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Oh Britain, what have you done (part ∞+15)?

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Jeremy’s Plan dismissed by May. She’s heading to the cliff and the EU are not going to stand in her way. Britain by law, departs the EU in a matter of weeks.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...jeremy-corbyn-customs-union-plan-rory-stewart
“We are absolutely clear on this: we’re not considering Jeremy Corbyn’s customs proposals; we’re not considering any proposals to remain in the customs union. We must have our own, independent trade policy,” May’s spokesman said.

She’ll try for a dirty compromise with her own hardliners (even Johnson is saying he’ll swing in behind her if the back stop is altered) and I bet Labour Gammon in Westminster will vote with them. It’s the giveaway of British power not seen since the end if WW2 or the economic and geopolitical suicide of hard Brexit.
 
Interesting documentary on BBC 2 tonight - Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil. Gives some perspective on why not everyone buys into Europe is Best, Britain is Bad and voted to leave.
 
So can we regard the Guardian as a trustworthy source or not? You were rather disparaging about it last week and now you are quoting from it.
It's not really a question of trust. Like many media outlets - e.g., Russia Today - The Guardian carries interesting individual articles but it clearly has an agenda, which shapes its editorial decisions and much of the writing, especially the political coverage. Am I supposed to boycott it, having made that observation?
 
It's not really a question of trust. Like many media outlets - e.g., Russia Today - The Guardian carries interesting individual articles but it clearly has an agenda, which shapes its editorial decisions and much of the writing, especially the political coverage. Am I supposed to boycott it, having made that observation?

You make it sound unreliable. But that is more down to seeing articles which support your views and other articles which don't. Like most people who read papers, you only take from it what suits your outlook even if you read the Sun. And like most people, it doesn't actually influence your political beliefs but reinforces them when you read an agreeable article. Whether you boycott or not is up to you. I don't see any need, but I'm not very reliable either!
 
Interesting Huffington Post article suggesting (as if it hadn’t been obvious for months) that May is perfectly happy to throw the UK under a bus to keep the Tory party together. It is a real shame Labour’s gammon actually voted against Yvette Cooper’s bill as that could maybe have provided a very useful spanner to throw.
 
Had Putin put some sort of hallucinogen into the UK water supply ?

Not sure about that, but there is no question that around half of the uk population have gone insane.

My pessimistic prediction for the uk is now as follows (i hope i am wrong). Timescale is ten years or so.

-no deal disruptive hard brexit
-blame the EU
-Country lurches to the hard right and right wing nationlist government takes over (either from within tory party or coalition with ukip style party)
-Scotland quits the UK and applies to rejoin EU
-ireland votes to unite
-meanwhile economy does very badly and we don’t seem to sign any of those glorious trade deals that were promised
-country then swings to the left and a socialist government is elected (too late for JC who will be long gone)
- meanwhile eu keeps rolling on and eu countries become much richer compared to england and wales
-public oponion changes and england and wales apply to rejoin SM and CU
-after a few more years they apply to rejoin EU.

Rejoice, A glorious future awaits!
 
Interesting Huffington Post article suggesting (as if it hadn’t been obvious for months) that May is perfectly happy to throw the UK under a bus to keep the Tory party together. It is a real shame Labour’s gammon actually voted against Yvette Cooper’s bill as that could maybe have provided a very useful spanner to throw.

I'm not so sure history will treat TM as badly as the others. She was a Remainer but sees fulfilling the Referendum and holding the Tory Party together as the same thing: her duty. Short of ignoring the Referendum result what else could she have done ? I would like another Referendum but I can see why that raises difficulties above and beyond the ERG. She may be one of the very few senior politicians to come out of this mess relatively unscathed: especially if she does step down as promised. Who else (realistically) would you rather have had as PM instead of her ?
 
I'm not so sure history will treat TM as badly as the others. She was a Remainer but sees fulfilling the Referendum and holding the Tory Party together as the same thing: her duty. Short of ignoring the Referendum result what else could she have done ? I would like another Referendum but I can see why that raises difficulties above and beyond the ERG. She may be one of the very few senior politicians to come out of this mess relatively unscathed: especially if she does step down as promised. Who else (realistically) would you rather have had as PM instead of her ?

Nobody held a gun to her head, the honourable thing to do would have been to not try and implement something she thought disasterous (the job is leader, not follower) - unless her Remain stance was affected in support of Cameron - in which case she was a fraud in that stance.

No fvck her, the whole shower will rightly go down in history alongside Eden's hubristic posing. As the Danish Finance Minister, Jensen correctly observed - “There are two kinds of European nations. There are small nations and there are countries that have not yet realised they are small nations.”
 
Perhaps not the best place to put this, but a fascinating article about how the Irish border came to be:

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/...ish-border-drawn-in-the-first-place-1.3789571

The border was meant to be only a temporary solution - the British had the idea that the two separate parliaments of Northern Ireland and what was then the Irish Free State would one day be united into a Parliament for the whole island. However, the South collapsed into a vicious civil war between the Free Staters and the Republicans (who wanted a Republic right away) - as a result, ironically, the IRA has been an illegal organisation for much longer in the South than it has been in the UK! Meanwhile, up North, Stormont was seen as "a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant people", and, mortified at finding themselves with one-third of the population Catholic, Stormont set out to insure that the Catholic minority would never be in a position to challenge the Protestant domination (by discrimination in jobs and housing, electoral boundary rigging, multiple votes for Protestant business owners, etc.). The coming to power of de Valera's Fianna Fail party in the 1930s and Ireland's neutrality in the Second World War, followed by the foundation of the Republic of Ireland, solidified the arrangement.
 
best to go a little further back. elizabethan england and the protestant plantations
 
England may become a quiet Tudor backwater on the edge of Europe once again, provided it keeps ambitions of ‘global hard power’ (Gavin the spider man thinking he’s Francis ****ing Drake) and wallowing in delusions of Empire (the former embarrassment to the FCO, Boris Johnson) under control.
 
Brexit is definitely a major downgrade on the world stage, but quiet ? I don't think civil wars are ever quiet. Maybe they'll try to liberate Gibraltar as a diversion and realise the UK has no friends at all.
 
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