Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[Pickman's model]

Tell you what, they should reinstate the Irish border as it stood on 1/1/1919. Or 24/4/1916. Either suits me

 

[danny la rouge]

I will await the government solution to the Irish border question, however I don't believe it is possible to solve without huge expense and political cost.

I'm certain it'll be a challenge to say the least.

I am pretty sure I have a grip on how evidence works, although you may suggest some kind of subtle nuance I haven't thought of.

Well, the question I asked was whether there was evidence that Leave voters are racist. Or voted the way they did for racist reasons. What you presented was not evidence of that. It was evidence of the editorial policy of a right wing newspaper.

Glee and incompetence from the winners, and bewilderment for the losers.

It's worth remembering that those leading the Brexit process include many who were Remain campaigners.

Hope your hospital visit wasn't too stressful.

Thanks. It's good to have her home. Though she's still very weak.

 

[David Clapson]

From today's FT. You can read it on the FT site without a subscription if you go via @ftwestminster on Twitter. I've pasted it here without any para breaks. Sorry.

Brexit chaos puts Conservatives on the edge of a breakdown. Following a week of upheaval in Westminster, it is not clear if May’s government will survive — or if any exit deal can pass parliament

Boris Johnson, Britain’s foreign secretary, posed portentously for the photographer — hastily summoned on Monday to his Georgian residence overlooking St James’s Park — his jaw set in Churchillian pose. The frontman of Brexit had promised Britain a confident future outside the EU. Now looking purposefully into the middle distance, he signed his resignation letter to Theresa May declaring: “That dream is dying.” By the end of a tumultuous week in British politics, the Brexit “dream” was lying bloodied in the gutter. Mr Johnson, who fronted the 2016 Vote Leave campaign, had quit; David Davis, the cabinet’s chief Brexit negotiator, had gone too, refusing to stomach the prime minister’s long-awaited white paper, setting out a vision that Mr Johnson claimed would leave Britain loitering in the EU’s “dingy ante room”. The Brexiters had promised that Britain would break free from the EU’s regulatory orbit; instead Mrs May proposed applying all EU rules for goods and agriculture and remaining in a quasi customs union. Services, including Britain’s financial services sector, would have to make do with less EU market access. They could at least cling to the hope that Britain would in future be able to forge its own trade deals, reaching out to global markets and to the “Anglosphere” of “kith and kin” countries across the oceans. The biggest prize of all would be a US free-trade deal. But on Friday, Donald Trump arrived in London having laid waste to those hopes. The US president said he had “told” Mrs May how to deliver Brexit, but she had gone the “opposite way”, embracing EU rules that prohibit the import of American hormone-treated beef and chlorine-dipped chicken, for example. “If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK,” Mr Trump said in an interview with The Sun newspaper. “So it will probably kill the deal.” Kicking off with the cabinet summit held last Friday at Mrs May’s Chequers country residence, the prime minister had hoped to be able to finally present a coherent path towards Brexit this week that was broadly supported by her party. Instead, after several days of chaos at Westminster, almost everything in British politics is up in the air. Even if she survives a potential leadership challenge, it is not guaranteed that Mrs May’s government will be able to hold together through a number of key parliamentary votes in the autumn. And it is also unclear whether there is a majority in parliament for any of the potential paths to Brexit — her proposed deal or a more abrupt exit. Jeremy Hunt, who replaced Mr Johnson as foreign secretary, warned this week of potential “Brexit paralysis, which would be immensely damaging”. Mrs May’s 98-page white paper on Britain’s future relationship with the EU — a document produced almost two years after the Brexit vote — now forms the basis for the deal that she hopes to conclude with the 27 other EU member states before the end of the year. The prime minister had pleaded with EU leaders not to reject it out of hand — she told them she could not simultaneously take on Tory Brexiters and European governments — and the document was given a polite but muted reception. Simon Coveney, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, called it a “step towards a much softer Brexit”. The white paper was crafted in Number 10 by Olly Robbins, Mrs May’s chief Brexit official, and calls for a supercharged “association agreement” — of the kind recently agreed between the EU and Ukraine — to give privileged access to Britain to the world’s most lucrative single market. But to the eyes of many in Brussels, it still looks like Britain wants many of the benefits of EU membership without its obligations — including free movement and budget contributions. One EU diplomat joked that Mrs May’s paper looked “more like a membership application” than an exit. The prime minister’s