UKC

  I thought Boris doing his Alan Partridge impersonation had taken the biscuit yesterday but Emily Thornberry has upped the ante. It appears that the policy is to negotiate a new withdrawal deal with the EU and then campaign to remain....

  Next foreign secretary. Hmmm....

https://mobile.twitter.com/ellievarley13/status/1169736475904217093

are you for real, suggesting that anyone could be worse than the current mob is beyond moronic.

Maybe I should no platform myself?

So we have a choice of 

a) a group of not very clever left-wingers  with a chaotic brexit policy  but who basically believe in democracy and who would one way or the other come up with a workable relationship with the EU

vs

b) a group of not very clever English Nationalists who are attempting to destroy parliament, crash the UK's economy, eject some of the most experienced MPs from their party, lie deliberately and wantonly, slander professionals and restart the troubles.

Let me think...

Don't strain yourself.... hold on a sec, is that a straw man flying past?

Nope.

Well currently your beloved Boris is in Scotland campaigning for an election. Correct me if I'm wrong shouldn't he be negotiating a new deal or coming up with his new backstop proposal?

As opposed to the Tories who negotiated a deal then voted against it?  The Labour policy is to negotiate a soft Brexit deal - some kind of least worst option - which would see us leaving the EU without screwing up the country too massively, then allowing people a say in the decision. They would campaign to remain because it's still the sensible thing to do. No part of that position troubles me.

Is that really so ridiculous?  In any three choice referendum, there would be a good chance that voters would choose to leave under a negotiated deal.  It would be perfectly reasonable for the government to present the best deal that they could come up with but still maintain that not leaving was a better option.  Surely the point of calling a referendum is that parliament in not competent or willing to make a decision on behalf of the electorate. It's always struck me as odd that the subsequent decision is seen as a test of confidence in the government.

  "My beloved Boris" . Is that another Boris aside from the one I've just compared to Alan Partridge and have been negative about for several years? You're not the bloke from Leeds who asked the same strange question are you?

What’s wrong with that? See what the best we can agree is, then ask the electorate. While pointing out, as is pretty obvious, that it’s worse than what we have.

jcm

 Mrs.May negotiated a soft brexit deal which the cynical Labour party, who wanted a soft deal voted against, together with 34 Tory MPS .

Regardless of what Thornberry campaigned for you could still vote leave, and I'm sure Labour MPs will be allowed to campaign for leave without getting thrown out of the party.

Vote the Tories in and there's only one option, crash out with no deal, then 5 years of Bojo and Cummings.

May’s deal wasn’t a soft Brexit at all.

How quickly the Tories forget the lies they were telling in 2016 and start telling new ones!

jcm

My apologies, I assumed you were a brexiteer, all the brexiteers I know think Boris is their man and is doing his best for them..

And please don't disrespect Alan Partridge by comparing him to Boris!

No, Mrs May revoked article 50, held an idiotic election, drew some 'red lines', procrastinated, refused to let the electorate have any kind of say, refused to collaborate with anyone, suppressed the publication of anything which spelt out what leaving the EU would actually cost industries or the country, and eventually panicked and cobbled together a crap deal while one of her ministers awarded a ferry contract to a company with no ferries. Labour were under no obligation to back this nonsense.

It's wasteful of time, resources and economic confidence (tell me what about brexit isn't!) but it does respect the 2016 referendum result and it does allow the 2022 electorate to give informed consent. Hard to argue with really especially when viewed against the appalling shitshow your lot have delivered!

jk

I don't like the current Labour Party at all - but even setting aside everything to do with brexit, they're clearly much less worse than what remains of the Tory Party, which can no longer realistically call itself either conservative, or unionist.

Stop for a moment, take a step back, and look at who the current (minority) government actually are, and who they're purging from their party.

The current Foreign Secretary is Raab, FFS! Unless he has resigned or been fired in the last couple of days, I'm losing track.

1. Theresa's "red lines" are not compatible with a soft brexit. No ECJ, no single market, no customs union, no freedom of movement etc etc. Soft brexit (Frank Fields' "Norway for now" option) wasn't brexit-y enough for the ERG.

2. If the Tories had not scuppered the deal we'd be out now. Labour as opposition opposed, the clue is in the name, it's what they're supposed to do (in normal circumstances)

May negotiated the worst of both worlds of soft and hard Brexit. No access to the single market, as per hard Brexit, no real power to do own trade deals, as per soft Brexit.

Thornberry’s performance on Question Time last night was abysmal.

As were there performances of all the other politicians on the panel.

If our futures are in the hands of people like this then we’re stuffed.

Well let us step back on this.

Business including Financial Services in London had been remarkably quiet on May's deal.Thus indicating it had reasonable acceptance considering all the other issues.

The problem is even now Labour keep saying different things. They change with the wind on if they want a deal, a people's vote an election.. they can't state what their eu manifesto policy is other than jobs and economy, which means they could do anything they like once in power as they haven't committed. Labour is a gamble, as much as any other alternative. 

The real battle is with the Brexit parry and lib dems, because at least their stance is clear. Both of these will be stripping the Tories and Labour of votes.  

And she's arguably the most competent in the shadow cabinet. 

  Minority? We should have an election.....oops, wait a moment....🤣

This has been true, and I don't trust them - but they have now committed to opposing exiting without first arranging a deal on how we handle the interim, which makes them massively less batshit crazy than the Tories.

Sure, if you want brexit above all else, with no deal in place, you should probably vote brexit party. Although that appears to be the Tory stance too, so that's still to play for.

Personally, I'd vote Lib Dem before Labour in any seat where it wasn't down to Labour v ToryKIP of some flavour, but there are plenty of seats where voting Labour makes sense, just to keep out the nutters.

So, from a distance it’s looking a little like an unelected advisor persuaded an unelected prime minister to instruct an unelected monarch to suspend the elected and sovereign parliament because the unelected prime minister knew he didn’t have the confidence of or a majority in the elected and sovereign parliament, this being subsequently evidenced by the Least Successful Prime Minister In History (that's you Boris) losing EVERY SINGLE vote in the parliament. As a side-chuckle his best chance of not losing one of the (like every single...) votes he lost was that the unelected Lords might stay up for many hours, but in the end couldn’t really be arsed.

