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Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

• shmerl 8y ago
  So, will they now re-evaluate the whole Brexit? It's clear it was a failed idea to begin with.
  • kodablah 8y ago
    It's not clear to me nor am I convinced it is clear to those who voted for autonomy. One could argue that EU legislation since the vote only bolsters the arguments for independence. The only thing that's clear from my outsider perspective is that some campaigning was shady. How can it be clear it was a failed idea when the idea hasn't even come to fruition?
    • konradb 8y ago
      > How can it be clear it was a failed idea when the idea hasn't even come to fruition? By doing a cost benefit analysis of the exceptionally high probability likely outcomes
  • MatekCopatek 8y ago
    As far as I understand this vote wasn't intended to oppose brexit as a whole, it was intended to oppose brexit under recently negotiated terms. As in - they still want out, they just don't like that specific deal.
    • shmerl 8y ago
      They won't get any other deal though. So out means paying for consequences with negative economic outcome. The only pragmatic solution now is to cancel the whole thing. Let's see if they aren't too stubborn to do it.
• pkaye 8y ago
  Don't fully understand UK government structure but is it possible for the labor party to take over leadership and revoke article 50 before the deadline?
  • tunesmith 8y ago
    Isn't the labor party also against revoking article 50? Corbyn at least? I thought it was only the liberal party that has been consistent in arguing for revoking it.
    • SiempreViernes 8y ago
      brexit did win a referendum, which is probably the main reason labor has been cautious, but Corbyn himself isn’t a great fan of the EU, that’s true.
      • blibble 8y ago
        > Corbyn himself isn’t a great fan of the EU this is somewhat of an understatement he voted against its creation, and against every single transfer of power to it prior to being elected Labour leader he would denounce it at every possible opportunity (alongside his mentor Tony Benn)
    • noir_lord 8y ago
      Corbyn is anti-EU, Labour is pro-EU, Corbyn is on record as saying it's a party matter and he will back the consensus. Which is why we have the hilarity of a pro-remain PM in charge of us leaving and a pro-leave opposition leader in charge of trying to get us to remain. UK politics is bonkers at the moment.
    • cm2187 8y ago
      Like the conservatives, they are divided between remainers and brexiters. Which is why it is a political mess. Now the conservative party being in power, these divisions are showing wide open. But you have a similar division within Labour.
  • 8y ago
• tunesmith 8y ago
  The whole thing seems like a slow motion train wreck, except with the potentially and arguably happy outcome of them remaining in the EU.
  • Someone1234 8y ago
    Just to be clear, article 50 hasn't been revoked, the UK will still leave the EU with no deal on March 30th. This vote is very damaging to the government's position, but as it stands there's been no move, assurance, or guarantees, to stop article 50. If article 50 is activated it starts a two year countdown as the UK slowly moves out of the EU. Even if the government loses the no confidence vote, there's still no implied action on article 50.
    • shmerl 8y ago
      If they are smart, they'll axe Brexit completely now and admit how they misled everyone about its benefits.
      • zimpenfish 8y ago
        If they were smart, we wouldn’t have spent the last two years on this xenophobe-appeasing nonsense.
    • ineedasername 8y ago
      This might, however, be the next step in the political game being played by factions interested in having a new referendum.
    • tunesmith 8y ago
      What I don't understand (and I am very ignorant!) is why the initial vote can't just be looked at as a stage in the decision process. Time has gone on, and the public has become more educated as to what the true effects of Brexit will be. Even leaving aside the question of how dishonest the pro-Brexit arguments were. It just seems reasonable to have another vote.
• matte_black 8y ago
  The UK is so close to being free from the grips of the EU. It will be tough, but it is a sacrifice they must be willing to make.
  • switch007 8y ago
    How much of this price to pay must I bear? And the other 65 million people in this country? I mean in actual billions. How much?
    • matte_black 8y ago
      More.
  • baq 8y ago
    Yes, exactly what certain individuals east of the Gulf of Finland count on.
  • NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    So they can "take back control" they never lost, to have an impotent government that's unable to get primary legislation through parliament, but unlikely to be voted out? This doesn't seem to be an improvement.
  • Balgair 8y ago
    As of 21:05 UTC, 2019-01-15, the OP to this comment has this as their profile information: > user: matte_black > created: November 6, 2017 > karma: 1915 > about: This account is for sale. Any further commenters to this user should be advised.
• albertgoeswoof 8y ago
  Imagine if all the great minds thinking, discussing, reporting and debating brexit spent their time on solving real problems facing the human race instead.
  • refurb 8y ago
    Why do you assume that time spent thinking, discussing, reporting and debating how a country is governed is not a good use of time?
  • beefield 8y ago
    Real problems like how to get people click more ads and how to create useless cryptocurrencies that lots of great (and arguably not so great) minds seem to be nowadays primarily occupied with? (Yep, loads of sarcasm here)
  • CodeGlitch 8y ago
    Because democracy, whilst not perfect, is the best system we have for civilisation to continue. As someone who voted remain, I have to say that we now have to leave the EU. If Brexit was to be stopped by Parliment, the damage to UK politics would last a generation. People would simply loose faith in the system, giving rise to more extreme political parties - and we all know where that leads to. If I was in charge, I'd do a hard Brexit - use the ££ windfall from not paying into the EU as buffer until the economy recovers with new trade deals. It's not going to be the apocalypse like some hardcore remainers describe
    • simonbarker87 8y ago
      Out of interest (also a remainer here) what do you think to the argument that since every 5 years we get to change the government if we want to and if the Leave campaigners basically lied to the electorate, we should get a second vote?
      • CodeGlitch 8y ago
        There was definitely lying on both sides. I couldn't say who lied more - but I think the voting public are more intelligent than that, and could see through the messages written on the side of buses. The idea of a 2nd vote is undemocratic if you ask me. Keep asking the question until you give us the answer we want! There was enough debate and arguing the first time around - let's just leave and move on with our lives.
• atombender 8y ago
  Other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18914290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18914290.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• AJRF 8y ago
  Request: Firefox extension that works like AdBlock but for Brexit related news
  • pixxel 8y ago
    Not opening the link and commenting will help somewhat.
• gonvaled 8y ago
  A good take on how the negotiation was squandered, and why the EU has run out of patience: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-vote-deal-theresa-may-withdrawal-agreement-eu-negotiations-a8728771.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-vote-deal-theres...
