[Rich]

The EU's plan looks pretty clever to me. The big question for me was how do we get from we're leaving on the 29th to we're taking part in the European elections? Once we've had one delay it will surely be a lot easier to accept a second delay. Is taking part in the European elections transitioning from unthinkable to inevitable?

[Ter]

The EU's plan looks pretty clever to me. The big question for me was how do we get from we're leaving on the 29th to we're taking part in the European elections? Once we've had one delay it will surely be a lot easier to accept a second delay. Is taking part in the European elections transitioning from unthinkable to inevitable?

I didn't see any mention of a possibility of the UK participating in the EP elections.
On the contrary, I read that the 18 MEP seats allocated to the UK have already been redistributed to other member states.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

The kicking and screaming of most of the UK's political class to prevent Brexit is something to behold. I actually have to switch off and not follow the day to day shenanigans because it's so infuriating.

[snapdragon]

Nonsense -

I'm old enough to know that the BBC is biased, in this case against 'Leaving' the E.U & that it mounts campaigns against things it doesn't like by 'recruiting' public or political 'stoogies' to create it's own agenda in the media which then influences the political discourse.

Those people probably never read the actual messages on the buses or elsewhere(not that the BBC asked them whether they had), they just gave answers to the questions directed at them by the BBC & the media presentation is then crafted to the BBC's agenda.

It's not just the laughter that's 'canned' on the BBC, virtually everything is choreographed, if not in one program, it's 'adjusted ' to fit the BBC agenda in another program on any particular topic.

You do not need to go to China, Russia or any other country to be bombard with propaganda, it happens on your doorstep & most of you wouldn't be aware of it.

Any reasonable person questions everything in the media, taking nothing at face value & not 'believing' all that you hear or see.

for crying out loud.

watch and learn:

[anarchist23]

[Rich]

The kicking and screaming of most of the UK's political class to prevent Brexit is something to behold. I actually have to switch off and not follow the day to day shenanigans because it's so infuriating.

I thought you were a German living in Germany, apologies if I got that wrong, so why are you so angry that the British Tories have failed to deliver their manifesto commitment? British parties regularly fail to deliver on manifesto commitments. The British people clearly are not bothered by this or they would insist on annual parliaments with no threshold, proportional representation.

If you want the parliament to be responsive to the will of the people then you need annual parliaments. If the people are too lazy to vote once a year, then they've got no right to whine. Imagine a company with a share holders meetings / board elections only every five years. You also need proportional representation, without threshold, to allow new parties to emerge quickly if the established parties are not serving the wishes of the electorate.

I'm a Republican, I'd be strongly tempted to vote Sinn Fein if they stood in my constituency. Republicans members of parliament are not allowed to vote in Parliament unless they give allegiance to that Windsor filth. We Republicans are treated with total contempt. To the monarchist leave voters, I've got a simple message. If you feel Parliament is treating you with contempt, good, I'm glad. Its good for you monarchists to get a taste of your own medicine.

[Nonsense]

for crying out loud.

watch and learn:

Are you serious, you want me to watch something 3 years old, we have moved on from there, we now have inmates in charge of the Westminster Lunatic Assylum-AKA- Parliament, watching them is twice the fun.

Comments on TV last night on the latest shenanigans, one, of which says words to the effect that, Theresa MAY, in telling MP's off, is like a Schoolmistress chiding the children.
Well, that poster turned reality on it's head, the fact is, Theresa MAY gave MP's 'meaningful vote's', in effect, she gave the keys to the unruly schoolkids(in the parlance of that poster) & ended up being on the wrong side of the kids.

A simple recap of the facts(not 'opinions' expressed in the media) determined that a democratic decision to 'Leave' the E.U was made by the British public, that choice was binary, to 'Remain' or to 'Leave' , they chose the latter, which was\is an order which must be obeyed.

What I, you, or anyone else as individuals, no matter your station in life,are equal, but, that decision was democratic, it was a collective(democratic) expression of intention that delivery is expected, yet, as I have alluded above, the schoolkids(MP's) are acting as if they are in the playground, rather than in the classroom.

She is at the stage a soldier is when faced with the sentence for 'cowardice in the face of the enemy, tied to a post, awaiting the firing squad's order to 'Fire', as the rifles are levelled at her she exclaims, " ONE' 'last'; request please", in the vain hope of a last gasp attempt at survival.

