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shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#76New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 14:12:32
@nooneinparticular Said

I'm not disputing what the PM at the time promised, only that what he promised is basically irrelevant because he left office right afterwards. We can call promising something and then running away from his responsibilities any number of very nasty words, but it doesn't change the fact that doing so basically voided whatever he said.


Only it doesnt as his Government introduced the European Union Referendum Act 2015 on the promise that the result would be respected. Parliament then overwhelmingly passed the Bill on the understanding that the result would be respected. A guide was then sent out to every household by the Government which stated that "This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide".

So not simply the PM, not simply the Government, but in effect Parliament itself agreed to honour the referendum result. People voted believing that the result of the referendum would be honoured. And so it should be.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#77New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 14:54:44
@nooneinparticular Said

Except that article 50 also has a provision in it that allows for extensions if both parties agree. You may not like the fact that it is there, but the legislation allows for extensions so to say that article 50 must result in leaving the EU within 2 years is willfully misleading.

What I said is not misleading at all. Your misquoting me is misleading. It may be willfully so. I don't know as I don't claim to know what you were thinking when you misrepresented what I said. You claim that I said that "article 50 must result in leaving the EU within 2 years". What I actually said was that "article 50 clearly states that IF NO DEAL can be agreed upon btw the member state and the EU within 2 years then the member state shall in effect leave without a deal." There is a very important difference btw what you claim I said and what I actually said. That difference is there for anyone to read.

When I said that "article 50 clearly states that IF NO DEAL can be agreed upon btw the member state and the EU within 2 years then the member state shall in effect leave without a deal" I was referring to the DEFAULT position of the legislation. Does the legislation contain a provision that allows for one or more extensions IF both parties agree? Yes. And I have spoken about this previously. The simple reality though is that the ONLY known re article 50 is that if no agreement has been reached at the end of two years then the member state shall leave WITHOUT a deal. An agreement may be reached during the two year period (or during any mutually agreed extension), but when Parliament passed the legislation allowing Article 50 to be triggered the ONLY thing they KNEW was that if no agreement were reached at the end of two years then the UK would leave the EU without a deal, under WTO terms. They had NO way of knowing if any exit deal would ever be agreed upon with the EU. They had NO way of knowing if any extension(s) would be agreed upon. As stated, the only thing they did know was that once article 50 was triggered it was a one way street to the exit and that NO DEAL was the legislation's default outcome. Knowing this the vast majority of MP's voted to give the PM the authority to trigger article 50.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#78New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 15:41:09
@nooneinparticular Said

Oh, so May's infamous "Red Lines" were a reflection of her being a Remainer were they? And her negotiators? And what other deal would have been acceptable again?


Neither May nor her team ever seriously contemplated leaving without a deal. It's why her government spent so little time and money preparing for no deal. Why prepare for something you believe will never happen as you will not accept such an outcome. It's why for example Hammond never bothered to advise bushiness to prepare for a no deal scenario. Compare the actions of May and her Government with that of BJ. His government did more in 2 weeks to prepare for a no deal exit than May did in 2 years. As for what other deal would have been acceptable? Well we can see now that the answer is none. Those MP's committed to honouring the people's vote were never going to accept a deal resembling May's whilst remainer MP's who put themselves before the people either won't accept any deal that takes the UK out of the EU, or will only accept a deal that effectively keeps the UK tied to the EU.

@nooneinparticular Said

As for Parliament, the people vote in those in the house of commons, so if they don't reflect their interests then that's a problem the public has to address. Blaming the 'elites' is all well and good, but it doesn't address the root problem, that the public voted in people that do not reflect their interests. They put those 'elites' there to begin with.


Approx 80% of people in the 2017 general election voted in politicians from parties whose manifesto stated that they would respect the 2016 people's vote. Now that it is apparent that many MP's do not reflect their interests (like they thought they did) most people want fresh elections. Only the very MP's who aren't acting in the way they said they would when they were elected are currently refusing to let the people hold them to account.

@nooneinparticular Said

Why you continue to insist that the threat of leaving with no deal gives the UK an advantage I just do not understand.