• albertgoeswoof 8y ago
  Imagine if all the great minds thinking, discussing, reporting and debating brexit spent their time on solving real problems facing the human race instead.
  • hacker_9 8y ago
    Great minds debate Brexit?
  • vinceguidry 8y ago
    Brexit is a real problem that the human race is faced with. There can be no higher question than that of what rules people should be using to deal with each other. For most of human history the rules were imposed by force. You open your market because if you don't, I'll escalate from sending a strongly worded missive all the way up to sending my armies to pillage your countryside. Recently we've moved to a more contract-based system because using force sucks and you only want to do it if you absolutely have to. But that brings with it its own set of problems. Getting everybody on the same page is hard. Politics largely deals with local perspectives, even when it has to aspire to "the will of the people" when it comes to things like entering into international treaties. Brexit is history in the making. The EU is a phenomenally novel way of integrating sovereign nation-states into a singular political entity, that happened without war. It's aim is to make something as singularly powerful as the United States, without force. The US had to clear out the West by force in order to achieve its Manifest Destiny. Great that we have it now, but we can't just keep fighting wars to achieve political unity. That without force part is the problem being solved. Whatever happens here will influence all future non-violent political integrations humanity has going forward. Make no mistake, this matters. Moreso than just about anything we've done since WW2.
    • ceejayoz 8y ago
      > The EU is a phenomenally novel way of integrating sovereign nation-states into a singular political entity, that happened without war. Not just without war, but between nations that've been regularly at war with each other (in various iterations) for well over a thousand years. It's a pretty remarkable achievement.
• yholio 8y ago
  The Brexit promise is something nobody can deliver on. It was a lie, you cannot force the EU to accept an unfavorable trade deal. If only for the reason that it would set an exceptionally bad precedent and everybody would want their own deal, to pick and choose the parts of EU membership that are favorable to them, leading the EU to implode. Somebody needs to own up to that lie and accept that a "no deal" outcome, which is clearly bad, is still the best thing brexiters can actually deliver. Instead, they are trying to camouflage that reality with a bad deal that keeps Britain shackled to the EU for a number of years while losing all of the (substantial) influence it had over the way EU works. That's an anti-Brexit, the exact opposite of the independence and prosperity promised by brexiters. It was a bad deal and it's good that it failed.
  • fossuser 8y ago
    Maybe? If you think that most of the people are actually looking at or arguing about the implementation of any specific policy (I'd suspect this is the minority). It seems more likely people are just arguing about which tribe they're a part of. In that case nobody cares about what the best outcome is or what the truth is. If you can get a brexit deal passed that still allows the UK to 'brexit' in name only, but otherwise retains all of the actual agreements of being in the EU it could be a win-win. People get to pretend they left, but it doesn't actually change anything. Without this there isn't a good outcome here short of just ignoring the referendum. I think owning the lie is a good idea, but not sure if it would work politically since someone like Nigel Farage can just come back and loudly call you a liar that can't deliver on a 'true brexit'.
    • jarcane 8y ago
      Nigel Farage is a media-created bogey man, a hack to the system of “equal time”. He isn’t actually representative of anyone, even his own useless party, as polls and election results have consistently shown.
      • ceejayoz 8y ago
        He was an MP, is still a MEP, and cofounded a party that once commanded "major party" status and nearly 20% of the vote in 2014. He's clearly representing some folks.
• simonbarker87 8y ago
  I voted remain but I spend a lot of time with group of people who voted leave. Some of them have realised the leave campaigners basically had no evidence to back up their claims and so feel lied to but, sadly, the others are just angry - and I mean really angry. They want out at all costs because the “EU is telling us what to do”. Revoking article 50 would be a bad idea for civil stability but going through with it seems to me, to be economic suicide (ask any small business owner or retailer how it’s going at the moment and they’d say the process has already started). A bad deal (like this) really did seem the best of an awful situation to me - it reflected the vote, 48/52. Half the country (probably more since a million or so people have now become old enough to vote who couldnt before) didn’t want to do this so perhaps it should be an awkward compromise that gives both sides a bit of what they want.
  • siquick 8y ago
    It wasn't 52% of the country though. The voter turnout was 72% and that excludes the millions of under 18s who will be affected by this the most.
    • simonbarker87 8y ago
      Well yeah, what’s your point?
    • UK-Al05 8y ago
      Tbh that is one of the highest turnouts ever. Probably the most representative vote we've had.
    • andrewmcwatters 8y ago
      Children should not be able to vote.
      • mattlondon 8y ago
        16 year olds can get married, join the military, work fulltime and pay income tax. Why shouldn't they also be allowed to vote?
• chasing 8y ago
  "The people have voted to shoot themselves in the foot. Parliament rejects proposal to shoot themselves in the right foot, but proposal to shoot themselves in the left foot also seems destined for failure."
  • jmull 8y ago
    This is pretty much how the whole thing sounds to this American. I clicked through to a NYT article that lays out the various things that could happen next in a decision tree. But every leaf node is unpopular, undersireable and still leaves a bunch of questions unanswered.
  • chasing 8y ago
    "If Parliament is unable to decide which foot should be shot, then the default option of shooting themselves in the head will be enacted."
• hacker_9 8y ago
  To be honest this is just a repeat of two years ago, apart from now it's May not getting her way instead of Cameron. The whole thing is such a colossal failure that they need to just to give up and stop acting like this is the 'will of the people' - as if people don't change their mind when presented with the facts or something.
  • DanBC 8y ago
    "Tea?" "OK, go on." "There's no kettle so I'm burning the house down to heat water." "Now wait a…" "Shut up, I've a clear mandate for tea." https://twitter.com/LouiseJJohnson/status/829617043582369792 https://twitter.com/LouiseJJohnson/status/829617043582369792
    • deleted 8y ago
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    • mattmanser 8y ago
      There's elsewhere in the thread where people discuss knowing Leave voters and just how strongly they feel about it. Some comments are even talking about civil war on the mainland if we back out of it. I feel the British media have gone back to hiding significant swathes of the UK from being shown on screen or print/online, so us more liberal types are deluding ourselves that there's some sort of consensus about a 2nd referendum. I still remember sitting there the day after the referendum and thinking "these people on TV are like they're from my home town. I've never seen people like this on TV before". I haven't seen them again.