problem, alluded to in Mr Johnson’s florid resignation letter, is that the white paper is only the start of the Brexit climbdown: Mrs May will have to go much further if she is to secure a good trade deal with Brussels. Given that the Tory Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg has already described the white paper as representing “the greatest vassalage since King John paid homage to Philip II at Le Goulet in 1200”, it is hard to see how pro-Brexit Tory MPs will support Mrs May’s deal. Tory Brexiters claim that 60 or so MPs who support the European Research Group, chaired by Mr Rees-Mogg, would vote against what Mr Johnson calls a “semi Brexit” deal, wiping out the prime minister’s majority. “They have faces like thunder,” says one Tory MP. “They will vote against whatever deal she comes up with. They don’t seem to care if that meant the government fell.” Dominic Raab, a Eurosceptic who replaced Mr Davis as Brexit secretary, pleaded with his colleagues to avoid “parliamentary riots and sabotage”. Mrs May this week dispatched officials to brief opposition MPs on her “softer Brexit” white paper in the hope that some might come to her aid when she presents her final deal to parliament in the autumn. But privately Downing Street admits it would be reckless to rely on Labour votes to secure a Brexit deal. Ben Bradshaw, a pro-European Labour MP, agrees: “It’s inconceivable that the Labour party would ride to the government’s rescue and miss the opportunity of bringing it down or — possibly — forcing a ‘people’s vote’ on any deal.” Mrs May will try to use this unyielding parliamentary arithmetic to persuade Brussels to cut her a good deal she can sell to her party. And she has another strategy: she hopes to convince EU leaders that if they push her too far — for example, demanding free movement and billions of pounds for EU projects — she would walk away and Britain would leave in disorderly fashion without a deal next March. At this week’s cabinet meeting, Mrs May instructed ministers to “step up preparations” for a no-deal scenario, although early indications are that this desperate project might simply convince Brussels that no rational prime minister would ever inflict such an outcome on their people. Thousands of electricity generators would have to be requisitioned at short notice and put on barges in the Irish Sea to help keep the lights on in Northern Ireland in the event of the hardest no-deal Brexit, according to one paper drawn up by Whitehall officials. Plans are being drawn up to stockpile medicines and processed foods. “It has been said that it’s a bit like standing on the top floor of an eight-storey building and threatening to jump off if we don’t get what we want,” says Hilary Benn, Labour chairman of the House of Commons Brexit committee. There is another problem: moderate Conservatives say at least 50 Tory MPs would join forces with the Labour opposition and other parties to vote in the Commons to stop Mrs May taking Britain over the cliff-edge. “Whatever the legal status of that vote, no prime minister could ignore the will of parliament,” says one pro-European Tory. So the possibility arises that in the autumn Mrs May will be unable to secure a Commons majority for either a deal or no deal. In that scenario, she may have no other choice but to appeal to the EU to extend the two-year Article 50 exit process while she tries to resolve the political stalemate. The only way out of such an impasse might be to hold a general election, or for Mrs May to put her deal to a second referendum. Tory Brexiters now face the moment of truth of whether to press ahead with their project, or to try to stop Mrs May “capitulating” to Brussels with a deal they view to be too soft. Talk continues to circulate at Westminster that Conservative MPs are close to assembling the 48 names needed to trigger a vote of confidence in the prime minister. “The whips are crapping themselves,” says one senior Brexiter. But the Eurosceptics are split. Some, like environment secretary Michael Gove and trade secretary Liam Fox, are backing Mrs May’s plan, believing they can fix Brexit’s flaws after the UK leaves. On private message groups, hardline Brexiters lambast the “careerists” who do not have the guts to fight. If they challenge Mrs May in a leadership contest, they would probably lose. They might be able to assemble the 48 names to trigger a vote of confidence, but have nowhere near the 159 names needed to bring her down. If they vote against a Brexit deal, they run the risk of Brexit not happening at all. What is becoming ever clearer is that many Brexiters have no Plan B, as Chris Wilkins, Mrs May’s former speech writer, illustrated this week. He recalled how, on a tense flight home from the UN in New York last year, he and the prime minister’s team were grappling with a complicated section of what became Mrs May’s Florence speech last September, which tried to devise a new regulatory relationship. “As we did so, the former foreign secretary pulled me to one side,” he recalled. “I awaited his words of wisdom. ‘You know Chris,’ Mr Johnson said. ‘We’ve just got to get out. We can worry about all this other stuff later.’ “Stunned that this was all one of the main architects of Brexit had to offer, all I could say was: ‘You know what Boris, I’d noticed.’”

