Well gay Brexiteers, what's the latest on Brexit?

Corbyn close to saving it? Ha, good one!

@brexitcountdow1

Brexit is 1999 hours away. #brexit

Crucial Commons vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal is dramatically brought forward as Labour ABANDONS amendment to block UK from crashing out of the EU

ding dong, the witch is dead!

Brexit Deal Vote

202 in favor

432 against

BBC World News right now.

The dummies who voted for Brexit are like the dummies who voted for Trump.

Earlier today I bought 100 shares on the future market for a YES deal by the 18th. They were cheap enough I lose almost nothing if it fails but I clean up if they make a last minute deal.

Oh shit. What do I do now?

They don’t know what they want. Brits are as dumb as the Yanks.

R9: To be fair, the English and Welsh are the dumb ones who can't figure out what they want. The Scottish and the Northern Irish voted to say in.

May's deal was crushed. Lost by 230 votes

We used to be European. Now we're just British.

I don't understand what's going on anymore. Was this vote to stay in EU? Why the landslide vote against it? Can someone smarter please explain?

Given the level of misinformation (thanks Vlad), in the months prior to the 2016 Brexit vote, how much of this mess is due to voters realizing they were duped and complaining to their representatives?

R13, Theresa May negotiated a deal to withdraw from the EU. The terms of the deal did not satisfy anyone - remainers or leavers - but it was the best she could get from Brussels. Parliament have just voted to reject the deal. What happens now is unclear. We are due to leave the EU on 29 March. It's possible we will leave with no deal (which would be disastrous), or Brexit will be postponed, or the whole thing will be cancelled, or something else will happen.

There are 3 factions. Remain, Pro- Brexit hard and Pro Brexit soft. None of them liked May's deal hence the landslide vote

Remain want to ... remain

Pro Brexit (Hard) think May's deal leaves the UK too connected to (controlled by) the EU. They especially hate the Irish "backstop"

Pro Brexit (soft) thinks the deal is too vague and doesn't guarantee that the things they like will happen, such as the Irish backstop.

May has until Monday to deliver her Plan B. There's no evidence that she has a plan B.

Thanks R15 / R16. Makes sense now.

They should stay and cancel Brexit. What a fucking nightmare.

If a general election is called do all the MPs have to be re-elected?

R18 Yes but I think it’s unlikely to happen.

What's the general atmosphere in London? Is it a feeling of dread, uncertainty, doom? Serious question.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

R20 In my circle dread but I can’t speak for the rest of the city

Bump-I want me some Swedish ass.

[quote] They should stay and cancel Brexit.

They can’t stay. That ship has sailed. The EU showed them the door and has stated repeatedly that they have no desire to allow Britain back in. All that’s left is making a deal. Brexit has already passed. There’s no going back.

Corbyn has brought forth a no confidence motion, which will be debated in parliament tomorrow. If he wins a no confidence vote, there will be another general election.

It's also possible Article 50 will be delayed while the UK and EU keep negotiating.

More chaos in the world. Thanks Putin.

i didn't expect GB to fuck all this up so spectacularly. I thought it was a rational, sane country. Boy 2016 disproved that!

R24, that's actually not true. The EU decided recently that the UK can cancel Brexit without getting prior approval. At this point, they'd still take them back.

Fuck. I didn't realize EU wouldn't let them back in if they re-voted. So will UK become a third-world country now?

R24 The UK can cancel Article 50 at any time before March 29th.

Misery loves company, UK. Welcome to democratic rule by the lowest common denominator of misinformed, xenophobic, angry old people.

Liz needs to get control of her country. She's obviously got her mind on that half-breed great-grandchild about to be born.

That's all a lie, R24. Parliament only has to pass a law to extend Article 50. EU said they can assume their pre-Brexit position, which is likely what will happen. It was all utter Tory nonsense anyway.

Watch the Brits to take another vote and the public voting for Brexit again. lmao

I'm sure if the US were allowed to redo the 2016 election, Trump would lose BIGLY

Another referendum would be a disaster for democracy, the general public would never trust the government again.

The entire world would like a do over of all the 2016 votes, which were catastrophic across the board. It will take decades to recover.

Ain’t gonna happen, R30. Britain is leaving the EU, deal or no deal.

The funny thing R36 is the vote was the result of disinformation and xenophobia instilled by their own right wing factions in cooperation with the Kremlin. So it was tainted from the get-go.

Catastrophic for you. R37 . For millions and millions of other people it was a push against the Elites who for years have ignored the will of the people and looked down on them . Power corrupts . I think Brexit was once of the best things to happen in 2016?. It said to the Elites we want true Democracy.

R40, don’t they have punctuation rules in the UK? Has Brussels corrupted your sense of proper Punctuation? I’m sure you’re a sweetheart, but I’m a little nauseous reading your post!

That's BS R40. Then why do they keep voting for Tories? The party of draconian austerity, starving the local governments in the UK. It's all about immigration and xenophobia.

Nobody believes that guff, R40. You had your chance. Now it’s time for the adults to clean up this mess.

Brexit is a big, fat failure.

So you think they should vote in The anti Semite Jeremy Corbyn?

R43 You mean the adults that think like you ? The Majority in a Referendum voted to leave you he EU. It was the biggest turn out ever and it was clear after all the negative press that the Media and the Politicans and even Obama ( You discuss the Kremlin ,but will fully ignore how the US directly tried to manipulate the people) .

Nearly every single poll taken after that Referendum has given the same result . Politicians and the Media have used every tool at their disposal to change opinion with limited results , but apparently the people couldn’t have voted this way. It has to be the Kremlin.

Who keeps making up these lies in these Brexit threads? They can absolutely choose to cancel Brexit.

And the EU would absolutely love for them to stay.

Yes, the EU have been quite consistent in saying that they would still allow the UK to remain at this point if they choose to.

R4 Do you think she's going to resign or lose Labour's no-confidence vote? Because neither is happening. I might wake up 20 years from now and she'll still be PM. She's like herpes, she will not go away.

A no-deal Brexit looks likely and the shit will hit the fan but at least we'll be out.

R47 Labour can't win a confidence vote - they'd require votes from the Tories and they're unlikely to vote no confidence given that the last time it happened, the losing party was out of power for a generation.

Like Farange was playing honest and without the help of Kremlin. Yeah right. Bye Bye Britain.

Brexit supporters think it's all fearmongering, like Y2K. Meanwhile the government is stockpiling drugs.

R47, there’s not going to be a no deal Brexit. There’s no support for it except from some wild-eyed hard Brexiteers in parliament. Even May announced this morning the likelihood of extending Article 50.

r51 The EU has to agree to the extension of Article 50. Britain can't do it unilaterally. Just as parliament can't force the EU to negotiate with us. Just as the government can't force them to give us a better deal. If they say no, we are crashing out. The government should have made more preparations than it has for the worst case scenario.

[quote]More chaos in the world. Thanks Putin.

Sure, everything is Putin's fault now. hahahaha Americans and their ignorant delusions. If history is any indication, it's more likely America meddled with Brexit more than anyone, as the US has been creating chaos in the world for the last 60 years.

The leace campaign was disgracefully misleading and too many off our ill-informed country voted for it. It should be illegal to hoodwink so many people

R52, you’re delusional. It’s already been confirmed that the UK parliament can vote to extend. Stop repeating yourself.

They really ought to have another vote.

r55, the UK parliament can vote to extend yes, but the EU 27 have to agree to the UK's request to extend. And this is only the second time I have posted in this thread. You are the delusional one.

r55 I think we can withdraw it unilaterally. But any extension would have to be collectively agreed. Which they have no reason to do short of a promise of an election or Referendum 2 Brexit boogaloo.

I voted Remain and I would vote remain if there is a 2nd referendum BUT I have to say this the way politicians have been behaving on every side of the argument is one the big reasons Brexit happened in the first place. People are disenfranchised with politicians because they're two-faced, can't get anything and are hung up on issues that really don't have much effect on people's day to day lives. This whole Brexit fiasco proves their point.

I don't want a second referendum, I'm sick to death of referendums. That being said, I think a general election is the only way out of this but given the shithole this country is becoming, May will probably win a majority.

"Chaos with Ed Miliband" is up there with "I am not a crook" and "I did not have sexual relations with that woman". 2015 feels like a loooong time ago.

Brexit is chaos of our own making that's been a long time coming. I'm sure some Russian bots stirred things up but the main cause of it is a faction of the right wing who have been unhappy ever since we joined the EU. The referendum only came about because Cameron thought he could both win an election and silence the EU rebels once and for all.

There's an argument to be made that without the propaganda, both homemade and foreign, the Leave vote would never have got over the majority line but basically we did this to ourselves at the end of the day.

I'm horrified we might be about to leap off a cliff not knowing fully what lays beneath. If the predicted food and medical shortages come to pass it will be carnage and it seems almost certain that people will die as a direct result. I have an ardent Brexiteer relative, he's hand to mouth poor as it is in our currently prosperous country. He will be the first to be hit if the price of essentials goes through the roof.

I have no issue with another referendum, two and a half years on we have new information that wasn't widely understood at the time the vote took place such as the Irish border, the NHS promise being a lie and much more. As a democracy we should be reassessing the opinion of the country in light of these things to make sure 'the will of the people' is still what it was. If it isn't there shouldn't be any shame attached to changing our minds, the braver thing to do would be to admit it was a pie in the sky idea and backdown before committing suicide as a country.

In response to R53 and Putin's influence on Brexit. From today's Washington's Post: "Russian efforts to manipulate American voters during the last presidential campaign have been aggressively covered in this space, but the Kremlin’s bid to boost Brexit was perhaps even more brazen. The Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a meaty report last week about Russian influence operations overseas, but it was entirely overshadowed by the latest bombshells stemming from special counsel Bob Mueller’s investigation. The 206-page report outlines Russian disinformation campaigns across 19 countries. It highlights loopholes in U.K. campaign finance laws that might have allowed an influx of Russian money to boost the referendum. That’s not to mention the propaganda from Russian-run Twitter and Facebook accounts, plus state-funded media."

r61 It's not just a faction of the right wing who have been unhappy, a faction of the left wing have been unhappy or did I miss all those northern labour constituencies voting for Brexit suddenly turning Tory? Did I miss the UKIP vote disappearing and all voters going back to the Tory party? Parliament didn't vote for a referendum to settle scores in the Tory party. 544 MPs voted in favour to 53 against. Those were not all Tories. Ultimately MPs hubris bit them on arse, and the 53 were right to vote against the EU referendum.

It was stressed yesterday on Sky, ITV, Channel 4 News and the BBC that Parliament can vote to extend but the EU 27 have to approve it and that is NOT going to happen. The EU 27 is fed up with the UK’s games. A lot of businesses are already in advanced stages of moving to Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, Berlin and Amsterdam. The damage has been done.

Interesting report on the Democratic Unionist Party, the rump of 10 N. Irish MPs who prop up Teresa May.

Their rallying cry has been NO to everything-equal rights for Catholics, gay rights, divorce, abortion,Irish language speakers rights, friendship with the Republic, cooperation with the republic, visit of the Pope...NO. NO.Fucking NO. Their vitriol has now been imported into the body politic of Britain, and such hatred and division and disagreement has never before been seen and is now par for the course in Britain.

Brexiteers do not realise that these people will bring back the bad old days of bombings and shootings just to prove how British they are. If border ensues, it is only a matter of time before the bombing of England happens again. Is that really a price worth paying to prove how British one is?

Yes of course R63 it wasn't very clear but I was alluding to the rebel right wing faction of the Tories rather than the constituency. Lots of traditional Labour voters did vote leave although their reasons for doing so probably varied from the Boris and JRM types.

Agree R65. This whole thing is about people saying “no”. Just like conservatives in the US, all they know how to do is say “no”. They don’t have positive proposals or solutions. They are like stubborn children. You can’t reaso with them or have an educational conversation about options.

That’s why the “soft” Brexit is impossible I think. Way too complex with too many nuances to ever reach agreeement. There will always be these children who just want to say “no” - without any responsibility for finding solutions.

That Labour guy Tom Watson gave a great speech just now. I wish he was the Labour leader instead of Jeremy Corbyn.

Brexit is dead.

Deal with it.

For Democracy to exist, the public must be able to trust their representatives. Without trust, there is only anarchy. It’s been Putin & Fox’s every effort, to sew distrust in politics. Fox’s viewers distrust Hillary, though most couldn’t tell you why.

Any guesses as to when the second vote will be? The people need some time to process the new information so I’d wager it will be in the spring.

Gove pronounced Putin as “Pyoo-tin.” Which is so styoopid.

Your failure to think 17 million voted to leave came down to Russia flys totally face of reality. The campaign for Brexit was overwhelmingly negative. It is as generally believed by the Elites and Media that it would never occur , hence people outside were rarely listened too, but what people in London thought was overwhelmingly what was believed to be the people’s mood. This was a costly mistake.

As for bigots in the countryside, you know that a YouGov survey found only 14% of extreme negative views of Gays in the North, where it was believed to hold the most conservative views but 28% in London. Was that Putin too?

Theresa May will address the nation at 10pm: PM is to make statement in Downing St after surviving no-confidence vote and offering olive branch to Corbyn on Brexit - but he has SNUBBED her invite to talks

[quote]Theresa May will address the nation at 10pm

Cor blimey, woman! We're just returning home from the pub at that time.

I like Pyootin instead of Pootin, which sounds like you saying "farting". I think in Russian, it's more like Poo-TEEN, with the accent on the second syllable, so why would anyone have to pronounce it POO-tin, when that's not even the Russian way to do it? It's styoopid (which is a perfectly fine way of saying STOO-pid, as well). More elegant, if you ask me.

R73, you don't sound like a Russian troll at all.

R77 No I sound like an Australian but I am sure you will manipulate this in your own special way. After all people can’t have different opinions , that would make them individuals and that would go against party lines , that we think as a collective. After all rather than think differently I must be a troll or a bot or a bigot or a fascist or Right Wing or all of the above. So please reach for the lazy word.

I am sure people in Versailles thought they knew what the people thought before the French Revolution and people in the Winter Palace thought they knew what the people wanted in the Russian Revolution and I am sure that the Government in London thought they knew what was right for the American Colonies and I have absolutely no doubt Liberal Elites know what is good for Brexit and I have no doubt they will be proved wrong again

R78 's 2nd paragraph is the Brexit vote in a nutshell. The majority of the government and the Labour party, researchers, economists, media pundits, everyone said Brexit would destroy the UK and crash the economy. Even Obama flew in to stump for his boy Dave. And the people put two fingers up at them. Immigration, EU regulations, the cost of EU subsidies, sovereignty, there were many reasons why people voted to leave but a large part was also nearly every member of the political and elite establishment telling them to vote Remain.

Interesting debate going on on this gay Facebook account

No, R76, Russians pronounce it POO-teen, with the stress on the first syllable.

Passport control lanes in the UK should be changed to have Anglosphere citizens use what were the EU queues.

Non-UK citizen here, but I think the UK will be fine. They've been around for a long time, and their economy has been good the past couple of years. I'm actually thinking about investing in UK real estate right now - it's overpriced everywhere else.

R83 A Russian citizen perhaps? How does the economy being good recently equal will continue to be good?

R73/R78 already ridiculed himself on the other Brexit thread by endlessly gabbling about 'the Elite' (note the useless capitalisation).

R85 how do I ridicule myself? As for the random capitalisation that had more to do with my iPhone but I don’t deny the I use the word elite to describe people who have huge influence on others and who believe that their opinions matter more.

Ask yourself this question. If Brexit had not being voted in , would any of this argument be occurring? The only reason it is occurring is that the plebs did not vote the way their betters wanted .

Now you have a situation where we are almost living in a “Logan’s Run” parallel universe where the Elites celebrate the deaths of old people so it might change the result. THink for a moment how disgusting that thought is. Some of these people literally fought to save this world from evil many are so willing to push in . You call them bigots and Fascists but these people literally fought them .

Some of these people literally fought to save this world from evil many are so willing to push in . You call them bigots and Fascists but these people literally fought them .

How ironic R86 when Brexit and other right wing populists will be the beginning of the end of the peace and prosperity in Europe.

r86 you make it sound as though a vast majority of people had voted for Brexit to begin with. First of all, the vote itself was close - out of 33,500,000 votes cast, only slightly more than one million votes separated the brexits from the remains. (about 2%). Do you really believe that there are 16,000,000 elites in Britain and 17 million "plebs" as you call them? Weird kind of accounting you have there. Secondly, this was both generational (olders for brexit, youngers for remain) and geographical (rural for brexit, urban for remain). Demographically, why should the younger generation, who will inherit whatever remains of Britain, have less say than those who will die before all the consequences of the decision play out? Furthermore, poll after poll has said that, were the referendum to be held today, remainers would win by a margin of 8%. Have all those "plebs" died off - or did they change their minds with more thorough education about the issues raised by brexit?

R86, "randomly capitalizing words"? How funny these 'randomly capitalized' words are all the typical buzzwords of deplorables in the US and rightwingers in Europe ...

R86, as much as I love your reference to Logan’s Run, it doesn’t make sense. People die. Nobody killed them. We need not consider the wishes of old people near death who voted to Leave and then died. As of tom’w, they will no longer be the majority. It’s called nature.

What’s next?

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You know this is not just Brexit. This is anyone who wants to leave the EU. This is wrong on so many levels.

Britain literally fought off the Armada to get Spain out of Britain and then the Napoleonic Wars to get France out Britain and in the meantime saved Europe and then two World Wars to stop Germany doing the same and then you say “Fuck it. Fuck Democracy let’s join Europe, that bastion of Liberalism”

You have no idea what ignoring the Referendum will do. How dare you believe you are better than the majority who voted and feel that should be overturned by any manipulation or coercion possible. You love sprouting that the General Public were misled but are quite willing to have Project Fear coerce people to change their minds. Fucking hypocrites.

R93 You are actually stupid.

R94 is on to something.

You know just saying someone is stupid, a bigot, a troll, a fascist , a Russian , a deplorable does not make them so , doesn’t answer the question and doesn’t further the discussion. All it does is prove you have nothing to add and basically are unable to discuss rationally general conversation. It shows ignorance at the highest level masquerading as virtue.

R96 I can't have a rational discussion with someone who thinks the defeat of the Armada has any kind of relevance to Brexit.

I am committed to do whatever fucks up the most people here on the proudest island ever known to humanity. Therefore, dear Britons, please advise me what to do. Time is of the essence.

R40, you mean ‘ Elites ‘ as opposed to men of the people like Farage, Banks, Johnson and Rees-Mogg. An MEP who took the wage and will take the pension but was too ineffectual to influence policy, a smug multi-millionaire and two Eton toffs. Not elite at all, eh ? Not in anyway looking out for corporate interests, are they ?

They’re laughing at you.

I can't understand what goes on in the heads of the Remainers. Have they never wholeheartedly sung that Britons never, never, never shall be slaves? Why would you surrender freedom?

r99 of course politicians are part of the elite, especially in Britain. I think that's the point the poster was making, i.e., this was a referendum, not the usual Parliamentary infighting between two elite groups that leave the ordinary Briton unheard & unserved.

The bottom line is Britain has to control her borders. It's more important for an island nation, and it didn't happen in the EU. In fact, the EU itself didn't follow its own policies when push came to shove. That affects a lot of other things, especially the Treasury. It's not sustainable to practice open borders in the age of terror, as Germany, France & Sweden have discovered.

Norway has been doing just fine as "EU adjacent" and they have control over their border and economic ties with the EU.

Bravo r101 . Honest opinion never gets rewarded in this forum however. You can’t say to people “let’s be real here. We are living in an age of Terror and to think people shouldn’t try to protect their people by having proper Borders is ridiculous. It is the duty of every government to protect its citizens.

Do you have a door on your house that you close to protect those things inside that are important to you? Do you believe your parents have the right to tell you what to do with your life as an adult? That is what Brexit is about in a nutshell.

I'm not going to engage with the pro-Brexit trolls here, most of whom I've blocked anyway, but I do want to point out the following to all those going on about democracy and potentially ignoring the will of the people.

The result of the Brexit referendum was 51.9% in favour of leaving - only just a majority. The United Kingdom is not one country though. It's made up of four different nations, and two of those voted to stay in the EU by clear margins (Scotland voted 62% to remain, Northern Ireland 55.8% to remain). Those who claim a mandate from the result to bring about such a dramatic change in the status of the UK have no right to talk about democracy. They are very much using the word in a way which suits only themselves, and they quite obviously don't care about those outside their own interest groups.

In other words, if you in England and Wales are really so desperate to leave the EU, then go! But don't try to drag Scotland and Northern Ireland out with you. All the opinion polls in both those countries since the referendum have clearly shown that the proportion of the population wanting to stay is increasing. You don't get to ignore that and then talk sanctimoniously about "democracy."

Go for it r103 Take your independence and fly to Europe . Believe me if you want to go ,there are many English who won’t hold you back.

But may I also add that the small minority that achieved the Referendum result was the biggest turnout in British history, so you ignore that at your peril. To be frank , if Brexit does not occur the seething resentment that will occur will mean that you may get a lot worse than you bargained for .

