I seldom comment on Brexit, largely because I neither see leaving the EU as a panacea nor the EU itself as a Utopia, and am alienated by the over-extravagant passions and claims on both sides. In addition to that, the FCO is largely excluded from Brexit negotiations, being perceived by the Tories as a nest of remainers, so I seldom get any interesting information fed to me by ex-colleagues.
I should admit at this point that my apparently effortless expertise on myriad subjects is something of a fake, because often posts are prompted and informed (and very rarely, even written) by someone on the inside, and sometimes it is not possible to tell you that. But sometimes I can tell you, and today this knowledge comes from the inside.
The Legal Advisers of the FCO remain the UK government’s source of expertise on public international law. When the Attorney General publishes his view on such a matter, it has been drafted by FCO Legal Advisers or at the least is based on a minute from them. The sole exception to this of which I know was when Blair’s Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, received formal advice from FCO Legal Advisers that to invade Iraq would be an illegal war of aggression. Goldsmith then flew to Washington on instruction from Blair and Goldsmith’s final advice that the war was legal was based on drafting, not from FCO Legal Advisers, but from George Bush’s Legal Advisors. That is one of those incredible facts that I often find hard to understand do not lead to active public outrage. I wish I was a more religious man and could be sure that Hell awaits Goldsmith. I comfort myself with the thought that Goldsmith might himself be religious and cowering.
There is currently considerable alarm in the FCO that Legal Advisers have been asked about the circumstances constituting force majeure which would justify the UK in breaking a EU Withdrawal Agreement in the future. The EU did not fall for Johnson’s idea that a form of Northern Irish “backstop” would only come into effect with the future sanction of Stormont, as this effectively gives a hardline unionist veto, and Barnier was not born yesterday. The situation that Johnson and Raab appear now to contemplate is agreeing a “backstop” now to get Brexit done, but then not implementing the agreed backstop when the time comes due to “force majeure”.
There are two major problems with this line of thinking. The first is that it will give unionists an incentive to foment disorder in order to justify breaking the backstop agreement – indeed there is a concern that might be the tacit understanding Johnson is reaching with the DUP. Remember the British state conspired with the same people to murder the lawyer Pat Finucane and destroyed the evidence as recently as 2002.
The second problem is one of bad faith negotiation, and this is what is troubling the diplomats of the FCO. To negotiate an agreement with the secret intention of breaking it in future is a grossly immoral proceeding, and undermines the whole principle of good international relations. I should like to be able to say that I am sure this cannot be the intention. But when I look at Johnson, Raab and Cummings, I am really not so sure at all. It is possible that Johnson will succeed in the apparently insurmountable challenge of securing a deal all parties can agree, by the simple strategy of promising some parties he has no intention of honouring it.
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I guessed that the EU would come to an arrangement with Boris. I also guessed they’d rule out another extension which Juncker seems to have done today. And I predicted that this would all come down to a common’s vote.
This is where it gets trickier. I have consistently argued that there’s a possible opportunity here for the SNP to agree to abstain on the deal in return for a section 30. We are right at that door. The only thing that would stop this is the SNP being stupid.
And why shouldn’t the SNP abstain and let the English achieve the brexit they voted for? Why not when the libs and labour are both following their selfish and narrow party political goals?
Read carefully what the SNP are saying today. They’re saying they will not support the Boris deal. They aren’t saying they will vote against it. And they certainly aren’t saying they won’t abstain. Corbyn by comparison is saying he will vote against it. This isn’t coincidental.
What you saw with the EU today, e.g. Juncker, is the EU getting fed up with Britain for being unable to decide, and unable to pass a deal. They’re trying to make a deal stick, any deal which corresponds to EU minimum requirements.
I think nevertheless that they would extend, if there was a real change in the Brexiter-Remainer balance of power. But I have no confidence that that is likely, what with Corbyn playing around.
Yes, Juncker often says too much and it wouldn’t be his decision but I think the EU would like to move on and it wouldn’t surprise me if they officially announced there’d be no more extensions.
They would be flexible if there was a chance of a better solution. They changed the WA, though they said they wouldn’t.
A Who really cares?
EU is the “party” of big lobby and rich elites that couldnt care less about regular people – their wishes and the sovreignity of the nations, that have been incorporated in this union.
Former Soviet Dissident Warns For EU Dictatorship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlFr_OIOVfc
More Brexiter nonsense. The “big lobby and rich elites” is precisely what you Brexiters have put in power, and you’re getting to get the full flavour of, once Britannia Unchained is let loose. Pity you got fooled.
More Remainer nonsense. Tony Benn must be turning in his grave at the antics of his idiot son. Pity you got fooled.
I’m not a Labour supporter. Tony Benn was way out of date with his ideas – he was what they call in France a dinosaur. Corbyn the same. Little old England ain’t going to do too well on its own, with the full force of Britannia Unchained, and subject to the uncontrollable tornado of Trump. But have it your own way, you’ll find out.
Laguerre
The lobbying for Brexit is driven from below, EU is like the Soviet union a project driven from above.
Elites in the media, elites that own big companies, rich elites that can influence through lobbying, there you have the Remainers and EU clientele,
You are pro-elite, Jack. Why not admit it to yourself, you’re the only one who doesn’t understand it – you are putting in power the traditional elites who are going to rob you blind, while claiming they’re not elite. Populist regimes always end the same way, in disaster. You can go and read about the first one in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. Athens ended up starving and defeated. The Athenians had believed every word the demagogues told them – they were just like Johnson and Trump.
Laguerre
Just like in France its not the rich elites that are protesting in the streets. Same with Brexit, same with Trump.
Why are EU-critic Le Pen the big winner in the past european election? Is it because people are fed up with the development? Or will you use the tactics of the liberals – that these people are brainwashed? They dont know any better? You see, that is the elite talking in you..
Jack
You don’t understand much about France. Le Pen lost a lot in the last elections, and she more or less disappeared for a while. Even if you prefer the far right, as it seems, Le Pen hasn’t been able to make much of a come-back. Les gilets jaunes have mainly disappeared; people really didn’t like having their businesses wrecked.
Laguerre
You are terrible clueless on French politics consider you are from France,
Le Pen was the big winner in the EU parliament election:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/le-pen-beats-macron-in-eu-parliament-vote-as-far-right-gains-ground/
and yes we know you dislike the Yellow vest and prefer the protests of the right-wing neoliberal elite against them instead.
Jack
You have a typical Brexiter’s simplistic understanding of politics. Le Pen didn’t win, not the presidency, not the parliamentary elections, only in the EP elections, a traditional home of protest votes (where remember Farage also won. So, Farage has a right to be PM in Britain, based on that victoryt?). Le Pen lost out heavily, and has finished in Farage’s position, without much chance of a comeback. 2017 was her high-point.
Even worse, you cite the Times of Israel, an inevitably biased right-wing publication, which supports Netanyahu, also a far-right politician.
Laguerre,
Yes she was the big winner of the EU election, something I’ve said 3 times now, please read what I say.
People are fed up with Macron, Merkel, and other neoliberals in the west, that is why the people vote
to get these ideas out of the EU by voting on anti or parties critical of the EU.
Have a watch of this
“The Brussels Business – Who Runs the EU ?” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMuUEd6w54E
and tell; me the EU isn’t the other side of the same coin as that which you seek to criticise.
we’ve all been had, but better out than in, like a rotten tooth..
Dinosaurs still have a tremendous purchase on popular culture even today.
Will people remember you in 65 million years time?
Jack
You’ve said it three times, but you are still ignorant of France. Le Pen lost, and is quasi dead, you hardly ever see her in the news programmes nowadays. Macron is actually quite popular these days. You’ve got the out-of-date ideas of the far right Brexiters, who just don’t keep up to date.
Laguerre
Le Pen gained ahead than Macron in the EU election.
Le Pen defeats Macron amid Green surge
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-far-right-beats-emmanuel-macron-green-surge/
We know you support the neoliberal Macron war on the protesters.
Yellow vests protesters demand LEFT WING goals, but again you are not left so you cannot relate,
here is the goals:
Resignation of French President Emmanuel Macron and his government
Rise of the French minimum wage[37]
End to austerity measures[38]
Improved standard of living[38]
Government transparency and accountability[38]
Improved government services for rural areas[38]
Constitutional proposal for initiatives, including constitutive, abrogative, recall and legislative initiatives[39]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement
Why is it “Brexiteer nonsense” ?
You should follow the work and research done by the GUE/NGL group
Incidentally if you’re not aware of who they are you’ll find them in the European parliament,oh and by the way they’re certainly not swivel eyed brexiteers, no far from it, very left wing in fact
Or you could try Corporate Europe Observatory, one of their current campaigns is to stop ISDS, you know,or perhaps you don’t, but this is the mechanism which allows private corporations to take member states to court to enforce corporate rights above those of European citizens
If you’re still not convinced you could go straight to the horses mouth and try the ERT, European Round Table of Industrialists, who’ve claimed the right to basically draw up the broad plan of how Europe economy should function, from their point of view of course!
which includes supporting all those power grabbing so called trade deals like TTIP,CETA, and JEFTA, which all contain some form of ISDS, in other words a silent coup against us all for their benefit
of course our own government has lobbied like mad for the same, but the point is all of these have been EU competency done on our behalf even though they’d certainly have severe long term potential to restrict any national UK parliament from opportunities to have a genuine sovereignty over all area’s of our economy and social programmes, irrespective of who’s in power, but almost certainly they’d have there greatest negative effects against Corbyns government if he wished to stay in the EU
I’m afraid it’s you who’ve been fooled especially if you you believe the EU is gonna look after your social rights, its not because its busy signing them away and has been doing so for the last decade,its effectively the same neoliberal project as the Tories its just taking longer to manifest itself
Finally this blog post is about bad faith in negotiations, well its the EU and the government’s of said Union who’ve been acting in bad faith for decades and its the European citizens who are now starting to pay for the fraudulent way in which this so called union has conducted its business
I’m not allowed to comment on this post
“I’m afraid it’s you who’ve been fooled especially if you you believe the EU is gonna look after your social rights..”