 

[A380]

Tell you what, they should reinstate the Irish border as it stood on 1/1/1919. Or 24/4/1916. Either suits me

You know, I think that probably was Theresa May’s originally plan....

Till someone noticed.

 

[free spirit]

It's quite straightforward. A referendum was put before the people by the government, asking one question (see my previous post). The referendum took place. The decision the people came to (the UK should Leave the European Union) is now being carried out by the government. That's how it works.

The ballot paper said "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?". Whatever people may have thought they were voting for on either side, the only thing actually being decided was whether the United Kingdom would remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union. The latter was decided.

This is the crux of the problem - we were asked about leaving the EU, and only the EU, but the government has taken the result to mean that we voted to leave the EU and the Single Market and the Customs Union.

We can't be in the EU while also not being in the EU, so obviously the referendum result means the government have a mandate to negotiate on that, but we can be in the customs union and / or the single market while also not being in the EU, so the referendum gives them no mandate for taking us out of them.

At the moment the politicians and everyone else are using their own interpretation of what the Brexit vote meant, which is fine while conducting the negotiations, but when it comes to the final decision the only people who can actually determine for certain whether or not the government's interpretation of it is actually the will of the people is the British people.

That's why we need a referendum on the final deal, especially so if that final deal involves us leaving the only existing Europe wide (well virtually all of Europe) free trade area and customs union. If this truly is the will of the British people then so be it, off the economic cliff we go, but not without us specifically voting for it, and especially not when every recent poll shows a big majority in favour of staying in the Single Market and customs union.

 

[paolo]

It’s imposed by the EU. If it were up to the British and Irish governments alone — the sovereign governments of the relevant sovereign states — there would be no border. The EU are the ones insisting it be there. They are imposing it. To insist otherwise is to really twist reality to suit your ideology.

Aren’t you simply stating that the EU has borders, generally, and the incoming new one internally in Ireland will be part of those?

 

[paolo]

I’m currently thinking border in the sea is the least worst option. It’ll fuck off the unionists, but border in Ireland... ouch.

 

[toblerone3]

Draw a line between the present situation and when in the future you think we will achieve open borders. Find the intersect between that line and the vertical axis five years in the future. Use that as a guideline to policy.

 

[kabbes]

Aren’t you simply stating that the EU has borders, generally, and the incoming new one internally in Ireland will be part of those?

No. I’m saying that a border has to be created by a party that wants it. They are not some natural work of God. If neither ROI nor UK want this border, who is the party that is creating it?

 

[Winot]

No. I’m saying that a border has to be created by a party that wants it. They are not some natural work of God. If neither ROI nor UK want this border, who is the party that is creating it?

They do not have to create a border. It is a choice. But they do have to deal with the consequences of that choice.

You are trying to set up the EU as the big bad wolf here, but really it is about geopolitical choice of which rules to follow.

 

[kabbes]

They do not have to create a border. It is a choice. But they do have to deal with the consequences of that choice.

You are trying to set up the EU as the big bad wolf here, but really it is about geopolitical choice of which rules to follow.

Which rules specify how a border must be policed?

 

[Winot]

Which rules specify how a border must be policed?

Don’t know. Doubt any do. Trade rules are more about setting/collecting tariffs aren’t they? It’s just that the particular history of the Irish border leads many to think that any checks will risk escalating tension. I don’t know enough about Ireland to know if that’s true.

