Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[Teaboy]

No.

Spoil sport.

 

[ska invita]

There’s no reason to believe that Labour, were they to win, would command any more of a Commons consensus for their Brexit strategy than the Tories. The stalemate in the political classes is an ecumenical matter.

I think the utter stalemate is the best argument for a second referendum: parliament is stuck, we'll do whatever the 2nd referendum tells us to do, no questions asked

 

[Pickman's model]

Ian Duncan Smith could cough

don't worry, he will cough after a few months working in the sacn basalt mines

 

[Pickman's model]

Send it to the Lords for the Bishops to sort out?

That's the sort of blue sky thinking we need, I like it.

the press would bash the bishops

 

[Winot]

Does anyone believe that a general election would actually solve anything?

Not with current Labour party Brexit policy, no.

 

[Winot]

Yeah, but how many Leave voters would be politically active about it? Many would settle for Leaving pretty much in name and never hearing about it again.

Some people would make a noise, but unless the Tory right can come to govern not a lot will happen.

Brexit was never going to change anything for anyone. The comfortable in the shires who voted for it in droves will continue to be xenophobic, but comfortable. The left behind won’t get housed in anything decent. The latter are just as likely to conclude Brexit was a sell out as much as it was sold out.

Agree absolutely with your final paragraph.

I think you’re first paragraph is naive though - any hint of not being able to stop Poles coming in and Farage will be on it like a shot, whipping up the same discontent as the last time.

 

[ska invita]

Ian Duncan Smith could cough

Just realised Ian Duncan Smith is acutally called Ian Smith and he probably thought his name sounded a bit too common like, so brought out the Duncan to spice it up a bit

 

[ska invita]

Brexit was never going to change anything for anyone.

Brexit might yet change a lot for EU citizens who have made a home in the UK

 

[Pickman's model]

Just realised Ian Duncan Smith is acutally called Ian Smith and he probably thought his name sounded a bit too common like, so brought out the Duncan to spice it up a bit

ian smith - harold bishop out of neighbours - insisted ids put in the duncan as he was sick of getting hate mail intended for the tory mp

 

[Mr Moose]

Brexit might yet change a lot for EU citizens who have made a home in the UK

True that.

 

[danny la rouge]

I think the utter stalemate is the best argument for a second referendum: parliament is stuck, we'll do whatever the 2nd referendum tells us to do, no questions asked

Well, that does kind of lead us to wonder why it requires two referendums to do what the result tells them to.

The second thing to consider: if it’s another close run thing, then what? What changes?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Assuming we actually managed to make it as far as Belgium.

We've already got the best ferry people in Europe onside.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes, it would resolve the question as to whether Jeremy Corbyn’s time is up.

In the same way that 2017 made clear that it isn't and that if anything his position is strengthening?

A brexit focused general election (like the 2017 one that brexit obsessed media-politico liberal demanded be nearly solely about - the electorate had other ideas, and may well still have in any coming contest) is much more likely to decide if new labour will have achieved its final internal victory through much of the left (and by that i mean the corbynite left - the new corybite left that didn't come out of the battles of the 70s and 80s and is now a large deciding chunk of the membership) adopting many of its tenets - certainly as regards the EU at the very least. In much the way that thatcher consider new-labour her greatest achievement. Or whether that old style labour-socialism we're so often told the labour left with corbyn as leader represents actually has some real life left in it beyond technocratic guff.

 

[Pickman's model]

We've already got the best ferry people in Europe onside.

yes, gerry and the pacemakers and bryan ferry and his family are all onside.

 

[killer b]

I think the most likely result of a general election (a Labour minority or slim majority government) would give us a government who could certainly push through the norway-ish brexit deal they're probably going to light upon. There's more-or-less the numbers to push it through now, just not the executive to carry it out.

 

[Mr Moose]

In the same way that 2017 made clear that it isn't and that if anything his position is strengthening?

A brexit focused general election (like the 2017 one that brexit obsessed media-politico liberal demanded be nearly solely about - the electorate had other ideas, and may well still have in any coming contest) is much more likely to decide if new labour will have achieved its final internal victory through much of the left (and by that i mean the corbynite left - the new corybite left that didn't come out of the battles of the 70s and 80s and is now a large deciding chunk of the membership) adopting many of its tenets - certainly as regards the EU at the very least. In much the way that thatcher consider new-labour her greatest achievement. Or whether that old style labour-socialism we're so often told the labour left with corbyn as leader represents actually has some real life left in it beyond technocratic guff.