I want you to Brexit. I’m all for fools self-harming. But your reasons and arguments are crap.
EU social rights, welfare, pensions, working conditions, etc., are amongst the highest in the world.
Now go back to the drawing board and think through the implications before opening your stupid mouth.
Thats it isn’t it, absolutely not rational thoughts whatsoever, just silly and frankly childish abuse from people who simply won’t look at the facts
Hooty, whatever! I’m past caring what idiots think the facts speak for themselves
Hooty???
Frankly I’ve given you a broad spectrum of sources to look at from left wing MEPs to corporate lobbyists
I don’t understand your hospitality unless you don’t like your little bubble burst, not my fault mate!
You need to tone it down and be more gracious about your ignorance
Hatuey
Social security have no part of neoliberals project.
“Almost 142 million Europeans are at risk of poverty”
https://www.socialeurope.eu/poverty-and-inequality-in-europe
Pensions have been down for decades, highest? What are you talking about?
Workers union have reduced their role after EU entrance.
This is always as far as I get with nomads like you. I’ve heard all of your little conspiracies s thousand times. They all collapse when someone points to existing realities.
If you can explain why EU welfare, pensions, living standards, social rights, worker rights, and a bunch of other stuff are amongst the highest in the world, there’s really no point in anyone clicking your trashy links.
Bye.
Hatuey
Conspiracies?!
I linked to a EU organ that cover poverty in the union.
Jack, well said mate
it doesn’t matter very much how often its pointed out about the failures of the EU those who support it are akin to some sort of Tory hating cult, basically the left in Britain never got over the fact Thatcher shafted them to death, they’ve been like the living dead,zombies effectively in economic terms, ever since
alwaysrite
No wonder the right-parties are winning today, the left seems to have left the building, only fact-denying, smearing and violence (i.e. Antifa) on the streets against the “enemies”.is what is left of many traditional leftist parties in europe.
Trump, Brexit, Orban, Le Pen all are proof of the failure of the left.
130 thousand British people (at least) have officially died as a consequence of British government austerity since 2012, and you have the nerve to talk about EU poverty.
Crackpots.
Hatuey
That study didnt proved it was a direct connection. But again, your argument is not sincere, you dislike austerity when right-wing parties iin the UK do it but you become silent to condemn when neoliberals in EU impose it. I am against both, you are not.
Hatuey
You stated “EU social rights, welfare, pensions, working conditions, etc., are amongst the highest in the world”, that’s a lie, as Greece has proved particularly as inequality has increased in the EU during membership. The share of GDP going to the top 1% in the UK was a a low point in the mid 70s, with the % going to wages was at a high point, this indicates (at the most charitable) either EU membership had no effect, or made inequality worse as the reduction in inequality after WW2 was due to other factors, such as union membership and popular protest unconnected to EU/EEC membership, as these reductions occurred before EU/EEC membership. Similar reductions occurred in non EEC/EU countries, such as Norway and Iceland indicating a spurious correlation to EU membership.
Workers rights were fought for by trade unions nationally, and predate EU legislation (like the equal pay act).
The EU, via the Trokia imposed conditions on Greece inhibiting strikes, and cutting the minimum wages pensions healthcare and unemployment benefit, this is why nobody who supports the EU is genuinely left wing. This is a quantitative study by the BMJ on the massive increase in suicides in Greece due to EU/IMF imposed austerity.
“The impact of economic austerity and prosperity events on suicide in Greece: a 30-year interrupted time-series analysis”
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/1/e005619
Hatuey: “130 thousand British people (at least) have officially died as a consequence of British government austerity since 2012, and you have the nerve to talk about EU poverty.
Crackpots.”
Austerity is an EU policy! ..the commission and parliament could have voted against it, but the working group put together after the last GFC recommended it, and recommended no action against the banks. Funny that. Since then about 90bn euros a month goes into propping up the broken financial markets in the form of QE and stock purchases..and what about all of the negative-yielding debt the ECB is supporting and issuing????
This is why austerity exists, and if you can’t see that it”s you who is the crackpot!
The EU did nothing to prevent the Tories killing off 120,000 poor and disabled and leaving many more destitute from cruel ideological sanctions, all while handing out large grants to farmers and landowners such as the £90K per year to Michael Heseltine.
Laguerre
No it is you that is uninformed as the European round-table of industrialist wrote the single European Act. (See documentary ‘The Brussels Business, written and produced by Friedrich Moser and Matthieu Lietaert, not by Brexiteers).
All the big US banks funded and supported Remain (such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Citygroup) to maintain free movement of capital necessary to their business model of tax avoidance, fraud and money laundering, as free movement of capital is guaranteed by the single market, as one of the 4 freedoms, so what you are saying is nonsense.
Look it up, all the main UK dailies including the Guardian have covered how these big US banks funded remain, so there is no excuse for you to repeat this nonsense, as the EU has proved no bar to Tory deregulation.
Is belief in the EU a faith based religious experience that is immune to evidence?
Laguerre
October 17, 2019 at 16:24
The EU was a CIA project and you are still being manipulated by the elite left right and centre go and do some
political research.
Lol. Bannon, Mercer, Murdoch, Barclay Brothers, Mogg, Johnson – the absolute epitome of the rich elite lobby, with the hedge fund managers chucking money at them. How did these charlatans and frauds ever convince people that they were the opposite of what they are? Propaganda works. And lies.
‘Je ne suis pas un Brexiteer….’ My father was very opposed to our joining it, as am I, and went around in his car in 1972 with a loudspeaker on top. That was in Dorset where my parents lived. I believe the UK joined the EU in 1973 along with Denmark and Ireland. Heath was the PM.
When he was outside Winfrith (an Atomic Energy Authority Centre) as the workers were emerging from their shift, he was told by the AEA police there that he would be arrested if he didn’t move off. He was on a public road and was breaking no law as far we knew.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winfrith
It was indeed a better question in 1973 than it is now. In 1973, we had to make a big change of direction from being Commonwealth-facing, to being Europe-facing. We didn’t suffer from that switch, but Commonwealth countries did – Oz and New Zealand suffered. But it’s not a two-way road that you can go back on.
Nobody among the Brexiters really understands the changes that have taken place in world trade in recent times. We had an empire, because our maritime relationships with the world dominated our policy, and we were successful. For European continental powers, only part of their activities faced the sea – the rest of the time they spent on their internecine continental wars, which were unproductive. But there just isn’t any new world to conquer by sea any more, nor new worlds to trade with. The EU have already made their deals round the world, and we can’t do better by going it alone competing in the very same markets. The complete failure of Britain to do any great new deals tells you all.
Another factor Brexiters fail to take into account is the demand for ease of travel and trade that the EU has facilitated through the SM. It is a really revolutionary creation, and people aren’t going to be happy when it’s shut down, as Johnson is promising us.
Frankly Britain needs a new strategy. Being one of the most dominant members of the EU was, and is, not a bad way of going about things. Most continentals are very admiring of Britain; we could get what we want. Throwing it all in the bin, in favour of no future life-strategy for the country is – well you know what I think of that.
Why are you people so hysterical!
In the late 70s Thatcher had a plan,oh and didn’t people hate her, as they did Reagan, but they changed the world, Thatcher helped change the EU, I’ll call it that for simplicity, into a Single Market neoliberal thing which the EU has embraced
All the current EU trade policies, internal or external are geared towards more liberalisation,privatisation!
The worlds changing, technology is changing it, the EU is simply to big and diverse to accommodate the rapid changes in disruptive technologies, some areas like Germany will surge ahead others will stagnate the future is against the EU
The future will belong to those countries who can embrace new disruptive technologies the fastest, you’re looking at the world through some sort of legacy optics, besides the future relationship with the EU hasn’t even started yet so nobody can say how much loss of trade will occur
Embrace the future and stop your negative nonsense
You’re telling yourself that the European minds most alert to coming technological change are Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Mark Francois, Mark Brigden and Bill Cash ?
alwayswrite
I’m sorry but who’s being hysterical? certainly not in my comment. The threats of violence are coming from you lot, when faced with losing your precious Brexit.
‘Embrace the future’?
“The IPCC report that the Paris agreement based its projections on considered over 1,000 possible scenarios. Of those, only 116 (about 10%) limited warming below 2C. Of those, only 6 kept global warming below 2C without using negative emissions. So roughly 1% of the IPCC’s projected scenarios kept warming below 2C without using negative emissions technology like BECCS. And Kevin Anderson, former head of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has pointed out that those 6 lone scenarios showed global carbon emissions peaking in 2010. Which obviously hasn’t happened.
So from the IPCC’s own report in 2014, we basically have a 1% chance of staying below 2C global warming if we now invent time travel and go back to 2010 to peak our global emissions. And again, you have to stop all growth and go into decline to do that. And long term feedbacks the IPCC largely blows off were ongoing back then too.”
https://www.facebook.com/wxclimonews/posts/455366638536345
Maybe there can be change?
