Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[derspiess]

So she's not a dictator but heading down that way?

[Valmy]

So she's not a dictator but heading down that way?

It is part of her slow and careful plan. Everybody is distracted by this Brexit thing and then BOOOOM: ENGLAND PREVAILS! HAIL MAY!

[garbon]

The leader of the majority party in the Commons is in the process of implementing the results of a referendum. Her attempts to fast track and cut corners have been defeated by the judiciary.

Hardly terrifying.

A dodgy referendum which wouldn't have passed if setup right (a simple majority of votes cast? Seriously? And the campaign...jesus....) which proposes to remove a large number of rights from British people (and even more from resident foreigners).

Don't get me wrong. I'm not screaming May-Hitler here. As I said, she's acting ever more dictatorial, not she is a dictator.
But certainly there are some very dark developments going on in the UK and to just kick back and let it happen... well that's how true dictatorships do come into being.

Certainly there are things to be concerned about and issues that need to be addressed. However, one of those issues is not how May is becoming dictatorial. As RH notes, when she tried to assert her own ability to trigger Brexit, courts smacked her down.

[Josquius]

Certainly there are things to be concerned about and issues that need to be addressed. However, one of those issues is not how May is becoming dictatorial. As RH notes, when she tried to assert her own ability to trigger Brexit, courts smacked her down.

This time. That there even had to be this big case in the first place...
The country is heading in a very dodgy direction, vigilance is required.

No it's not. It makes you look like an idiot who doesn't know what a dictator is.

No, dismissing out of hand concerns about the prime minister trying to subvert democracy and the disturbing right wing populist direction we are heading in? That's a bit more idiotic.

So she's not a dictator but heading down that way?

What's so funny about that?

[Syt]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/24/nigel-farage-admitted-chants-english-football-songs-second-world/

Nigel Farage admitted he chanted English football songs about the Second World War at his German wife days before his 17-year marriage publicly collapsed

Nigel Farage has admitted that he chanted football songs about winning the Second World War at his estranged German wife and said that living with him was "very difficult".

The former leader of the UK Independence Party said his family had paid a "high price" for his two decades at the top of the Eurosceptic party.

Mr Farage also said in an interview with the television presenter Piers Morgan, broadcast tonight, that he thought his marriage could "survive anything".

However, he was not to know that days after it was recorded – on January 27 -  his 17-year marriage to his wife Kirsten would publicly break down.

It emerged in a Sunday tabloid on Feb 4 that Mr Farage was living in a London flat with a French politician Laure Ferrari.

The pair denied they were in a relationship. But three days later Mr Farage's wife Kirsten issued a statement saying the pair had been leading separate lives for some time.

Mr Farage joked about the rivalry between he and his German wife when their home countries are playing against each other in the football, he said: "She's got a whole load of German flags out of the windows and all of that."

He said he had an English flag, adding that "it's quite competitive". Mr Farage admitted he had  sung the 'Two World Wars and One World Cup' chant to his wife saying, "I get a bit of stick back too. It's quite funny really isn't it."

Asked whether it was difficult being married to him, Mr Farage said: "I should think very difficult. I should think before I was in politics it was pretty tricky but very difficult...

"I can take the abuse [that comes with being in politics] it doesn't bother me, but it has had an effect on everybody around me so there's the nasty side of it.

"But I suppose, if I'm honest about it, my complete fanaticism for the UKIP thing, for the cause and I guess I did put that above everything else, there's no question about it. It's probably a rotten thing to say but yes [it is my priority.] 

"I suppose being in politics, it wasn't a job it was almost a calling, it dominated my life, so I do think that probably a lot of people around me have paid quite a big price for that."

Commenting on rumours about his marriage, Mr Farage said: "All marriages, all relationships have huge ups and downs... If it still exists now then it could possibly survive anything couldn't it."

Asked if he had been "a naughty boy when it comes to women?", Mr Farage replied that he had "not been perfect but it's not been that bad. I don't look back at anything. I look forwards.

"Hopefully through all aspects of life you learn from things you've got right, things you've got wrong but I'm not one for looking back, I'm looking ahead, you've got to."

In the hour long interview, with his parents in the audience, Mr Farage complained he had had "to live like a virtual prisoner" because of the liberal media trying "to demonise me and give me a bad name".

Mr Farage also did not out becoming Prime Minister, saying: "I think it's unlikely but what Brexit showed, what 2016 showed, is that all of the old certainties are out of the window.

[celedhring]

God, what an insufferable scrote 

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/jeremy-corbyn-labour-policies-byelection-defeat-copeland

Jeremy Corbyn: give Labour more time to develop appealing policies

Jeremy Corbyn has pleaded for more time for Labour to develop appealing policies and said demographic change rather than questions over his leadership were the cause of his party's defeat in the once safe Copeland seat last week.

