To be fair, if there was anyone in a position to assess the evidence and predict what the police would decide, it was him. Saying he would resign was less a pari fou, more a cold calculation.
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One tends to forget he was the Director of Public Prosecutions for five years and a practicing barrister and Queens Council so he probably had a pretty good idea where the Durham Police were going to end up in terms of provable wrongdoing. I admire his intelligence but not his politics, particularly his stance on Brexit.
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@M.Apples that was my thought too.
I would be ecstatic if I thought he could win by including in the manifesto any suggestion of reversing Brexit, but I’m afraid that would be just too divisive as things stand. I suppose I’m waiting for the full horror to sink in …
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Hilarious caller on LBC earlier, “Keir Starmer also lies, he said pizza was ordered, but it was curry” repeated several times, I think I heard Shelagh chuckling in the background 
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There’s a constant over-optimistic perception that Brexit can be reversed. However, having grown uo with de Gaulle’s constant rejections of the UK’s applications to join (eventually as an undergrad student I enthusiasticall)y voted for it), I’m inclined to believe that rejoining will both be more difficult and may well take much longer than joining. Not only is it a complicated process but the subject is toxic to English voters and Johnson has squandered trust between the UK and the EU.
So much in the UK liberal press optimistically assumes that, the UK would be admitted tout de suite, but I doubt that that’s the case, it would take at least a generation, and UK political cycles are much shorter than that.
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Keir shouldn,t be so scared about upsetting people,Johnson and co didn,t give a minutes thought about upsetting half the country when steamrolling ahead with a Brexit plan that was clearly going to fail miserably.Six years on a lot of leave voters have finally realized that Brexit is dead in the water and they would now probably be in favor of rejoining the EU along with all the other people who knew it was a terrible idea.
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Regarding Labour and rejoining the EU, I suspect they are playing the long game on that one. It would probably be counter-productive to go into the next UK election with a firm policy of rejoining (even if it’s only the Single Market and not full EU membership), since they don;t want to alienate those of their core voters who did back Brexit - but once they are in Government they would have five years to gently turn public opinion around.
Current UK opinion polls do show around 55% now thinking that Brexit was a bad idea, but a lot of those are probably squeamish about restarting the divisiveness (especially within families) that an overt Rejoin campaign at this stage could bring.
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If you mean his recent speech then, yes, I was (and remain) pretty disappointed with that.
But, in some ways it was not a bad shot at the problem. Any hint that Labour would move significantly closer to the EU will be attacked by the Tories and the RW media - indeed were attacked by the RW media though it is perhaps telling that the tiz was short lived (although perhaps other events overtook Starmer’s speech towards the end of the week).
Where he and I part company at the moment is saying that we will neither seek to rejoin the EU, nor to join the customs union or single market using language that implies “never” - I think he would have been better off saying “we have no intention” - which covers the present without precluding the idea that their intent could change later.
In practice rejoining the EU would be nearly impossible - I think there has already been the suggestion that the EU would not agree without a further referendum and a margin of at least 60:40 in favour. I cannot see it happening with the next 10 years, probably not in the next 20.
Even SM/CU membership is unlikely to be straightforward, and unlikely this decade.
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I broadly agree Chris. I think Starmer’s current caution is aimed primarily at avoiding generating a frenzy in the Mail/Murdoch media, but whatever he says, or the complexion of future governments, the development will be:
- Some agreements on ‘alignment’
- More alignment agreements
- Joining single market and customs union (in one step or two, or via EEA)
- Possibly some kind of associate EU membership (idea floated by Macron)
- EU membership
I see this as pretty inevitable - the economic and geo-political case is overwhelming - and will get stronger - and any politician can only buck reality for so long. Step 5 is probably a decade or so away - but actually steps 1-3 are where the economic importance lies, and I’d see those taking place over the next 2 parliaments (2-7 years). I don’t see any reason for the EU to oppose these steps either.
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Agreed - I would have thought the EU would welcome having us back in the fold, in some form or another (ideally full membership) - assuming a British government with a positive attitude and not the cherrypicking “what’s in it for us?” attitude that went on under Thatcher, Cameron, etc.
We would have to be more complete members though (i.e. adopt the Euro) if we were to return as full members. But even if that was a political step too far for a few years, being in the Single Market (and restoring freedom of movement) would do a lot to mitigate the worst effects of Brexit…
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I’m with you there. To even hint now at some form of re-alignment would have the right wing media screaming blue murder. It will take years of analysis, proving that it was a mistake that has been detrimental to the UK, and the replacement of the Grease-Mugg tendency, before it would be safe to attempt to rejoin.
I can’t see but that the EU would rather have a country with the economic heft of UK back in the club than not.
Despite the regular announcements by economists, mostly of the American kind, that the € is shortly to meet its demise, no such thing has happened. That it has survived the P.I.I.G.S. crises is remarkable. Joining the single currency might work. It would save all the swings and roundabouts of Sterling’s role as a ‘commodity’ for the gnomes of Zurich to mess with.
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Joining the Euro makes huge sense (or at least it did when we were inside the EU) for everybody except the speculators in the City of London, and the banks. Businesses would benefit from no exchange rate worries and save on currency exchange costs with our biggest trading partners - as would ordinary tourists!
But of course it’s the money people who fund the Conservative Party… not to mention the flag-waving English nationalists to whom the pound is a symbol that much over-used word “sovereignty”…
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I reckon the EU would rather have a country which showed itself able to keep its promises and not consider itself able to flout international law at the drop of a hat etc etc … and, there’s a lot more I could say on the subject as I feel the UK has behaved discracefully in many areas…
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It is being outwith the EU that enabled the Bojo gov [as was, and unlikely to be any better under X] to pull these stunts in the name of “sovereignty”.
Regrettably, I can’t see UK rejoining in my lifetime. I’m 73 next month 
Six years on, a lot of leave voters are dead! And more people inclined to ‘Remain/Rejoin’ have become voters.
A bit like the situation in Ulster, demographics will eventually dictate the outcome.
The stumbling block would be joining the Euro.
I think it would be hard to get support for that and ditch the £.
Joining the EEA sounds best solution to me.
He knew. One telephone call to the Chief Constable and it was off the cards. The majority know this but like a lot of things between the DPP and the rozzers, the majority will never know.
Well, OK, I’d agree but “join the EEA” is not all that simple.
For one thing at present there are two routes - EU membership or EFTA membership - I doubt either organisation would welcome us with open arms at the moment, and I doubt the EU would really want to set up a UK only scheme for being an EEA member outside of the EU/EFTA
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Well according to the drivel Ms Haddock in Edinburgh is spouting it would be a piece of cake.