Firstly, leaving without a deal cant be a threat. It needs to be a genuine option or it won't have a positive influence on negotiations. Now the simple reality is that both the EU and the UK would prefer that an exit deal was agreed upon for a variety of reasons. If however the EU say we are prepared to leave without a deal whilst the UK say they are not then instantly the EU have a significant advantage in negotiations. By making it clear that the UK will not leave without a deal they are in effect telling the EU that they will accept a bad deal over no deal. If however the UK is genuinely prepared to leave without a deal then the EU is far more likely to make compromises in order to facilitate a deal (as a deal is their preferred option). In the end both parties may choose to walk away if an acceptable compromise can't be reached, but a deal that is seen to be acceptable to both parties is more likely to be reached in instances where both parties are negotiating on a level playing field. Saying you will accept any deal simply gives the other team all the power and guarantees you will be bent over...
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#79New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 15:48:57
The latest polls show that Labour has slid down by 4%. Not exactly a surprise. Afterall, for yonks Labour has been calling for a snap election. BJ offers then a snap election and they say 'well we want an election but not until the Surrender document becomes law'. Said document becomes law and then Labour says it wont agree to an election until the EU have agreed to an extension. Now the French are saying they might block any extension.

Then you have an MP from the shadow cabinet saying that if Labour were to win the next election they would do their best to negotiate a new deal with the EU. They would then hold a new referendum where people would either choose for the UK to remain in the EU or they would choose Labour's new deal. At the same time the minister said Labour would campaign against their own deal. You can't make this stuff up!

The following day another member of the shadow cabinet said Labour had given up on the idea or trying to negotiate a new deal and instead would accept May's deal. The one they voted against three times. The referendum would then by a choice btw May's deal and the 'Norway option'. Unreal.
mrmhead On March 27, 2024




NE, Ohio
#80New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 16:06:17
So I asked Google "What do other countries think about Brexit"
- trying to get a pulse on other Gov'ts positions.
Found a few old surveys of citizens of other countries, but I didn't quickly find anything stating the position of various governments.

But browsing through a few of those "People" responses - Some want the EU to cut a deal that is Unfavorable to the UK in order to discourage other countries from leaving.

I hadn't thought of it that way. I just thought they couldn't come to agreeable terms.

Are the EU negotiators wanting to punish the UK for leaving?
nooneinparticular On March 16, 2023




, Hawaii
#81New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 16:32:28
@shadowen Said

Only it doesnt as his Government introduced the European Union Referendum Act 2015 on the promise that the result would be respected. Parliament then overwhelmingly passed the Bill on the understanding that the result would be respected. A guide was then sent out to every household by the Government which stated that "This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide".

So not simply the PM, not simply the Government, but in effect Parliament itself agreed to honour the referendum result. People voted believing that the result of the referendum would be honoured. And so it should be.


And so they have. The only thing they promised was that the UK would leave the EU. They didn't say when, they didn't say how, and they didn't say what everything would look like at the end of it. It was Cameron and his people that made promises on the when and how, not Parliament, and Cameron's promises are about as valuable as wet newspaper considering he left office right afterwards.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#82New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 16:45:29
Cameron said he would honour the result of the people's vote. Parliament said the same thing. Cameron said he would trigger article 50 if leave won. Parliament agreed to give the PM to power to do this. It wasn't Cameron saying one thing and Parliament another. They both said the same thing. A number of remain MP's from all the major parties stated that a vote to leave would see the UK leave the EU no later than 2 years after article 50 was triggered and they said that the UK may end up leaving without a deal. Voters took them at their word. Clearly the voters have been shafted. Parliament never hinted that hey would act as they have.

Anyway, a snap election seems extremely likely at some point this year. Voters can then decide if they are happy with how their representatives in Parliament have behaved.
nooneinparticular On March 16, 2023




, Hawaii
#83New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 17:44:12
@shadowen Said

Neither May nor her team ever seriously contemplated leaving without a deal. It's why her government spent so little time and money preparing for no deal. Why prepare for something you believe will never happen as you will not accept such an outcome. It's why for example Hammond never bothered to advise bushiness to prepare for a no deal scenario. Compare the actions of May and her Government with that of BJ. His government did more in 2 weeks to prepare for a no deal exit than May did in 2 years. As for what other deal would have been acceptable? Well we can see now that the answer is none. Those MP's committed to honouring the people's vote were never going to accept a deal resembling May's whilst remainer MP's who put themselves before the people either won't accept any deal that takes the UK out of the EU, or will only accept a deal that effectively keeps the UK tied to the EU.


Once again we blame the powerless minority power for the inability of the majority coalition to get it's act together. The whole point of the majority coalition is to make the minority powers completely irrelevant. If it can't achieve that then there's a cohesion problem in the coalition.

Quote:

Approx 80% of people in the 2017 general election voted in politicians from parties whose manifesto stated that they would respect the 2016 people's vote. Now that it is apparent that many MP's do not reflect their interests (like they thought they did) most people want fresh elections. Only the very MP's who aren't acting in the way they said they would when they were elected are currently refusing to let the people hold them to account.


