The Brexit Thread

[phart]

10 hours ago, Third Lanark said:

There is precedent. In the eighties she dismissed Gough Whitlam's Australian government. If she doesn't do that now then she has not remained neutral.And maybe that should spell the end of monarchy.

Yeah they got rid of the best Prime Minister Australia had (it;s amazing what he got done in reforms) Took them out of Vietnam, abolished compulsory Draft, introduced universal healthcare and free education. Started the momentum for equal rights for aborigines and woman.

This is the event i used to argue that the Queen isn't as benign as claimed, normally when me and DonnyTJS were debating constitutional set-ups. His argument would have been totally compelling if not for this one incident.

[phart]

7 hours ago, aaid said:

Ruth's going to chuck it tomorrow.  Standing down as Tory Leader but presumably not MSP as that would force a by-election they'd likely lose 

I know it won't affect anything, but would be weird if the list had to get done and Davidson leaving politics but also my guy getting chucked out happened, would not know how to feel, happy/sad.

[aaid]

6 hours ago, phart said:

I know it won't affect anything, but would be weird if the list had to get done and Davidson leaving politics but also my guy getting chucked out happened, would not know how to feel, happy/sad.

Doesn't work that way - and I'd be surprised if she didn't stay on as an MSP, from what I gather she does bugger all work in the constituency anyway - but what is somewhat ironic is that with Neil Findlay standing down as a Lothians list MSP, his seat goes to the next person on the Labour list.  That means Sarah Boyack returning to Holyrood.  She previously held Edinburgh Central, lost it to the SNP in 2011 and was also one of the candidates that Ruth Davidson beat in 2016. 

Its an interesting point though, constituency by-elections impacting the proportionality of regions, hmmm.

Another point to note.   Overall majority in Holyrood is 65.  SNP currently have 62 seats. If they win today's Shetland by-election then that puts them on 63.  A win in Edinburgh Central takes that to 64.  Then you have Mark McDonald.  That makes a majority of MSPs that were elected on the SNP manifesto which knocks down another argument for there being no mandate for IndyRef2.

[Orraloon]

I can't see SNP winning today. Would be good, but I don't think it will happen.

[aaid]

9 hours ago, Dave78 said:

Do you still believe the UK won't leave the EU in any meaningful way?

 

 

I agree the Tories are toast if they don't leave the EU, but still be toast in the event of a No Deal? I'm not so sure.

On the first point, I genuinely don't know.  All boils down to whether it's deal or no deal. Any sort of deal that takes us into a transitional period probably has a high likelihood of remaining more tightly coupled to the EU in the long term than some like the ERG would like but which probably would be position that could command consensus support, ie, no-one's really happy with it but it's better than the alternative for everyone.  That's what I think May was aiming for, get the deal through and sort everything out later.

Where the Tories sit now their big threat is the Brexit party, not that they will win enough seats to have any impact but that they could take enough votes off them that means they lose seats to Labour or the Lib Dems.   

If it's a No Deal, then that probably means that most if not all of the Tory votes that went to the BP in the Euro elections will go back to them.  However, you have to balance that off against the votes they will lose from Tory remainers because of no deal.  I'm sure that's a calculation they will have done.

Theyll also be hoping/expecting that the votes they do lose will go to the Lib Dems and not to Labour and also that Labour also lose votes to the Lib Dems.   That way, they might get an overall majority on something like 35% of the popular vote.  It's a risky strategy though as campaigns can have a life of their own. Theresa May called a snap election because Labour were all over the place and look how that ended up.  Labour are still all over the place but are they in any worse shape than in 2017?

[aaid]

15 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

I can't see SNP winning today. Would be good, but I don't think it will happen.

If they don't - given the effort that they've put in and the shenanigans over the last couple of days - then they never will.

I think they're coming from a long way back but they have a good chance.  I saw an old quote from Tavish Scott in - I think - 2016 saying "if it's the SNP against the Lib Dems then the SNP wins but if it's me against Danus Skene then I win".

