The Brexit disaster

[Cousin Strawberry]

Bang on ma man!

Reefer...real name Leafer

[Per]

There doesn't seem to be an overwhelming risk of any other EU-member copying the British strategy.

Granted, in Italy (49%) and in the Czech Republic (47%) there is not an absolute majority stating they would vote to remain, but those stating they would vote to leave are just 19% and 24% respectively

In Sweden 81% would vote to remain, so I think I can sleep safe and sound at night.





Also interesting to see that on the question whether your country has benefitted or not from being a member of the EU, a resounding majority in Poland and Hungary, countries where the governments thrive on an anti-EU message, say it's been good.

There are even 54% in the UK that agree it has been good for the country. So why did those wankers vote for Brexit then?




The only country where more people say the country has not benefitted than who say it has benefitted is Italy.

Even the Greek (abbreviated EL; ISO codes are not always that easy to decipher, but it is because they call themselves Ελλάδα) are happier with the EU than that.





http://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-s ... r-2019.pdf

[Per]

[Per]

And an absolute favourite:

[Per]

Possible Brexit-effekt?



Britain ended dead last after having received just 16 points from the juries and not a single point from the televoting.
Not. A. Single. Point. Now that's cold.

Granted, neither the song nor the singer were any good, but still...

And yes. Australia and Israel are part of Europe. In a way. Sort of. Turkey too.
Bet Canada could be as well?
I mean, Celine Dion has won the Eurovision once....

But when it comes to football (FIFA), Australia is considered part of Asia.

[Per]

Theresa May resigns.

Well, so she says.

She also said Britain would leave the EU in March.
They still haven't and thus currently hold European Parliament elections, to elect MPs that may or may not be sworn in on July 1st, if Britain at that point is still a EU member.

So we should probably wait and see if she actually does leave 10 Downing street...

[Mickey107]

[Per]

The European election results in the UK demonstrate how fed up the UK now is with their main parties; the tories, the party that is currently governing the UK, came in fifth, with less than 9% of the vote!

The results are still provisional, but...

Brexit Party 31.7% (29 seats)
Liberal Democrats 18.5% (16 seats)
Labour Party 14.1% (10 seats)
Green Party 11.1% (7 seats)
Conservative Party 8.7% (4 seats)
UKIP 3.6% (0 seats)
Scottish National Party 3.3% (3 seats)
Change UK 2.9% (0 seats)
Plaid Cymru 1.7% (1 seat)
Sinn Fein 0.6% (1 seat)
DUP 0.6% (1 seat)
Alliance Party 0,5% (1 seat)

The ill match between percentages and seats is because of the odd mix of proportional and regional representation the UK uses. Thus a party that has most votes in a single or a few districts has a better chance of gaining seats than a party that has its votes spread proporionally over a greater area.

Anyway, some 36% voted for parties that are clearly pro-Brexit (Brexit Party, UKIP, DUP) and some 36% voted for parties that are clearly anti-Brexit (LibDems, Greens, SNP, Change UK) leaving the wishy-washy Tory and Labour parties behind.

This will only complicate things further, as the message heard by the tories will be to push hard for Brexit and the message heard by Labour will be to demand a second referendum, while neither party will want to face new general elections, so the gridlock will probably grow even worse.

[Per]

As for the general continent wide results of the European elections...

This is a pretty good place to look for an overview of the results: https://election-results.eu/ ... and aptly named, imho.

The European Parliament will get messier. Up till now, the two major party groups, ie the EPP (consisting of christian democrats and pro-EU conservatives) and the S&D (progressives and social democrats) have together commanded more than half the votes and despite their differences they have usually agreed on what issues to pursue through backroom deals and awarded most prominent jobs to members of one or the other of these two groups. This will no longer be possible.

In the new parliament they will only have 325 seats (EPP 180, S&D 145), 51 seats shy of a majority. And while these two giants have shrunk, three other groups have grown in importance:

ALDE, the Alliance of liberals and democrats (including eg Macron's Renaissaince movement and the LibDems of the UK) now holds 109 seats.

Green/EFA, mostly green parties but also some regionals such as the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru, has 69

ECR / EFDD / ENF; Three groups of scary rightwingers/nationalists that don't really get along amongst themselves either but have a combined 171 seats.

The ECR includes the tories and the Sweden Democrats, the EFDD includes the Brexit Party and the Italian Lega and the ENF includes the French National Front.

Apart from these major players, the left wing GUE/NGL (United European Left/Nordic Green Left) holds 39 seats and then there are at present 38 unaffiliated seats, including those of Greece's Golden Dawn, a bunch of murderous neo-nazis noone else wants to hang out with.

It will be hard to form a stable majority out of this diverse group. I mean, if you just look at this with a traditional left-right perspective, it should be easy to form a conservative majority, but the problem is that the EPP is firmly pro-EU, while the three scary right wing groups are nationalists and anti-EU. And even if all of these right wingers could unite, they'd be 20 seats short and would need the backing of eg ALDE, but this would mean Macron and LePen joining forces, so good luck with that!

Building from the left seems equally impossible. Sweden's current government is formed by the social democrats and the Green Party and backed by the Liberal and Centre parties, both members of ALDE, so let's play with the idea of something similar on a European scale. But S&D, the Greens and ALDE only add up to 323 seats. 53 seats short of a majority. They would need the inclusion of the United European Left as well as most of the unaffiliated seats to reach a majority. Won't work. Remember that the biggest player within ALDE is Macron, and he is as hated by the left as he is by the nationalists. One of his pet projects in France has been to weaken the trade unions. That does not play well with the left wingers.

