Discuss: Brexit deal vote looms
Tonight, any time now, the UK Parliament will vote on whether or not accept Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit “deal” with the EU. The deal, which essentially keeps us in the EU without any democratic say in how it’s run, has achieved the startling feat of displeasing everyone, remainers and leavers, from both left and right. The vote is expected to be a grim defeat for May.
For months Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party have been waiting for this vote – they very much see it as their opportunity to get into power. If May loses, Corbyn will call a vote of no confidence. If She loses THAT, then Labour can justly call for a new General Election – Theresa May winning that, even by the tiny margin she managed to preserve last time, would be nothing short of a miracle.
If the deal passes, it will be because Blairite Labour MPs vote through a deal. Because they would rather have a bad deal and Tory PM than a Corbyn government, even the usually sickening Paul Mason was right about this:
Labour MPs have a chance to inflict a historic defeat and then bring down the government. Any who flinch and support May's deal should have the whip withdrawn. Read this – and give no quarter… pic.twitter.com/5Egkzmxtq1
— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) 14 January 2019
So, our traditional list of important questions:
- Do you think May will win or lose the vote on her deal?
- If Labour MPs vote through May’s deal, what should Corbyn do?
- Will there be another General Election?
- Does Corbyn stand a chance of winning, if there is?
- How far will the establishment go to prevent a Corbyn government?
As usual, discuss below.
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Is it my imagination, or is “Brussels” finally showing itself to be running every bit as shit-scared of and vulnerable to a Brexit as it has always has been since the 2016 referendum, while playing the invincible top dog bully boy over poor little heedless Britain, with Britain rendered as helpless as it almost always is by its eternal addiction to tribal quarreling as a substitute for seeing things as they are (or as, in this case, they always easily winnably were)?
The issues are all Constitutional: at its basis Brexit is about where sovereignty should reside.
For most politicians this is an unimportant question. They see government as a sort of scam in which people get paid for putting a pleasant gloss on the reality that Might rules. Power, money dictate. Always have always will: TINA.
For this formula to work it must be protected from the people Elections must be infrequent and unrelated to events- the next election will be in 2022, by which time, it is confidently predicted, the events of 2016-19 will have been, if not quite forgotten at least overshadowed by more immediate questions. A Royal Funeral perhaps, or conscription for the war against China.
And, in the meantime MPs will have received their vast salaries, collected expenses and stuffed their pension pots- the fate of the hoi poloi is of academic interest only- their fates are decided by the iron laws of economics, competition in the Labour Market and the need, for the sake of the country, to curb expenditures on matters less consequential than MPs expenses, such as the Health Service, that once was and is fading like a morning mist.
Among the comments below is one which, inadvertently I suspect, touches upon an obvious and immediately available solution- the most important, after Suffrage, point in the People’s Charter of 1839, Annual Parliaments.
It was no accident, as current events indicate, that Cameron’s most enduring legacy, apart from the destruction of Libya, is likely to be the Fixed Term Parliament legislation which protects MPs and governments from the electorate. It stands in the grand tradition of the Septennial Act of 1717, another means of protecting MPs and their owners from popular judgement.
In the modern age it would be very easy to hold elections annually. And to ensure that there is some rotation in office. Of course this would put an end to the political caste, that ornament on the body politic. It would probably mean the end of Ian Austin MP and Jess Phillips, perhaps even of the BBC-the Tory Party at work-in its current form but progress comes at a cost.
Well said.
I thought that AAV said it well
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-reality-check-for-anyone-who-says.html?m=1
But then I am Dutch, and I am not really informed about the Brexit deal of May (it is being brought here as a personal defeat of May (the Netherlands), but the content of the deal is not discussed at all. To be honest: AAV’s comment also applies to the personal situation of May, nothing more)
Other news is that EMA is coming from London to Amsterdam and possibly also the financial district (what Dutch parlementarians hope). Not sure if that is good for Amsterdam (housing will become very expensive) and the Netherlands (being a tax haven for corporations) though.
Frankly, I understand nothing about how Brexit is brought in the media. What is the Brexit of May et al ‘really’ about?
Poverty? Chauvinism? Anti-elitism? Discrimination? Austerity? Or simply chaos?
Brexit: it’s a dirty job, but (since leave “won”) someone’s got to do it.
Cameron was a coward. History should crucify him for the referendum vote. I hope he is remembered as this country’s worst Prime Minister.