Simply, if he wins his time is not up and if he loses that’s probably it at his age. As much as he has changed things for the better it’s a results based business and one result matters above all.

Doesn’t mean that the wishes he embodies have run their course.

 

[killer b]

I want a general election just to see what brexit policy Labour run with. They managed to neutralise it pretty effectively last time, don't think that would be possible now...

 

[chilango]

As an aside I wonder how much of the Tory backbench Brexiteer rebellion is fuelled not by some belief in the detail but in a fear of losing personal self-identity as "Eurosceptic" MPs that has been cherished through comfortable careers in politics should we actually leave.

 

[Dogsauce]

Hence those shady Facebook ads mentioned on the last page - they’re not actually about getting people to write to their MPs but about undermining support for Labour MPs with their constituents, with an eye on a general election in the short term. If such a thing happens it’ll be swimming with dirty money aimed at supporting the tories, given a Corbyn government actually appears a possibility this time rather than the idea being the joke it was in 2017. There won’t be the complacency of that campaign and I can see it being a lot tougher for Labour.

 

[kebabking]

Well, that does kind of lead us to wonder why it requires two referendums to do what the result tells them to.

The second thing to consider: if it’s another close run thing, then what? What changes?

This is it - why should a brexity voter have any faith in their, err... good faith?

It's pretty clear that a sizable proportion on the political class don't intend to honour the result of the first referendum so why would anyone believe that they would honour the result of a second referendum?

This, imv, is where stuff gets much more important and much more dangerous than EU membership or otherwise, trade deals or otherwise, this is where large swathes of the population who would otherwise consider themselves fully paid up members of parliamentary politics, civil society suddenly feel as if they no longer have a stake in the political concensus.

Does anyone believe that the setting aside of the - however flawed - Catalan referendum isn't going to have long term consequences in terms of Catalans feeling they have a place in Spain?

Does anyone think that had the Scottish referendum been won by the 'yes' side, and three years later the political class was kicking it from the 'really hard' pile into the 'now people know the facts, perhaps they should think again' pile, that there would be no consequences, both in terms of political engagement, polirpoli legitimacy and even violence?

 

[Poi E]

Independence from the UK has been done loads before, so easy compared to this shit show.

 

[ska invita]

Does anyone think that had the Scottish referendum been won by the 'yes' side, and three years later the political class was kicking it from the 'really hard' pile into the 'now people know the facts, perhaps they should think again' pile, that there would be no consequences, both in terms of political engagement, polirpoli legitimacy and even violence?

The difference there is that in the Scottish Referendum they wrote down what Leave meant, and produced a long and thought out document that was the subject of the vote, the subject of debate in the lead up to the vote, and the process to be enacted. Here we had politicians arguing over what colour they think Brexit should be. The lack of definition at the start has been at the heart of so much of the problems since the referendum, and the disagreement on the defintion still hasnt been resolved,

 

[butchersapron]

Memory ah - the most reliable of narrators.

 

[danny la rouge]

The difference there is that in the Scottish Referendum they wrote down what Leave meant, and produced a long and thought out document that was the subject of the vote, the subject of debate in the lead up to the vote, and the process to be enacted. Here we had politicians arguing over what colour they think Brexit should be. The lack of definition at the start has been at the heart of so much of the problems since the referendum, and the disagreement on the defintion still hasnt been resolved,

Indeed. 649 pages of detail. In fact, too much detail, I think. But whatever you thought of it (and I didn’t agree with all of it), nobody could argue it wasn’t a thought through plan.

Brexit, on the other hand “means Brexit”, but other than that we keep hearing from this and that politician what “the Brexit the people voted for” was. Well, the only thing they voted for was “the United Kingdom should leave the European Union”. That’s it.

 

[killer b]

The brexit people voted for line is just rhetoric though: none of them actually think they're working to enact the will of the people - they're just invoking the will of the people for their own factional advantage.

 

[Pickman's model]

The brexit people voted for line is just rhetoric though: none of them actually think they're working to enact the will of the people - they're just invoking the will of the people for their own factional advantage.

conflating their own will with the will of the people

 

[mojo pixy]

Interesting technique. Much beloved of many great leaders.

 

[killer b]

conflating their own will with the will of the people

I dunno, I think conflation implies they've mistaken one for the other - I don't think there's many people invoking the will of the people who're doing so except in an entirely cynical way.

 

[Pickman's model]

I dunno, I think conflation implies they've mistaken one for the other - I don't think there's many people invoking the will of the people who're doing so except in an entirely cynical way.

i don't think conflation implies a mistake

 

[killer b]

OK fair enough.