 

[kebabking]

Don’t know. Doubt any do. Trade rules are more about setting/collecting tariffs aren’t they? It’s just that the particular history of the Irish border leads many to think that any checks will risk escalating tension. I don’t know enough about Ireland to know if that’s true.

i am certain that any kind of border infrastructure will attract can Republican violence, i doubt enormously that it will either stoke real tension or that the violence will be on anything like the scale of 'the troubles', but the unsavoury truth is that there is violence now, without any kind of border infrastructure: there are something like 100 Republican attacks on the NI state, its security forces and its economy (and a good number in the Republic) every year. we are fortunate that those attacks are overwelmingly small scale and unsuccsessfull, and that the plethora of 'IRA's' - some of them literally two men and a dog - that have grown up in the 20 years of PIRA ceacefire and GFA are both heavily compromised and manage to attract very much the bottom third of the talent pool.

rather like kabbes however i don't believe that 65, or 70 if you include the Republic, million people should pander to perhaps three to five hundred - the difficult truth for political Republicanism is that there is a strain of Republicanism that is simply unable to accept any form of derivation from what they (and there are perhaps 15-20 different groups/ideologies within 'dissident' Republicanism) see as The One True Path of Republicanism, and they are quite prepared to kill for it, indeed they are quite prepared to kill to not even achieve it, but just to keep the struggle for it alive in a political sense. you could genuinely have a 32 county state designed entirely by the perhaps 300-500 individuals involved in dissident Republican violence, that 75% of them thought was a genuine reflection of Republican Truth, and the other 25% would scream treason and sellout, and they'd be attacking it and killing its adherants within 3 years. there is little point trying to place people who cannot be placated.

 

[Kaka Tim]

i am certain that any kind of border infrastructure will attract can Republican violence, i doubt enormously that it will either stoke real tension or that the violence will be on anything like the scale of 'the troubles', but the unsavoury truth is that there is violence now, without any kind of border infrastructure: there are something like 100 Republican attacks on the NI state, its security forces and its economy (and a good number in the Republic) every year. we are fortunate that those attacks are overwelmingly small scale and unsuccsessfull, and that the plethora of 'IRA's' - some of them literally two men and a dog - that have grown up in the 20 years of PIRA ceacefire and GFA are both heavily compromised and manage to attract very much the bottom third of the talent pool.

rather like kabbes however i don't believe that 65, or 70 if you include the Republic, million people should pander to perhaps three to five hundred - the difficult truth for political Republicanism is that there is a strain of Republicanism that is simply unable to accept any form of derivation from what they (and there are perhaps 15-20 different groups/ideologies within 'dissident' Republicanism) see as The One True Path of Republicanism, and they are quite prepared to kill for it, indeed they are quite prepared to kill to not even achieve it, but just to keep the struggle for it alive in a political sense. you could genuinely have a 32 county state designed entirely by the perhaps 300-500 individuals involved in dissident Republican violence, that 75% of them thought was a genuine reflection of Republican Truth, and the other 25% would scream treason and sellout, and they'd be attacking it and killing its adherants within 3 years. there is little point trying to place people who cannot be placated.

its not a "few hundred people" the overwhelming majority of people in both the north and the republic would hate any re-establishment of the border. . There is no border now - people freely travel and work on both sides. A joiner, an electrician or a landscape gardener might cross the border several times a day during their workday. On top of that is a hugely emotive issue for republicans because - ITS THE SAME FUCKING COUNTRY. The dissolving of the border is an absolutely key part of the peace process.
That sort of resentment would see widespread sabotage of any border infrastructure and a high potential of attacks on any personal enforcing border controls - and this violence and sabotage would be supported - or tacitly accepted - by a large proportion of the population (and not just republicans).
That threat would likely see a return of ever more stringent security measures which in turn could easily provoke a cycle of violence that would be an absolute boon to the assorted headbangers on both sides.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

its not a "few hundred people" the overwhelming majority of people in both the north and the republic would hate any re-establishment of the border. . There is no border now - people freely travel and work on both sides. A joiner, an electrician or a landscape gardener might cross the border several times a day during their workday. On top of that is a hugely emotive issue for republicans because - ITS THE SAME FUCKING COUNTRY. The dissolving of the border is an absolutely key part of the peace process.
That sort of resentment would see widespread sabotage of any border infrastructure and a high potential of attacks on any personal enforcing border controls - and this violence and sabotage would be supported - or tacitly accepted - by a large proportion of the population (and not just republicans).
That threat would likely see a return of ever more stringent security measures which in turn could easily provoke a cycle of violence that would be an absolute boon to the assorted headbangers on both sides.

This is just not true though, there is a border and it is policed. See the example of a Russian with a UK visa wishing to travel to Eire. Just cos UK and Eire (and latterly EU) citizens share a common travel area, does not mean that there is no border.