      • dijit 8y ago
        It’s almost comical (if it wasn’t so pathetically sad) how divided and polarised the country is. My mother and her entire extended friend circles are aggressively pro-leave, even tofting sound-bites at me. A little further south/east (mum lives in Coventry) in Kettering my friend is pro-leave, but not aggressively so, his soon-to-be wife is remain, but they tout their points and agree to disagree. Further south in London people are so pro-remain it’s unfathomable that anyone would leave, if you want to leave then you’re probably very stupid. I’m pro-remain (although I started as pro-leave before I tried to look into arguments to support me and found - very clearly - that I was wrong) but the country is so passionately divided that I can’t help but think that there really is going to be some kind of rioting in the near future.
• jbottoms 8y ago
  What I find curious through this whole affair is the silence on the topic by the U.S. For two countries that share a "Special Relationship" I had expected to hear the State Dept. say something. After all, major changes in governance by a close ally is bound to have secondary effects. And, please don't tell me that the Special Relationship is just a put-on show. It is set in numerous treaties between the U.S. and U.K. for centuries. There have been no announcements of rescinding any of those well-hidden treaties. Also consider that the U.S. has three of the most sophisticated econometric models of all other countries, probably better than the U.K.'s. That leads me to believe this is a fait accompli and the U.S. may have actually suggested the referrendum as the best way forward. The brute fact is the the U.S. is going through it's own Brexit from earlier trade relationships that were set many years ago and which could be improved upon. You think I'm harbouring a conspiracy theory? Who told you that?
  • yayana 8y ago
    I think the US is trying to be quiet to get the UK a good deal with the EU. Suddenly lowering the EU's trade status is an example of more visible setup for what they want.. Special access to Europe through a corrupt merchant island. I.e. how do you bypass EU regulations without a nice English speaking middle man country with near EU trade status to do a lot of dirty work? IMO the UK will be a specialist in packaging and final assembly of US and Indian goods if they get a good deal from the EU.
  • NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    What is the point of a special relationship with a UK out of the EU? It conferred benefits for both sides whilst the UK was some mid-Atlantic bridge between the EU and US. I seem to remember the (ex?) US ambassador speaking quite strongly on the topic, as have the many UK diplomats who've resigned over the issue. I'd be more inclined to believe the US ending up with a special relationship with another EU nation. FiveEyes will probably survive as a special relationship, but I would expect there to be a wish to add someone inside the EU for SIGINT purposes. Possibly as an entirely separate arrangement excluding that now insignificant island nation. Ireland would be my bet, on both counts.
• usgroup 8y ago
  Ahhhh fudge ... People’s vote ... it might just happen. May now has to chat with the opposition, understand what it’d take to vote yes , take that to Europe, bring back a compromise ... vote again, get that accepted. People’s vote is starting to look like the more likely outcome... had she lost by say 50 or 100 votes ... ok but 432 vs 202 ?! 230 votes to claw back somehow .
  • phoe-krk 8y ago
    Not 230 votes; 115 will be enough to even the result. Still, it's a massive difference.
  • hacker_9 8y ago
    I wonder what it's like being her sometimes, where you have, and will continue to fail at everything you do for years on end, in the most public and embarrassing way possible. I can't quite figure out if she is driven by just really wanting brexit, or it's just a power grab.
    • Sharlin 8y ago
      I don't understand her endgame either. Or how she can handle the stress. Her predecessor basically ordered the biggest bowl of shit [1] in the recent history and then bailed out. Now May's job is to eat it all. Masochistic. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjzqO6UOPFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjzqO6UOPFQ
    • usgroup 8y ago
      Well I think the irony of it is that given the choice of no Brexit or her own deal she may even pick no Brexit at the polls :)
  • rndgermandude 8y ago
    The EU already said there will be no renegotiation. That's why May put the current draft up for a vote in the first place, even tho she knew it would likely fail.
    • 8y ago
• BossingAround 8y ago
  All I can think of is, why? I don't know what were the main points against the deal, but the only reason I can think of that the deal is rejected is that Corbin, or whoever else would come out of this kerfuffle victorious, wants to re-issue vote on leaving the EU in order to stay..? This is insanely puzzling to me, and very much unexpected. Can someone ELI5..? Or maybe ELI15 would be enough.
  • bbrazil 8y ago
    The deal isn't a hard Brexit for the Brexiters, and isn't a remain for the remainers.
  • jcranmer 8y ago
    The deal is a compromise. The Brexit faction never woke up to the reality that they were asking for things that the EU was never going to give, and so they hate it. (In particular, they hate the fact that it admits that this stuff is really complicated and needs more than 2 years to discuss). Remain would rather just remain, and see the deal has second-best to that. So everyone hates it because being in opposition means they don't have to come up with a plausible compromise.
  • dagw 8y ago
    Can someone ELI5 Everybody on both sides considers the deal a huge compromise and hope that by voting it down, their prefered solution will become viable. I bet however that if this deal was put to a single ranked vote against all other options, everybody would put it as nr 2 and it would comfortably win.
    • dragonwriter 8y ago
      > I bet however that if this deal was put to a single ranked vote against all other options, everybody would put it as nr 2 and it would comfortably win. I don't think there is consensus on what all other options are. It's clear that options Constitutionally available to Parliament and within it's power (i.e., no external approval needed) include no Brexit, the deal they just rejected for a near-immediate Brexit, and no-deal near-immediate Brexit, as well as a snap second referendum (which isn't an outcome option, but it is a political option which differs from unilaterally choosing an outcome option.) But it's clear that there are parties that thing that a a better-deal Brexit and/or a delayed Brexit (or delayed decision on whether to have a Brexit) are acheivable options. OTOH, I think there are probably plenty of people who rank no deal and no Brexit both ahead of the deal on offer.
• m0zg 8y ago
  Of course it "failed". The government did everything it could to sabotage it and arrive at as unfavorable a set of exit conditions as possible. Even if she did want to get a good deal, May doesn't strike me as a cutthroat negotiator. Couple this with her unwillingness to abide by the will of the people (the size of the voting margin is somewhat irrelevant in a properly functioning democracy), and you get this. This was 100% predictable right from the start. Like elections, referenda have consequences. You don't get a re-do just because you didn't like the outcome. To say otherwise opens you up to the same kind of bullshit when things turn out the way you like and the _other_ side doesn't like the result.
