A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by linguoboy »

Just read the Guardian's recap. ucking h ll.

ETA: The US equivalent of "P45" would be "pink slip".

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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Salmoneus »

Damnit, that was three footnotes in a row I'd forgotten to insert...

[on the nuance front: a P45 is a little nicer than a pink slip, I think - they don't technically tell you you're fired, they're just part of the leaving process (even if you're leaving voluntarily). But yeah, that's the general idea.]


While I'm at it, from my previous post:

*The Florence Speech: a speech Theresa May gave in Florence, about Brexit. You'll probably hear it mentioned a lot over the next two years. It's the blueprint for Brexit, finally answering all the big questions about the government's intentions. Unfortunately, a lot of the answers were a shrug. Key points include a transitional period, a third-party arbitration system to replace the ECJ's authority over the UK, and theoretical acceptance of such notions as transitional payments and citizen's rights.

**To be fair to Kipling, "The Road to Mandalay" itself isn't objectively all that objectionable. It's about a working class British soldier lamenting how much better Burma is than England, and remembering his old Burmese sweetheart. However, as it's written in the voice of the common man, there are a few lines that could be seen as insensitive (he calls a statue of the Buddha "a bloomin' idol made o' mud / wot they called the Great Gawd Budd", etc), apparently Kipling's whole conceit of juxtaposing romance with a temple setting (the statue the girl worships at, and the temple bells the soldier hears calling him back to Burma) is considered religiously offensive, and in any case a good rule of thumb is that Kipling is often disapproved of on principle in former colonies...
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by zompist »

Salmoneus wrote:**do Americans and others use this term commonly? A politician's majority is their margin of victory (usually expressed in total votes, not percentages) over their nearest rival in their own consituency at the most recent election. So they might 'increase their majority', for instance, or have their majority 'slashed'. A seat that regularly sees small majorities is a 'marginal' constituency. I'm sure Americans (and others) must refer to these concepts, but I don't know if they use these terms exactly. Obviously, since all our politicians are locally elected, including our PM, and from (by American standards) very small and often volatile constituencies, we probably worry about a politician's majority more often than in the US...
What I generally see is "margin", expressed in percentage points. From some random web pages: "Clinton led the state by 16 percentage points, compared with Obama's 16.9-point margin in 2012." "But Democrat James Thompson significantly reduced the Republican margin in the district, to 7 points, from 31 points in 2016...."

(Just to be clear, the margin is the difference in voting. So a 7-point margin could be 53-46, or 52-45, or whatever— third party votes don't affect it.)

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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Salmoneus »

linguoboy wrote:Just read the Guardian's recap. ucking h ll.

ETA: The US equivalent of "P45" would be "pink slip".
Oh, yes, thanks for reminding me about the fucking "British Dream".

First, no, there isn't a British Dream, and we don't all sit around trying to pretend to be Americans. This is like when we suddenly started naming all our rainstorms so we could pretend they were like hurricanes...

Second: apparently the British Dream is that things might not be as awful for our children as they are now. Well, that's... OK, that doest actually seem like the sort of thing that would be the British Dream if there were one. Not an inspiring slogan, though. And coming from the Tories, it appears to be saying: it's OK, you can keep voting Tory because somehow, magically, it'll all get better one day, somehow. Yeah... or the alternative idea might be that we could get rid of you now, and make things better for us, rather than sitting around waiting for our children to fix it when it's their turn?


In other 'that was a catastrophe' news: May was wearing a bracelet covered in portraits of Frida Kahlo. Fashionable, perhaps, but not exactly in keeping with a party currently demonising Jeremy Corbyn for being a dangerous leftist...

Oh, and that sign with the letters that fell off? More letters fell off after the speech was over, so that by the end it just said
"BUI DING
A C NTRY
THA ORKS
OR RYON"
Well quite.

Oh, and now Labour and the press have accused the PM of plagiarising a line from The West Wing.
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Axiem »

Salmoneus wrote:the duplicitous American Serpent
Wait, what? I've never heard of this. Do you have some examples?

