Brexit 2019: the Good, Bad and could-turn-Ugly options

Ocean Breeze

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Jun 5, 2005
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It won't be repeated, you can be sure of that. I doubt that the EU will offer the Brits anything new. They're giving the British Parliament one more chance to do something collectively intelligent.
Brexit fatigue is getting more pronounced.
 

Ocean Breeze

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Jun 5, 2005
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The Europeans are clearly sick of the Brits.

S'il vous plaît Theresa. S'il vous plaît laissez maintenant!
indeed. They are losing patience........(lost patience)......with the Brits. the momentum for something actually productive and positive might be lost now. Creative thinking and managing was and is essential to accomplilsh somethnglike this.......without it going south
 

Curious Cdn

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Feb 22, 2015
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indeed. They are losing patience........(lost patience)......with the Brits. the momentum for something actually productive and positive might be lost now. Creative thinking and managing was and is essential to accomplilsh somethnglike this.......without it going south
The Brits have done serious damage to their brand.
 

White_Unifier

Senate Member
Feb 21, 2017
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The problem is the Brexiteers are divided into too many camps between the soft brexiteers, the hard brexiteers, those who want a Canada-type trade agreement, others who want a Finnish or Swiss one, those who want unilateral global free trade, those who just want WTO rules and more protectionism, etc. etc. etc. How the hell are they supposed to come up with a united voice when all they agree on is that they want to leave but all disagree on how they want to leave?
 

Hoid

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Oct 15, 2017
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UK is the boomerang kid of the EU.

They want to leave home but they can't find a cheap enough apartment
 

Hoid

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Blackleaf

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A petition against the people

The petition to revoke Article 50 is a terrifying spectacle.



Brendan O'Neill
Editor

22nd March 2019
Spiked



I’m not going to lie: it scares me that three million of my fellow citizens would sign a petition calling for the cancellation of the largest democratic vote in UK history. Just a year after we celebrated the hundredth anniversary of working-class men and some women getting the vote, there is now a serious effort to overthrow something that was voted for by eight million women and millions of working-class people: Brexit. ‘Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU’, says the three-million-strong petition on the parliament website. This is an explicit cry to defy the public, to thwart democracy, to disenfranchise once more those people who were enfranchised 100 years ago. It is a petition against the people.

Many Brexiteers are pointing out that people who aren’t resident in the UK have signed the petition, which is not allowed on parliamentary petitions. Others are wondering if some people might have found a way to sign twice. Some say it’s just an online petition and therefore it carries no serious weight, certainly in comparison with an actual vote. This criticism is certainly true. Three million people clicking some buttons on their phones is nothing in comparison with 17.4million people traipsing to polling stations, patiently waiting in line, and weathering the insults and threats of virtually the entire establishment in order to vote for Brexit. The former is an expression of virtual anger (and there’s nothing wrong with that: I have signed many online petitions) while the latter was a real-world, flesh-and-blood statement of democratic intent. Anyone who thinks this petition does anything whatsoever to weaken the vote for Brexit is living in cloud cuckoo land.

And yet, despite all these arguments, we have to reckon with the incredibly discomfiting fact that a significant number of people in the UK would like to see democracy overthrown. Make no mistake: that’s what we’re dealing with here. ‘The government repeatedly claims exiting the EU is “the will of the people”. We need to put a stop to this claim’, the petition says. It calls on the government to revoke Article 50 and simply ‘remain in the EU’. Three million people have signed this. Three million. They have signed a petition that mocks the people’s will and calls on the government to override it. This is an invitation to tyranny. It is a plea with the government to rule by diktat rather than by democratic consent. It is chilling that so many Britons, so many of our fellow citizens, would petition for the destruction of democratic rights that our forebears fought and died for.

Who are these signatories? Where does their sense of entitlement come from? Hard as I try, I cannot get my head around the colossal sense of entitlement it must require to agitate for the overturning of a democratic vote simply because one doesn’t like the outcome. Where does such arrogance come from? What is its source? Celebs and comedians and luvvies have been at the forefront of promoting the petition. I bet many of these people went to the cinema to watch Suffragette in 2015 and Peterloo last year. They may even have shed a tear over these movies about women’s struggle for the right to vote and the bloody massacre in St Peter’s Field of working-class people who wanted the right to vote. And yet here they are openly demanding the obliteration of the votes of millions of women and working-class people. Where does such cognitive dissonance come from? Is it a function of a blinkering sense of entitlement? These are disturbing questions; no doubt the answers are even more so.