By contrast, though Theresa May is universally criticised, I think history will in the fullness of time treat her more kindly. She has taken on a very very difficult job and has tried to see it through.
I personally detest her defence minister especially and would prefer a Corbyn government. It can happen – this is not America.
Are the Falkland’s still available?
Available for what?
Utterly dishonourable and slippery action by May, she should have stood up and announced an election not a call for a confidence motion.
I think Labour made a mistake. Corbyn should have demanded that the tory government, having failed in their signal policy, should have resigned as a government and waited until today.
Never in the history of parliamentry democracy has a government so defeated hung on instead of going to the country.
The People must be asked – who governs and with which manifesto.
(There is a lot more to deal with then brexit)
Elections take 4 weeks.
Referendum would take months at minimum or NEVER happen, if legal challenges are put up.
Listening to the gammon shock jocks and their moaning callers bleating is a great fillip.
Ready the boots – take to the streets demand an election.
Make sure everyone is registered and turns out to vote. A 75% target turnout puts almost EVERY seat into play.
As a modern democracy, we get to vote ONLY every few years.
IT IS NOT A CHORE OR HARDSHIP.
Brenda can fuck off with ‘not again’ whinge – she’d be happy never to be bothered to drag her self to the polling station again! It’s all so hard…
The narrative to keep people at home, not bothering, is how democracy dies, if we can’t be bothered to even spoil our vote – why should a politician care about ‘voters’?
So, welcome any opportunity to show your feellings and demand a GE.
What, vote for a Labour betrayal instead …a hokey-cokey in/out bourgeois socialist leave over name only deal? How about a 75‰ turnout for a return to deomcracy (LOL! ) via new Chartist Parliament reform and incipient participatory democracy without the EU. contstitutional denial of a socially reformist state. BOTH parties have proved that they have betrayed the Social Contract, neither is fit to rule, Brussels will not let them rule in other than a neoliberal manner. How about we demand our military back at the same time. BOTH parties are complicit traitors on the fundamental issue of sovereignty. If they Davos secretly cede our military to the EU sub-imperial expansionist project, what else will they do? Neither party is fit for purpose. A GE with a majority turnout only completes the delusion that they are working for you, and yokes us to a crypto-fascist neoliberal project over perpetuity. Time the British people went alone, without the City, without the EU, and without our current post-democratic Parliament. They won’t, they’ll vote for voluntary servitude to neoliberalism, then moan like crazy over the coming decades as they destroy our country …and they will. Doff the cap, because that is the British way. Last chance for something creative to regain democratic sovereignty of the people.
Apologies for keyboard errors, I was typing too fast.
The plan was and is sickeningly evident. Not to have a General election, which would do two key things that the neo-liberals do not want, firstly, to cut many of the Fifth Columnists out of the PLP and perhaps even to lead to a Labour victory, and, secondly, to leave the decision not just on whether to leave or stay but on who can be trusted with the negotiations, up to the people.
So, no General Election but another vote in another referendum. This too has several advantages for the neo-liberals, firstly it keeps the Tories in power for the foreseeable future. Secondly it distracts the population from the real issues so that they can concentrate on a question which is, at best, merely about whether or not the real issues are any of our business. Thirdly it will allow enormous expenditures of money on propaganda- the major source of income for the intelligentsia and the political caste. Fourthly the referendum question may be framed in any way desirable, while the campaign can be limited or stretched out- ostensibly for technico legal reasons- at pleasure.
My guess is that there will be another vote, that the Remain side will win it- they will certainly be doing the counting. And that, in three months time we will be back at Square One, having been chastened and hunbled.
The good thing is that the EU cannot last long anyway. And the pleasant little scam that it represents for the governing caste will have to wind down. It is too bad though: the plain people, as Flann O’Brien was wont to call our Irish equivalents- of England are running out of time to turn things upside down and run the country that was stolen from them before it was born.
The real argument against Socialism in One Country was never that it wouldn’t work but that ino sooner would it be announced than other countries would rush to join with it.
It’s all about stopping the left ever having the power to defeat establishment priorities and implement popular socio-economic policy in my opinion.
May’s “deal” is a nonsense.
Labour can and should win the next GE but whether Corbyn can hang in there is questionable. The right weing forces within Labour won’t stop plotting to overthrow him under any circumstances.
MacDonnell and his advisors are economically illiterate and will pick fights that don’t need to be fought, make compromises that don’t need to be made and end up in abject failure to do much at all whilst being an easy whipping boy for the establishment forces.