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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Vijay »

Could he mean this?
Image

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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Salmoneus »

Axiem wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:the duplicitous American Serpent
Wait, what? I've never heard of this. Do you have some examples?
The serpent was widely used by the Americans as a symbol in the later 18th century, on the suggestion of Franklin, who admired the snake's hidden weapons and deadly poison (America at the time being a country that had to rely on subterfuge and guerilla tactics rather than sheer force like the European powers). Snakes were carried on early American flags, and stamped onto early American currency (theoretically it's specifically a rattlesnake, but a lot of artists didn't bother making the species too clear). This iconography was embraced by the old world, who were happy to depict America as cowardly, deceitful, the symbol of Satan, etc, and eventually the Americans got the message and replaced the snake with the more grandiloquent (and Roman) eagle.

So, http://allthingsliberty.com/wp-content/ ... 1777ga.jpg shows a Georgia banknote with the serpent seal, http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/3 ... /large.jpg shows a British cartoon showing the American serpent and the French cock, assisted by Spanish and Dutch dogs, confronting the British lion, and https://allthingsliberty.com/wp-content ... estain.jpg shows a French engraving again showing the serpent and the cock, although confusingly here the lion is Spain and Britain is a leopard instead.
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Salmoneus »

ANYWAY. I've uncovered some exclusive footage of the behind-the-scenes strategy planning that went into the PM's speech! here. As you can see, it's all going brilliantly at that point. And here is what appears to be some sort of premonition of what will happen to her...

Meanwhile, the Tories have struck back in an attempt to appeal to the Youth Vote, with a big advertising buy on Instagram. The idea is to shower young voters with exciting, hip images that will really inspire and enthuse them and make them know that the Tory Party are the party of the future and of happening young people.
Particular highlights of their marketing campaign include this gripping tableau, this revealing portrait of Jeremy Hunt, this enticing snap of Amber Rudd, and best of all this stirring image of Damian Green, which can't fail but inspire, I feel.

The Conservative Party. The with-it party who really get social media.
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by alice »

You have to give the poor woman credit: she did, after all, display that British Bulldog spirit and fought through to the end in the face of Serious Obstacles.

Imagine, though, if it had been Boris up there instead of Theresa when al that was going on... obviously, except for the bit with the P45.
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Salmoneus »

Update: nobody knows what's happening. Apparently former chairman Grant Shapps is leading a backbench rebellion against May, but isn't there yet. Now, some papers report that she's weathered the current crisis, for now, and that she will take revenge with a reshuffle. However, other papers have said that she's going to be kicked out in the next day or two.

------

So, what does it actually take to replace a PM in this country?

Well, in practice, this is the same as removing the leader of the largest party. That won't automatically strip them of the office of PM, but in practice it's virtually inconceivable this not happening - the only significant precedent in recent times would be between May 1940 and November 1940, when Churchill was Prime Minister, but not the leader of any political party. That was because there was a transition from one coalition government to another, during wartime, and Churchill was chosen as the Tory most likely to be able to gain the support of coalition allies; as he was deeply unpopular in his own party, he didn't become Tory leader at that point, and didn't until the Tories rallied around him for the sake of national unity after his predecessor, Chamberlain, died. So, it's possible that taking May's position as leader of the Conservative Party might not stop her being PM. But... it's virtually inconceivable. [Though it would be funny. If Labour and a faction of the Tories united their efforts, they could keep her as PM indefinitely!]

[There are also often trivial inconsistencies in the timeline. So, Brown succeeded Blair as Leader on the 24th, but only succeeded him as Prime Minister on the 27th.]

---

So, how do you replace a leader of the conservative party?

Well, the theory runs like this: there are many stages.

First, 25% of the Tory MPs must submit their names to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee. For context: Shapps is said to have 30 MPs already declared, but he needs 48 at this stage.

Second, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee calls a Vote of No Confidence among Tory MPs: do they, or do they not, want to keep the current leader? Yes or no vote, most votes wins.