That ties in with what friends of mine from Shetland have told me in the past, that there's more SNP support in Shetland but mor Lib Dem support in Orkney.

aaid's totally unscientific polling.  Last week a friend of mine from Shetland put a picture up on Facebook of him, the FM and Tom Wills with words to the effect of "just met Nicola Sturgeon and Tom Wills, he'll be getting my vote".

Up until that point, I'd never seen this guy post anything remotely political and I had no view on his leanings one way or another.  Big Rangers fan, btw  

What was even more interesting was that the people who commented negatively on that seemed to be from the mainland whereas those that commented positively were from Shetland.

We'll find out later  

 

 

[exile]

Will Boris come back with a 'polished turd' (May's 'deal' with backstop still there but fudged and rebranded as a greater british isles accord, peace in our time) and dare Parliament to vote it down (ready to blame them for No Deal)? 

Does he shift the backstop to the Irish Sea, some sort of NI fudge that puts NI on a different footing from the rest of the UK, say it's a Great British compromise? Or just go straight to No Deal?

In other words is he going to shaft the ERG, the DUP or 'the whole country'? 

It's the same decision still in play for three years, a decision that May kept postponing making until she lost the right to make it.

In the case of option 1, what would the SNP do?

[ParisInAKilt]

Can’t be all bad, Owen Jones is crying about it in the Guardian .....

[exile]

I realise there's a bit of an exaggeration calling it a 'coup' but has anyone explained why, if this is all just "normal business, what we always do, nothing to see here", it took Rees Mogg to physically fly to Balmoral to get the personal permission from the Queen?  Is it because de Pfeffel was just anointed in the summer holidays, and there's not normally a 'new government' in September? 

[aaid]

1 hour ago, exile said:

Will Boris come back with a 'polished turd' (May's 'deal' with backstop still there but fudged and rebranded as a greater british isles accord, peace in our time) and dare Parliament to vote it down (ready to blame them for No Deal)? 

Does he shift the backstop to the Irish Sea, some sort of NI fudge that puts NI on a different footing from the rest of the UK, say it's a Great British compromise? Or just go straight to No Deal?

In other words is he going to shaft the ERG, the DUP or 'the whole country'? 

It's the same decision still in play for three years, a decision that May kept postponing making until she lost the right to make it.

In the case of option 1, what would the SNP do?

It's very fluid times but I would assume the SNP would vote against any form of Brexit  as they have done throughout.

[Dave78]

2 hours ago, aaid said:

It's very fluid times but I would assume the SNP would vote against any form of Brexit  as they have done throughout.

They did vote for a form of Brexit though. One that kept the UK in the single market and customs union. It was during that period of 'indicative votes'.

 

 

[aaid]

24 minutes ago, Dave78 said:

They did vote for a form of Brexit though. One that kept the UK in the single market and customs union. It was during that period of 'indicative votes'.

 

 

You'd need to really go back and look at the exact motion to see what exactly that was about - I don't know.  Staying in the SM/CU was one of the proposals they put forward to get some consensus though but it's never been on the table. 

[Dave78]

16 minutes ago, aaid said:

You'd need to really go back and look at the exact motion to see what exactly that was about - I don't know.  Staying in the SM/CU was one of the proposals they put forward to get some consensus though but it's never been on the table. 

https://ig.ft.com/brexit-second-round-indicative-votes/

"Ahead of Monday’s votes, there was excitement around Common Market 2.0, the softest of the Brexit proposals, which would keep the UK in the single market and in a customs union with the EU.

It won the formal support of the Labour and Scottish National parties, and ended up losing by 21 votes"

[ParisInAKilt]

Westminster is full of globalist shills, leaving the EU was never going to be easy but wouldn’t have predicted 3 years like this. 

[aaid]

1 hour ago, Dave78 said:

https://ig.ft.com/brexit-second-round-indicative-votes/

"Ahead of Monday’s votes, there was excitement around Common Market 2.0, the softest of the Brexit proposals, which would keep the UK in the single market and in a customs union with the EU.

