Are we sleep-walking out of Europe ?

Frank Yang posted:

Could it be that May is a Blair's secret agent, who is planted to sabotage Brexit?

Well, that might be much more credible than her being Corbyn’s stooge at which she is actually doing a remarkable job. ????

Almost can't go to bed for wondering who else will be gone in the morning..

Christopher_M posted:

Almost can't go to bed for wondering who else will be gone in the morning..

Well you wouldn't like to find yourself sleepwalking out of...... etc.

My bet is on Boris mounting a leadership bid with some more notable snakes in grass.  This is typical tory tactics,  knife in the back & gather in the troops who didn't have the balls to do it themselves.  If you think the Maybot has been chaos,  wait 'till Boris & the rest of his jurassic park fossils have a go at 'negotiating',  I suspect it will not go well.

Truth be told leaving the EU was always bordering on the impossible.  I believe David Cameron used the referendum as a tool to silence his parties eurosceptics & it was never imagined the vote would be to leave.  It's left an unsolvable problem in that it will never satisfy the majority no matter what,  & that goes for any party, tory or labour,  too hard brexit & its bad,  too soft & still in the EU in all but name.  On one hand international business & financial services pulls up sticks & leave & we end up as a 3rd rate has been.  The other means we only half leave, still in the customs & EU trade agreements,  can't negotiate our own trade deals & have to accept free people movement;  that will eventually end up with another UKIP type uprising,  this time with a lot more disgruntled public backing it.   It's a ferkin mess & maybe,  just maybe,  the maybots 'chequers' way might have some hope,  assuming she's left alone long enough to give it a try.     And I say all that as a dyed in the wool conservative voter who is not a 'tory'.

Mike said..

I believe David Cameron used the referendum as a tool to silence his parties eurosceptics & it was never imagined the vote would be to leave.

You have it in a nutshell. It was also a populist move by Cameron who was trying to re-attract Tory voters who had defected to UKIP.

The present cabinet problems stem from the fact that the ballot paper simply asked if you wanted to leave the EU - it didn't state under what terms hence the rise of the different groups supporting a hard or soft Brexit. Also the voters weren't really told by either group just how excruciating the process of leaving would be.

Ray

Hunt moved from Health to Foreign Office.

Every cloud.....

Bruce

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

Every cloud.....

Has a core of even worse, gloomier cloudiness?

Eloise posted:

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

Every cloud.....

Has a core of even worse, gloomier cloudiness?

I suspect that Hunt told May that he had had quite enough of the NHS and unless she wanted another resignation she’d better offer him Boris’ job. Soon we will have a cabinet and shadow cabinet whose only use would be as landfill.

What's more likely- TMs resignation or being ousted out by the end of today ?

Eloise posted:

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

Every cloud.....

Has a core of even worse, gloomier cloudiness?

Hey, I'm trying to be positive.

Few in my profession will lament his moving on. Intransigent, opaque and at times monumentally stupid health secretary.

It appeared the NHS for him was just a tool for his political advancement. He spouted all sorts of nonsense and fiddled in the background without grasping any of the core issues.

His attempts to increase GP recruitment and retention are utter failures. Rather than 'adding 5,000 by 2020' the numbers have fallen. A scheme to recruit up to 600 GPs from abroad has managed just 58 in 2 years.

His response to the recent breast screening issue showed a total lack of understanding of the system and also of basic statistics, creating far more stress than was appropriate.

Bruce

TOBYJUG posted:

What's more likely- TMs resignation or being ousted out by the end of today ?

May won’t  resign. She epitomes far too much the arrogant, self belief of the liberal political elite. She is way beyond anything other than messianic self belief dressed up in kitten heels. If as Home Secretary she had moderated her views on mass immigration, multiculturalism and a wide open doors policy, which she could have done tacitly under EU rules, and had complete control over outside of the EU, then we would not be on page whatever of this extended discourse. 

In my opinion she is worse than Blair in terms of having a God complex which may or may not be reinforced each Sunday at church in Buckinghamshire or via her husband’s interests and beliefs, but she is single handedly destroying this country. 

Our p trenches are dug and WWI style political combat will begin in earnest very shortly. I, of course, am relishing the battles. 

Sitting here.. I think the English public did not understand the ramifications of Brexit fully. 

Me David Cameron's move for a referendum was poorly thought out. 

It's not as simple as - which ice cream flavor do you prefer  ?

Resurrection posted:

TOBYJUG posted:

What's more likely- TMs resignation or being ousted out by the end of today ?

May won’t  resign. She epitomes far too much the arrogant, self belief of the liberal political elite. She is way beyond anything other than messianic self belief dressed up in kitten heels. If as Home Secretary she had moderated her views on mass immigration, multiculturalism and a wide open doors policy, which she could have done tacitly under EU rules, and had complete control over outside of the EU, then we would not be on page whatever of this extended discourse. 

In my opinion she is worse than Blair in terms of having a God complex which may or may not be reinforced each Sunday at church in Buckinghamshire or via her husband’s interests and beliefs, but she is single handedly destroying this country. 

Our p trenches are dug and WWI style political combat will begin in earnest very shortly. I, of course, am relishing the battles. 

That big hawser of a necklace/gurning horse collar hasn't gone unnoticed. As have those lovely slender ankles.

something that can't be undone has been unleashed on an unsuspecting public! whatever happens now will hurt the UK.  If I was Prime Minister I would revoke article 50, come up with a decent plan and then invoke Article 50 and get out of the EU with everyone happy and business etc ready for the transition. It might take 10 years but at least it would be done properly. There's nothing wrong with being outside the EU if you are ready and all bases are covered.

MPW

Thank you for your concerns regarding our national lack of intelligance and providing us with a mind altering ice-cream analogy.

The debate is so much clearer now - I'll have a pokey-hat please.