Same within the Schengen area, see France closing it’s borders after the Bataclan attack.

 

[Kaka Tim]

This is just not true though, there is a border and it is policed. See the example of a Russian with a UK visa wishing to travel to Eire. Just cos UK and Eire (and latterly EU) citizens share a common travel area, does not mean that there is no border.

Same within the Schengen area, see France closing it’s borders after the Bataclan attack.

I have been to norn iron several times - my other half is from there - there is no border that anyone notices - all you have is a change from miles to kilometres on the road signs. And - for many people (and not just republicans) - there is no real sense that its a different country. Far less so than between england and scotland. A hard border would be seen as an act of violence - and would be met with the same.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I have been to norn iron several times - my other half is from there - there is no border that anyone notices - all you have is a change from miles to kilometres on the road signs. And - for many people (and not just republicans) - there is no real sense that its a different country. Far less so than between england and scotland. A hard border would be seen as an act of violence - and would be met with the same.

I have had two customers detained and sent back to NI when trying to cross to Eire. How did that happen if all there is is a speed sign change? You don't notice it cos you are entitled to use the common travel area.

 

[Kaka Tim]

I have had two customers detained and sent back to NI when trying to cross to Eire. How did that happen if all there is is a speed sign change? You don't notice it cos you are entitled to use the common travel area.

and one individual anecdote trumps the experience and perception of 99.9% of the people what live there does it? People who mostly grew up with a militarised border and a long and bloody conflict over its existence.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

and one individual anecdote trumps the experience and perception of 99.9% of the people what live there does it? People who mostly grew up with a militarised border and a long and bloody conflict over its existence.

It is not an anecdote, it is the law. If you need a visa to enter the UK and one to enter Eire, you can not cross from the UK to Eire without a visa, or you will be deported as an illegal immigrant. Yet you say there is no border, that is not true, in spite of the fact that persons with access to the common travel area being able to travel freely.

 

[Kaka Tim]

It is not an anecdote, it is the law. If you need a visa to enter the UK and one to enter Eire, you can not cross from the UK to Eire without a visa, or you will be deported as an illegal immigrant. Yet you say there is no border, that is not true, in spite of the fact that persons with access to the common travel area being able to travel freely.

but the border does not exist in any meaningful way - in that has no affect on the vast majority of people crossing it or living near it - and certainly does not exist in the minds of the people who live there. the technicalities - or how it is used (very very rarely i would guess) to police illegal immigration - are utterly irrelevant to the brexit irish border debate

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

but the border does not exist in any meaningful way - in that has no affect on the vast majority of people crossing it or living near it - and certainly does not exist in the minds of the people who live there. the technicalities - or how it is used (very very rarely i would guess) to police illegal immigration - are utterly irrelevant to the brexit irish border debate

Is there a border or not?

You say not, yet there is one, it is known as a soft border and UK and EU citizens can cross freely as it is part of the common travel area, (non-Irish or British EU citizens must pass a hard border to enter the common travel area from the rest of the EU or non-EU areas.

The EU wishes to impose a hard border in the event of crash-out. The UK has stated that it will not impose a hard border under any circumstances, it will keep the soft border that currently exists. Remainers like that philosophical berk keep harping on about the border as if it will be the end of days. Perhaps it will lead to a resurgence of sectarian violence if the EU erects a hard border, go lobby Brussels about it. The UK is leaving the EU is all, the UK will not impose a hard border between it and Eire.

 

[Nylock]

Brexit chaos puts Conservatives on the edge of a breakdown. Following a week of upheaval in Westminster, it is not clear if May’s government will survive — or if any exit deal can pass parliament

Boris Johnson, Britain’s foreign secretary, posed portentously for the photographer — hastily summoned on Monday to his Georgian residence overlooking St James’s Park — his jaw set in Churchillian pose. The frontman of Brexit had promised Britain a confident future outside the EU. Now looking purposefully into the middle distance, he signed his resignation letter to Theresa May declaring: “That dream is dying.” By the end of a tumultuous week in British politics, the Brexit “dream” was lying bloodied in the gutter. Mr Johnson, who fronted the 2016 Vote Leave campaign, had quit; David Davis, the cabinet’s chief Brexit negotiator, had gone too, refusing to stomach the prime minister’s long-awaited white paper, setting out a vision that Mr Johnson claimed would leave Britain loitering in the EU’s “dingy ante room”.