“Today’s global consumption of fossil fuels now stands at roughly five times what it was in the 1950s, and one-and-half times that of the 1980s when the science of global warming had already been confirmed and accepted by governments with the implication that there was an urgent need to act. Tomes of scientific studies have been logged in the last several decades documenting the deteriorating biospheric health, yet nothing substantive has been done to curtail it. More CO2 has been emitted since the inception of the UN Climate Change Convention in 1992 than in all of human history. CO2 emissions are 55% higher today than in 1990. Despite 20 international conferences on fossil fuel use reduction and an international treaty that entered into force in 1994, manmade greenhouse gases have risen inexorably.”
https://medium.com/@xraymike79/the-inconvenient-truth-of-modern-civilizations-inevitable-collapse-8e83df6f3a57
@SharpEars
Was it perhaps in 1962 when Piers Debenham stood as an anti-Common Market candidate in South Dorset(won by Labor)or perhaps prior to the first referendum in 1973?
@ Sharp Ears October 17, 2019 at 16:50
Heath was eminently blackmailable (a la Epstein-type) so whether he personally was for joining or not, he could have been ‘persuaded’. Like Kincora, the Welsh schools and Elm Lodge, MI5 would have been perfectly aware of what Heath was up to.
Ian
Difference is these people are backed by the people. People voted for Trump, people voted for Brexit. That is what you pro-elites do not get. Democrats isnt worth anything to you and you are led to believe that by people that couldnt care less about you i.e. the EU.
Why don’t you admit it, Jack? You are pro-Elite – Johnson is nothing but an elite, and you seem to favour him.
Laguerre you sound like so many negative anti Tory types who simply can’t come to terms with how successful they’ve been over the decades
Frankly people like yourself seem to have nothing but negative energy
Laguerre
I favor Brexit and Trump because : I believe Democracy, you should too.
Is it the elite or the people that after Brexit called for a ban referendum? Is it you view too just like the neoliberal elites’ – that regular people are too dumb to have their say in elections?
Legware
Please tell me who ” you lot ” are?
alwayswrite
It was just another way of saying Brexiters, which you are.
Legware
You’re mistaken I’m not a brexiteer!
Let me enlighten you, i didn’t vote to leave as i couldn’t!
Why?
Because as an expat having lived outside of the UK, in an EU member state for over 15 years, I’d lost the right to vote
Ok,someone i know challenged this in the highest UK court, result big fail! no shock there, as the UK government doesn’t really give a shit about its citizens….so…..
….the case was taken to the highest EU court,same result, big fail,brilliant eh!
So you see my friend i actually have no rights, this blessed EU thing you’re so in love with, along with your friends, fundamentally fails to uphold its own lofty so called values
If you can’t vote you’re not living in a democracy, ergo when people like myself says it’s not democratic in the EU we really aren’t saying this for our own amusement,or to wind up hysterical remainers, it because its a fact i have to live with
Ok, now we’ve established that, lets have a look at health care and rights to it
Last week i visited the local hospital in the member state i live in, and what do you suppose happened?
MACHINE SAYS NO!!!!…..WHAT!!! yes thats right, the buggers have just taken me of the medical data base as an EU citizen, totally illegal! Its the same thousands of us
Whats the EU done? NOTHING!…..its an issue with your member state,funny that isn’t it, if it was a trade deal it wouldn’t, or a national budget, but UK citizens rights….who cares
So please spare me, you and all these other idiots on this site, how the EU upholds all these rights, because it doesn’t, and when you inform the EU ombudsman, they do nothing, you end up in a Kafkaesque nightmare
So i find it frankly insulting when i read lefty web sites like this and the readership cares more about a bunch of Spaniards than its own fellow citizens!
alwayswrite
Me also, I live in an EU member state, without right of vote. It’s pretty obvious from what I say. If there’s no vote, it’s due to Britain, not to the EU. If you don’t get medical treatment, I imagine you are not registered in the local health system, as I am. You must rely on the S1 system of the NHS paying for your health rights, and it’s not working. I have to remind you that those rights will stop a year after Brexit, whatever your current technical difficulties.
I should have said, “You are likely to lose your S1 rights, if no other agreement is reached”. That’s what our British ambassador told us. I wouldn’t trust our British government to replace them.
Legware
I’ve been registered for the last 16 years its the government of the member state i live in who’ve taken this decision, and not the first time may i add, I’m now a foreigner simple as
They’ve decided we’ve already left apparently, although we obviously haven’t
As for voting that is definitely the fault of the EU it could have challenged the UK case I’m referring to but didn’t but choose to uphold the UK position
If you’re already registered in the health system of the country you live in, and it doesn’t work, that’s nothing to do with the EU, but the country you live in.
Odd then that this club of ‘rich elites’ gives ‘regular people’ the best rights in the world.
The right to be sanctioned into destitution and made homeless, or if you were one of the 120,000 who died as a result, the right to be euthenized. All while within the EU.
Of course the EU is ruled by “big lobby and rich elites that couldnt care less about regular people”.
It does not follow that Brexit will benefit the average person. Especially as the Conservatives are even worse. If you want a fairer society the option to choose is Labour.
The man from delmonte says NO
Keir lays it out for all these dewey eyed at Bobos super deal – worse than Mays for most of us.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Keir_Starmer
So – the Duppies, lib dems and various indies and NuLabInc diehards, will be forced to rush to the tories in one last gasp at making a No-Deal on the 31st.
Time to remove their duplicitous masks.
Labour and SDP will reject and demand A50 extension for the country to then make a choice – ref or election.
It isn’t in the gift of Labour or the Libs to make that demand. Apart from the fact that they don’t have enough power in Parliament to do that, the EU also have a big say — article 50 is EU law, not British.
Sorry meant SNP.
If bobo wants to call an election he can put a motion up to cancel the ftpa! If the opposition don’t want one.
The end game will materialise any day now. The fact they didn’t achieve their March 29th escape is proof they may not get 31st Oct.
We’ll soon see.
So Junker has intimated that there might not be another extension on the horizon, okay its up to the other EU states to decide. However who’d bet against Junker having his finger on the pulse of what the other 27 are thinking.
So will parliament accept the deal, a deal thats roughly May’s deal, yet to listen to Johnson on the radio you’d have thought he’d come back from Brussels with the bacon.
Now what for the SNP, make a deal with Johnson to get referenda a devolved issue along with the granting of a Section 30 order, and in return back his deal.
According to this a Scottish indyref can be held in as little as fifteen weeks after an S30 is forthcoming.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/17973570.think-tank-warn-boris-johnson-denying-scotland-indyref2/
And what of Westminster its been three years since this Brexit fiasco begun, are the Westminster politicians so inept, so loathing of one and other and so party minded that they cannot agree on a course of action even now.
You’re starting to sound like me…
The Russian military launched cruise and ballistic missiles during the Thunder 2019 exercises. The launches were led by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The complexes “Yars” and “Iskander” were used.
Yars and Iskander: Russia tested rockets during exercises
What the hell has that got to do with Brexit?
It’s a link to some sort of virus. I clicked it.
If I suddenly start saying sensible stuff or anything that implies life matters, please be assured it isn’t really me.
Hatuey
In my obviously contorted mind many here who not just on climate extinction watch but many other types of extinction including Craig’s extinction of common decency, always talk the purest sense.
Last night I was deeply offended to hear of a very bright and very polite 8 year old boy in our extended family being diagnosed with attention deficiency disorder by one of our Thatcherised education systems psycho bullies. I.e. child psychologists.
How dare they? I remember accelerating to warp speed by leg inside and bike outside round the corridors and paths of my school. God given energy. I still find it handy on site on the eve of my 65 th birthday.
Just because the fxxxers can’t find any use for our children’s zest and zeal docent give them a right to label our kids with very and difficult labels..
Here endeth ye rant. Thanks for saving me from the click bait of Mr Junaid.
Ladies and Gentlemen
What do you think, is it possible that UK leaves the EU to form another union? I think highly likely with US and Canada (+Australia maybe).
I mean, being a EU member, the UK has to align its politics with the whole union (well, to some extent), and thus, in case of any undesirable proposals from the USA it leaves the room for a political maneuver. Something like “oh, sorry dear USA, we’d like to work with you on that project, but we are binded with the EU on it, so very sorry, we can’t”.
Now, when you leave the EU, does it mean you are no longer ‘protected’ from consent with your most close ally, you know, that ‘special relationship’ etc.?
If you have a deal with the US, then it’s the US that runs the show, in its own interest. With Trump certainly, but even with other presidents – it’s just put more delicately.
Yes, it is exactly what I think. The US is acting of its own interest. I know how ultimative their demands may be.
At the same time, the UK has its own interest, which is not necessarily coinside with the US’s.
The disbalance in power inevitably leads to bending the UK.
That’s why I think that EU membership perhaps served sometimes as a ‘shelter’, a plausible pretext for refusing unprofitable actions.
Tatyana, if you want a better understanding of the UK, I’d suggest you read a blog called ‘ Economics of Imperialism
by Tony Norfield he also published an excellent book called The City
He’s developed something called the Index of Power, until recently the UK was ranked second behind the USA,its currently third as China, according to Norfield has just overtaken the UK
basically i wouldn’t write off the UK as being somehow subservient in terms of imperialism, it has its own unique place, as do the other G7 countries, I’d suggest its a very simplistic view to say that the UK is the USA poodle, oh by the way the other day on this very site someone had posted a link to an American site which basically said the Queen still ruled the world including America!
