[Closed] EU Referendum - are you in or out?

Angry??? I am smiling. Finally looks like progress (as expected). Compromises been made. And I am genuinely impressed at how both sides have dealt with the Bill. I expect some very smart work has gone in "behind the scenes" on Ireland too. As you say Mike and as I predicted there are some clever grown ups who know how to create a win:win or at least how to avoid a lose:lose.

For once, I am impressed by both May&Co and by the EU. If they keep this up, Brexshit will be even less damaging than I feared. Great news.

😛

Arlene Foster's about to speak at Stormont, apparently

Any idea what this could be about?

Do we get to wave our little flags yet?

For once, I am impressed by both May&Co and by the EU. If they keep this up, Brexshit will be even less damaging than I feared. Great news.

Foster about to make a statement outside Stormont

Nigels irony-meter seems to be malfunctioning again....

Nigel Farage
?
@Nigel_Farage

This UK Government’s bitter betrayal of 17.4 million people today is a concession too far, for it will lead to endless problems in Scotland and it damages the integrity of the United Kingdom.

1:51 PM - Dec 4, 2017

😆

I'm shit scared what happens to me if JC gets in, but support for Labour is helping move the Brexit talk slowly by steady towards SM & CU involvement for all the UK… and we are incrementally heading that way it seems… and once it's moved that far… it could yet move still further, towards delaying or stopping our exit from the EU… highly unlikely, but "possible". JC won't want that though, will he.

leads to an inflated sense of importance

[b]Leads[/b] you say? 🙂

Anyway, I was wondering what the DUP WhatsApp group is like right now but then again, they’d hardly use an app with a green icon would they?

Sounds like the DUP are not happy. No surrender etc.

Shot across the bows from Arlene.

Jesus wept, what a farce.

For once, I am impressed by both May&Co and by the EU.

I'd be more impressed if she hadn't been trying to throw her weight around like a drunken pub hooligan for months previously.

indeed kelvin we are securing our ACCESS to the EU on hopefully sensible terms

[img] [/img]

The "terms" are everything, nearly every country in the world has "access" to the EU&EEA market.

Repeat repeat repeat.

Foster is shitting herself.

Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, is speaking now.

[b]She says the DUP would oppose anything that would lead to regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.[/b]

She says the DUP wants to see a sensible Brexit.

The Irish government claim to be guarantors of the Belfast agreement. But they are seeking to unilaterally change it, she says. She says the DUP will not stand for that.

Oh look.... another circle to square 😆

[img] [/img]

Foster is shitting herself.

Oh look.... another circle to square

Easy circle to square… all of UK currently in the SM & CU continue operating in both.

Earth

Solid ground not remoaner BS

FFS, despite all the BS, the nutters and her own incompetence, May might have done something here. But better wait until this afternoon. As always the Devil's in the detail.

She certainly has. Yet another spectacular mess from Maybot. And you are being willfully ignorant.

maybe Arlene needs to be reminded about Gay marriage and Abortion....

maybe Arlene needs to be reminded about Gay marriage and Abortion....

😆

try to fit in el-bent, try to fit in 😉

But appreciate that some positive news must be difficult to swallow

But appreciate that some positive news must be difficult to swallow

Why do you misrepresent people so badly? Are you incapable of understanding peoples position or do you just like lying?

Is the positive news that the UK government has come to the same conclusion that many folk on here came to 8 months ago?

[b]Yes. [/b]And if all true, is good news. Very positive.

The time lost is all down to internal politics, not "negotiations" with the EU.

I don't think I'd go so far as to say 'good' news. Maybe stupid.

Really really stupid news.

I think at this point we still have to wait and see what the real news is. Seems like just about everyone is trying to deny every leak that comes out, and none of the solutions satisfies the UK govt in its entirety let alone the backbenchers (which on a majority of 12 is a pretty serious matter).

She has no majority. The DUP, who she's dependent on, have said that there's not a chance they're supporting this - and given their antipathy to anything that 'unites' Ireland they won't be bluffing - so ultimately this is about as viable as David Davis's fairies in hot air balloons solution

I'm living in the hope that this is softening up the Tory headbangers for an announcement further down the line that the whole of the UK must remain in the single market and the customs union.

Lets be honest, anything short of carpet bombing Dressden will have those nutters screaming [b]BETRAYAL!!!![/b] anyway, whatever she does

Presumably if NI remains in the single market, it will need to pay contributions in just the same way that the UK and every other member does?

I wonder how much.
Will the NHS still get its £350M/week?

the DUP has millions of reasons to fall in line, and every one of them has the queen's head on it. the sticking point i see is the other regions demanding the same result. this could be the point at which the english's lack of an assembly might not help us. or maybe it will ( if you are a remainer ). if the regions can shout about how they voted to remain loud enough, there's no-one but westminster to defend the [s]wayward[/s] wishes of the english. CU and SM for all! 😀

Robert Pestons analysis:

[i]Now it is with that very last concession that the PM is taking the political risk of her life, because in that concession she is in effect saying that a trade deal for the whole UK will also be based on a promise of close regulatory alignment between our country and the EU, in perpetuity.

That permanent regulatory convergence between the UK and EU is her preferred route, because without it her government would collapse: Northern Ireland’s DUP MPs, which are sustaining the Tories in office, have made it crystal clear that they will not accept a separate regulatory set-up for Northern Ireland from that prevailing in the UK as a whole.

