one out all out: a brexit from the modern world and every one of its problems please (we're all gonna die lol)

what a smug twat is my take, tbh jed. Nothing like making all the ppl who haven't got the option to up sticks and go (to which liberal utopia?)abroad, feel even worse about their fucked up lives in the Uk!

To barcelona.

Where the spanish govt has been busy strangling the democratic independence movement with violence and locking up its leaders lol

he could have just said the weather's shit!

there is definitely a communication problem with the remainer movement

just stick to 'these corrupt cunts will make a mint off brexit' and say it over and over again

On the earlier question, I think the plausible scenario comes down to “deal can’t pass parliament, govt uses this as a plausible reason to ask for an A50 extension, gets one, the govt rumbles along continuing to hope something turns up/Corbyn resigns/something.”

This assumes that no anti-EU European government chooses to vote against an A50 extension, although you could argue that a disastrous Brexit isn't exactly in their interests either.

yes i think we're in "let's just do it and be legends" territory but i wd not be startled if that's where end up: the banter heuristic, what's simultaneously funniest and most awful :|

re the extension: this of course hands power over to the EU to say -- as the queen does re forming a government -- not if you can't demonstrate you have parliament's backing, no extension w/o an election

would they do this? ONLY IF IT'S FUNNY (and awful)

then of course we get a succession of unresolvably hung parliaments for months on end

Meanwhile I think the way in which revelations of pre-referendum interference and rulebreaking have been reported is, by and large, a dereliction of duty on behalf of the BBC, shit like this should be the top story really:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/14/met-police-damian-collins-no-investigation-leave-campaigners-data-misuse

the BBC don't even cover it when a stuffy old institution like the BMJ accuses the government of "corporate murder". Wouldn't expect them to embarrass the government over Leave using US style dark money and illegal means etc..

Last week in what it described as a “warning shot” across Conservative bows, the DUP abstained from a vote on the agriculture bill and said it could vote against the budget.

On Sunday in an opinion piece in the Belfast Telegraph, Foster raised the stakes further, saying she was not playing a game and hinting she was prepared to die in a ditch, politically speaking, to save the union.

“The DUP’s actions this week are not as some have suggested about ‘flexing muscle’. Anyone engaging in this in a lighthearted way foolishly fails to grasp the gravity of the decisions we will make in the coming weeks,” wrote Foster.

Sometimes I think the DUP might actually fuck this government over, even with the threat of republican PM Corbyn and they might even gamble on him not winning an election, which is quite plausible according to current polls.

even if it meant someone worse than May concluding Brexit negotiations, giving even less of a fuck for Unionist interests. At least Arlene got to die in a ditch and grimly watched someone else die!

How soon we forget: Labour only get an honest appraisal under election coverage conditions and Brexit is the thumb on the scales WRT all polling.

In other news, I really hate Arlene Foster: the brass neck on that woman, considering NI was 65/35 Remain.

the polls have been consistently swinging 4pts either way since the election, sometimes it becomes news!

But this is the endgame, isn’t it? The aim now is a no deal brexit in order to turn the uk into low regulation low tax low welfare state. No Deal doesn’t have to go through parliament, does it? How can it?

N. Ireland vote was 56/44 as it happens.

Point still stands, AF still a rancid dumpling.

and that was just what her mother affectionately called her!

The problem for the Tories is the (probably quite significant) number of voters who voted for them last time because of Brexit and nothing else. Once it's out of the way, whether it goes badly or not, their support is likely to fall off a cliff.

Plus, y'know, nature doing its job.

Quote of the week undoubtably comes from a source close to Arlene Foster: “This is a battle of who blinks first, and we’ve cut off our eyelids”

— Tom Ridgway (@Tridg98) October 14, 2018

wait when did they have eyelids? they are reigning staring-competition world champs in the english-speaking world, and likely beyond, and have been for more than a century

(yes i know the DUP is not the official unionists, but edward carson had a low opinion of mainstream unionists back in 1911: he described them as the "unrolling of a mummy")

Really can't see no-deal because of the danger of an '08 style crash.

Counter: In the 20th century, Europe fought itself to destruction in two wars.

Thing about the brinksmanship is they’re not going to get away with pissing about until Mar 28. It needs ratified in EU for one thing, and the crash will happen as soon as the money reckons no deal is more likely than not and wants to get out first.

I can see the EU ratifying or even relaxing the rules on an extension at the 11th hour if Draghi screams about it.

http://www.ft.com/fastft/files/2016/06/ftse-250.png

^^^this won't affect DUP tactics tho

Is the EU in any kind of danger of a 08 style crash?

