Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Jacob]

I remember reading a journalist allegedly talked to corporate people in Florence who said to them it is now more or less irrelevant what the final deal is going to be. With 18 months left with no progress at all so far, they have to plan for a cliff edge Brexit regardless of the final outcome.

You remember reading something ten posts earlier in this thread?

That's pretty good I guess

[Maladict]

I remember reading a journalist allegedly talked to corporate people in Florence who said to them it is now more or less irrelevant what the final deal is going to be. With 18 months left with no progress at all so far, they have to plan for a cliff edge Brexit regardless of the final outcome.

You remember reading something ten posts earlier in this thread?

That's pretty good I guess

I was thinking 'hey, I read that too!' 

[garbon]

[Tamas]

What can I say? I am well read, I can't recall what I read exactly where and when. 

[Gups]

[HVC]

[Tamas]

Meanwhile Labour's shadow Brexit guy refuses to think there can't be a better deal made than the current EU membership.

And Labour in general wants to negotiate free trade and customs union access without freedom of movement.

The.Mind.Boggles. Ok, it is more understandable from them to pretend they know the secret recipe for eating the cake and keeping it, since they are the opposition and they will want to milk the imminent disaster, but come on. The massive letdown of the cliff edge we are heading toward will slap the whole political establishment in the face in a big way, not just the government. They need to start preparing people, it already may be too late.

Oh and BTW they also want to nationalise pretty much everything and get back into state control the different things that were put out to private contractors, but that's really a bare minimum from a Chavez fanboi and his pals I guess.

[garbon]

Yes, Britain has a shortage of adult politicians in the conversation. Just look at BoJo continually to try to re-arrange the deck chairs as the ship goes down.

[Josquius]

Rather than pretending they know how to make brexit work labour is far more pretending they think brexit can work.
They're walking a political tightrope between their progressive core, the minority left with Labour leave and most worryingly the lumpens in Labour areas who don't normally vote but if angered might suddenly come out for the Tories.

[Tamas]

Rather than pretending they know how to make brexit work labour is far more pretending they think brexit can work.
They're walking a political tightrope between their progressive core, the minority left with Labour leave and most worryingly the lumpens in Labour areas who don't normally vote but if angered might suddenly come out for the Tories.

Well yeah I guess that must be a good summary, but then it still boils down to them valuing their short term political prospects far above the long term situation of the country.

We are fucked.

[Zanza]

Why would the EU be interested in a transition period during which Britain starts to divert from common regulation?Seems preferable to have a clean cut.

[The Minsky Moment]

The new May plan is about the best move that could be made now, but it does underline how stupidly self-defeating the decision to trigger Article 50 was.  The timing on the Art. 50 trigger was the one point of leverage the UK had.  Since the plan is now to keep the status quo until 2021 (and realistically that is likely to be extended until 2023) there was no point whatsoever in triggering Article 50 in March 2017. 

Once again the Tory Party's internal politics trump the UK national interest.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well yeah I guess that must be a good summary, but then it still boils down to them valuing their short term political prospects far above the long term situation of the country.

Labour has no short term political prospects.  Corbyn managed the expectations game nicely in the last election, but the fact is that in an absolute sense they still were decisively defeated, despite the Tories having spent the previous year crapping all over themselves in incompetence and fecklessness.  The only thing their performance over expectations did is prolong Corbynism and thus extend out Labour's continuing political irrelevance. 

[Tamas]

The new May plan is about the best move that could be made now, but it does underline how stupidly self-defeating the decision to trigger Article 50 was.  The timing on the Art. 50 trigger was the one point of leverage the UK had.  Since the plan is now to keep the status quo until 2021 (and realistically that is likely to be extended until 2023) there was no point whatsoever in triggering Article 50 in March 2017. 

Once again the Tory Party's internal politics trump the UK national interest.

I think you forget that the EU was also aware that the triggering of A50 was the only control the UK would ever have over this trainwreck, and they refused to start talking until they triggered the 2 years countdown. They had no choice.

This whole running in circles trying to figure out how the UK could flush itself down the toilet in a way to jump back out drier and cleaner than before is an entirely pointless exercise. The EU will determine the conditions at the end, unless the UK just crashes out.

[Josquius]

The new May plan is about the best move that could be made now, but it does underline how stupidly self-defeating the decision to trigger Article 50 was.  The timing on the Art. 50 trigger was the one point of leverage the UK had.  Since the plan is now to keep the status quo until 2021 (and realistically that is likely to be extended until 2023) there was no point whatsoever in triggering Article 50 in March 2017. 

Once again the Tory Party's internal politics trump the UK national interest.

As said the worry is that they could get a situation  where Britain still officially leaves after 2 years and this extra time is all officially outside, thus making all hope of recovery null.
Better than a sudden brexit still. Gives hope to more people that they personally can survive. But merely delays the removal of our rights.

Well yeah I guess that must be a good summary, but then it still boils down to them valuing their short term political prospects far above the long term situation of the country.

Labour has no short term political prospects.  Corbyn managed the expectations game nicely in the last election, but the fact is that in an absolute sense they still were decisively defeated, despite the Tories having spent the previous year crapping all over themselves in incompetence and fecklessness.  The only thing their performance over expectations did is prolong Corbynism and thus extend out Labour's continuing political irrelevance. 

Untrue.
Everyone expected labour to be decisively defeated. But thry destroyed the Tories majority. They were able to gain seats that have been Tory since forever.
The Tory tactics of attempting to grab the entire  pro brexit vote for themselves and having the remain side split between the lib dems and Labour failed. Tactical voting was at a high and for most of the Labour leaning brexit voters a labour remained pro brexit enough to keep them on side.
Though Labour didn't get a majority the election is seen as a victory for them.
In many ways the result was the best possible thing for labour (albeit not the country).
Tories lose their majority but they're still the ones forced to eat the shit sandwich of brexit.