UK in/out referendum on the EU (Brexit vs Bremain)

you know what I think, the three Labour party leaders, Corbyn, McDonald and Thornbury, are totally out of their depth, and are stubbornly refusing to take advice from the younger more flexible MPs. Those three are hidebound and set in stone and also weirdly opaque, I still don't know what they stand for or represent. Corbyn got quite hysterical yesterday night, it wasn't a pretty sight. I thought I would feel more happy at the gvt defeat, but I have a horrible suspicion it is playing right into the ERG hands and they are going to get a hard brexit afterall.

{{Labour need a clear position- they need to say exactly how they envisage Brexit if Labour are in charge of it- do we stay in the customs union or not? How closely aligned to the EU Court do we remain? If they dont plan on the customs union then what's their solution to the NI border question? Fisheries? Farming? What about repatriating powers from EU to devolved administrations? Ive no idea what their position on any of this is. And that isn't good enough with only a few weeks to go till Brexit Day. If Labour get a general election I dont even know what they would be standing on other not we arent May. And I, unusually for most folk, watch politics pretty closely and I dont have a clue what they stand for- what hope has the average member of the public got?

Also see Reece-Mogg and co spent last night having a champagne quaffing party- countries fucked and the toffs are lording up celebrating with expensive food and wine- nothing changes in this country, not even after centuries }}

it will never change while the plebs are tugging their forelocks to the likes of Mogg.

{{ Votes underway result shortly.
And looks like Sturgeon is going for indyref2!
And Watson summing up for Labour just made a good pitch for leader of Labour with a speech that hit May harder than anything Corbyn has done since he became Leader- and Gove just showed for the Tories how good he is at the despatch box. Its like X-factor only they are auditioning for leader of their parties! }}

{{Well no surprise there- motion defeated. May and the tories stay and Corbyn cant call another one for a year.
Utterly, predictably, pointless. }}

yep

So any guesses what comes next? I've been trying to follow along, but I'm afraid I lost the thread of logic to this weeks ago....

there is no logic, that's the problem.

{{The basic problem is we have two opposing forces clashing. By which I mean we have on the one hand the choice of the people in the referendum to leave. But Parliament taken as a whole voted to remain and support remain. So we have a chamber which doesn't believe in leave trying to implement leave when there is no version of Leave it will be satisfied with or will pass.
On the other side we have the actual basic job of an MP- which is not as people think primarily to represent their constituents, or even to back their party, but rather to act in the best interest of the nation. And most of them believe Brexit will not be in the best interests of the nation.
So the primary duty of an MP is in direct conflict with the instructions given to them in the referendum by the people.
This is why in the UK system referendums are only advisory not binding on the government- but its one thing the law saying that and another thing politically for Westminster to actually turn to the people and say 'you got that wrong we aren't doing it'.

So what happens next is hard to see- May can try to renegotiate with Europe come back again for another vote. We crash out with a No Deal and go to WTO rules, she might delay Article 50 delaying the date of leaving, call a second referendum, have ageneral election (not likely after yesterday) or she could say we are not leaving as its not in the best interest of the country (extremely unlikely but technically an option). One of those is going to happen soon however as the official Leave date approaches.

But some things are exhausted- any plan with a backstop we cant quit out of won't work, that's clear. We won't have a change of PM from a leadership contests as they can't have another for a year, and we won't have a general election as Corbyn blew that yesterday, so its off the table for a year too. So we are stuck with things as they are with the same faces in the same roles saying the same things }}

{{Agreed that is definitely a large part of the problem Lance- its all so nebulous when it comes to exactly what being outside the EU means how far outside basically.

Even if you look just within the Tory party you have your Reece-Moggs who want a hard Brexit, no deal, just out and make deals afterwards, but then you have moderate Brexit elements represented by May, who want to go out but stay as closely aligned with the EU as possible to minimise disruption, and then you've those who are staunch Remainers and don't want out at all, the Ken Clarkes of the party- and that's pretty much representational of the country as a whole. The only element not really represented there is the 2n referendum lot, championed by the lib-dems, some Labour and the SNP.