  • toomuchtodo 8y ago
    The referendum was non-binding. It would be entirely legitimate for Parliament to say "We can't obtain a satisfactory outcome and have opted to remain in the EU as it's a superior economic option." You don't continue to take your sovereign nation over the cliff because of an unreasonable minority of citizens (whether or not they were a majority of those who voiced their opinions in said referendum).
    • m0zg 8y ago
      It was, nevertheless, the directly expressed will of the people. This is very much the social contract that holds the society together, and makes the government accountable to the people. Would you rather they just did as they please?
      • toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Yes, definitely. Override uneducated decisions that harm the republic, regardless of "the will of the people" [1] [2] [3] [4]. That is exactly why republics exist versus direct democracy. “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” -- Winston Churchill (edit: supposedly Churchill did not say this; I'm keeping it, as it helps express the idea) Disclaimer: American [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/poll-majority-of-british-people-regret-voting-for-brexit-2018-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/poll-majority-of-british-peo... (POLL: A majority of British people regret voting for Brexit) [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-polls/britain-would-now-vote-to-stay-in-the-eu-new-poll-shows-idUSKCN1LK2U4 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-polls/britain-... (Britain would now vote to stay in the EU by six point margin, new poll shows) [3] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/25/protest-vote-regret-voting-leave-brexit https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/25/protest-vot... (‘I thought I’d put in a protest vote’: the people who regret voting leave) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United... (Opinion polling for the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum)
• blowski 8y ago
  It feels like the country is roughly divided into 3 equal bits: * Leave EU quickly, at any cost * Don’t really mind either way, as long as economy is stable * Stay in EU The one in the middle doesn’t trust either of the others. So nobody can get a majority, whether we have another referendum or a general election. So this shitstorm will just go on and on.
  • crooked-v 8y ago
    Of course, the only way to get the "economy is stable" result in the short term is to stay in the EU, or to make a deal that's effectively "stay in the EU, but also lose all political power in the EU".
    • growlist 8y ago
      Or, the EU starts thinking pragmatically and offers a proper deal.
      • crooked-v 8y ago
        The shitty deal is pragmatic for the EU, as it makes it obvious to all the countries involved that they can't get the benefits of the EU without being part of (and paying money into the governance of) the EU.
        • growlist 8y ago
          Clearly it wasn't that smart as it raises the chance of no deal, which would hurt the EU more than the UK. Barnier was certainly looking a bit frazzled today! Theresa May's mistake was to think she could negotiate with the EU in a civilised manner, when the only thing it understands is brutality.
  • bsder 8y ago
    So, basically, you have three groups: 1) Angry idiots 2) Idiots 3) Realists I feel sorry for you. It looks like you have the same problems as US politics.
• SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  I'll be the first to admit: I'm an American. I fundamentally do not understand Brexit. I understand the following timeline: 1. A largely disseminated, nation-wide vote occurs, bolstered by nationalist sentiment, that the EU is bad for the UK. This vote results in a conclusion that UK should leave the EU. 2. This is controversial, due to the majority of the populace in general not desiring to leave the EU, but not voting as such individually. Some portions of the UK, itself a Union, are strongly aganst this voting result. 3. May, a woman of great importance in the UK government, chooses to try and make a deal with the EU for favorable leaving conditions for UK. 4. Nothing May is presenting is considered acceptable by anyone. On its face, this makes no sense to me. Why is May being held responsible for this? Where are the people who initially brought in Brexit- why are they not supporting May? What is preventing the referendum from being declared stupid and that the UK gov't is not going to do it? EDIT: Thank you all for your excellent responses. I'm now under the impression this is like when a significant portion of a dev team with (actual, hypotehtical) equal or flat hierarchy believe that code needs to be refactored to a serious degree, but no majority of devs can decide on what the refactored code will look like. (Extremely simplified!). If this is largely incorrect please let me know.
  • balabaster 8y ago
    That "woman of great importance in the UK government" is the Prime Minister. For the purpose of this discussion, and until she's voted out, she is the most important person in the United Kingdom.
    • SolaceQuantum 8y ago
      10-4. Why is she being resoundedly disapproved upon by her own gov't? Presumably, the same gov't that put forth this vote? At least some significant margin of politicians must have wanted this vote knowing that 'yes' is on the table. Where are they?
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• davidw 8y ago
  I loved the comparison to a submarine made of cheese: https://twitter.com/hugorifkind/status/1072222230791229440?lang=en https://twitter.com/hugorifkind/status/1072222230791229440?l...
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  • qfq 8y ago
    >Theresa May was initially against building a submarine out of cheese, obviously. Because it’s a completely insane thing to do. Leaving the EU is not a completely insane thing to do. The UK (and many other countries) have legitimate grievances about some things the EU is foisting on them (immigration for example) and the EU is giving them the cold shoulder and fining them if they don't comply. Labelling people who are against that as "insane" isn't going to help anybody.
    • jvreeland 8y ago
      Leaving the EU and expecting to get most of if not all the benefits with no sacrifices, as it was sold to people is insane.
    • komali2 8y ago
      How is it not insane? Why would the EU give the UK a "better deal" than it would to members? From the start, it was insane.
    • mprev 8y ago
      If "insane" is not the right word then perhaps "immature" is a better fit. Part of being an adult is understanding that most choices in life are compromises. On balance, the UK is better in Europe, despite its human-made failings. Trying to achieve some impossible ideal, without understanding or acknowledging the realities, might not be insane but it's not the way the world works.
    • roywiggins 8y ago
      If you want access to the single market, you have to sign up to freedom of movement. The UK was never going to be able to have one without the other because it's a fundamental principle of the EU as an institution. It's a package deal.
• duxup 8y ago
  Are there British politicians brave enough and capable of becoming PM ... and willing to say "This is a bad idea and I won't do it?"
  • notahacker 8y ago
    No
    • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      However, there might be a British politician brave enough to say "This is a bad idea, let's not do it", who, on the basis of saying that, might some time later become PM. They won't become PM this year, though.
      • duxup 8y ago
        It seems like things almost have to hit rock bottom before the locals realize that this deal is not going to be having cake and eating it too. Hopefully after it finally hits that point the EU is smart enough to throw them a bone or two on a "deal" that makes it look like they got something form the EU... but still way short of total chaos.
