The deal is quite surprisingly thin and austere, more so in some respects than the Japan and Canada deals, so the UK negotiating team ****ed up somewhere. But it keeps the shelves stocked meantime and it does enable indefinite upgrading and renegotiation from here on, so to vote against it in favour of No Deal is gestural bad faith, and therefore precisely what you'd expect from the Tartan Taliban.

Meh no arguments given so far disturb the stone cold of reality that in the world of political say one thing do another this is immensely small beer.

Exactly, it's also so disingenuous it's nauseating. Basically the tory taliban get to run down the clock, negotiate a turd of a deal then force the remain parties to vote for it or have their attack dogs in the right wing press blame them for wanting a no deal brexit. Of course the usual suspects would lap this narrative up, so it's probably decent politics, even though the same clowns have spent the last few months assuring us that a no deal brexit is what they voted for all along.

All of the remain parties should abstain, and allow the government with the 80 seat majority to own their deal and all of the fallout that comes with it.

I agree.

May's Customs Union deal would've gone through if the SNP had voted for it and we wouldn't have gotten to this point.

This was quite funny.



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55475433

Shows how the people engaged in these deals are just desperately winging it.

People way overestimate the importance of this sort of positioning when it clearly makes no difference.

Not just the SNP. Unlike the above, the failure to act when it did make a difference is owned by many and, more importantly, was an abject failure of responsibility which allowed this hard brexit. It simply doesn't wash for the more pro-EU/softer brexiters to say 'not our fault' when they had the ability to do something about it when it really mattered.

Remainers never intended to compromise, they needed to be crushed out by more democracy, cos they couldn't accept the first dose of democracy.

^ Doesn't make sense. The whole problem with asking people if they wanted to leave without stating what the replacement would look like is that it allows people like you to claim that the country prefers a hard Brexit, which opinion polls haven't shown.

It was Brexiters and Lexiters, not just Remainers, who wouldn't tolerate the backstop, or indeed any of May's WA. And despite what May egotistically pretended in the House today, she only had a withdrawal agreement, which would have run out tomorrow like the present one, not a free-trade agreement. The extension clause could not have been activated because of the Tory right. And, given the dominance of the Conservative Party by its lunatic fringe, there is no reason to imagine that she would have got a better FTA than we have, and it would still be the only FTA in history that actually restricted existing trade.

Jonathan Powell covers it quite well:-



https://www.politico.eu/article/5-re...-brexit-talks/

As Donald Tusk said, triggering Art.50 before they had the faintest idea what to do next (which was May's folly, supported by Corbyn who literally wanted to trigger Art.50 the morning after the referendum) was quite unbelievably stupid.

Principles do matter. They do make a difference.

Can't be arsed multi-quoting but re the anti-snp post, not even the tories would vote for May's deal so to again try and lay the blame at the feet of the remain parties for not lying down and eating the **** sandwich on offer when the guys offering it wouldn't even eat it themselves is again, ridiculous and disingenuous.

Moreover, if you're of the view that Scottish independence is a good thing, which the SNP clearly are, then they've played a blinder it seems. Support for independence is at an all time high, they're going to win by a landslide next year, get their second referendum, and the break up of the union will be laid firmly at the feet of the tory taliban in Westminster.

It's a sad state of affairs, but the brexiters have proven that they'll tear up any and all international agreements to achieve what is proving to be a completely juvenile take on "sovereignty".

Crazy that Tony Blair was a peak for the UK.

It might look that way if you're under 40 and think nothing significant happened before you were born.

Im over 40 (but under 50) and think its a fair statement.

If you want to choose a peak post the 70s its basically Thatch or Blair.

Why are we restricting it to post 70s, was my point.

Wilson and Callaghan (and Heath!) were all well to the left of Blair who was a Thatcherite, fundamentally.

And that's even without going as far back as Attlee.

I'm not saying he is wrong but when Tony Blair's Jonathan Powell says:
I can't take him remotely seriously. Is he taking the piss out of Tony Blair or us?

It was. Sadly he pointed us at the steep slope and gave us a big hearty push.

I'm not anti SNP btw . This isn't principle though, it's unimportant and rather trivial posturing.

I'm strugglign with KS but he made the only principled point which is that he and they would all vote for the deal if the vote was on a knife-edge so they shouldn't vote the way they hope would lose just because they know it wont lose.

70s is a clear turning point in politics and economics etc.

So since that turning point the peak has been Blair.

Which is more a commentary on the shitness of our peaks.

I think the actual post 70's peak was Brown, who was very unlucky.

I liked Blair.

There, I've said it.

I was one of the neighbours who formed a crowd outside Tony's house that bright morning in 1997, and an old college friend worked for him at No.10 and turns up quite a few times in his memoir (notably the time he'd had yet another row with Gordon and told my friend, 'I've had enough of this, I'm thinking of packing it all in,' and she said, 'Well, that's very big of you, but meanwhile can you sign this, and this, and this?') and I've got a postcard from him somewhere.

Powell thinks there wasn't a satisfactory strategy in Iraq, so he probably means what you think he means.

https://www.civilserviceworld.com/in...onathan-powell

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...-top-aide.html

Brexit has definitely driven up their support, which is bizarre given they are complaining about the issue that the agreement will have on the £16bn of trade with do with the EU while advocating leaving the UK to joing the EU (possibly...) to submit the £51bn of trade we do with the rest of the UK to those very barriers.