For heavens sake, does the penny never drop with some people, she was elected as the head of the governing party in 'power' & she hasn't the balls to lay down the law in her party, parliament or the damn country.

[Rich]

The hard Brexiteers are lying hypocrites. They say the result of the referendum must be implemented above all other considerations. But May's deal delivers the simplistic result of the referendum, and the Brexiteers have voted it down. The referendum was merely to leave, it said nothing about a backstop. It said nothing about a good deal or a bad deal, because who would be the impartial judge of what is a good deal or a bad deal. If you demand that Brexit must be implemtned above all other considerations, then you lose all right to pick and choose which type of Brexit you want.

This is why when I say the referendum was essentially worthless, I'm giving fact not opinion. The referendum just said to leave, but to leave we have to agree to a specific deal, and its the hard Brexiteers who first derided May's deal as worse than staying. What we have now was not inevitable, but it was always a strong possibility inherent in the result. The Brexit narcisists thought that they could vote down this awful deal and retain, their purity, but Labour MPS would dutifully walk through the yes lobby to push through a Tory Brexit.

The hard Brexiteer MPs are just like the Commies. With the Commies its never real socialism. Nothing is ever a failure of socialism. It was always going to be not a real Brexit. Even if we did or do leave without a deal, the Brexiteers, will find some way of disowning the result. What ever we do it will not be a hard enough Brexit or they will blame all the problems on the failure of the government to extract a deal.

The hard Brexiteers are acting like fascists, they are not just saying that Parliament must implement the referendum result, they are demanding that Parliament must implement their interpretation of the Brexit result. They are like the religious fascists throughout the ages, that don't just demand we must live by scripture, but demand that we must live by their tortuous reinterpretation of scripture.

[Beren]

Does May like this plan? It doesn’t matter. She wasn’t in the room where it happened. The summit conclusions were handed down to the petitioning nation as it paced around an antechamber. This is the power relationship between a “third country” and the EU. Britain had better get used to it.

The terms of the extension are not drafted for the prime minister’s benefit. They contain a message from the EU direct to the House of Commons. In crude terms: piss or get off the pot. If you want to leave with a deal, vote for the damned deal. If you are foolish enough to leave without a deal, do not blame us. Have a couple more weeks to think about it. But if you want something else, a referendum or a softer Brexit, work it out soon. And then send someone who isn’t Theresa May to talk to us about it.

EU leaders cannot say explicitly that they no longer want to deal with the current prime minister. Urging regime change is beyond the pale of normal diplomacy among democratic states. But there is no effort to conceal the frustration in May or the evacuation of confidence in her as a negotiating partner. The one thing everyone in Brussels, Berlin and Paris had most wanted to avoid from an article 50 extension was giving May a licence to carry on behaving as she has done for what feels like an eternity. They could no longer tolerate the hollow shell of a prime minister shuttling back and forth between Tory hardliners demanding fantasy Brexits and Brussels negotiators who trade in realities.

There is a difference between patience with the prime minister and readiness to help her country navigate through its current crisis. There are still stores of goodwill available for Britain in Brussels, but they cannot be unlocked by May.

The EU knows it, so do our own MPs – Theresa May is finished

Macron revised down chances of May winning vote to just 5% after hearing her at summit

According to Reuters, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, told fellow EU leaders during the EU27 discussion (ie, after Theresa May had left the room) that he thought May had only a 10% chance of winning the vote next week before he arrived at the summit. After hearing her address the meeting, he was revising that down to 5%, he said.

Donald Tusk, the European council president, said Macron was being “very optimistic”, Reuters says.

The last kiss?

[Nonsense]

The hard Brexiteers are lying hypocrites. They say the result of the referendum must be implemented above all other considerations. But May's deal delivers the simplistic result of the referendum, and the Brexiteers have voted it down. The referendum was merely to leave, it said nothing about a backstop. It said nothing about a good deal or a bad deal, because who would be the impartial judge of what is a good deal or a bad deal. If you demand that Brexit must be implemtned above all other considerations, then you lose all right to pick and choose which type of Brexit you want.