Its a complex world!
Eeerrr, said much and answered nothing 🙂 what’s your point, on my question?
I hesitate to inject any more invective into this heated debate about elites, Brexit, the nature of democracy and the so called economic community but I feel I should say something based on my two minuets research online regarding this endorsement of Tony Norfield.
Normally I would not endorse any opinion based on his 20 years experience of City trading, however Norfield’s book, reviewed “In The Financial Times Brooke Masters wrote that the author “has done the research and pulled together the financial statistics that explain how the bloodsucking works.”“ :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City:_London_and_the_Global_Power_of_Finance
So, yes, It’s helpful to understand how markets can be manipulated. He also seems to have a grasp of how middle east problems seem to have been made worse by the actions of UK governments: (Sorry, off topic but at: https://mronline.org/2019/06/29/the-promised-land/ )
Tatyana seems to me to be correct, the bottom line is the US is running the show, the UK in the economic union is somewhat protected from the worst influence of the US, so leaving the union will allow further exploitation of the poorer sections of society. But does not this debate all hinge on which elite you want to dominate us? If we are going to be dominated by US financial interests should we not have a vote in their elections too?
Pete
Tony Norfield is an economist with a Marxists interpretation of how the global economy works, in fact i think he’d probably class himself as a Marxist
In other words he looks at things from an imperialist perspective, all the G7 countries are major players within the system
As Norfield points out the City of London is the most powerful centre of banking interest,this idea that Britain will bend is fine as a very simplistic narrative but doesn’t always work out
For example when the Chinese established the AIIB investment bank Britain was the first to join, although Obama didn’t like it, the same with brexit, Obama said Britain would be at the back of the line
As for elites and which ones you want to dominate us, well the elites have had a distinctly trans national globalist outlook for the last hundred or so years
They all have to deal with the USA, its called NATO
Australia 5 eyes,UK the same,Canada, you know this though
What do you mean by “another union”? economic?
The EU has its own plans for defence, PESCO, i think major UK defence contractors are likely to be involved, although to do so would be a binding agreement, as was pointed out by Finland last year, who want Norway to be included, who incidentally aren’t even in the EU!
Its complex world
Did you follow the Skripal case?
When Mrs.May asked the EU to expel russian diplomats it reminded me of the scenes from the old USSR films.
“Comrades, our dear Communist Party and our beloved comrade Stalin, calls on you all to unanimously condemn the actions … and demonstrate in a single rush… ”
Applause, the moment of unity, confirmation of loyalty (no one dares to ask about evidence)
curtain
—
Is EU an economic union?
Tatyna
You know the EU is an economic union
This is a debate about brexit,I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make
Will the UK join NAFTA? is that what you mean?
1. Please, do not tell me what I know.
2. My question is about Brexit.
3. If you’re not sure what is my point, then WHAT do you try to answer in your several comments?
4. ‘ to form another union’, it is not the same as ‘to join an existing union’.
Tatyna
frankly, no you’re not making sense, not all
This whole debate is about brexit my dear, its you who’ve gone off on a complete tangent
Perhaps you’d like to start again, and this time make it real simple
Tatyana, we should try to be understanding. Poor old Mr Always was just telling us how he’s been cruelly refused any medical treatment in the mysterious ‘member state’ where he has taken refuge for many years.
Oh, several years ago I’ve promised my husband to be his dear, and no anyone else’s, and I keep this promise. Your addressing is insulting.
And dont forget that all Labour MEPs voted for the EU parliament’s resolution to blamr Russia for World War Two.
I didn’t know, thanks Johny Conspiranoid.
You said ‘Labour’, it is Mr. Corbyn, who is their leader, right? That bearded man, whom Mr. Johnson called ‘a chlorinated chicken’?
—
Ah, disappointed I am. I like the name Corbyn. It is like Corbyn from the “5th element” and I adore Bruce Willis 🙂
Ok, not every Corbyn is a hero, I should grow up 🙂
Don’t be misled, Tatyana. If you want to know what Jeremy Corbyn thinks of Russia, follow this link –
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5868261/very-revealing-twitter-thread-of-all-jeremy-corbyns-mentions-of-russia-shows-where-his-sympathy-really-lies/
(Please note, this article is in Rupert Murdoch’s ‘The Sun’, a disreputable newspaper in the UK. The point of the writing is to try to blacken Corbyn’s name and thus please The Sun’s long-brainwashed Russophobic readers. However, for many of us, what they have written there is part of the reason we support Corbyn.)
Thanks for the link, cimarron. I’m happy Mr. Corbyn is my hero again 🙂
It is amazing that Mr. Corbyn said no a single word of lies, but nevertheless, the author still finds cause for discontent – “look, this man dares not to scold Russia!”
Well, in your western media this is the standard. They are not discussing facts, but how they should be treated.
Earlier on this site in some discussion a commentator brought the video of ‘chlorinated chicken’ phrase. There was also another phrase, Mr. Johnson accused Mr. Corbyn of finding friends in Kremlin, while ‘we’ ( he said apparently meaning “all normal people”) find friends in … the White House.
Excusez moi! It is a very well known fact, that if you need some shooting, you call for the USA. But if you need peace and diplomatic negotiation, so you’d better keep the USA away.
Auntie gives a summary of the contents of the ‘deal’, yet to be voted on incidentally on Saturday.
BBC News – Brexit: What is in Boris Johnson’s new deal with the EU?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50083026
I agree it wasn’t very bright, when people already have a lot of trouble trying to get to work. A bit like the gilets jaunes, who lost a lot of popularity once they started wrecking people’s businesses.
It appears that Stormont’s vote is ‘simple majority’ and not a majority of BOTH sides. Obviously the DUP have been enraged by this as they now realise they will NOT have a veto after all. I’m no expert on Stormont’s politics and have no idea how the numbers stack up and whether DUP have the numbers to to simply vote it down at the first opportunity. By the sound of what’s being said, they don’t..
And your point in regard to the DUP? I couldn’t agree more. They colluded over Finucane’s murder and cover up and many years ago I remember (I think everyone else has amnesia!) Ian Paisley Sr was interviewed whilst at the head of a march of a now proscribed Protestant Militia defending their right to be armed etc. Now we are told that not only did he simply SPEAK in support for them but he funded and directed their terrorist activities, namely a bombing campaign. THESE are the people the Conservatives allied themselves with in order to retain power! Terrorists and terrorist sympathisers! The Tories have much to say on Corbyn, they call HIM a terrorist sympathiser because he has spoke to admitted terrorists in order to try to begin a process of peace (prior to the Good Friday Agreement) Yet Corbyn has always condemned ANY acts of terror, whilst the Tories have not only allied with them but colluded with them on murder and cover ups, and not just Finucane’s either. Our special forces have assisted the so called loyalists in their murders too.
I’m reminded of the advice I was once given about politicians and politics, that if one lot are accusing the others of something – it’s because they themselves are doing it and looking to draw attention away from themselves…
For those cheering on EU should know that wages have been going down for decades since joing the EU:
https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe0433dc6-6b68-11e9-80c7-60ee53e6681d?fit=scale-down&quality=highest&source=next&width=700
Part of the reason is the deregulated neoliberal job market that is typical in the EU nations, i.e. insecure jobs along with reduced social security:
” Europe’s so-called “gig economy” – a labour market characterised by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs – and whether this model is compatible not just with growth but also with workers’ well-being. ”
https://www.euronews.com/2017/07/28/poverty-in-the-eu
This is part of the reason people want out of this mess.
Or why not ask what the PIGS countries (portugal,ireland, greece, spain) think of the EU imposed hardship of austerity to save the elites, bankers causing a spike in poverty, unemployment in the lowest class of people.
Ask the hundreds of thousands europeans that protested the TTIP deal. Again we have the people against the elite in these clashes.
Its bonkers how some people calling themselves leftist have become in supporting these neo-liberal measures and facts of declining welfare in the union, because the ones that are hit the worst is in the majority left-leaning people. Wake up.
Jack, they simply don’t get corporate capture, or monopolies
Strange really when you think Lenin wrote his little pamphlet about imperialism and business money and monopoly power and the division of the global economy over a hundred years ago,not much has changed really, the only thing is the left, socialist or whatever they want to call themselves have been totally captured by the things they are supposed to hate!
alwayswrite
Indeed, also on foreign policy its the same weird attitude, the middle east pull out by Trump recently is apparently bad and Democrats call for continued war. Bonkers!
Jack, Syria is an open festering sore, let those involved scratch themselves to death!
What does that even mean, its gibberish.
@ alwayswrite October 17, 2019 at 19:53
‘Roland Dumas: The British prepared for war in Syria 2 years before the eruption of the crisis’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeyRwFHR8WY
It is not Assad or the people of Syria who bear the blame, but the Western war criminals who fomented the war, and who are still aiding and abetting their Jihadi headchopping mercenary proxies.
“Or why not ask what the PIGS countries (portugal,ireland, greece, spain) think of the EU imposed hardship of austerity to save the elites, bankers causing a spike in poverty, unemployment in the lowest class of people.”
Christ this is what get me, folk looking over to the EU for austerity and chronic poverty, when its right here, and has been for decades on their own doorstep.
