[vtsnowedin]

What would you fight a civil war with? Stones and kitchen knives?

[vtsnowedin]

Exactly! The ballot box is the only weapon left to you Brits so the sooner you can force an election the better.

[evilgenius]

But then everybody is going to fall back onto the way that they always think when it comes to the voting booth. I don't like what is going on in the country, but my MP is alright. I don't like what the Conservatives are doing, but they are just like me. They judge all of life's situations the same way I do. Labour are such vile people. Nobody stops to think that, maybe, Corbyn took over Labour because he saw it had been abandoned by the people, and now was his chance to take power. He's a power hungry guy, there is plenty of evidence of that. It doesn't stand out because all British politicians are power hungry people. You don't get a lot of people in power who say, "What's best for the UK?" Instead, you get a lot of people who say, "What's best for our party?" What's missing is the kind of involvement that people had where everyone knew the principles behind which a party stood. I used to talk to people in the UK who could go on and on about worker's rights, whose common idea of notions like that formed a core that Labour had to adhere to or the people would know it. Corbyn has drifted, and so has Labour. The people failed to stop that. Otherwise, you would have an alternative. It's very similar, in fact, to what is happening in the United States.

[vtsnowedin]

I expect there will be quite a change this time around. Every candidate will have to state his position on Brexit and deal or no deal and the voters will vote accordingly. And of course the incumbents have their recent voting record on these issues to defend and will have a hard time explaining to some of their constituents.

[Tanada]

In the End, the Brexit Choice Is Stay or Go

The root of the Brexit crisis is not, as you might think, the failure of the hard-Brexit Tories to compromise. Rather, it’s that no good compromise exists. For three years Britain’s politicians have refused to face this, arguing endlessly and pointlessly about how to split the difference between Remain and Leave, imagining they can find a palatable soft Brexit. The underlying problem is that there’s simply no such thing.

In the end, with or without a further extension of the Brexit deadline, MPs might end up splitting the difference after all. It’s still possible they’ll vote for Prime Minister Theresa May’s muddled and three-times-rejected withdrawal agreement (involving a financial settlement, transitional arrangements, and steps to avoid reintroducing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland). On Tuesday, the prime minister said she’d seek the Labour Party’s help in adjusting the nonbinding political declaration that goes with the deal, in an effort to get Parliament’s backing.

If MPs do finally go along, they’ll soon find that their compromise doesn’t work, and that Britain hates its new relationship with the European Union even more than the old one.

Deep down, most of the country’s politicians understand this, I suspect, but can’t bring themselves to confront the implications. Their preference for denial explains why, after years of agonizing, and just nine days away from a chaotic unplanned exit, the House of Commons has not only rejected May’s deal over and over, but has also just said no to 12 other motions positing a way out of the mess.

It’s telling that the compromises that came closest to passing in two rounds of so-called indicative votes — such as the idea of attaching a permanent customs union to May’s plan — are disliked even by the people sponsoring them. The House of Commons is divided between committed Leavers and Remainers, each side convinced that the other is wholly wrong. Most of the people calling for compromise are Remainers, but their goal is not to move Britain to an arrangement the country would like better than the one it has; it’s to lessen the damage they think will be done when Britain stupidly quits.

The instinct to compromise is certainly valuable. In a democracy where people disagree about big questions — such as whether to remain part of an emerging United States of Europe — it’s right to look for a middle way that most can live with. The mistake is to assume that a workable compromise is always there to be found. Once in a while, a hard choice cannot be finessed: It just has to be made, and the consequences lived with. This is such a case.

Consider what many see as an appealingly soft Brexit: so-called Norway-plus, or Common Market 2.0. The idea is to preserve the economic benefits of EU membership by remaining a member of Europe’s single market and customs union, while retrieving some political sovereignty by stepping away from EU integration in areas such as justice and home affairs.

Nick Boles, one of the plan’s authors, stepped down as a Conservative MP on Monday when the Commons again rejected this approach. “I have given everything to an attempt to find a compromise that can take this country out of the European Union while maintaining our economic strength and our political cohesion,” he said. “I have failed chiefly because my party refuses to compromise.”

The Boles plan could have been a workable temporary arrangement. It might have been a good long-term plan, as well, if Europe would allow single-market members that aren’t part of the EU a full say in developing the market’s rules. But Europe won’t countenance that. (For some reason, advocates of Norway-plus don’t seem to mind.) The proposed arrangement would therefore leave the U.K. as a powerless rule-taker across a wide and ever-widening span of trade and economic policy.

Recall that support for Brexit comes chiefly from resentment at Britain’s lack of control over the policies that affect it. Norway-plus would make that problem vastly worse. Norway has a looser form of association than the one proposed in the Boles plan (it isn’t a member of the EU’s customs union), yet much of the country’s politics is devoted to butting heads with the EU over successive policy innovations over which it has no say.

The idea that a Boles-style compromise, in concert with an unreformed EU, could be the long-term basis of a satisfactory Brexit is ridiculous. I’ve seen no serious attempt to defend the claim. All one can say for the plan is that it would avoid the short-term disruption that Brexit would otherwise cause — at the cost of building a new wave of anti-EU sentiment and, in due course, demands for Brexit 2.0.

One day Europe might be willing to contemplate a more flexible structure for its project of political integration. Until then, Britain has two workable choices. It can stay and make the best of it, while continuing to press for reform from within. Or it can leave, meaning all the way out, and negotiate a comprehensive free-trade agreement of the kind that Canada has with the U.S. — one that treats both parties as sovereign nations, and does not condemn the smaller economy to formally entrenched second-class status. Nothing in-between will stick.