Luckily! the Least Successful Prime Minister In History is facing the Worst Opposition In History led by the Worst Leader Of The Opposition In History. So when the Least Successful Prime Minister In History tries to – what the hell am I even writing here – bring down his own government (!!!) to bring an end to his historic failure, the opposition won’t let him. WHAT??? He could try to win one vote – yah! – by moving no confidence IN HIMSELF despite being indisputably so confident in himself that he long since moved past any point of competence – ah the craic! – but the Worst Leader Of The Opposition In History will block that because.... ah I give up.

That can’t be right. Yesterday I was told she was in thrall to the ERG.....(despite the fact she acceded to virtually none of their demands)

May’s negotiating tactics (I’ll show you all my cards at the beginning) look like genius compared to Lady Muck’s (I’ll show you all my cards and then promise to fold)

Yes we should once it's safe to do so, precisely nobody is saying otherwise.

jk

May tried for a long time to unify her party, being pulled far to the right in order to appease the ERG. Her harsh red lines were a very clear sign that nothing less than a notably hard Brexit would be acceptable to them. But ultimately it seems the ERG were intent on a level of national destruction that even May wasn't prepared to countenance.

By the way you're talking, and the way that BoJo/ERG are currently talking then you seem to see the EU as the enemy rather than close allies with whom we want to strike a constructive and mutually beneficial deal post Brexit?  I think this is one of the main reasons why we're now enduring this sh*tshow, all the while the nations economy slowly dribbles down the pan.

  Great post. The one possible upside of this shitshow is that somebody somewhere might acknowledge that the electoral and constitutional systems are fxcked.

I’m pretty neutral on Thornberry, but I am a big fan of Kier Starmer.

It may have avoided the cliff edge but the direction of travel is still down.

  If they hadn’t treated us like a minor principality daring to secede from the AustroHungarian empire then I’m sure we would have loved to have had a better negotiation.

Jesus wept, I appreciate a lot of what you've bought to UKC through the brexit process but you're not even reading this shit now, are you?

Ah, the familiar whine that it's somebody else's fault.

The first rule of Brexit Club: you never accept any responsibility for Brexit Club.

I thought she was really good. She gave me increased confidence that Labour are now on a reasonable and electable Brexit track.

The leave ones were awful, but then they didn't stand a chance having little choice but to regurgitate Johnson's shit.

Ian Blackford was as impressive as he has been throughout in the commons.

   So , apart from having blamed Cameron, May, the ERG , Boris (and of course the EU, Labour and the anti-democratic remainers) who should I have included that hasn’t been?

Anyone would think that you don’t read people’s posts because you don’t think you meed to.

  I didn’t read it. 

I watch Question Time on a regular basis and last night’s was by far the worst I’ve ever seen.

Attempting to get a straight answer from any of the politicians was almost impossible.

Thornberry is an obvious remainer and by trying to toe the party line of trying to negotiate a deal she tied herself in knots.

Labour needs to sort out a credible Brexit position before any election because their present one won’t stand up to serious scrutiny.

The SNP, Brexit Party and Lib Dem politicians at least have a consistent position.

The Conservative guy was clueless.

All the politicians and the chairperson need to learn how to behave in an adult way.

Only Dale and the audience came out of it well.

Most people reading this know that's rubbish, but I know how you got there.... the huge gap between Brexiteer expectation and reality.

If we leave with no deal it's going to happen again, when the US trade deal talks start, another slow motion crash to look forward to.

Oh, i don't know, maybe yourself for voting for this car crash.

That's so unfair, I read this steaming pile  "If they hadn’t treated us like a minor principality daring to secede from the AustroHungarian empire then I’m sure we would have loved to have had a better negotiation.".

But i do like how it's all me me me with you.

How did that happen? 

So using that logic would you blame everyone who voted Labour for the Iraq war?

Al

We didn't have a referendum on the Iraq war.

When was the Iraq war referendum, I seem to have forgotten 

Obviously you didn't actually watch QT last night or you would have understood the Emily was talking personally, that she would campaign to remain. I'd imagine that if Labour get into government they'll need to sort out this mess by getting a Eurosceptic to do the negotiating, come up with a deal and champion it in a subsequent referendum campaign. At least she's being honest in contrast to the nauseating spectacle of one Remain supporting tory after another claiming they'd now seen the light and were now fully paid up Brexiteers.

Do you think the tories would campaign to vote for a Labour leave deal or will they campaign to Remain?

FFS pal, give your head a wobble.

If we'd had a vote specifically on whether or not to go into Iraq you're damn right I'd blame the people who voted for it for the resulting mess.

  It's instructive (well, not really, it's entirely predictable) that a post pointing out that a senior Labour politician spoke complete nonsense (such nonsense that even she looked gobsmacked by her own stupidity) is met with barely a glimmer of acknowledgement that this is the case.

  It is equally predictable that any acknowledgement that various members of the Tory party are pretty hopeless and bare responsibilty for the current clusterf*ck but that they may not be alone in this, is not met by any sense amongst the remainer lunatic fringe that there may actually be a complex and diverse web of mistakes and responsibility at play. No it's all those wicked horrid Tories (sorry fascist neo nazis).

It's pathetic.

I watched maybe the first 20 mins / 25 mins and then went to bed; it was indeed pathetic. The libdem woman was ok, but its easy for her as her answers were entirely predictable given her party's stance. Tice was as expected, the right wing loon, closely followed by Tory boy (name forgotten) who was only there to point out flaws in the laour and snp arguments. SNP man was also entirely predictable, but for me he came across very well. Thornberry had some good arguments, but wasnt allowed to get them out by others shouting over her; however she needs to learn how to be more succinct. She often has a good point but does like the sound of he own voice. Unfortunately the nature of televised political debates has very much become "see who can be most negative about the other parties" rather than explaining your own policy.

Point conceded   But if we are ever to become a re-united you need to let go of the personalised animosity.

Al

Which part of "If they hadn’t treated us like a minor principality daring to secede from the AustroHungarian empire then I’m sure we would have loved to have had a better negotiation." is the bit where you're pointing out Labour's deficiencies?

They called the referendum.

They didn't properly define what one of the options meant (leaving, that is).

They didn't bother to campaign properly for remain.

Their leader, having lost the referendum, ran off and dumped it on the next one.

They implemented article 50 without first getting some sort of parliamentary agreement on the type of brexit they would aim for.

They refused to consult with other parties during the countdown, and appear not to actually have consulted within their own party, to any great extent.

They called another election to improve their majority so they could force through the type of brexit they wanted, and actually lost ground.