• PaulRobinson 8y ago
  Here's what happens next: - A motion of no confidence has been tabled and will be debated and voted on tomorrow - If the motion carries (i.e. the Government loses): 1. Theresa May must resign as Prime Minister 2. There can be a 14 day window in which a new government is formed, which must be approved by a motion of confidence. This is likely to be waived 3. There will be a general election. Theresa May will remain leader of the Tories. The Tories will lose 4. Corbyn will then seek a deal that retains customs union. This is likely to take time, so he will likely seek a delay from Parliament on Article 50 for such a deal to be agreed 5. We leave with a customs union probably in Autumn of 2019 - Most Tories know this, so will support the PM in a vote of no confidence, and the Government may win it. In that scenario: 1. Theresa May stays Prime Minister 2. She will go back to the EU and demand a new deal, likely with a hard time limit on the NI backstop, the main issue that caused tonight's defeat 3. At the same time, she will ask "senior Parliamentarians" what they would need if that were not possible 4. The only thing that will carry a vote in Parliament right now other than a customs union deal (which she has personally refused to engage with), is a second referendum 5. If the backstop isn't removed, it's therefore quite likely Article 50 is rescinded and a new referendum happens this Summer. It's likely such a referendum will have two questions: Do you wish to leave or remain?; and, in the event of a vote towards leave, would you accept the backstop or would you prefer "No Deal". 6. This will either result in a Remain vote and possibly a civil war (no, seriously), or a Leave vote that risks breaking up the UK with the NI needing to align with the Republic and, so, a civil war but contained to NI, or a Leave deal with support for "No Deal" and a default position of WTO rules All outcomes have downsides. There is no winning here, and there is no situation in which we get to revoke Article 50 and the UK remains in the EU and all is well. It will leave 17m people in an absolute rage, and they have already murdered one MP. It'll get worse.
  • beefield 8y ago
    > It will leave 17m people in an absolute rage, and they have already murdered one MP. It'll get worse. So, the decision making is kept as hostage by 17m angry people who won't accept that their side winning was based on pretty much fraudulent arguments? Maybe, just maybe, it could be in the long run worth paying the price of their anger and show that the modern democratic society has some backbone against these kind of people?
• altairiumblue 8y ago
  The best position on Brexit that I've heard coming out of a British politician. Well worth the listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XEj64IFzQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XEj64IFzQ8
  • 794CD01 8y ago
    It's easy to make nice-sounding speeches when you're not accountable for delivering any results.
  • solidsnack9000 8y ago
    "Do not blame Brussels for own country's mistakes."
  • k9s9 8y ago
    Given our current, "engagement maximizing" news media/social media architecture it doesn't matter who stands up and speaks the truth and how well they do it and how many clicks they get. They will fail. In the arms race for the public's attention that has been setup, by this clicks/views/likes/retweets/upvote based architecture, the incentive for thousand other voices to drown out the truth, to pander, to distract, to mislead has never been higher. And its not hard work. It attracts and props up the most hard working yet unqualified people on the planet. Until the architecture changes and incentives for these people change, just expect more and more Brexit and Trump like events wasting everyone's time and energy.
• xoa 8y ago
  The New York Times also had an article yesterday [1] looking at some of the regular pro-Brexit people who just plain do not believe any warnings about no-deal. One quote though really jumped out at me since it was related to one of the earliest projects I ever did, working on a small bit of the Y2K problem, and I think it really serves as an example of a fundamental difficulty when dealing with public facing threats: >Mr. Ridley compared the anticipation mounting before the Brexit deadline to the run-up to forestall the Millennium Bug, also known as Y2K, in which companies worldwide scrambled to avert technical breakdowns when digital systems switched from 1999 to 2000. >“It’ll be like Y2K,” he said. “Remember that one? They were like panic, panic, panic, the world’s going to end, the electric grid’s going to go down,” Mr. Ridley said. “None of it is going to happen.” I knew that this was the impression left with the general public after that, but it's really unfortunate because in my recollection Y2K is quite possibly one of the most unified, successful responses to a serious tech problem our industry has ever managed to pull off. Yeah, it didn't amount to much... after hundreds of thousands to millions of man YEARS of work. I know people who had gone full time digging through ancient code bases back by 1998 or so, wouldn't be surprised if some had started in 97. Initial issues began bubbling up well before 00 after all, stuff like credit card expiration dates that were a few years in the future. Enormous amounts of resources were sunk into working on it, sometimes for clean fixes and sometimes for hacks [2], and overall it worked. But of course then we ended up with "well what was the point of all the hype or effort, everything was fine!" and the public taking literally the opposite lesson. I can't remember if there is a technical term for this class of problem (beyond "life in ops"), where it's like air, the general "success" state is "nobody even thinks about it most of the time" but the failure state is catastrophic. It's an issue with security too of course. Ops and security are non-revenue generating, but their absence can certainly be revenue destroying. It's hard to get budget support there. It seems like a really hard problem, particularly when future testing isn't available and results are irreversible. ---- 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/world/europe/no-deal-brexit-britain-uk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/world/europe/no-deal-brex... 2: Old systems are still in service that are still using 2-digit dates, but just were patches so that 00 to 30 were assumed to be 2000s while >30 were 1900s, so there is actually still lurking remnants of Y2K that will come up again if not dealt with by 2030 or so. And of course there is the 32-bit unix time issue for 2038, examples of which have also cropped up a few times already too.
• andy_ppp 8y ago
  Stewart Lee on Brexit, very funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek9_GQa1lgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek9_GQa1lgc
• skykooler 8y ago
  > The environment secretary, Michael Gove, was equally dramatic in a morning radio interview, warning lawmakers that “if we don’t vote for this deal tonight, in the words of Jon Snow, winter is coming,” a reference to “Game of Thrones.” Err, that was Ned Stark who said that, not Jon Snow.
  • DFHippie 8y ago
    Don't all the Starks say that? Those are their "words".
  • Cursuviam 8y ago
    It's their family motto, so many Starks have said it
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• dv_dt 8y ago
  At this point a no deal Brexit looks substantially different from the possible-Brexit that was voted upon. Shouldn't there be a new referendum of basically a new question of a no deal Brexit vs Remain? I know very little of British politics, is there some other dynamic at work that pushes to what seems like a strongly economically destructive no deal Brexit?