Third, if the PM loses the VONC, the 1922 Committee announces a leadership election. At this point, MPs can nominate themselves (or be nominated? Not sure - but unlike Labour, they don't need nominations for more than a certain percentage of the party - one nomination is enough).

In the first part of the leadership election, MPs vote in periodic ballots; after each vote, the losing nominee drops out. This process continues until there are only two remaining nominees.

At this point, the party membership as a whole votes on the last two candidates, and the winner becomes party leader - and by extension Prime Minister.

Simple!

----

You will not be surprised to learn: this may not actually happen. It's just as likely that she resigns, or that her cabinet would force her to resign.

If she does go, it would be an exciting political landmark - it would be only the second outright defenestration of a prime minister in modern times, after Thatcher. [Churchill, Eden and Macmillan all faced serious calls for resignation, but "retired" from politics saving face, citing (genuine) serious health issues.Wilson resigned out of the blue. Blair had announced in advance that he would not fight the next general election.]
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by alice »

In the interests of accuracy, might it be worth either renaming this thread, or starting a new one? It could be called "The British Politics Thread" or similar. Sal's last post was certainly about *a* British Election, but there's little more to be said about *the* British Election...
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

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alice wrote:In the interests of accuracy, might it be worth either renaming this thread, or starting a new one? It could be called "The British Politics Thread" or similar. Sal's last post was certainly about *a* British Election, but there's little more to be said about *the* British Election...
What if we keep it as it is, but reinterpret “the British election” as “the British electoral process in general”? :P
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Raphael »

Salmoneus wrote:
So, how do you replace a leader of the conservative party?

Well, the theory runs like this: there are many stages.

First, 25% of the Tory MPs must submit their names to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee. For context: Shapps is said to have 30 MPs already declared, but he needs 48 at this stage.

Second, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee calls a Vote of No Confidence among Tory MPs: do they, or do they not, want to keep the current leader? Yes or no vote, most votes wins.

Third, if the PM loses the VONC, the 1922 Committee announces a leadership election. At this point, MPs can nominate themselves (or be nominated? Not sure - but unlike Labour, they don't need nominations for more than a certain percentage of the party - one nomination is enough).

In the first part of the leadership election, MPs vote in periodic ballots; after each vote, the losing nominee drops out. This process continues until there are only two remaining nominees.

At this point, the party membership as a whole votes on the last two candidates, and the winner becomes party leader - and by extension Prime Minister.

Simple!
If May should lose in the second stage, could she be a candidate to succeed herself in the third stage?

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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Raphael »

Salmoneus wrote:ANYWAY. I've uncovered some exclusive footage of the behind-the-scenes strategy planning that went into the PM's speech! here. As you can see, it's all going brilliantly at that point. And here is what appears to be some sort of premonition of what will happen to her...

Meanwhile, the Tories have struck back in an attempt to appeal to the Youth Vote, with a big advertising buy on Instagram. The idea is to shower young voters with exciting, hip images that will really inspire and enthuse them and make them know that the Tory Party are the party of the future and of happening young people.
Particular highlights of their marketing campaign include this gripping tableau, this revealing portrait of Jeremy Hunt, this enticing snap of Amber Rudd, and best of all this stirring image of Damian Green, which can't fail but inspire, I feel.

The Conservative Party. The with-it party who really get social media.

In related news, apparently some of the rumors about the various maneuverings against May involve a supposed Tory WhatsApp group, and someone, somewhere on the internet commented that this might all be a trick to make people think that Tory politicians know what WhatsApp is.

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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Salmoneus »

Raphael wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:
So, how do you replace a leader of the conservative party?

Well, the theory runs like this: there are many stages.

First, 25% of the Tory MPs must submit their names to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee. For context: Shapps is said to have 30 MPs already declared, but he needs 48 at this stage.

Second, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee calls a Vote of No Confidence among Tory MPs: do they, or do they not, want to keep the current leader? Yes or no vote, most votes wins.