Scotland clearly wanted to remain and as part Scottish in my ancestors I am proud of that , but Sturgeon was punished heavily for trying to say that Scotland should leave.

If you had your way and Britain stayed I wouldn’t be surprised that the anger that remained would make Renainers look like Pollyanna.

Yes R104 We’ll all be running scared from the fat, sweaty gammons

R103, yours is one of the most intelligent posts in this thread. Everyone is very conveniently ignoring the majority for remain in Scotland and Northern Ireland. If/when brexit happens, there are going to be serious repercussions for the United Kingdom if those remainers are ignored (by the brexiteering elite, I’d like to add, but just to take the piss out of the far-right trolls on this board who keep going on and on about The Elites).

And the majority of young people who wanted to remain. As time goes on, surely the resentment will rise - as the old farts who isolated the UK die off, while consuming the resources of the country in far greater percentages than the poor sods who didn't want this nightmare to begin with. Meanwhile, Europe may learn to love Brexit, with the new banking and manufacturing jobs that are coming their way. As the panel discussed on France24 this week, fuck the stuck up Brits and their so-called exceptionalism and clinging to olden days' view of themselves as overlords. The schadenfreude is irresistible. As the Economist said, "The Mother of All Messes."

Welcome to obscurity. And hopefully a united Ireland and a free Scotland.

I wasn't going to bother replying to R104. He clearly doesn't accept what I've written but at the same time also doesn't seem to realise that he proves my point - Brexiteers don't actually care about having a democracy which works for *every* part of the UK.

I can't let him get away with this statement though, which is either a deliberate lie or simple ignorance: "But may I also add that the small minority that achieved the Referendum result was the biggest turnout in British history, so you ignore that at your peril."

Some statistics:

Brexit referendum turnout - 72.21%

UK General election turnouts in the following years -

1992 - 77.7% 1987 - 75.3% 1983 - 72.7% 1979 - 76%

I could go on. Every UK General Election before 1979 back to the end of the Second War (I haven't checked any further) had turnouts higher than the Brexit Referendum, apart from the 1970 election at 72%.

But then, facts have never had very much to do with the whole Brexit process, have they?

Thanks, R106, and also to all our European friends on DL who have ever expressed support for us here in Scotland.

Poor Theresa.

This week and next look to be crunch times, huh? When the rubber hits the road?

[quote]I wasn't going to bother replying to [R104]. He clearly doesn't accept what I've written but at the same time also doesn't seem to realise that he proves my point - Brexiteers don't actually care about having a democracy which works for *every* part of the UK.

Well, given that they're floating the idea of altering the Good Friday Agreement - which they can't, because it's an international treaty - I don't think that democracy is uppermost in certain of the crusading Brexiteers' minds. And by the way, I'm very critical of the EU in many respects, but there is no logic to Brexit. If it were leverage for EU reform, it would make some sense, but there was never any demand for that.

They’re fucking with the Good Friday agreement? Christ on a cracker.

They can't, but they're trying to push the idea anyway.

[quote]Theresa May is considering amending the Good Friday Agreement as part of a fresh attempt to unblock the Brexit logjam, The Daily Telegraph understands.

[quote]The Prime Minister will on Monday update Parliament on her attempts to draw up a so-called "plan B" for Brexit following cross-party talks in Westminster - and discussions with other EU leaders.

[quote]One of the proposals under consideration is rewriting the 1998 accord to assure Ireland that the UK is committed to no hard border on the island after the UK leaves the European Union in March.

I would love some Swedish cawk

The claims about the Good Friday Agreement are alarming. I've also heard that she's planning to present the withdrawal agreement to Parliament again next week. If true, that's just embarrassing. Two thirds of MPs rejected it; why would they change their minds a fortnight later?

This is a little reminder of what lies in store if a border is reinstated in Ireland. The ignorance and inability of the British Conservative party to understand the nuances of life in N. Ireland is appalling .

You'd think after hundreds of years of being ignored (at best) by the English, the message would finally have got through to the Ulster Unionists that the English just don't care about them, and that Britishness - at least their version of it - is a myth. But no, they're still as tied to the rotting corpse of the Union as they've ever been. I suppose the billions of pounds in subsidies must make it all worthwhile. What on earth is history going to make of Brexit, and the role the Tories and the DUP played in it?

In case anyone on DL is still interested in Brexit, here's another example of how insane it is - and particularly how anyone from Northern Ireland who supports it needs to have their head examined.

At the moment, haulage trucks can travel between Northern Ireland and the Republic without restrictions. As of 11pm on the 29th March, Northern Ireland leaves the EU, along with the rest of the United Kingdom, and from then on vehicles crossing the border will need to apply for special permits. These are issued in limited numbers under an older international agreement.

The population of Northern Ireland means it is entitled to a total of 60 (yes, sixty) permits to cover every company in the province.* Each permit covers one truck for twelve months, to go back and forth between the North and the Republic. To put that into perspective, at the moment 13,000 trucks cross the border every day, according to the chairman of the Northern Ireland branch of the Freight Transport Association. Somehow, all of those journeys will need to be covered by 60 trucks after the 29th March.

And maybe you're thinking to yourself, "But surely they can just ignore this?" They can, but what happens to the first truck to have an accident? Insurance companies are always looking for reasons not to pay, and if the truck was not covered by a legal permit, you can bet the owner is not going to see a penny in insurance.

There are 9 weeks left to sort this out, and this is just one of hundreds of issues to do with the Brexit leaving process which are being ignored. Seriously though, how on earth can anyone in Northern Ireland still imagine the London government gives a damn about them?

Please, somebody, somewhere, invade the UK and save us from our politicians!

(*Note for Irish DL'ers - yes, I know it's only 6 of the 9 counties in Ulster, but what other word can I use that won't be clumsy? Statelet? Occupied territory?)

So Jacob Rees Mogg, one of the major Tory Brexiteers, is now softening his stance on May's deal. It appears he and other Brexiteers in the party realize they over played their hand and by voting down May's deal it's increasingly likely Brexit won't happen. You got to laugh at these idiots.

Well that's the first thing I've heard R119 that sounds like there may be a way out of this mother of all messes.

R120 Basically if May can get EU leaders to give a definite end date for the Irish backstop, he said they will vote for the deal.

Which is not going to happen, R121. They've seen how the UK has been behaving over the past two-and-a-half years and they know that if they did give an end-date for the backstop, all that would happen was that the whole process would be dragged out until then. The Polish foreign minister suggested a five-year backstop as a possibility yesterday, but that idea has already been shot down by other EU politicians.

R122 Allegedly EU leaders are saying Theresa May hasn't even reached out to them since the defeat of her deal last week.

Basically the Brexiteers are now freaking out because there are enough MPs to pass a motion to push back the date of Brexit if there is no deal in place by the end of February. It seems like they are getting the message that it's either May's deal or no Brexit.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has now suggested the Prime Minister should, if necessary, shut down Parliament to stop it blocking a no-deal Brexit. There really are no words left to describe how insane this is getting. He genuinely believes that Members of the United Kingdom Parliament - in practice the supreme authority in the country - should only be allowed to vote if they pass laws he and his cohorts agree with. Democracy? What democracy? This is how civil wars begin...

R23...for you.

It's increasingly looking like May will get her deal through Parliament but there is almost no question Brexit will be delayed by several months. The DUP and Tory rebel Brexiteers are coming around as the realize that No Deal is effectively off the table. The issue remains the backstop but growing gossip leaks from Brussels suggest the EU will concede to May's request that the backstop have a legal end date likely December 31, 2021.

I heard Rees Mogg moved all his money to banks in Ireland..

Correcting ...he opened another fund in Ireland..you know just in case.

All the amendments aimed at delaying or blocking Brexit were defeated in Parliament today. Basically unless May can get the EU to make concessions on the Irish backstop, we are now on track to crash out of the EU with no deal.

Just watched “Brexit” movie on HBO. Good education for Americans. So similar to the Trump surprise. People want simple answers to complex modern issues. One of the characters says that doing a referendum like this was the worst way to deal with such a complicated issue. I don’t see any way they “negotiate “ a deal that the gets support. It’s all about throwing stones without coming up with realistic, proamtic solutions/compromises.

The whole mentaility of “destroy the system” is what’s driving the chaos in U.K. and US. And I honestly don’t know how incremental, negoatiated compromises ever appeal to that mentality. Hard Brexit here we come.

R130 One amendment that aimed to keep no deal off the table passed, BUT it's non-binding. May's Plan B to go back to Brussels and renegotiate the backstop has been approved by Parliament and Corbyn in a serious back down has agreed to meet with May to discuss how to get a deal through Parliament. The most likely outcome now is that May's plan will eventually pass Parliament, though no deal remains high if May can't get a change by late February.

[quote] May's Plan B to go back to Brussels and renegotiate the backstop has been approved by Parliament

EU said a categorical NO to renegotiation. When will Britain wake up to the hard reality that it no longer calls the shots - anywhere?

DLers please give me quick lesson. Understand the backstop keeps the border open between Ireland and Ulster. Amirite? Are EU and Ireland in favor of keeping it? Is May and U.K. against it? Why it is a sticking point?

R133 While the EU has said a lot of things, they have given May most of what she has wanted to achieve what is best termed as a "moderate Brexit." The deal they negotiated met all of May's goals: out of the customs union and single market, ending free movement, and ending the jurisdiction of the ECJ. However, it also keeps the UK closely tied to important EU ventures such as security, research, and academics. There are fractures within the EU as someone government leaders are expressing a desire to concede to May's request to put in a legal end date for the backstop. The rumour is EU was holding out to see if the anti-no deal movement and bid to extend Article 50 would pass through British Parliament. Now that that has failed, EU will likely give ground to May. It won't be easy but I suspect it will happen. Brexit negotiations were always going to go to the 11th hour.

R134 That backstop is basically a stop gap measure while the EU and UK negotiate a new trade agreement that would keep the UK in the Customs Union with the EU to prevent a hard boarder between Northern Ireland and Ireland. May agreed to this but Brexiteers within in her party are against it because it requires the EU to vote to remove the backstop. Basically if the UK and EU cannot reach a new trade deal, the UK would be stuck within the EU customs union with no way out. Being in the Customs Union prevents the UK from striking its own trade deals with countries outside the EU. Brexiteers want this backstop removed OR a legal end date in which the UK would exit it without EU approval. e.g. by December 31, 2021 the UK would leave the EU completely regardless if a trade deal is in place or not.

R76 it’s PUHT-yn

where can we donate canned goods, medicine, and poppers?

Thanks r135 What's in it for Ireland? The backstop I mean.

England should just give northern Ireland back to Ireland and let it be one country. Then they wouldn't need this backstop nonsense.

Ireland should merge with Scotland and fuck the rest of them.

My sentiments precisely r139.

There was a funny report about a BBC correspondent asking why Ireland didn't just join the U.K. and be done with it all.

I guess the English just don't get it.

R138 NI and Ireland's economy and infrastructure are deeply linked. Having a hard boarder would damage both the UK and Ireland's economy.

As for Irish reunification, that ain't going to happen anytime soon.

U.K. should let NI and Scotland stay in the EU so it has a back door to the EU. In any case, it's the English that's causing all the problem innit?

R143 That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say on the subject of Brexit.

R143 EU doesn't not allow regions of a country to join. Either the whole of the UK is in the EU or nothing at all. Even if Scotland separated from the UK, they would still have to apply for EU membership and Spain has continually stated it would block an independent Scotland from joining the EU as it would give ammunition to Catalan separatists.

If the UK dissolved, as suggested above, the EU would literally shit itself bloodless over the thought that other "countries" would splinter into more realistic pieces.

Does Theresa May have a horseshoe up her ass because the old robot has more lives than a cat. Seriously almost every other week it appears she's done as Prime Minister, and yet she survives.

Any new breakaway country would need to apply for EU membership as a separate nation. This membership process takes years. Any country breaking away from any kind of present union would immediately suffer the kind of hell that's being talked about in a No Deal scenario. The supranational EU is so stupendously complicated and interwoven into every fabric of its member states, being without it is almost unthinkable. It makes the whole Brexit thing so completely unbelievable - if the people who voted to Leave had any understanding of its complexities they never would have done so.

That’s old news r145. Spain recently retracted its former position. The road is open to Scotland to apply if it gains independence. And yes r143 what we are seeing is English Nationalism in full force.

I used to have a hard boarder, R142, but he was too distracting so I kicked him out.

May is no Churchill. If she had been PM in 1940, people would have gradually swung toward surrendering to Germany the way Remainers want to do. The UK needs a PM that admits there will be sacrifice with Brexit but it will lead to a better future for the youth.

^ 😂😂😂😭

Frank Skinner once joked on his radio show that he blamed Brexit entirely on Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony of London 2012 Olympics. People saw the celebration of pure Englishness and thought “Yeah - I want that”.

The events and folklore of the the cricket field, the Morris dancers, the rain, the Green Man, Jerusalem, Shakespeare, Roald Dahl, Harry Potter, James Bond, Chariots Of Fire, Rowan Atkinson, the Wind In The Willows, Eastenders, the NHS, The Chelsea Pensioners, the Industrial Revolution and “we invented the internet” could have gone so sickeningly, sentimentally, jingoisticly wrong but it was a mix of eccentric and cool.

I hated that opening ceremony.

Yes R151 Brexit has success written all over it! Churchill? You're a gammon aren't you?

I voted for Brexit for one very simple reason: I don't want to be in an eventual United States of Europe. This is still the goal: 'ever closer union'. It is creeping incrementally ever closer: EU Army now mooted. Sure, it might take 10 or 20 years but since we had the chance to get off that bandwagon in 2016, I took it. I was too young to vote in the previous referendum and am quite happy with the prospect of a referendum every 40 years or so. That seems fair to me.

I don't think the EU as it's presently structure is much good for anyone actually and the sooner the nations of the EU realise that the EU project isn't really in their best interests and that they need to go back to being sovereign free-trading nations instead of striving to become a Federal Superstate, the better.

[quote]I don't think the EU as it's presently structure is much good for anyone actually and the sooner the nations of the EU realise that the EU project isn't really in their best interests and that they need to go back to being sovereign free-trading nations instead of striving to become a Federal Superstate, the better.

All right. Now that you made a completely vague statement, can you back it up with some facts or information; specific policies that you dislike (I'm imagining immigration is top of the list)?

[quote]I was too young to vote in the previous referendum

The majority of young people in your country voted against Brexit. It's a shame that their idea of the future means so little to you, while you lament not being able to have your vote heard when you were their age.

[quote][bold]61 percent of males aged 18 to 24 years voted for the UK to remain within the EU[/bold], whereas an equal 61 percent of males in the 50 to 64 age brackets voted in favor of a “Brexit”. The peak share came from [bold]women between the ages of 18 and 24, 80 percent of whom voted for 'Remain'.[/bold]

Wake up Britain. The EU didn't want you in to begin with. France fought against you joining. And now they are making it hurt for you to leave. I'm sure you will blame it all on the Americans, but nobody really likes you.

Why the UK cannot see that Brexit is utterly, utterly stupid

I love the EU. I welcome an ever closer Union of its people. I well remember the fear that the Cold War brought of nuclear Armageddon. Romania, Poland, countries that were once considered enermies little more than 30 years ago are friends. How soon will those friends be once again be economic enemies? What Brexiteers have failed to do is to carve out their image of what they want the UK to be in the future. They hark back to the empirical times with essentially a Make Britain Great Again slogan. Does that herald racism, social injustice and economic liberalism? When we make our own rules on trade, food safety and workers rights, will those be at the expense of our own farmers, products and workers? For me, they present only uncertainty and economic ruin. They want to take the UK back 50 years socially, 40 years economically and 30 years in food hygiene standards. Freedom of goods, services, money and people is a great thing, not something to be feared. After all if it's good enough for the US, then it's good enough for Europe.

Fuck globalization and its dream of a uniformed planet ruled by a few corporations.

Go Brexit.

Go economic disaster

[quote]Freedom of goods, services, money and people is a great thing, not something to be feared.

A post-Brexit UK will offer those things, with competitive rules and regulations.

R163 How much more competitive can you get than free movement?

England can't get along with anybody. They are not liked. Best for everyone if they left the EU. They just hold back the rest of Europe.

Interesting rumour going around. Angela Merkel has privately admitted that the EU will cave on the backstop but will not do so until the UK is on the cusp of crashing out. Diplomatic sources: Merkel is ready to 'go to the edge of the precipice. She thinks that people will need to look into the abyss before allowing a deal to be done at five to midnight.'

The only positive thing about a no deal would be at least it would stamp out populism and the rise of the far right, as they would be blamed for the long term austerity UK citizen would have to struggle through.

R167 Yes, because there are certainly no examples in history of a rise of the far right under difficult economic circumstances.

Yes but the far right will be the direct cause of it, attacking, intimidating and harassing remain politicians like Anna Soubry. There is no escape; any economic downfall will be from the dice the right and leave voters rolled, it's on their shoulders.

R169 I'm not sure those who voted Leave will see it like that. If they were capable of rational thought, we wouldn't find ourselves in the position we're in. Still I'm sure it'll all have been worth it when our passports are blue.

R157 Top of my list is what the EU itself diagnosis as its Democratic Deficit. That its structures and workings are so far removed from the people that it governs, that its election procedures are deliberately opaque and unaccountable, that most people have no clue how the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the European Council, the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament, the European Court (to say nothing of the unhelpfully named non EU body the European Court of Human Rights) all fit together. This bureaucratic disconnect breeds a contempt for the hoi polloi which is part of the EU's founding DNA. The Great Unwashed had voted for fascists in the 1930s, the architects of the EU decided that the people could never be trusted again and had to be progressively led in to "ever greater union." Hence the contempt shown for various referenda down the years. (See below).

To what extent does the free movement of people exacerbate this? To my mind, not so very much. In the UK in any case the issue with immigration has come about not because of EU nationals - except when they arrive en masse in rural areas: the hundreds of thousands of Polish folk in Lincolnshire, for example. No, the REAL problem with immigration is Islamic immigration, not EU immigration and the rape gangs - which now number several dozen up and down the country - abusing tens of thousands of poor white trash girls.

My only beef with immigration is that it suppresses wages and thus middle class people can get their cheap coffee from Pret - as that egregiously awful snob on Question Time complained a few weeks ago, "Who is going to give us our coffee in Pret" she asked in a voice dripping with cosmopolitan entitlement. Stupid bitch.

As for the young people who would have voted for Remain my response is, "So what?" People who fought in wars, people who paid taxes all their working lives and actually contributed something to the UK for decades have, if anything, even more right to vote than 16 year olds. Like I said: I wasn't able to vote on this issues for 40 years. Let them wait.

The EU wants the UK money. They always have. That's what this is all about. Brass tacks.

And lastly: 100 years ago the Republic of Ireland won its independance from the UK. And in the same moment sentenced itself to decades of economic stagnation, massive emigration of the young workforce, and genuine poverty. Was there ANY movement seeking to rejoin the British Empire? Of course there wasn't. The Irish wanted their freedom from a supra-national power that did not given them the degree of self-determination they legitimately aspired to. (Shame they've subsequently sold out to the EU - but that's what sucking on the EU-teat does to you for 40 years.) The UK WILL take a hit economically.

It will be worth it.

Especially as we see the emergence of the United States of Europe and just what a coercive imperial force it is going to become. The Gilets Jaunes protests are merely the amuse bouche for more to come. And you can add the Islamocrazies into the mix for good measure in France, Merkel's Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.

Who wants to be shackled in 'ever closer union' to such an anti-democratic behemoth??

That "specific" enough for you, R157?

R171 You do realise the majority of the people convicted in those grooming gang cases were born here to Pakistani or Indian parents, right?

They have nothing to do with the EU and the fact you've brought them into your (weak) argument speaks volumes. The EU might have expanded quite a bit but it hasn't reached the Indian Subcontinent quite yet.

R172

Err, yes. That was one of the points I was making: EU immigration isn't really an issue. But Islamic immigration is - which has nothing to do with the EU.

Learn to read.

R134 Apart from trade disruption, there is the issue of free movement of people across the border, particularly Nationalists who have been able to go south and north without having to produce ID cards to trigger happy and uneducated British troops who might for the fun of it search the whole car if you came from the wrong address in NI, or even shoot you. The appearance of "occupying" troops on the island is the proverbial red rag and the shootings and bombings will kick off again. Simple as that. You can be certain that the "mainland " will be bombed and that NI will go up in flames again. The DUP, with its visceral hatred of anything Irish, or even non-Protestant and white, has with alarm seen the integration of certain aspects of the economies of North and South; the fact that people now see that people in the republic have more rights than people in the North; the Southerners don't actually eat babies and that Catholics don't actually drink human blood-all the Unionist lies that were peddled for years are seen for what they really are.

Fascinating too is the corruption and wheeler dealing of Arlene Foster and Ian Paisley Junior, and of course uber cunt Irish Robinson, who was fucking a teenager and who got him preferential contracts to open a business. This gang of Unionist leaders, British to the backbone, yet not realising that most British people see them as Irish first, and cannot really wait to be rid of them.

R174 Who is going to construct the hard border?

The UK government has said that they will not build or implement one: with or without a deal.

