Brexit reflections 10 weeks on

[JohnL]

rahrahrah Wrote:

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> How is Johnsson still in the cabinet?

to shut him up I think :)

[malumbu]

Some useful, hopefully objective, background on this whole debacle http://www.globalgovernmentforum.com/uk-government-under-pressure-to-set-out-brexit-vision/

Sounds like confusion reigned in the debate yesterday with TM rejecting points based immigration and DD needing to be corrected.

[peckham_ryu]

Local MP Helen Hayes (Dulwich & West Norwood) spoke in Monday's debate on the petition for a second referendum. Sensibly, she is in favour:

"Yesterday, the Prime Minister confirmed that there is no commitment to give additional funds to the NHS as a consequence of Brexit?a pledge that toured the country on the side of a bus, and on the basis of which millions of people voted in good faith to leave the EU. The Prime Minister says that Brexit means Brexit, but when such pledges are broken almost immediately, none of us really knows what Brexit will mean. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that lack of clarity further underlines the case for enabling the British people to see the detail of the actual Brexit deal and vote again on whether they would like to proceed on those specific terms, and that that should take place before article 50 is triggered?"

Full Hansard is at https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-09-05/debates/1609058000001/EUReferendumRules

[Jenny1]

I like Helen's comment. Also glad to hear Tim Farron finally making this same point clearly. But there's no real strong, cohesive opposition voice on this. It's disgraceful. This is one of the biggest peacetime challenges of the last 100 years for goodness sake. TM is doing a good job of holding a clear, united government line - but they have no proper sense of direction, and whatever David Davis says to the contrary, the whole process DOES look like a desperate attempt to make the best of a very bad job. I feel very let down by the whole lot of them.

[????]

The SNP are doing a reasonable job on holding the govt the some sort of account on this but they are really the actual opposition nowadays. Meanwhile hapless, useless, dogmatic Jeremy is stillgoing to win the Labour leadership contest, which will mean no effective opposition from Labour this side of a GE.

[Blah Blah]

Not a mention of the EU or G7 from Corbyn at PMQs today. What planet is he on? Even on the topic of housing, he failed to mention the upcoming homelessness resolution debate. He seems to deliberately sidestep anything that is topical and it is just far too easy for May. And Labour look likely to be stuck with him.

[rendelharris]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> Not a mention of the EU or G7 from Corbyn at PMQs

> today. What planet is he on? Even on the topic of

> housing, he failed to mention the upcoming

> homelessness resolution debate. He seems to

> deliberately sidestep anything that is topical and

> it is just far too easy for May. And Labour look

> likely to be stuck with him.

It seems to have been a childish reaction to Owen Smith's open letter saying what he should raise today, deliberately refusing to do so. I had great hopes of Corbyn, sick of him now - under that mild-mannered exterior there lurks an ego the size of Bournemouth. But as you say, looks like we're stuck with him now.

[Jenny1]

I do hope that a new opposition party will emerge after Corbyn's apparently inevitable re-election as leader of the current Labour Party. But that depends on politicians with vision and courage taking an initiative. If the current political landscape is anything to go by, one can't count on it. If we do have a GE any time soon could the SNP become the official, as well as the de facto, opposition?

[Blah Blah]

The problem is that Corbyn seems to have cast some magical spell on people who don't think polling, or election results or performance at PMQs matters. Who knows how they think Labour will win the next election. That's what irritates me most. The naval gazing and ignorant blind faith, and there's no reasoning with them. Like you Rendel, I had great hope for Corbyn, and voted for him. But I also didn't know very much about him and can now see what a disaster he is for the party. But as you say, his ego is massive, and he is living in the past.

[Earl Aelfheah]

I agree with you Blah Blah, but I can't see Owen Smith being any more likely to lead Labour to victory either. It's all incredibly depressing. We're effectively in a one party state now.

[JohnL]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> The problem is that Corbyn seems to have cast some

> magical spell on people who don't think polling,

> or election results or performance at PMQs

> matters. Who knows how they think Labour will win

> the next election. That's what irritates me most.

> The naval gazing and ignorant blind faith, and

> there's no reasoning with them. Like you Rendel, I

> had great hope for Corbyn, and voted for him. But

> I also didn't know very much about him and can now

> see what a disaster he is for the party. But as

> you say, his ego is massive, and he is living in

> the past.

Well if the media had given some respect to Ed Milliband

and Ed Balls maybe the ordinary members would think differently.

Whoever is Labour leader will be made a laughing stock by the press.

Edit: Did anyone notice how they treated Angela Eagle at that

press conference - that would have continued if she had become

leader.