Interesting times.
“whether Corbyn can hang in there is questionable.”
and who is there to replace him? Starmer? No thanks. Phillips, Abbot, Lewis? No thanks. Watson? You must be joking. Any of the friends of Syria (friends of Blair/Israel more like) No thanks. Bye Labour (for a generation, possibly)
the plan is working out just fine for the planners.
There will be no 2nd ref nor a GE. We will leave with no deal or the EU will cave.
The attorney general, apropos of nothing, told Ken Clarke in the House of Commons today that article 50 once rescinded could never be invoked again.
There may be no agreement in the Commons and the European Union is intransigent. Time is running out.
The government retains the power to unilaterally rescind article 50 however.
This is what will happen next. Following her strenuous but transparently doomed efforts patriotic Treason May must now save her country from the horror of No Deal Brexit at any cost.
R i p.
I think we will survive a no deal Brexit.
You may survive but my wife may not: all her medicines comes from Europe. And, for those of us who can’t afford servants to do their shopping for them, I noticed today lighter supermarket shelves, particularly in the fish section.
Interesting parallel between the evolution of the EU from loose affiliation of sovereign states into a rather terrifying authoritarian Big Bro and the similar path taken by the United States federal govt somewhat earlier. The advice to all would seem to be – get out while you still can.
OT, but cause for reflection – where I live (heart of the Ozarks in south central US) most of the locals think the UK is an absolute monarchy and Brexit is something invented by Putin (in a good way tho, most of them quite like him here, because he rides a bear and don’t take no shit).
Have you considered giving American kids an education?
(Sigh) I suppose a populace of dopey rednecks and shrill libturds is more easy for the deep state to manipulate.
It’s a pretty easy (and sleazy?) thing to reduce people to one-word stereotypes. There are very few people here that could be described as “dopey”, on the contrary, they tend to be multi-skilled, adaptive, organized, very aware, alert and well-informed. Their geopolitical awareness of distant lands tends to the sparse – but I’m never sure if anyone is the worse for that. They know their rights as human beings and will not give them up easily. How many people can make that claim? Increasingly I think that’s worth more than anything else — I live in awe of these guys actually and feel very foolish and inadequate beside them a lot of the time – the humor was not intended as mockery.
@KK – I hope you do write it
I’ve often thought the same thing, in fact I was intending to write something along those lines. It’s the main reason to be fearful of the proposed “EU Army”, which – rather than being a threat to nations outside the EU – could be used to essentially occupy and overtake any state seeking to leave the Union. An obvious parallel to the American Civil War.
Kit:
If you do: be sure to include EUROGENDFOR, the pan-European militarised Gendarmerie. Are they on the streets of Paris right now? A fireman was shot in the head Tuesday: check out yesterdays UK Column news. Also “CDSP” – a Common Defence and Security Policy – that is also deployed to Libya, Somalia, the Western Balkans, etc. No pressure, but the 22nd would be a good day to publish, to coincide with the Aachen Treaty. Germany and France are leading the confederation into “Eurodistricts”‘, with closer civil-military cooperation.
Is a pan-European EU sovereignty militarised police far fetched? No, they’ve already got one. Is it deployed against the Gilet Jaunes right now? I don’t know, but I am highly suspicious (are agent provocateurs beating up journalists)? Anyway, the forward trajectory of the EU is clear to see. Yet the interminable Brexit debate is not informed by it. So, please do write something: a lot of people are being misinformed as to the character of the EU, including Jeremy Corbyn, who wants a Customs Union. It may not be too late to widen the debate.
If anyone is thinking about retaining the City (I’m sure you are not, but it is a major talking point elsewhere) – the ‘Finance Curse’ has cost the UK £4.5 trillion is lost growth. Fraud costs us another £110bn p/a: tax evasion another ???? That is one hell of a socialist state we could have without them. Even without MMT.
So, fuck the City AND fuck the EU!
https://www.taxjustice.net/2018/10/05/press-release-city-of-london-costs-uk-4-5tn-in-lost-economic-growth/
https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/fraud-epidemic-costs-the-uk-110-billion-and-3-2-trillion-globally/
If we aren’t very careful all these finance people will leave and go and f**k up somebody else’s economy.
Before you even get into evasion, tax avoidance is a nice little earner.