The Irish government has said they will not either - but now acknowledges (at long last) that the EU WILL REQUIRE THEM TO if the UK leaves without a deal:

Thank you, low-information UK voters.

R176 Much like every community or group of people that has broken away from a supra-national structure or Empire - it's invariably messy. At least we don't live at a time where this provokes military reprisals. But clearly, as the EU negotiator Barnier admitted in a moment of frankness that doesn't stop economic pressure being brought to bear. That was Obama's tactic with the Russians, you'll recall. So here is Barnier being candid:

"I'll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they'd prefer to stay in the EU"

Oh and R176?

Calling us "low information voters" is precisely the kind of condescension that makes us happy to live your unaccountable, disconnected, anti-democratic club.

It wouldn't be the first time that the UK has had to take a stand against over-weaning, over-reaching, power-hungry continental Europeans. Just ask Napoleon. Or that German geezer. Eventually the rest of Europe comes round.

R175 And the fact that UK politicians will risk a no-deal Brexit shows how reckless and clueless they actually are.

R179 All these arguments are advanced by one constituency only: those who don't want to see us leave.

This project fear is as reprehensible now as it was in the run up to the vote itself.

Will we take an economic hit short to medium term? Yes, undoubtedly.

Will it be worth it, to no longer be part of the coming Federal Superstate?

100%

R180 I don't actually care if the UK goes-it's your choice. And yes, I have grave concerns about the European Superstate.

I just don't want a return to mayhem and bloodshed in Ireland and the mainland UK. Do you understand that there has never been real peace there? It's just papering over the cracks the last 20 odd years.

At what point does the economic and negative impact of Berxit stop becoming "worth it". Any economic hit will be painful to many middle class and working class families, but for the most vulnerable low income households, it will be utterly devastating. This is real human suffering on the table here, at what point will that eclipse your Make Britain Great Again ideology?

[quote]the rape gangs - which now number several dozen up and down the country - abusing tens of thousands of poor white trash girls.

In the US, one of the fathers of those poor white trash girls would shoot those fuckers dead.

R182 I'd be inclinded to believe you more readily if the Doom-mongering prior to the referendum hadn't been so spectacularly manipulative by vested interests who have been so used to getting their own way since Bretton Woods that, in fact, I see Brexit as part of a broader movement both on the left and the right that ordinary folk will no longer accept to be cogs in someone else's machine. It's dehumanising and has destroyed communities.

If that makes me 'ideological' - then guilty as charged.

R181 If I've understood you correctly the Good Friday Agreement has only given rise to a simulacre of peace, not the real thing? That's a disturbing admission, no? And in the hands of some narrow-minded bigots (both nationalist and unionist) could, I agree, become even more fragile. But I don't see that outcome as inevitable or even likely. The ONLY organisation saying that there has to be a hard border in Ireland is the EU! This video seems eminently sensible - especially on Northern Ireland...

You reckon R183?

How are things in Dearborn?

[quote]at what point will that eclipse your Make Britain Great Again ideology?

It always eclipsed it. Let’s admit, government policy is best left to the technocrats. Putting the presence of the UK up to a plebiscite (for fucks sake!!!) is one of the most moronic things any country has ever done — ranks right up there with invading Iraq and choosing an incompetent narcissistic lout as your leader.

But it’s too late to do anything about it. UK politicians are too locked into their petty partisanship to do anything about it. It’s as if the rowboat has a hole in the bottom but the boat’s two occupants are engaged in a tug of war with the cork so neither one can plug the hole with it. Seems likely the UK will crash out of the EU as a result and probably experience and economic depression, which could well cause a worldwide one.

^^^”presence of the UK in the EU”

R186

"Putting the presence of the UK up to a plebiscite (for fucks sake!!!) is one of the most moronic things any country has ever done"

And that's why we voted out. Because of people like you with their utterly unaware and self-satisfied paternalism who run the EU overwhelmingly.

As can be seen from any pro Brexit post , this is an ideological war. Brexit fans are old fashioned , narrow minded. PC's gone mad merchants and 'Remoaners' are libtard progressives who have an open mind about dread subjects like immigration, we all used to be able to live in some kind of accord, but the mental Brexit vote and fallout has shown how we really hate each other's guts. That shitty vote has ruined life in the the UK since 2016 and will ruin it for the forseeable future, sad that the swivel eyed Brexiteers feel this is worthwhile for some pipe dream future based on a rose-tinted view of the past and a jaundiced one of the present . The Brexiteers wringing their hands over the forgotten ones is as phony as Trump doing the same over the Rustbelt, neither give a fuck about 'ordinary people' but it suits their jingoism and ruthless pursuit of the good old ( immigrant free ) days. What a shitshow.

r185 as far as we know these rape grooming gangs haven't happened in the US yet.

Silly little country. Thank goodness it spawned more important countries like the US.

I'm thrilled the UK is leaving. The EU will run much more smoothly without it.

That said, the EU needs to iron out wrinkles on its own, e.g., get rid of the second Strasbourg parliament location. So wasteful.

People are so offended by educated technocrats. They label bureaucrats appointed to run complex organizations as indicative of "undemocratic" government.

We don't elect a professional bureaucracy. It's in theory a meritocracy. Those directing the bureaucracy ARE elected in the EU, and that's what matters.

Remember to vote in May!

R189 "we really hate each other's guts."

Agreed.

Your posts represent everything I despise about an aloof, metropolitan middle-class who have effectively called all the shots with blithe indifference for decades and now you've been called to task by the people who have had to bear the price of your worldview and greed.

Basically, you're just like the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm. But in a real turn up for the books, Boxer has actually just gone and kicked you in the balls instead of being sent to the knacker's yard.

I hope it cripples you for decades. But you still have your wealth and your privilege and your power and entitlement. And just like the NRA in the US and their rifles, these things will have to be prised from your cold dead hands.

Ok I need some Brexit for dummies explanation, if available... I'm pro-EU and think it's an important, even necessary counterbalance to nutjob/evil/authoritarian USA, Russia, China, but...

Why would a hard border make Irish people of the two camps all of a sudden hate each other more than they do now? Just because there's a traffic stop and trucks have to be inspected? Don't we do that between states in the USA and so what? The trucks get weighed - I'm sure sometimes inspected. It seems like such a little thing to me. There's such a thing between US and Canada I think - and it hasn't made each side want to start shooting at the other? It's just a bureaucratic technicality, no?

What am I missing ??

We have around 20 colleagues from England in our company and they are all panicking over this. We don't know if they are still allowed to work in case of a No Deal Brexit. As EU citizens it was not an issue for them, but now everything might change. And if they cannot work from April anymore, we would need to find 20 new people to take over and that's impossible. I feel bad for my colleagues because they are good people and they like working and living here.

That's right r194, the ERG are so working class.

Amazing reading this thread how similar the feelings are in US. Totally divided between people with opposing views. Brexit movie really captured how similar the base feelings of loss of control are driving anger and anti-politician sentiment. We got Trump, UK got Brexit.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Angie doesn't have the EU in her back pocket anymore.

The busy poster at R156 R171 R175 etc. etc. etc. is really outdoing himself today. I hope he's getting bonus pay at the Russian troll farm for his extra efforts, because if he's actually from England, then he's not just a Gammon, he's the embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Anyone who tries to equate 800 years of English pillaging and genocide in Ireland with the "supra-national power" of the EU (as at r156) is too stupid to be posting on this or any board.

So on second thought, yeah, maybe he really is an authentic Brexit voter.

R197 And how typical that you would refer only to the ERG as representative of Brexit voters.

The 17.4 million who voted came, for the most part, from forgotten Northern, Midlands, and Welsh working class communities who would normally vote Labour. The disconnect between Blairite New Labour and the people who voted for Brexit has been seen time and time again in the Commons these past 2 years.

ERG is but one aspect of the Brexit movement - but it suits your narrative, and typifies your approach that you don't look at the people who voted for Brexit but merely the few members of the political class who have the job to implement that decision. In that sense the Labour rebels who voted faithfully to those peoples' choices the other evening are just as important as the ERG. But neither are as important as the people who voted.

And that's something that you, in your contempt, disdain and fearful snobbery have to circumvent. Here, listen to some of them:

R198

Except all you got was Trump: one man who basically is an emetic in the American body politic.

Brexit isn't one person. It's a movement for renewed self-determination that galvanised millions.

Fuck you in a million ways, R203.

Wow, we have either Nigel or Milo very invested in this thread. It needs to be said (OVER AND OVER AND OVER), that this wasn't some overwhelming surge of British pride and nationalism. The referendum passed by BARELY 2%. That represents essentially a tie. And on that basis, on a referendum that was sold as NON-BINDING and advisory, England (and it was England, let there be no mistaking) is causing a huge rift between itself and Europe, and between its older rural citizens and its younger urban citizens. Rifts which may never heal.

Regarding bureaucracy. It's the same the world over. Things have to continue running when governments change. If you have a complete turnover of personnel, including secretaries, functionaries, then no paychecks go out, no grants are completed, no policies are followed through. Look at the US shutdown. People didn't realize when it started that it would result in the IRS being unable to process refunds. That got peoples' attention in a hurry. It's one thing to rail against the ELECTED government of the EU and another to rail against the bureaucracy there. However, one influences the other. If the bureaucracy keeps pushing an agenda which an individual nation finds onerous, that needs to be taken seriously by the legislative body and discussed.

Vague statements like "They're taking away our sovereignty " are bullshit and should be dismissed out of hand. Good for stirring up peoples' feelings, worthless in terms of fact or meaning.

R204: Triggered because an alternative voice to the echo-chamber liberal-left refuses to buy in to all that bullshit. As it happens I'm no great fan of Trump. But I certainly am a fan of Brexit. You HAVE to equate the two, of course, because that's the only reading that your ideology permits. And yet the MAJORITY of Brexit voters were working class Leftwing Labour voters who would NEVER have voted for Trump.

R201 Rolling out the old canard about the Russians. And instead of (being able) to deal with the arguments I've put forth at length he has to resort to tired old ad hominem. And, of course, he then pulls the, "you're too stupid to express an opinion" line. So typical of the metropolitan attitude that wants the working class to know their place and not rock the boat. One more proof of why Brexit won. One more proof of how Remainers are the Pigs from Animal Farm. Even if we take a 20 year economic hit because of Brexit (and we won't) I REJOICE in the fact that what it has actually done is for the first time in literally DECADES people like you haven't got your own way. So how does it feel when those you've been telling to 'know their place' finally put you in yours? Describe it in all your foot-stamping impotent spiteful rage. I want to enjoy every moment of it.

Oh and R205 "That represents essentially a tie." No. It doesn't. It represents a victory. By a margin, in fact, of 3.78% on a turnout of 72%. When the Welsh Devolution referendum was carried out in 1997 on a proportionally far lower turnout of 50.2%, it past with a 50.3% result - a majority of just 0.6%. Was there a huge national debate - even in Wales - about how it was 'essentially a tie'? Of course not. Why? Because this was a flagship New Labour policy and the Liberal Kommentariat all swung behind it. The anti-democratic squealing we've put up with for the past 2 years is simply down to the fact that Remainers DO NOT accept the democratic result. They want to overturn Brexit.

"and it was England, let there be no mistaking" and Wales. But, again, that doesn't suit your narrative either.

This thread is titled: Well gay Brexiteers, what's the latest on Brexit? I'm a gay Brexiteer. None of you are. So what the hell are you doing here - other than bitching in that way that only liberal-lefties butt-hurt because for once they haven't got their own way - have been doing for the last 2 years.

I'll leave the last word to this gay man from the North of England, expressing EXACTLY why you people lost the vote. Not that you can even see that, of course, nor hear it. You live in a bubble where everyone spouts the same ideas at each other 24/7 and whenever someone comes along and challenges that you shout them down, insult them, try and silence them and stick your fingers in your ears. Well here's the thing: That's why you lost, you fools. So try waking the hell up and critically examining your own blinkered confirmation biases.

—R156 R171 R175 etc How many rubles per post?

R207

You can kind of just tell that whenever you're having a bad day - someone overtakes you at traffic lights - or your local Pret doesn't have the exact almond milk that you deserve - you're snarling about the damn Russians. Your like Pavlov's* dog.

*Argh! Another damn Ruskie!

Deal with the arguments not with the insane ramblings in your addled closed mind.

Come 2048 (just 19 short years from now,) a lot of pigheaded Brexiteers are going to be sorry they lost their place in the EU. The UK can't feed itself now. imagine what is going to happen as the number of fish in the sea dwindle down to zero.

R209 Except one of the ONLY things which even the most pig-headed Remainers recognise (but you, manifestly, are completely ignorant of) is that when the UK gets her territorial waters back and doesn't have to share them with the EU as she does now, her fishing industry will flourish.

Which explains why all the fishing ports along the North Sea voted Brexit.

R210 you do realise the UK fishing industry is absolutely tiny, right?

It's practically insignificant.

Shhh, don't challenge the troll, r211 -- he's on a roll tonight. Straight into the dumpster of history.

And he'll be singing the hymn of how his glorious freedom on a cold impoverished island is so much better than suffering the yoke of the "United States of Europe" all the way down.

You're not for the people R194 that's just cynical cover for your thuggish. all snouts to the trough bigotry , you'll disagree and throw around the usual, dreary alt-right buzzwords but we'll have to agree to differ, except for the hating your guts bit.

R213

I'm not going to dignify that tawdry ad hominem with a rebuttal, you sad little man. Answer the arguments rather than dealing in lazy clichés that merely re-inforce your own blinkered bias.

Meantimes I'll just enjoy your impotent rage that after decades of your kind screwing people over, 17.4 million of the Great Unwashed whom you have held in contempt with impunity, have well and truly shafted you.

More power to them.

Take your blinkered bias and have a long look in the mirror R214. You bleat about ad hominem and then refer to me as 'your kind' and a 'sad little man'... not quite the measured, level headed voice of common sense you'd like to be seen as,more the angry gammon I assume you are. impotent rage is more your bag, stamping your foot about the will of the17.4 million and other tired Brexit slogans, 'the great unwashed' are just pawns in your ideological , foreigner-fearing obsession, you don't give a toss about the 'decent ,ordinary folk' other than what you can use them for, certainly Brexit will not be to their advantage, so they have sadly shafted themselves, which you bizarrely applaud.

R215

I've posted several times with substantive arguments as to why I am a Eurosceptic and why it is of paramount importance to respect and implement the result of the Referendum. I have linked to various commentators at home and abroad who have considered the question. Not once have those arguments been addressed properly. Instead, Remainers, clutching their pearls and fretting over changes to their lifestyle have swarmed around me with insults. If I give as good as I get, that strikes me as quite just.

Here you go. Here is the Remainer who typifies the whole bunch of you. Look at the entitlement. Listen to the disdain. Here you are. THIS little moment encapsulates why it is you lost:

"According to Thomas Sampson, an economist at the London School of Economics, "Older and less-educated voters were more likely to vote 'leave'... A majority of white voters wanted to leave, but only 33 per cent of Asian voters and 27 per cent of black voters chose leave. There was no gender split in the vote, with 52 per cent of both men and women voting to leave. Leaving the European Union received support from across the political spectrum... Voting to leave the European Union was strongly associated with holding socially conservative political beliefs, opposing cosmopolitanism, and thinking life in Britain is getting worse rather than better."[14] Econometric studies show "first, education and, to a lesser extent, age were the strongest demographic predictors of voting behavior... Second, poor economic outcomes at the individual or area level were associated with voting to leave... Third, support for leaving the European Union is strongly associated with self-reported opposition to immigration, but not with exposure to immigration."[14]"

R156 and his other numbers keeps arguing that it's some sort of elite that's opposing Brexit. Well, that's true if we believe the analysis listed above. The elite, meaning people who are educated, who actually know immigrants, and who have made successes of their lives in Britain voted to Remain. The others were people who were older, less successful economically, had less education, and had been TOLD that immigration was bad and believed it - even though they they weren't actually exposed to immigrants.

r156 keeps saying that the Leave voters would never have voted for Trump, because they were Labour. He doesn't know the statistics on Trump's win. Trump voters were.......wait for it........less educated, had poorer economic success, had been TOLD that immigration was bad even though they weren't exposed to it, and had suffered the decline of the manufacturing base, which once upon a time would have meant that they were both unionized and members of the Democratic Party (equivalent to Labor). So essentially we are talking about the same kinds of voters who fell for the same kind of bullshit.

R217

Thank you for engaging with some of the issues! Thank you, also, for pointing out that Trump appealed to a broad base including those who would have voted Democrat - although your Democratic party was not as left wing as our Labour tradition here in the UK, which, for decades, was proudly socialist and would say as much. It's rare that people acknowledge that the Deplorables are from the Democratic base as well as the Republican one. Once that's acknowledged more widely the Democratic party will be in a better position to win. Presently, though, it seems in the grip of Trump derangement syndrome and, if recent events are indicative, seems more concerned with getting abortion up to full term on to the state legislation books.

You are right to point out that by and large it was the less well educated who voted for Brexit. That said, I have two college degrees, my first from Oxford, and, my goodness, those who have degrees now - ever since the Tony Blair expansion 2 decades ago - have qualifications that haven't educated them but have left them in debt. But here's the key thing about those many millions of less well-educated voters: the UK is their country, too. And for many long decades their voices and lives and aspirations were ignored by a mandarin class that despises them and basically exploits them. I'm delighted that they got out there and made their voices heard.

And like I said above, in the UK at least, it's not immigration per se that has caused problems: millions of UK people have one Irish grandparent, for example, and no-one thinks them un-integrated. In 25 years time second and third generation Poles will also be very well integrated. No-one seriously doubts that. Our fears about immigration in the UK coalesce around Somali, Pakistani and other Muslim communities which, as time has gone on, have become less well integrated, not more integrated and who are ghettoised (often their choice) with different cultural norms which are often inimical to British culture. The rape gangs phenomenon was the product of toxic Pakistani machismo and toxic British political correctness that refused to investigate for the best part of 20 years. And now that we HAVE started investigating we've discovered that every medium size town in the country has had a problem with Muslim men raping poor white trash girls. But that has NOTHING to do with the EU.

If it factored in to the Brexit vote is was because Angela Merkel decided to open her borders to a million Muslims from the Middle East and Africa. Since the Germans are mostly contracepting or aborting their own children, she cynically calculated that the tax base needed supplementing from a ready source. (This Forbes article acknowledges as much: forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2017/08/15/heres-why-europe-really-needs-more-immigrants/)

And she has tried to bully the rest of the EU nations into accepting her policy - and is co-opting the EU to foist it on other nations. But Hungary was under the Ottoman boot for centuries. Their response was entirely sane, given their history. How far does the EU want to take this? The report I've linked to below tells you how far the EU plans to push this over the next 30 years. So tell me - if that doesn't sound like insanity to you - then we're finished here. We're not inhabiting the same reality and I willingly throw my lot in with the "uneducated" who at least understand that this EU project means the death of Europe. "Europe will need 100 million more people by 2050." And they don't mean European babies. They mean Muslim immigrants from Africa.

Insane.

You're not giving as good as you get R216 you're just parroting right wing cliches and tropes, the things you care about , sovereignty keeping cultural influence from elsewhere minimal are conservative ( socially and politically ) and shared by ( just )enough people to have fucked up the country, well done. However the 'win' was so frail, so slender it has caused a schism in the country. The resistance to Brexit from the many millions who didn't vote for it won't go away ( as it wouldn't have if the positions were reversed ) and your 'win' will be scrutinized for generations and I have no doubt will be seen as a skidmark in British history. The 'substantive arguments' you refer to yourself having put forward are merely the written equivalent of your Question Time clip, a smug snapshot of what you consider everything wrong with the world today based on your personal prejudices. I assure you there are many more Question Time clips showing what many see as archetypal Brexiteers, either cliche, red-faced Gammons huffing and puffing about foreigners or the vacant and gormless complaining of bent bananas because they read it in The Sun. The whole Brexit vote has been a disaster based on a fantasy. On a side note, as a conservative have you found gay life more difficult? Conservatives are not known for their warmth generally but especially not around homosexuality. I assume someone with the views you hold is of a certain vintage so you would have been around for the good old days of proper queer bashing , the good old days Brexiteers want to return to, none of this PC nonsense for them, just a thought.

did this thread become 2 queers in the UK bitching at each other?

can someone just tl;dr this thread for me?

Well, if nothing else, Brexit has revealed to the whole world what those of us in the colonised parts of the British Isles have known for centuries: there's a large strain of parochial, arrogant, self-absorbed, stubborn, narrow-minded bigotry at the heart of English and wider British nationalist society. The Brexiteer in the latter part of this thread is only one example. (I've blocked him now and can't be bothered to go back and check which replies were his. It won't be difficult to work out who I'm talking about.)

I used to find it infuriating that although I've lived in half a dozen countries and speak four languages fluently, because I wanted an independent Scotland as part of the EU, *I* was the one who was accused of being parochial by a certain kind of Englishman/woman. These days I'm just filled with contempt for them. They've exposed themselves for the shallow, incompetent idiots we always suspected they were.

I don't think much will change in the UK in terms of the mechanics of Government and Politics, and I doubt there will be any change in the laws, Taking Back Control reminds me of Drain The Swap, but Trump only made the swap more toxic; at any rate he never change the mechanics of Government.