[Jenny1]

I don't entirely agree JohnL. My heart sank the minute Ed Milliband won the leadership, rather than his brother. EM is clearly more impressive than Corbyn - but he never looked like great leadership material to me. I know we are none of us entirely uninfluenced by 'the media', but I would regard my opinion as having pre-dated any 'media judgement'.

[JohnL]

Jenny1 Wrote:

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> I don't entirely agree JohnL. My heart sank the

> minute Ed Milliband won the leadership, rather

> than his brother. EM is clearly more impressive

> than Corbyn - but he never looked like great

> leadership material to me. I know we are none of

> us entirely uninfluenced by 'the media', but I

> would regard my opinion as having pre-dated any

> 'media judgement'.

Maybe David would have been better - but I think he

is better appreciated in the US (He's going to be

working for Hillary ?).

Anyway this link shows how far his values are from

those who voted Brexit.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/david-miliband-wants-to-close-the-worlds-refugee-camps_uk_57370134e4b0f0f53e36389e

Ed Balls was treated horribly I think - he is a very

clever man.

[Jenny1]

That's an interesting link. Clearly a more competent, coherent policy is needed to deal with refugees and I hope DM is in a position to help that happen. And you're right - he's made a good path for himself in the US. But in my view it's a great loss to us that he's neither our PM nor leader of the opposition.

[????]

Jenny1 Wrote:

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> I don't entirely agree JohnL. My heart sank the

> minute Ed Milliband won the leadership, rather

> than his brother. EM is clearly more impressive

> than Corbyn - but he never looked like great

> leadership material to me. I know we are none of

> us entirely uninfluenced by 'the media', but I

> would regard my opinion as having pre-dated any

> 'media judgement'.

I have to agree here. I think Ed is actually quite left wing and would have made a very ineffective PM too (He lacked the courage of his left wing convictions too) no correlation between the two, but both reasons why I wouldn't have voted for Labour with him up top...but I guess in the Corby-cult vernacular I'm a Blairite and I certainly had had enough of Brown in 2010 and Balls was with him.

Re 'Media Judgement' Fundamentally the idea that everyone except the enlightened left are somehow 'puppets to the media' is and has always been a bit laughable. The amount of the enlightened left who seem enamored with utter tripe websites such as the Canary and far worse CT type sites of various dubious provenance is quite scary - I include Jezza in this, not just his acolytes.

Labour leaders get a rougher ride for sure but Corbyn is getting it in the neck from the media and his PLP (not just the Blairites) 'cos they see in the face just utterly how incompetent and unfit he is to lead the Labour Party and be a PM

[jaywalker]

It does now seem that May has been (to put it gently) over-promoted.

Quite a thing to put forward a policy on grammar schools that has the chief inspector of schools, the previous Tory education secretary, the chairperson of the house of commons education committee and the only paper on the right-wing with a reading age greater than eleven (the Financial Times editorial today, reading age approx. fourteen) crying out in derision.

Then there is the scrapping of Cameron's impending liberal justice-reforms, the fantasy of an iron curtain around the channel tunnel, the abolition of human rights in the new IP bill, and the vacuous mantra that 'brexit is brexit is brexit'.

There seems scant regard here for the manifesto on which the Tories were elected. And each new policy in turn reflects a Ruritanian (in the sense admirably described by Gellner in Nations and Nationalism: parochial, inward-looking, ahistorical, nationalistic, and narcissistic) mindset that one suspects (or at least hopes :-( ) few people would find attractive if tested by a general election.

[Blah Blah]

She is going to have problems getting anything through the Lords that wasn't in the election manifesto. The Lords can only hold up a manifesto pledge for a year, but everything else, they can regect outright, if they wanted to. Backbenchers too, will never rebel against a manifesto pledge, but they may do so for anythng else and that majority is so slim. Worth bearing in mind too that we only know about these plans because of a sharp eyed photographer - otherwise we'd still be none the wiser. Party conference should be interesting!

[malumbu]

It's now reflections 16 or so weeks on, but interesting that despite all the: we are going to make it work, Brexit means Brexit, take control, new oppotunities rhetoric the official reports of Chancellor's Hammond's visit to the US were all damage limitation to total catastrophe. The government's narrative was not being followed. Sadly not sure if the media really picked this up.

Report that I saw was 180 degrees to ones such as this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/10/05/chancellor-philip-hammond-flies-to-new-york-to-reassure-nervous/

So hard Brexit - financial passporting is not guaranteed, multinationals will need to move some of their function out of the UK, the European banks are hovering like vultures, and there may be a tipping point where business moves lock stock and barrel out of London.

I am an ignoranus when it comes to financial markets, merely reporting expert views.

Yes I know this has now moved to the Ruritania thread