Things are getting serious. Commitment to the democratic ideal has withered so badly that three million people are petitioning against democracy itself. Well, some people. The petition’s heat map shows there are huge numbers of signatories from London, Edinburgh, Brighton and other cities, and significantly fewer from the north east and north west of England, from South Wales and North Wales, and from much of the Midlands. A class breakdown of signatories would be fascinating. Petitions are a central part of the democratic process. For centuries people have petitioned kings and lords and presidents for more rights, more say, more democracy. How tragic that now, in 21st-century Britain, a petition is being made for the disenfranchisement of the public. Everyone who has signed this petition should be ashamed of themselves.

Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/03/22/a-petition-against-the-people/
 

Blackleaf

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ROD LIDDLE Take what we can on Brexit and scarper — the longer this goes on, the more likely we won’t leave at all

We’re currently heading for a Brexit which would be a travesty of the one we voted for, if we get one at all

Comment
By Rod Liddle
21st March 2019
The Sun

HERE’S the good news. The people of the UK are happier than they have been for years.

This is according to the World Happiness Report.

Brexiteers are right that Theresa May's deal is awful, but right now it looks as though it's that or nothing

While the rest of the world is sinking into psychological depression, we’re much more upbeat.

Some of the British Press reporting this have used those dread words: “Despite Brexit . . . ”

It wouldn’t occur to them that it might be BECAUSE of Brexit.

I suspect for 52 per cent of us that’s pretty much the case. Maybe to keep up levels of national happiness we should leave horrible, authoritarian bureaucracies every year. Just to put a grin on our faces. I mean, the French don’t seem very happy, do they?

MAY'S DEAL IS AWFUL

But here’s the bad news. Theresa May is still Prime Minister and we’re currently heading for a Brexit which would be a travesty of the one we voted for in 2016. If we get Brexit at all.

Some of the Brexiteers in Parliament think we might still be able to escape the EU with a No Deal, on World Trade Organisation terms.

I think they are deluding themselves.

Parliament, which is two to one in favour of NOT leaving the EU, simply will not let it happen.

And the EU, desperate to retain its market for goods in the UK, will make sure it doesn’t happen, too.

Our Brexiteers are right that Theresa May’s deal is awful. But if they get a chance to vote on it again, they should hold their noses and vote in favour.

Because I reckon it’s that or nothing. We will have a delay, the EU may insist we hold a second referendum as a condition of that delay.

And trust me, the second referendum will be rigged in favour of remaining in the EU. It will not be a straightforward in or out option.

There will be three options, to split the Leave vote down the middle.

WE HAVE BEEN CHEATED

In this fight to leave the EU, the British people have had everything against them. The EU, obvs. But also the House of Commons and the puffed-up, ludicrous, pro-Remain speaker John Bercow. And the House of Lords, the civil service and the BBC.

The lesson for us low-born, powerless Leavers is to take what we can and scarper before the whole idea is killed stone dead. Which I fear it may be.

And now Mrs May is heading back to Brussels to plead for a delay in triggering Article 50.

All along she has been too obsessed with the process of leaving the EU, rather than the clear imperative as demanded by the British people — to simply LEAVE the EU, all of it.

She has followed Brussels’ agenda at every twist and turn. And she’ll be following it now. She’ll do what the EU wants.

So here’s the deal, as I see it. Give her hopeless proposal one more chance and this time vote for it.

We will have been cheated, but not as badly as if we do not leave at all.

Because the longer this goes on, the more likely that outcome will be.

Old bill is not PC police

THIS country becomes more deranged by the very hour.

A Roman Catholic journalist claims she may face JAIL because she referred to a transgendered person by the sex assigned at birth, rather than the one she now identifies as.

Catholic journalist Caroline Farrow is to be quizzed by cops after she 'misgendered' a child and accused her mum of child abuse

Caroline Farrow has been told she must attend a police station for a taped interview.

She said: “I have pointed out to police that I am a Catholic journalist/commentator and it is my religious belief that a person cannot change sex.”

Quite. Biologists would argue exactly the same.

When is this madness going to stop?

And don’t the Old Bill have better things to do with their time?

First to Finnish

FINLAND is the happiest country in the world, according to the World Happiness Report.

Why should this be? Are they simply delighted they’re not Swedish?

Other stats might give us a clue.

Finland also has one of the highest rates of alcoholism in the world. And also one of the higher suicide rates.

So they rate highly for happiness because

a) they’re all perpetually p***ed

b) the sad ones have all topped themselves.

Face the reality


GORGEOUS, pouting Olivia Attwood has been complaining that reality TV stars are prone to mental illness because of the horrible abuse they get online.

Perhaps she’s right. There are some nasty t***ers out there, for sure.