In 2017 Amazon paid all of £4.5 million in taxes on UK turnover of £11.3 billion. That amounts to not quite four hundredths of one percent of their turnover.
Between the three of them, Amazon, Google and Facebook declared combined UK turnover of £18.4 billion. They paid £61.8 million in taxes. That amounts to the princely sum of three tenths of one percent of their turnover.
In the US Boeing hasn’t paid a cent in tax for about 15 years. Boots The Chemist don’t pay any tax because they have a brass plaque on an office wall somewhere in Switzerland. When Philip Green took over Top Shop/ Next with borrowed money, loading them down with debt, the first thing he did was pay himself a “special dividend” of £1,200 million. Tax paid on this nice little earner? Not a carrot. Taxes are for the little people.
A few years back, I finished one job on the Friday and started another on Monday. A few days later, the tax office tracked me down with a tax demand for 18 pence – pay up immediately or face prosecution.
Taxation is calculated on profit. Not turnover.
Amazon’s retail business loses money. Not sure about Bookface and Google. They’re all US deep state operations though.
I’m perfectly well aware of that. My domestic finances would lose money too if I was allowed to charge all my taxable income to myself in Luxembourg for providing consulting services to myself. So would everybody else’s.
The thing to concentrate on is the fight against austerity.
In the EU and in the UK and elsewhere.
The rise of the far right in Europe and to a minor extent in the UK has come about due to this adherence to the juven childish mantra that in recessions/depressions you must cut State spending.
Macron in France is dabbling with this mantra twenty years out of date.
The Germans ( who have a big surplus year on year ) are reluctant to release their money to reflate the whole of Europe and stimulate growth. Basically the Euro may as well be named the Deutchmark.
The UK is a rentier economy who ditched material production many years ago and relied instead on the Financial Markets who thought prior to 2007/8 that money could be made out of money not production.
This doesn’t mean that the nation is skint – it’s just who benefits from the growth – weedy or otherwise year on year.
As we ordinary people know in the Western world the beneficiaries of this have been the one percent and the five percent who work for them.
This is why I will argue that Brexit is not the only game in town and any EU nation that thinks that will disappear up its own backside.
The question is whether we ( the EU -or the US ) want to continue to donate our future earnings/productivity to the already bailed out asset classes or do we want to reclaim the money we have already paid out to the already rich?
Everyone is using the phrase ” Take back control of …………..”
To give meaning to that overused phrase the ordinary people have to take back control from the controllers ( governments ) and start reflating economies in the EU and the US.
I would love to smell the gas of inflation – it would lower individual debt which will cost the lenders.
But hey! – who cares about the lenders_ they don’t care about us.
It’s never been cheaper for governments to borrow – even from private banks.
This time instead of letting the bailed banks choose who to lend money to let the people choose who to lend it to.
Better still cut out the private banks and let the Treasuries take charge of lending and spending.
This is what keeps the technocrats in the EU and the US awake at night.
this is Corbyn.
I doubt that the EU has much of a long term future in any case.
Already, apart from Britain, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Italy amongst others are in direct conflict with the Brussels establishment. The whole continent was destabilised by the refugee invasion of 2015. Merkel and Macron, EU stalwarts touted as the new leaders of the “Free World” are a spent force. Both could be gone, along with May, soon. The euro has been an unmitigated disaster for southern European countries trying to cope with 50%+ youth unemployment. The Baltics have simply been depopulated, crushed by neoliberalism. 2019 may well bring another capitalist crisis on a scale dwarfing 2008. A German banking crisis may provide the catalyst this time, but other possibilities are legion.
That was predictable. As is the defeat of Jezza’s no confidence vote tomorrow. So what next: another GE? Then what? Everything is on the table – as Starmer is keen to say – except leaving. No post today, but Bill Mitchell (get well soon) has been making the case for a ‘no deal’ is better than a dejected and rejected shit deal, one that no one wants, and one that was designed to handcuff a Corbyn government – or an alternative pseudo-socialist fantastical hybrid-capitulation to neoliberalism. His conclusion: that major arguments put forward by the Remain camp are not evidence-based.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=41343
So remaining, or a half in, half out deal, is the worst of all deals. Both groups of politicians have deliberately squandered two and a half years. None of them want it, the poison chalice that is. In my opinion, the Labour leadership have conspired in incompetence to deliberately not lead on this issue. They have let the weakest, most venal Tory regime ever stand, when leadership could have brought them down at any time. Labour is a split as the Tories (at least half the PLP are Tories, as you know.) I reckon the PLP is 150/100 split in favour of remain: with the majority of the CLP and supporters in favour of post-democratic referenda, chimeric deals with the EU, or a fudged reconciliation Customs Union/Single Market deal no one voted for. Oh, the general election will give them the mandate they need: or the ‘peoples’ second referendum. Only in a conscience free, tortuous logic, bourgeois socialist kind of a way. It does nothing for the UK, nothing for the perpetually disenfranchised EU youth (see Bill’s blog post), nothing for the occupied Baltics and Balkans, nothing for the impoverished and peripheralised EU hinterlands (PIIGS), etc.
