[hrothgar]

 fromageGB, on 2019-March-17, 10:51, said:

Given where we are now, the best hope for people who believe that life would be "better" without being a
vassal state is not to finally accept May's plans on the third time of asking (will there be a 4th, 5th, 6th?
How many will we have before May is kicked out in December?) as is now espoused by Esther McVey
(a former May rejecter), but to cancel Brexit completely. Then at a general election a party may
stand that has Brexit as a key policy, and we can all start again with a new triggering of the famous article 50.

Giving up with the current mess and hoping that sanity prevails seems like a good plan

[helene_t]

 fromageGB, on 2019-March-17, 10:51, said:

Then at a general election a party may stand that has Brexit as a key policy, and we can all start again with a new triggering of the famous article 50.

I really don't like the idea of another snap election.

If UK suddenly changed to a multi-party system in which both the right, the centre and the left were represented by multiple parties with different views on EU memberships and UK-EU relations, then it would have been a good idea.

As it is, people have the choice between right and left, period. There's no way to express your view on EU unless you live in a constituency in which LibDem (or maybe SNP or SDLP) is one of the two main contenders, and even then you may have other priorites than EU, such as voting against LibDem because of tuition fees or whatever.

Current polls show that 56% would vote to remain in the EU while upwards of 80% would vote for Brexit parties.

[Cyberyeti]

 helene_t, on 2019-March-17, 14:36, said:

I really don't like the idea of another snap election.

If UK suddenly changed to a multi-party system in which both the right, the centre and the left were represented by multiple parties with different views on EU memberships and UK-EU relations, then it would have been a good idea.

As it is, people have the choice between right and left, period. There's no way to express your view on EU unless you live in a constituency in which LibDem (or maybe SNP or SDLP) is one of the two main contenders, and even then you may have other priorites than EU, such as voting against LibDem because of tuition fees or whatever.

Current polls show that 56% would vote to remain in the EU while upwards of 80% would vote for Brexit parties.

You need to be very careful about the polls (as I suspect you know very well with a statistical background). I can't remember the exact question on one of them, but it was for a pro-remain paper and asked the question in such a way that remainers AND some leavers would interpret it slightly differently, and both give the reply they touted as pro-remain (the point was that if you thought Theresa May would somehow sabotage Brexit you'd give the answer that misrepresented your views).

[hrothgar]

the 538 podcast had a couple folks on late last week discussing Brexit

They noted that part of what is making this all enormously complicated is that remain / lean doesn't break upon traditional party boundaries, so polling, elections, and confidence votes all become a lot more complicated

[helene_t]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-March-17, 15:57, said:

You need to be very careful about the polls (as I suspect you know very well with a statistical background). I can't remember the exact question on one of them, but it was for a pro-remain paper and asked the question in such a way that remainers AND some leavers would interpret it slightly differently, and both give the reply they touted as pro-remain (the point was that if you thought Theresa May would somehow sabotage Brexit you'd give the answer that misrepresented your views).

Oh yes, there are all kind of problems with polls.

However, in this case it's not just one poll. It is every poll that has been conducted on the topic for several months, by several pollers, phrasing the question in several ways. Also, the same polls showed a majority pro brexit just after the referendum, so it's a fairly clear trend. Whether the trend would be strong enough to change the result in case of a new referendum, nobody knows. And of course the trend could reverse tomorrow.

Anyway, my point was more about the case for a general election. Whether it is 48% or 56% who are pro-remain, the vast majority of them will be voting for MPs who are either pro-Brexit, or who will be wipped to vote pro Brexit, in some cases even pro a hard Brexit.

[Vampyr]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-February-26, 17:59, said:

Well no single market I felt was a given. Whatever people voted for in the referendum, most agreed they wanted an end to freedom of movement, so that necessarily means no single market.

The Irish border has no solution atm. What I'd have done if I'd been Theresa May would have been to get Arlene Foster in a room very early on, and say to her, you want Brexit, you want no hard border, you want no border down the Irish Sea. Brexit needs no single market. What do YOU suggest, because at the moment you're asking for rainbow sh£$%ing unicorns. You need to compromise on something.

Well, a solution comes to mind, but the DUP would accept that when hell freezes over.

[cherdano]

 hrothgar, on 2019-March-17, 16:07, said:

the 538 podcast had a couple folks on late last week discussing Brexit

They noted that part of what is making this all enormously complicated is that remain / lean doesn't break upon traditional party boundaries, so polling, elections, and confidence votes all become a lot more complicated

The other issue is that the map of parliamentary districts has a Brexit lean, i.e. there are some urban areas with an extremely high percentage of anti-Brexit votes, but a majority of districts has a Brexit majority.

[Cyberyeti]

 helene_t, on 2019-March-17, 16:10, said:

Anyway, my point was more about the case for a general election. Whether it is 48% or 56% who are pro-remain, the vast majority of them will be voting for MPs who are either pro-Brexit, or who will be wipped to vote pro Brexit, in some cases even pro a hard Brexit.

No they won't, and this is part of the problem, there are a huge number of pro-remain MPs representing pro-Brexit constituencies (Anna Soubry being an obvious example whose constituency was 55-45 pro Brexit, Nick Boles represents a hugely pro-Brexit constituency).

[fromageGB]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-March-18, 05:11, said:

No they won't, and this is part of the problem, there are a huge number of pro-remain MPs representing pro-Brexit constituencies (Anna Soubry being an obvious example whose constituency was 55-45 pro Brexit, Nick Boles represents a hugely pro-Brexit constituency).

And the only way the Conservative party can respond to that if they want to survive is to get rid of them (if they have not already left).