Rather than take that chance to speak to other parties and reach some sort of agreement, they bribed the DUP for support and doubled down.

They caved in to DUP demands that there not be a customs border in the Irish Sea - really the only way to solve the Irish border issue other than staying in the single market and customs union, which they ruled out for internal party reasons.

They wouldn't agree with each other, even, on the type of brexit they wanted and THREE TIMES rejected the exit deal they had negotiated with the EU.

They took down their own leader, and replaced her with someone even more divisive.

They decided to support exiting without any deal with our allies, neigbours and trade partners, something so insane that they've had to get rid of many of their best MPs to carry on with it.

And worst of all, they've now demonstrated that they're willing to avoid such inconveniences as democracy and the law in order to get what they want - who knows where that's going to end, it's much more worrying even than brexit.

So yeah, something's certainly a bit pathetic, if anyone's trying to pin this on anyone other than the Tories.

There are lots of different people who could have done better. But it starts and ends with the Tories, and it really, genuinely, is, all their fault.

Er, none, why would you think that it is?

Absolutely.... but:

1. Right now absolutely nobody trusts Boris. There's a chance that he might use the arcane procedures of election calling to push us past 31st October into no deal. Also, MPs want to stay on top of things in case the government does anything more loony.

2. Also right now the opposition parties are being handed the gift of a Conservative party tearing itself to bits, attacking themselves and behaving very, very badly, incompetently and stupidly in a very public manner.

3. It's not impossible that a GE within a few weeks enough Brexiteers might vote for Boris to give him a majority. However one suspects that after a few months of Boris and team's behavior as described above the "anyone but the conservatives" vote will mean that the opposition can romp home picking up conservative seats all over the shop, and keep the conservatives out of power for 10-15 years (thanks to the FTPA.

4. Given Boris has a majority of minus 20-odd, its not like its possible for him to do a thing in the interim. The opposition have a majority in both houses. They can stop everything he wants to achieve. So Boris has the responsibility without the power. He's a sitting duck. Given he is so deeply unpopular with more-or-less everyone why not metaphorically roast him and his entire set of loathed ministers over a fire for a few months? Every day's delay means more votes for the opposition at present.

Edited for typos and clarity.

I've been Conservative for many years, I now hate them. But I see all of this as a failing of our parliamentary democracy not just the tories. It's a car crash and they were driving, I will freely admit, but to absolve the other parties especially Labour is rather naive.  The only party that is coming out of this with any credibility is the Lib Dems.  They have been honest in what they want and never wavered but they are "cocking a snoot" and 17.4 million people and may pay a price for that in future.

Al

Its not dissimilar to 1997 where labour didnt really need to campaign; the internal divisions with in the tory party and the very public repeated embarrassments meant that it would have been almost impossible for labour to have lost.

Because that is what you replied to.

I'm not sure they will; how many of the 17.4 million would have ever considered voting liberal, given there has never been any doubt as to the libdems stance on EU membership?

Roasting him for a few months might appeal but how close to the next no deal deadline do you want to get - as three months extension gets us to January 31st and no deal.

I think the opposition have to go for a GE as soon as possible after the extension has been granted - hopefully against a Tory party too busy self destructing in an orgy of recrimination and back stabbing to notice.

If the opposition were very canny (and slightly evil) there would be an electoral pact between Labour/Libdems/SNP/etc to not compete seats, leaving one "Rebel Alliance" candidate facing a Tory in every constituancy. That would probably mean the end of the Tory party as a meaningful political force for at least 20 years.

Whilst I wouldn't count on Corbyn/Labour to deliver this, recent events (Thanks Boris) have finally got the oppostion parties collaborating, and there's some clever people now working together.

  Wrong again

We should stop now. You have won the internet.

CB

Although the thought of it has brightened an otherwise "difficult" friday afternoon up somewhat........

When I voted I voted on the understanding that we would leave the Customs Union, the Single Market and the jurisdiction of the ECJ.  Labour are wanting "A customs union".  What does this mean?  I'm fine with having to abide with EU rules for exports but would it mean we would not be allowed to trade with other countries?  Can someone enlighten me? Remain or Brexit signing up to something that would tie us in in that way seems like suicide.

Al

I actually think the media has failed even more completely than the politicians. 

The lack of honest reporting is incredible. There is massive bias in nearly all the newspapers towards owners interest or readers prejudices and the BBC seem totally unwilling to call out bare faced lies in the name of ‘neutrality’.

Maybe some of this is inevitable in the era or the internet, everyone gets their own version of the truth, but there is a lot of evidence that in the murky soup of internet information, people are looking for definitive voices of truth. 

In parliament I think the Tories have to take pretty much all the blame for Brexit, but there is a pretty strong argument that Corbyn has given them the wiggle room to be this incompetent. If the tories has been up against someone more competent, you imagine the opinion polls would’ve sobered them up an awful lot quicker, but maybe I’m wrong. The press thought milliband was well to the left of Trotsky, so it might not have made a difference

It’s certainly understandable that the opposition doesn’t want to give Johnson any chance to wriggle out of having to ask for an extension and also they’ll enjoy watching him suffer.

So an election on 1st November?

Remind us which party was in power when a) the referendum was called, b) article 50 was used c) negotiations with the EU took place d) the negotiated deal was voted down three times e) government was taken over by extremists? 

Quite a few of us have a low opinion of Corbyn and Labour, that doesn't mean there aren't worse options now.

Err, no!

How do you know that?  I'm serious I've never heard Corbyns proposals discussed in detail other than he would want a Customs Union.  I'm fairly certain it's THE Customs Union that currently prevents us.

I've no idea why you think we couldn't trade with other countries.  We do now.  The CU just implies a common external tariff system.

13:05 PMP: If they hadn’t treated us like a minor principality daring to secede from the AustroHungarian empire then I’m sure we would have loved to have had a better negotiation.

14:25 Me:FFS pal, give your head a wobble.

15:13 PMP:  It's instructive (well, not really, it's entirely predictable) that a post pointing out that a senior Labour politician spoke complete nonsense (such nonsense that even she looked gobsmacked by her own stupidity) is met with barely a glimmer of acknowledgement that this is the case.

  It is equally predictable that any acknowledgement that various members of the Tory party are pretty hopeless and bare responsibilty for the current clusterf*ck but that they may not be alone in this, is not met by any sense amongst the remainer lunatic fringe that there may actually be a complex and diverse web of mistakes and responsibility at play. No it's all those wicked horrid Tories (sorry fascist neo nazis).

