Brexit process

[UndercoverElephant]

Very true old chap.

I got that one wrong.

I failed to realize how much Tory Remain voting voters would turn to Labour during the election and the failure of Labour working class Leave voters to vote for May's hard Brexit mandate.

May lost her majority because she ran the worst GE campaign in living memory. She made it quite obvious that she was incapable of organising a piss-up in a brewery, and a lot of people concluded it was simply not safe to vote for her, because she is incompetent. Since then she has demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt that she is indeed totally incompetent.

The real problem is that that the tories, having called a referendum on EU membership that the Leave won, replaced their leader with somebody who never supported Brexit in the first place, and who was never really capable of doing the job she is currently in. IMO she should never even have been in the cabinet on merit. I remember when Cameron first anounced his cabinet in 2015 that I thought it was not at all bad, apart from the inclusion of May, and people responded that she had to be included, because there wasn't enough other female talent. Then she subsequently inherited both the leadership and prime-minister-ship by default, because Gove and Johnson took each other out.

Unavoidable conclusion: This unbelievable shambles is entirely the responsibility of the tory party. It could have been done well, and there is nobody to blame but the tories for the fact it has been monumentally f*cked up. Blaming Labour supporters for failing to vote Tory is ridiculous.

[Lord Beria3]

Got to disagree with that.

May has her weaknesses and I doubt that we would ever have got a clean/hard Brexit given the huge opposition within business, political and financial elites but a decent majority would have stregthened her hand against the Treasury, parliament and the cabinet.

Of course the primary responsibility lies with May but the failure of Labour leave voters to vote for a hard Brexit was a contributing factor.

Tory remain voters got it, it was a Brexit ge, and voted Labour accordingly. They were smarter and because of the resulting hung parliament we will end up with a softer Brexit which is closer to what the Remain electorate want.

[Little John]

Do you have a number for how many Tory voters voted Labour at the last general election? I only ask because you have implied on a number of occasions, it was significant

[Lord Beria3]

Afraid not although I did read polling analysis after the ge, as you would expect after getting the result so wrong!

One of the key groups was the swing of 30 to 40 something middle class Tory voters to Labour.

One of my good friends, who voted Cameron in 2010 voted Labour mainly because of Brexit. He is a well off Londoner and not a leftie by any comparison.

[UndercoverElephant]

One of the key groups was the swing of 30 to 40 something middle class Tory voters to Labour.

One of my good friends, who voted Cameron in 2010 voted Labour mainly because of Brexit. He is a well off Londoner and not a leftie by any comparison.

Has it occurred to you that TM's "Dementia Tax", followed by her humiliating U-turn and excruciatingly ludicrous denial of a U-turn, might have had something to do with it?

That moment revealed her for what she is: completely f***ing useless.

[Lord Beria3]

It's irrelevant what the non Brexit factors were that impacted voters decision on whether to vote Tory or not.

The consequence of the failure of the Tories to increase their majority under a explicit hard Brexit mandate is that the current parliament doesn't have a majority for a hard Brexit.

To be fair, even under the pre May 2017 parliament there wasn't a majority for a hard Brexit given that the vast majority of the Labour PLP voted Remain and around half the Tory MPs.

The prospects of hard Brexit died in May 2017.

A Bloomberg article on Sunderland today was interesting, most folks interviewed were more concerned about austerity and seemed resigned to a watered down Brexit.

[Lord Beria3]

The Brexit story is starting to get exciting again. May is likely to persuade the cabinet to support a semi-soft Brexit proposal soon which will be sent to Brussels.

That's when it gets interesting. Right now, the noises are that it will be rejected but this could lead to the collapse of the May government.

The bigger picture, as Euro-intelligence reports, is darkening rapidly.

A NATO conference looms in mid-July which could lead to the de facto collapse of American support for European security.

A Trump-Putin summit could lead to further moves, including a US pull out from Germany, a Trump decision to stop military exercises near the Russian border and potentially a future easing of sanctions.

I found the general lack of interest about the risks of a disastrous NATO summit within the European political and media elites startling. It seems that the European political class is in denial.

https://www.eurointelligence.com/public.html

The transatlantic political crisis is also progressing in ominous ways. The Washington Post has the story that the Pentagon has undertaken a cost and impact assessment of the withdrawal of US troops stationed in Germany - which is seen as a potential precursor to a US withdrawal from Nato. The paper writes that Donald Trump was apparently shocked when he heard that there were still 35,000 active US troops on German soil. The paper writes that the study is still at a technical level.

Separately, there were reports last night of a legislative draft that would allow Trump to abandon WTO principles in his trade policies. Officials noted that the legislation was unrealistic and unworkable, but the president seems to be pressing ahead also as a means to build up pressure on the US' trading partners. We may laugh at Trump’s suggestion to Emmanuel Macron that he should leave the EU in order to get a better deal with the US. But we take note when John Bolton is dispatched to the UK to discuss the option of a zero-tariff zone. The US giving the UK a lifeline in case of a hard Brexit is not exactly what the EU wishes to see - and it may drive a wedge between EU member states in the final months of the negotiations.

The EU, meanwhile, said it would earmark $300bn worth of US goods for trade sanctions if Trump were to go ahead to slap tariffs on European cars.