In an interview with the Guardian, the party leader also said a report on the byelection defeat would be delivered to the shadow cabinet and the national executive committee meetings on Tuesday as the row over the causes drew in the party's deputy leader and leader of Unite.

Corbyn said he accepted a share of responsibility for the loss of Copeland because he was party leader, but said the lack of local alternatives to jobs in the nuclear industry, inadequate rail services to Cumbria and a long-term decline in Labour support in the seat were to blame.

"Well, I'm leader of the party and people obviously have a view, perceptions, about party leaders, and I have mine," he said, implying he did not agree that his style of leadership was at issue.

"There's also a longer term issue in Copeland that the Labour vote has actually been unfortunately going down for quite a long time and the area has changed; the area also needs an investment plan so it doesn't need to rely solely on nuclear but relies on other industries as well."

After giving a speech to Scottish Labour's spring conference, Corbyn said it was at the early stages of a "cumbersome" and long-term process of developing new policies, on social affairs, industrial investment and the economy, through a series of roadshows and "democratic" engagement with voters.

"I do my best to reach out to people," he said, before criticising reporting of his party and leadership: "Clearly persuading our wonderful media in Britain to report what we say on policy will be a big achievement and that we're working on."

Corbyn implied that the defeat in Copeland could be discounted as a temporary event. "We have policy development going on and clearly there's a slight conundrum here, in that I was elected leader on a platform of challenging austerity, which I think you will concede we have done and do, and will continue to," he said.

"But there's also a question of democratic policy-making. That is longer and slightly more cumbersome than calling in a few experts into my office to tell me what the policies should be."

He added that Labour's victory in Stoke, the heavily pro-Brexit seat where it held off a challenge from Ukip, and the energy Labour put into the Copeland contest could not be discounted. Stoke was "written off by many people, saying: 'Well, Ukip are bound to win there because of their already strong position.' We didn't run away. We fought the campaign in Stoke and we won. And that is historic.

"Imagine, if Ukip had won that byelection in Stoke, what the mood would now be in Ukip and around the country. I think it's of historic importance what we achieved in Stoke."

...

[Tamas]

Very few communists can say they have ruined their own country without ever getting close to power.

I blame this ahole for the Leave win.

[Valmy]

Very few communists can say they have ruined their own country without ever getting close to power.

I blame this ahole for the Leave win.

And you should. He is a great enemy of Liberalism.

[Richard Hakluyt]

He's a bloody fool.

I'm not a Labour voter, but take no pleasure in their current weakness and ineptitude. The country does badly when the opposition is ineffective. The Tories are more or less unopposed and will no doubt pass a number of bad laws as a consequence.

[garbon]

He's a bloody fool.

I'm not a Labour voter, but take no pleasure in their current weakness and ineptitude. The country does badly when the opposition is ineffective. The Tories are more or less unopposed and will no doubt pass a number of bad laws as a consequence.

Yes, I should have added that it is funny but really only so to keep from crying as such a speech underlines the fact that there is no real opposition at this point.

[Josquius]

Corbyn is a dinosaur.
This sort of old school Marxist blue collar protectionalist socialism... It just doesn't work in modern day post industrial Britain. That ship has sailed.

It is a big shame the current lib dem leader is a rather anonymous quasi homophobe. If only the lib dems of 7 years ago were around today.

[garbon]

Corbyn is a dinosaur.
This sort of old school Marxist blue collar protectionalist socialism... It just doesn't work in modern day post industrial Britain. That ship has sailed.

It is a big shame the current lib dem leader is a rather anonymous quasi homophobe. If only the lib dems of 7 years ago were around today.

They could collaborate with the Tories?

[Zanza]

BMW could move electric Mini production to Germany over Brexit 
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-bmw-may-build-electric-mini-in-germany-instead-of-britain-handelsblatt-2017-2?IR=T

[Zanza]

No Brexit Deal Is a Scenario U.K. Must Prepare for, Davis Warns

Brexit Secretary David Davis told cabinet colleagues to prepare for the possibility of Prime Minister Theresa May failing to reach a divorce deal with her European counterparts in the two years allowed by European Union rules. [...]

The Brexit secretary underlined "the need to prepare not just for a negotiated settlement but also for the unlikely scenario in which no mutually satisfactory agreement can be reached," [...]

There's "every reason" the U.K can go "full tilt and get this done within two years," Johnson said. "'We have an unrivaled opportunity. It's unlike any other free trade deal that the EU has ever done in that we are already exactly flush with our partners in terms of standards and tariffs." [...]

Unlikely scenario? Most likely scenario at this point I would say.
And what the fuck is Johnson going on about? If Britain didn't want to set own standards and tariffs then what's the point of leaving the single market...