It's pathetic.

15:42 Me: Which part of "If they hadn’t treated us like a minor principality daring to secede from the AustroHungarian empire then I’m sure we would have loved to have had a better negotiation." is the bit where you're pointing out Labour's deficiencies?

15:47 PMP: Er, none, why would you think that it is?

16:02 Me: Because that is what you replied to.

16:12 PMP: Wrong again

I may be wrong, but I have literally no idea how.

Happy ranting

I worded that badly.  I meant with tariffs that we set not the EU.

Well no, that's the point of customs union.

No surprise there then. I replied to "give your head a wobble". Doh...

I'll try again, sorry to be so thick. Under Corbyns proposals would we be allowed to negotiate our own trade deals and not be bound by the EU's Customs Union and the ECJ?

Well if we are in the CU, clearly we will be bound by the rules of that.  ECJ, I assume not in general as it covers EU stuff. Whether it covers disputes around the CU, I don't know.

But Labour talk about "A Customs Union" not " The Customs Union". So in my mind they are being just as evasive as brexiteers but I'm willing to admit that perhaps I'm ignorant in this particular matter.  Hence the question.

Why? We've been doing generally very well under those arrangements for quite some time and have no reason to believe that we won't continue to do so if we stay in.

Honestly, if people want to make immigration and ending freedom of movement the hill that they die on I can understand that, even if I think they're misguided. That's being willing to accept an economic hit in exchange for a perceived social benefit. But the idea that it's vitally important that we're able to make our own trade deals is a fundamentally economic argument that no serious economists will give the time of day to. All the proper impact assessments that I've seen suggest that no plausible trade deals we can make independently will remotely make up for the impact of leaving the single market. And that's before you get to the fact that it's basically unavoidable that leaving the Customs Union means backing out of the Good Friday Agreement, which ought to be a clinching argument even before you consider the economics.

References please.

Do they?  If this is current it talks about the CU.  I can't see there being a practical difference anyway

https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/negotiating-brexit/

I'm sure that Starmer in charge would boost Labour in the polls by 5% at least 

Well if that's the case we wouldn't really be leaving the EU in any meaningful way. If we are in the CU we are subject to the ECJ.  I would rather remain than enter an arrangement that leaves us subject to rules but with no say and presumably having to contribute to the EU budget.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46366162

https://www.piie.com/publications/working-papers/brexit-everyone-loses-brit...

http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/brexit-ii

Or take your pick of references from the wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_of_Brexit#Long-term_impact_o...

Me too!

But I'd also rather remain than enter an arrangement that frees us from the rules but causes massive job losses, cripples the economy, decimates public services and leaves us begging for whatever trade deal the US deigns to offer us.

We've got an election coming soon, and all your posts have been of a partisan nature. You have acknowledged the Tory party mess (how could you not!), but it's always been a prelude to something along the lines of "but what about Labour, they're worse". You seem to be electioneering, don't be surprised if people reply in kind.

More generally, your comments this week have demonstrated the Brexiteer mentality, the paranoid fantasy leading to some pretty strange claims. If us non-Brexiteers were observers of this crash it might be funny...... but we are not, we are stuck on the bus with you! We are sat there listening to the people at the front convince themselves that sawing the steering wheel off is a good idea. We are going to be vocal about this.

Thank you, but why should I believe these forecasts any more than the ones that predicted meltdown by just voting leave? I'm not trying to be awkward, but we may be presented with another opportunity to vote. Even a general election will effectively be a leave or remain vote and I want to be better informed.

References for those? And for what it's worth, we do seem to have become somewhat worse off since the vote:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2019/03/22/uk-economy-since-the-brexit-v...

In general, there are always going to be a range of economic forecasts. But as it stands, properly researched analysis only seems to be divided on quite how economically bad a hard brexit would be for the UK. People flogging the idea that the immediate ability to make independent trade deals is vital to our future prosperity are honestly just making stuff up to suit themselves.

Edit: I mean, it's good to be aware that economic forecasting isn't a precise science, but it seems perverse to make an argument based on economics that only makes sense if all the actual economic analysis is wrong. It'd be like choosing to go climbing in the place with the worst weather forecast because you want to catch the best weather and you know that forecasts aren't always accurate.

But that could be attributed to the uncertainty, not brexit per se.  There is however no denying that sterling took a hit.

Look, what's your evidence that remaining tied to the Customs Union - particularly by remaining, so we continue to have a major influence on future EU trade policy - would be "suicide"? Have you applied the same level of sceptical analysis to that? Currently you seem to be looking for any reason you can find to question the accuracy of the economic consensus that leaving would be economically damaging, but not actually offering any evidence that it would be anything else...

I don't see why I have to present evidence, I'm asking questions not making assertions. Suicide is perhaps overstating it a little. My only assertion/opinion is that I would rather be fully out or stay fully in than be half in.

I'm just trying to get my head around why people increasingly seem to believe that leaving the CU and making our own trade deals is a crucially important part of Brexit, despite the fact that it was just one of a number of inherently incompatible options that leavers talked about during the referendum campaign, and in view of the fact that all the evidence seems to be that the only people who will actually benefit from it is the small coterie of rich people who are running the leave campaign.

We wouldn't contribute much (cf Turkey). 

Why don't you stop saying that Labour MPs should have voted for a deal that went against their policy of staying the CU? It's a stupid point.

Hobson's choice, I know

Of course it is uncertainty, we haven't left yet. That uncertainty though is not that things might likely get better as a result of brexit which may or may not happen in various forms, it's uncertainty over how bad they'll get. If people thought Britain's future was likely to be brighter after brexit but that brexit wasn't yet assured the pound would be modestly up, not down.

jk

PMP's latest pinup girl: https://d2h1pu99sxkfvn.cloudfront.net/b0/7023163/333894814_DopekVRBKW/U5.jp...

Does Mrs PMP mind you having her on your bedside table?

I think a great deal of that was because they had already spent hundreds of millions in setting up EU27 (EU less the UK) businesses and were ready to simply flick the switch to move the business over to the EU no matter what happened. The money had already been sunk, so it mattered little (apart from to the UK employees and UK tax revenue) which way it went. 