This is why when I say the referendum was essentially worthless, I'm giving fact not opinion. The referendum just said to leave, but to leave we have to agree to a specific deal, and its the hard Brexiteers who first derided May's deal as worse than staying. What we have now was not inevitable, but it was always a strong possibility inherent in the result. The Brexit narcisists thought that they could vote down this awful deal and retain, their purity, but Labour MPS would dutifully walk through the yes lobby to push through a Tory Brexit.

The hard Brexiteer MPs are just like the Commies. With the Commies its never real socialism. Nothing is ever a failure of socialism. It was always going to be not a real Brexit. Even if we did or do leave without a deal, the Brexiteers, will find some way of disowning the result. What ever we do it will not be a hard enough Brexit or they will blame all the problems on the failure of the government to extract a deal.

The hard Brexiteers are acting like fascists, they are not just saying that Parliament must implement the referendum result, they are demanding that Parliament must implement their interpretation of the Brexit result. They are like the religious fascists throughout the ages, that don't just demand we must live by scripture, but demand that we must live by their tortuous reinterpretation of scripture.

Nonsense -
So, you say the "referendum was essentially worthless", in your "opinion" that is, which is, IMHO pretty useless drivel.

You are too ignorant in expressing your rant against the majority, to even acknowledge just one simple fact, that it wasn't just, what you call, Brexiters' who voted against MAY's 'deal' , because. some 118 'Tory' MP's also voted against it & that doesn't include 'Labour' opponents of it.

I think your typically childish language indicates an inability to get a grip of what reality or facts are, you simply substitute reason with your typical nonsensical, incoherent & repetitive rant's.

IMHO, I think you are are on 'something' or other & ought to request a different medication from your GP.

[Nonsense]

The EU knows it, so do our own MPs – Theresa May is finished




The last kiss?

Nonsense -
The 'kiss' of death, sealed with a long fuse(delay - 12 April), just waiting for the death 'rattle'.

[Beren]

Lino had started the day in reasonably good spirits. For once, she had managed to unite the whole country. The TUC and the CBI had released a joint statement saying she was useless. Both Labour and Tory MPs had been so thoroughly pissed off by her Bob Geldof “Give me your fucking votes” telethon appeal that they were even more likely to reject her deal than they had been before she had opened her mouth. Every one of her cabinet ministers was plotting to get rid of her. No one anywhere had a good word to say about her. In an act of misplaced martyrdom, Lino had brought a nation together. If this was her being on their side, they’d hate to see what she could do when she was against them.

At last May manages to unite both the country and the Commons

What's Lino supposed to mean here exactly?

[Unperson-K]

Leader in name only.

[Rich]

I'll row back slightly on my earlier comment. The referendum wasn't useless, in that it got us where we are now. If you're happy with where we are now then it was useful. Brexit's failure's not my fault, I live in a Tory constituency. May is smart. She knew she would batting on an extremely tricky wicket, but to shamelessly mix sporting analogies, when the ball comes lose from the scrum, you need to grab it. In politics you never know if you'll get a second chance.

So May knew she had a giant problem before she even took the job. She was Tory leader first and Prime Minister second. If she reached acoss the house to opposition MPs she wouldn't be party leader for long. The whole point of Brexit was to stop the Tory party splitting. May wasn't going to do a Ramsey Macdonald. Tony Blair seemed to finally eclipse MacDonald as the Labour hate figure after a mere 70 odd years. The Tory party was massively split, this meant she was going to be dependant on the 40 to 80 hard Brexiteers Tory MPs to get any deal through Parliament.

So when May had a massive opinion poll lead. she did the smart thing in going to the country. She can hardly blamed for failing to predict that Football crowds and Festival audiences would be chanting "Oh Jeremy Corby." She can hardly be blamed fot not predicting that Jeremy Corby would deliver the biggest increase in the Labour vote since World War II. So since the election her problem is worse. The Tory party can't agree on what sort of Brexit they want, but she can't reach out to Labour, because if she did, the Tory MPs really would dump her.

A lot of Tory MPs are very unhappy with May, but their unhappy for completely opposing reasons. Some want her to go harder and appease the Tory right, but some want her to go softer and reach out to Labour MPs. So you can whine about May as much as you want, but any replacement would face the same arithemetic, and even an election probably wouldn't change it.

[Beren]

Leader in name only.

