked outdated against a youthful David Cameron. He has handled his Brexit brief competently and rehabilitated his reputation after years in the wilderness. Brought up on a council estate and possessing a breezy self-confidence, Mr Davis is blamed by some Tories (including Boris Johnson) for encouraging Mrs May to hold the calamitous early general election.
Philip Hammond, Chancellor 7-2
Mr Hammond, dubbed “spreadsheet Phil” for his uncharismatic demeanour, would have been sacked had Mrs May won a big majority last month; for now he is untouchable and asserting his authority.
A Remainer, the 61-year-old fiscal hawk wants a business-friendly Brexit, spread over a number of years. Has been touted as an interim leader, but as one senior Conservative MP puts it: “What’s the point of that? May is that interim leader.”
Boris Johnson, Foreign secretary 4-1
Figurehead of the Brexit campaign, Mr Johnson is charismatic and brings showbiz to politics; he is also disliked by some Tory MPs and Remain voters for his role in what they regarded as a shallow and mendacious campaign to take Britain out of the EU.
Mr Johnson’s allies discussed a leadership bid in the aftermath of last month’s election, a move seen by party grandees as grossly unhelpful. The 53-year-old’s call this week for an end to public sector pay restraint was a sign of him jockeying for the top job.
https://www.ft.com/content/02f15952-6099-11e7-8814-0ac7eb84e5f1 [Post edited 5 Jul 2017 19:13]
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| Brexit boom on 20:25 - Jul 5 with 2402 views | r0ckin |
The question one must ask is why is Theresa the most hawkish on brexit, yet was 'apparently' for Remain.
You would have thought she would be trying to find a pragmatic outcome, but she seems far closer to the JRM and John Redwood's than the Anna Soubry's and Nicky Morgan's
It's such a clusterfck and yet we still have many who pin their hopes on it for God knows what reason | |
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| Brexit boom on 20:44 - Jul 5 with 2396 views | the_oracle |
I ask on every brexit thread for a positive news story about the UK leaving.There's story after story about brexit in the papers, from both right and left. They tell us about the fall in the pound ( just cost me a third more for euros since brexit) EU staff leaving factories and farms and the NHS, banks relocating to EU,investment collapsing in Uk car industry, science, pharma etc. Where are the stories about businesses rushing in to UK, staff and skilled people coming here, investment going up? | | | |
| Brexit boom on 20:51 - Jul 5 with 2391 views | r0ckin |
Flag that flag boy, be proud | |
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| Brexit boom on 20:57 - Jul 5 with 2377 views | WarwickHunt |
You obviously missed David Davis having his arse handed to him by Michel Barnier on day one of negotiations.
Stay tuned for more of the same... | | | |
| Brexit boom on 20:58 - Jul 5 with 2376 views | exiledclaseboy |
You're absolutely spot on. Triggering A50 at the time it was triggered with no clue as to desired outcomes, no negotiating positions decided etc (these things are still not in place) was an act of almost treasonous stupidity. And then calling an unnecessary election compounded the incompetennce. [Post edited 5 Jul 2017 21:07]
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| Brexit boom on 21:08 - Jul 5 with 2373 views | longlostjack |
I'd agree with all of that - apart from Scotland wanting a second referendum. That was Nicola's big miscalculation. | |
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| Brexit boom on 21:21 - Jul 5 with 2360 views | LeonWasGod |
There's a lot of latching on to every negative, agreed. But I don't think it's the period during negs that people are worried about; more the years after we leave whilst we get used to the new world order. This was supposed to be the easy bit.
Most people can get on as normal as it doesn't directly affect them, but it's also worth remembering that there are a lot of jobs in Wales tied up in EU funding (Wales being the biggest recipient of EU funds in the UK). So it does directly effect some of us. | | | |
| Brexit boom (n/t) on 00:20 - Jul 6 with 2314 views | Pokerface |
[Post edited 6 Jul 2017 0:22]
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| Brexit boom on 07:32 - Jul 6 with 2263 views | waynekerr55 |
The sad thing in this Killy is Wales voted leave. | |
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| Brexit boom on 08:11 - Jul 6 with 2248 views | Kilkennyjack |
Its the greatest act of national self harm in my life time.
From the joy of the Euro16 party, to the joyless realisation that welsh people had actually believed the lies about new money to the NHS and immigration (which touches wales far less than you know who).
Sad the welsh politicians could not make the most obvious of cases.
Sad wales lacks a media strong enough to stand up to the london rags and the bbc.
Remember the nightly news reports from Calais ?
To Boris this was a funny game, it will have huge bad consequences for wales.
The Scots and the north of Ireland stood up to be countrd. Wales went missing in insction. Really sad. | |
| Beware of the Risen People
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| Brexit boom on 08:54 - Jul 6 with 2232 views | waynekerr55 |
There's nothing really to add to that Killy. All of Wales bar Cardiff gets neglected yet the same people are voted in. It seems that it's in our blood to self harm... | |
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| Brexit boom on 09:16 - Jul 6 with 2218 views | LeonWasGod |
It's about May and her standing within the party and not Brexit, I suspect. Self first, party second, constituents third and f*ck everyone else seems to be her mantra. | | | |
| Brexit boom on 09:24 - Jul 6 with 2215 views | Shaky |
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| Brexit boom on 09:57 - Jul 6 with 2196 views | Humpty |
Fair play Felix.
You've got me convinced. | | | |
| Brexit boom on 10:40 - Jul 6 with 2179 views | r0ckin |
You do wonder sometimes.