The Brexiters had promised that Britain would break free from the EU’s regulatory orbit; instead Mrs May proposed applying all EU rules for goods and agriculture and remaining in a quasi customs union. Services, including Britain’s financial services sector, would have to make do with less EU market access. They could at least cling to the hope that Britain would in future be able to forge its own trade deals, reaching out to global markets and to the “Anglosphere” of “kith and kin” countries across the oceans. The biggest prize of all would be a US free-trade deal. But on Friday, Donald Trump arrived in London having laid waste to those hopes. The US president said he had “told” Mrs May how to deliver Brexit, but she had gone the “opposite way”, embracing EU rules that prohibit the import of American hormone-treated beef and chlorine-dipped chicken, for example. “If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK,” Mr Trump said in an interview with The Sun newspaper. “So it will probably kill the deal.”

Kicking off with the cabinet summit held last Friday at Mrs May’s Chequers country residence, the prime minister had hoped to be able to finally present a coherent path towards Brexit this week that was broadly supported by her party. Instead, after several days of chaos at Westminster, almost everything in British politics is up in the air. Even if she survives a potential leadership challenge, it is not guaranteed that Mrs May’s government will be able to hold together through a number of key parliamentary votes in the autumn. And it is also unclear whether there is a majority in parliament for any of the potential paths to Brexit — her proposed deal or a more abrupt exit. Jeremy Hunt, who replaced Mr Johnson as foreign secretary, warned this week of potential “Brexit paralysis, which would be immensely damaging”. Mrs May’s 98-page white paper on Britain’s future relationship with the EU — a document produced almost two years after the Brexit vote — now forms the basis for the deal that she hopes to conclude with the 27 other EU member states before the end of the year. The prime minister had pleaded with EU leaders not to reject it out of hand — she told them she could not simultaneously take on Tory Brexiters and European governments — and the document was given a polite but muted reception. Simon Coveney, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, called it a “step towards a much softer Brexit”.

The white paper was crafted in Number 10 by Olly Robbins, Mrs May’s chief Brexit official, and calls for a supercharged “association agreement” — of the kind recently agreed between the EU and Ukraine — to give privileged access to Britain to the world’s most lucrative single market. But to the eyes of many in Brussels, it still looks like Britain wants many of the benefits of EU membership without its obligations — including free movement and budget contributions. One EU diplomat joked that Mrs May’s paper looked “more like a membership application” than an exit. The prime minister’s problem, alluded to in Mr Johnson’s florid resignation letter, is that the white paper is only the start of the Brexit climbdown: Mrs May will have to go much further if she is to secure a good trade deal with Brussels. Given that the Tory Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg has already described the white paper as representing “the greatest vassalage since King John paid homage to Philip II at Le Goulet in 1200”, it is hard to see how pro-Brexit Tory MPs will support Mrs May’s deal. Tory Brexiters claim that 60 or so MPs who support the European Research Group, chaired by Mr Rees-Mogg, would vote against what Mr Johnson calls a “semi Brexit” deal, wiping out the prime minister’s majority. “They have faces like thunder,” says one Tory MP. “They will vote against whatever deal she comes up with. They don’t seem to care if that meant the government fell.” Dominic Raab, a Eurosceptic who replaced Mr Davis as Brexit secretary, pleaded with his colleagues to avoid “parliamentary riots and sabotage”.

Mrs May this week dispatched officials to brief opposition MPs on her “softer Brexit” white paper in the hope that some might come to her aid when she presents her final deal to parliament in the autumn. But privately Downing Street admits it would be reckless to rely on Labour votes to secure a Brexit deal. Ben Bradshaw, a pro-European Labour MP, agrees: “It’s inconceivable that the Labour party would ride to the government’s rescue and miss the opportunity of bringing it down or — possibly — forcing a ‘people’s vote’ on any deal.” Mrs May will try to use this unyielding parliamentary arithmetic to persuade Brussels to cut her a good deal she can sell to her party. And she has another strategy: she hopes to convince EU leaders that if they push her too far — for example, demanding free movement and billions of pounds for EU projects — she would walk away and Britain would leave in disorderly fashion without a deal next March. At this week’s cabinet meeting, Mrs May instructed ministers to “step up preparations” for a no-deal scenario, although early indications are that this desperate project might simply convince Brussels that no rational prime minister would ever inflict such an outcome on their people. Thousands of electricity generators would have to be requisitioned at short notice and put on barges in the Irish Sea to help keep the lights on in Northern Ireland in the event of the hardest no-deal Brexit, according to one paper drawn up by Whitehall officials. Plans are being drawn up to stockpile medicines and processed foods. “It has been said that it’s a bit like standing on the top floor of an eight-storey building and threatening to jump off if we don’t get what we want,” says Hilary Benn, Labour chairman of the House of Commons Brexit committee.