But as the pro brexit poster makes clear this isn't about change it's about the power of ideology and the power of perceived control, it doesn't matter if the poor are getting poorer and the UK economy crashes and unemployment skyrockets, this is about Blue Passports and Straight Bananas. A perceived control and empty power over the mundane.

R222 This leftwing Labour MP gets it. Listen to her.

I don't understand how any gay British man could support leaving the EU and all the good it's done for our country.

All of the Leave arguments are based on xenophobia and imagined ideas like fishing rights. You're so blinkered by hatred of other European nations you fail to see that the past forty years have been the best years economically and socially our country has had in its entire existence.

As part of Europe we were important. Outside of Europe we are nothing. We're just an island sneering at people doing more for peace and stability than we could ever have achieved. You Leavers make me ashamed to be British. Fuck you and your ideas of Britain you only heard about in history lessons.

[quote] colonised parts of the British Isles

r221 I do love that victim mentality the Scots have these days.

R224 I lived in France for 15 of the last 20 years and have travelled widely in Europe. I love Europe. And because I love Europe I don't love the EU. ALL of Europe would be better off out of the EU and return to something like the EEC - a trading block of sovereign nations. If you'd bothered to read my various posts instead of projecting imaginatively what your fevered biases have told you I must think you'll see that for me it's not really a question about European immigration - Europeans, broadly, share a culture and a history which makes integration and assimilation quite possible. That Angela Merkel opened the flood gates to a million Muslims who don't share that culture and history and then has tried to foist it on all of the EU is one more reason why the EU is not good for Europe. The EU's own report says that ONE HUNDRED MILLION MORE Muslim immigrants will be needed over the next 30 years. That's insanity. And hugely dangerous for gay men.

"the past forty years have been the best years economically and socially our country has had in its entire existence." You confuse a correlation with a causation. The past 40 years have been the best years economically for any country around the world that has embraced capitalism. Just ask the Chinese. As far as I'm aware, the capitalist model was resisted by swathes of the EU until the old Warsaw Pact countries started influencing policy - putting it down to an Anglo-Saxon plot to subvert what the EU should be. Certainly that's how the French Left have always spoken of it. For them the EU is always about France leading the way in a United States of Europe. The first 30 years of the EU were exactly that: The French directed the key ideas and got German War Guilt to pay for it. Now, of course, the Germans, having rigged the Euro to strengthen their economy whilst bleeding southern Europe dry and "punishing" them for the fiscal profligacy, hold all the aces. They will call the shots. And the United States of Europe will be on their terms.

Here's the official let's import in 100 million more report:

R226 you accuse me of 'fevered bias' yet you continue to mention Muslims and the Warsaw Pact ie Eastern Europeans in a conversation about the European Union. Your 'fevered bias' is obvious. Why not just admit it?

Muslims lived in the UK before the European Union existed. Hundreds of thousands of muslims moved to the UK from the Commonwealth. Polish people have lived here and contributed since WWII. None of that has to do with membership of the EU. Your problem with EU membership is that you're xenophobic and racist and you think leaving the EU will suddenly make the UK some kind of paradise whereas the truth is that 40 years of stability and integration has made us one of the most powerful economies in the world, and leaving the EU will undo all of that work.

For our "Sole Gay Brexiteer" and resident John Bull English nationalist, here's a snapshot of how your beloved Brexit-voting working class is doing today, even before the actual Brexit shock takes effect and depresses the economy for years to come.

Are you out there volunteering in the food banks, or is your concern limited to bleating about "sovereignty" on DL?

Or are you going to contort yourself to find a way to blame the EU for British austerity too?

(I don't even believe you're gay, btw. And if you are, I'm sure you've got a residency backstop somewhere else, because every UK gay I know is making plans to get far away from the Brexit polity.)

R227 Wrong on pretty much all counts.

1. Nearly all the ex members of the Warsaw Pact joined the EU. You do know that, right? When they joined they brought with them a desire for capitalism because state socialism had destroyed them. In so doing they loosened up the socialising tendencies within the EU. They saw Thatcher as a heroine and bought in to her vision of Trading Nations. However, they needed EU money so they accepted the political project along with it. Half of them are regretting it now: Hungary, Poland, Slovakia.

2. Of course the UK and France have had ever-growing Muslim populations ever since the 1960s. It was a post-colonial inevitability. Their integration has been woeful. Unlike the integration of our Hindu and Sikh populations which passes without any real controversy. In France where I lived for many years as I said, the immigration has been effectively solely North Afrian Arab Muslim and their integration has been a catastrophe - because the French are generally more racist - but also because of the toxic legacy of the really grim Algerian War for Independence. There are 6 million Arabs in France now - officially. And, just as in the UK in fact, the Muslim population doubles approximately every 15 years or so. In that sense France's future will be much more like, say, Lebanon or Bosnia than it will be like Poland's.

3. You say, "Polish people have lived here and contributed since WWII." Can you not even read? What did I ACTUALLY say about European immigrants into the UK? This - it's THERE, just scroll up: "for me it's not really a question about European immigration - Europeans, broadly, share a culture and a history which makes integration and assimilation quite possible." I've always enjoyed my visits to Poland. I'm actually quite happy to have many of them in the UK and enjoying working alongside them.

4. "and you think leaving the EU will suddenly make the UK some kind of paradise" - which of course you'll not be able to find me state in any of my many posts. Brexit won't make the UK some kind of paradise but what it will do will stop us becoming part of the United States of Europe. In fact my sincere hope BECAUSE I LOVE EUROPE AS I'VE STATED MULTIPLE TIMES is that none of the wonderful nations of Europe will become part of the United States of Europe.

That you were unable to actually process all of these statements which I already made in my earlier post kind of proves to me that I'm trying to conduct a dialogue with a person whose red-mist has descended as in incapable of seeing beyond their own emoting. It's almost certainly futile trying to talk to such people. Sorry....

R228 Oh but darling, you should have told us you'd been traumatised by such awful people before! Sorry for reawakening your past traumas:

I don't think there should be a second referendum, you vote to leave, but I don't think anything will be repaired by leaving the EU, I don't see how leaving the EU will fix the North South divided which has existed in the UK long before the EU did. I don't think it will fix the issue leave voters will think it will fix, I think you are just fooling yourself if you think it will.

Small communities will always feel neglected and isolated because they are small communities and Leaving the EU will only make those communities poorer, with a high rated of unemployment and more disregarded and disconnected.

My biggest worry is there will be a surge in homelessness, if business leave and small business close, unemployment rises, people won't be able to afford mortgages and rent, it will have terrible consequence. I am actually genuinely really worried about the knock on impact this will have on people.

Anyway, It's a done deal, UK will leave, probably no deal and everyone will just have to face up the reality of Brexit, whatever it is.

There's a reason you're the sole gay brexiteer here, and I imagine most places, you wont convert anybody and there's no hope for you, have fun at the Gay Conservatives Association!

R231

"Small communities will always feel neglected and isolated because they are small communities and Leaving the EU will only make those communities poorer, with a high rated of unemployment and more disregarded and disconnected."

And if that happens they can picket Parliament square and call the feckless bastards to account. Ever seen that happen in Brussels? EVER? Because the EU's policies how always been beneficial? Really? Tell that to the Greeks with 32% unemployment because, being shackled to the Euro they can't devalue their own currency and make the drachma competitive again via a cheaper-accessed tourism boost. And yet the Greeks don't head along to the European Bank or to the European Commission because, well, who the hell are these people. Who are they? You know? I have no clue and I take a keen interest in these things!

I have no clue who my regional MEPs are. Do you know all yours?

Like I said: the democratic disconnect is almost total. If Brexit causes misery to these working class communities they know exactly who they can go and call to task for it - and those politicians will have to find a solution or make way for those who can.

The fact that you're apparently proud of not even knowing who your MEP is, and ergo clearly haven't made the remotest effort to inform yourself about how you might exercise your rights as an EU resident, invalidates every claim you've made on this thread about how oppressive the EU is, SGP.

Don't vote, don't act, just bitch. Are you sure you're not a Trump fan? Because you fit the profile.

Feckless bastards are the leave voters. Take responsibility for one's vote, if misery happens there are only the leave voters to blame and MPs won't be long letting them take the fall. Everything will be blamed on Brexit and the will of the people., it's Westminster's get out of jail free card for the next 20 years.

R234 Learn to read instead of swooping in with your precooked conclusions. What did I actually write? Not this: "not even knowing who your MEP is"

But this: "I have no clue who my regional MEPs are. Do you know all yours?"

We don't vote for individuals. We vote for parties. And the places are allocated proportionally depending on the parties' own lists. Accordingly, I don't have one MEP. None of us do. We all have several, from different parties. Do I know them all for this area of the EU they call my particular region of the UK? Nope I do not. And neither do you for yours.

So r236 may I ask you, do you want a no deal brexit or would you prefer a soft brexit? And what do you hope and what do you think the reality of brexit will be, how do you think things will change, in both your own everyday life and in the larger picture in the UK?

R235 "Everything will be blamed on Brexit and the will of the people."

ABSOLUTELY! Hoorah! Someone finally gets it!

YES. The will of the people is their right and their responsibility. They make the choices. They live with the consequences. They make good ones. They make bad ones. They OWN them. That's what it's about.

We have deified our political system and structures in to some kind of transcendent benevolent Providence. The bureaucrats who run it connive and collude with that process because that allows them to wield power which gives them a thrill and make vast sums of money to never actually have to be touched by poverty or social disintegration. It infantilises the population who then expect to be disempowered just as long as they have bread and circuses. It's a VERY old game. Which is why EVERYONE - including the Brexit voters - went to bed that night thinking Remain had won because that's the story we've told ourselves for decades: the powerful decide, the powerless acquiesce - just as long as we have our bread and circuses.

And now Brexit voters must own their choice. And since sovereignty is with the people they are within their right to vote a new parliament when the election roles round on whatever manifesto mandate those parties present at the ballot.

That's how it should work.

Does it work that way in the EU in Brussels? Of course not.

You may not r238, but I bet you in the deep hard thick of austerity many working class leave voters will be crying out we should have been giving a second referendum.

Does it work that way in the EU in Brussels? Of course it DOES, r238, if people can be bothered to vote and, you know, find out who their MEPs are and then contact them. Hound them, if necessary.

The "non-representation" problem in the EU results from the fact that the vast majority of people -- like you -- neither know nor care what's going on at the EU level. Voter turnout is pathetic, and as far as I'm concerned, those who don't bother to vote forfeit their right to complain (that goes equally for local, regional and national politics).

r238 I have news for you sweetheart. It doesn't work that way in Britain either. A few MPs voted out in a small population area of Yorkshire or Liverpool is not going to change the status quo in Parliament, because Britain is dominated by urban voters, who, by and large, are not particularly concerned with rural unemployment. Had voters in Britain understood Brexit, as many subsequent polls have shown, there would have been no Brexit.

How naive, to think that a Parliament which completely ignored the slums of Dicken's England would suddenly find a democratic conscience and devote its every waking moment to propping up mom and pop industries in the hidden reaches of Norwich. Good luck with that.....

[quote]And that's why we voted out. Because of people like you with their utterly unaware and self-satisfied paternalism who run the EU overwhelmingly.

Looks like you can use all the paternalism you can get!

Except they won't R238. as with Brexit's horrific twin ( Trump ) it's supporters will blame, deflect or attack long before they would ever accept any fault. Anything that shows their beloved Brexit in a poor light is 'Project Fear', Brexiteers will be screaming 'Project Fear' long past the point when reality has smacked them down. If they do have to admit their Brexit was a mistake they will find a way to blame Remoaners or libtards, but they will never accept responsibility.

R237 That's the first open-ended non-shrieking set of questions that anyone in this thread has asked me. That's revealing don't you think? But thanks for asking them.

Let's take a look:

"So may I ask you, do you want a no deal brexit or would you prefer a soft brexit?" Right now, given the situation that Teresa May backed herself in to I think No Deal would be better than a soft Brexit which is Brexit in name only. That said, if May had stuck to the vision she set out in the Mansion House Speech she could have got a Canada+ deal which Donald Tusk was still offering only months ago. I remain utterly perplexed as to why we didn't go down that route.

"And what do you hope and what do you think the reality of brexit will be" I don't think there will be a cataclysmic meltdown of society. I don't think there will be economic collapse. We will take a short to medium economic hit but we will have regained important legal and constitutional independences which, longer term, will bear fruit economically too. But I'm no Mystic Meg - I can't predict 10 years hence.

"how do you think things will change, in both your own everyday life and in the larger picture in the UK?" I'm sure there will be incremental changes rather than dramatic or violent ones. I certainly don't expect a rise in populism or xenophobia. If anything the Brexit vote has been a useful way of channeling what RISKED to become hostility. Good fences make for good neighbours. De Gaulle was right 50 years ago. He understood the British better than their pompous Tory Wet Patrician class ever did because he was a visionary homme d'état who loved his Patrie so utterly, intransigently, and, yes, even jingoistically, that he could understand what others' patriotism would be also. He understood that Britain could not be integrated into whatever political project Europe was going to give herself. That's why he vetoed Britain's entry into the EEC. Not out of spite but out of far-sightedness.

So....to paraphrase Churchill: 'Where do we stand? We will no longer be members of the EU, nor do we intend to be merged in a Federal European system. We feel we have a special relation to both. This can be expressed by prepositions, by the preposition "with" but not "of"—we are with them, but not of them. We have our own Commonwealth. We shall continue to play a full and active part in plans for the political, military and economic association of Western Europe with the North Atlantic Alliance.'

We should have had the courage of those convictions and saved us and our European allies much needless distress. But that is very often the British way: Only doing the right thing when we've exhausted all the other options.

I'm getting so excited. It's going to be a total shitshow and there are few countries who deserve it more. As H.L. Mencken wrote: "the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

R240 "The "non-representation" problem in the EU results from the fact that the vast majority of people -- like you -- neither know nor care what's going on at the EU level."

Yeah yeah, I'm an ignorant schmuck who knows nothing about the EU. So now you're going to tell me how my MEPs vote on legislation in the EU parliament. Do MEPs submit papers, amendments and early day motions like in the Commons? That are ALL noted in Hansard and, for the last 20 years, all recorded and televised. Is it something like that? Oh no. It's not. Because of the labyrinthine behind-closed-doors stich ups - sometimes WITH NO OFFICIAL RECORDS KEPT AS MATTER OF POLICY. Why labyrinthine? Oh because the Commission speaks to the Council of Ministers who speaks to the European Bank who speaks to the blah blah blah. And you have the chutzpah to accuse ordinary folk of not making an EFFORT when they're met by this level of DELIBERATE bureaucratic obfuscation designed to keep them as far away as possible from ever being heard.

Give me a break.

I just want assholes like Alex Deane and Andrew Pierce to eat shit when Brexit actually happens and is a massive problem for them as well as everybody else.

R245 Mencken? If only he were merely a great contrarian. Okay so he opposed the New Deal. And America entering into WW1 and WW2. We can all make faulty judgements. But "his diary indicates that he was a racist and antisemite, who privately used coarse language and slurs to describe various ethnic and racial groups." And that's more troubling.

But if he's a reference figure for you I'm sure Governer Northam will also appreciate your support.

I wouldn’t want to be in England after Brexit for all the tea in China.

R244 Your position is of freeing the UK from the 'shackles' of the EU is so intense that for you the dismal and vague future you predict is worth the terrible upheaval, all for some distant possibility of your dream of a 'stand alone' Britain coming true. Is your faith shaken on any level by the fact you are the sole, gay (!?!?!!? ) Brexiteer who is ( at great and very committed length ) defending Brexit? You think Tories out of touch and obviously Labour is not your bag ,you are suspicious of Muslims and Immigration concerns you, dare we ask what political stripe your favoured leader is?

Have you noticed how Brexiteers don't even bother to pretend a Brexit future will be a better one? Now it's all we won, suck it up, it's about democracy and 'will of the people'. We WILL push forward because the people decided it, even tho' it's suicide, bring on the arsenic!

Thanks R250 another set of real questions.

What I think is that a huge tectonic shift has been going on beneath the surface and that our 100 year old two party duopoly is dead on its feet. Why? Because radical Thatcher managed for force the transformation of the Labour Party into New Labour (but also gutted not just what needed gutting but what was needed to keep communities human and humane). And in his turn the egregiously cynical Tony Blair manage to force the Conservative Party into what Cameron did to it.

To my mind, socially conservative old fashioned socialists - of which there are still many - thank God, need to realise that their actual allies are found not just in Working Men's Clubs and Trades Unions in the North and the Midlands but also in Conservative Associations, Women's Institutes, and the like up and down the country. These were the main constituencies who voted for Brexit. And this is because they have a shared love of the dignity of the little man. Whether a new political movement can emerge given the (media) power and vested interests of the Parliamentary party system is another question all together. Who would I like to see as Prime Minister? I don't know. I'm not sure I trust many of them. And those I do trust on the right and the left eg a Kate Hooey or a Jonny Mercer I'm not sure they have 'prime minister' within them.

We do, most certainly, escape from becoming part of the United States of Europe. And to my mind that is the biggest existential threat to the nation states of Europe since the Second World War. Sure! It's not by military conquest (at least, not yet) but it is a pseudo-messianic mirage which is going to ruin the lives of many hundreds of millions of people. And I must add for at least the fourth time I am NOT suspicious of immigration. I've said it often enough now for it to be disingenuous of you to amalgamate my very legitimate concerns about the non-integration of Muslim communities across Europe and the far less worrying problem of the peoples of Europe moving around their shared continent.

R251: I answer your caricature of my position above: we get to avoid being in a Federal Superstate. That won't, of course, stop you from continuing to twist and caricature it because 'there is none so blind as the one who refuses to see.'

Nice deflection R252. You didn't ask my other question about your political allegiance.

Tommie Robinson ( the only gay Brexiteer in the village ) at R244 thinks she's really got her finger on the pulse and is aghast at not being treated as the great lady she is with nary a serious question worthy of her great mind. The reason you're not being asked questions is because you're transparent, we already know the answers you have, they're the same as any red-faced ranter on Question time. Muslims, immigrants, EU is the devil,Federal States of Europe, just the usual Brexit vomit and all for a blue passport! If uptight obsessives like you got a hobby the world would be a better place. Don't bother with the ad hominem stuff either, the Brexit vote happened because of the obsessions of people like you, so you and your motivations are very much to the point. Anyway congratulations, you won! You must be so happy, it's going great so far and everything is pointing to a terrific outcome, dontcha think? Bent bananas all round!

R253 Deflection? I very clearly set out my political allegiance in yet another long post. But if you're asking for PARTY political allegiance I have only negatives to give you: I would NEVER vote Liberal Democrat - nor Green. I would vote for the Labour or Conservative MP who was most pro-life in his or her personal beliefs. That would be my first criteria. My second criteria would be over Brexit. But if it was the choice between a pro-life Remainer or a pro-choice Brexiteer, I wouldn't hesitate: I'd vote for the pro-lifer. Or I would abstain - if their pro-life commitment was merely lukewarm. So I'm afraid I would vote for individuals and not for the party herd: to whom I owe no allegiance. This great little speech from Game of Thrones comes to mind

; )

R254 Indulge me two remarks in response to yours:

First - you write well after your first bottle of white of the evening but I bet you get nasty once you've downed your second.

Second - "Anyway congratulations, you won!" Thanks. My joy is doubled knowing that it makes you choke on your own bile. I'll raise a toast for you and all the other victims of Brexit next time I'm in Pret.

As an American, I’m kind of curious what happens when the UK leaves. I have a feeling it won’t be the horrible economic crash that’s been predicted. Though real estate prices will probably go down - which may be good for the average UK-er.

As an economics student 30 years ago, ive found a lot of what was taught proved not to be true. The complete faith in globalization and free trade is being questioned - and I’m curious where it leads. While I get the economic theories, I wonder if there is something lost/ missing. Like when economics realized that actual human behavior couldn’t be simplified to “more is better”. And countries with high taxation can’t succeed (see: Nordic countries).

R257 Great comment.

Poor effort Tommie R256, your faux concern for the salt of the earth ordinary folk is bullshit, your ' I'm for the people , stuff your cappuccinos and foreign cleaners' has so truck here, you're a blatant reactionary and the only connection with or use you have for the 'great unwashed' is your shared bigotry, thankfully you're in a very obvious minority of one here, you might say you're on the wrong side of the will of the people. As for your joy at my 'liberal tears' ( 'We won. And, just as great: You lost'. ) It betrays another hallmark of your kind, bitterness even in victory, my liberal tears are dried at the thought of you and your kind never being content.

[quote]And countries with high taxation can’t succeed (see: Nordic countries).

How so? They seem to do be doing quite well right now. The counties failing are those obliterating and reducing social safety nets.

This thread proves that there is nothing worse than an ageing white male who feels threatened. By what, who knows. The Brexiter here doesn't give a shit that young people in the UK wanted to stay in the EU. I guess the opinion of those whose future will be far more impacted by Brexit than his, as they will be on this planet far longer than him, doesn't matter.