Scots as I said in another thread are more savvy to these things, they voted heavily for remain not just because they believe in the project but because it's in their 'self interest.'
Wales in silo is a Net beneficiary, let's take away the bs about the UK being a Net contributor that is because of financial power in the South of England. The City is the capital of finance in Europe. In Wales we benefit hugely from EU funding and have very limited levels of immigration compared to most if that's something that upsets you.
We are now "taking by control" but what does this actually mean? For a start much of that funding was given back to us that leave lied about and it was a price to be a member of the single market which Wales has benefited massively from. By taking back control, the Parliament in London can spend the money how it sees fit, the EU spent according to 'need' - now logically if you have say 8bn to play with a year would you as a Government in London be ploughing money into Blaenau Gwent? Or would you as I suspect be focusing your resources into productive areas of the land to boost headline GDP?
Maybe I'm wrong, but it's a bloody big risk that people who voted leave have taken. | |
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| Brexit boom on 10:54 - Jul 6 with 2168 views | r0ckin |
Totally convinced, may as well give up debating after seeing that | |
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| Brexit boom on 10:55 - Jul 6 with 2164 views | Highjack |
I can't wait, it's gonna be great | |
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| Brexit boom on 12:31 - Jul 6 with 2126 views | r0ckin |
How will it benefit your life and others | |
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| Brexit boom on 13:19 - Jul 6 with 2110 views | Kerouac |
1) It is not in Scotland's interest.
All of the growth recorded in Scotland in the last 20 or so years is attributed to rising demand in the UK for Scottish products. Scotland are not getting anything from the EU except more UK subsidy (paid via the EU) on top of the already heavy subsidy they get under the Barnett formula.
If Scotland left the UK for the EU tomorrow they would be a basket case and at the mercy of the EU states who pay in...those paying attention will know that they don't have much of an appetite for subsidising weak states at the moment...and this is unlikely to change anytime soon. They are a mess.
They would also have to adopt the Euro, have hard borders with the UK, a trade barrier between us and them (imposed by the EU), and would see UK government relocate many highly paid jobs to the UK.
It would be suicide and anyone who says otherwise is deluded.
2) You cannot ignore that EU money coming into Wales is in fact UK money coming back to us because it is a FACT...AND WE ARE PART OF THE UK, IT WOULD NOT BE IN UK GOVERNMENT'S INTEREST TO KEEP THAT MONEY AFTER BREXIT, FOR POLITICAL REASONS AND ECONOMIC REASONS.
A big part of the Welsh economy is farming...the UK is subsidising their competition in France. Let that sink in.
I know a farmer personally. He says he was for Brexit and so are most of the farmers he meets.
Another pillar of the Welsh economy is manufacturing....the weaker pound is to their advantage (see the Steel industry), doing trade deals with the parts of the global economy that are actually growing is in their interest...I know, I know, "the supply chains"...f*ck the European supply chains (if they don't want to do a trade deal and business with us) Business and the government should be investing here so we can do it all ourselves
Investment + Education/Training = Jobs and higher wages.
There is nothing sourced in Europe that can't be sourced somewhere else, and usually cheaper.
3) "taking back control"
How about what the government has set out as regards fishing? It has put a lot of EU noses out of joint. Why? Because they have been shafting us in this area for so long.
How about refusing to be under the jurisdiction of the ECJ?
Brussels is proposing that after we leave their citizens living here will still be under the jurisdiction of the ECJ...
They are also proposing that they have the right to impose retrospective fines on us..
This is stuff from colonial times from the German Empire that is the EU.
Doesn't their cheek make you angry? It should do.
Wars were fought over this kind of thing.
Why are so many of you siding with a group of countries trying to impose their rule even after we leave their club, a group of countries who threaten to economically strangle us if we dare to resist?
...and let's talk about the EU;
- terrible unemployment
- stagnant economies
- bank bailouts in Italy against their own rules
- migration crisis that is easily solved but they can't seem to manage it (even Bill Gates has come around to the idea that you have to stop the boats and make it more difficult for people to stay in the EU...he directly blamed the EU for so many migrant deaths yesterday)
- Currency that needs billions of Euros printed monthly to support it
- the Greeks forced to endure HUGE cuts and poverty in order that German and French banks don't have to take the hit for their stupid investment decisions.
- Economy shrinking as a percentage of the Global economy
- Leaders removed at the behest of the commision, bankers put in their place
- referendums ignored routinely
- "Parliament" (in fact it is like the Lords, they rubber stamp what the commission dishes up to them) that doesn't function...supposed to oversee the Commission, Junker said this week in response to the speaker of the parliament pointing this out to him;
"There are few people in the World that can control the Commission"
...he then went on to rubbish the institution
- Routine lies told to electorates in the EUs defence...see Macron, who wont reform anything about the EU that Germany itself hasn't already decided they want to change...and who will have to make cuts in France despite saying the opposite in the campaign, he will have to because Germany says he has to
- Lying about the EU army which they are now putting together post haste...perhaps they intend to use it on us.
- Eastern Europe being dictated to and cast in the role of spongers
- Encouraging Ukraine to believe they could be part of the EU which has led to the Russian annexation of Crimea and thousands of deaths.
- The TOTAL lack of accountability
- Barnier stating that the UK is "deluded" for thinking that we could leave the EU and still trade on good terms.
Straight up racketeering.
....and I could go on.
The only negatives of Brexit to our economy is this period of uncertainty....investment will flow when they know what the rules are going to be.
The only impediment to a quick solution is the EU they would rather damage everyone's economies and risk war than get on with building their deeply unpopular superstate without us...tells you something. | |
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