I have a very firm belief that the predicted "massive drop in GDP" after the referendum that didn't happen was strongly supported by the above behaviour. Certainly the firm I work for spend a huge amount of money in establishing a French company, getting authorised by the French financial services authority and basically ready to pull all key staff from London to Paris. That has caused a huge spike in our spending, to the temporary benefit of lawyers and accountants and largely to the benefit of the French goverment. And if we Brexit it will be to their permanent benefit and the UKs disadvantage.

All of our rivals have taken identical action, except one. They went to Dublin...

I'm genuinely saddened by this post, not because its nonsense but because I thought you had more about you. You used to have some logical reasons for leaving but joining with the bullshit chorus of 'the EU are bullying us' (wasn't it our strategy to do that to them?) is just embarrassing.

 It's funny isn't it. Day after day, month after month the usual suspects on UKC (not you , from memory) spew their nonsensical bile and abuse at anything or anyone who disagrees with them (ludicrous nonsense about fascist coups being the latest example). But when somebody uses a bit of a colourful comparison in return it is suddenly unacceptable.

  It's perfectly possible to accept that it was the UK's decision to leave and that the EU had the reasonable priority of holding themselves together not of allowing the UK to "cherry pick" It's certainly true that May couldn't negotiate her way out of a paper bag. I truly find it extraordinary that people believe that those things justified the attitude of the EU to negotiations. It's not even been in their own best interests. It could have been so much better for all concerned.

It's not the colourful comparisons that bother me (whatever they are) it's someone as bright as you repeating the nonsense about EU bullying. From what I can see the UK position from day 1 was to use our economic might to force the EU into a deal, to push aside the smaller nations by circumventing the EU itself by 'heading straight to Berlin' (not forgetting Priti Patel's veiled threat of food shortages in the RoI). Instead they stood by what they said all along (remember the simple waterfall diagram they had showing the options?), stood behind the GFA and let the UK get on with it (acceding to each request we made for an extension to A50). So you are going to have to explain what you mean "the attitude of the EU to negotiations". I thought playing the victim card was the preserve of us liberal snowflakes.

Because my main point is that the core problem is that each group refused to accept anything but their perfect deal, and that includes Labour. Their job was to execute article 50.

Secondly, the withdrawal agreement only sets out the immediate terms of the UK’s exit from the EU. The future trading relationship with the EU would need to be negotiated once the UK has left. While that trade deal was being negotiated (until the end of the transition period), the UK would remain in the single market and customs union.

Post of the year. 

Dishonest or not paying attention, Labour would have accepted a number of different deals, all of them imperfect. The ERG won't accept any viable deal.

"I truly find it extraordinary that people believe that those things justified the attitude of the EU to negotiations. It's not even been in their own best interests. It could have been so much better for all concerned."

Your OP about Emily Thornbury and the responses highlight one of the main problems with Brexit and EU negotiations. ET saying she would negotiate a better deal and then campaign to remain is the equivalent of playing high stakes poker whilst wearing mirrored sunglasses. She is taking away any advantage for the UK in negotiations. The worse the deal the EU would give her, the more chance her remain campaigning would have, so it's a total open goal for the EU (as it has been right from the outset from TM until Boris)

Of course, remainers, in absolutely not wanting to leave the EU, think this is a perfectly acceptable strategy and justify it with wilful blindness to the terrible hand due to their allegiance to the cause. In their eyes, any advantage or leverage for the UK in negotiations is actually the opposite as seen in moving heaven and earth to get "no deal" removed as default (before anyone gets triggered, I am only talking about using "no deal" as part of a negotiating hand in strategic parleying - not that it will be the best outcome)

There is no advantage to be had. The factors in place that would give Britain a better deal are completely in Britain's hands. The Johnson / Cummings strategy is basically parking the family car on a level crossing and playing chicken with a freight train, locking the doors so that half the occupants who realise that the plan is for the train to hit, can't get out.

Err, I think that a *government* was elected to execute a50. That government lost its majority through its own misjudgement. Labour's job was to represent the interests of their constituents - which they saw as supporting leaving the eu with a deal that protected jobs, i.e. In a cu. 

So while may said that the policy was to leave the sm and cu, Labour should have voted on the basis that they didn't believe her, because she hadn't tied it down in a legally binding document.

As I said, it's a stupid point. 

  May was useless. That is taken as red. But what you are accusing her of is exactly the EU approach. (please remember this when you get to the bottom and want to retort that we just got outthought by a smarter counterpart).

  From the start, in dictating the terms of negotiation, in their aggressive stance on things like Galileo and the arrest warrant, in their demands for  the power to ground flights, suspend single market access, impose trade tariffs etc. during the transition period the EU set out to play hardball..

   As some EU bureacrats acknowledged "This wasn't a negotiation, it was a declaration of terms".

  Here's Varoufakis (who is much brighter and more knowledgeable on the topic than either of us)

"The UK should never have entered the negotiations,” he told me when we met afterwards. “You do not negotiate with the EU because the EU does not negotiate with you. It sends a bureaucrat, in this case it was Mr Barnier…they could have sent an android, or an algorithm.”

May’s fatal error, Varoufakis said, was to accept a two-phase negotiation: a divorce agreement followed by a new trade deal. “This was a declaration of war because Barnier said: ‘You will give us everything we want: money, people, Ireland. And only then will we discuss what you want.’ Well, that isn’t a negotiation, that’s a travesty. And Theresa May agreed to play along.”

  So, from the very beginning the EU had come out on the offensive to limit the UK's negotiating position. It continued to do so. If May had stood firm and simply refusing to exist those terms then you, the EU, and every remainer in the country would have accused her of intransigence in the face of the EU's very fair offer of negotiations. (As I remember the EU was  pushing her hard into the very unwise early declaration of Article 50)

  It was no doubt naive to hope that the EU would do anything else, but just as naive to believe that they did anything else. This from the Irish Times:

"The EU has been ruthless and ruthlessly effective. It’s debatable – and history will decide – whether such a comprehensive steamrolling of the UK was wise; the verdict probably depends on how the process turns out.

There has been criticism from observers and from senior officials past and present that the EU is brilliant at negotiation but weak on politics and political judgement. But what is indisputable is that the EU has got what it wants from the Brexit process so far and the UK has not.

As an exercise in raw power, in negotiating strategy and statecraft, it has been awesome. From the start – no, even before the start – the EU controlled the process."

Poor little Britain.  