No mention by anyone in power of EU Military Unification, or inchoate French/German federalisation. Both are conspiring in silence on those issues, and both are ramping up project fear on no deal. Let’s be clear: it’s both of the Brexit betrayal parties that have precipitated a no deal crisis …but no deal looks like a better deal than following either of our two delegitimated post-democratic parties meekly back into the federalising, fascistic, expansionist, militaristic police state, ultra-neoliberal dictatorship that is the EU.
It’s clear that not everyone understands the issues of sovereignty and autonomy: probably because they have swallowed whole the EU’s own propaganda that member countries retain sovereignty. They do not: not by any political science definition. A nation state that cedes foreign policy control over it’s military: ceases to be a nation state. Plain and simple.
On a practical note, making an independent deal with the WTO – if we can get past the bourgeois socialist project fear (from the Independent/Grauniad/Observer) on that one – looks more favourable than any post-truth neoliberal subjugation to Brussels. All progressive socialist policies are constitutionally denied by EU membership. So “Fuck the sub-imperial EU”.
Without Corbyn the underclass and even the smug middle class are $crewed https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-private-governments-that-subjugate-u-s-workers/
Someone needs to remind the gormless Freedland, Toynbee & co that the UK is, and always will be, a key part of Europe whether we are taking orders from Brussels or not.
The drippy hissy fit that kicked off in June 2016 by the wet farts and most of their readership at The Guardian has become an embarrassment.
The reason these people are so deranged about Brexit is because of the thought that a post-Brexit Britain might vote for a left-wing government that does left-wing things.
That is what they hate and fear more than anything else.
I visited a copper mine in Wales that had been worked by ancient people from 4,500 years ago. The archaeologists there reckoned that they had extracted enough for 10 million copper axeheads and that 80% of their production had been exported to the Continent. They managed to do that without the Great Brussels Gravy Train. People have been trading with the Continent for thousands of years.
Mark, great find: “…without the Great Brussels Gravy Train. People have been trading with the Continent for thousands of years.”
For more documentation on EurAsia’s natural East-West Geo-Political Trading Axis — the Ancient Silk Road along which Goods and Ideas were traded from Britain to China and points in between — there is a huge book in small print, called The Shape of Ancient Thought. Shows up the End of History wallahs for what they are: intellectual punks. The New Silk will revive the natural East-West axis of EurAsia, and extend it to the American Continent via both ocean shorelines — Atlantic and Pacific. The Anglo Zio Capitalists are desperate to block that New East-West interchange via their monolithic neo-Liberal corporate fascist bloc that the EU has been turned into over the past 30-40 years.
We live in interesting times.
A defeat by 230 votes on THE key government policy cannot be swept under the carpet. It is the largest Government defeat ever, or at least for well over 100 years.
But all bets are off – everything is up in the air.
May could survive the No Confidence vote tomorrow, like she survived the Tory Party No Confidence vote last month. Possibly because nobody else really wanted the job, and all other candidates like Gove, Johnson etc. were far more divisive than her.
Civil war and power struggles between irreconcilable factions have broken out in both parties. These will only intensify.
There is a strong possibility of a General Election. The outcome of that is anybody’s guess. Possibly a Labour victory by a small margin or another hung Parliament.
The prospect of that probably terrifies the Blairite Backstabbers who make up 80% of the PLP more than it does the Tories, the Deep State and the Spooks.
Expect an intensification of the “Jezza is a communist spy/ terrorist/ anti semite” smears from the MSM and the Spooks. Though they’ve used up all their ammunition already and quite possibly shot their bolt. They can’t do much more than they’ve done already. If I was him, I would steer well clear of any Grassy Knolls.
Where does this leave Brexit?