Where will all this end? Roger Cohen answers the question in his New York Times column with a fictional scenario under which Trump would end US support for Nato and end up destroying the EU. This is what could happen according to Cohen:

"A briefing paper prepared by his national security adviser, John Bolton, is leaked. It defines the president’s strategic objective as 'the destruction of the World Trade Organization, NATO and the European Union.’ Much progress, it notes, has been made toward all three goals. ‘The liberal democratic club is crumbling under the weight of its own decadence and political correctness.’"

We don’t think Trump will succeed to destroy the EU, but he could cause lasting damage. The EU is at greater risk from forces on the inside. (see also our separate article on Matteo Salvini).

We have looming Trump tariffs on EU (read German) cars, which will cause huge damage to the German car industry.

Plus Germany is edging closer to recession this year!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... le-merkel/

The numbers coming out of what is meant to be the powerhouse of the eurozone over the last few weeks have been terrible. On Friday, we learnt that retail sales are in freefall, and this week is likely to produce more bad news on industrial production. In fact, Germany is only a whisker away from an outright recession. Over the last decade, Merkel has created a dangerously unbalanced economic model based on massive trade surpluses and cheap labour. If that comes unstuck, it will be her downfall.

Bottom line - German car industry is facing a perfect storm - trade tariffs within months against their second largest market (USA), a economic recession within Germany and the wider EU is facing a collapse of NATO which is the guarantee of military security.

Any prospect of a American withdrawal from central Europe will terrify the east European member-states who have dark memories of Russian occupation after the war.

Economic self-interest and a strategic desire to keep the Brits tied to European security would suggest that Merkel/Macron, once autumn kicks in, will quietly order Barnier to work on a semi-soft deal in line with May's preference.

This is what Berenberg Bank (a German investment bank) has been predicting all along.

https://forecastingintelligence.org/201 ... of-change/

What on earth is a semi-soft Brexit? To quote the bank, “the UK stays close enough to EU rules for many goods and some services to avoid a hard border in Ireland. UK remainers could support a deal that keeps the UK partly aligned with the EU while the Brexiteers could back such an agreement as it would offer the UK some room to pursue its non-EU ambitions. The UK and the EU could probably find a solution the Irish question – possibly a bespoke customs arrangement.�

[Potemkin Villager]

Brexit's coming home!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater

[raspberry-blower]

The Duran: Boris Johnson quits amid Brexit conflict

The government of British Prime Minister Theresa May has been plunged into turmoil with the resignation of two senior Cabinet ministers in a deep split over her Brexit strategy.

Boris Johnson, the UK’s clumsy and outspoken Foreign Secretary has announced his resignation just hours after The Duran reported that a top Brexit official, David Davis quit, “over his frustration with a negotiated deal by PM Theresa May for a “soft� UK departure from the European Union.�

Looks increasingly likely that there will be a leadership challenge to Theresa May.

[Little John]

Looks increasingly likely there will be civil war in this country at some point.

[UndercoverElephant]

Looks increasingly likely there will be civil war in this country at some point.

Not sure what the two sides would be...

[Little John]

Globalists versus nationalists. Which is to say, an existing, utterly out of touch bourgeois political class and a proletariat both at the end of their tether and incandescent with rage

Or, to quote Greer's Versailles Hall of Mirrors metaphor

It has apparently not occurred to those who parade up and down the Hall of Mirrors that there are many more people outside those gates than there are within. It has seemingly not entered their darkest dreams that shouting down an inconvenient point of view, and flinging insults at anyone who pauses to consider it, is not an effective way of convincing anyone not already on their side. Maybe the outcome of the Brexit vote will be enough to jar America’s chattering classes out of their stupor, and force them to notice that the people who’ve been hurt by the policies they prefer have finally lost patience with the endless droning insistence that no other policies are thinkable. Maybe—but I doubt it.

Outside the Hall of Mirrors, the sky is black with birds coming home to roost. Some of them have already settled on the rooftops of London. More of them are hovering above an assortment of European capitals, and many more are wheeling above the marble domes and pediments of Washington DC.

When they land, their impact will shake the world.

[clv101]

We are where we are, with May's 'plan' because over the last two years the pro-Brexit folk haven't even come close to developing an actual plan. DD should have been publishing his department's Brexit white paper a year ago. Abject failure led to number 10 taking over.

[stumuz1]

pro-Brexit folk haven't even come close to developing an actual plan.

It looks like the pro-brexit folks plan is coming along nicely!

The chequers fudge is highly doubtful to get through Parliament. The EU will do what the EU does i.e reject it out of hand.

So, we will leave with no deal and walk away. Pro- brexit plan A.

[Little John]

There are pro-brexit models already on the self. The Canadian deal is a case in point. The reason, however, that this has not been explored between May and the EU is because neither side wants it.

I said this nearly two years ago. The Uk should have just walked away and fallen back on WTO rules. The EU was never going to want to strike a reasonable deal. Meanwhile two years have been wasted because the UK political class don't want a reasonable deal either. They want the UK to stay in the EU. And they have been aided and abetted by a petite-bourgeoisie that are clearly more than happy to see the EU referendum result overturned. Do these jokers want a civil war? Because that is what is being slowly and steadily being brought into being.

Or, are the bourgeoisie political class and broader petite-bourgeoisie section of the wider population now so arrogant they think they can just get away with ignoring the proletariat? If either this government caves to the EU or Labour betrays its core constituency by doing the same, then what comes next will make the likes of Farage look tame by comparison.