howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Excellent piece from Adam Boulton in the Sunday Times.
The UK in a Changing Europe think tank “promotes rigorous, high quality research” supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. Participants at its recent conference on “Brexit and public opinion” came from all sides. One lady accused me, as a representative of the mainstream media, of having “your head up your bum” for not reporting on what she said was a Europe-wide popular uprising against trade deals. She didn’t storm the room wearing a balaclava to make her point, unlike protesters against Jacob Rees-Mogg at a student event in Bristol, but passions are running high.
Nineteen months on, British society is still just as deeply polarised as it was on referendum day: June 23, 2016. According to Professor Sara Hobolt and colleagues at the London School of Economics, 35% of the public identify themselves as leavers, 40% as remainers. These identifications are much stronger than identification with political parties.
If the issue of Brexit is still livid at the time of the next general election it has the potential, but only the potential, to be the decisive factor in determining the winner. If politicians really want to win power they must handle this highly explosive issue with the utmost care, even though their efforts may be in vain because opinions about Brexit are impervious to reasoned argument. Leavers are disinclined to acknowledge that any harm could come from Brexit and remainers won’t consider that there might be benefits. In contrast to traditional politics, there is no respect for a person’s right to hold a different opinion. Each Brexit camp is prejudiced against the other, readily branding its adherents as “hypocritical”, “selfish” and “closed-minded”.With so much emotion in play, both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have been wise to keep their positions on Europe ambiguous for as long as possible. Corbyn’s Euroscepticism tempers his party’s inclination for a Norway-style close alignment with the bloc. The prime minister has so far built on “Brexit means Brexit” with detail-free policy speeches. Neither leader has explained how they would square the circle with participation in “a”, certainly not “the”, single market or customs union.
Brexit partisan zealotry is still sweeping through both parties. Activists in each are demanding that their leaders take a firmer and clearer stance. The Labour pressure is all in one direction — for a clearer commitment to continued close ties to the European Union. The Conservative Party is bitterly divided. Frustrated that May and Philip Hammond, the chancellor, tack from side to side, Tory leavers and remainers are uniting behind the slogan “lead or leave”. Both sides are impatiently demanding that the prime minister must assert herself — but in opposite directions. Rees-Mogg is the favourite of the bookies and the ConservativeHome straw poll to be the next Tory leader and thereby prime minister. He wants a clean break with the EU as soon as possible and dismisses the transition period that the government is seeking as “a Norman conquest”, which would make Britain a “vassal state”. Unlike his ally, the Brexit minister Steve Baker, he has not apologised for promulgating the false slur that Treasury officials “deliberately developed a model to show that all options other than staying in the customs union were bad”.
On the other side the former minister Anna Soubry, Tory MP for Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, urged the prime minister “to get a grip” to avoid “a Brexit nightmare” brought about by around 40 “hard Brexiteer” MPs who, she said, would not hesitate to destroy the party to obtain their ends. Soubry favours another referendum to endorse a soft Brexit centred on membership of the European Free Trade Association.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I do wonder if the likes of Boris Johnson and Jacob RM are using the Brexit issue as a means of controlling the party. There is a danger of moderate Tories leaving and setting up their own party.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/02/06/anna-soubry-threatens-quit-tory-party-brexiteers-like-boris/Reginald Barrington
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 17 Dec 2014
- Posts: 3,257
Sounds like a temper tantrum from someone who isn't getting her own way, a remainer starting to realise it is actually happening?
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I think she is one of many in the party that are concerned about what happens if and when we do leave. The possibility of traffic jams back to the M25 don't seem to be worrying the ones that want a "hard brexit". The EU say we will definitely leave by December 2020 and judging by how far negotiations have gone so far very little will be decided by then.
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Reginald Barrington- Location: Dover
- Registered: 17 Dec 2014
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Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Judging by the style that looks like a letter in Viz but not in the copy that came through my letterbox today.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I wonder when the penny will drop with the bureaucrats that cutting access to the single market will hurt other nations much more than us?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/06/brexit-eu-power-punish-uk-transition-period-sanctionshoward mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
This will be very interesting now that the PM has said that we will be leaving the customs union. With that in mind our MPs will not vote for the final deal however well it is presented to them, mind you she could well change her mind by the morning.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/02/07/mps-will-see-whole-package-uks-brexit-deal-vote-says-theresa/Button
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,053
Well, if she doesn't and they don't, then what?
Can't say I see the attraction of being in a customs union with the EU myself, I would've thought a preferential or even free trade deal would be better.
(Not my real name.)
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Mr Barnier and his muckers seem to want to hurt the UK so they won't agree a free trade deal even if hurts the 27 member states more than it hurts us. We have to remember that they have presided over 40 - 50% unemployment amongst younger people in the Southern "regions" for many years and have never lifted a finger to help.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
possible lorry ques back to Westminster bridge [hopefully].
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Neil Moors- Registered: 3 Feb 2016
- Posts: 1,299
As expected, we are back to Ireland again. I just cannot see a way around this issue - Ireland is in the EU, the UK won't be, ergo there has to be a hard border. Or, NI stays within customs union at the very least.
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,053
(Not my real name.)
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
jettison Ireland. let the EU keep them
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
We cannot get rid of the six counties as the majority there prefer to remain in the UK and outside the EU. Besides the EU don't want any more member states to subsidise after losing our Geld.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
howard mcsweeney1 wrote:We cannot get rid of the six counties as the majority there prefer to remain in the UK and outside the EU. Besides the EU don't want any more member states to subsidise after losing our Geld.
Howard
the EU is getting ready to welcome in another 6 lame-duck basketcases, Albania.
a being one of them
Reginald Barrington- Location: Dover
- Registered: 17 Dec 2014
- Posts: 3,257
They will not be inviting any of the Balkan block countries anytime soon, they all have a long way to go in terms of political reform, rule of law and ethnic make up, human rights, they are all in a worse state than Turkey is now and they have stopped talking to them after Ang said she would veto it.
Iceland was the one big hope and they told the EU to stick it... last Autumn.
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