Third, if the PM loses the VONC, the 1922 Committee announces a leadership election. At this point, MPs can nominate themselves (or be nominated? Not sure - but unlike Labour, they don't need nominations for more than a certain percentage of the party - one nomination is enough).

In the first part of the leadership election, MPs vote in periodic ballots; after each vote, the losing nominee drops out. This process continues until there are only two remaining nominees.

At this point, the party membership as a whole votes on the last two candidates, and the winner becomes party leader - and by extension Prime Minister.

Simple!
If May should lose in the second stage, could she be a candidate to succeed herself in the third stage?
Good question! As you may recall, the parallel question was a huge issue for the Labour party. According to Some People on the Internet, the small print states that no, if the leader loses a VONC of her MPs, she's not allowed to stand in the following election. [This makes it quite different from the pre-1998 rules, when a leader could theoretically lose in the first round but win the second]

In practice this has never been a question: a leader, and particularly a PM, who loses the VONC (or in the past the first ballot) has always just stepped down without a fight, rather than face continual civil war in her party. Unless they were Jeremy Corbyn...


Oh, and a correction to my earlier comment: apparently candidates for a Tory leadership election technically require two nominations from MPs other than themselves; although this is in practice just a formality.
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by vampireshark »

alice wrote:In the interests of accuracy, might it be worth either renaming this thread, or starting a new one? It could be called "The British Politics Thread" or similar. Sal's last post was certainly about *a* British Election, but there's little more to be said about *the* British Election...
Well, it's still a thread about the aftermath of said election (which, well, most of what's going on can be ascribed to the "fun" result), so, while the title may not be 100% relevant, I'd still say, at least for now, it's about 70% or so.
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Salmoneus »

vampireshark wrote:
alice wrote:In the interests of accuracy, might it be worth either renaming this thread, or starting a new one? It could be called "The British Politics Thread" or similar. Sal's last post was certainly about *a* British Election, but there's little more to be said about *the* British Election...
Well, it's still a thread about the aftermath of said election (which, well, most of what's going on can be ascribed to the "fun" result), so, while the title may not be 100% relevant, I'd still say, at least for now, it's about 70% or so.
It's simultaneously a preview explaining, in advance, why we're having another election again in... whenever it is. Six months?

[May is... I don't know... 70% to be gone by Christmas? 20% to go in the six months after that? The new leader, inheriting a divided party and a minority government, won't want an election, but will be under really intense pressure to call one. And they'll be in a contentious (Brexit-dominated) environment in which it only takes a handful of their own MPs, half of whom will have wanted someone else as leader, to desert them to force a VONC in the Commons and an election. I really wouldn't bet against an election sometime in 2018 at this point.]
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Salmoneus »

Well, things carry on not happening.

May has suggested she may have a reshuffle as soon as this weekend, but her ability to do so is questionable. On the one hand, there's obviously pressure to sack Johnson. But Johnson's allies are instead calling for her to sack Hammond - and the DUP have expressed 'deep concern' about him. He's suggested there should be a deal with the EU, making him a "traitor" and a "saboteur". (calling the EU "the enemy" hasn't been enough to get back in their good books). Hammond has the support of more MPs, but Johnson's fans are more vocal, and may be more numerous among the grassroots. It would be hard to sack either without sacking the other now, since either way the fans of the loser will feel outraged that an equally "disloyal" minister hasn't been equally punished. Besides, sacking either would be read as the PM having an opinion on Brexit, and May's entire survival policy is not having any opinion on Brexit (or, rather, persuading both sides that she secretly agrees with them but is just having to pretend to have not made up her mind yet).

So she could sack neither of them. But having hinted at a reshuffle, anything less than a major scalp will look like cowardice. Plus, apparently now a lot of younger Tory backbenchers are sick of the lot of them and want a major clearing out to let new, younger names get more senior jobs. So then the alternative option is sacking both of them, which would provoke a major rebellion.