Poverty forced upon the poor, disabled and least fortunate in society not by the EU but by consecutive British governments, whilst bailing out their banker buddies and party donors in the process.
I really despair with regards to those folk who blame the EU for our woes, the EU hasn’t forced austerity in Britain the British government and its enabler opposition party politicians have.
The EU hasn’t left god knows how many people in the UK homeless, or sanctioned their benefits or told a severly disabled person they no longer meet the criteria for support, some who’ve sadly killed themselves or died since being removed from their benefits unjustly.
http://calumslist.org
The EU hasn’t stolen jobs, many immigrants or EU citizens have started up businesses and employed people. They staff our hospitals, they pick our fruits they do the job that lazy Brits see as beneath them. Without the EU freedom of movement laws, you’d probably wait longer on a hospital or doctors appointment due to a shortage of staff.
The UK is on the verge of shattering (Thank god) due to the sheer utter greed and self serving attitude, mixed with lies and incompetence of some at Westminster.
But I suppose its easier for some to have a scapegoat rather than face reality that there’s no good deal in leaving the EU only levels of damage limitation.
Why do you hate your own country so much?
If the UK “shatters” what will you do?
Will it end up like Syria?
Do you attend a special school of hate and negative thinking?
and before you go off on one, which you will anyway, I’d suggest you read one of my earlier comments on my experience of the “wonderful” EU, and since this entire post is about bad faith i can only say the EU have acted in bad faith as far as UK citizens in the EU are concerned, at least the ones i know
“Why do you hate your own country so much?”
I certainly don’t hate my country Scotland, why would you think that?
Bad faith you mean like Cameron, May and Johnson have done? Give me the EU anyday.
I do hope for your sake precious little Scotland never finds itself in the same position as Greece did, because if it does, and you’re in the EU at the time you’ll get screwed
Best keep yourself a bag ready just in case you have to leg it over the border to England
Lets be honest you just hate the English in particular the Tories, but be under no allusions you’re fabulous SNP will sell you out just the same as the Blairitesor the Tories in the neoliberal EU
Oh please give it a rest, the anti-English sentiment, its all bollocks there’s thousands of English folk living in Scotland who are also intent on voting to split this unfit union.
http://www.englishscotsforyes.org
Its got nothing to do where you come from, I have family in England, but I still think Scotland will be best served by the people who live and work here, and not by some foreign government that can make awful decisions (such as Brexit) on our behalf.
“UK state pension worst in the developed world”
https://www.ftadviser.com/pensions/2018/02/13/uk-state-pension-worst-in-the-developed-world/
“OECD: UK has lowest state pension of any developed country”
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/dec/05/oecd-uk-has-lowest-state-pension-of-any-developed-country
The Greek pensioners get much more than UK pensioners…. what’s wrong with this picture?
Republicofscotland
Since EU – with Germany at the front, were there ones imposing the austerity, the responsibility is with them of course. It was basically forced upon Greece in particular.
Homelessness is rampant in pretty much the whole of the EU.
https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/mar/21/homelessness-housing-problems-crisis-point-all-eu-countries-except-finland
Why doesnt the EU elite care about this people? Why have they failed them? Where is the social security and welfare the pro-EU alwways talk about?
Immigration cause dumping in the longer run and have an impact of already low and stagnated wages. Consider also that quite a large sector of immigrants (not to mention refugees!) have trouble finding a job meaning they are a cost rather than a benefit for the state economy.
Jeez, the penny will never drop, all of those things may be true, but I’ll say it again for those who missed it.
It has been consecutive British governments that have enforced those things with the help of some opposition MP’s in the UK not the EU.
Yet you’ve failed in two lengthy comments to even mention it, but found plenty of words to describe poverty in the EU.
Tell me which matters more to you EU poverty or UK poverty, bear in mind we’re leaving the EU
If there is bad faith,
why has it been agreed by the Republic of Ireland and the E.U.Elite and the U.K. Government?
Republicofscotland
Lowered wages, Stagnated wages, increased homelessness, increased poverty in pretty much every member state, lowered pensions all during the time in the EU, but you say nothing has to do with…the EU?
Yes poverty existed before EU, I am asking why people that cheer EU support this union, obviously its not the answer to root out alot of important issues that troubles the common man of this very union.
Its not through Westminster yet it will be a sight to see the squabbling hordes in the den of iniquity come Saturday, with boos and braying galore.
“Since EU – with Germany at the front, were there ones imposing the austerity, the responsibility is with them of course. It was basically forced upon Greece in particular.”
Do you even understand why Greece had to adopt austerity measures in the first place.
Here’s a quick five minute rundown on why Greece brought austerity on itself, and received the biggest financial bailout of a country in history.
https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-greece-debt-crisis-3305525
Republicofscotland
Instead of condemning the austerity project that hit the lowest class of Greece (and other PIGS nations) you defend it. On the one hand you bemoan poverty, on the other hand you support austerity projects that have caused just that development.
Which brings me back nicely to my original point, of which is you seem to care more about EU austerity that UK austerity.
The question begging to be asked if you care so much about EU austerity, why did you attack the EU instead of offering something positive on what might be done in your first comment, could you be a leaver? So negative EU acts take precedence over domestic ones.
Republicofscotland
I must of course talk about the source of the problem (the EU), I get the feeling you dont understand that EU are the reason for the austerity project and thus have to be blamed for the result it have generated.
Austerity obsession is pushing EU into crisis warns Stiglitz
https://www.euronews.com/2016/10/06/obsession-with-austerity-pushing-eu-into-crisis-warns-stiglitz
Europe’s Austerity Disaster
https://europeangreens.eu/news/social-consequences-imposed-austerity-case-education
Jesus, you’re so obsessed with EU austerity that you can’t bring yourself to reply to my comments on the UK drowning in austerity. Lets not mention it ssshhhhh. Maybe it will go away after Brexit, rude awakening time it will only get worse.
Incidently you do know that Greece and Ireland have turned a corner.
Greece didn’t receive a bailout. It went to the banks that recklessly and irresponsibly lent them money..
Republicofscotland
I dont know what your point is, you replied to my comment initially. You are pro-EU but do not want to talk about the hardship its policies have generated.
I see Sharp Ears Already Mentioned ..
Happy Birthday Craig.. I hope you still have some of that Whisky I gave you on behalf of the Blog in Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute.
And Happy Birthday to me also.
Happy Birthday Brian and Craig!
Happy birthday Brian, enjoy with some solitude somewhere awesome. My best to the family.
Happy birthday to you too Brian and many more to come.
Hello, Brian, happy birthday!
“It is possible that Johnson will succeed in the apparently insurmountable challenge of securing a deal all parties can agree, by the simple strategy of promising some parties he has no intention of honouring it.” ‘If’ this is someone’s idea of diplomacy, then I sure hope that that idea isn’t universally held. We see, though, that it very likely is. Randolph Bourne saw it in his day when he called it ‘war by other means’.
This Brexit Shambles make me want to Scream..
And just WTF is going on here – T. Blier, and Ruth Davidson meeting One to One for 50 mins in Edinburgh – to discuss the Second Independence Ref. ??
I like the way The Wee Ginger Dug Put it.. Re this So called Deal today –
” For Scotland, this deal is especially bad. England voted to leave. It’s leaving, so it’s getting what it voted for. Wales voted to leave. It’s leaving, so it’s getting what it voted for. Northern Ireland voted to remain. It’s staying within vital EU institutions, so it’s getting what it voted for. Scotland, you can fuck off back into your shortbread tin.”
The politicians are merely mouthpieces for seismic changes behind the scenes.
“This Brexit Shambles” is entirely due to London. Pushing a slight majority as “the will of the people” was always likely to go wrong. Without a majority, it’s hard to get it over the line. And getting it over line, is only the beginning of endless problems of negotiation solutions.
Fatuous really, Brexiters haven’t thought.
Have you ever been in a job that made you feel that this isn’t the best for you? Have you ever dared to think to leave that job, not knowing what the future would bring, but knowing it could well be better for you if only you had faith, will and self-reliance?
These days you have to have a notion of a life-strategy, what’s going to keep the pennies coming in, until you can do just what you want, as I suggested at 17.23. Back in the 1970s, we didn’t think about this. I launched myself on a career that had little chance of succeeding. By chance, I did succeed.
That’s not a strategy for Britain. An improbable chance, as Brexit is, is not a way to run a country.
Just to make clear, your personal life experience should dictate everyone else’s?
Whatkins
Imho we are usually correct in our unease. When the seed of unease ripens the malignant employers { or US beholden, Federal overlords in the case of the EU } mark our employment record with black stars and destroy our confidence in our own abilities.
My son was once asked to dress in a Roman toga and shave his beard while being employed at a massage Spa in Bath for rich and spoilt clients. We didn’t tell him to stick with it and be daily humiliated, we told him to get out as quick as possible.
It is irritating the way Oaf Johnson tries to take the entire credit merely for doing what 17 million people told him to do. A large number of MPs find it so irritating that they will block the new deal. They should not think about their irritation emotion, but think about Trump genociding Syrian Kurds and the EU beating up and locking up innocent people in Catalonia.
Bad faith is irritating , but so are traffic queues. Don’t complain about traffic. You are traffic.
Don’t complain about other people’s bad faith. You need to have faith in you.
You may need to realise that saying to someone that you are traffic and that they need to have have faith in themselves are not compatible ideas.
Whatkins
My car is a lethal weapon with a 1,9 tdi engine under my toe.