Which doesn't mean the same thing to you as it does to them, clearly.

Quote:

Firstly, leaving without a deal cant be a threat. It needs to be a genuine option or it won't have a positive influence on negotiations. Now the simple reality is that both the EU and the UK would prefer that an exit deal was agreed upon for a variety of reasons. If however the EU say we are prepared to leave without a deal whilst the UK say they are not then instantly the EU have a significant advantage in negotiations. By making it clear that the UK will not leave without a deal they are in effect telling the EU that they will accept a bad deal over no deal. If however the UK is genuinely prepared to leave without a deal then the EU is far more likely to make compromises in order to facilitate a deal (as a deal is their preferred option). In the end both parties may choose to walk away if an acceptable compromise can't be reached, but a deal that is seen to be acceptable to both parties is more likely to be reached in instances where both parties are negotiating on a level playing field. Saying you will accept any deal simply gives the other team all the power and guarantees you will be bent over...


Except that the EU and UK were NEVER negotiating on a level playing field, and being willing to walk away does not change that fact. The only scenario in which being told the UK will walk away actually helps their position is if the EU is willing to compromise their own values to get a deal out of the UK. They very clearly have not been.

May's Deal was actually better than what I was expecting to come out of those talks. Of course, since no one liked it, that's currently a moot point.
nooneinparticular On March 16, 2023




, Hawaii
#84New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 17:50:38
@shadowen Said

What I said is not misleading at all. Your misquoting me is misleading. It may be willfully so. I don't know as I don't claim to know what you were thinking when you misrepresented what I said. You claim that I said that "article 50 must result in leaving the EU within 2 years". What I actually said was that "article 50 clearly states that IF NO DEAL can be agreed upon btw the member state and the EU within 2 years then the member state shall in effect leave without a deal." There is a very important difference btw what you claim I said and what I actually said. That difference is there for anyone to read.

When I said that "article 50 clearly states that IF NO DEAL can be agreed upon btw the member state and the EU within 2 years then the member state shall in effect leave without a deal" I was referring to the DEFAULT position of the legislation. Does the legislation contain a provision that allows for one or more extensions IF both parties agree? Yes. And I have spoken about this previously. The simple reality though is that the ONLY known re article 50 is that if no agreement has been reached at the end of two years then the member state shall leave WITHOUT a deal. An agreement may be reached during the two year period (or during any mutually agreed extension), but when Parliament passed the legislation allowing Article 50 to be triggered the ONLY thing they KNEW was that if no agreement were reached at the end of two years then the UK would leave the EU without a deal, under WTO terms. They had NO way of knowing if any exit deal would ever be agreed upon with the EU. They had NO way of knowing if any extension(s) would be agreed upon. As stated, the only thing they did know was that once article 50 was triggered it was a one way street to the exit and that NO DEAL was the legislation's default outcome. Knowing this the vast majority of MP's voted to give the PM the authority to trigger article 50.


Except you made no indication that you were talking about the default position only. You made it sound like the time limit was 2 years and that there would be no way to change that. You made it sound like you were upset at the MP's for dragging this on past 2 years when "article 50 clearly states that IF NO DEAL can be agreed upon btw the member state and the EU within 2 years then the member state shall in effect leave without a deal".
nooneinparticular On March 16, 2023




, Hawaii
#85New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 18:06:24
@shadowen Said

Cameron said he would honour the result of the people's vote. Parliament said the same thing. Cameron said he would trigger article 50 if leave won. Parliament agreed to give the PM to power to do this. It wasn't Cameron saying one thing and Parliament another. They both said the same thing.


Notice I never disputed whether Parliament invoked article 50 at the behest of the people, but just because Cameron said something and Parliament eventually did it in part does not indicate that anything else Cameron said Parliament is also bound to.

As an aside, I remember distinctly that Cameron said he would invoke a50 'the day of', not a year later as Parliament did. A lot of the economic forecasts that you dismiss for being wrong were also based, at least in part, on that assumption.

Quote:

A number of remain MP's from all the major parties stated that a vote to leave would see the UK leave the EU no later than 2 years after article 50 was triggered and they said that the UK may end up leaving without a deal. Voters took them at their word. Clearly the voters have been shafted. Parliament never hinted that hey would act as they have.


Notice 'a number of remain MP's' is not the same as Parliament. Parliament made no such promise that they would leave the EU no later than 2 years after a50 was invoked.

Quote:

Anyway, a snap election seems extremely likely at some point this year. Voters can then decide if they are happy with how their representatives in Parliament have behaved.