R259

Now now. What did I say about continuing to write AFTER you've finished your second bottle of the evening?

r244/ OGB is beyond delusional; he's either not even living in England, or he's lying through his teeth: "I certainly don't expect a rise in populism or xenophobia. If anything the Brexit vote has been a useful way of channeling what RISKED to become hostility." Both gay-bashing and especially foreigner-bashing incidents have skyrocketed across the UK since the Brexit vote left the xeno-/homo-/knowledge-phobic Little England chavs feeling validated in their prejudices -- ask anyone who's actually there and paying attention.

And then he quotes Churchill to claim "We have our own Commonwealth." -- yes, they're all lining up to give special preferences to their ex-colonizer. Right? Oh, wait...

Perfidious Albion

R261 "The Brexiter here doesn't give a shit that young people in the UK wanted to stay in the EU." If they wanted to stay they should have voted to stay. But then you would probably be one of those Remainers who resents democracy anyway.

If they were too young to vote then, frankly, you're right, I don't give a shit: They're too young and don't know their arse from their elbow. I trust the judgement of people with life experience, not naive kids whose lives revolve around whatsapp and fortnite.

But I'm not entirely without sympathy: I was too young to vote when the first referendum was held - and no-one bleated about the future generations not being consulted back then - and we accepted that we might never get the chance to cast a vote on this issue. But then, we did. So I did vote. I'm more than happy with the idea of a third referendum - in 40 years time.

R263 Your sounding slightly paranoid. How can I reassure you?

I am indeed living in England.

I did indeed live many years in France.

I do, as I have said often, love Europe very much - which is why I do NOT love the EU.

This is just bollocks - which is why you give no credible statistical source for it:

"Both gay-bashing and especially foreigner-bashing incidents have skyrocketed across the UK since the Brexit vote left the xeno-/homo-/knowledge-phobic Little England chavs feeling validated in their prejudices -- ask anyone who's actually there and paying attention."

But if you want to talk about gay bashing then do make sure you acknowledge just how much of it is linked with strident Islamic zones of intolerance: you know, like the ones we saw on lamposts in the streets of the East End of London a couple of years back.

And lastly on the Commonwealth: "yes, they're all lining up to give special preferences to their ex-colonizer. Right?" Err, yes, Right, actually. Australia, New Zealand and Canada have ALL said as much. And thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Queen Elizabeth II many countries in anglophone Africa and the Carribbean are more than willing to give us special preferences. That leaves India. What did India say? Well, unlike R263 who just emotes with Project Fear, read for yourselves Indian opinion which is admirably balanced: conscious that there could be losses, conscious that these can be avoided. Don't take my word for it here's an Indian journalist in an Indian business magazine:

[quote] But if you want to talk about gay bashing then do make sure you acknowledge just how much of it is linked with strident Islamic zones of intolerance: you know, like the ones we saw on lamposts in the streets of the East End of London a couple of years back.

Why do I get the feeling the Brexiteers blame the EU for the huge number of Muslims in their country when they can mostly blame themselves. Leaving the EU will not fix that problem at all.

R266

I agree. But leaving the EU will help to not exacerbate it beyond the problem we have already made for ourselves. And let me repeat for a second time: The UK's Hindu and Sikh minorities have integrated well. But because Islam is a religion that has to dominate it has NEVER - in any of the places it has expanded in to - settled for not calling the shots.

I've posted TWICE already the EU's report on how the EU has to import 100 million more immigrants by 2050 - and these will be overwhelmingly from North Africa and Subsaharan Africa and thus, overwhelmingly, Muslim. Why? Because Europeans contracept and abort their own children. In fact we've roughly aborted as many babies as we've imported in Muslims thus far.

Here's the report. Again:

It won't affect you R267 you're a right wing gay, they don't count.

r267 Maybe you need to read about Japan 2019 - where the elderly are committing crimes like shoplifting in order to be put in jail in order to get enough to eat and medical care. Why? Because, demographically, Japan is shrinking and has been for 40 years. 10 years longer than Europe (without immigration). That is your future. Capitalism plus social safety nets depend on ever increasing population. When population contracts, there is not enough labor to support the old, plus the entire economies begin to shrink. Your much vaunted superior western culture is going to be propped up by young people who are not going to be interested in mortgaging their own futures to support yours. Unless you have another solution, some sort of immigration is in your future. If you can get the more highly skilled Chinese and Indian and others to come your way (and you'll be fighting for those with the US), you are going to watch your way of life circle down the drain. But if that makes you happy because you'll have sovereignty, more power to you. Frankly, I'd rather have food. And heat. And electricity. And medicine.

In the US, we have found that our immigrants from Africa end up having a higher rate of college graduates in their first generation here than native born Americans. But that apparently scares you. Enjoy your (hungry and cold) future.

[quote]To my mind, socially conservative old fashioned socialists - of which there are still many - thank God, need to realise that their actual allies are found not just in Working Men's Clubs and Trades Unions in the North and the Midlands but also in Conservative Associations, Women's Institutes, and the like up and down the country.

Why would a gay man invoke or support this sort of socially conservative bloc? Regardless, I’m sure that there are quite a few remainers in each and every one of those groups—including “socially conservative old fashioned socialists” (I could introduce Gay Brexiteer to a few, but he’d do well [italic]not[/italic] to let on that he’s gay when he’s around them).

R270 Right wing gays ( and any gay supporting Brexit is likely to be ) don't see their sexuality as important R270, they are people first, gay is way down the list and held at arms length. Even the 'out' ones put straight concerns first. Andrew Pierce was evoked earlier, he's the Uncle Tom who writes for the Daily Mail, things like 'Why as a gay I believe gay rights have gone too far!' They are the kind of gays homophobes approve of as they never rock the boat and always defer to the straight world which they try to blend with as much as possible, this can be seen from the many uptight gays ( often closeted...it would kill mother !! ) ) who post here in unhappy fashion. On this site I mean, not on this thread, which has only attracted a single, lonely gay right winger. For our American cousins think Log Cabinettes and all the horror they conjures up.

R271...should read 'they conjure up'

R269 Yeah. That's what happens when you abort and contracept your own children because you've been sold the idea that material possessions and the extra car and holidays are so much more worthwhile than having 3 or 4 children instead of just one.

The future belongs to those who have the babies.

It's really not complicated.

R270 And I grew up amongst them, so no need for introductions, thanks. And socially conservative doesn't mean bigoted or violent. Allow me to explain myself. The toxic LGBTQ ideology - yet another avatar of cultural marxism that "normalises" craziness - doesn't represent all people who are gay. As a gay man I want to see stable families encouraged by society. Most post-60s liberation movements have been predicated on destroying the traditional family unit - which they see as the source of their oppression. So the trashing of the family has been underway for 50 years - and in that sense the gay thing is inevitably just a minority sideshow: what matters is making straight families other than what they once were.

It's succeeded almost totally amongst two demographics and is well underaway in a third viz:

1. black families with absentee fathers being the norm

2. benefits class white families (poor white trash) where there is no stability and no culture of aspiration

3. the normalising of 'partners' instead of 'spouses' amongst the middle classes who have given up on the norms of their parents' and grandparents' generation because, "why the hell not?"

The LGBTQ agenda has to "celebrate" all of this as signs of tolerance, openess, acceptance and what they want. It's not. It's signs of decadence, weakness and its days are numbered. Why? Because, well, you abort and contracept and those temporary 'units' of recombined families fragilise the children that grow up in them if we go by the measure of virtually every indice. What will be left 50 years hence are those who you've patronisingly imported in to do the work to pay the taxes that will pay the pensions as you slip in to your dotage. The ones who have stable families and kids: THEY SURVIVE. And if you have any wits about you you'll realise that you need to encourage those traditional family units you've spent the last 50 years literally trashing.

R273 = Andrew Pierce . so Andy, let's get your CV together, you're an abortion hating, right wing, Brexit supporter? And we need to listen to you for what reason again?

[quote]The toxic LGBTQ ideology

Sorry, I stopped reading right here. You really aren’t worth the time of day. There’s such a gulf between you and the rest of us that not even the most gifted engineer could hope to build the bridge that could bring us to within hearing distance of each other.

My in-depth analisys is this.

We're fucked.

Economically, socially and politically.

I am absolutely fucking terrified of where my country is headed. It makes me ashamed of the UK. It really does. All so that we can stop jonny foreigner 'taking our jobs and filling up our hospitals'. It disgusts me how my fellow countrymen can be manipulated by a small number of right wing, low tax, low pay, low standards free marketeers, wanting to create the UK into an Arctic Tax Haven and the 51st state of the union in all but name.

R271

Here, let me translate your post's tropes more accurately:

Once upon a time there was this socially conservative gay Bogey-man, young gay ones. Run away from him. And above all, don't talk to him because if you do you'll catch the Loneliness. And the Singleness will sadden you forever. So stick your fingers in your ears and run away singing your favourite show tune. Then you'll be safe to live happily ever after. Now go to sleep. Sleep.... Sleep....

And then there's this: "they are people first, gay is way down the list and held at arms length." Imagine actually defining your core humanity by a politicised, ideologised, culturally marxist version of sexual orientation rather than by, well, your core humanity. There is literally NOTHING about the gay ghetto that you've made for yourselves that is attractive. You are MENTAL CLONES mutually reassuring yourselves in your desperate insecurity because for all the finger-snapping sassy confidence of GAY liberation, you take off the wig and the sequins, or you shut your door having made it to middle class normality with husband and cats and straight neighbours and what do you have left? Well, what you announced so proudly: "I am essentially, fundamentally and most importantly my sexuality."

No wonder so much of being human passes you by.

You are so transparent R277 you are exactly what I said , you are unhappy being gay and have absorbed that into right wing politics and the attempt to be like the straight people you feel are better than you. This is why you have so many uptight views, what gay man gives a fuck about abortion ?!?

ps and ironically I just read this on another thread.

The hardcore political Marxists nearly always cut through the crap of the cultural Marxists. They've just been totally sidelined:

UK Marxist Party pointing out the Emperors New Clothes of identity politics. Not, alas, to any good end - they clearly want to monopolise the Revolution. But their diagnosis is spot-on all the same. Just as the French Communists back in the 50s were equally virulently opposed to the introduction of artificial birth control and abortion in France seeing it as a means to commit eugenics on the working class. Which it was. And remains. Anyway, here are the socially conservative Marxists lambasting your toxic Identity politics:

While being totally opposed to discrimination on grounds of race, sex or sexual proclivity, this congress declares that obsession with identity politics, including sexual politics, is anti-Marxian. Congress therefore resolves that the propagation of identity politics, including LGBT ideology, being reactionary and anti-working class and a harmful distraction and diversion from the class struggle of the proletariat for its social emancipation, is incompatible with membership of the party, rendering those involved in its promotion liable to expulsion.

R278 "what gay man gives a fuck about abortion ?!?" Oh I'm so sorry. I know you define yourself by your sexuality and want to enforce that as the norm on all gay people and feel threatened by one who doesn't. I know that for you what can only matter is what advances your sexuality and its expression - so it's all about getting the next fuck rather than giving a fuck about anything. The list of LGBTQ-approved fucks you're permitted to give is short, I do appreciate. It's that 'diversity' thing. It's such a straightjacket. But here's why I give a fuck - as a gay man.

As a gay boy I was aware of my vulnerability in a world largely contemptuous or hostile to people like me. That made me very conscious of the fact that vulnerable minorities really should get defended and we need to look out for each other. I looked around at all the different human beings who were suffering oppression of one kind or another and I realised that the most vulnerable of all are the ones who are aborted. And society is in such deep denial about what we do to the unborn (42 million abortions worldwide every year) that we refuse to confront it. We literally sacrifice this unborn babies on the altar of our idol of personal freedom. And then ignore them. That massive dishonesty and denial fascinated - and angers - me. Because I'm human too. And have known vulnerability.

It bores you.

Which is why - on a political, not personal level, obviously - I am implacably opposed to all that you represent and have a deep and visceral loathing for your material collaboration in such a system.

Well at least the rich will be looked after

Good one here

Oh dear R277 you really let the cat out of the bag, you are a massively self loathing gay! Let's count the homophobic slurs in your post, there's gay ghetto, mental clones ( in capitals yet! ), showtunes, sequins, wigs! Well it sounds a lot more fun than whatever you get up to at the Conservative Association . However you are wrong about your sexuality being unimportant, even after a lifetime trying to assimilate you are judged entirely on your sexuality by those you suck up to,they just tolerate you because you play the game by their rules, it sounds like you've wasted your life living in fear for people who don't care about you. No wonder you are pro Brexit!

R209 Australia has already worked out its new export trade deals with the UK that are going to guarantee the direct exports of Australian goods that bypass Brussels.

That'll save the day R283 'direct' from Oz makes much more sense than dealing with the EU on our doorstep. By the way Liam Fox is another closet case ( google Fox and Adam Werrity ).

R283. Liam Fox.....biggest closet case in Westminster

[quote]I'm getting so excited. It's going to be a total shitshow and there are few countries who deserve it more.

Why does Britain "deserve it more?" Modern Britain is quite liberal and they do a lot of humanitarian work around the world.

R284 Yes, England may well go down the gurgler but at least we know there will be reliable amounts of Jacobs Creek still making it into the country.

The EU most certainly needs reform, the UK would have been more productive if it had pushed for reform within the community, even Yanis Varoufakis said brexit was a bad idea and will hurt the UK.

I love the audacity of a gay man telling women that for the good of the nation they must have 3 or 4 children. A. The carrying capacity of the planet is not unlimited - especially people desiring the lifestyle that first world nations have - so, rather than have an arms race, we have a baby race until there are so many people on the planet that the vast majority starve to death? B. It's the duty of people to put themselves in debt and possibly make it impossible to retire comfortable in order to feed and educate their children properly for the good of the nation. C. God (if that's what you believe in) aborts 30% to 50% percent of ALL fertilized eggs. (That's how many are miscarried) . What's His excuse? D. People moving to first world lifestyles ALL begin to have lower birth rates. It's a product of not needing to have unlimited children as a form of social security (more hands in the field, someone to take care of mom and dad when they are too feeble to harvest). This unwarranted fear that the blacks and the Muslims will move to Britain (or elsewhere ) and procreate themselves into a majority in 5 years is a ridiculous myth, not borne out by any study.

I have my doubts that r277 is British at all. I think he's a right-winger who watches Fox, which has recently been ramping up its anti-abortion programming a ton. Or else he is a European white nationalist who has been reading the equivalent of stormfront on the internet and the promotion of Aryan babies to maintain the racial purity of the white race and enough numerical superiority to offset the increases in population in other parts of the world, thus opposes abortion for WHITE people only.

R289 Then let me clarify. I'm British and live in Britain. I spent many years living in France. I disagree with abortion regardless of the colour of the skin of the baby. I regret that Europeans are not having enough children because I believe in diversity. I want there to be Romansh speakers in the Grisons of Switzerland. I want there to be Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht. I want there to be Bréton speakers in Brittany and Corsican speakers on Corsica because ROOTS are important and anchor us culturally and historically in a world undergoing great changes. But likewise, I want there to be Berber speakers in North Africa, and Maronites in the Lebanon, and Samaritans in Israel, and Aramaic-speakers in Iraq - all of them living vestiges of the past - because ROOTEDNESS in a place is important. And we should do all we can to encourage it - short of forcing people who really do not want to be part of their local traditions to do so.

It's so typical and so revealing that you read what I said and think I said this, "I love the audacity of a gay man telling women that for the good of the nation they must have 3 or 4 children." What I was actually talking about was the pressure bought on families to be interested in material stuff rather than children. I'm not 'telling women' to have 3 or 4 kids, I encourage the state to provide the tax breaks and encouragement to parents - a married man and woman - to have several children, not just one. That's a choice parents make together. You see it uniquely in terms of a woman bearing sprogs. I see it as a family, growing. As it is, we now ship in people cheaply, thereby depriving these foreign young workers from a family life back home for the good of their original countries, and yet, inevitably, changing radically the nations they come to join.

As for your risible point C: You might want to think about the fact that whilst people fall of cliffs in accidents quite often, it's different when they're pushed by a murderer. And simply saying, "We give people the choice - they can either choose to push someone or not push someone but at least they have the choice" isn't going to cut the mustard....

R290 It's strange you should be so anti- abortion as your presence here has been such a great argument for the practice. You invalidated yourself with your homophobic rant at R277 . stick to the self-loathing Brexit gays , they're your people. Your piss-elegant, know-all pontifications must go down a treat with the uptight ,straight -acting gays, but don't get too enthusiastic or effervescent , you don't want to give the game away or let anyone know your secret gay shame.

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[quote]to get some German dick or Swedish ass?

The ancestors of the Deplorables? Ugh no thanks.

But did you read the comments, typical right wing Daily mail respond, it's the EU's fault because of the new environmental laws, if the UK wasn't part of the EU, they wouldn't have left.

Yes R294 , Brexit = Trump = Same deluded, bigoted supporters, the ones our resident , abortion-phobic, 'gay' Brexiteer ( see their many-long winded, self important posts above ) thinks we don't care about enough.

Brexiteers, especially gay ones, should have the BoDeans' Closer to Free as their theme song.

They'll be too busy protecting their stockpile of dried food to waste time on fripperies like listening to music R296. I don't think there are enough gay brexiteers to warrant your recommendation anyway, there's just the one nutter above ( the one going on about abortion...Catholic? Beaten by nuns? Something went wrong anyway ) and I assume you, with your Rule Britannia nonsense. Nobody sings that apart from inbred, Last Night of the Proms Tory geeks and fogeys .If young people of today got to the "Britons never shall be slaves" bit, their bosom would not swell with pride, they would be aghast at the problematic lyrics. You live in the past R296 , Churchill died you know, but it sounds like you can't wait to dish up the Woolton pie.

In a nutshell

r290 To many of your comments, I say "balderdash". The only way to preserve the so-called diversity you claim to love, would be to utterly exclude all forms of travel, and to dismantle contemporary economics, returning people to subsistence existence. Once people have traveled, they have no interest in returning to their rural villages, facing ruin or starvation, when they could be earning a decent wage elsewhere. People are not as enamored of their "roots' as you claim. Sure, they like to be able to look on a map and say "that's where my ancestors came from", but that's about it. Human beings have been nomads since they left the plains of Africa. always on the lookout for better food, better surroundings, better climate, more water, more sunshine, whatever. Whoever was living in Britain 2500 years ago, (and it was not a large group), has been mixed with 2500 years of Romans, various Germanic tribes, French, Norsemen, Viking marauders, Irishmen, Spaniards, Dutch, etc. Hell, your royal family is not even British. So much for your "roots".

Yes, languages and cultures are important. They need to be preserved in some form - that's why we have books, film, and the internet. Do the British really want to return to a diet of oatmeal, peas, potatoes, and bread, with nary a hint of spice, or do they rather like to mix that up with some curry once a week, and some Caribbean jerk another night, some Italian or some Greek food another night?

The importance of diversity is in the value isolated stock has to improve vigor when hybridized with other stock. Any gardener can tell you that. Dogs bred to reflect uniqueness and "differences" quickly develop weaknesses and diseases specific to their breeds. Tell some poor Jew living with Tay Sachs, or a central African kid with sickle cell anemia that his "pure" ancestry is a blessing.

Murder is the killing of a living, independent, and sentient being. That has been the definition since the beginning of time. Prove to me that a 16 week old fetus has sentience and I'll give you a hearing.

Brexit is Y2K all over again. There will be no collapse. The UK will prosper when it breaks free from the control of the EU.

R299, great reply. I think I want to marry you.

I want the pick of the litter R301

Back off. I will marry, R299.

Not to worry, I'm generous with my favors.......hehe.......bigamy is legal, right?

Joel and Lia seem okay with it.

Cabinet ministers are apparently whispering about May possibly preparing to resign this week and a General Election would be called.

R300

The over the top fear campaign by the anti-Brexit crowd has pushed support for leaving even higher.

The leadership of the European Union understands that they need the UK more than the UK needs the EU.

What’s the UK is gone, Italy will follow.

And then Frexit.

R306

A forced resignation, and snap election, would galvanize the Brexit contingent even more so.

R308

Macron has to be worried. Unless the Gilets Jaunes protests fizzle out soon, the situation in France will become explosive (no pun intended).

The video of police blowing a protesters hand off was the last straw for many of the people sitting on the sidelines.

A total rejection of the French elite and a Eurosceptic government is almost inevitable unless things change drastically and immediately.

Brexit is shit, what will you anti EU nutters moan about once it's over ( if it ever is ) ? I suppose there'll always be something you are suspicious of or frightened by , I suppose immigrants will always be a fave, you'll always be gammon-ing about something you boring pricks.

George Soros has called for pro-Europe voters to wake up before the continent 'sleepwalks into oblivion' ahead of the looming European elections.

Writing in an article for business website MarketWatch, billionaire businessman Soros said the EU faced going the way of the Soviet Union if people didn't act to save it.

'Europe is sleepwalking into oblivion, and the people of Europe need to wake up before it is too late,' Soros wrote.

Soros continued to say that he believes the impending elections for the European Parliament in May this year will be pivotal for the future of the continent, but he argued anti-Europe parties will 'enjoy a competitive advantage'.