Ray

I don’t think the obvious needs said.

G

To JPR - There is nothing in the Treaty about withdrawing an Art 50 application. Now if the UK government said "we've changed our mind and now want to remain in the EU. Can we withdraw our Art 50 application?" you could be sure that the other member states and EU Commission would find a legal way of allowing that to happen.  But if, as you suggest, the HMG said to the rest of the EU "Damn! Through our own incompetence we're nowhere ready to leave within the 2 year period specified so can we temporarily withdraw our Art 50 application and we'll put in another one in a few years when we have sorted ourselves out?" I don't think it takes much in the way of foresight to predict the rest of the EU's reaction i.e. to the effect that the second word would be "..off".   

GraemeH posted:

I don’t think the obvious needs said.

G

At least he reacted with humour and grace.

mpw posted:

Sitting here.. I think the English public did not understand the ramifications of Brexit fully. 

Me David Cameron's move for a referendum was poorly thought out. 

It's not as simple as - which ice cream flavor do you prefer  ?

I think that is the essence of the start of this thread...

TOBYJUG posted:

Resurrection posted:

TOBYJUG posted:

What's more likely- TMs resignation or being ousted out by the end of today ?

May won’t  resign. She epitomes far too much the arrogant, self belief of the liberal political elite. She is way beyond anything other than messianic self belief dressed up in kitten heels. If as Home Secretary she had moderated her views on mass immigration, multiculturalism and a wide open doors policy, which she could have done tacitly under EU rules, and had complete control over outside of the EU, then we would not be on page whatever of this extended discourse. 

In my opinion she is worse than Blair in terms of having a God complex which may or may not be reinforced each Sunday at church in Buckinghamshire or via her husband’s interests and beliefs, but she is single handedly destroying this country. 

Our p trenches are dug and WWI style political combat will begin in earnest very shortly. I, of course, am relishing the battles. 

That big hawser of a necklace/gurning horse collar hasn't gone unnoticed. As have those lovely slender ankles.

For those that don't understand what a gurning horse collar is..

MDS posted:

To JPR - There is nothing in the Treaty about withdrawing an Art 50 application. Now if the UK government said "we've changed our mind and now want to remain in the EU. Can we withdraw our Art 50 application?" you could be sure that the other member states and EU Commission would find a legal way of allowing that to happen.  But if, as you suggest, the HMG said to the rest of the EU "Damn! Through our own incompetence we're nowhere ready to leave within the 2 year period specified so can we temporarily withdraw our Art 50 application and we'll put in another one in a few years when we have sorted ourselves out?" I don't think it takes much in the way of foresight to predict the rest of the EU's reaction i.e. to the effect that the second word would be "..off".   

As all the EU official documents are translated into all EU languages, we would know how to say ...off in a vast number of languages!

In fact as a multilingual person I sometimes refer to EU documents to verify ways of saying things, grammar etc. I wonder if they will still publish documents in English after the U.K. leaves? As Prime Minister I would insist on that to be a fully functional rule taker.

mpw posted:

Sitting here.. I think the English public did not understand the ramifications of Brexit fully.

Thanks for putting us right, o wise one.

We English (and Welsh, along with some Scots and Northern irish) are so thick, we need guidance from our EU-phile overlords and the all-seeing political and media class, without whose wise guidance and counsel we would surely collapse into the Stone Age.

On a more serious note, nobody, not Jacob Rees Mogg, BoJo, Juncker, Barnier, Carney, the Guardian's crew of Bremaniac bedwetters, May, Gove, Hammond, Corbyn, Verhoftstadt (and not even you), understands what the ramifications  of Brexit are or will be - for the simple reason that nothing like it has ever happened before.

I suspect than in a decade's time we might start to know (assuming that is, we've left by then - don't forget, Brexit is not an event, it's a process). As Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai apparently didn't say to Richard Nixon in 1972 (when asked about the effects of the French Revolution of 1789): "It is too early to say".

And don't think that anything that happens to the UK (good or bad) won't impact on the rest of the EU, because it almost certainly will.

Kevin-W posted:

mpw posted:

Sitting here.. I think the English public did not understand the ramifications of Brexit fully.

Thanks for putting us right, o wise one.

We English (and Welsh, along with some Scots and Northern irish) are so thick, we need guidance from our EU-phile overlords and the all-seeing political and media class, without whose wise guidance and counsel we would surely collapse into the Stone Age.

On a more serious note, nobody, not Jacob Rees Mogg, BoJo, Juncker, Barnier, Carney, the Guardian's crew of Bremaniac bedwetters, May, Gove, Hammond, Corbyn, Verhoftstadt (and not even you), understands what the ramifications  of Brexit are or will be - for the simple reason that nothing like it has ever happened before.

I suspect than in a decade's time we might start to know (assuming that is, we've left by then - don't forget, Brexit is not an event, it's a process). As Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai apparently didn't say to Richard Nixon in 1972 (when asked about the effects of the French Revolution of 1789): "It is too early to say".

And don't think that anything that happens to the UK (good or bad) won't impact on the rest of the EU, because it almost certainly will.

Nice post. We slithered into the EU with absolutely no mandate from the U.K., but we can certainly leave with a mandated big bang any day of tthe week. Are you listening Theresa? 

jpr posted:

In fact as a multilingual person I sometimes refer to EU documents to verify ways of saying things, grammar etc. I wonder if they will still publish documents in English after the U.K. leaves? As Prime Minister I would insist on that to be a fully functional rule taker.

That was a concern to me early on, because so much has to comply with EU law and will still have to afterwards (e.g. food for export to EU), also it makes picking the useful bits easy for making or guiding our own laws when there is something we want - it was pointed out to me that English is the primary language of Eire, so documents would continue to be translated into English.

Well said Kevin