CM blog is my traffic jam in which words can safely be turbo charged.
By getting in touch with my inner being, Craig’s remarkable generodity i vent my creativity by listening to Raaj FM or Radio Wales on the rsdio.in traffic jams or tune knto this space when not at the wheel..
Btw it’s definitely time for another recession. There’s far too much traffic on the roads.
I have the same thoughts about paying taxes, whatkins, all those arms deals underwritten without our consent, the vast establishment sums that are bypassing the exchequer for some stale hoarding in a taxhaven, etc.
I would like to draw a comparison between the EU not wanting to be seen as hindering our departure from the EU and Donald Trump not wanting to be seen as deliberately not setting 10,000 Daesh prisoners in North East Syria free.
As Craig correctly points out these farce negotiations on Brexit and Turkey’s invasion of Syria are done in bad faith, and against all logic, but also as Craig also correctly points out to give the appearance to the world that Donald Trump is not a neo-con, while he is setting neocon Obama’s Daesh free. The EU is scared rigid of its Federal underbelly being exposed, because all the other 27 members would also immediately want to Leave.
What I am trying to say is that it is not a matter of bad faith between the negotiators. They all know exactly what a pack of lies we the public are being told. It is a matter of all politicians’ bad faith with me and you.
I’m not sure I agree. 27 members don’t want to leave. They understand why the EU.
You haven’t understood the Turkish position. Being married to a Kurd, if I understand correctly, you would be unlikely to do so. Erdogan is somewhat of a megalomaniac nutter and has taken against the Kurds for reasons I don’t understand. The previous detente with the Kurds sounded OK to me. That said, if he wants to put limits on the Kurds, destroying the support in Rojava for Kurds in Turkey is logical. If Syria has now retaken control of Rojava, that’s fine for Erdogan, and he can stop his war, his objectives achieved. In agreement with Pompeo.
You haven’t understood the Turkish position. Being married to a Kurd, if I understand correctly…
You’re not sounding entirely neutral. I guess the question is “Who Wants War”?
You’ve misunderstood. It is giyane who is married to a Kurd, if I understand correctly.
Che
Being a civilised nation that has 2,5 thousand years of Islam under its belt the Kurds understand Islam differently from Genghis.
They didn’t fight NATO z’s Daesh for the US or for land.
They fought Daesh same as you kill rats on your property.
Gyiane, how can it be 2,5 thousand years of islam, if the religion appeared only between V and VI centuries A.C.?
Sorry, it was VII century
“The EU is scared rigid of its Federal underbelly being exposed…”
Only in the UK do you hear talk like this, as if federalism is equal to some sort of authoritarianism. I’d like to see you make that argument in a room full of Americans.
Hatuey
A room full of Americans .
The BBC is saturated with American voices day and night. We are will be annexed to The US directly instead of being proxied through the EU
Or Swiss. For ten points, who can name the president of Switzerland?
One of the great strengths of the Swiss Confederation is that it hardly matters who the President of Switzerland is.
Johnson is the one showing the most “bad faith” in that he is glorifying the current proposed deal as his deal when in fact 90% of it is what May had already negotiated. By focusing on the NI issue he has made this out to be the whole deal which it is certainly not and there are parts of the rest that are still highly contentious that have not been mentioned of late. Even the NI bit which is no more than a bit of dial twisting seems very much like what was contained in the Chequers agreement and which resulted in his resignation from the government because he was so opposed in principle to it. It is pointless trying to express views of Johnson in elaborate language code. Whichever way one tries to think of him he comes out as nothing more than a turdy scumbag,
looks like some can not let it go.
Scotland’s highest civil court is set to consider a legal bid to stop the U.K. government from passing its proposed E.U. withdrawal agreement.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50088993
If people have to keep going to court to stop the government carrying out the will of the voters, there is no hope for democracy in the U.K. any more.
In which case, we might as well have the LibDem lot running the show, they hate democracy.
There’s no ‘will of the people’, or indeed ‘will of the voters’. There’s no majority in the country for Brexit, that’s why it’s very difficult to push the country over the line. I don’t trust Tory polls, but they’ve been consistently against Brexit for two years now. Just going round accusing everybody of being undemocratic is being hypocritical, when you’re supporting undemocratic behaviour yourself. If you want to be democratic, then there should be another referendum, now that people know what the deal is. Instead Johnson is pushing through a rushed vote on Saturday, when MPs will not even have seen most of the documents.
Well its a hunkydory result (If Corbyn’s rebel MP’s do as theyre told and back the PM’s deal) for three of the Home nations, England, Wales (albeit the former has possibly changed their minds now) get to leave, which they voted to do and NI, gets to remain in the Single Market and Customs Union, Scotland however gets flipped the bird even though 62% voted to remain we’ll be dragged out.
What would the English Supreme court do if it were in Scotland’s shoes, hmmm…I wonder
Oh! quelle surprise! They’re gonna do a ‘deal’. Who’d of ever thought such a thing could happen? The remainer terror for the last few years was for nothing, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, all those muppets got played for years.
Of course they should have known that the ‘deal’ was already in the bag before May got the job to merely iron out some of the minor details.What a farce, a true comedy of an entire nation being played, for years.
The supreme irony is that this theater of the absurd it’s still going to keep going on. There are millions of gullible people out there still believing they had a ‘choice’ in this game. Still believing that they have a ‘voice’, that their views count for something when it comes to raw power being exercised in a global space. haha!
See the above post which explains exactly why the arch federalist said this, burying his ‘friends’ the remainers. Who though they don’t know it yet, got what they wanted anyway. You just couldn’t make this stuff up! haha!!
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said there could be no further extension beyond the deadline.
‘There will be no prolongation,’ he said. ‘We have concluded a deal. There is not an argument for delay. It has to be done now.’
And done it will be..
like a kipper..
I’ve maintained from the outset that Cameron – or any prime minister for that matter – never had the authority to call such a major referendum on his own whim, unless called to do so by the real power houses that pulled his strings and that whatever the final outcome it would be exactly what those ancient orchestrators wanted all along. Everything between (a) and final (b) was and is, merely play and the played.
Haven’t seen so much gushing over a PM since Blair got his ‘People Princess’ moment.
All the same emotional crap – this time with ‘getting it done’ bs.
Some of the photos on the front pages with bobo in his best Churchillian poses!
The mainstream media whores have pulled all the stops to lick arse.
The best photo though, is the EU leaders lining up to applaud this great modern day …caesar?
Not as funny as when they gathered in the corridor to stitch May up, but still pretty good – saluting biggusdickus!
Tick effin tock.
Will Johnson’s only slightly changed version of May’s WA actually be passed by the HoC?
According to the Benn act, Johnson is legally required to seek an extension unless the HoC either passes a motion accepting the WA or passes a motion accepting a no deal exit. In other words, the HoC not accepting the revised WA does not mean a hard Brexit and does not let Johnson off the hook.
The HoC is actually not under pressure to accept the amended WA “or else”.
Dutch PM Mark Rutte was rather skeptical about Johnson’s chances of getting the HoC to accept the revised WA.
Verhofstadt says the EP will only “scrutinize” the revised text once the HoC has accepted it.
This is the brexiteers last chance to engineer a hard brexit and free their ancient bankers from being restrained from their centuries long exploitation of the planet, its resources and peoples for the benefit of the oh so very very few and their wormtongued servants – like the Tories/Blairites and their millionaire media whores.
All their posturing of being left/right remainers or soft brexiteers while actually working towards stitching us all up and killing the EU project.
Tomorrow they show their true faces and do their Judas acts.
Every single MP voting for the deal knows it’s actually the ‘No-deal’
The EU has it’s traitors too – the Banker plants – Macron the biggest. The Atlantists plants, A few others. But they are known by their fellows and they know they are in a fight for the soul of tge EU.
We should never forgive the likes of Kinnock and Soubry, the soft tory flip floppers as they cheat and steal the hard brexit as the referendum was stolen.
Bad Faith is being spouted by Jo Swinson, who just can’t let it go, if they let it go, what would be the point of the LibDem lot?
Re-join the E.U. as soon as we leave?
Ms. Swinson has been a supporter of the so-called People’s Vote March in London this weekend.
It is going to be vastly amusing seeing the LibDems squirm.
Bad faith is Johnson rushing through a vote on Saturday, when MPs will not have seen the documents and evaluations. Blind voting by MPs, just to push through Brexit by main force, is as great a perversion of democracy as seen in a century.
Let’s March Together, One Final Time to save the E.U.
https://www.peoples-vote.uk/march_for_final_say
We cannot let this Broken Brexit be forced on the British people.
It’s now clear that this is a crisis that cannot be settled by our Prime Minister or his Government. It can only be settled by us, the people.
That’s why we’re marching together in London on Saturday, October 19th for the Final Say on Brexit.
Save the date. And let’s save the country.
March together with Jo Swinson
The terrifying back story is that the US has 50 nuclear “gravity” bombs at Incirlik airbase in Turkey that are in effect being held hostage by Turkey.
The nuclear bombs at Incirlik, there for decades, first became an issue a year or more ago. The US could have removed them, but didn’t.
Do you mean Tabqa? That was occupied by the Syrians a couple of days ago.
This ideological project, one that has been in the planning stage for years wants to take neoliberal capitalism to the final stage. It wants to completely abandon the social and economic model that has underpinned most western economies for the last seven decades. What they really want is a Britain that eventually emulates what will look like the worst of America. These extreme capitalists want a low regulation, small state economy, where privatisation, and the so-called free market, completely takes over. There have been many warnings about this in the last decade, but little in the way of real resistance.
