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

https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/brexit/house-of-commons-vote-to-pass

5/1 yes - 1/6 no.

I think Norway is maybe an even worse deal in an awful lot of eyes - for example the SNP seem keen but they are avoiding Norway being out of the CFP in name only; they have to take the access from the EU in return for only about 80% of fishery trade tariff free and maybe crucially they pay the most for salmon and mackerel which are potentially the points of interest for Scottish exports. It also means rule taker indefinitely so any of those principled Brexiteers who couldn't vote for May's deal on that basis are in a bit of soapy bubble.

It feels to me like "+" is doing a lot of work for a lot of people for completely different and sometimes opposing 'benefits', much as the debate to date has been and with no hint the EU would even reopen the negotiations to work out what '+' might be and no time to do it.

Yep, I think that’s right. I mean the only the deal that’s better than remain is a fantasy one

quote of the day, shared without comment, is from Boris Johnson:

“We may be 1-0 down at this stage of the negotiation with the EU but we can still win 2-0.”

— Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) December 4, 2018

I can never read odds, cal. Does that mean the deal is 30x more likely to go through than not, based on betting odds, or the opposite?

no 1/6 is heavily odds on and basically you'd get £1.16 back including your stake for a quid!

Possible scenario: 1) House rejects May's deal. 2) May wins no confidence vote. 3) May goes to Brussels, returns with little or nothing. 4) Very slightly rejigged deal is sent back to the House. 5) May says if the bill fails, she will withdraw A50, as it's the only alternative to no-deal. 6) Deal passes.

xp
but betting markets only really tell you where fools or shrewdies are putting their money and you never know which has staked the most.

tsk, a simple "it's still nil-nil lads" would have sufficed

Would a no-confidence vote from the Tories occur between 5) and 6)?

Labout Noes against the Grieve amendment from today: Dennis Skinner, Kate Hoey, Graham Stringer, Ronnie Campell.

Boris johnson talking about a european tie which wd be over two legs, obviously

^ probably not an excuse he or any of his surrogates wd have presence of mind to make

He’s gonna be so pissed off when his brother pips him to future leadership.

'Pips' suggests Boris is still in with a chance of being leader of the Conservative...

Asked if May still commanded a majority in parliament, a Downing Street source said: “Everybody knows the parliamentary arithmetic but during the course of this administration, we have won the overwhelming majority of the votes taking place.”

in 1975, no one died

Newsnight coverage of this vitally important day in the UK's parliamentary democracy has collapsed into total farce.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xpqa1KqTsdM/hqdefault.jpg

fittingly

in 1975 nobody died .. until they were wheeled outside.

(xp) Wow, simultaneous Day Today/Steve Coogan references!

haha!

Honestly NV? I don't think it matters because I just don't believe that Brexit is the #1 electoral issue for enough people. There is no way that Corbyn and McDonnell will

Otm. Last time out, the Tories didn’t want to discuss anything but Brexit. It didn’t work out that way, obviously. Yougov has the following reasons for voting last time: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener and

The BES also had some interesting findings on how the campaigns evolved last time (the second animation is really interesting!)
https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-findings/what-was-it-all-about-the-2017-election-campaign-in-voters-own-words

It all depends when this election takes place, obviously. But labour will have a manifesto. They’ve been announcing new policies for a while and are probably holding some back.

And, purely anecdotally, I live in a solid leave constituency where a lot of people are employed in the NHS and I know for a fact that there were people who voted Leave in the ref and Labour last year because of their NHS policies. This is why Labour leave voters are so important!

Also and I promise this is it because I’m about to get on a plane, but Corbyn & McDonnell are going to throw all the social stuff at them - homelessness, poverty, NHS, and good banks and that’s going to cut through with your average voter more than Brexit.

Oh yes, absolutely no doubt that shitloads of (working class) Leave voters still voted Labour, despite the gleeful predictions of just about every media outlet.

I can see Brexiteers voting with May if they think this is the only Brexit they'll get, rather than face another referendum or no Brexit.

If they're at all like (or at all aware of) their loudest supporters, I think they'll view this deal as worse than staying - not just being subject to EU rules but also they are massively hung up on the backstop, seeing it as a way to keep the UK in the EU indefinitely because any end to the backstop would need to be agreed with the EU - a time limit to it is one of those things that they'd consider a reasonable negotiating position and will not understand when the EU won't (on current form) budge an inch on it.

The ECJ ruling today may well encourage them - if they can stay now without penalty, they can leave later once they send in the dream team of Johnson, Gove and Rees-Mogg to frighten the EU surrender monkeys. They possibly hate May more than the EU, which is after all acting in a straightforward manner to maximise its gains.