What she should do is sack both of them (even though Hammond hasn't done anything wrong), and stamp her authority on the party - either she'd be quickly sacked herself, or the party would be cowed into obedience. What she'll probably do, though, is have a pseudo-reshuffle in which a few minor names are moved around to look like she's doing something, but nothing will really change, and the chaos and disloyalty will just get worse and worse until she ends up being sacked anyway.

Meanwhile, allies of Hammond have apparently persuaded allies of Merkel to go on record blaming Johnson for the lack of progress in Brexit, which is an interesting spin, but probably won't work.

Oh, and Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, has condemned as "unthinkable" the 'no-deal Brexit' that Davies and Rees-Mogg are advocating, and that the PM has just announced that she is preparing for.


[What often happens in the case of cabinet sackings is that people aren't "sacked", but moved "laterally" in ways that demote them. The problem is, Hammond and Johnson occupy two of the Great Offices of State - there aren't really any other jobs (other than Home Secretary) that aren't obviously a massive demotion, so there's no polite middle way here. One possibility would be moving one of them to Party Chairman - an eminent office and a great honour, but with little power. But Johnson apparently says he doesn't want the job, and the party probably wouldn't want Hammond.]

Anyway, Trump's recent problems and the Catalan situation have rather occluded the leadership issue... but it's still there!

-----

In policy news, incidentally, the Tories have been showing how much they care about the working man.

On the one hand, they've introduced an irritating tax on poverty. They're rolling out something called Universal Credit, which sounds like universal basic income, but is actually a way to consolidate various welfare payments into one, much smaller, payment, and it's confusing, and very unpopular. There's a helpline you can call if you're desparately poor and you want information and advice about the new Universal Credit, which sounds like a good idea....
...and the government are charging the poor 55p a minute to phone the helpline.
Now, the PM has U-turned and has "scrapped" the fee. But the papers today are reporting that this hasn't actually changed the fact that you have to pay to phone them, it was just a soundbite.

On the other news, since the Tories are traditionally (as the old land-owning party) opposed to the Death Tax (ie inheritance), Hammond has had the bright idea of going further and imposing a Life Tax. More specifically, the plan is for a "tax on age": poor people who fail to die early enough will have their pensions and benefits reduced, in order to give the money to young people. Now, there's some reasoning behind this - lots of young people do feel cheated by the older generation, and this is clearly part of the May-Hammond strategy of dragging the youth vote away from Corbyn. But, particularly when combined with the brouhaha around the proposed tax on dementia in the spring, such a blatantly political attack on older voters, the Tory core demographic, seems... courageous.
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by zompist »

Any news on Brexit? My understanding is six months of the 2-year negotiating period has been eaten up with basically zero progress. Has anything been agreed to at all?

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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

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zompist wrote:Any news on Brexit? My understanding is six months of the 2-year negotiating period has been eaten up with basically zero progress. Has anything been agreed to at all?
No.

The big problem here is that there is a conflict between two visions of how these talks should work. The EU say that Phase 1 must be agreeing how much the UK is going to pay to cover its existing obligations - things the UK has already agreed to pay for while part of the EU. The EU feel that, since we've promised that money, and the EU budget we negotiated relies on it, we need to pay it. The EU are also willing to discuss, alongside that, the two really vital, life-and-death issues of the British-Irish border and the rights of EU citizens in the UK (and vice versa). These three things will effectively cut the UK off from the EU and cauterise the bleeding part of the severence wound. Once Phase 1 has been agreed, we'll move on to Phase 2, in which we discuss what the future relationship between the UK and EU will be, in terms of trade, and institutional co-operation.