[Cyberyeti]

 fromageGB, on 2019-March-18, 06:37, said:

And the only way the Conservative party can respond to that if they want to survive is to get rid of them (if they have not already left).

Yup, Soubry has gone from the Tories, Boles is an odd one, he's no longer a member of his local party, but still in the national party.

[Cyberyeti]

Interesting poll today 46% would prefer leaving with no deal to delaying Brexit, 40% against. Comres for the Telegraph.

[kenberg]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-March-19, 04:41, said:

Interesting poll today 46% would prefer leaving with no deal to delaying Brexit, 40% against. Comres for the Telegraph.

Do they say, or do you have any idea, of just how they are coming to this? I can see two possibilities: Maybe they really just want a no-deal exit, maybe they figure that a delay won't do anything good so might as well bite the bullet and get on with it. Often the trouble with polls is they don't really get to the reasons. In this case it might not distinguish between enthusiasm for no deal or just giving up on finding any alternative. My understanding is that a no deal exit will be a serious disaster so that suggests they are just giving up, but of course I don't know.

[Vampyr]

 cherdano, on 2019-March-17, 21:34, said:

The other issue is that the map of parliamentary districts has a Brexit lean, i.e. there are some urban areas with an extremely high percentage of anti-Brexit votes, but a majority of districts has a Brexit majority.

Reminiscent of a certain (other) election three years ago...

[Cyberyeti]

 kenberg, on 2019-March-19, 07:01, said:

Do they say, or do you have any idea, of just how they are coming to this? I can see two possibilities: Maybe they really just want a no-deal exit, maybe they figure that a delay won't do anything good so might as well bite the bullet and get on with it. Often the trouble with polls is they don't really get to the reasons. In this case it might not distinguish between enthusiasm for no deal or just giving up on finding any alternative. My understanding is that a no deal exit will be a serious disaster so that suggests they are just giving up, but of course I don't know.

A number of business people and their workers were saying that bad as no deal is, the uncertainty is worse and we'll haemorrhage jobs to Europe in the interim.

[Cyberyeti]

 Vampyr, on 2019-March-19, 07:12, said:

Reminiscent of a certain election three years ago...

Not sure if you mean what I understand the situation to be. The Conservatives never managed to undo 13 years of Labour gerrymandering. Had the shares of the popular vote been the reversed in the last election, Labour would have had a huge majority.

But yes the district map of that election is striking https://en.wikipedia...tituencies..png

[Vampyr]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-March-19, 09:03, said:

Not sure if you mean what I understand the situation to be. The Conservatives never managed to undo 13 years of Labour gerrymandering. Had the shares of the popular vote been the reversed in the last election, Labour would have had a huge majority.

But yes the district map of that election is striking https://en.wikipedia...tituencies..png

LOL I was thinking about another election, also three years ago. Democrats/Labour often self-gerrymander. Where do people who are into food, fashion, the creative culture, technology etc live? In cities. In the US getting 90% in one district counts the same as 50.0001 in another district.

[fromageGB]

 kenberg, on 2019-March-19, 07:01, said:

My understanding is that a no deal exit will be a serious disaster so that suggests they are just giving up, but of course I don't know.

You get that impression because the BBC, the civil service, and others that have a beneficiary interest in the EU or have pro-EU biases deliberately present it as such, and there is no defined "post-brexit" scenario that can be pointed to confidently by those who prefer independence. It is uncharted waters, and future relationships cannot be defined because it is "by future agreement". As the prime purpose of the EU commission is to expand its empire of "big government", it is of course refusing to assist in breaking it up. However, once UK has declared UDI, it is in the self-interests of states to cooperate with each other.

It is not "giving up" anything than the yoke of repression, but there will inevitably be short term turmoil if it happens. This is why it would have been sensible to say two years ago that "we will leave and make our own laws, regulations and trade agreements in two years" and then those two years could have been spent organising the future. Or fewer than two years, of course.

The colony of America declared UDI some years back, and has since recovered. Southern Rhodesia declared UDI more recently and has not recovered. There are no guarantees, but I believe UK UDI will not be a disaster.

[kenberg]

Thanks to both Cyber and Fromage for the responses. As mentioned, I don't know enough to really get into this but the two responses illustrate my thoughts about polls. Two very different reasons are cited for favoring exit without agreement. However this goes, best wishes for having it work out well.

[hrothgar]

 fromageGB, on 2019-March-20, 05:04, said:

The colony of America declared UDI some years back, and has since recovered. Southern Rhodesia declared UDI more recently and has not recovered. There are no guarantees, but I believe UK UDI will not be a disaster.

The colony of America had trading partners
The colony of Rhodesia did not

Like it or not, the UK is incredible dependent on trade with the EU and the US.
It currently has a pretty sweet deal that was negotiated over decades.

If you try to go things alone, you simply don't have enough clout for anyone to help you out...

[Cyberyeti]

 hrothgar, on 2019-March-21, 08:03, said:

The colony of America had trading partners
The colony of Rhodesia did not

Like it or not, the UK is incredible dependent on trade with the EU and the US.
It currently has a pretty sweet deal that was negotiated over decades.

If you try to go things alone, you simply don't have enough clout for anyone to help you out...

Rhodesia did, unfortunately Mugabe took away the white farmers land and handed it out to his militia who had no clue what to do with it so most of their exports vanished.

UK is dependent on trade with Europe BUT if trade gets screwed some European industries (particularly influential ones like German cars) will not want their governments to put huge tariff barriers up.

It had a really sweet deal till Blair gave away most of the rebate.