As the people of Britain continue just to accept whatever happens without much complaint (like state surveillance, destruction of privacy, loss of workers rights, civil liberties, et all) the next stage of their destiny is depressingly playing out to a plan. After bailing out the banks for their egregious crimes a decade ago, it became apparent that there was little in the way to stop extreme neoliberal capitalism from marching on. With renewed vigour, camouflaging their ambitions in a web of lies, deceit, disinformation and propaganda to both confuse and avoid alienating voters, the race was on to force and then win the EU referendum Brexit vote.
Evidence of corporations having unreasonable power in Britain arrived when, in an irony worthy of comedy series ‘Yes Minster,’ transnationals such as PepsiCo, Mars and Diageo were put at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease almost as soon as the Conservative’s arrived in office in 2010. Civil Society was not represented. This is the basis of their plan. Seriously, it is.
Look what’s happening in Ecuador at the moment, Moreno sold out Assange for a huge IMF loan (The US controls the IMF), one of the many capitalist stipulations of the loan deal is the ending of subsidised fuel for indigenous people.
Needless to say demonstrations and rioting have rocked Ecuador under Moreno’s tenure.
Exactly. But they will succeed, in part, because 17.4 million people, most of them ordinary working (or not working) people, mainly in the industrial wastelands of the north and midlands, have voted for it, and would still vote for it. The only effective rebellion in recent history, and it will confirm the rule of extreme right-wingers and decimate the rights and protections of ordinary working people. You couldn’t make it up. Shooting ourselves in the foot doesn’t come close to stating it. We’ve shot ourselves in the head and heart together.
I don’t believe 17.4 million people DID vote leave.
It wasn’t a fair election it was thievery -the small margin hiding the millions of made up votes.
Remember that just days before it was certain Remain…
Harold Wilson governed and legislated far better than any of his successors and it’s increasingly looking like that period marked the last gasp fag end of hope that has brought us to this degenerate end singing happy and glorious. The ‘left’ are dosed up on lithium and grinning amiably at the cameras in parliament square when they should be eating the grass.
R K
Lithium . They haven’t yet invented something that burns out the soul. Except vampire women whiskey gin and vice, all the normal things that politicians do. Also extremely annoying for the Tory Alt Right that Jeremy Corbyn does none of those things which make most politicians sell their everlasting souls.
Sooo eeevil to exist in 2019 & still care about people. Sssssss!
The ‘SIA+JSF’ fund is the source of the clandestine £billions available to the DUP and others to vote for BoJo’s Brexit deal on Saturday/Sunday 19th/20th October 2019. Expect another ‘terrorist’ attack soonest.
https://businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-could-offer-dup-billions-to-support-brexit-deal-2019-10?r=US&IR=T
I’d imagine if push comes to shove the DUP will back the deal, as will I think the 21 Tories who had the whip removed, and the Labour rebels.
Johnson needs 320 votes tomorrow to secure is deal, I think he’ll get them.
Is this to be done in the hope that – if they breach the terms of the withdrawal agreement – that the EU won’t want to erect barriers and border inspection posts? If that’s the Johnson’s thinking, then they’ll be sorely disappointed: the UK will be plunged into immediate Third Country status, and full official controls will apply – just as they would to any other non-EU country (who’s not a member of the EU or EEA). Borders will then be erected to protect the integrity of the Single Market – and the UK will be regarded as even more of a pariah by the U.S. Democrats than it already is. That will seriously harm U.S. relations as well (not that I like the U.S. that much, I have to say) and so will pee on the trans-Atlanticists and their dreams of the mystical and mythical ‘Special Relationship’.
I’m quite flabbergasted to see the blog being overrun in the last few days by those who think their deprivation and poor education is a consequence of EU policy rather than policies imposed by the British state.
For the avoidance of doubt, I’m hoping for the hardest Brexit possible. The idiots who voted for it deserve it. They and their children will soon learn who is responsible for their miserable lives.
As for Scotland, I am similarly resigned. Scotland was tricked into voting to stay in the Union in 2014 just as the grim idiots up north in England and Wales were tricked to vote for Brexit.
Experience teacheth fools and he is a great one that will not learn…
Scotland has one last chance to extricate itself from this perverted mangled mess we call the UK. Sadly, it is the leadership of the independence movement (the SNP) rather than the people down below who are going to scupper Scotland’s chances this time.
I’ve argued for almost 3 years on this website that Sturgeon’s response to Brexit was fundamentally flawed. When May told Sturgeon “now is not the time”, it was defining moment. I still can’t believe Sturgeon took that and adapted her plans for our country and children’s futures around such an insult.
I hope the deal makes it through the Commons tomorrow. People need to get where they’re going, one way or another, even the idiots amongst us.
There’s room for the SNP to make a deal with the Tories for a section 30 but Sturgeon is too lightweight and “principled” (translate to stupid) to grasp it. If she doesn’t make that deal and the Brexit bill is passed, the dream of Scottish independence ends immediately, for at that point Scotland becomes a caged pet of the British state.
I’m not looking forward to saying saying “I told you so” but I am looking forward to the new chapter that awaits us, with Brexit behind us and Scotland firmly back in the cage where it belongs. That seems like a harsh thing to say but I firmly believe that if you take shit then you deserve shit.
My heart is with the people of this world who are brave enough to fight for what they believe in. I might pity the rest on some level but I refuse to let them distract me.
God bless the Palestinians. God bless Catalans. God bless all those who fight for what they believe in. None of them can lose because all of them fight for the precious idea that some things are worth fighting for; and, as long as they keep fighting, through them, the idea survives.
“If she doesn’t make that deal and the Brexit bill is passed, the dream of Scottish independence ends immediately, for at that point Scotland becomes a caged pet of the British state.”
Yes theres quite few on Wings of that opinion, and I have been toying with idea myself. However, the “deal” is very bad for Scotland and it will push the yes vote up to at least 60% in my opinion, if it isn’t already at that.
The crux of the matter is, is there enough time late next year to hold an indyref? And will however is PM grant a S30?
The first point might surprise some as here it says its possible to hold a indyref in as little as fifteen weeks after the approval of a S30.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/17973570.think-tank-warn-boris-johnson-denying-scotland-indyref2/
The second point however is more of a stumbling block, no PM will grant a S30 anytime soon. So what is Sturgeon’s options, well she wants the indyref to be the gold standard so that the international community recognises it, a very important point.
Also if Johnson who’s likely to win a GE due to getting a bum deal, (which I’m sure in a years time will become more like a no deal) will have the backing of the leavers whilst the remain vote is split among the other parties.
So Sturgeon will have to go off to the courts (I hope Joanna Cherry is in good form for us as much as she was for Brexit) and hope that somehow (Not the best of plans) Johnson or whoever is PM can be somehow shamed into granting a S30.
Basically if Johnson or the new PM say no, we could be looking at a indyref late 2021 after the Scottish elections in May.
H: “The idiots who voted for it deserve it. They and their children will soon learn who is responsible for their miserable lives.”
I understand what you mean. However, it is not the well-heeled who will suffer, it is going to be those who are bumping along the bottom in any case. Those idiots who voted for it have been poorly served by the upper classes, with their decades-long propaganda which has blamed to EU for the miserable situation that the same upper classes put them in.
A lot more people will suffer along with them, including those who are too busy, distracted or poorly informed to have any idea what they were voting for (or did not vote at all).
Besides, the EU will still be blamed for the consequences of Brexit. Increased prices? Shortages? Restrictions? It’s all those damnable Europeans’ fault, they are punishing us for our bravery! You can write the headlines yourself.
A transfer of wealth will proceed at an ever faster pace to those at the top, while the struggling underclass will be redirected to scroungers, foreigners and work-shy claimants for them to blame their misery.
“Scotland was tricked into voting to stay in the Union in 2014 just as the grim idiots up north in England and Wales were tricked to vote for Brexit”
Scottish independence good, UK independence bad.
“Scottish independence good, UK independence bad.”
Northern Ireland voted to remain if you hadn’t noticed, Wales voted to leave however looking at the speed at which the Welsh independence movement is growing, it looks like they might want to leave the UK and possibly remain in the EU in some form, that just leaves England.
One wonders why England just doesn’t declare independence and be done with it, they’d be rid of the pesky Jocks, the troublesome Irish in NI, and the Welsh who are beginning to find their own independence voice.
“Scottish independence good, UK independence bad.“
You already had independence. And as much as it causes your small brain to short-circuit, it’s because you had it that the Tories were able to reduce you and your ilk to the contorted self-harming fruitcakes we need to suffer today.
Being a full member of the EU requires a sacrifice of about 15% of a country’s sovereign powers, mostly control over boring things like trade and safety regulations.
Being in the UK for Scotland requires about a 95% surrender of power; on tax, foreign policy, defence, macro economic condominium policy, welfare, banking, money supply and financial regulations, interest rates, and even in many aspects of sport whereby people like Andy Murray (when they win) are defined as British rather than Scottish.
You are a deluded halfwit and, as I said, you deserve what’s coming to you. I hope your children and grandchildren forgive you, assuming you had enough luck to find someone to breed with.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch,
To win or lose it all.
Hatuey is right to repeat that the SNP should seize this opportunity boldly and (with a long spoon) support Johnson’s worthless bargain with the EU in exchange for another, fairer independence referendum. There is a point where prudence becomes wasteful dithering, difficult to distinguish from stupidity, especially when there is nothing left to lose.