May’s divided government committed itself to Leave without really believing in it, then failed to plan for that second course — an unforgivable mistake. Parliament’s Remainers failed the country too, and are still failing, by supporting broken compromises that they know will sooner or later collapse, instead of saying what they think and championing the outcome they believe is best for the country.

The result could hardly be worse. Three years in, Britain’s politicians are flailing helplessly. A lasting resolution is nowhere in sight. In fact, the Brexit trauma may be only just getting started.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

LINK

[Grifter]

We are addicted to economic growth and this means any deal looks worse than the arrangement we already have. I don't want another referendum and I don't think No Deal (or WTO deal) will ever be on the ballot if we do have one, so a lot of people are going to be unsatisfied with whatever happens.

I'm in two minds, I voted remain because I don't want things to change, but part of me thinks things have to change so maybe leaving is right.

What's most unsatisfying is that the people who voted for it, the angry one's are still going to be angry, perhaps more so, even if they get what they want. It's a shit show over here that's for sure.

[dolanbaker]

Brexit showdown between remainers and Brexiteers in the House of Commons as a debate decided the future direction of the whole saga.
There could be a general election announced tomorrow.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-49557734

An emergency debate for MPs to discuss whether a cross-party alliance can take control of the agenda is under way
It is the first part of their bid to stop the UK leaving the EU on 31 October without a deal
If successful, they will bring forward a bill tomorrow that would force PM Boris Johnson to delay Brexit unless MPs back a new deal or vote for a no-deal exit
Earlier, the government lost its Commons majority after Conservative MP Phillip Lee defected to the Liberal Democrats
Mr Johnson has insisted the UK must leave the EU on 31 October - with or without a deal - and could call a snap 14 October election
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said he is ready to go to the polls - but some in his party are suggesting otherwise

[Newfie]

Boris Johnston seems to have created movement at least. I guess, Hope, something comes out of this mess.

[Plantagenet]

By passing a law requiring the UK to only exit the EU if they have treaty, the Parliament has given all the power to the EU. This is essentially a betrayal of the British people, who voted to leave the EU.

The EU is under no obligation to give the UK a good or fair exit treaty. The EU can now offer a terrible or even completely unacceptable exit treaty, and if the UK doesn't accept it then by law the UK can't leave the EU. Considering that the EU doesn't want the UK to leave, putting the EU in charge of the terms of the treaty is tantamount to fatally undercutting the British side in the negotiations.

Cheers!

[Newfie]

What a mess!

[Ibon]

We just had two english bird watchers staying with us. During a monsoon afternoon rain they opened the topic of what a mess indeed.

The society in the UK is just as polarized as in the US.

Polarization is still a more powerful desire in the collective than a desire for unity.

The pendulum has not yet reached it's apex.

[cephalotus]

I hope for a no deal Brexit in one month. Hard EU border between Ireland and NI. Trade under WTO rules.

If you can not find a solution in 3 years you will not finde one in 4 years. A "soft Brext" seems to be impossible. Okay the pro Brexit politicans said this will be the easiest deal ever, but what harm does just one more lie?

Sort things out afterwards.

At least this will serve as an example.

This Brexit shit consumes way to much resources, there are much more important things like the Chinese influance over Eastern Europe and around the world, the Russian agression, the US trade war, climate change and so on.

EU has to move again. Let the British do what they want. Outside.

[dolanbaker]

UK parliament is unable to achieve the Brexit that was negotiated by 31 October as promised by BoJo, so now there will be another General Election on 12 December.

If there is a conservative majority, then it is certain the UK will be moving from a full EU member to the transition stage of leaving before the end of January..

[evilgenius]

UK parliament is unable to achieve the Brexit that was negotiated by 31 October as promised by BoJo, so now there will be another General Election on 12 December.

If there is a conservative majority, then it is certain the UK will be moving from a full EU member to the transition stage of leaving before the end of January..

I'd like to know if Labour can realize that Corbyn is the wrong man for them before then? Their success would seem to rely upon that.

[dolanbaker]

UK parliament is unable to achieve the Brexit that was negotiated by 31 October as promised by BoJo, so now there will be another General Election on 12 December.

If there is a conservative majority, then it is certain the UK will be moving from a full EU member to the transition stage of leaving before the end of January..

I'd like to know if Labour can realize that Corbyn is the wrong man for them before then? Their success would seem to rely upon that.

Corbyn still thinks he can regotiate Brexit, despite the EU tellomg BoJo that there will be no more negotiation, take it or leave it!

They still do not appear to have a clear strategy in the coming General Election.

[sparky]

.
I would bet on an inconclusive election with Labor getting the worst of it and the fringe parties boosting their vote

https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/br ... most-seats

[evilgenius]

I heard somebody say the other day that the Lib Dems could stand to benefit from the intransigence of Labour, but that the system is rigged against third parties rising suddenly in such a way. It seems you can get a lot of votes, but not many MP's. Really, without Labour having been hijacked by the extreme left, they would probably win any election right now. The criticism I had of them getting out of touch with real labour under Blair may have been valid, but to go so far to the left that they don't look like they can come back to the center seems abysmal for them. The election will likely go Conservative, and everybody will claim it is a mandate. Then, they'll have to put together a coalition. There isn't enough time for Boris to finish splitting the Conservative Party in two before the next poll, which is actually the most likely outcome from all of this.

[sparky]

.
It's less Labor having shifted than the electoral having done so
Labor always had some hard left militants while the electorate , especially the working class electorate , not listening anymore

[Subjectivist]

When is the next Brexit decision required to be made? I kept seeing headlines about how October 31 was the last chance and everything would be automatic after that. Obviously that wasn't true based on headlines this month, so what is the real end date?