"oh you don't get me I'm the end of the union": lol brexit is how we're all gonna die

So a deal is struck; UK leaves the EU; May, restored to her position as the most popular post-war PM ever, resigns; GE called; Tory landslide; bish bash bosh, luvvly jubbly.

Announcement on the train I'm on: No cold water, no hot water and no running water.

We have 58 days left to live. How are you all spending it?

Schadenfreude doesn't taste as good when you're no longer on the outside looking in.

I do a lot of angry politics posting on substandard trains so I empathise.

I think this take is otm (except the gov ministers resigning, because lol)

I think everyone getting a little carried away:

- May asks EU for backstop change
- EU says no
-May comes back Feb 13th + says "I tried - it's my deal or no deal/no brexit"
- Alongside another vote on deal we get free vote on Cooper-style amendment or 30 ministers resign.

— Sam Freedman (@Samfr) January 29, 2019

We have 58 days left to live. How are you all spending it?

Listening to "We are negotiating in good faith and the intransigent, arrogant EU trying punish us" and endless variations thereof every minute of every one of those 58 days.

My pro-brexit cousin says the EU will agree some tweaks to the backstop and that it then comes back and passes parliament.

I've always thought that's what would happen tbh.

the eu have literally no incentive to renegotiate and the tories have had two years to sort this shit out - the level of delusion the government and brexiters are labouring under is staggering

Do the EU want No Deal?

No but how can the backstop be tweaked?

I don't know, the idea that there is no literally incentive for the EU to renegotiate is wrong though.

... literally no incentive, that is.

The EU can’t be forced to break a treaty for a member! It’s a rules-bound organisation and the precedent is a really bad one to set.

No but how can the backstop be tweaked?

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday,

I've no idea! Its not clear to me what these tweaks are supposed to be. I'd originally thought any tweaks would be cosmetic with the idea that Labour would then vote for it (but if cosmetic then Tory right and DUP don't go for it) - Brexit cousin reckons whatever these tweaks are will one enough to placate ERG/DUP

what are these tweaks you ask? no idea

At what point would any tweaks need a referendum in Ireland to get assent?

If it was considered to be a material change to the GFA, then who can say but it would be rejected by the electorate. Original referendum passed with like 96% approval from Irish electorate.

How likely is NI to punish the DUP in future general elections?

Pretty sure they will still have plenty of support.

surely, even the most extreme headbangers don't want their livelihood knacking up by a fudged backstop.

comma koma chameleon!

Which would imply that DUP politicians are the most extreme headbangers in Ulster dot dot dot.

or that their voters are either proportionately represented in the system, and that they are aware of and care about any issue at all rather than being rabid, fearful and bitter animals.

that said it works both ways

any tinkering with backstop to satiate backbench tories that in any way, however meaningless, leaves a difference btwn NI and Britain will not wash with these frothers

Fucking tweaks. That sub-Digby Jones arseache on Newsnight was trying that too. “If only they take out that tiny line tying us to Europe it will pass”. Yeah, that tiny line which is the point of the thing. “If only my parachute didn’t have a harness I’d happily wear it!”

It’s very hard to see the EU budging on the backstop; even if they did for the period of the WA, Ireland would surely (surely?) veto for the full deal so it’d be pointless.

I suspect the next steps are for May to come back having absolutely and visibly exhausted the “tweaks” and say “I’ve talked to Jez and the only other option that can command the house is permanent Customs Union. I don’t like it but the house also doesn’t want No Deal and we can’t revoke because we must Respect The Will so what else is there? Vote, dicks”.

That leads to a multi-amendment vote on the 14th where she calls the ERG bluff: which do they want less — a backstop with risk of customs union or a guaranteed permanent one?

Which underlines the risk for Corbyn entering talks: Labour CU-contingent support can then merely become a convenient replacement for No Deal in the game of brinksmanship that seems to be May’s only way of operating right now.

And of course whichever of those options they take the DUP then bring down the government, so it doesn’t hurt in the GE to follow that she’ll have made Labour complicit in something she mostly owned until then.

wheeeeee

German foreign minister Heiko Maas on prospect of renegotiating Theresa May's #Brexit deal: 'The withdrawal agreement is the best and only solution for an orderly withdrawal.

'Germany and the entire Union are firmly on Ireland's side.'

— Joe Barnes (@Barnes_Joe) January 30, 2019

But cars

It's almost as if the Germans have noticed that rabid nationalism and a ridiculously inflated sense of the UK's standing in the world haven't stopped the average UK citizen from buying almost everything they own from overseas producers.

An Irish friend has just suggested we connect the dots between the Brady amendment passing and the news that cocaine usage in the UK is significantly higher than the rest of Europe...

I posted this a few weeks ago, but it seems a convincing model of the difference between the image of the EU projected inside the UK and what the actual EU has been doing (IE gyac OTM, it is 100% about precedent above the attendant pain and damage).

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2019/01/search-lost-brexit-how-uk-repeatedly-weakened-its-own-negotiating-position

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-47041270

Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse said the announcement, "highlights the significant potential for oil and gas which still exists beneath Scotland's waters".