Worth to remember about EU is that Macron is the new “leader” of politics of this union:
And how is Macron treating the french people?
“France’s richest gain most Macron tax cuts”
https://www.ft.com/content/728cc752-1e7e-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87c65
“Macron cuts France’s wealth tax, pro-business applaude”
https://www.ft.com/content/3d907582-b893-11e7-9bfb-4a9c83ffa852
“Macron branded ‘hero of the rich’ for cutting taxes for the wealthiest ”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-french-budget-hero-rich-cut-taxes-wealthiest-france-left-wing-a7971606.html
‘Income tax cuts and end of year bonuses’: Macron budget
https://www.thelocal.fr/20190425/what-is-macron-going-to-do-about-frances-biggest-gripes
Even (fmr socialist leader of France) Hollande, close friend to Macron – criticize the neoliberal politics of – deregulation in the job market – that Macron have commited to.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/24/francois-hollande-savages-former-protege-emmanuel-macrons-labour/
“A crisis of this magnitude almost invariably reveals wider dysfunctions, and so it has been with Macron’s debacle with the gilets jaunes. The President seemed oblivious to the plight of the provinces, and unable to show any personal empathy with the lives of ordinary citizens”
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/president-for-the-rich-emmanuel-macron/
I am not saying that EU is all bad but it must be much much better to secure the welfare of the people of the union and not benefit big business, big lobbying groups before its people living in the union.
The neoliberalism must end!
So you’ve cherry-picked articles (only in English) from right-wing Brexiter publications (except FT), many old and out-of-date. You got them off a Brexiter web-site, did you? You certainly didn’t assemble the list from your own research.
Laguerre
Old news? Its for the 2020 budget:
France’s Macron to offer new tax cuts in 2020 budget
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-budget/frances-macron-to-offer-new-tax-cuts-in-2020-budget-idUSKBN1WA123
“The French government said it would reduce taxes on individuals and businesses by €10.2 billion as President Emmanuel Macron seeks to breathe new life into his drive to overhaul France’s economy ”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/france-unveils-billions-in-tax-cuts-to-reset-pro-business-plan-11569528028
Also the FT, The independent, The local is not pro-Brexit, nor is WSJ nor Reuters.
An Indie article from 2017 making predictions is completely irrelevant to today. Cherry-picking English-language journals that are looking to find the true Thatcherite in Macron, and create one if necessary, is evidence of nothing. Try reading some French papers like Figaro or Libération, and find out what their take is.
Laguerre
Both the Reuters and WSJ article is from september 2019, the earlier links tell us he have to backtrack because of the Yellow vest protests, but now, for the 2020 budget he carries through with the tax cut for the rich.
The Figaro is a right-wing paper according to their description.
And yes for all that matters, read Liberation, Especially this:
https://www.liberation.fr/planete/2019/04/01/aux-sources-neoliberales-de-l-ue_1718731
Also read this from Figaro:
https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-eco/budget-2020-des-baisses-d-impots-au-programme-de-l-assemblee-20191014
Read how the left condemn Macron for his tax cuts for the rich and how that inevitably will lead to even more inequality between the rich and poor.
Jack
What you don’t understand is your English-language sources, to support your Thatcherite vision, only concentrate on one neo-liberal style issue, and all you’ve done is to seek out some French sources that support your pre-decided diagnosis, which is based on your Anglophone sources. You’ll never be interested in a wide-spectrum analysis, which is that Macron is doing quite well, Le Pen is dead, and he doesn’t really have a prospective rival. Oh, and by the way, he’s also dropped one of the two local taxes, something which affects everyone, not just the billionaires, but somehow your sources obsessed with a Thatcherite neo-liberal vision somehow forgot to mention that.
Laguerre
Even when I used the french sources you gave me, you refuse to acknowledge the reality of things in France.
Unions, leftwing parties, join ‘yellow vests’ march, Melechon condemns him.
https://www.france24.com/en/20190427-unions-leftwing-parties-join-yellow-vests-march
Poll shows half of people believe Yellow Vests’ opinions will be ignored
http://en.rfi.fr/economy/20190102-poll-shows-half-people-believe-yellow-vests-opinions-will-be-ignored
French people dont think its fit to protest anymore because Macron wont listen anyway. His acting like a dictator, having the support from the rich elite wont make him sit steady though, as the EU parliament vote proved.
Jack
Gilets Jaunes are dead now. Your links are from the beginning of the year, when things were different. I agree that the original complaints of abandonment were justified, much as in UK, but they weren’t Macron’s fault, rather a long-term issue going back to his predecessors, notably Sarkozy.
Macron has made a good effort this year to go out and talk to people, holding a series of national debates around the country. I’m not particularly an enthusiast of Macron. The best way to describe him is: not too bad. That’s a lot better than his predecessors, and much better than the last three British PMs, who have been catastrophic. And about as much as one can expect from a head of government.
One thing one can note about France, which you won’t know about, is that the economic developments in France are often quite similar to Britain, but didn’t lead to the same ideological consequences. The coal mines closed in the 1980s too, but there wasn’t any ideological Thatcherism. There’s also been an evacuation of power from outside the capital, but it didn’t lead to a demand of leaving the EU in the same way, because of course the two are not related. When Le Pen tried it she was forced to drop the idea.
Macron comes from a traditional French elitist background, educated at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, where many French politicians were educated. Much like Oxford for Johnson or Cameron. Forget the banker bit: he was only there two years. He’s proved to be ready to adapt. No-one hopes for perfection.
I quite agree that the problem of the Gilets Jaunes, like those of northern Brexiters, fearing abandonment, is very difficult to solve, but neither Brexit nor overturning Macron is the solution.
Laguerre
Macron popular? You get it wrong again.:
Look at the stats below, see the red markings? Majority of polls show majority of negative views on Macron and his regime:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_the_Emmanuel_Macron_presidency#Political_barometers
One cannot blame the predecessor of Macron because
Macron was in the government himself before becoming the president.
Second, the tax cuts he plan for 2020 cannot be blamed on anyone but himself.
People are still protesting but Macron do not care, that is why people are losing faith in freedom of speech,
not because the same people that initially protested him have found a love with his neoliberalistic politics.
There is no denial that Macron favor the rich, after all that is the part of the french people
that supports him continually:
“Interestingly, while Macron gathered most of his votes from the wealthier sections of society and Le Pen from the poorest, votes for Mélenchon were equally spread between all socio-economic groups (and he was the favoured candidate of the youth)”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/08/emmanuel-macron-france-economics-neoliberalism
…something which is of course the very foundation of neoliberalism: favor the rich:
“Neoliberalism is a slippery term which means different things to different people, but at its core is an economic philosophy of free markets, individualism and privatization. In practice, neoliberalism favors the wealthy over the working class, the entrenched powers over social mobility and the individual over the collective good”
Something that was very close to the thinking of Thatcher that also caused division and inequality:
“Since its mainstream introduction by Thatcher and Reagan, neoliberal ideals have led to worsening wealth inequality, stagnant wages and a dwindling middle class. ”
https://dailycampus.com/stories/2018/12/21/on-macron-les-gilets-jaunes-and-neoliberalism
More connection between Thatcher and Macron here:
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/emmanuel-macron-contradictions-neoliberalism
Or this splendid analysis of the similarities between Macron and Thatcher:
https://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/3561068/branko-milanovic-emmanuel-macron-relancer-croissance-francaise-methodes-thatcheriennes-monde-profondement-change-depuis-1980
I think the issue here is what Caitlin Johstone said about the Yellow vests, namely that leftists are fooled to think these protesters are the work of nazis, fascists. Because
that is what the rich, neoliberalists like Macron himself spin in his propaganda:
“Today, many leftists seem terrified of popular movements for change, convinced “populism” must lead to “fascism.” But it needn’t be so, says Diana Johnstone.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/05/yellow-vests-rise-against-neo-liberal-king-macron/
Proof of that? Look what Macron said here:
In a letter issued in March, headed ‘For European Renewal’ and addressed to the ‘Citizens of Europe’, Macron insisted on another division, brought about by a clash of ideologies between ‘progressives’ and ‘nationalists’. There was a fundamental choice, Macron insisted, between those who defend the ‘standards of progress’ which have made Europe a ‘vanguard’ of the world and the ‘anger-mongers, backed by fake news’ who retreat into the ‘trap’ of nationalism, offering only ‘rejection without an affirmative’
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n13/didier-fassin/macrons-war
Macron is NOT the leader of the EU – he is a manchurian banker plant and created like kippers and Fartage. They failed with the AdF to get rid of Merkel and she is making mince meat of him and and his bosses in the EU as the GJ are doing to him at home – he will be remembered less than Sarkozy.
The best result would be a no deal exit on 31/10/2019, which I believe is still possible regardless of what MP’s vote for tomorrow, as a result of a technicality / mistake or the fact that BREXIT is driving all parties involved on all sides nuts, resulting in almost total paralysis re more important decisions.
Even in a long and protracted personal divorce, one or other party is going to lose all patience and just say sod off – have the bloody lot. House, kids and everything. I need to get on with my life. There are other things to do rather than fight over what is lost.
I am sure both The French and the Germans would be more than happy to tell the lot of us in The UK to sod off, and get on with it. They will try and bugger us up, whatever the result.
And no you can’t have our fish.
P1ss off.
Tony