This is glorious... How does May recover from any of this pic.twitter.com/roJdRWk9ek— Ishaan Tharoor (@ishaantharoor) December 10, 2018
So maybe the EU will EUxit themselves. First Italy, now France. Les Echos says Macron's measures to buy off the gilets jaunes could bring France's deficit close to 3.5% of GDP. There's a danger that developments in France, Italy and Germany could now start to interact destructively. https://t.co/VjPt6cu4KF (Short thread).— Tom Nuttall (@tom_nuttall) December 11, 2018
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/brexit-may-133.html https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ays-no-more-brexit-negotiations-idUSKBN1OA0MP
She is in a rather hopeless position, tho. Based on recent polling 1/3 would be prefer a clean break and almost half would prefer the UK to stay in the EU. I‘m not sure how anyone can navigate those numbers and end up somewhere between.
48 letters received by the 1922 Committee. May to now face a Vote of No Confidence, with a possible leadership election afterwards! It's hard to even predict what will happen in the next 24 hours these days
The problem with that is while the British aren't in the euro, Italy or France exiting would result in having to destroy a currency and go back to old currencies. It's far too much risk. Much more likely, the Germans will just lift the cap on deficit spending.
TBH that's why this stuff about the EU being determined to make the UK suffer to stop others doing the same thing is largely bullshit most of them CAN'T do the same thing. They are in a totally different situation. The countries not in the euro but in the EU are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Of those the UK is leaving anyway, (on some basis still to be decided), and only the Danish and Sweden are in a position likely to even consider leaving the EU. The others are net beneficiaries of EU largess and benefit enormously from being in it. They gain cash payments and their people can move across the continent for better paid work than they'd get at home. I mean, we gain... but there's a cost involved. For them, it's ALL a plus.
If we get a people's vote we might still stay in Maybe the EU should get one of those humorous doormats... Having said that, as I said before, a narrow 'win' would leave us in a very unsatisfactory position IMO. If that happens we'd be better to adopt some sort of EEA/EFTA fudge where we save a few quid a year but don't get much of a say in things. Not ideal but we lost sight of 'ideal' in the rear-view mirror a LOOOONG time ago
I posted this in another thread a few days back and it sums up my overriding feeling of this whole episode. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/606-cant-keep-us-locked-down.1995148/page-7010#post-37341065 It's not that the original decision was that crazy. It was a bit daft but if we'd decided what we wanted we might have been able to negotiate it, or something approaching it. As it was the tories allowed a control freak nutcase to decide what the vote meant and the rest of us didn't get a look in.
For me, the issue was that the process and consequences of the option to leave were not defined prior to the vote. This allowed every different campaigner to claim something different ("nobody's talking about leaving the Single Market") and dismiss Remain arguments out of hand as "Project Fear". The voters were then able to latch on to whatever they thought was going to happen in their ideal world. Even now, there is no consensus among those who voted leave as to what it actually means although the extreme Leavers are defining it to their vision and contrary to what they put foward in the campaign..
I think that was exactly the problem. I remember at the time people were saying that leave couldn't win because they had mixed messages but, even then, I thought that was the opposite of the truth. It was precisely because people could believe whichever 'flavour' of leave they wanted would be the one that would happen that was the reason they won. TBH that is one way it's similar to donny tiny hands and how he won. The difference, of course, is that, with him, he was able to give totally different messages on his own He'd suggest that the poor and ordinary people would somehow be protected and, to the rich, he said they'd ALSO gain. At least we had the excuse that we could believe Farage and his 'brave new world' of trade across the globe OR we could believe the 'minimal readjustment' version of a soft brexit from people in the main leave group that stressed the ease and simplicity of negotiating a deal continuing ALL of the same trade we have now with the EU. For me, that's the nub of the issue. We're being asked to believe that ALL of the people that voted leave ALL thought it meant leaving the CU, IM and ECJ when people clearly voted leave for all sorts of reasons. Under those circumstances we needed to decide what was meant.
But they are about to get the French on their side. I mean is good if the Italians do cave, the bond markets will hit them in the face if they do not.
Draft of Act I of "Les shambolics". Part I: [Macron and Merkel are alone in the meeting room in Brussels after all the other leaders have left. Late at night, at an EC meeting in the spring of 2018.] Macron looks shyly up to Merkel. Macron walks up to Merkel and starts to sing. At first quietly, getting louder onwards as music starts to play: [Macron's Part] You know I want it It's not a secret I try to hide I know you want it too So don't keep saying our hands are tied [music sets in] You claim hard Brexit is not in the cards Euro policy is pulling you miles away And out of reach from me But I think we agree in this So who can stop me if I decide That Brexit is our destiny? What if we kick the Brits out? [Macron starts dancing around Merkel] Still our rules they'd have to apply Nothing could keep us apart The Irish backstop will be our pry! It's up to you, and it's up to me [Macron now walking arm in arm with Merkel] No one can say what we get to be So why don't we kick the Brits out? All of Europe could be ours [Macron pointing at a giant map of Europe] Tonight [Merkel's Part] to follow
<looks at calendar. confirms it says 2018. wonders what in the ever loving ******** this guy is talking about> I know it seems obvious now, but a vote for "leave" should have meant a referendum later on the terms of leaving. That would have been an obvious failsafe.
Not sure of the connection there dave. It's 2018 so you must have another referendum??? How does that work then?