  • hardlianotion 8y ago
    I can never understand why no-deal v remain appears to be a reasonable position. A normal response to a closely contested referendum carried out the way this one was would be to find some consensus within parliament for how brexit could be delivered, _then_ enact article 50 to withdraw. The current prime minister not only kept all opposition parties away from deliberations on how to proceed, but kept her own ministers in the dark while formulating her own policy, which she pursued largely in secret. So why should the electorate be cheated in this manner? Even now, forms of brexit based on remaining in the EEA have a great chance of having parliamentary support.
    • dv_dt 8y ago
      > Even now, forms of brexit based on remaining in the EEA have a great chance of having parliamentary support. But that's not the deal with the EU and there is no time left to negotiate this I thought. Can you perhaps explain more? Is it that you think May actually cheated the electorate that wanted Brexit? I though she was essentially on the side of Brexit?
      • lozenge 8y ago
        "Our UK friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want, and so we would like within a few weeks our UK friends to set out their expectations for us, because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications," - 14 December If the UK will offer something new, such as staying in the single market, then the EU is willing to reopen negotiations, extend article 50 etc. If the UK just says "this isn't good, we want something better" - then the EU won't renegotiate. She voted Remain, and decided that implementing Leave was the only way to be Prime Minister and it was worth it. Also, she has such a thin majority, the Brexiters will topple her unless she toes to their line (restricting immigration, avoiding ECJ etc).
• amriksohata 8y ago
  The main issue is that the majority of parliament are remainers and so don't really represent the 52 percent, further signyfing why the public feel parliament are out of touch with them. Britain is further teetering towards a no deal, meaning an even harder Brexit.
• rtkwe 8y ago
  The issue with the referendum since the beginning was leave was such a nebulous cloud for the entire range of Brexit from barely-there-Brexit to Britian-stands-alone(-get-those-people-out)-Brexit while remain had a very definite meaning. Because of that everyone could pour all their displeasure at anything wrong into leave and think the deal would take care of it. That's why I'm always annoyed at the 'another referendum would tarnish democracy' line, it wouldn't be another nebulous question it would be a direct vote on an actual deal giving people the chance to make an actual choice on the future of the UK. > Instead, they are trying to camouflage that reality with a bad deal that keeps Britain shackled to the EU for a number of years while losing any say it had over the way EU works. I don't think Brexit as it was formulated was ever possible if the EU was wanting to be extremely generous because one of the main gripes was all the regulations on products coming from the EU parliament. Ultimately if the UK was going to have access to the EU market at all pretty much all of those regulations would still apply because to sell into that market they'd have to comply with the regulations of the EU market!
  • growlist 8y ago
    Edit: I got a bit carried away.
    • andybak 8y ago
      > all calls for a second referendum would be treated with utter contempt Yes but it's symmetrical. If result A then calls for second referendum greeted with derision by side B If result B then calls for second referendum greeted with derision by side A So no conclusion can be drawn by the fact that people are partisan. The question of whether a second referendum is a good idea is independent of the result of the first referendum.
      • sievebrain 8y ago
        Let's phrase it like this. There would be nobody in parliament or government talking about a second referendum if remain had won. In fact it'd have been taken as a mandate to immediately pass more powers to Brussels, see the PESCO.
• throwaway_fjmr 8y ago
  It bewilders me that people, including elected MPs, don't want to understand how electoral/representative democracies should work. The will of the People, yeah, right. It's like pub talk on a Friday. Grab a lukewarm ale and a bag of crisps, and cry about how great the empire once was. MPs should represent the best interest, not the lunatic dreams of their voters.
• fixermark 8y ago
  So what is the worst-case scenario if the UK comes up with no clear legal plan for Brexit on their end before the EU deadline?
  • laurentoget 8y ago
    Major recession, food and medicine shortage, 1 million british citizen deported back to the UK, 3 million EU citizen leaving the UK and civil war in Northern Ireland is what the most alarmist have predicted.
    • RugnirViking 8y ago
      A more realistic but important to note still on the worse end of outcomes for a no deal would be something like: Major recession, large queues on motorways for a while, slighty rising unemployment in the longer term. The bank of england would probably manage to smooth over the worst of the effects, messing with the pound to insulate buisnesses trading internationally (note that right now their main problem is the pound being too high, so it might sort itself out naturally)
• cryptonector 8y ago
  Article 50 exists. The UK can leave on WTO terms and the EU cannot stop it. The EU has some incentives (money) to give the UK some other deal than WTO terms, and it has some incentives (avoiding a rush to the exits) to give the UK nothing more than WTO terms. As it happens the UK is wealthier than other EU countries that might head for the exits if they thought they could get as good a deal as the UK, but no one thinks that Poland can get the same terms as the UK, so fear of a rush to exit is not a reason to give the UK nothing. It's not at all clear that May tried to get a better deal than the one she presented to Parliament -- the brexiteers in her previous cabinet were sidelined and ignored, and no attempt was made to make clear that the EU would not yield (if that was the problem).
  • ed_elliott_asc 8y ago
    The brexiteers weren’t sidelined, they were given foreign office and dept for brexit, they were just useless and incompetent
    • spuz 8y ago
      Honestly, I don't think "useless and incompetence" is a relevant criticism of those who were put in charge of the negotiations. Even a team 100 times more competent than May's would still run into the same hard issues.
  • notahacker 8y ago
    Anybody that has made even the slightest attempt to follow events knows that May tried alternative attempts to get a deal (including a framework signed off by all the Brexiters in her Cabinet) and the EU repeatedly rejected them. Anybody that has a solid grasp of the facts knows that the issue is not that the EU "offered the UK nothing" but that the Irish government will veto any agreement which implies the creation of a customs border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and May's critics are equally adamant that the UK, including NI, must have a different customs regime from the ROI. It's not an issue of give and take, it's a matter of mutually incompatible red lines.