Even the slightly unrealistic option of a coalition forming between the EPP, ALDE and the Greens would only reach 358 seats, 18 shy of a majority.

Guess the only way forward is to continue the unholy alliance between EPP and S&D but with the addition of either the Greens or ALDE or both.

Either that or forming different majorities on different issues, but that will probably be even messier.

[Per]

Still hope for the world!

Boris Johnson will be tried in court over lying to and misleading the public!

https://www.ft.com/content/d11dd7ee-81e ... 75bb96c849

Maybe the Americans should consider something similar?

[ukcanuck]

This is disturbing ...

[Per]

This is disturbing ...

...

Truly is. Huge win for Putin.

And with BoJo in office there's really not much hope they will come to their senses and retract.

I'm hoping Scotland and Northern Ireland will rejoin though within a few years.

I mean, for Northern Ireland all they need to do is reunify with Ireland, and according to the Good Friday Agreement a referendum on reunification must be held if polls show a majority is in favour of it. Should be a piece of cake after a No Deal Brexit.

[Per]

From The Sunday Times:

Britain faces shortages of fuel, food and medicine, a three-month meltdown at its ports, a hard border with Ireland and rising costs in social care in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to an unprecedented leak of government documents that lay bare the gaps in contingency planning.

The documents, which set out the most likely aftershocks of a no-deal Brexit rather than worst-case scenarios, have emerged as the UK looks increasingly likely to crash out of the EU without a deal.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news ... -j6ntwvhll

[Per]

BoJo is trying to challenge the EU to a chicken race, but what he doesn't realize is that in this race it is one against 27.

By at the same time stating that the UK will leave the EU on Oct 31st, no matter what, and demanding that the backstop be taken out of the deal May negotiated with the EU, he is basically opting for a no deal Brexit, something the British parliament has rejected, while trying to pass the blame to the EU.

The Brexit deal has been negotiated and agreed upon by 28 nations, the UK being one. The next EU summit meeting is just two weeks before Oct 31st. There is no conceivable way a new deal between 28 sovereign nations can be agreed upon in that short a time frame.

Furthermore, the backstop is there to prevent a hard border on Ireland, which would almost certainly lead to bloodshed.
There is no way the Irish would back down on this issue, and especially not since a majority of Northern Irish also support it.
It is seen as an insurance policy to avoid a return to The Troubles. An open border is seen as essential for peace.

The internal document seen by the Guardian states it was “incorrect” to suggest the people of Northern Ireland would have no influence over EU laws that applied to them, pointing to provisions in the Brexit agreement. Officials had already strongly rejected Johnson’s claim that the backstop was anti-democratic, pointing to the fact Northern Ireland had voted to remain in the EU and non-unionist parties were in favour of the backstop.

Johnson’s claim that it would be possible for two separate legal and economic jurisdictions to exist on the island of Ireland with an open border was judged “misleading” as “EU law provides the common framework needed to enable frictionless trade between member states today”.

While the EU has said it is ready to look at alternative arrangements to the backstop, officials have stressed that no such options exist today anywhere in the world.

Neale Richmond, an Irish senator, said Johnson’s claim that the backstop posed a threat to the Good Friday agreement was “very disappointing language”.

“The negotiations ended in November,” he told BBC Radio 4. “The British government in good faith agreed the withdrawal agreement. And the backstop isn’t impossible to get out of; that is simply misleading. However, it cannot be unilaterally exited by one state. What’s the point of the backstop if one side can simply just rip it up?”

He ruled out a time limit on the backstop. “It is an insurance policy to protect a very fragile peace deal, therefore it needs the buy-in of both sides, because both the British and Irish government are co-guarantors of that Good Friday agreement.”

An Irish government source played down the significance of Johnson’s letter, calling it a “disappointing” rehash of London’s demand to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement – a demand that Dublin and the EU would continue to reject.

“The letter just reiterates the British government’s position. The EU position remains clear. The withdrawal agreement cannot be renegotiated and the backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement,” the source said.

The backstop was consistent with the Good Friday agreement and did not undermine the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, an analysis that London shared during and after negotiations, the source said. “It’s disappointing that the British government cannot stand over the commitment it gave in 2017 and 2018.”

Guy Verhofstadt, who chairs the European parliament’s Brexit steering group, tweeted that he did not see any majority in the British parliament to remove the backstop. “It is a vital insurance policy, negotiated in good faith and supported by the people of the island of Ireland. The time for bluster and political blame games is fast running out.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... top-brexit

[Per]

While a narrow majority of Britons (mainly English and Welsh: Scotland, Gibraltar and Nortern Ireland voted to remain) voted to leave the EU, there has never been a majority for a no deal Brexit. Many of the leading campaigners for Leave EU pretended that the UK would still be able to be part of the single market even after leaving the EU. Of course this was utter rubbish, but many voters believed them.

In my opinion the most honorable solution to the current mess would be to once again consult the people, and this time with a very specific ans simple two-tiered questionnaire:

1) Should the UK leave the EU in accordance with the deal negotiated between the UK and the EU under Prime Minister May? Yes or No.

2) If there is not a majority for accepting the deal on the table, what should be Plan B? Leaving without a deal or Revoking article 50 and remaining?

This way there would be no doubt what the will of the people is.

If a majority wants to accept the deal May has negotiated with the remaining 27 member states, then that is what happens. If that deal is rejected, the people decide whether they want to leave regardless of this, or if it is better to remain rather than jumping blind folded off a cliff.

When the referendum was held, no one knew the details of what Brexit would bring. Today they have a written document that explains the terms of the divorce, and thus the voters would actually have a pretty good idea of what Brexit means, and thus be able to make an informed decision.