Thanks. I thought it was referring to something specific in British culture like a comics hero or something, but I didn't find anything like that. Also nothing says it's an acronym.

[Atlantis]

@Rich has got his work cut out for himself trying to defend the most incapable PM in history.

The EU knows it, so do our own MPs – Theresa May is finished

European leaders have known for some time that the prime minister wasn’t up to the Brexit job. This week she’s proved it

The EU has no time for Theresa May, which doesn’t mean there is no flexibility in the Brexit timetable. Continental leaders have granted an article 50 extension, but not the one requested by the prime minister. She had pitched for a new departure date of 30 June. She was given 39 days fewer, until 22 May. And that date only stands if parliament ratifies the deal.

If May flunks another meaningful vote, the extension gets shorter – 12 April is the new cliff-edge that comes into view. That date marks the point at which Britain would have to start organising European parliament elections, should it want another even longer extension. A national change of heart on the whole Brexit business would still be welcome in Brussels but it is not expected, and the priority is to escort a troublesome ex-member off the premises with a minimum of disruption before those MEP ballots get under way.

Does May like this plan? It doesn’t matter. She wasn’t in the room where it happened. The summit conclusions were handed down to the petitioning nation as it paced around an antechamber. This is the power relationship between a “third country” and the EU. Britain had better get used to it.

The terms of the extension are not drafted for the prime minister’s benefit. They contain a message from the EU direct to the House of Commons. In crude terms: piss or get off the pot. If you want to leave with a deal, vote for the damned deal. If you are foolish enough to leave without a deal, do not blame us. Have a couple more weeks to think about it. But if you want something else, a referendum or a softer Brexit, work it out soon. And then send someone who isn’t Theresa May to talk to us about it.

EU leaders cannot say explicitly that they no longer want to deal with the current prime minister. Urging regime change is beyond the pale of normal diplomacy among democratic states. But there is no effort to conceal the frustration in May or the evacuation of confidence in her as a negotiating partner. The one thing everyone in Brussels, Berlin and Paris had most wanted to avoid from an article 50 extension was giving May a licence to carry on behaving as she has done for what feels like an eternity. They could no longer tolerate the hollow shell of a prime minister shuttling back and forth between Tory hardliners demanding fantasy Brexits and Brussels negotiators who trade in realities.

There is a difference between patience with the prime minister and readiness to help her country navigate through its current crisis. There are still stores of goodwill available for Britain in Brussels, but they cannot be unlocked by May.

Theresa May has crossed a line from stubbornness into megalomania

The bankruptcy of May’s overseas enterprise has been coming since the day she set up shop in No 10. The squandering of credibility started almost at once, with the appointment of Boris Johnson as foreign secretary in 2016. Only someone with a tin ear for European sensibilities would have given the top diplomat job to a man known on the continent as a rogue peddler of anti-Brussels propaganda.

Then there was the early negotiating period, during which EU leaders thought May’s robotic, inscrutable manner concealed a deep, strategic intelligence. They came to realise that there was no mask. The inanity – the reciting of “Brexit means Brexit” even in private meetings – was not the cover story for a secret plan. It was the plan.

The point of no return was the summit in Salzburg last September. May was invited to make the case for what was left of her “Chequers plan” to European heads of government. It was late. They were tired. There were other difficult matters to attend to. And instead of speaking candidly, persuasively, passionately or even just coherently, the British prime minister read mechanically from a text that was, in substance, no different from an op-ed article already published under her name in a German newspaper that morning. It was embarrassing and insulting. Many European diplomats say that was the moment when Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and others realised they were dealing with someone out of her depth, unable to perform at the level required for the job that needed doing.

A similar story is emerging from last night’s summit. May was asked about backup plans in the event that parliament rejects her deal a third time. She had nothing. She restated her determination that the deal should pass. This infuriating obtuseness is grimly familiar on this side of the Channel. Cabinet ministers recognise the experience of being desperate for some glimpse of the prime minister’s calculations. People who want to support her have needed some window into the workings of her political brain, maybe just a peek at her soul. They get nothing. It is hard to build trust with someone so closed and hard to stay loyal.