Soros has also faced controversy in the UK by ploughing at least £700,000 into Best for Britain, which wants MPs to vote down Theresa May's deal and stop Brexit.

--------------

If Lex Luther is for the EU, it can't be a good thing for ordinary people

R311 Name someone with integrity who is pro leaving the EU?

Mickey Mouse.

R311

Are you serious?

“...Soros said the EU faced going the way of the [bold] Soviet Union if people didn't act to save it.[bold]

If he actually said that, then his credibility has actually been destroyed in my opinion. Although the Soviet Union and the European Union are equally unworkable, direct comparison is hyperbolic.

Comparing the Soviet union and the European Union favorably, is insanity.

Wow R314 you are so convincing with your open mind , every post of yours is knocking the EU and anything connected with it, why are you pretending you are coming to this without a very fixed anti EU 'mind' ?

Yes! George Soros is just like Lex Luthor, and Brexit is the beginning of a glorious renaissance of Englishness, r314!

And I agree, the Soviet Union was much more worth saving than this pathetic European Union.

Na zdarove, friend!

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I want to see the UK crash and burn in a no deal Brexit. The majority of Brits need to get a lesson in humility. I want to see Little England. Give them what they want!!!

My Spanish friends hate the British who have retired in Spain. Most of them have been living in Spain for years but don't speak a word of Spanish. Simply could not be bothered. Some of them even voted to leave the EU (I know... the irony); thereby, cutting off their own freedom of movement.... Turkeys voting for Christmas. They regard themselves as Expats. Never as Immigrants (because that term is only for brown people and Eastern Europeans). They live in British ghettos and have no desire to assimilate in Spanish culture. The same traits they say they hate about the immigrants invading the UK.

So, good riddance, Little England!

I like R318's spirit.

Sadly most of the UK is not in favour of Brexit R318 but the sane and the lazy/indifferent who didn't bother to vote are being dragged off the cliff by the 'will of the people' nutters. The 'will of the people' in this case amounts to 17.4 million out of 64 million. However R318 is correct in their description of Little Englander Brexit morons , I hope they suffer the most for their idiocy, but like Trump voters they are true idiots driven by ugly motivations and will never own their responsibility. As with Trump voters there is an attempt from ghastly right wingers to push for 'libtards' to understand and sympathize with the pain of those who voted for Brexit, they've fucked that, we all hate each others' guts now and will do for the duration of the Brexit fallout which looks to last into the foreseeable future.

7 left leaning centrist MPs have broken away from the Labour party. They're a small group, but given that Theresa May leads a minority government, a handful of MPs like the DUP from Northern Ireland, who prop up her government, are important in the House of Commons. Their main aim is to get a second referendum for people to vote on remaining or leaving on the unpopular terms that Theresa May has negotiated. They sit as a group of independent MPs, meaning that once all of Brexit has been resolved, they could return to the party. Alternatively, they could form their own party or remain independent MPs until the next general election.

John Oliver despairing over the current state of Brexit, part 3.

NO deal is just karma, the British Empire was built on the suffering, misery, blood and bodies of native people.

We've not had an Empire since the 1950s, so pipe down.

Brexiteers want the '50s back R324 their ludicrous Brexit dreams are run on the fumes of an Empire they had nothing to do with, similarly they hark on about a war 'they' won which they were equally un-involved with so it's you who is in need of piping down.

Thanks - I think - for that, R322. I wish I could say that he's exaggerating, but as a citizen of the Benighted Kingdom with no way to leave, I think he's got it exactly right.

We are in very serious trouble.

[quote] Brexiteers want the '50s back [R324] their ludicrous Brexit dreams are run on the fumes of an Empire they had nothing to do with, similarly they hark on about a war 'they' won which they were equally un-involved with so it's you who is in need of piping down.

So, it's the British version of "MAGA!" Means nothing, doubtful it ever existed the way these morons think it did and is certainle not coming back, but will mobilize stupid without having to publicly state their racism.

Bingo R327 Brexit =Trump = angry, ill -informed reactionary morons.

Workers blame Brexit for demise of Honda's Swindon plant

Forty-four days away from Brexit and they haven't got a clue."

A Honda worker accuses the government of "completely incompetent handling" of Brexit and "idiocy of epic proportions".

I've been reading a lot about Brexit for the past two years and what strikes me is that I have yet to find one coherent argument FOR leaving the EU.

I've read comments on websites, seen tweets, watched YouTube videos from pro-Brexit folks -- and they all basically boil down to nothing more than rabid nationalism with a large helping of xenophobia. [italic]Control our borders! Brussels is bad! They need us more than we need them![/italic] They don't argue anything of merit, choosing instead to invoke everything from Agincourt to Waterloo to WWII. [italic]We beat those European buggers before and we can do it again! Rule Britannia![/italic] Earlier today, I even read one comment that amounted to: "We'll do fine without the EU agreements; after all, we're the nation that created the Magna Carta." And if anyone counters their bombast by mentioning, for example, businesses that have already left or the realities of trade agreements, the Brexiteers just scream "PROJECT FEAR!" (i.e. "FAKE NEWS!") and go on talking about the Blitz.... [italic]Make Britain Great Again![/italic]

So, yeah, just like the MAGAts: you can't talk to people with that mindset. They really are beyond hope.

Sad isn't it R331, both America and Britain have been shafted by their most worthless citizens.

And, what's so sad about it is it's self-inflicted and utterly unnecessary.

John Oliver: "Britain is basically Pompei if Pompei had voted for the volcano".

Totally R33, these losers think they are the backbone of the country whereas they are more like something decent people have trodden in and can't get off their shoe.

I see the Brexitards haven't joined the conversation, it's a relief not to have them shoveling their threadbare drivel ('Will of the people!..Liberal elite!..Brussels bureaucrats! ...Freedom! ') , they really are the worst of the worst.

r335 I've returned to DL after being away since August of last year and the difference when it comes to Brexit supporters defending it is remarkable. They used to be the most vocal in these threads, dreaming and screaming about those fabulous unicorns, getting wet at the thought of Trump giving them the best trade deal in the history of trade deals - as if! Now there's a month left, with only a handful (literally!) of trade agreements signed, and those posters are nowhere to be found.

Really? A delay until 2021?

r337 It's just a psychological trick to make the British MPs vote for the deal in order to avoid prolonging this for two more years.

This bit of news here is far more outrageous. She's running down the clock, hoping someone - anyone - will bink.

[quote]MPs may have to wait until 12 March for a meaningful vote on the government’s final Brexit deal, Theresa May has said in an intervention that will deepen splits in her cabinet.

[quote]The prime minister confirmed on Sunday that she would not hold the vote this week as she flew to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, where she is due to discuss Brexit on the margins of an EU summit with Arab leaders.

*blink

Everyone I know in Britain voted for Brexit.

That's quite the company you keep, r340.

R341 yes and they are all gay.

Ugh, those kind of gays, Brexit supporting, Andrew 'I think gay rights have gone too far' Pierce type, you have shitty friends R342

r342 Even worse.

So now Labour is getting behind a second referendum? Jesus Christ.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

David Davis Not ‏ @David_Davis_UK 1h1 hour ago

David Davis Not @David_Davis_UK

In the unlikely event that Brexit is stopped, don't worry.

Recreate the fun of no-deal at home.

Colour your passport blue.

Eat spam and beans.

Watch repeats of Dad's Army.

Report anyone foreign looking or with a funny accent to the Home Office.

Stop taking critical medicines.

Responding to R346: From the Independent: France would block a delay to Brexit unless it had a “clear objective” based on a “new choice” by the British, Emmanuel Macron has said. Speaking at a joint press conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris, the French president gave the clearest signal from an EU leader so far that there would be conditions on an extension to the Article 50 negotiating period. “We would support an extension request only if it was justified by a new choice of the British,” he told reporters.

“But we would in no way accept an extension without a clear objective.” The president added: “As [chief negotiator] Michel Barnier said, we don’t need time – we need decisions.” France has a veto on an Article 50 extension because all EU countries must unanimously agree to an extension for one to happen. Speaking at roughly the same time in Madrid, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez warned that Theresa May would merely be “prolonging uncertainty” by requesting a short Brexit delay without a realistic plan.

“Although Spain is not going to oppose the concession of an eventual extension, it must have a certain perspective of resolution,” he said. “Prolonging uncertainty by postponing deadlines is not a reasonable nor desirable alternative.” ....

Another massive day in Parliament where nothing happened.

All of Europe right now.

Yeah, France and Spain are putting the pressure on May, with Merkel sounding more compromising.

Post-Brexit UK will be able to enjoy plenty of processed US food as trump wants “comprehensive market access for US agricultural goods in the UK” (not his words obviously).

That should wipe out our farming industry here in the UK.

I don't have any dogs in this fight, since I'm American. But, Good Lord, didn't the people in the UK give any thought to what would happen between the UK and Ireland, and the Good Friday Agreement?. I don't know as much as I should about things over there, but even I was moved by that. I grew up watching 'the Troubles' reported on the news, night after night (I'm in my late 50s), and it's been so satisfying to see Ireland finally return to its own identity. And, of course, you can shut me down by mentioning our current president, but I certainly didn't vote for him, and I only know one person who did. I just read an article suggesting that Brexit may be the best chance to spur the reunification of Ireland. So that may not be a bad thing. The Irish are full of surprises.

[quote]I don't have any dogs in this fight, since I'm American.

The whole world has a stake in whether the UK becomes independent or stays under EU control.

[quote]But, Good Lord, didn't the people in the UK give any thought to what would happen between the UK and Ireland, and the Good Friday Agreement?

That was and remains literally on the bottom of their list of concerns. People care primarily about their jobs, not about a border issue on another island. Not that this referendum was ever about jobs, either. They were more than happy to have Polish people unclogging their toilets and changing their grandmas' diapers in nursing homes for minimum wage.

r356 The UK is already independent, stop being obtuse. But you're right, the whole world has a stake in this as it is presently salivating at the prospect of shafting the UK in trade deal talks; that's exactly why so few of them have been negotiated to this day. Everyone's waiting for the UK to bleed out some more and get the most concessions. In fact, that's exactly Australia's official policy - to wait and see just how weak the UK is in these negotiations, so they can strike at it with full force. And that's a supposed ally. Don't get me started on India, who is going to demand substantially lower food standards and a wide open door policy when it comes to student immigration.

The UK is going to be an enslaved country once all these trade talks are completed. Some would say that's karma for their colonial past.

But, Good Lord, didn't the people in the UK give any thought to what would happen between the UK and Ireland, and the Good Friday Agreement?

Very little thought indeed despite Ireland being a dominant feature historically throughout British history.

Whoops. What happened to R357?

This was R357:

[quote]But, Good Lord, didn't the people in the UK give any thought to what would happen between the UK and Ireland, and the Good Friday Agreement?

That was and remains literally on the bottom of their list of concerns. People care primarily about their jobs, not about a border issue on another island. Not that this referendum was ever about jobs, either. They were more than happy to have Polish people unclogging their toilets and changing their grandmas' diapers in nursing homes for minimum wage.

r356 The UK is already independent, stop being obtuse. But you're right, the whole world has a stake in this as it is presently salivating at the prospect of shafting the UK in trade deal talks; that's exactly why so few of them have been negotiated to this day. Everyone's waiting for the UK to bleed out some more and get the most concessions. In fact, that's exactly Australia's official policy - to wait and see just how weak the UK is in these negotiations, so they can strike at it with full force. And that's a supposed ally. Don't get me started on India, who is going to demand substantially lower food standards and a wide open door policy when it comes to student immigration.

The UK is going to be an enslaved country once all these trade talks are completed. Some would say that's karma for their colonial past.

DL was pro-Brexit. Never forget.

Oh righteous DL, not.

DL is pro-British.

Duh.

That’s why we support Brexit.

Brexit is an embarrassing shambles, being able to say' I told you so' is cold comfort for those who didn't vote for it. I have some selfish, elderly relatives who are gung -ho for Brexit, dislike foreigners, 'I don't want a Mosque on every corner, I don't want a curry house on every Street!' it's all very depressing. One was explaining his Brexit optimism , telling us his 82 year old friend George was very well informed and was very confident for the future, I said he shouldn't be as he didn't have one.

I hear many Brexiteers using these exact words, "Britain will never fail, the world loves us too much."

Trump and the U.S. won’t let the UK fall, but Trump will expect May and Sadiq Khan to do some groveling and the Queen will end up having to put in some overtime.

Trump is failing the USA R367 , he is not someone to look to at times of need, he'd only be interested in what was in it for him.

Trump might not even win next year's election. Next year will be spent trying to get back into office, the UK will be not even on his radar,

[quote]One was explaining his Brexit optimism , telling us his 82 year old friend George was very well informed and was very confident for the future, I said he shouldn't be as he didn't have one.

An 82 year old should not be deciding on the future of the country and fucking up young people in the process, the majority of whom want to stay in the EU.

D-Day for May today as the vote happens later tonight.

We're almost there and this tweet (from @GuardianHeather) about sums it up:

[quote]Less than half an hour to go, and Tory MP Steve Double says he still doesn't know how to vote. Says May's "polished turd" of a deal, "may be the best turd we've got".

[quote]I can safely say the no lobby is absolutely rammed.... the PM is about to face another huge defeat.

Not looking good for May. We're minutes away from learning the result of the vote.

Well, she has just lost the vote 391 votes to 242 - a majority of 149.

[quote]I can safely say the no lobby is absolutely rammed

Pics please.

You limeys are so screwed.

Damn she thought she had it in the bag.

What a mess!

She’s got the Gollum voice now

Vote tomorrow on whether the UK can leave without a deal (i.e. no, there has to be a deal). If that passes, there will be another vote on Thursday on whether to ask the EU for an extension.

But the EU will only grant the extension if A) the UK offers to negotiate a substantially different deal to the current one (like, say, a customs union), B) if the UK plans to revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU, or C) if the UK plans to have a second referendum.

[quote]Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, asks if there is any precedent since, say, the American war of independence of a PM being defeated twice, but continuing with the same policy.

Ouch.

I hope they vote to reject the possibility of a no-deal exit tomorrow.

If the stakes weren't so high, Theresa May would be such an amazing lulzy character.

This is careening into catastrophe, I can feel it in me waters.

r382 Totally. Those huge rocks around her neck that keep getting bigger and bigger with every appearance, and the croaking voice... the comedy writes itself.

It's going to be no deal. And it's going to be hilarious.

Yay, we (burp) win! We win! Ay, pour me another, brother, we win! (Another burp) We told Europe to get stuffed! Yeah mates! Yeah gov'nor!

We're more fucked or less fucked depending on your view.

Basically, we're fucked

Never, in the field of human negotiating, has much been fucked, by so few to so many.

Does anyone think it's likely we'll leave without a deal? I can't see that being anything other than disastrous.

Looking from the outside, it's incredible to see just how much time and money has been wasted on this deal that has now been rejected twice. But I guess that's the price for the Little Englanders' impotent rage to exhaust itself. Only when enough money has been wasted on this little nationalist bacchanalia, will they admit defeat. Perhaps that's the price for the dream of Empire 2.0 to die once and for all, so maybe it'll all be worth it in the end.

[quote]Does anyone think it's likely we'll leave without a deal?

Almost a certainty. We in Europe, while fretting the .5-1.5% loss in our own GDPs, are quite sick of the UK's nonsense. Your politicians have shown that they are unable to negotiate a lunch tab. And your populace are either fanatical or drunk. We just hope you don't accidentally start a war in Ireland.

Dear UK,

please fuck off, will you.

Best regards, Europe

All you bitches are complaining about Theresa but ignoring the European bitches she has to deal with.

It's fascinating to watch a country commit suicide.

Agreed, R393. Watching the US implode under Trump is fantastic.

Hahahaha, R394.

Trump isn’t forever, in case you didn’t know, but Brexit WILL BE.

The UK is far more stupid than the US to have gotten themselves into this utter disaster.

Brexit was caused by Russian propaganda and dumb citizens...same thing with Trump.

Definitely the same mentality, Brexit = Trump = angry xenophobic voters

Trump is awful. So is every last member of the GOP. But political winds are always variable within a country.

What the radical conservatives in the UK are trying with Brexit is astounding. Won't anyone there rise up and stop this nonsense. The only acceptable course at this point is no Brexit at all.

R392, what European bitches? Please elaborate if you can.

And the little Russian laughed... da?

Amsterdam will make a killing off all the businesses leaving the UK.

They already are, r401. Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, and especially Dublin.

I work in finance in Europe, and we've been getting multiple memos every day about international banks moving their Europen HQs out of London. And these moves seem to be for keeps, regardless of what happens next in Brexit.

Did I mention how fucked we are?

So it's all sorted out, then?

I think so r404. With the rejection of May’s deal yesterday and today’s likely vote to reject no-deal the UK isn’t going anywhere. The country will awaken from this nightmare and carry on in the EU like Brexit was just a bad dream.

NO, it's not sorted out yet. The Brits are just now sobering up after yet another night of drinking too much. When they find out about yesterday's vote, the shit will hit the fan.

What am I writing? No, it won't. They'll all just troop down to the pub and get pissed again. Same as always.

Wasn't it really just about anti-immigrant paranoia? The irony is now their country will be flooded with cheap foreign merchandise.

I lived in London in 1988 and 1989. It was okay. The food was awful. Good restaurants... awful. Neighborhood cafes... no better. There was no history, no culture, no knowledge of good food or excellent cooking.

Two years ago, I was back for a visit with friends. Excellent food everywhere. Things changed that rapidly for one reason. The easy migration possible within the EU. Better cooks with better methods arrived and revolutionized the culinary possibilities of the UK.

If the UK exits... it will be good bye tapas and welcome back baked beans on a potato. Good luck with that.

Oh la la, our work is never done!

Britain's arrogance created all this; "We are the envy of the world." "We are Europe's Treasure Island," as said by Farage said numerous time., "The Eu will do whatever we want.", "We are the most important country in Europe and the world."

The UK's belief they were smarter and superior than everyone else in Europe put together and could whilst the EU around their fingers, pretty much led them to this mockery.

May's voice is so shot the environment secretary had to open the Brexit debate today. She'll be whispering by the time the result of the vote is announced in the evening.

r410 Also, they obviously had no idea how the EU works, what with its various institutions. May spent two years zipping around the European capitals, hoping to sow division among the member states, but they all kept referring her back to Bernier because he speaks for them. It was so gross watching her stirring shit among the members just to try and get a slightly better deal for herself. It's unbelievable how many in Britain (on the right) are still stuck in the 19th/20th century mentality. Zero sense of solidarity with other member states, just this constant ravenous hunger to rebuild the Empire.

May had to deepthroat Macron for hours on Sunday. Rough work!

I would just like to reiterate how fucked we are.

R413, R405 says this too shall pass. So maybe some hope?

Debating how fucked we are in Parliament atm.

I don't see the gung ho, Rule Britannia , give me my brexit, old farts chiming in, have they finally realised how embarrassing they are?

The euros have had sufficient. This is getting so messy, omg.

[quote]The EU’s deputy Brexit negotiator Sabine Weyand has said MPs’ decision to resurrect plans already rejected by Brussels countless times shows that parliament is “divorced from reality”.

[quote]Speaking at a closed-door meeting of EU ambassadors this morning, Weyand made the tart observation about the Malthouse compromise - a variant of plans rejected by Brussels numerous times.

[quote]Quoting private remarks by the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, Weyand also said the decision to vote for no-deal was “like the Titanic voting for the iceberg to get out of the way”.

[quote]Officials have voiced astonishment that Theresa May is allowing a free vote on no-deal, rather than seeking to defend the Brexit agreement painstakingly negotiated with the EU over 20 months. One senior source told the Guardian the decision to hold a free vote was “incredible”.

Some are saying the defeated deal will be brought up for a vote again days before the exit date, when the MPs are spooked enough. Because that's just how democracy works in the UK. Two historic defeats mean nothing to May.

Sorry to be a johnny come lately - but all those people yelling outside of Westminster - are most of them Brexiteers or Remainers?

Poor Theresa looked so grim - and rather ill, besides having lost her voice. I hate Tories but they're not as bad as our Repigs - so I felt sorry for her. It was smug Cameron who got us into this mess - and I say us because it affects the US too. We need a strong EU - even moreso with our crazed dotard in the WH.

Those protesters are mostly Remainers. In other news, Merkel is not a fan of a second referendum.

[quote]Bad news too for those hoping for a second referendum — Angela Merkel is privately against because she doesn't believe it will resolve anything.

[quote]“Brexit has to happen. Then in 10, 20 years, a new generation may want to rejoin,” said a source with knowledge of her thinking

I'd love to know what QE thinks of all this.

We will leave. Our economy will be fucked.

We will have to reapply to join again in the future and that the Euro as our currency.

[quote]We will have to reapply to join again in the future and that the Euro as our currency.

Et rafraîchissez votre français. Oder deutsch.

UK folks: is there any deal that Theresa May could have negotiated that would have had the support of a majority of MPs?

What r423 said.

[quote]just this constant ravenous hunger to rebuild the Empire.