However, the UK says that we need to negotiate Phase 1 and Phase 2 alongside one another, and that we won't make any agreement about the "divorce bill" until we've agreed (or as part of agreeing) the future trade relationship. The EU sees this as blackmail - they see the divorce bill as a matter of simple law and accountancy, adding up our commitments, and say that even if we don't agree on the numbers, we should accept that the number (relating to past agreements) is not changed by any future agreements. They think we're trying to refuse to pay the bill unless we get the future agreement we want. The UK, however, wants to try to refuse to pay the bill unless we get the future agreement we want, so, obviously, we hate the idea of giving away our only bargaining chip before we even start the main negotiations. And politically the issue is pure poison here. No Prime Minister wants to go to the country and say "we're paying £50,000,000,000 to the EU for kindly letting us leave, and now we're going to beg them for trade deals". Maybe, maybe they can get away with it if they're able to say "we're paying £50bn to the EU in exchange for these shiny trade deals, don't worry it's worth it". That's tricky but could theoretically be sold. But under the EU's timetable, we'll have to agree to the payment months before we can claim any success in the trade deal - while their argument makes legal and financial sense, and strategic sense for them, from this side of the channel it's really hard to paint it any way other than "the EU are making us pay tens of billions just for the privilege of beginning to hold talks with them". Of course, they're making us pay the money that we already owe them, before letting us make any new promises. But from the Brexiteer perspective, it's insane to imagine that we owe the EU anything, given how much money they've already 'stolen' from us.

[And to be fair, our government do have a bit of a point regarding the border. It's hard to see how the Irish border question could be settled without having some sort of idea about what future trade relations across the border are going to look like. We are also legitimately worried that if our trade deals with the EU aren't good enough, we'll need to make a lot of new deals with other countries fast, so we'd really like to get talking about trade with the EU as soon as possible, to give ourselves time to work out substitute deals before the deadline. We're currently reliant on food imports from and through the EU, for instance, and really need to work out where our food is coming from before the existing deals end! Similarly, 20% of our power comes from nuclear energy, and we get our nuclear fuel from the EU... if there's no deal, not only would we need to negotiate new supplies, but we'd have to create and have certificated an appropriate nuclear inspection authority before international law would even allow us to buy nuclear fuel...]

So, impasse. Not only is there no agreement, there isn't even agreement on how to negotiate an agreement.

Now, the government has made some concessions. It's now openly accepted the principle that we may have to pay some money at some point, for instance, and it's made positive noises about not expelling all the EU citizens immediately. But it can't make any official commitments because of its position that we need to talk about everything at once.


So, now we're officially willing to consider not coming to any agreement with the EU. But that is... so, so not good. Essentially the discussions so far have gone:

UK: we need to talk about this our way, or else!
EU: no.
UK: err... OK, we can make some concessions. But these things are red lines that cannot be crossed!
EU: *shrug*
UK: now look here, unless you agree to conduct these talks in the way we demand, we will commit collective suicide and then you'll be sorry!
EU: well ok then that's nice.
UK: ...

--------------------

Of course, even if we do get into the serious talks, our negotiating positions are... a little unclear on the details.

On Ireland: we must have control of our borders. Obviously neither side could allow goods and services to flow across the border without appropriate security checks and customs - it would defeat the whole point of Brexit! And create a smuggling mecca! At the same time, obviously we need to ensure an entirely "frictionless" border in which there are no border checks of any kind and everyone can freely cross the border whenever they like, because otherwise we may go back to civil war in northern ireland.

On the single market: we need full access to the single market. We must be able to export our goods, and buy EU goods, without any tarriffs. However, we will not pay for this access, and we will not allow the free movement of people. This is often described through the "Canadian" and "Norwegian" models: Canada gets only a little access to the market, but gets it free; Norway gets full access, but has to pay a fortune and do whatever the EU says. The UK can't understand why the EU can't just give us the benefits offered to Norway, at the price offered to Canada...

On standards: we cannot continue to be dictated to by the EU, and must be free to establish our own regulations and standards. However, we must be able to export to the EU, so there must be harmony between our standards. We cannot let Europe control our standards, and we must not be subject to the jurisdiction of the european court. So the EU must agree to adopt UK standards, and accept the jurisdiction of UK courts on trade disputes.