Dear Tories.  You broke it, you fix it

   Fantasising about a perfect deal when the EU has made it perfectly clear that they are not up for negotiation is not looking after the interests of consituents. It cynical politicking and you know it. They voted for article 50.

  So, as I asked earlier The objection is not to the transition agreement but to the political declaration?

Their policy was a customs union. There's nothing wrong with that policy, its sensible and achievable. Cynical politicking would be to vote against a deal which *did* meet their policy objectives. It did not. 

Not exactly. Labour were asking for an overall policy that protected jobs. The WA and pd together don't meet that policy objective. Labour wanted a guarantee of a cu to protect jobs, and that was achievable. 

Of course that was achievable, it would keep us tied to the EU so would suit both remainers and the EU. We were told by brexiteers and warned by remainers that leaving the EU meant leaving the CU so I'm not sure how people who voted knowing this should now be expected to suddenly consider staying in a CU acceptable.

Thornbury's QT performance was poor, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. To me it is clear that a deal should be negotiated by those who can sincerely campaign for it, it wouldn't have credibility otherwise. I hope that policy will be established during conference.

However, this often used 'poker' analogy just doesn't work, and has been one of the problems with Tory thinking. Everybody's cards are on show, and have been since the start of negotiations. Negotiations like this are a case of working out what is politically and economically possible for the other side, then pushing that as far as you can. The Brexiteers have never done that, they've stuck to their own wish list, which was never grounded in reality. Not all, but too many Brexiteers have been wanting some kind of 'victory' over the EU..... that was never going to work, invoking that sort of language just makes it politically harder for the other side to compromise.

 "There is no advantage to be had"

that is speculation, we cannot know for certain.

 "The factors in place that would give Britain a better deal are completely in Britain's hands. "

keeping "no deal" as the default option  ?

 "The Johnson / Cummings strategy is basically parking the family car on a level crossing and playing chicken with a freight train, locking the doors so that half the occupants who realise that the plan is for the train to hit, can't get out."

your analogy is only half the story of course

The Johnson / Cummings strategy is basically parking the family car on a level crossing....and knowing that if the train doesn't stop, it will hit the car and probably derail causing huge damage not only to the car but to itself . Logically the train driver will probably slam on the brakes to avoid the collision.

Regardless, the point that ET telling the world that if Labour got in she would negotiate a better deal and then campaign to remain, is just another chapter to the book "How not to negotiate and weaken your position - A study of the UKs Brexit negotiators" 

Speculation based on the fact that the EU won’t and can’t give up any of its four freedoms, but we can change our red lines and still achieve brexit.

Not, that using technical language is just f*cking stupid.

No, the train won’t stop, it can’t. It’s also a freight train and we are in a Zafira, any damage to the train will buff out.

The criticism of the Tory handling of Brexit isn't that a more competent set of politicians would have out-thought the EU and got them to make more concessions. It is generally, as far as I can tell, that a more competent set of politicians would have been quicker to start dealing with the reality of what we'd ever be able to get and what the consequences of that would be, and hence more effective at finding a consensus around which of the options available we could collectively live with, possibly without it coming down to an endless series of knife-edge winner-takes-all votes, resignations and procedural rules-lawyering.

To be honest, even that might have been impossible, but that's down to the unrealistic promises of the Leave campaign rather than the big bad EU.

Right through the referendum campaign staying in the CU was not only acceptable, suggesting that leavers would try and take us out of the CU was called “Project Fear”.

I think the "victory" that Brexiteers are looking for now is over UK remainers.

You are right that the poker analogy is not perfect but I would argue that "Negotiations like this are a case of working out what is politically and economically possible for the other side, then pushing that as far as you can." is exactly why BJ/Cummings wanted to keep no deal as an option. By removing it, neither side can be pushed as far as they can. Where Brexiteers get angry, I think, is that it is not the EU that has removed "no deal"...it is the UK remainers that have removed it, hence why I believe that "their some kind of victory" is more focussed on UK remainers (granted, by default is also the EU) than the EU itself. it appears to me to have morphed more into an internal battle within the UK, a civil war if you want to be dramatic.

"invoking that sort of language just makes it politically harder for the other side to compromise." I agree

"Not, that using technical language is just f*cking stupid."

I'm not sure what technical language are you referring to?

Blimey you must have viewed a lot of stuff that I missed or are you trying to rewrite history. I have a very clear recollection that Cameron, Osborne and remainers warned in dire terms that voting leave would mean leaving the CU, the SM and the ECJ.  Indeed so strong was their rhetoric on this matter that I can only assume that it was a tool to dissuade people from voting leave.  Despite this 17.4 million did.

I voted leave in full knowledge of these facts so anything that does not comply with that is NOT brexit and would be a betrayal of my vote, democracy and an insult to me personally. Another referendum would be the same.  I would however welcome a general election, which everyone has been crying out for for many months.  This would to all intents and purposes be along the lines of brexit vs remain and therefore another "peoples vote" that I would not see as a betrayal. But for some reason no one wants this any more.  I think remainers should make their minds up.

"From the start – no, even before the start – the EU controlled the process."

 If only you'd been told that the eu would control the negotiations before you voted for this car crash. Oh, you were, repeatedly. And now it's come to pass you're still busy blaming everyone else.

I only remember the CU being even mentioned by politicians after the vote - any specific mentions of it you can find from the campaign? Anyway, you based your leave vote on what remain politicians said? Strange.

Oh FFS. Everyone wants it and everyone knows it's going to happen. 

The stuff about remainers being chicken is just another lie from the right wing press.

The main problem with the Tory negotiations was that they instantly set it up as an adversarial process, as that's clearly the way they view the EU and pumped up by the leave rhetoric from the campaign. F*cking fools like David Davies and others approaching it like buying a used car you don't really need, rather than the most complicated reciprocal deal entered into by any UK government in living memory, was obviously arrogantly stupid from the off and the inevitable gradual climb-down has been tragic with a small sprinkling of schadenfreude.

Varoufakis employing much excitable exaggerations for maximum anti- EU effect there I see but he fails to note that the EU must come out of exit negotiations on top and Britain must be seen to lose privileges to deter other EU states from following the Tory lead. 

Then they have a strange way of showing it by voting it down.  Over the past few months EVERY time JC showed his face he "demanded" a general election, indeed it was getting a little boring and predictable.  I'm not stupid I know it's the timing they object to but it still makes them look insincere.

No it doesn't. That is another leaver fabrication for leaver consumption.

