Ever decreasing circles. EU was holding out for a delay, this looks unlikely. Now it’s perhaps down to the old money of Europe to decide on what protects their interests best, my money is on a compromise. Tusk is just a front man at the end of the day.
Well it’s a somewhat stalemate situation now. May has secured a way forward for a deal, Parliament has voted to stop a no deal Brexit so she is hampered in a no deal scenario which Parliament is likely to stop happening and May has acknowledged that. But Tusk has just categorically said they will not reopen the agreed deal! I think an extension has to happen now simply because there is not enough time to get anything through in law in the time frame left. I’m not sure any of this moves us forward.
Quite agree David, the EU needs a soft Brexit and must be sh1t scared on a no-deal. They will compromise i’m sure.
Problem is Mrs May got it right when she said there isn’t a majority for a second referendum (i"m assuming she meant MPs) plus the loss of the amandments this evening so her amended deal or a no-deal become the only choices, or am reading it wrong ?
Looks to me like the EU are being held to ransom to amend the Backstop.
I think you’re reading it the way it is Peter, as it stands today 
This is getting a bit psychedelic - Parliament has voted for the Brady amendment - so far so predictable with a government whip behind it.
I presume the plan is now to build a chest of sapient pear wood from trees fertilised with unicorn droppings gathered under a blood moon in the magic forest then, on opening the chest, hoping that a text defining an agreement which is acceptable to the EU, the Irish, the ERG, moderate Tory Remainers and Saint Jeremy will just fall out of it.
That’s just par for the course in the fantasy shitstorm in which Brexit operates, and it seems to have taken seconds for the cold hard light of reality from Tusk to blow its gossamer threads away.
But having failed to pass motions which might give Parliament some powers to stop no-deal, as well as the Reeves amendment they then passed the Spelman amendment. This is the saddest act of defining your own impotence to which the HoC has ever subjected itself.
Its going to boil down to a game of chicken and I doubt the EU will blink first.
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What tonight has shown to the EU is that the UK parliament as a body still can’t agree on what it does want so it (the EU) won’t be in a rush to re-negotiate anything.
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Why would it - when it is almost certain that anything which is agreed with government will be shot down by parliament who have, once again, made it clear that the only thing they know is what they don’t want.
If I were the EU I would be close to thinking “What the f*** have we wasted the last 2 years on, sod it they can just leave”.
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Brilliant comment by Ian Dunt on the Brady amendment
Sir Humphrey would have been proud of that summation.
But, as Mr Dunt puts it we are still in a position where any and all roads out of this quagmire seem blocked; we will stumble into no-deal whatever Ms Spelman wishes.
Every day I hope common sense will prevail but it never does. Why can’t parliament see what the rest of us see? Why are the Tories so set on saving their party even if it means destroying the UK and millions of lives? They’re mad!
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Because the rest of us don’t have to worry about getting elected come the next vote, or guessing what action will get us villified in public the least.
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As each day passes, the reality that I will remain in France until I’m put in my box seems more and more alluring.
I think Guy Fawkes had the right idea…
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I hesitate to say “we told you so”, but ………
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This lot could do with some fireworks lighting under them, that’s for sure.
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It is not just what Parliament can’t see.
Nissan has just said that it is not going to invest its new X Trail model in Sunderland.
People interviewed said that it would be a disaster for Sunderland.
The same Sunderland that voted by a large majority to leave.
I suppose that the rest of the country will have to pay for their unemployment pay!
No official announcement has been made yet.
To be fair the Nissan decision was as much to do with its inability to sell new diesel models in Europe at present as it was due to concerns regarding Brexit.
Qashqai production will continue but it remains a blow to the plant.
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If my job depended on selling into the EU I am sure I would not have voted for economic suicide.
I doubt very many people voted for economic suicide - maybe a few genuinely voted to leave the EU believing that a small economic downturn was “worth it” for some nebulous “taking back of control” but I think that the narrative has been retrofitted.
Outside the SE of England there has been little recovery since 2008 and the Tory’s “austerity” measures have seen less and less money go into the NHS and schools and housing development in the hands of private developers fell woefully short of needs, especially for affordable housing (of course it is in the interests of the developers to keep the market short of supply, to drive prices up).
The Leave campaign then laid the blame for all this on EU migrants, supposedly over here taking our jobs, being given priority for housing, getting huge handouts from the state for free, taking advantage of the NHS etc - the fact that this was of dubious veracity and the lines were deliberately blurred between asylum seekers, non-EU legitimate immigration, EU migration and illegal non-EU economic migrants didn’t really matter, there was a rich seam of resentment to tap and exploit with claims that Turkey was about to join and send another 90 million our way.
So, people voted because they were told that there would be more money for the NHS, that we could get rid of “Johnny Foreigner” sponging from our society and Britain as a nation would be so much better off. Unfortunately most of these things will not come to pass - and the one which will (lots of EU citizens returning home) will either mean the NHS will suffer even more, because lack of manpower will be added to its other problems or there will need to be more intake from elsewhere in the world. For those people who voted to “get rid of immigrants” increasing the numbers who have brown faces as well as not speaking English as a 1st language will not go down well.
FWIW I don’ t think there will be Armageddon on the 30th of March (for one thing its a weekend) - the EU has plans for short term mitigation of the worst but I do think that the £ will take a further knock pretty quickly (probably before the 29th if it obvious the destination is no-deal) and the kick-in of problems will take a few months. Imported goods will be more expensive and harder to come by. Investment will falter (it already has), the City will move to NY or maybe Frankfurt, car manufacturers will scale back production to serve the UK and any existing non-EU markets - all this is going to take a while.
This will be a big problem for all those families who are only just managing - if JRM’s food bill doubles he won’t notice (he’ll be too busy counting the gains from moving funds out of the UK). If my food bill doubles we’ll stop buying some luxuries and soldier on. For someone who is already spending their entire income on food, rent, and heating there isn’t any slack to cut, there is no magic new source of income.
And the world will look on, bemused, as we destroy ourselves.
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Nissan have now confirmed that the X-Trail will not be made in the UK but have given no reason for the decision, no job losses in Sunderland but obviously disappointing for the future prospects.
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Do you think its a statement about equivalence in terms of Japan/ British tariffs in a post EU Britain? It cant be cheaper to build in Japan and export from an exchange rate perspective. Smells political.