No deal Brexit or Corbyn government?

kabayiri

Malthusian wrote: »

I can't get my head around how you think that could have worked. It's called a "general" election for a reason. The way a general election works is that the reds and the blues each pick a side of every single political issue under the sun (with little internal consistency) and then you vote for the collection of sides you least object to.

We couldn't have a General Election between a Remain party and a Leave party because Remainers and Leavers are almost evenly split on all the other red/blue issues that elections are fought on. You can't ask them to pretend those issues don't exist, because whoever ends up in power is going to have to make decisions about them before, during and after Brexit.

I understand this, and yet I can't see how we can progress when the political balance in parliament never really reflected the voting balance on a key issue of our time.

I mentioned before about parties having to submit both a pro-Remain and pro-Leave candidate for each seat. Yeah, it's a
contrivance, but I understood the logic the proponent was making.

The GE we had solved nothing, and actually weakened our negotiating position IMO.

Malthusian

kabayiri wrote: »

I understand this, and yet I can't see how we can progress when the political balance in parliament never really reflected the voting balance on a key issue of our time.

Progress is easy, we either leave without a deal on October 31st or cancel Brexit and hope the electorate gets over it.

All other options are more complicated and expensive variants on the same things. Except this one, which doesn't do anything at all.

I mentioned before about parties having to submit both a pro-Remain and pro-Leave candidate for each seat.

All of them? Even minority or "Save Kidderminster Hospital" parties, even those who struggle to submit one plausible candidate per seat?

In a Leave constituency each party would submit its real candidate as the Leave candidate (whether they were personally in favour of Leaving or not; this is how politics works) and a dribbling imbecile who would throw turds at the crowds while wearing a "Higher Benefits for P!-ophiles" T-shirt as their Remain candidate, to ensure they didn't split their real candidate's vote for the benefit of the other parties. (Whose votes would not be split as they would all be using the same strategy.) They would do the same vice versa in Remain constituencies. The exact same people would have been elected as in our present reality. The problem is not that it's a contrivance, but that it's a contrivance that achieves nothing at great expense.

The GE we had solved nothing, and actually weakened our negotiating position IMO.

Negotiating position what negotiating position. The fact that Parliament don't want to enact the referendum result is not the EU's problem.

The GE didn't really change anything; Teresa May's withdrawal agreement would still have been rejected in Parliament if we hadn't held one.

phillw

Malthusian wrote: »

Labour also made it clear that they wanted to leave the capitalist club

Labour made it clear they wanted to remain in the single market

Malthusian wrote: »

The GE didn't really change anything; Teresa May's withdrawal agreement would still have been rejected in Parliament if we hadn't held one.

It didn't change anything because the will of the people evaporated.

Herzlos

Malthusian wrote: »

The GE didn't really change anything; Teresa May's withdrawal agreement would still have been rejected in Parliament if we hadn't held one.

If May hadn't thrown away her majority, she could have forced it through.

Malthusian wrote: »

Theresa May didn't get to decide Labour's position on leaving the EU. Labour also made it clear that they wanted to leave the capitalist club. Labour voters weren't going to switch to the Tories to secure Brexit. Those Labour voters who did abandon Labour because they didn't trust that they really meant it went to UKIP, or latterly the Brexit Party, because they would "never vote for the effing Tories".

Which is why all the proxy referendums are pointless - we'll all try to infer something about Brexit but with a contaminated evidence pool. We've no idea who voted who for why.

kabayiri wrote: »

I argued the case on here that the GE should almost be a single issue election, centred around Brexit.

You mean a 2nd referendum, with a single question on the ballot? I entirely agree.


You could always get a 2-question general election:


1. Who do you want to represent you?
2. Do you want them to enact Brexit?


That way you could get a Labour government that has to Brexit, or a Brexit Party government that has to remain.

BobQ

ukcarper wrote: »

Because they voted to hold referendum, they voted to trigger article 50 and many of them represent leave voting constituencies. The time to prevent us leaving EU was in 2015.

Not really. One can argue we should never have had a referendum but that was the result of a majority Tory Government using it as a way of sorting out the problems of a divided Tory Party.

The 2017 election gave MPs more power of influence but triggering article 50 was the only way to get the EU to debate the options and honour the referendum.

What has happened since is a Goverment so focused healing its internal divisions whatever was in the best interests of the country.

While this has not been helped by an opposition sitting on the fence, until recently there has been little that the pposition could have done as the Government refused to consult anyone serously part from the DUP.

The latest proposed deal represents a very bad deal for the UK presented disingenuously by a minority Government who prefer no-deal. In fact its the worst deal since the last deal they negotiated. And they say "take it or leave it, we do not care"

Parliament needs to accept it on the condition that the EU extends Article 50 and the EU holds a referendum between this deal and remaining.

ukcarper

BobQ wrote: »

Not really. One can argue we should never have had a referendum but that was the result of a majority Tory Government using it as a way of sorting out the problems of a divided Tory Party.

The 2017 election gave MPs more power of influence but triggering article 50 was the only way to get the EU to debate the options and honour the referendum.

What has happened since is a Goverment so focused healing its internal divisions whatever was in the best interests of the country.

While this has not been helped by an opposition sitting on the fence, until recently there has been little that the pposition could have done as the Government refused to consult anyone serously part from the DUP.

The latest proposed deal represents a very bad deal for the UK presented disingenuously by a minority Government who prefer no-deal. In fact its the worst deal since the last deal they negotiated. And they say "take it or leave it, we do not care"

Parliament needs to accept it on the condition that the EU extends Article 50 and the EU holds a referendum between this deal and remaining.

Don't agree they had opportunity to prevent all this and they chose no to take it.

Thrugelmir

BobQ wrote: »

One can argue we should never have had a referendum but that was the result of a majority Tory Government using it as a way of sorting out the problems of a divided Tory Party.

This comment is way off the mark. The vote reflected the general discontent with the project and the direction of travel in Brussels. Cameron could forsee a situation where a single issue party simply steamrollered ahead. In which case no deal was a certainty. As we have now there's no consensus on party lines. Only the Libdems have a clear policy.

Conina

ukcarper wrote: »

Don't agree they had opportunity to prevent all this and they chose no to take it.

They've had more than one opportunity.

The European Union Referendum Act 2015 was agreed by Parliament and supported by all parties except the SNP so that the referendum could be held, then (and much more recently) MP's voted overwhelmingly by 498 votes to 114 in favour of withdrawal in the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017.

ukcarper

BobQ wrote: »

Not really. One can argue we should never have had a referendum but that was the result of a majority Tory Government using it as a way of sorting out the problems of a divided Tory Party.

The 2017 election gave MPs more power and influence (in the minority government) but triggering article 50 was the only way to get the EU to debate the options and honour the referendum.

What has happened since is a Government so focused on healing its internal divisions whatever was in the best interests of the country.

While this has not been helped by an opposition sitting on the fence, until recently there has been little that the Opposition could have done as the Government refused to consult anyone seriously part from the DUP.

The latest proposed deal represents a very bad deal for the UK presented disingenuously by a minority Government who prefer no-deal. In fact its the worst deal since the last deal they negotiated. And they say "take it or leave it, we do not care"

Parliament needs to accept it on the condition that the EU extends Article 50 and the EU holds a referendum between this deal and remaining.

544 MPs voted to hold referendum including Labour.

BobQ

ukcarper wrote: »

544 MPs voted to hold referendum including Labour.

Did I say otherwise.