    • 8y ago
• pseudolus 8y ago
  One of the effects of Brexit that is overlooked by people outside of the UK is the effect that it will have on the Union itself. In 2014 during the Scottish independence referendum those favouring remaining in the UK prevailed by about 11%. One of the strongest arguments made by those who favoured remaining was that an independent Scotland would not accede to the EU automatically, according to the EU itself, but would have to apply as a new member (in part the fear was that other regions of Europe such as Catalonia would follow Scotland's example). Now in 2019 the Scots who favoured remaining in the UK so as to maintain EU membership are being told they'll have a hard exit. If there's a replay of the 2014 referendum in the future there's no assurance that Scots will choose to remain, with Brexit increasing the possibility of a disintegration of the Union with only England, Wales and Northern Ireland remaining. Over the horizon it's even possible that Northern Ireland (given the appropriate demographic changes) will peel off and join up with the Irish Republic.
  • solidsnack9000 8y ago
    By Union what is meant here is, the United Kingdom?
    • pseudolus 8y ago
      Yes, the union of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom: England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The union between England and Wales dates back to 1536, Scotland became part of the Union in 1707 (Scotland, England and Wales comprising Great Britain), and Northern Ireland (1922). There was a union with all 32 counties of Ireland in 1801.
  • InclinedPlane 8y ago
    Northern Ireland definitely prefers very much to remain in the EU, whether they want to join the Irish Republic is a separate issue, but it's easy to see them splitting away within the next decade or so. "The United Kingdom of England and Wales" has quite the ring to it doesn't it?
• Animats 8y ago
  There's not much time left. Brexit happens March 29th. The EU countries are hiring more customs inspectors. Shippers are planning new shipping routes to avoid transit through the UK. The UK's financial services sector takes a huge hit. UK financial services have already moved US$1 trillion in assets out of the UK, and that's picking up as the deadline approaches. The City of London will be much less important soon.
  • cm2187 8y ago
    The city is actually unlikely to be affected significantly. Large banks already have subsidiaries in the EU or are in the process of setting them up. They will move a limited number of people (as few as they can get away with). A lot of the 1 trillion number will be back-to-back to the UK. The impact on trading goods I think will also be limited. Past the initial logistical disruption, EU tariffs aren't massive outside of a few products, and this is nothing that cannot be offset with a weaker pound. I think where a hard Brexit will hurt the most is small service companies, which aren't large enough to have operations within the EU, and which won't be able to cover the EU from the UK.
  • stordoff 8y ago
    > Brexit happens March 29th Worth noting this date isn't immovable, though it is the date if nothing changes.
• hanoz 8y ago
  The deal was the worst of all worlds and deliberately designed to fail. The whole project since the referendum has been to work towards the palatable introduction of a second referendum whilst spending the intervening time demonstrating the impossibility of a good deal and the awfulness of no deal. We will now proceed to run down the clock towards the no deal 'cliff edge' and as the precipice looms go to the EU asking for an extension. The EU will say you can only have an extension for a second referendum, which we will hold and remain will win.
  • ivraatiems 8y ago
    I read your post as quite confident, but a lot of people were equally confident that the original referendum would be a strong Remain victory. What are you basing these predictions on?
    • jandrese 8y ago
      It seems like the second referendum will also fail if it still includes the "allow brown people into your country" part of being an EU member.
      • ivraatiems 8y ago
        Are there polls or other evidence supporting that?
        • jandrese 8y ago
          https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/29/frenzy-hatred-brexit-racism-abuse-referendum-celebratory-lasting-damage https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/29/frenzy-hatr... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/25/the-uncomfortable-question-was-the-brexit-vote-based-on-racism/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/25... https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2017.1361544 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2017.13... http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/10/09/race-class-and-brexit-how-did-we-get-here/ http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/10/09/race-class-and-brex... https://www.football365.com/news/brexit-and-re-emergence-of-racism-is-no-coincidence https://www.football365.com/news/brexit-and-re-emergence-of-... It's basically the same thing that got Donald Trump elected. An endless parade of stories about how foreigners are making your life worse and the government is bending over backwards for them while you are out of a job. Propaganda works. Lies you want to hear get votes. Nuance does not.
• FatDrunknStupid 8y ago
  I'm going to be an illegal immigrant again! Lived in Spain before EU and I'm going back for afters. On a serious note it's the least able to adapt i.e. us poors that are going to suffer. Rock on people - Don't vote Boris.
• csense 8y ago
  The best thing for Britain would be to just give up, accept that there will be no deal, and spend the remaining time making as many preparations as possible, and piecemeal deals on smaller subjects.
  • thebokehwokeh2 8y ago
    or a second referendum.
• GrumpyNl 8y ago
  Who want to stay in this EU is beyond me.
• mstade 8y ago
  I’ve heard a lot of people make the point that it’d be political suicide if the government declares brexit a bad idea and then backtracks, ignoring the referendum and thus remain in the EU after all, that it’d feed into the hand of the nationalists – but I’ve got hard time understanding why? Doesn’t this assume that people are just dumb? That hey believe the government has been sitting on their hands in trying to get a deal done, and not really, I mean really tried? Isn’t there an argument to be made that they did try, and here are the results, and because of that they’ve concluded that it’s a bad idea? Is it really so hard to believe that a majority of the UK voters wouldn’t accept this, when it was such a contested referendum result in the first place? Especially so when the referendum question was only discussing leaving the EU, rather than promising any particular outcomes? I’m having a hard time believing that a majority of people in the UK are so entrenched that they can’t possibly change their minds given the light of new facts, hat everyone will turn to nationalistic agendas, and that the referendum result of two and a half years ago is still a valid gauge of popular sentiment.
  • cryptonector 8y ago
    The electoral map of the UK is more hard-brexit than the popular vote. There are many seats where brexit won 60+% or even 70+%. That means that there are a lot of MPs who, though they may wish to Remain, also wish to remain as _MPs_, and that means they cannot be overtly Remain.
    • mstade 8y ago
      Is more or was more? The referendum was two and a half years ago and people now have more information at hand, which is my point – why is reneging on brexit automatically political suicide? Because it's not what the people want? Maybe it is today, given what we now know? Would love to see some data sources, if you have any links?
      • cryptonector 8y ago
        Except for a few, most Remainer tories in brexit districts aren't coming out in favor of a second referendum or abandoning brexit without even a second vote. That tells you what you need to know about what they think of popular opinion in their districts. Same for Remainer labour MPs in brexit districts.