... you said it, mate.

fun fact: it is essential that absolutely none of that oil or gas is extracted, stfu paul wheelhouse

DUP could in theory be ousted by UUP in some seats but in general the seats are super safe union majorities with the exception of Belfast South & North. But while the UUP are a more moderate party, they also oppose the backstop for the same reasons as the DUP.

This is vaguely interesting but probably means little in reality: https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2019/0130/1026375-congressman-brendan-boyle/

A resolution has been introduced in the US Congress opposing the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland.

Irish-American Congressman Brendan Boyle is behind the move.

He said that now was the time for the US Congress to make it clear that it stands in strong opposition to a hard border.

After introducing the resolution in the House of Representatives, Congressman Boyle said: "One of the great foreign policy achievements of the 20th century was the Good Friday Agreement.

"It eliminated the hard border that then existed between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland. Now Brexit threatens this."

perhaps the threat of a future US trade embargo and our supply of chlorinated chicken will help focus ppl.

May was going for the jugular on Corbyn at PMQs there. Novel way to kick off your cross-party talks, that

The photos of her on the front page of the papers are really something.

xps I've been continually surprised by the resilience of the DUP vote up to now through all the previous scandals, so I'm not going to hold my breath, but it might be time I was surprised in the other direction...

Maybe in the longer term, as I suspect the DUP's support is already low among younger voters (under 40, maybe 50?), but a lot of younger voters also seem quite disengaged from politics in general*. I suppose Brexit may be changing that. Then there's the way (what I think is currently most acceptably termed) the "CNR" - "Catholic/Nationalist/Republican" - community is growing faster than the "PUL" - "Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist" - community, so we're moving in that direction anyway, but who knows.

But I think the only DUP voter I know is under 40 and votes the way his hardcore Free Presbyterian parents would want despite being married to a Donegal Catholic and walking the tightrope of what to tell the kids about all that stuff, so things are unpredictable to my English mind and prob best not interrogated by the likes of me tbh.

* I can't find much in the way of voter turnout demographics but I've heard a lot of "they're all a load of terrorists and conmen, on both sides" "ah but the cross-community party Alliance are a shower / are secretly them'uns / the Greens will never get in so what's the point". On that front, there is a tiny micro-point that the GFA and subsequent power-sharing act, much as they were a big step forward and remain the best option we've got and I don't want them trampled by the DUP/Tories, theoretically entrench sectarianism by saying that the 1st Minister must come from the "community designation" with most votes and the Deputy 1st Minister must come from the other lot - but we're a long way from the stage where that is an obstacle...

Sorry to go on about this but it is a semi-mystery/irony to me that I would really like Single Transferable Vote in general elections as I believe it would break down the two-party system and make voting for smaller parties less risky, giving them and their voters a chance to be heard - and yet since STV was introduced in NI Assembly elections the harder parties on each side of the divide have become more and more entrenched...

The problem is that NI was meant to be a perpetual unionist majority, and that’s not how it worked in reality. It’s a big existential threat.

just heard this total nimrod on R4 talking about a magical frictionless "administrative border" controlled by IT systems. Which is apparently one of the proposed tweaks. It didn't stand up to the simplest bit of scrutiny i.e. a system that presumes there will be no illegal trade and need for checkpoints. These people are insane.

How’s it going to stand up to someone flying a drone over it?

May was going for the jugular on Corbyn at PMQs there. Novel way to kick off your cross-party talks, that

I can't emphasise enough how humiliating it would be, and how much ire it would draw from the Conservative Party, for May to be perceived as having gone cap-in-hand to Jeremy Corbyn to bail out her Brexit deal. It's probably the single biggest reason why these talks won't go anywhere (and obviously Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are such famously ameliorative bipartisan types).

guys i accidentally tweaked my backstop last weekend

i wouldn't recommend it

just heard this total nimrod on R4 talking about a magical frictionless "administrative border" controlled by IT systems

look we all know that uk government it systems are famously inexpensive and effective, what could possibly go wrong

how's this for an alternative arrangement, we stay in the fucking EU

has anyone thought of this?

BREXIT MEANS BREXIT iirc

The Will has spoken i am sorry

look we all know that uk government it systems are famously inexpensive and effective, what could possibly go wrong

lol every time read someone boosting 'max fac' or whatever i can practically see the randy glint in their eye - 'technology will fix it - a big it contract called something like max fac - nobody knows what it is, what it does, how big it is, how long it would take to build, how much it would cost or whether it's possible, but we can shake hands on launching it and wave our wangs around'

same kind of thinking that leads to a referendum on 'brexit'

Obligatory drive by bitch about the press & how little pressure the government faces:

As an alternative to asking why the PM keeps wasting time on political stunts, try asking why Britain’s overwhelmingly pro-Conservative newspapers keep humouring or endorsing her, and why that tactic is so obviously working. pic.twitter.com/FigcYwth8E

— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) January 30, 2019

didnt brussels respond within 6 minutes?

red tape and inefficiency what what