On the subject of Indy2- I agree with you its too soon, and I should have been wary of taking news from an English news source! It makes no appearance on the BBC Scotland pages where the main Sturgeon story is this one-

"The SNP will "work constructively" with the UK government to find a way forward on Brexit, the party's Westminster leader has pledged....Mr Blackford added: "We have to agree to enter these talks on the basis that we can move forward and achieve a result which will unify all the nations of the United Kingdom."

That might sound surprising but Sturgeon is as usual playing a canny political game. Whilst publicly the SNP oppose Brexit as they represent Scotland and it voted to remain by a much larger majority than the UK as a whole choose to Leave. So its good politics to represent the majority view.
But if they play their cards well, and now May is in a hole and needs to compromise to get backing, the Scottish Parliament stands to gain quite a lot of extra powers over areas previously devolved to the EU- fisheries and agriculture being chief among them. Two huge areas of the Scottish economy.
Long term gaining those powers, solidifying them and bumping up the percent of govenrment done in Scotland at Holyrood and using them successfully, will be a better help towards full independence than anything else. There comes a point when you are running 90% of things when people just go 'we may as well just run all of it'.

And oddly enough an independence vote happening in a Scotland outside the EU is actually easier to win. The EU question muddied the waters last time. If its a more straight choice between independence or Union with no other outside complications then it probably stands a better chance than before.}}

what baffles me is how can an advisory referendum be turned into the cast iron 'will of the people' that has become like some sacred holy altar which we must be sacrified on.
surely if everyone has the intelligence to understand that its a mess, a crisis, and could lead to economic disaster, why the fuck cant they just cancel it.
they can say to the average punter who has no idea about high finance and complicated trade deals, 'look we tried to get brexit but its impossible' surely people get that basic fact. its impossible so whats the point of dragging out the misery. The fact is its a generational thing, the pensioners want out and the young want in, pensioners have had 40 years of Murdoch press poison, the young haven't, they don't read that garbage.

And if you were staying in the EU, you would have the smug feeling that comes with beating McDonald's.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/video/mcdonald-loses-big-mac-192120958.html

https://www.facebook.com/everythingstudent/videos/463553834177553/

https://www.facebook.com/180115459433/videos/291394544900221/

Sky News is yet again turning into the gutter press tv. They invited that petulant toad Darren Grimes, the illegal leave campaign organiser, on to discuss young people 16-18 being allowed to vote in the 2nd ref. not only did it use its grandfathers memory to score pathetic points, it couldn't keep a civil tongue in its head. Sky news is scraping the barrel once again.

azriel wrote:https://www.facebook.com/180115459433/videos/291394544900221/

Not getting sound on that one.

Not getting sound on that one.- Halfwise

{{Here you go Halfy- try this one }}

Thanks, though Az's video is a collage of things based on the Andy Serkis video.

That's a shame you cant hear it Halfy ! It was funny It was done to the song "Bohemian Rhapsody", just the words were different.

Lancebloke wrote:

Mrs Figg wrote:Sky News is yet again turning into the gutter press tv. They invited that petulant toad Darren Grimes, the illegal leave campaign organiser,  on to discuss young people 16-18 being allowed to vote in the 2nd ref. not only did it use its grandfathers memory to score pathetic points, it couldn't keep a civil tongue in its head. Sky news is scraping the barrel once again.

If you want to be unbiased you have to invite all parties on... not the ones that you agree with.

agreed, but do they have to invite someone who was investigated for illegal practices? they should have asked someone with a rational mind who doesnt use the time to mouth off and use foul language? I have no problem with opposing views as long as he uses debate instead of just ranting. Did you hear him?

https://www.facebook.com/harry.darley.7/videos/10218380444966068/

The audience reaction was several seconds faster than me on that one.