I’m sure Australia, New Zealand and especially India can’t wait for the Brits to come back and demand the Empire be reconstituted. The UK’s Farages and Boris Johnsonses are probably pretty convinced they can just swan in and say “We’re back for our convicts and settlers and East India Company slaves, chaps!” and it will all be just as it was under good old Empress Queen Vic.

There just won’t be enough popcorn in the world for that particular episode.

The issue is her party's MPs.

If she went to Brussels and negotiated a customs union or alternative agreement, then a large chunk of her own party would vote against it and she would have to rely on opposition MPs to get it through.

So, what? Well UK politics is very adversarial. Our first past the post system essentially maintains the two party system of politics we have. Conservative MPs generally support the Conservative government. By her relying on opposition MPs to get her deal through, would probably split the Conservative party in two, because she would be turning her back on her own colleagues to get her government business through.

I seems unlikely that consensus around any one idea will happen with Parliament as it is. No deal will be ruled out until the 29th March. An extension to the Brexit date is likely to pass Parliament tomorrow.

What the EU will ask is: How long? For what reason?

If Mrs May says that its to allow for a general election or a second referendum, then the EU will probably say yes. If she says because she needs more time to get her deal through Parliament, then they may be less willing.

Given that she had tried and failed twice to get the deal through, the I suspect she will try once more, if that fails, we will either exit with no deal or have to have a general election to decide. The question is what will the parties policies be. So even a general election might no happen. Essentially Mrs May is trying to grind her party down, until she gets her deal through.

We'll see what's popular tomorrow as they might resort to indicative votes. You vote on several options at once and each option with the least amount of votes is eliminated in each new round of voting.

r425 They keep talking about their Commonwealth allies but it was Australia and New Zealand who were the first to raise a stink when the UK wanted to roll over the EU quotas at the WTO in the event of a no-deal scenario. Which is entirely reasonable - they want the best deal possible for their electorate, not some dream from a bygone era that doesn't make them money.

It will be interesting if indicative votes take place.

Customs union Norway++ Canada + 2nd Referendum

Its hard to see any of them getting backing. So by default, the UK exiting the EU without any sort of deal grows. It's a complete mess.

[quote]If she says because she needs more time to get her deal through Parliament, then they may be less willing.

r426 The speaker also complicated her plans for a third vote today, by using common sense and democratic procedure:

[quote]John Bercow, the speaker, said that at some point in the future he could end up having to rule on whether to allow another vote on the PM’s deal - or whether to block it on the grounds that parliamentary rules say the Commons should not be asked to vote on a matter it has already considered.

EXIT BREXIT!!!

Since thebpeople now realize this was a scam, Will they be allowed to vote democratically for a new resolution?

It’s only fair to the people.

The Canada+ option always makes me laugh as it would bury the UK's financial sector. Also, Canada would start bitching if you offered the UK better terms than you had offered them back then.

Oh, and the Norway++ option necessitates Norway being part of that conversation and agreeing to the terms, so good luck with not getting scammed there.

Traitors are lobbying the other countries to veto the extension so the UK would crash out with no deal. You couldn't make this up.

R429 Is right. It is Parliamentary convention that a sitting Parliament is resolves a question and that is it for the duration of that Parliament.

May has returned with the same question twice now. To ask the same question a third time would be unprescidented. That's probably one reason why the tabling of today's and tomorrow's vote has taken place.

The Government who manages the business of the House of Commons would probably have to be a little creative about the text of a third vote to get it past the Speaker.

Is the EU planning to provide financial support to Ireland if there is any economic impact there from Brexit?

Yes, the EU has squirreled away some money to cushion Ireland (and others) from the effects of a no-deal Brexit.

That's great for Ireland then!

R434 I would guess Spain is the likely country to try and veto an extension in order to raise the Gibraltar issue. But, the EU would quieten down Madrid some way.

The dangerous one is France or Germany. If either Macron or Merkel lose patience with Britain and say enough us enough. We want to get on with other EU issues. Then that will be nail in the UK's no deal exit.

R436 I would guess the EU would have to provide Ireland with some sort of bail out. It's a small country, so that shouldn't be too much of an issue for the EU. What will concern them is the open border between the UK and Ireland and the opportunity for UK goods to enter the EU that way.

If I am currently a UK widget maker and my customer is in Germany. I can export with zero tariff.

If after Brexit my widgets would attract a100% tariff. I might be tempted to send my widgets via the Northern Ireland/Ireland border, into EU single market and thence to my German customer with a 0% tariff. If there are no checks between the UK and Ireland, then it would be difficult to determine the source of the widgets as being British.

Imagine loads of British companies doing that and that undermines the EU's single market.

Someone HAD to ask.

Let's check back in five years, shall we?

And regardless of where I stand on the matter, David Cameron (Dodgy Dave) should be hanged in Parliament Square for offering the referendum in the first place. It was criminal and he should be punished for it. And I say this as someone with serious doubts about the EU who can argue both side of this.

And perhaps we can hang Tony Blair next to him.

The thing that I kept banging on about with Brextards was two-fold.

1. If Brexit goes ahead and we leave the EU, there is *nothing* that can stop a younger generation in ten or even twenty years voting to take us back *into* the EU, despite assertions from Brextards saying the EU would never want us back. So even if we do leave, well, it's a short-lived thing.

2. And if we did leave the EU, the special little deal we've got with the EU that exists already will *not* be put into effect again (likely to say that if we don't leave the EU that deal'll come under so much pressure to be dropped...) so the Brextards can wave bubye to the pound, those precious blue passports and hello Euro and hello Schengen.

Brextards are fucking stupid. Criminally insane and corrupt as fuck. They should all be shot.

R441 He offered it in an attempt to shut up the Brexiteers in his own party. He was expecting the LibDems to veto it, but they didn't, expecting instead an overwhelming Yes vote.

R442 is right. There's nothing to stop us having a referendum every week if we wanted to.

The problem is the future terms of our rejoining. One of them will be taking the Euro as our currency.

We will rejoin when our economy is on it's knees, unemployment is high, because no one wants our products around the world, the pound is devalued and the cost of commodities priced in dollars becomes unaffordable. The US, China and other countries will flood us with cheap goods at volume hitting our domestic producers. The pound taking a hit will hit London as a financial centre, hitting our financial services sector.

We shouldn't be too smug about Trump being temporary, for two reasons. First, he's not. He's making decisions now that will have ripple effects deep into the 21st century, such as court appointments, including to the supreme court, and treaties which were painstakingly negotiated, then promptly dropped, such as the TPP and Paris climate agreement.

Second of all, even to the extent that Trump is temporary, we were just plain lucky he is. What if we WERE confronted by such a permanent and momentuous decision as BREXIT? Does 2016 fill you with confidence that we would take it any more seriously than the British did BREXIT?

London's status as an economic powerhouse has already taken a battering that it won't recover from that easily. It's the same effect that we saw in the recession - the true impact of the Credit Crunch took *years* to be fully felt and it's the same with London. And even if Brexit is cancelled, London won't be seen as a safe place, at least not economically.

R444, who says the EU will approve of you coming back?

You do know every single member state of the EU has to agree to a new member joining the club, don't you?

One single member state of the entire bunch saying "nay, we can't be arsed about you unreliable twats wanting to rejoin the club now that your entire economy is toast", and that'd be it for you.

[quote][R444], who says the EU will approve of you coming back?

My point exactly about the Commonwealth/Empire. They might well take the UK back, but they’ll want the UK on its knees doing their bidding. The UK won’t be the king pin any longer. It’ll be sad to see ERII as just a sideshow attraction for the tourists, with her court of jesters and scandal-ridden grandchildren pulling in the odd extra bob or two, but that looks like the bright new world for post-Brexit England.

Brexit is a horror show, and Cameron, Nigel, and Boris should be hung, drawn, and quartered for what they’ve unleashed on “the people,” and May should spend the rest of her days in the Tower for the utter ineptitude she’s shown in negotiating these past two years. Why she and other erstwhile Remainer Tories didn’t just hand over the whole stinking mess to Nigel and Boris to deal with is beyond me.

Another question that hasn’t been looked into except only cursorily is what largely Remain Scotland and Northern Ireland are likely to do in the none too distant, post-Brexit future. If the Remain sentiment stays at around 60%+ in both of these areas, just how much anti-Union sentiment is going to keep bubbling away until it eventually turns into a secessionist sentiment? It’s clear that, within the UK, it’s England that’s calling all the shots, but the SNP is snarling away in the background, and we all know that the DUP are just two-bit whores who represent only a minority of the NI electorate. These chickens will eventually be coming home to roost, and that will be another nightmare (I think this was one of the seething, deathly serious remarks May made in her postdefeat speech yesterday?).

I remain (ho, ho) hopeful that it will go to 2nd referendum. This has happened before in many other countries in Europe where referenda have been used. If it does, I predict the UK will remain, and no one will ever want to go done this muddy road again

R448 By 'Nigel' do you mean Farage?

Nigel Farage has never been elected as a Member of Parliament so I'm not sure why or even how anyone could or would have handed over any kind of Brexit negotiations to him.

R450, is there another "Nigel" to whom you suspect R448 might be referring?

Or are you just being bitchy?

R449, no thx, now it's time for you to leave. You may apply for re-entering the club in a couple of years. There won't be any cherrypicking for you, though. As you might've noticed by now: Despite still being a member of the EU, your privileges within the EU are basically already null and void.

Btw, despite being a member of the EU, there's no need to join the Eurozone. Denmark and the Czech Republic, for example, are members of the EU, but opted not to get themselves the Euro, at least for the time being.

Our Nige was one of the biggest campaigners for Leave, r450. IIRC, when push came to shove he actually resigned from his own UKIP as it lurched even further to the right so he could avoid taking any direct responsibility for anything. He could well have been nominated to some steering committee for the negotiation of our collective suicide—he would have got that job done much more quickly and cleanly that May—but he preferred to abandon the sinking ship, as rats and cowards are wont to do.

Given he's a member of the EU parliament (yeah, you can't make it up), what will Nigel FarARSCH do after March 29?

R454 He'll probably continue to do what he's always done ie nothing but claim expenses.

(Even if we do crash out with no deal at the end of the month, don't the UK MEPs still retain their positions as MEPS? I'm sure I read that somewhere)

Do you EU gays realize that, when you condemn the UK gays on here, most of them are probably Remainers?

[quote]Btw, despite being a member of the EU, there's no need to join the Eurozone. Denmark and the Czech Republic, for example, are members of the EU, but opted not to get themselves the Euro, at least for the time being.

r452 That's a prerequisite for all new members, though. It wasn't yet a set-in-stone requirement back when Denmark and Czech Republic joined.

r456 I think it's just the one person doing that. I'm very careful to always explicitly single out Leavers only. And if they happen to be gay, that's just so much worse because there's nothing lower in life than a homocon.

R456 Unfortunately DL skews old enough for there to be a couple of Leaver gays. There's a very vocal and slightly rabid one who'll probably turn up again soon.

May is a terrible leader. She knew early on that she didn't have the skills to negotiate this. She still thought she was qualified to make big decisions, like not holding another vote. How desperate is she to hold onto office, even when she's unable to get anything done?

Fuck. What a hack.

I've also noticed there have been a few American Leave supporters who don't have any kind of understanding of the EU or UK. They tend to 'type old' too and probably only ever visited London and Europe for a two week tour 40 years ago.

r461 Yes. They heard the Brexit slogan "taking back control" and have conjured up these mental images of QEII enslaved in chains somewhere. A weird misplaced solidarity with the English, born out of total ignorance of what the EU even is, how it works, and why it was established in the first place.

I'm not British. I have no skin in this game, and I don't really give two shits about moldy old Europe/UK. But it's interesting seeing the globalist elite blatantly disregard democracy when it threatens their interests.

R463 "globalist elite" haha

If the Queen croaked within the next few weeks do you think that would be reason enough for a postponement?

There is no going back to the way the world was 20 or 30 years ago, R463.

r464 That phrase is truly hysterical. Especially knowing what the "globalist elites" would do to most of the (smaller) countries of the EU if they weren't shielded by... the EU. Should the UK crash out of the EU without a deal, those same globalist elites will tear it apart trying to get the best trade deal possible. China, India, and the US will eat. it. up.

Joining together into trade blocs is the only way forward as much of the new GDP growth these days is created through global trade. It's either that or accepting a lower standard of living. And we all know what the majority would pick.

Once the die was cast after the referendum, May was the wrong person to send in there. The EU were never afraid of her, and if it had to be done once the results of the referendum were in, they should have sent a mad bull in to negotiate with the other obnoxious bulls. I don't say BoJo doesn't have his share of flaws, but sending in someone the other side instinctively knew was no real threat was a bad tactic. I'll give her fair marks for tenacity and trying, but putting her in as PM at the time was the wrong call.

Sometimes sanity isn't what is called for.

And it must be said that the road to BREXIT goes back 40 years at least. It didn't just open in March 2016 when Cameron set the date for the referendum in June.

What is saddening to me isn't so much the outcome, but its predictability given decades of government indifference to rising voices in the streets.

Reversing BREXIT right now will of course be welcomed by the CBI and BoE and that lot, but it will damage what little integrity the government has beyond repair. Leaving without a deal will punish the little people, not the CEOs.

When Americans moan about the ills of the Trump presidency, I say to you: it's not that I don't get it, but for massive contempt shown to an electorate, overlain with a level of mendacity and double-dealing and political self-interest breathtaking in its extent . . . you cannot match what a seemingly more plausible government has done to its people than what the UK Parliament has done to Britons in the last three years.

Parliament would be justly served if tens of millions headed for it with pitchforks and torches tomorrow morning.

[quote]they should have sent a mad bull in to negotiate with the other obnoxious bulls

Nope, it wouldn't have made any difference as the UK never had the upper hand for a second in these negotiations. That's what the UK side failed to grasp and why we were all screaming for them to wake the fuck up already. Also, you really think the Belgians - probably the best negotiators on the planet and right up there with the Koreans - would be afraid of a blustering English bulldog? No. The diplomats in Brussels are completely desensitized to that crap by now. Besides, you always have Merkel to go through as the last line of defence, and there's no Englishman alive that could take her on.

[quote]What is saddening to me isn't so much the outcome, but its predictability given decades of government indifference to rising voices in the streets.

You can thank the foreign-owned and Russian-supported rags for inciting those voices using systematic misinformation over a prolonged period of time. Worked like a charm.

It's my new favourite reality series: Hate Island, aka the Great British Bugger-Off

BBC political editor:

[quote]I normally try very, very, hard not to say things like this, but have never actually seen anything like what's happened tonight

Whose voters are responsible for Brexit? I see that about 52% of UK voters voted "leave". But Theresa May's party only got 35% of the vote last year.

So was it basically all the Conservatives voted "Leave" but then a smaller number of people from Labour and other parties did too?

Was it Rob Watson, R471? I love him. Great, distinctive speaking voice.

R469 "You can thank the foreign-owned and Russian-supported rags for inciting those voices using systematic misinformation over a prolonged period of time. Worked like a charm."

That's absurd - concerns about immigration go back to the 1960s - ask the Cockneys late of Newham if it was Russian lies. People saw their communities disappear after having had generations of roots in it.

Blaming the Russians is refusing to assign blame to policies that ignored public concerns that had some basis in reality. Britain, and especially England, is unrecognisable from just 40 years ago, never mind 60 years ago. Social media wasn't even around then.

These concerns and government indifference to them go back well beyond Putin and Twitter. As you sow, so shall you reap.

The conversation couldn't even be had. If we'd had the honest conversation, perhaps BREXIT wouldn't have happened.

r474, are you the eldergay brexiteer they warned us about?

R450 Nigel Farage could have become Prime Minister. Nothing in the unwritten UK constitution says that a member of the government has to be either an MP or a member of the House of Lords (the Solicitor General for Scotland is neither but is a member of the government), and by extension nor does the Prime Minister.

All s/he has to be is in a position to command a majority in the House of Commons otherwise s/he could not run an administration.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home was Prime Minister whilst still Earl of Home and member of the House of Lords. He renounced his title and became plain Sir Alec Douglas-Home so that he could stand for election to the Commons as described above. He remained Prime Minster even though he had left the Lords and had not yet been elected to the Commons.

The leader of any party in that position would be expected to fight a very quick and easy by election.

Now you know why we're fucked if Brexit happens.

R472 - it's more complicated than that. England, especially, is a very "regional" sort of place. The post-industrial northeast, a large swath of which is Labour voted LEAVE. The wealthier southeast voted REMAIN. A solid portion of Labour's base voted LEAVE but a greater proportion voted REMAIN. For what it's worth, Jeremy Corbyn is a long-time eurosceptic, look up his voting record - he voted against every singly EU treaty. I'd bet a month's pension he voted LEAVE in the privacy of the polling booth. He wants the UK out of the EU but for someone else to own it. And he may have gotten exactly that.

R475 - Good god. And they wonder why society is so splintered!

Did you read what I said upthread about Cameron deserving to be hanged in Parliament Square for offering the referendum in the first place?!

What is wrong with you people? Have you absolutely no ability to look at two sides of a question any longer?

When the Cockneys lost their stronghold in Newham after eight generations, many tried to regroup in Essex. Guess which county in England had the third highest LEAVE vote?

You really think it's all down to Russia? That those Cockneys weren't angry about having lost something they loved and valued that they felt had been just handed to someone else?

The BBC admitted it had avoided doing programmes on immigration for fear of being called racist.

Have you read any of Trevor Phillips' work?

I have, frankly, reservations about leaving, reservations about the EU, reservations about the Tories, and reservations about Labour.

Exactly what table has a place for me?

A short history of Britain's relationship with the EU.

R477 Your romantic idea about "the cockneys" is beyond absurd.

It's called White Flight and has been going on for years. It has its origins in white "cockneys" buying their council homes through Right to Buy, selling them for huge profit and being able to afford to move to more affluent areas. Newham was and still is one of the poorest areas in London. You think the "cockneys" weren't going to take the first chance they could to leave?

May's problem is that she's REALLY bad at being Prime Minister.

R477, I am R472 and R475. I was making a joke in R475 in reference to something someone wrote above.

Is ayb still about on DL? I’d like his views on this subject.

r480 She is. But for domestic reasons. Not the EU shit. She got the only type of deal any leader was ever going to get from the EU. Her ridiculous red lines didn't change anything, her weird feud with Junker didn't change anything. The EU was never going to roll over and give anything more. And honestly I doubt even calling and losing an election really changed the result of the Parliamentary votes. Parliament whatever it's party composition won't vote for the economic and political suicide that's on the table.

Interesting point, R439. Gibraltar. Spain would happily veto any requested extension to boost its claim to Gibraltar. If the UK leaves the EU, look for Spain to argue for keeping Gibraltar in the EU.

And if the UK does exit, Spain will be in the driver's seat once again, should the UK try to regain admission to the EU. That ain't happening as long as the UK tries to hold on to Gibraltar.

R479 - Talk to the BBC who finally ran a programme called "The Last White Cockney In Newham" and who were, predictably, immediately accused of running an anti-Muslim show.

I'm not romantic about Cockneys. People were angry. If they'd done so well out of it, they wouldn't hvae been so angry.

R489 - Nailed it. She's tenacious but unimaginative, mediocre, and uninspiring.

R489 doesn’t exist yet.

My favourite UK Referendum result was the 2012 vote in Manchester when we overwhelmingly voted against having a [BOLD] directly elected Mayor [/BOLD] (almost 55% against).

In 2014 the government announced that Manchester would be having elections for a [BOLD] directly elected Mayor [/BOLD] in 2017. He hasn't done anything except draw his £110,000 ($147,000) salary.

Theresa May is of the 'High Church tradition'— she is an Anglo-Catholic.

Can someone explain Brexit in a concise, simple explanation and why it’s good or bad?

I’m confused. I’ve been to the UK once. We stayed at The Ritz. I loved it. We had high tea with clotted cream. Extremely elegant and fun for a couple of Yanks.

R487 - Bad eyes, you're correct. Apologies, Was meant for R480.

R486

[quote]Can someone explain Brexit in a concise, simple explanation and why it’s good or bad?

The UK will become fully self-governing. That is generally seen as a good thing in history.

R493 It is a good thing.

Unfortunately, Britons who made the best empire n the history of the world have regressed into welfare-state full of whiners of all description.

I take it R493 is not young, nor does he have children who may want to study or live in, let's say, France.

How many little pieces will Europe turn into? Yugoslavia became what, five? I fear the UK will be three if not four. Hold yourselves together, dears! You don't think you need to be a solid bloc to combat Russia, China, the USA?

P.S.

Oh, and I doubt R493 is British.

R496 Is that a real problem? Hillary is always compiling that we are a divided nation.

^ No, Hillary is always complaining

So the parliament rejected a crash out of the EU. today.

Thank god.

What comes next? If they vote to extend, isn’t that just kicking the SAME can down the road? Will anything change?

Does the EU have to accept the delay? (I think an EU court has determined they do?) What happens if the extension doesn’t work? Does this just lumber along indefinitely?

I'm so confused. Somebody added an amendment and then Theresa voted against her own bill? And the crash out thing had loads of abstentions from Tories - and only succeeded by four votes? And I've never really figured out what the "backstop" is. A promise from the EU that there will be no hard border between the Irelands? Or is it the opposite? Who wants the hard border - the EU? the UK? Both (but N.I. doesn't?) Oh lord what a mess.