Agree. The DUP probably just want to get rid of May, get the Tories scrambling to find someone else. In that sense the Tories can get another leader that the DUP could back to keep this parliament going. Something could be cooked? The government is broken, and it can carry on like this for a long while.

this is where the real danger is of course
https://i.imgur.com/UNK9X1X.jpg

so many bright sides to the impending apocalypse

there was a big stocks tumble on thursday, wasn't there? i'm not sure i saw an explanation (beyond krugman saying "trump is a fool")

yeah i heard about the FT dropping but no real analysis beyond "lol markets"

tbf 'lol markets' covers all bases p good most of the time

DUP in 1975:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DpeQc_GW0AEkRdi.jpg

Xposts London's finance sector is very large and connected to Europe and the world, and although the banking sector have put more safeguards in the event of a shock it would be a test.

do you think the DUP just saw "Treaty of Rome" and could never get beyond that?

xxp
beautiful!

Brb opening the book of revelations for Sunday night Lols

I can remember my Irish gran calling me and others Antichrists once, for not going to Easter mass.

ulster says MAKE WAR WITH THE LAMB

other things happening in europe as we speak: the CSU just got a colossal thump in the german elections, SPD wipeout, greens did well

a) never rule out merkel, she is the toughest politician in europe and bonn is littered with the bones of those who had her in their sights
b) big shake-up to follow all the same, with likely consequences all over the shop

I’m so glad to have discovered that my Irish Protestant family were Methodists, fuck the DUP with a set of padlocked swings.

Well, at least we’ll be running a surplus in painfully on-the-nose metaphorical photographs pic.twitter.com/SfCWcisu8D

— Archie Bland (@archiebland) October 14, 2018

not sure i can quite decode the "extras on a break from filming poldark catch up with twitter" metaphor

stupid fucking actors, trapped in the maze of their minds!

I'm not sure about the Times one either tbh!

the more i read about this and think about it, the "backstop" is kind of the whole game, isn't it? or at least it could turn out to be

It’s the crux of the thing for sure; and clearly the EU knew it from the start. And what a gift it is for them. For all the many irreconcilable promises, “no border inside the UK” is special, because it is only possible if the EU grant it.

Which they have literally no incentive to do. Damaging though a no-deal would be for them, it will always be worse for Britain; they know Britain will have to fold first and so they can demand the best possible outcome for the EU, sorry “punish plucky Britain for daring to leave”.

There are afaict now just four routes out (apart from stall for more time): 1, become a rule-taker in the customs union indefinitely; 2, put a hard border in the sea; 3, cancel Brexit, or 4, call an election to let someone else do one of the other three.

The last three are politically impossible so that only leaves becoming a rule-taker. (Though I bet if May had a majority we’d already have agreed to option two. And they might still try it, which would seemingly provoke the DUP to bring them down.)

I don’t think the fantasists will let her have option one either, not when BMW is just waiting to force the EU to make the easiest trade deal in history.

So what now? Either Labour support the eternal-customs-union deal (which would be genuinely bad for us) or we slide into no deal, the government collapses, people are rude to the Rees-Mogg offspring, we scavenge bins etc etc.

Why would being a rule taker in the customs union be a bad thing it seems like the best option short of cancelling Brexit entirely. It seems infinitely preferable to the feudal freemarket hellscape that the moggites desire.

The UK will be a rule taker in any market it wants to trade in because it’s an insignificant rainy island in the Atlantic. China, the US, the TPP will impose heir rules on British exports. The whole point of the EU being part of a larger collective and having bargaining power. Every trade deal in history results in the weaker power getting fucked and everyone is lining up to fuck the UK once it’s out of Europe and the Uk will have no alternative but to take whatever it can get on whatever terms. It’s fucking moronic to think otherwise.

The best option short of cancelling Brexit is Norway.

Being a rule-taker keeps the lights on but it’ll be destabilising as fuck in the medium-term. Yes shitty tiny rainy island, but nevertheless still a G7 economy, and there are rich pickings to he had for partners (look who owns all our privatised industries eg).

The trade-offs arguably worked within the EU when the UK had a voice to argue (disproportionately well historically) for its interests and get eg services deals in exchange.

Without that representation the incentives for the EU27 would be pretty damagingly configured for future negotiations. The terms would just as unfavourable to the UK as they would under the free-trade hellscape scenario and unlike the FT scenario the counterparties would have unfettered market access to the UK. There’s no way in hell that ends well.

(I am assuming the backstop is sub-EFTA here but I can’t see how it wouldn’t be)

The main incentive the EU has to avoid a hard border would be preventing a serious economic shock to Ireland (and possibly a political one too).

Whether that's enough of an incentive is another question but I'm not convinced they will want to willingly create yet another crisis when one could feasibly be avoided.

It’s definitely enough incentive but the EU can avoid the hard border in ways which are mostly upside for the EU and all downside for the UK, and they know the DUP are their trump card on delivering that.