Love Island's Olivia Attwood says reality stars are abused online more than anyone

But might it not also be the case that reality TV stars are prone to mental illness anyway, without the trolls?

Being famous just for the sake of being famous appeals to a certain kind of rather fragile, insecure personality, I would reckon.

One step back for peoplekind

THE Oxford English Dictionary has been updated to include the usual raft of gender words. Such as “zir” and “hir” and the horrible “peoplekind”.

I hope they have room next year for these following words I’ve just made up: Togerov – a Bulgarian man who has transitioned to female.

The Oxford English Dictionary has now introduced 'zir', 'hir' and 'peoplekind' to its gender vocabulary

Abbottophobia – the irrational fear that Diane is about to appear on the TV talking complete b******s.

Droll – an internet troll who is nonetheless quite funny.

WYLFWTS (pronounced wilfwits) – someone on a gender studies or media studies course. From the acronym Would You Like Fries With That, Sir?

Our wildlife is being destroyed

IT is time to sort out the gamekeepers – once and for all.

A new study has suggested that they are responsible for the illegal killing of one of Britain’s rarest birds, the hen harrier.

These scumbags are believed to have killed almost THREE QUARTERS of tagged hen harriers. The killings take place on grouse moors.

These moors occupy a vast area of the country.

But they are managed for the benefit of a tiny number of individuals. And the local wildlife is destroyed.

Jack has Scot to be tops

AMONG the names Scottish people gave to their newborn babies in 2018 were Lucifer, Awesome and Adora-belle.

I hope Lucifer doesn’t feel victimised in what is primarily a Christian country. And I hope Awesome doesn’t end up sleeping rough in Sauchiehall Street with wee seeping out of his trousers.

It's good to see the most common name in Scotland is Jack

That would be an ironically cruel fate.

But it’s good to see that the most popular name in Scotland for boys was Jack. As in the Union Jack.

Flatties' global warning

A BUNCH of nutters are off to Antarctica.

The Flat Earth Society is planning a trip to the South Pole to prove once and for all that the earth is indeed the shape of a tea tray. Not a globe at all.

A bunch of flat earthers are on a ROUND trip...to the South Pole

It thinks there’s a big ice wall at the edge of Antarctica and it’s impossible to get over.

Some of them think that actually the world – and all the stars and planets – are enclosed in a giant dome. A bit like The Truman Show, then.

“Why does the moon give out its own light,” one of them asked. (It doesn’t. It reflects the light from the sun, you moron).

I don’t get these people. Everyone knows the world is triangular, with us at the top, followed by all the good, hard-working protestant countries.

Why should we keep him here?

SO a Sudanese shepherd sexually assaulted some poor bloke in Newcastle because he was disgusted at the immorality in the UK.

That was Zain Osman’s excuse to the court. Well, fair enough. Quite often I’m disgusted at the immorality in modern Britain.

And when that happens I immediately shove my hands down the trousers of the first bloke I see and start tugging on his old fella. Natural reaction, isn’t it?

Mr Osman arrived here illegally. But he was granted asylum. Shouldn’t he be sent back to tend his flock in the vibrant, go-ahead state of Sudan?

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8684913/take-what-we-can-on-brexit-and-scarper/
 

Blackleaf

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Oct 9, 2004
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The Speaker of the House in Westminster has just ruled that the government cannot re-submit the same-old, same-old Brexit question for vote for the third time.

Okay, then. We'll just leave without a deal.

The EU has repeatedly said that no other deal is up for negotiation. It's either May's deal or No Deal. Yet our thick MPs have twice voted against May's deal and against No Deal. Yet if they vote against May's deal next week - or her deal is not voted on again - then Britain will likely leave with No Deal.

It'd be funny if - or when - Britain leaves with No Deal because of the actions and utter stupidity of Remainer MPs.
 
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Curious Cdn

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Feb 22, 2015
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Okay, then. We'll just leave without a deal.
The EU has repeatedly said that no other deal is up for negotiation. It's either May's deal or No Deal. Yet our thick MPs have twice voted against May's deal and against No Deal. Yet if they vote against May's deal next week - or her deal is not voted on again - then Britain will likely leave with No Deal.
It'd be funny if - or when - Britain leaves with No Deal because of the actions and utter stupidity of Remainer MPs.
You are going to leave without a deal.
Your Parliament is a herd of cats.
 

Blackleaf

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Oct 9, 2004
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You are going to leave without a deal.
Your Parliament is a herd of cats.

You're quite right, there. That's the kind of Parliament you get when the majority of its personnel are undemocratic Remainer crybabies with the intellectual capabilities of a boiled potato.