  So far we have three remainer versions:

1) The EU were not intransigent or agressive. (pick your terms)

2) The EU were only intransigent and agressive because the UK started it.

3) The EU was always going to be intransigent and agressive and we told you that beforehand.

  I think you folk need to talk to each other, not me.

  Regardless, their track record of aggression and intransigence against  members such as Greece and Italy was amongst the reasons for leaving and forewarning that the negotiations would be made adversarial. They really didn't need to be.

Then you were not paying attention. Your second statement is merely a smart arsed comment that doesn't contribute to the debate.  Stay on topic.

FFS I didn't fabricate them NOT voting for an election when they got the chance to do so.

JC: We want an election

JC: We want an election

JC: We want an election

JC: We want an election

ad infinitum

Government: Lets have an election

JC: No

Don’t take my word for it, here is Michael Gove during the referendum campaign:

“There is a free trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU. After we vote to leave we will remain in this zone.

“The suggestion that Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and the Ukraine would stay part of this free trade area - and Britain would be on the outside with just Belarus - is as credible as Jean-Claude Juncker joining UKIP.

“Agreeing to maintain this continental free trade zone is the simple course and emphatically in everyone’s interests.”

G, postie, how many leaver narratives have you come up with? These will be the easiest negotiations ever? We're so big that the eu will give us everything we demand? We don't need to sell to the eu, the rest of the world is bigger?

And aggressive? You sound like a pathetic snowflake. I think intransigent is probably accurate though.

  Well, except that that  is pretty much the opposite of what I have been arguing for two days.......

Words fail me.Well, actually they don't but I'll resist.

Nice trick there to confound intransigence and aggression. The EU stated from day one that it would be intransigent about its four core freedoms. I am yet to see any sign of aggressive behaviour on its part.

The fabrication is that it makes them look insincere.

FFS You know perfectly well why they are forcing a short delay on an election. It is a very good reason and I'm sure you know it.

Of course, quite apart from that, why wouldn't they want to fight an election with Johnson already utterly humiliated and paying the price of his lies and arrogance and with the Tory party in self destruct mode.

And I said as much.  FFS learn to read before condemning me.

Quote: "I'm not stupid I know it's the timing they object to but it still makes them look insincere."

Any specific mentions of the CU you can find from the campaign?

Yes, and , as I said, it simply doesn't. 

Without really joining in arguing (as there's no point), here is a link to the actual government position in the run up to the referendum:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/why-the-government-believes-that...

I think the main relevant bit here is:

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

Some argue that we could strike a good deal quickly with the EU because they want to keep access to our market.

But the government’s judgement is that it would be much harder than that – less than 8% of EU exports come to the UK while 44% of UK exports go to the EU.

No other country has managed to secure significant access to the single market, without having to:

follow EU rules over which they have no real say

pay into the EU

accept EU citizens living and working in their country

A more limited trade deal with the EU would give the UK less access to the single market than we have now – including for services, which make up almost 80% of the UK economy. For example, Canada’s deal with the EU will give limited access for services, it has so far been 7 years in the making and is still not in force.

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

The leave campaigns responded to this in a variety of ways, which I imagine we all have selective memories about, or only actually heard some of.

It did include suggestions that we could be like Norway (by Johnson, amongst others), that we could arrange very good access to the single market without actually being in it (e.g. Gove's "There is a free trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU" or Davis's "easiest deal in human history"), or that it was all just scaremongering (Farage etc.)

I'm happy to believe that there were leavers saying that we'd be out of all of the above and it'd be difficult but worth it because [insert personal reasons here], but I genuinely can't actually remember any of that, just some on the remain side warning of this and leavers countering as above; I'd be interested if you could provide quotes or references to leavers accepting it, but do understand if you can't be bothered - it's sunny outside!

Of course it’s all slightly confusing, Daniel Hannan said that we would stay in the Single Market and Facebook was bombarded with memes suggesting the Norway option, which is of course, in the Single Market, but out of the Customs Union. 

Now of course the Single Market or the Customs Union or both is considered treason by true believers like yourself. It’s funny how history does get re-written.

I think you need to go back and look at what was said in the leave campaign. There's a lot of history re-writing on this topic. You were not told by brexiters that we would leave the CU, your facts are incorrect. (there's at least one recent thread with a long list of quotes from the mainstream leave campaign). 

  And why do you think I suggested people "pick their terms". Why don't people read and think?

  Frankly, you wouldn't see a sign of aggression if Juncker had launched a bloody amphibious assault on Dover

 But any objective observer would regard demanding Theresa May submit to powers allowing the EU to ground flights, suspend single-market access and impose trade tariffs on Britain during the Brexit ­transition, under which proposals the EU would have unprecedented legal powers — without the oversight of European courts — to punish Britain unilaterally if it breached the terms of the transition, as aggressive. And maybe you regard withdrawing from Galileo and the arrest warrant as absolutely vital to the future of the EU , but it really isn't. It was a flexing of muscle.

The coven on here has been partisan and vocal for three bloody years. How you think criticising Johnson, the ERG, May and Cameron is "electioneering" God only knows.

  And I've explicitly tried NOT to be partisan. My whole point is that virtually no party (and I don't mean political party) comes out of this well. But the remainer fanatics who have hijacked UK (I know you'll like that) just won't have any of it and they are so obsessed that they can't even comprehend the message let alone acknowledge it might have some truth.

  You've all gone nuts!!

To be honest it's a little academic now but the substance is that staying in a Customs Union would leave UK liable to EU tariffs and regulations.  If we can't trade with other countries under our own UK set tariffs and regulations then we cannot really claim to have left the EU. This article seems to suggest that any form of CU would tie us in.

https://lawyersforbritain.org/staying-in-the-eu-customs-union-after-exit

To the New Nick B: I'm not really a "true believer".  At times I play devils advocate to draw out arguments. Indeed I would go so far as to say if there were a general election I might vote for a pro remain party.  The whole thing has been more trouble than it was worth and brought out all the worst politics and society has to offer.

There is a senior citizen driving on the highway. His wife calls him on his cell phone and in a worried voice says, "Herman, be careful! I just heard on the radio that there is a madman driving the wrong way on Route 280!"
Herman says "I know, but there isn't just one, there are hundreds!"

The addition of a smiley face doesn't make an insult less insulting. I'm sure you used to be better than that.

This is you trying not to be partisan !?!? Jeez.....