There was a Salzburg-style moment for pro-European Tories on Wednesday night, when the prime minister went on television to berate MPs for obstructing her deal. The spirit was demagogic, even if the style was typically charmless. Here was a besieged leader, emerging from her bunker, presenting herself as the champion of her people against a rotten parliament. This did not go down well with MPs of any stripe. But it was most counterproductive with moderate Conservatives who have voted for May’s deal twice already and both times seen her respond to defeat by borrowing ideas and rhetoric from the hardliners who have given her nothing but humiliation. She rewards enemies of compromise by becoming ever less compromising.

Wednesday night’s performance exposed something that many of May’s colleagues find uncomfortable to acknowledge: the prime minister’s failure at overseas diplomacy and her failure at domestic politics express a single fatal flaw. She is unable to communicate with others because she has lost the ability to be honest with herself. She has no outward-facing powers of persuasion but she also lacks the introspection necessary to take responsibility for the mess made by her obstinacy. She has crossed a line from stubbornness into megalomania.

That leads to a conclusion that Britain’s continental neighbours reached long ago. Even if the UK ends up leaving the EU on the terms outlined in the prime minister’s deal, her part in the story will very soon be over. She is finished. The problems with Brexit are much bigger than Theresa May’s failings as a leader. But those failings disqualify her from being part of a viable solution.

[Beren]

Bonjour tristesse. Taking back control had come down to handing back control to the only grownups left in the room. A woman and a country humiliated both by a refusal to accept reality and by the thrilling rush of self-harm. Whether her deal eventually went through or not, her time was up. She had broken herself and her party. And in the process she had taken the country down with her.

He may have meant stalemate but checkmate is actually better because the British PM got finally checkmated.

[anarchist23]

Never a truer word said...

Mr Macron says "it is clear" the British people made a decision "without having all the information".
He says Brexit was a "sovereign decision" that was "based on fake news".
"All those people who spread that have disappeared from the political situation now," he says.

[Beren]

This is worth sharing, and watching.

[Rich]

@Rich has got his work cut out for himself trying to defend the most incapable PM in history.

Its not me that needs to defend my analysis, its all the idiot commentators who keep telling us that May is finished. They've been saying May is doomed now for nearly a year and three quarters. They said she'd probably be gone in hours on election night, then it was days, then weeks, then by party conference. Every other week there's some new crisis that she can't survive. I have never said that May would survive, but since the 2017 election I've been saying that May's position is a lot stronger than it might first appear. Its the commentators whether on or off the forum that have been wrong about May's departure, time, after time after time, that need to ask why they keep getting it wrong.

I have never said that May is good for Britain, good for Europe or good for humanity. I've never claimed that May is good at getting Brexit done. I've said May has been amazing at two things:

1 Keeping herself in office
2 Keeping the Tory party together and defending its electoral position as the natural party of government.

There's all sorts of things that May is total shit at, but what I keep trying to explain to people is that they are not her priority. Let me give you an example. The Nazis human rights record in Russia was absolute appalling, does this mean that the Nazis were incompetent idiots. No it just means that human rights were not their priority. If people abandoned the comforting notion of May and the Tories incompetence, they would actually be far more antagonistic to the Tories.

I didn't vote for the Tories but many ex UKIP voters did. UKIP voters were suckered into voting for the Tories in 2015/6 trusting them to deliver Brexit through and after the referendum. they were the idiots not May or the Tory MPS. Similarly many moderate Remainers voted for May in 2017, trusting that she would get Brexit over as quickly and as painlessly as possible. They were suckered too.

May could be gone tomorrow. I just don't know, but I also think there is a significant probability that we'll be here in a year's time, the commentators will be saying she's finished and I'll be saying, maybe, maybe not. I think there's a good chance that when May does go it will be, because she's lost the hunger, like Cameron not because she's forced out. I think looking back Gordon Brown moved the Overton Window of British politics in terms of a Prime Minister hanging on. Funnily both May and Cameron have set new precedents in terms of hanging on as leader against huge defeats and opposition. The fixed term parliament act also has had a huge, unforeseen effect of weakening, the Prime Minister and the governments, ability to pass legislation, while strengthening their ability to stay in power.

The Tories are in an excellent position, Labour is weak under Corbyn. The already weak centre vote is now divided between the Lib Dems and the Independent Group. The hard Brexit vote is now divided between UKIP and the Farage Party. Yes things are looking great for the Tories, just as long as they can avoid tearing themselves apart.