But that was never hard brexit. That was always no deal. Hard/soft is the type of deal.
How have the goalposts changed so much? Does no one have any kind of memory any more?
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Well time has moved on , this is just my current view , a simple viewpoint , with no agenda.
I get the feeling when talking to people, a crash out is becoming a popular choice , probaly born out of boredom , folk have simply had enough, perhaps we should have left out two years ago, to avoid all this groundhog day from all parties.
I know my posts have been quite subtle, but I thought it would have come through that I am not all that interested in politics. I find the rule of law and the corruption aspects more interesting, and the Trump Russia Collusion hoax has certainly revealed some unusual behaviour. We now know how easy it is to utilise state instutions for political purposes, and I would be intrigued to know how widespread these practices are.
Paul Manafort's problems stem from his dealings in Ukraine, and these predate the short period he spent with the Trump campaige. Like I said, these were investigated by a prior administration, and they declined to prosecute. I don't think we have heard the last of Ukraine either, as we now know at least two sources for the Steele dossier come from there.
It is estimated ( votes weren't counted by constituency) that at the time of the referendum 61% of Labour held constituencies voted to Leave. This is of course very different to the estimated 65% of Labour voters nationwide who voted to Remain.
This figure changed to an estimated 56% after the results of the 2017 general election, presumably as some Remain constituencies previously in Tory hands moved to Labour.
So if you are talking about Labour voters then it would be perfectly consistent for MPs to "apply the democracy to it's (sic) voters" and vote against the deal on the withdrawal agreement!
But who does get it? Theoretically, soft Brexit is not what the electorate voted for. There was no fine-tuning regarding the question posed regarding referendum vote: Remain being one option and leaving the EU the other option. It is so ironic that the compromise that may be reached was not voted for by anyone (not that I think that the electorate have been the wisest judges regarding the matter, as you know from my previous posts).
The point I was trying to make was that, even after nearly three years of deadlock, we're still hearing too much of it's got to be my Brexit!
For me, there were two main things to come out the 2016 Referendum. The first being that on one particular day more of those who could be bothered to vote wanted us to Leave the EU than stay in it. The second was that more than 16.1 million people all voted for the same single thing - i.e. the status quo where things "Remain" as they were. People go on about the 17.4 million leavers, but any analysis of that figure will show a multitude of reasons as to why so many people wanted to leave and so you would probably get thousands of different answers if you asked each Leave voter to set out why they voted the way they did - when you go beyond the figures revealed in the vote, Remain would be the largest single answer in any detailed analysis of precisely what motivated people on that day.
I say one particular day, because my perception was that the issue which resounded most with Leave voters was immigration - maybe I 'm wrong there, but there can be no doubt that it was something that was debated at length in the time leading up to vote.
Nowadays, it barely gets a mention, yet this
https://fullfact.org/immigration/eu-migration-and-uk/
suggests that any fall in immigration to the UK from the EU since the 2016 vote has been offset or even surpassed by an increase in non EU immigration - this suggests that people feel less strongly about immigration now than they did back on that given day in 2016.
All of this shows how hard it is to come up with any sort of precise definition as to what Brexit meant and still means to your average person. By it's nature, Brexit has to mean an awful lot of different things to the UK population, so it must follow that any solution to the issue which, broadly, is to the satisfaction of a majority has to be a compromise. That's what I meant by "they just don't get it" - people with too many personal agendas are having too big a say as to where the country should go from here.
Hi, Bob. I wasn't arguing with you, old fruit. The whole thing is a huge stramash, as the Scots say. There are a number of politicians playing their own games but those who aren't have been put in a difficult situation themselves. And they daren't say that the electorate were not qualified to vote on the matter due to the level of ignorance regarding the matter.
Speaker John Bercow is saying that Theresa May cannot come back with a third attempt to get her deal through Parliament unless it is significantly different from the one voted on last week.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47614074
The Leave Means Leave march (which apparently cost people £50 each to sign up to) is looking pretty pathetic. Numbers not even in three figures, Farage has no intention of joining them other than for brief photo ops, barely a person under 50 which doesn't suggest that the people who will live with brexit are that motivated to "save" it. It just looks like a miserable time.
How many turned up to the People's Vote march again? I can't remember. Was it less or more than this?
Short extension to Brexit "possible" if MPs approve UK PM Theresa May's deal next week - EU's Donald Tusk says
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47636011
:hehe:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/834/cp...32f1f3c0a6.jpg
Dear Donald
The UK Government's policy remains to leave the European Union in an orderly manner on the basis of the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration agreed in November, complemented by the Joint Instrument and supplement to the Political Declaration President Juncker and I agreed on 11 March.
You will be aware that before the House of Commons rejected the deal for a second time on 12 March, I warned in a speech in Grimsby that the consequences of failing to endorse the deal were unpredictable and potentially deeply unpalatable. The House of Commons did not vote in favour of the deal. The following day it voted against leaving the EU without a negotiated deal. The day after that it supported a Government motion that proposed a short extension to the Article 50 period if the House supported a meaningful vote before this week's European Council. The motion also made clear that if this had not happened, a longer extension would oblige the UK to call elections to the European Parliament. I do not believe that it would be in either of our interests for the UK to hold European Parliament elections.
I had intended to bring the vote back to the House of Commons this week. The Speaker of the House of Commons said on Monday that in order for a further meaningful vote to be brought back to the House of Commons, the agreement would have to be "fundamentally different-not different in terms of wording, but different in terms of substance". Some Members of Parliament have interpreted that this means a further change to the deal. This position has made it impossible in practice to call a further vote in advance of the European Council. However, it remains my intention to bring the deal back to the House.
In advance of that vote, I would be grateful if the European Council could therefore approve the supplementary documents that President Juncker and I agreed in Strasbourg, putting the Government in a position to bring these agreements to the House and confirming the changes to the Government's proposition to Parliament. I also intend to bring forward further domestic proposals that confirm my previous commitments to protect our internal market, given the concerns expressed about the backstop. On this basis, and in the light of the outcome of the European Council, I intend to put forward a motion as soon as possible under section 13 of the Withdrawal Act 2018 and make the argument for the orderly withdrawal and strong future partnership the UK economy, its citizens' security and the continent's future, demands.
If the motion is passed, I am confident that Parliament will proceed to ratify the deal constructively. But this will clearly not be completed before 29 March 2019. In our legal system, the Government will need to take a Bill through both Houses of Parliament to enact our commitments under the Withdrawal Agreement into domestic law. While we will consult with the Opposition in the usual way to plan the passage of the Bill as quickly and smoothly as possible, the timetable for this is inevitably uncertain at this stage. I am therefore writing to inform the European Council that the UK is seeking an extension to the Article 50 period under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union, including as applied by Article 106a of the Euratom Treaty, until 30 June 2019.
I would be grateful for the opportunity to set out this position to our colleagues on Thursday.
Yours ever
Theresa May
The break up of the Union is getting very close now.