While it's right to be wary of Tory tribal loyalty, as many posters are being today, I would tend to agree with Andrew's assessment there. Besides which it's difficult to make speculation on tactics and reasons until the legal advice is published, tomorrow. That could provide necessary cover for voting no.

I don't disagree with the scenario YMOF lists there being what might be in some people's minds but it's specifically catered for and ruled out in the AG's opinion paper - he says that any withdrawal of A50 must be "sincere" and not motivated by "any attempt to secure a better deal at a later date". Quite how that manifests in the later ruling remains to be seen but it's a pointer that the ECJ want to close off the avenue.

(It's also worth clarifying this isn't an ECJ ruling, it's the opinion of the Advocate General which would normally translate into an ECJ ruling but does not always and some of the legal opinion I've read on the topic is from people who fell into just that trap - assuming that AG opinion would translate into ECJ ruling and then losing their case when it didn't. The ECJ judgement isn't due for some weeks yet.)

Except the threat in this specific case wouldn't be motivated by wanting to secure a better deal at a later date, it would be motivated by wanting to secure the current deal that's on the table now. In which case the threat itself might be enough - expect to hear May talking about the risks of no Brexit at all a lot over the next few weeks.

I'm any case it seems very likely that Barnier etc have kept more in the locker that they are privately willing to concede as a face saving exercise for May. Everyone concerned must have known for ages the deal wouldn't get through Parliament, they probably knew as much before it was even announced.

No deal would be extremely chaotic and disruptive to a lot of EU economies and it's very difficult to imagine a scenario in which they voluntarily opt for it either.

something something collins dev

xpost to MDC

I don't doubt Barnier etc have somewhere else to go but it's an article of faith that they do and can easily be painted as being as unicorn-y as any other non-May Deal out there.

I suspect the compromise will be to set a maximum duration for the backstop which will probably be 5 or 10 years.

There was a good commentator on Today on Monday who spoke at length why the EU is actually less keen on a backstop than the UK is because it equally affects their ability to secure trade deals (amongst other reasons) but I can't remember who he was.

xp surprised the ERG aren’t pushing for the return of the treaty ports

Hedges has been clowning someone from this parish today!

never debate orwell with an orwell_fan

(that's a guess, i have only been using twitter to pimp MY book this morning)

absolutely correct guess. Channel some Pimp C spirit, it was the 11th anniversary of his death yesterday.

rip big man

Wow that legal advice paper was boring. Going to need someone who has the slightest understanding of these things to tell me what it means.

May and co. were just trying to protect us all from the tedium!

legalese is so draining, people that can make sense of it and condense it into lucid plainspeak. I seriously take my hat off to your skillz.

Lawyers, you mean.

bless 'em, salt of the earth etc!

Not a fun read by any means. Pundits pointing out it mostly comes down to the risk for the UK to being even more in limbo.

Legal advice is politically very very problematic for govt in terms of the ‘trap’ of the backstop-lots in it but key phrase - ‘in terms of international law it would endure indefinitely until a superseding agreement’-and WA does not give ‘legal means of compelling EU’ to do that

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) December 5, 2018

Full legal advice appears to be brutally unvarnished description of something we already knew. Politically toxic for PM because it gives anti-deal side quotable quotes on hatefulness (as they see it) of backstop.

— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) December 5, 2018

It read like the DUP will not be happy with it, which could mean no confidence?

About leaving, it basically says exactly what the Attorney General said in parliament; that there is a risk the transitional agreements are very protracted and, since they can only legally be replaced by a subsequent agreement then the backstop will be by default an indefinite agreement. It points out, however, why an extended period is in nobody's interests and very much doubts it would continue beyond 2020 (but notes this is a political position and not a legal one) and states that Ireland will be the primary agitators in coming to an agreement - and it's why that is that's the most interesting part.

The solution to the NI problem turns out to be, for the transition period, for NI to remain within the CU and SM wrt Ireland trade and GB to maintain the current EU relationship, with these being aligned within a whole UK holistic arrangement. So there is, at least for 20 months, an Irish Sea border.

This presents issues for Ireland because there is a massive risk of company flight across the border to get full UK and EU access through the back door, and issues for the EU because as far as NI is concerned this is a fundamental breaking of the four freedoms, which was supposedly their red line.

So, the most tangible effect of releasing the full advice is to strengthen the ERG hand by showing the EU have conceded more ground than previously thought and agreed what was "impossible". Well done all.

lol we're all gonna die

From what I can see the full legal advice has pretty much destroyed any chance of May somehow whipping Tory Brexiters into line, let alone persuading the DUP. It's dead in the water.

So general election, Corbin victory, withering of the state, utopia!

Autocorrect is biased against Corbyn.

It's only human