And Nicola Sturgeon sounds like she's itching for an independent Scotland just any minute she gets an opening.

r500 They have to accept a WITHDRAWAL of Brexit. That can be unilateral. A delay has to be negotiated. Though realistically there can be no withdrawal of Brexit without an agreed delay to organise a new referendum. So who knows before the 11th hour of all this.

If the EU does not agree to an extension, there will not be an extension. There has already been indication made by EU officials that an extension would only be granted for a specific and significant reason. As in, a new Parliamentary election or a new referendum on the Brexit. But NOT for British politicians to faff about and snark at one another.

Parliament voted today to reject a Brexit with a deal in place to govern the transition. Presumably, the Brexit effort would have to be terminated before March 29.

They don't HAVE to accept the delay. And I believe the prevailing wisdom is they will only do so if May is willing to give more concessions or hold a new referendum. Perhaps one that doesn't reduce the complexity of the situation to 11 words.

Sorry. Typing on a phone. R503 should be "Parliament voted today to reject a Brexit WITHOUT a deal in place..."

Hey, UK gays and lesbians, is anyone getting any work done?

Does Brexit have people basically a complete work stoppage?

[quote] Perhaps one that doesn't reduce the complexity of the situation to 11 words.

Not sure that would have made much difference. This isn't a movie where you spend an hour staring deeply at the ballot while stirring music plays before you make your democratic decision with a firm smile.

Intelligence Squared Germany ‏ @IQ2DE

If we want to be a serious continent, we need to be a superpower, not an old people’s home or a tourist theme park

[quote]The UK will become fully self-governing.

Yes, that's Brexit in a nutshell!

I'd thought a referendum vote in England is not legally binding and a quick check confirmed that. Would May et al suffer worse than they are suffering now if they say, "Having taken it under advisement, we'll pass?"

My money is on May's deal just squeaking through Parliament next week now that it appears hard line Brexiteers in her party see they've over played their hand and it's either her deal or likely no Brexit.

The UK needs a George Washington or John Adams type to lead them in breaking away, if that it what they are going to do, and not Theresa May.

R510, I've been making that point since this all started. The referendum was just an advisory vote. It's not legally binding, and they don't have to leave the EU.

The London-based French journalist Agnes Poirier says that Aaron Banks (who financed some of the Brexit campaign?) was in Italy yesterday - trying to convince Salvini to veto the Brexit extension. Link to a debate on Brexit on the France 24 network.

BTW, the French host Francois Picard is hot as hell !!

Conservatives just can not govern to save their own lives. No matter which side of the pond.

They are better off as a minority party where they can keep their hypocrisy on a rhetorical level.

Let them keep their make believe worlds on paper.

The citizens deserve another vote now that the truth has come to life.

The democratic thing to do here is give the people a chance to vote now with the latest revelations of foreign influence and an effective disinformation campaign has come to light.

Junker is desperate for extension.

Germany, the UK, France and Italy are the four largest economies. Removing the UK would devastate EU financial commitments.

The UK has Brussels over a barrel, but since the vast majority of parliament is pro remain, they keep pissing away time.

A no deal Brexit with WTO rules would help the UK far more than it would hurt the EU.

The Brexshitshow is ending.

FOOKOFF r516

You’re essentially proposing that since the vote didn’t go the way that the government wanted the vote to go, the people should have to vote again and again and again and again until they get the vote the government wants.

That’s not how democracy works. Brexit should be definitive.

Where is the beggar woman when you really need her?

Brexit on fire! Brexit on fire!

Like you're a definitive Gammon R518 ?

About 5 Eurostar trains a day are getting cancelled everyday. The others are running 1-2 hours late due to customs.

R522 because of French customs industrial action. It's not to do with Brexit.

[quote]The UK needs a George Washington or John Adams type to lead them in breaking away, if that it what they are going to do, and not Theresa May.

Again I think we should avoid being patronizing about this sorry affair — because we have had a similar example of political intransigence here in the US.

Parliament can’t decide what it wants to do regarding Brexit — largely the fault of the conservatives who actually want it. The same happened here regarding the rightwing attack on the ACA. Dismantling Obamacare was a cherished goal of the rightwing and then ... it became a reality — they owned Congress AND the White House.

Yet still they couldn’t get it to work. Why not? The republicans couldn’t agree on how far to go on stripping away the coverage. Sound familiar?

[quote]I'd thought a referendum vote in England is not legally binding and a quick check confirmed that. Would May et al suffer worse than they are suffering now if they say, "Having taken it under advisement, we'll pass?"

The UK's Deplorables, fuelled by The Telegraph, Mail, Express and Sun would go berserk. They were bad enough leading up to the original vote, and tension in the country is yet more embedded now.

Keen Remainer here, and I'd love the arrogant damaging Leavers to face a decisive setback. Everyone knows though that the effects of that will be ugly. All police leave cancelled, I imagine.

Even the The Sun are now stating leaving without a deal would be suicidal for the UK economy but all I hear from leave voters is "fear mongering", but these people are whole unqualified in businesses and economy studies, so how can they make that call?

Every major business and financial institution in the UK are stating outright that a no deal would be disastrous for the UK, but a load of unqualified, for the most part uneducated, certainly in the field of business studies, are calling it fear mongering.

Hey Britain, You know Putin is be hide the whole propaganda thing. When you brexit, your economy will plunge. The Tories, May party, will use it to GUT your beloved NIH, Schools, pensions and other social services that you love. They will blame it on you.

Labour thinks they might be able to take over and wipe out the tories, when brexit happens and they make cuts to these services. They want the people to actually see that austerity policies are harmful. Also, the expose the propaganda of the Tories.

But, what usually happens in a crisis is the banks/financial institution win.

So basically what i am saying, you are FUCKED!

French customs industrial action has EVERYTHING to do with Brexit. Why do you think they started that?

What happens in a crisis is that the weakest die.

Tell me about it, R529.

There are plenty of veery poor people in Britain. Visit sometime. And I don't even live there.

What's ironic is I'm pretty sure most of them voted for this mess, out of desperation no doubt. It's the "fuck everything" vote. When you are that desperate you cannot make rational decisions anymore. It's even worse when it gets piled on generation after generation.

R531- That's a vast oversimplification. "Most" poor people in Britain aren't a monolithic group. Cornwall is one of the poorest areas of Britain - it voted LEAVE. Tower Hamlets is one of the poorest boroughs of London with the highest rate of poverty, child poverty, unemployment, and pay inequality of any London borough. It voted REMAIN by more than 70%.

Regional issues are poorly understood by outsiders. A significant portion of Labour's white working-class base voted LEAVE but more voted to REMAIN.

The north has always been England's stepchild, and the impact of the postindustrial years when shipbuilding and mining and coal and textile production disappeared leaving places like Newcastle in worse shape than they were in the 1930s (look up the Jarrow Walk) have not entirely disappeared as those areas have had to reinvent their economies. The Tyne area still has a lower life expectancy than, say, London.

And yet, Newcastle voted REMAIN, but only by about 1%.

So don't reduce all poor and/or all minority populations in Britain down to one convenient box. The poor in Cornwall and the poor in Tower Hamlets are not interchangeable.

"The poor in Cornwall and the poor in Tower Hamlets are not interchangeable."

The rich and powerful people, they certainly are.

[quote]There are plenty of veery poor people in Britain. Visit sometime. And I don't even live there.

[quote]What's ironic is I'm pretty sure most of them voted for this mess, out of desperation no doubt. It's the "fuck everything" vote.

Hey that sounds familiar!

So today is about postponing Brexit, but Theresa May wants to come back next week with the deal for a third time. On the basis that she's threatening those leavers in her party that if they don't support her this time, then she will get a long delay of many months from the EU, thus their Brexit will be postponed significantly or never.

One group have tabled an amendment today to get a second referendum, but the Labour party has indicated that they won't support it today.

So again another day of talking and voting on what Parliament doesn't want, whilst the clock ticks.

Leave voters seem very similar to trump red state rust belt voters who have lost lots of manufacturing hobs and need to blame SOMEONE besides themselves for not adapting their skills when manufacturing started to fall apart in the late 80s. They are happy to “blow the whole thing up” and take everyone down with them. I’m sorry for the young people of England, i do think Scotland will seek independence soon.

But for Northern Ireland, this would have gone pretty smoothly, right?

England colonization of Ireland was so horrible.

*English

If Brexit somehow leads to the reunification of Ireland that would be hilarious.

I cant see that happening given the religious divide there.

The majority of the people of Northern Ireland wish to remain part of the UK.

The only way Northern Ireland would merge with the Republic of Ireland is If that changes somehow.

The Irish situation is so sad. It should never have been colonized. It was England's first colony, where the term "plantation" emerged.

The only alternative that would have avoided this problem would have been assimilation, but England wasn't interested in giving anything to the Irish or pursuing integration

The turd himself weighed in after meeting the Irish prime minister:

[quote]I don’t think another vote would be possible because it would be very unfair to the people that won. They’d say ‘What do you mean, you’re going to take another vote?’ So that would be tough. I thought it would happen, it did happen, and both sides are very, very cemented in. It’s a tough situation. It’s a shame. There was no reason for that to happen. They could have had the vote and it should have gone smoothly and unfortunately it didn’t.

[quote]I’m surprised at how badly it’s all gone from the standpoint of a negotiation. I gave the prime minister my ideas on how to negotiate it and I think you would have been successful. She didn’t listen to that and that’s fine - she’s got to do what she’s got to do. I think it could have been negotiated in a different manner, frankly. I hate to see everything being ripped apart now.

Is he continuing to lie that he was in Turnberry the day before the vote in 2016 whej he didn’t arrive until the day after?

The radicals in her party want to pass May's deal and then use article 62 of the Vienna convention to unilaterally renege on the deal. Because that's a completely normal thing to discuss in a democratic country.

[quote]Howe, a member of Lawyers for Britain, has been damning about the possibility and told the Standard that the use of the convention required a “radical change of circumstances.” He said that the international court of justice had considered “the fall of the Soviet Union, disappearance of the Warsaw Pact and dissolution of Czechoslovakia, were not sufficient to satisfy this ground”.

If the UK did that, other countries would not wish to enter into agreements with us.

Essentially, May is trying to provide a fig leaf for the DUP and her Brexiteers to get behind, to get the deal through.

Adorable. Listen to Sophie from London! She's the future, not some old codger with one foot in his grave who waxes nostalgically about the rations during The Blitz.

I think it's clear what kind of people are pro Brexit. The same who admire Trump, the old, the stupid and the racist.

If the British people wanted MPs that would strongly support Brexit they should have voted for them when they had the chance at the last general election. Too bad, so sad. Elections have consequences.

Labor needs to quit stalling and put up the second referendum. It’s very strange that they won’t do that even though their constituents demand a second vote.

2nd referendum amendment voted down. Hahahahaha.

This next amendment vote is crucial, apparently, and if it goes against May she’s probably done.

[quote]They could have had the vote and it should have gone smoothly and unfortunately it didn’t.

Yes, one of the most divisive and complex situations not only only of modern times but ever, really should have just 'gone smoothly.' Specially with priceless advice from The Great Dealmaker. The world can see how smooth the mood is in the US.

So, the House of Commons voted by a majority of 2 to let Mrs May continue to drive the agenda.

That means that we can expect to see Meaningful Vote 3 next week.

So Norway + is going to eek through - and then the UK will be back in the EU in a few years, euro and all. (just a prediction)

[quote]That's a vast oversimplification. "Most" poor people in Britain aren't a monolithic group. Cornwall is one of the poorest areas of Britain - it voted LEAVE. Tower Hamlets is one of the poorest boroughs of London with the highest rate of poverty, child poverty, unemployment, and pay inequality of any London borough. It voted REMAIN by more than 70%.

What percentage of the people in Cornwall were born in England, and concerned about the well-being the UK, compared to the percentage born in England in Tower Hamlets? The percentages for ethnicity, religion and use of English language of people in Tower Hamlets would also be useful.

Cornwall is in England, It's just a County. I think they have one of the lowest levels of non-UK born residents in the whole Country.

Do yourselves a favour and don't visit Penzance.

I visited The Pirates of Penzance on Broadway, primarily to gaze upon Rex Smith bountiful bulge.

Typical Penzance residents.

A better explanation of Cornwall.

It doesn't cover the lack of affordable housing or jobs though. It's just another area of the UK that hasn't ever had any investment, especially by Governments.

So now that parliament has voted to ask the EU for an extension, it’s my understanding that all 27 member states have to permit it or the original date will still apply.

British and euro gays, what’s the likelihood that will happen?

Slim if May's deal isn't passed.

Just leaves the option of withdrawing article 50 and a new referendum.

So, what's the long view here? If they've voted against a 2nd referendum, then Brexit in some form occurs at some point, right? I mean, even with more time, something has to be done at some point. This all seems needlessly complicated and last minute.

There is still an option to vote for a second ref.

This was in the New York Times yesterday. Could someone please explain it? How was Parliament's ultimate motion a blow to May ("Parliament voted against leaving the European Union without a deal at any date, with members of her own government rebelling.")?

I'm confused. Thanks very much in advance.

[Quote] Under pressure, Mrs. May had agreed to a motion asking lawmakers to vote that they opposed leaving the European Union as scheduled, on March 29, unless an agreement with the bloc were in place.

[Quote]Instead, and against her wishes, Parliament voted against leaving the European Union without a deal at any date, with members of her own government rebelling.

[Quote]Though it was nonbinding, the vote was another harsh blow to Mrs. May. A critical part of her strategy has been to play for time and use the fast-approaching threat of a chaotic, disorderly and economically damaging exit as leverage to get reluctant lawmakers to back her deal.

OK, I saw something on U.S. news a few hours ago about a vote against a 2nd referendum, but I guess it can be brought up again.

Tried to post this link before and failed. This helped me understand, in summary, what went down between the EU and UK.

I was one that felt it was a great thing that the UK would have sovereignty again but after reading this tweet I understood that the deal they made with the EU was pretty exceptional and am now confused as to what the fuck happened.

Will anyone friend me now if I say I believe Britain should remain?

Otherwise, fuck my life and fuck the shitheads who voted Leave in the first place.

So, IF the EU allows an extension... what next? Are May and her cabinet just going to keep kicking the can further and further down the road?

And if they get an extension does that mean they are still under the conditions of the original deal they made?

I was in a meeting at work a day or two ago, when May's second plan was voted down, and before the meeting started we were sitting around in the conference room (we are attorneys), and I told my colleagues, who are mostly women, that the BREXIT plan had been voted down again. They looked at me and smiled. I said that I was worried that a hard exit could hurt European economies and possibly even trigger a depression in the world economy, and they smiled more. One laughed.

Then one of my colleagues mentioned the Huffman/Loughlin thing and the whole room erupted in laughter and nonstop chatter. I doodled on my pad and waited for the meeting to start.

[r570] where do you work, the legion of doom?

Why yes, r571, as a matter of fact I do.

There’s no sense in prolonging the agony and chaos. This bandage needs to be ripped off and then life can go on. The politicians voted according to how they felt they needed to, but now just one of the EU countries needs to veto an extension so that Brexit will happen by default on 3/29. Nothing is going to change between now and the end of any proposed extended time.

It looks like the tories (teresa may) want a hard brexit, who are a bunch of dumb, rich people., Just cannot tell through the posh accents. Then, someone told them about the Ireland boarder situation, and the tories would be blamed for any hardship and violence that occurs. So they said well do something about it to the EU. The EU said you did this to yourselves.

I think this explains everything.

The UK is not going to put in any border control on the Irish border so that it will be 100% the fault of Ireland and the EU if there are stops on the Irish side.

R554 Tower Hamlets is a horror show of corruption, mind-control and fraud

Ok, after tonight’s latest round of “conscience” votes, I’m now officially lost as to what this disorderly bunch of idiots think they’re doing. How does May come back from her own Brexit minister voting against a motion that she wanted and he’d argued for right up until the vote?? I’ve never seen insanity of this magnitude grip an entire parliamentary assembly and an entire nation (the BBC keeps interviewing idiots in pubs saying “Leave means leave”...).

The big question is, When did the UK become Italy????

^^^Mamma Mia!

We are destined for a once in a lifetime chance to become a European banana republic with a second class economy looking enviously across the channel at what we used to have, a bit like a millionaire that lost it all and ended up in a static home caravan park overlooked by his old house...

Currently, I'd vote for WestminsterEXIT at the drop of a Fedora.

I no longer have any idea what's going on either, R577.

Trump is really licking his chops over this. If he has his way, hard exit and you become a touristy tax haven full of Trump resorts and enjoying bleached chickens in a can from the US.

Lots of jobs for the gammons, though. The new Disneyfied UK will need plenty of folks to dress up as pearly kings, chimney sweeps, and wenches for the amusement of the Chinese tourists. It’ll be fun, like a Renaissance festival!

The British public will never accept US food imports. Contrary to popular belief, we take our food seriously and no-one is going to put up with that sub-standard chlorinated chicken.

We might not have had a civil war for a while, but there would be one in seconds if any of that nasty chicken ever landed on our shores.

It's basically the only post-Brexit possibility that's managed to gain the public imagination.

This is a stupid question but could May just fall on her sword and cancel Brexit? It was a non-binding resolution. Parliament would have to vote on it but would they have the guts?

Extending the deadline just means the uncertainty drags on. Companies are already fleeing London for the continent.

This situation is so upsetting. The Brits I meet traveling are sick of talking about it. One retired couple from northern England did say they didn't think like they'd be affected. (I should think the pound crashing would affect their travel plans)

Well, well, Jolly Old England... if this is what saves you from Brexiting yourselves into oblividon, it has done its job.

Please. Take as many as you need. We don't really want them here.

Even the Darfur Orphan politiely said 'No' to Sweet Sue's Canned Whole Chicken.

Basically Mrs May is going to try one more time to get the deal through the House of Commons.

The DUP that prop up her government are in talks about further legal assurances. However, some of her own party are still unhappy.

Although she is attracting a few more MPs to vote for her deal, it's not certain that that is enough. It's also in the air if The Speaker would allow MV IV.

I think she will get it passed, because it's either her deal or an even softer deal, the ERG know that a no deal is never going to happen, so this is the best deal they'll get.

R586 There is no softer deal available than May's deal. The EU has already said it won't negotiate any other deal.

For the EU to agree to a deadline extension, May has to give them some kind of reason that an extension will be useful. At the moment there's no reason she can give that that's the case.

I think the UK will still crash out with no deal.

Doubt it. Another referendum is coming. The rest is noise.

Another referendum will NOT happen as long as May is still PM.

[quote]The big question is, When did the UK become Italy????

The whole thing is a mess. There is conflict everywhere.

Our first past the post electoral system is intended to create strong majority governments, but Theresa May was elected as a minority government, reliant on the DUP from Northern Ireland.

So Conservatives govern, Labour & smaller parties oppose. That then precludes parties working together to try and resolve anything.

Both Conservatives and Labour are split in their approach to Brexit too. But none of those splits are in a majority. So Mrs May cant get her plan through. Hard Brexiteers can't get their No Deal Brexit through. 2nd Referendum people failed to get that through. There's no mechanism to debate Norway + or Canada ++ at the moment.

The government control the Parliamentary timetable, so Theresa May will keep applying pressure until MPs crack. She might get it through, she might not.

Whilst there's a lot of talking and voting, the talks and the votes are pretty meaningless, as the clock ticks on. No way will Parliament let us leave with no deal. The hard Brexiteers may try to block legislation to amend the act of parliament bringing the UK out of the EU, but that would be an uphill struggle. So off we go to the EU and ask for an extension of time. The EU may or may not give it to us.

The whole thing is a mess.

The EU won’t grant an extension . They’re beyond exasperated by the UK by now. And so many businesses have bailed out of the UK that a good portion of the damage has been done, anyway.

r593 They'll definitely grant another extension. That costs the EU nothing until June. The issue is there's not enough extensions out there to get a compromise deal through Parliament. And MP's aren't willing to commit to jumping off the gallows, or taking the noose of their neck before they have no choice but to choose.

The EU Parliament elections are in May, R594. If they grant an extension it will only be for a month or so at the most.

The EU leadership knows that they are the biggest losers in a “No Deal” scenario, so the bluffing is only working on the MPs.

A second referendum is a non-starter because of the ridiculousness. What should they call the second referendum?

“The people shall keep voting until the people vote the way that their leaders want them to vote?” Referendum?

r595 For some reason I was thinking they were at the end of June rather than May. But my point was everyone is willing to kick the can as far away as they can before it starts being damaging. So EU elections are when the UK government has to put up or shut up. Before that they caneasily shove their heads in the sand.

[quote]The EU leadership knows that they are the biggest losers in a “No Deal” scenario

If you really believe this (and I’m pretty sure you don’t and you’re really only shitstirring), then your IQ is severely compromised.

a hard brexit, actually even a moderate brexit, will cause economic problems and just some chaos that will HELP all the conservative parties in all countries pass more austerity policies.

The count down to AUSTERITY begins....

The rich are lying, dancing and laughing....