May’s deal, in effect Brexit without the Exit, is dead and buried. A No Deal Brexit is probably the most likely outcome, at least in the short term, though this is guaranteed to enrage the pro-Brussels faction and destabilise the EU.
It isn’t possible to negotiate another deal, and however much they tout a second referendum, I think that is just a horse that won’t run, however much Soros money Bliar gets his hands on to campaign for it. Any new government will have such a weak hand in any renegotiation with Brussels that they are on a loser from the word go.
There is a risk of serious disorder on a larger scale than we have seen in France recently.
The Tory Party/ Labour Party/ EU could break up, though probably not in the short term.
Like ripples in a pond, this will go on for a long time.
It’s difficult to see a way through this. All the factions are so irreconcilable that it’s difficult to see how King Solomon himself could cobble together a compromise. Jezza could win a No Confidence vote and an election, but what then? Is he going to be able to negotiate another deal. Is he in favour of another referendum? He has said No, and Maybe. If there is another referendum, what would the result be, apart from maybe the country being torn completely apart?
What does everybody else think? Am I overlooking anything?
A no deal Brexit would not last more than five minutes. It is not in the interests of anyone. A deal would have to be done sharpish should it occur, and the EUrocrats would have to step aside and wave it through.
But more likely, the Remainers would get their “People’s Vote” before which would be a total waste of time guaranteeing a 3rd referendum within 3 years and huge turmoil for no benefit.
If you don’t swallow the project ‘no deal’ fear propaganda: it looks like the best of the deliberately created chaotic outcomes. Positives: we’ll be out of the EU, have a minority chance of reclaiming democracy, have a minority chance of not ceding our armed forces to the sub-imperial, expansionist EU, have a minority chance of restructuring the state along progressive socialist lines. We can kiss goodbye to that in the EU. Any concocted capitulation, retaining EU neoliberal treaty-rule-imperialism, wipes out, probably forever, any possible future socialist manifesto – such as Bill Mitchell’s “Restructuring the State”. Or even Corbyn’s champagne socialist, tory-lite reforms. Better no-deal out than post-democracy deal in?
You’d think after everything that has happened, the powers that be in Brussels would wind their necks in a bit, at least for the time being. But no, it’s double down and full steam ahead with a European Superstate, European army, imposing ever more austerity on the ordinary folk, seeking out confrontations with one country after another, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, just about everybody else. The whole rotten structure could collapse like a house of cards at any time. Brexit could be purely academic – there could be nothing there to leave.
The UK is already torn apart.
The gap between the haves and the have nots has become an almost unbridgeable canyon.
You are overlooking “israel”.
It will direct “Labour Friends of “israel”” and
“Conservative Friends of “israel””
to make the best decisions.
You mean Theresa “Je Suis Juif” May and Boris “I Am A Fervent Zionist” Johnson?i
It is difficult to publish this word, but this is what you are missing:
“israel”
Ah, the Jews have become scape goat again in Europe, this time most in the UK – the ‘easy’ way out of any conundrum.
Brexit yes/no was/is decided by voting Brits – no one else.
Unless one thinks the majority of UK adults today are gullible fools…
Have election.
Tell EU A50 withdrawn until new govt.
new govt to decide when to submit new A50, AFTER full negotiation of a brexit which is put to the country to approve or reject.
A50 doesn’t have to take 2 years. Most of it is divorce bill, which has already been calculated once.
We may have to compensate the EU for expense they have to incur twice.
Job done.
Any questions?
We have already “compensated” the EU with £500,000,000,000 since 1973. I think that’s enough. We should never have joined. Biggest mistake this country ever made.
It wasn’t a mistake. Heath was compromised and he lied to the electorate (as released Foreign Office documents prove). Additionally we weren’t allowed to vote until after we were actually in the EEC. Thus the choice became whether we should Remain or Leave, which was wholly different from asking if we should join.
I remember the 75 referendum. The amount of rigging and fixing was off the scale. All the MSM, including organs like the Mail/ Express which now claim to be against the EU, were non stop cheerleading for Brussels. If you voted leave you were a communist Nazi wife beating anti semite, who probably kicked his dog and cheated at cards as well. Remain outspent leave by something like 100:1. Biggest farce in history.
“How far will the establishment go to prevent a Corbyn government?” – nothing he has said, thought or done in the last 20 years will be safe from scrutiny.
In the unlikely event he did win an election there would be a constant campaign to sabotage his government led by treacherous Blairities like Chuka and Lucian Berger, who no doubt have the Guardian on speed dial when it comes to telling tales out of school.