   Christ if you think that is an insult compared to the stuff handed out by your remainer mates you really are on a different planet. It wasn't even meant to be an insult, just a slightly more interesting way of saying "you are not entirely objective about this subject"

Is Turkey in the EU? It’s in the CU. Is Norway? Norway was the shining example of a country outside the EU doing well during the Leave campaign but now it’s considered not to be out?

The biggest farce of it all is that people seem to either have the memory of a goldfish, or they like to pretend that everyone else does. I’m sick and tired of this pattern. During the campaign, Leave would promise X, Remain would warn of Y. Leave and its supporters would claim that this is all project fear lies. Leave won and all of a sudden people claim that they all knew of Y and it was what was promised all along. This is an argument I have had countless times now and it’s getting rather much.

Leave was promising Norway minus the immigration. The government was warning that this is impossible because to achieve it we would have to leave the SM and CU. Leave would give a show about project fear. Now good luck getting anyone to admit that, the number of times I’ve heard people claim that what they ACTIVELY dismissed as project fear is what made them vote for Leave is ridiculous.

You know what? I’ve seen this before. That pattern of behaviour was repeated in Greece for years. I’ll leave you with the homework of how that turned out for them.

Pro-Brexit protesters by Westminster tube station today chanting "We've got a lamp post just for you" at "Traitors". Nice.

I'm referring to UKC not random thugs wandering the streets.

Worse than accusing people of being the type of “lefty who throws breeze blocks off motorway bridges”?

Nothing wrong with it it. I don’t see anything wrong with this position. Basically saying we campaign for remain but we negotiate a deal as a fallback in case the public doesnt want remain. Seems to be a perfectly sensible, reasonable, thing to do.

They’ve not been aggressive they been especially kind given the f*cking mess we’ve created.

What you see as “agressive” is simply the reality of the UK position now, a position you voted for, so why are you complaining now ?

You've got friends publicly distancing themselves from you, people telling you to "wobble your head", and others pulling you up on your warlike rhetoric. Perhaps time to step back and consider whether you are on the wrong track currently? 

Changing tack slightly to Queens consent again. Just listened to Lord MacDonald answering questions on the radio ( what a pleasure to listen to somebody that you can have complete trust in them knowing what they are talking about ) in regards to Boris potentially ignoring this request to extend and being in contempt. What he didn't expand on and was pretty much taken as read by the presenter and Lord MacDonald was the royal consent happening on Monday.

But it appears that politicians asking the Queen to veto legislation they don't approve of is has precedent (and some quite recently).

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/15/ministers-exploited-royal-veto-l...

"Tam Dalyell, the sponsor of a 1999 parliamentary bill that aimed to give MPs a vote on military action against Saddam Hussein, said he is "incandescent and angry" that it was blocked by the Queen under apparent influence from Tony Blair's government. It also emerged that Harold Wilson used the Queen's power to kill off politically embarrassing bills about Zimbabwe and peerages."

Could this be BJ / Cummings next move? Boris and his girlfriend spent a night with the Queen at Balmoral a couple of days ago...I don't think the irony would be lost on anyone if they used Tony Blairs actions as PM as the model for their next move

Yes, basically I don’t see how this bill can be legal, I wouldn’t be surprised if Johnson challenges that on Monday although one wonders why he didn’t on third reading. He didn’t try to stop the bill either in the lords either.

To me this can mean three things:

1) he’s just incompetent 

2) he’s playing labour and letting them waste their time with a useless bill that will never get RA

3) he’s actually relieved he’ll have someone else to blame for extending art 50.

Why? 

I've not read all 160-odd contributions (apologies for that but life is too short). However, I can't help thinking that it would have saved everyone, including herself, a truckload of grief if only May had done this and then come back to say: "Done my best, folks and this is what's on offer. It's worse than you already have and loss of trade will mean less money for schools, hospitals,  police etc etc. But it's your call. Do we take it or stick with what we have?"

Open the box youtube.com/watch?v=yZpIog7e-R4&

That is basically what Labour's policy is. Sounds fair enough to me.

The bill touches on the royal prerogative so in theory requires Queen’s consent.

Postmanpat political opinions are just a systematic parroting of the Telegraph’s current political line. It’s uncanny.

What do you expect them to do. The EU is a bigger block. Naturally they can be more aggressive and awkward. It’s hardly a surprise and is the reality. I am surprised you would think otherwise. They are protecting their interests and not ours. 

Warlike rhetoric my arse! You are all at least entirely predictable. Confected nonsense.

>

  As per my previous posts. I am not surprised. Whether their approach is ultimately either in their best interests I doubt.

  You've got a long memory. What was the full sentence and context?

It's becoming increasingly obvious that Bojo has not intention of negotiating a deal. That's the whole reason the Tory MPs rebelled and Amber Rudd said as much this morning, All the evidence points to this.... Bojo may claim otherwise but we know he's a liar. So the 'keep no deal as an option' argument goes out the window.

There has always been right wing Brexiteers who's preferred option was no-deal, from the outset. It is now obvious that Bojo has decided to appease them, trying to drag as many other Tories with him as he can. 

Forgive if I’m wrong but I believe the last time Labour was in government, Tony Blair invaded Iraq for no reason which triggered the start of Islamic State and signed the good Friday agreement which basic allowed Terrorists to walk free. Didn’t the same guy stop British Soldiers releasing books based on conflicts they fought in but then released his own book once he retired. Doesn’t matter what party they are in, they are all in it for themselves as Brexit has proven. By the way how’s Tony 7 mansions. 

Nonsense. He had a reason; it just turned out not to be a good enough reason, given the reasons not to do so.

A very odd way to summarise it. Do you have a problem with it bringing peace to Ireland?

Bollocks. A ridiculous generalisation. Did you not notice the Tory rebels last week (for example).

Tony Blair, isn't Labour and Labour isn't Tony Blair, that's the whole reason 500,000 party members voted for Corbyn.

Please don't tar everyone, with the same brush, the problems of Blair's Labour are what Corbyn is all about.

That may be great for the 500,000 but Corbyn is not getting much favourable reaction in the opinion polls....... even now with Tories in disarray. 

Corbyn out. Starmer or Benn may transform the situation but it will be too late for now.

You could always ask Blair to come back, I'm sure his ego would love that.

He is though about the only one who talks sense on the strategy on the Brexit issue for Labour. A winner.

I imagine he is pulling strings in the country's interest in the background.