• malchow 8y ago
  You can be for or against Brexit. The saddest thing is the gulf between the governing class and Britons. The former cannot effectuate a strong existential roar from the people they represent. That’s worse than this vote, and worse than the original vote for Brexit. (If you even think that was bad.)
• ohiovr 8y ago
  Why was a simple majority used for the brexit decision? Are there issues in the U.K. that require a bigger passing percentage?
• wpdev_63 8y ago
  This will kill the high end of the housing market in the U.K. as the cost of everything will go up. It will also help shore up some jobs that were exported to cheaper labor in the EU. That's my take on it anyways.
• anigbrowl 8y ago
  Perhaps now there will be a reckoning with the blatant illegality (in addition to the ordinary level of rampant political dishonesty) of the Leave campaign. A pragmatic recognition that the UK cannot haul anchor and sail off to some other latitude would not hurt either.
• buboard 8y ago
  i m under the impression that the UK elites are in favor of brexit. Or rather that the elites are not in favor of remain, and they are not going to mobilize for that. The UK people, despite apparent polarization, does not expect major changes in their lives any way.
• jpster 8y ago
  IMO the UK has very little negotiating leverage with the EU. For its preservation, the EU leaders know they must make an example of the UK. A new referendum will take time - if it ever happens. And if it does, the country may remain as divided as ever. They need to secure an extension from the EU. With no extension, a disruptive, hard Brexit will happen in just 10 weeks and the UK is not at all prepared. I just don’t understand what the UK MPs are thinking, and I don’t understand why David Cameron opened this Pandora’s Box in the first place.
• jacknews 8y ago
  I see the headlines are trumpeting how sterling rose (0.05% !!) after the results (hinting that the result is good news), but this looks like a clear case of short-covering to me - short speculation earlier in the day (possibly anticipating a decline if the vote passed), covered when the actual results came out.
• twblalock 8y ago
  The problem with referendums is you can't have just one. The losers will always want another referendum, and they will always be able to point out problems with the previous one and/or argue that significant things have changed since it was held. The results of the previous referendum will never seem legitimate unless it was passed by an overwhelming majority of voters. Just don't have referendums. They open a wound that will never heal.
• rayiner 8y ago
  I’m cautiously optimistic. Brexit is about national sovereignty. You need look no further than the US to see that mega-states don’t work. The EU was supposed to be a trade confederacy, but is beginning to co-opt the sovereignty of the constituent states. That, as the US experience has shown, may lead to economic success, but also leads to people who feel disenfranchised and dissatisfied with a distant, ever-expanding government.
  • fastball 8y ago
    Mega-states can work as long as you have your priorities in order and understand the need for decentralized governance. But unfortunately, both parties in the US have been gunning for a bigger and bigger federal government for the past couple decades.
• rdm_blackhole 8y ago
  I guess one thing that many people are missing is why the "leave" vote won in the first place. If Europe is so great why did some people had the desire to leave it? Surely they were not all brainwashed or lobotomized? The EU is now trying to make the UK pay an extraordinary price in order to warn the other countries that leaving the EU is not a choice to be taken lightly. This kind of technique is known as bullying and that's as simple as it gets. If the EU leaders were smart they would have used this opportunity to try to reform the EU and make it into what they promised their citizens. There was a time when politicians said that the EU was going to bring prosperity, safety and so on and so forth? Where are all those promises now? The EU has had low economic growth for the last 15 years, high unemployment, flooded by migrants, non-stop terrorist attack, an ever smaller middle class, and ever-increasing taxes that are used to pay the salaries of technocrats like Juncker who was one of the guys who organized fiscal evasion on a scale never imagined. Who is this guy by the way? He is not even fucking elected yet somehow he represents Europe? Europe is not the democratic utopia that was sold to the people. It certainly has not delivered on its promises and now it faces a backlash from its citizens. I hope Brexit happens because if it succeeds it will show that another way is possible. European technocrats can eat my shorts!
  • kabacha 8y ago
    > The EU has had low economic growth for the last 15 years, high unemployment, flooded by migrants, non-stop terrorist attack > NON-STOP TERRORIST ATTACKS Lol, you lost any credibility you had after this sentence. Go back under your bridge, troll.
  • madaxe_again 8y ago
    Flooded by migrants, eh? Did they come in a wave? A tsunami? Did their little beady rat-like eyes and their smell offend you? Dress it up all you like, but you’ve just broadcast “I’m a xenophobe” loud and proud.
    • marliechiller 8y ago
      thats quite a stance. Like it or not, there is a huge influx of migrants into the EU. Acknowledging this does not make one a xenophobe and labelling someone with that opinion causes all sorts of divisions and further issues. In fact, your rhetoric is actually one of the main drivers spurring vote leave. People with valid opinions being labelled as racist only further entrenches their beliefs that they are not being listened to
• nimonian 8y ago
  Jacob Rees-Morgan: "Chaos is a ladder."
• jayalpha 8y ago
  The UK was the sick man of Europe. Then, basically around the same time: 1. Thatcher made economic reforms 2. Oil was found in the sea (UK oil production correlates a lot with the rising UK economy) 3. The UK joined the EU (EC) The Oil is gone and they want to leave the EU. Let's see how it goes.
• pete_b 8y ago
  Everyone has a plan right now in the UK parliament. Probably over half of parliament is hoping to push the UK into a 'cancel Brexit' scenario, despite claiming they respect the referendum result. Possibly a third of parliament have given up on the prospect of a reasonable deal with the EU and are holding out for a no-deal WTO exit. A minority are still seeking a last-minute deal that everyone can agree on. It has always been my belief that a good trade deal between the UK and the EU is only possible if the UK is actually willing to go no-deal WTO first. Simply because the EU never concedes anything in good faith when it comes to negotiations.
• mensetmanusman 8y ago
  Most countries in the world exist outside of the EU, Britian will figure it out
• 75dvtwin 8y ago
  Teresa May was a 'remain'. Subjective, but... It was never a question in my mind, that May would sabotage the negotiations to the point that the skeptics of the exit, would proclaim 'I told you so'. Never believed that she could perform her duty honestly. What a stain she is, on the fabric of trust of the British people.
• anuraj 8y ago
  UK is staring at supply chain and financial disruptions post Brexit. In the multi polar world - UK is not a heavy weight any more. Without the collective bargaining power of EU - UK would have tough time rebuilding economy in an uber competitive global economic context.