There is another problem: moderate Conservatives say at least 50 Tory MPs would join forces with the Labour opposition and other parties to vote in the Commons to stop Mrs May taking Britain over the cliff-edge. “Whatever the legal status of that vote, no prime minister could ignore the will of parliament,” says one pro-European Tory. So the possibility arises that in the autumn Mrs May will be unable to secure a Commons majority for either a deal or no deal. In that scenario, she may have no other choice but to appeal to the EU to extend the two-year Article 50 exit process while she tries to resolve the political stalemate. The only way out of such an impasse might be to hold a general election, or for Mrs May to put her deal to a second referendum. Tory Brexiters now face the moment of truth of whether to press ahead with their project, or to try to stop Mrs May “capitulating” to Brussels with a deal they view to be too soft. Talk continues to circulate at Westminster that Conservative MPs are close to assembling the 48 names needed to trigger a vote of confidence in the prime minister. “The whips are crapping themselves,” says one senior Brexiter.

But the Eurosceptics are split. Some, like environment secretary Michael Gove and trade secretary Liam Fox, are backing Mrs May’s plan, believing they can fix Brexit’s flaws after the UK leaves. On private message groups, hardline Brexiters lambast the “careerists” who do not have the guts to fight. If they challenge Mrs May in a leadership contest, they would probably lose. They might be able to assemble the 48 names to trigger a vote of confidence, but have nowhere near the 159 names needed to bring her down. If they vote against a Brexit deal, they run the risk of Brexit not happening at all. What is becoming ever clearer is that many Brexiters have no Plan B, as Chris Wilkins, Mrs May’s former speech writer, illustrated this week. He recalled how, on a tense flight home from the UN in New York last year, he and the prime minister’s team were grappling with a complicated section of what became Mrs May’s Florence speech last September, which tried to devise a new regulatory relationship. “As we did so, the former foreign secretary pulled me to one side,” he recalled. “I awaited his words of wisdom. ‘You know Chris,’ Mr Johnson said. ‘We’ve just got to get out. We can worry about all this other stuff later.’ “Stunned that this was all one of the main architects of Brexit had to offer, all I could say was: ‘You know what Boris, I’d noticed.’”

Made that wall of text slightly more readable....

 

[DexterTCN]

Is there a border or not?

You say not, yet there is one....

Can you post a link on google maps or street view?

 

[cupid_stunt]

Can you post a link on google maps or street view?

Google Maps

 

[DexterTCN]

This type of thing, where you can drill down and actually see building, cars...borders.

CRAIGSHILL STREET - streets of Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland, United Kingdom

 

[cupid_stunt]

This type of thing, where you can drill down and actually see building, cars...borders.

CRAIGSHILL STREET - streets of Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland, United Kingdom

Well, click on the link provided, switch to streetview, and zoom in, it's not rocket science.

Not that you are going to see much, as it's a soft border, and even when it was a so-called hard border, it leaked like fuck.

 

[sleaterkinney]

The EU wishes to impose a hard border in the event of crash-out. The UK has stated that it will not impose a hard border under any circumstances, it will keep the soft border that currently exists.

Where and when has the UK stated this?. It is against international law.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Borders have 2 sides.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Where and when has the UK stated this?

.

Theresa May: No hard border after Brexit

BRITISH Prime Minster Theresa May has used a major speech on Brexit to restate that there will be no hard border in Ireland after Brexit.

It is against international law.

Show me the bit of international law that prohibits a soft border between the UK and Eire. Or admit you're making stuff up to boost your position.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Borders have 2 sides.

Like between the north & the republic in Ireland?

Like between my front garden & the next-door's front garden?

Two sides, but no hard border-lines.