It won the formal support of the Labour and Scottish National parties, and ended up losing by 21 votes"

I didn't dispute that.  To be honest I had forgotten about the SM/CU option as it's never been put on the table as a binary choice.  I think the SNP's postion has always been.

1. No Brexit
2. Whole UK in SM/CU
3. Scotland only in SM/CU

If any of those options were available I suspect they would vote for them but given they're unlikely to ever be options, its really moot.

[Eisegerwind]

On 8/29/2019 at 3:35 PM, ParisInAKilt said:

Westminster is full of globalist shills, leaving the EU was never going to be easy but wouldn’t have predicted 3 years like this. 

What's a 'globalist', shit or otherwise.

[ParisInAKilt]

2 hours ago, Eisegerwind said:

What's a 'globalist', shit or otherwise.

you can use google 

[aaid]

On 29 August 2019 at 3:35 PM, ParisInAKilt said:

Westminster is full of globalist shills

Says the Scotsman living and working in Australia with no hint of irony. 

[Ally Bongo]

On 8/29/2019 at 3:35 PM, ParisInAKilt said:

Westminster is full of globalist shills, leaving the EU was never going to be easy but wouldn’t have predicted 3 years like this. 

This is fucking incredible

Less than 10 years ago nobody in the UK really gave a shit about the EU apart from a few fringe English Nationalists

To silence these fringe English Nationalists and stop them from winning Tory seats the PM calls a referendum to put an end to it

How quickly it was to generate anti EU hysteria eh ?

[ParisInAKilt]

6 minutes ago, aaid said:

Says the Scotsman living and working in Australia with no hint of irony. 

you can live and work abroad and be against globalism. 

Edited August 31, 2019 by ParisInAKilt

[ParisInAKilt]

7 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

This is fucking incredible

Less than 10 years ago nobody in the UK really gave a shit about the EU apart from a few fringe English Nationalists

To silence these fringe English Nationalists and stop them from winning Tory seats the PM calls a referendum to put an end to it

How quickly it was to generate anti EU hysteria eh ?

How and why Brexit happened is open to debate and interpretation but the majority voted to leave, something that appears to be forgotten. 

[Ally Bongo]

25 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

How and why Brexit happened is open to debate and interpretation but the majority voted to leave, something that appears to be forgotten. 

The majority of England and Wales

[Rich NATA]

Question...

 

If things had been different (and the Welsh hadn't let the side down) and Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales had all voted to stay in the EU, whilst only England voted to leave, what do you think would have happened?

 

3 versus 1

 

Would it have been the same argument? That the majority voted for it (albeit only an English majority) and so it stands.

Or would the 3 versus 1 have been impossible for the Brexiteers to push through when 3/4 of the UK was against it?

How do you this it would have played out?

 

 

[TDYER63]

26 minutes ago, Rich NATA said:

Question...

 

If things had been different (and the Welsh hadn't let the side down) and Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales had all voted to stay in the EU, whilst only England voted to leave, what do you think would have happened?

 

3 versus 1

 

Would it have been the same argument? That the majority voted for it (albeit only an English majority) and so it stands.

Or would the 3 versus 1 have been impossible for the Brexiteers to push through when 3/4 of the UK was against it?

How do you this it would have played out?

 

 

It would have played out the exact same. We would have been reminded that in this great union that supports democracy, whatever side gets the most votes is declared the winner, and we all just need to suck it up. 

 

[aaid]

1 hour ago, Rich NATA said:

Question...

 

If things had been different (and the Welsh hadn't let the side down) and Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales had all voted to stay in the EU, whilst only England voted to leave, what do you think would have happened?

 

3 versus 1

 

Would it have been the same argument? That the majority voted for it (albeit only an English majority) and so it stands.

Or would the 3 versus 1 have been impossible for the Brexiteers to push through when 3/4 of the UK was against it?

How do you this it would have played out?

 

 

Wouldn't have made the slightest difference.