On treaties and chapters: it's important not to accept a deal like Switzerland have, where they have to agree to everything, and if they break any part of their deal they forfeit all of it. That would permanently enslave the UK to the EU. Instead, we need a deal where we negotiate issue-by-issue, and only have to agree to the bits that are beneficial to us, while retaining the right to unilaterally leave any agreement whenever we want with no penalties. It's baffling why the EU aren't willing to accept this.


I think the core of the Brexit mentality is shown by the famous old newspaper headline*: "FOG IN CHANNEL. CONTINENT CUT OFF." After all, if Brussels wants to continue leaching off us, shouldn't they be the ones paying us for the privilege? Who do they think they are, 27 nations collectively comprising the largest economy on earth, or something!? Don't they understand that they need us far more than we need them!?


*this headline, from the Times in the 1930s, is one of the most famous British newspaper headlines, frequently quoted. Needless to say, it never actually happened. It's earliest source is apparently in the form "Storm in Channel: Continent Isolated", sent in by a reader to a "funny headlines" competition in 1935 - either he made it up, or misremembered it, or read it in some newspaper that nobody's since found (not impossible, given how many newspapers there used to be). Apparently from there it was popularised by the Nazi Party, and has become part of British folklore. Ironically, it has been used as a headline many times since, in allusion to the original headline that probably didn't exist.
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by mèþru »

Ironically, it seems all of the goals would be better negotiated as a fellow member of the EU with the approach of being a relatively un-integrated country in the multi-speed model.
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Hydroeccentricity »

If the full two years go by without agreement, and all the UK's agreements automatically end and Britain becomes The Purge, would it be possible to reintegrate or very rapidly re-apply to the EU as if nothing happened? Surely after watching the UK strangle itself on a foot and a half of rope Brussels would feel at least a little bit of pity for Old Blighty, and once the rivers turn to blood I'm sure the government can find some legal excuse for reneging on the referendum. They could tell the people "We gave it a good try lads, and cuffed those Eurocrats about the ears. Now they know not to mess with us!" etc... Would the EU and the racist pensioners really keep on this path after it takes Britain straight off the edge of the world?
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by KathTheDragon »

The most likely scenario is the Tories are ousted by Labour, who call a new referendum, which gets massive support for ending Brexit, and either Brexit is called off (rather unlikely) or we rejoin the EU (still not particularly likely though)

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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Salmoneus »

KathTheDragon wrote:The most likely scenario is the Tories are ousted by Labour, who call a new referendum, which gets massive support for ending Brexit, and either Brexit is called off (rather unlikely) or we rejoin the EU (still not particularly likely though)
The tricky thing will be the timing. It's not clear we legally CAN end Brexit before it happens - and even if we could, a lot of Leavers are going to say it's all fearmongering and everything will be paradise once brexit happens.

On the other hand, when Brexit does happen, we're buggered. Either it's all less horrible than expected (presumably because the government has somehow done a good job either retaining single market access or creating a really great set of international bilateral deals), or it's all really horrible. If it's not horrible, that will be seen as proof it was a good idea. If it IS horrible, then it's proof that the EU hate us and are trying to destroy us, which makes it really politically hard to rejoin.

I think the line to walk is "the EU are doing their best and want us back, but the Tories have completely screwed everything up so it's all their fault, but not ALL their fault so we need Brejoin* even though you've already gotten rid of the Tories". It's not impossible, but the odds aren't good. Besides, it's not clear Labour even really want brejoinxit. They're as divided as the Tories - they're really happy they don't need a cast iron policy, because there is no policy that can get the consent both of council estates in the northeast AND young cosmopolitans in London. Corbyn himself is probably a Brexiteer, though reluctantly forced by his party to back Bremain.


methru: but SOVERIGNTY!


*this is not a word. But it will be.
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Re: A Very Brief Explanation of the British Election

Post by Pole, the »

Knowing the British, everybody will ignore the Brexit deadline comes, and it will join all the wars and other legal decisions from centuries ago that technically are still on-going, but in practice nobody cares about anymore.
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