But here is what I assume will be scaring the PM witless (it scares me, just as a bystander). She is signing up for close regulatory alignment between the UK and EU without ever having secured agreement for that from the cabinet.

And for Johnson, Gove and most of the other more ardent Brexiteers, in and out of the Cabinet, almost the whole point of leaving the EU was for the UK to “take back control” of setting rules and regulations for British businesses.

If her own cabinet and backbench colleagues end up vetoing that offer, even if it is accepted by Juncker at today’s lunch, that would see the UK having no trade deal with the EU and being forced to reintroduce a peace-disrupting hard border with the Republic.[/i]

And in breaking news.....

[b]Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's statement of #Brexit has been postponed[/b]

This is all going great, isn't it?

Easy circle to square… all of UK currently in the SM & CU continue operating in both.

not so easy to square that particular circle within the tory party.

Seems like May has taken a leaf out of Priti Patels book and is just winging it, and making it up as she goes along 😆

those internal reports of the consequences of a hard #brexit must have scared the PM witless.

But appreciate that some positive news must be difficult to swallow

Difficult? Its bloody hilarious. WTF was she thinking?

But for you to keep coming on here to defend Brexit while having no answers to give. I appreciate that it must be difficult, so in sympathy for you: 😉 😉 😉 😉 😉 😉

Anyway back on topic: Piece by Piece, Brexit dies.

not so easy to square that particular circle within the tory party.

True, which is way I said she'll need Labour support to get it through parliament.
And if JC was PM, he'd probably need cross bench support as well.
The Brexitiers can put a hole in any "sensible" damage limitation approach ahead of us, whoever is PM.

I will admit to being a little disappointed as this progress does make the end goal of not leaving the EU a little harder to achieve.
I admit it makes leaving a little more palatable - but still unpalatable.

I trust the will of the people will be heard though and we will remain.

If we concede “regulatory alignment” in Ireland, and there can be no border within the UK, then surely this dramatically curtails scope for UK free trade agreements with others like US?

Peter Rickkets former head of foreign office

Anyway back on topic: Piece by Piece, Brexit dies

And you were doing so we'll until - "dies"

This is another step towards Brexshit happening.

Another easy compromise because despite what the nutters say, if you are exporting into a market you have to abide by their standards anyway. So a very easy compromise.

Trade soon....

igm - Member

I will admit to being a little disappointed as this progress does make the end goal of not leaving the EU a little harder to achieve.

Ah but it's a step towards a brexit that makes literally nobody happy. Huzzah!

Every step that puts clarity on what the replacement for EU membership really will be, will increase support for remaining a member. Very unlikely that Brexit will be stopped (or delayed), but support for such a move will continue to increase as a single "real deal" appears, and the multiple conflicting deals and unicorn promises are put to bed.

Another easy compromise because despite what the nutters say, if you are exporting into a market you have to abide by their standards anyway. So a very easy compromise.

Trade soon....

Only the fool thinks the cake exists in the mouth and on the plate simultaneously.

I visit a motorbike forum who are very very leave (or run awayers as I call them).
They are very very quiet.

DUP sources said they did not believe the draft posted by RTE earlier (see 11.44am) had been agreed by the British government. They said they suspected that the leak of the draft document was designed to “bounce” May and the British negotiators into a deal over the heads of the DUP.

The DUP are also confident that they have support among the Tory back benches to oppose any move by May and the government to accept this Brexit-Irish border blueprint, the sources said.

The PM is caught in the perfect storm, the situation is thus:

1) If Clinton had won the US election, a UK-US trade deal would've been far easier to sell to the electorate. Unfortunately, a divisive demagogue with a history of reneging on trade deals won instead.

2) Europe is THE most divisive issue within the Conservative Party. A hard Brexit would be a horrific scenario for three-quarters of Tory MPs. A significant amount of contributions to the party come from businesses and farmers, who stand to significantly lose out in event of a WTO Brexit.

3) Appeasing the Hard Brexiteers is likely to lose the Conservatives the next election and probably the one after that. The party is in a mess, having taken only seven years to plunge into dysfunction and even a partisan media won't be enough to save them.

4) Labour have understandably stood back from the sidelines and watched the shitshow unfold, knowing that the last thing they actually want is to be handed a poisoned chalice, which is exactly what will happen if the government collapses. They appear to be adhering to the text of the referendum ballot, which stipulated Single Market access.

5) If Theresa May backs away from a Hard Brexit, the issue of Europe will continue to haunt the Conservative Party with a probable damaging euro-sceptic rebellion further down the line.

6) It is only a matter of time before someone leaks those heavily redacted impact assessment reports. No-one (yet) outside of the various select committees have seen them, but suffice it is to say that they are sufficiently damaging to ensure that MPs obfuscated over their release.

7) No-one in their right mind wants to be a Conservative Prime Minister right now. The leadership challengers are waiting in the wings because their most optimistic move to grab power would be on the back of a general election loss and subsequent term of parliament rebuilding the party in opposition.

8) Ireland. Either allow NI regulatory alignment with Eire, or the resulting hard border between the two regions crosses a line for both Dublin and the DUP. Such a move could potentially plunge Northern Ireland into unrest, which could not easily be blamed on the actions of a few extremists.