In or out of Brexit its hard to see the neocon juggernaut being turned around so either way most of us will be reduced to revenue streams that no longer require things like homes, schools or universal health care.
Britain is a minor player. Only the US could change course with neoconservatism, and that is a long way off. I’m not sure it will happen in my lifetime.
The whole charade needs to become a laughing stock…..but what can we replace our parliamentiary system with….any chance of humility…service…integrity…truth and honesty…openess…public common good…de militiarisation….investment….where a single pound of a poor pensioner has equal value to that of a millionaire in terms of rate of return…… an education system that really teaches how to learn to be peoples in a valuing society..proper health investment and treatments…the due protection of our valued landscapes….a national rail service and intergrated transport system… fair taxation for all and an end to mega corp tax evasion …..decent pension systems…..etc etc ….gonna be interesting how the French public consultations proceed or are they a facade after Gilets jaune events…..
Corbyn has the largest share of the voting public’s support. And will win hands down, providing the voting figures aren’t tampered with?
How far will they go to prevent Corbyn being PM?
They will already have arranged for him to have an ‘accident’ or a ‘heart attack.’ IMHO.
Just like John Smith and Diana.
STOP PRESS!!
What you need to know…..
Sterling REBOUNDS after “meaningful” vote; MPs vote 432-202 against May’s deal
S&P 500 up 0.9%, Nasdaq gains 1.5%
Euro tests $1.14 level; Xetra Dax pares early gain
Hong Kong leads rebound in Asia, mainland China’s indices also rise
Brent crude rises back above $60 a barrel
Overview
The pound swung sharply in the wake of news of a crushing Brexit defeat in parliament for UK prime minister Theresa May, initially weakening as much as 1.5 per cent against the dollar before recovering to stand little changed on the day.
“Traders are seemingly taking the outcome as paving the way for an extension of the Article 50 deadline, rather than increasing the chances of a no-deal Brexit, and this has caused the recovery seen in the pound,” said David Cheetham, chief market analyst at XTB.
Joke. Deep state giving the democratic people of the UK a choice of “this deal or no Brexit as voted for”. The establishment is too full of its own self importance. A massive rude awakening is coming. A very different UK in 18 month time!
Just off the cuff, Mason has, if anything, upped his level of toxicity:
https://21centurymanifesto.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/mr-wobbly-changes-his-mind-again/
As regards the “deal,” which is a carefully confected arrangement between the British bourgeoisie and the neoliberal EU, there are some differences of emphasis but both sides share one common aim above all other: to make sure that Jeremy Corbyn never comes to power in Britain, lest others get similarly uppity ideas.
The thing to concentrate on is the fight against austerity.
In the EU and in the UK and elsewhere.
The rise of the far right in Europe and to a minor extent in the UK has come about due to this adherence to the juven childish mantra that in recessions/depressions you must cut State spending.
Macron in France is dabbling with this mantra twenty years out of date.
The Germans ( who have a big surplus year on year ) are reluctant to release their money to reflate the whole of Europe and stimulate growth. Basically the Euro may as well be named the Deutchmark.
The UK is a rentier economy who ditched material production many years ago and relied instead on the Financial Markets who thought prior to 2007/8 that money could be made out of money not production.
This doesn’t mean that the nation is skint – it’s just who benefits from the growth – weedy or otherwise year on year.
As we ordinary people know in the Western world the beneficiaries of this have been the one percent and the five percent who work for them.
This is why I will argue that Brexit is not the only game in town and any EU nation that thinks that will disappear up its own backside.
The question is whether we ( the EU -or the US ) want to continue to donate our future earnings/productivity to the already bailed out asset classes or do we want to reclaim the money we have already paid out to the already rich?
Everyone is using the phrase ” Take back control of …………..”
To give meaning to that overused phrase the ordinary people have to take back control from the controllers ( governments ) and start reflating economies in the EU and the US.
I would love to smell the gas of inflation – it would lower individual debt which will cost the lenders.
But hey! – who cares about the lenders_ they don’t care about us.
It’s never been cheaper for governments to borrow – even from private banks.
This time instead of letting the bailed banks choose who to lend money to let the people choose who to lend it to.
Better still cut out the private banks and let the Treasuries take charge of lending and spending.
This is what keeps the technocrats in the EU and the US awake at night.
this is Corbyn.