Something I suggested should happen a year ago, but was called undemocratic for doing so.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#86New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 18:13:51
@nooneinparticular Said

The whole point of the majority coalition is to make the minority powers completely irrelevant. If it can't achieve that then there's a cohesion problem in the coalition.


One thing events over the past couple of weeks has done is give the British voter greater clarity re which MP's are fair dinkum about honouring the result of the people's vote and which aren't. Now they need MP's to allow them to decide who they want to represent them via a new election. Unfortunately Labour is still showing no signs of allowing this to happen until November.

@nooneinparticular Said

Which doesn't mean the same thing to you as it does to them, clearly.


More importantly it doesnt mean the same to most of those who voted leave as it does to them (MP's)

@nooneinparticular Said

Except that the EU and UK were NEVER negotiating on a level playing field, and being willing to walk away does not change that fact. The only scenario in which being told the UK will walk away actually helps their position is if the EU is willing to compromise their own values to get a deal out of the UK. They very clearly have not been.


They were never negotiating on a level playing field as the UK were never prepared to leave without a deal. Being prepared to leave without a deal doesnt of course guarantee you a better deal but it makes it more likely.


@nooneinparticular Said

The only scenario in which being told the UK will walk away actually helps their position is if the EU is willing to compromise their own values to get a deal out of the UK. They very clearly have not been.


Their resolve not to compromise their so called 'values' hasnt been tested as they have known from the start that the UK won't leave without a deal. Whether or not they would be prepared to compromise if the UK were to be genuinely prepared to leave without a deal is a purely hypothetical situation at this point. We simply don't know how they would react and Parliament are doing all they can to ensure that we never know.

@nooneinparticular Said

May's Deal was actually better than what I was expecting to come out of those talks. Of course, since no one liked it, that's currently a moot point.

May's deal IMO was and is a shocker. Even with the backstop removed it's a shocker.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#87New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 18:29:46
@nooneinparticular Said

Except you made no indication that you were talking about the default position only. You made it sound like the time limit was 2 years and that there would be no way to change that. You made it sound like you were upset at the MP's for dragging this on past 2 years when "article 50 clearly states that IF NO DEAL can be agreed upon btw the member state and the EU within 2 years then the member state shall in effect leave without a deal".


Go back to some of my earliest posts and you will see that I clearly state that leaving at the end of 2 years under WTO terms is the effective default outcome of triggering article 50. I don't feel the need to specify leaving without a deal after two years is the default position of Article 50 every time I mention the said article...particularly as you and I are the only ones commenting.

Note: One the very first page of this topic i stated:
"...trigger Article 50 and take the UK out of the EU, with or without a deal...with a No Deal exit effectively being the DEFAULT option."

"Article 50 states that the maximum amount of time a country has to negotiate an exit is 2 years (UNLESS the EU agrees to an EXTENSION). IF no agreement is struck during the two year negotiation period then the UK would leave WITHOUT a deal. In reality therefore the NO DEAL option is effectively the DEFAULT option."

Further one I have also stated that:

"Extensions are permitted if the EU agrees to any said extension request from the Member state"

And so on. Maybe you don't really read what I post. Or maybe you are selective, or perhaps determined to misrepresent or ignore what I say.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#88New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 18:39:26
@nooneinparticular Said

'a number of remain MP's' is not the same as Parliament. Parliament made no such promise that they would leave the EU no later than 2 years after a50 was invoked.

I have addressed this many times already...

At the end of the day, when the people are given the chance to vote (sometime this year), they (certainly leave voters) will make a judgement re how faithfully MPs have respected the people's vote of 2016 and vote accordingly.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#89New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 18:46:59
@nooneinparticular Said


Something I suggested should happen a year ago, but was called undemocratic for doing so.


A new election shouldnt be necessary. The actions of Parliament have made it so. Back in 2015 Parliament in effect agreed to ask the people what they wanted them to do re the EU. Remain or Leave. Parliament in effect agreed to honour the result of the people's vote (2016). There should have been no need for another bloody election. The people had voiced their wishes in the biggest democratic vote in the UK's history. Parliament ought to have respected the referendum result. Instead they have castrated the Government who were trying to do as the majority wished. The executive arm of Parliament has been rendered powerless and so there has to be a General election for at the moment Parliament cant function. It should not have come to this but it has.

It's been a case of Parliament vs the People. The next election will indicate how the people feel about this.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#90New Post! Sep 09, 2019 @ 18:50:37
As an aside remainers have lost two court cases recently re challenging BJ's right to prorogue parliament.
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