E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Well it might be, but the highest scoring American Ace of World War 2 was called Dick Bong, while the British one was called Johnnie Johnson. People get weird names from their parents.

 

Then you have real people waling around with names like Barrington Pheloung [wiki link to prove i'm not making it up].

 

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Meanwhile Farage doubles down on his delusion that he is part of the UKs Government:

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Just been reading over the claimed positions of the Tory leadership front runners. It's depressing at best.

Some are peddling May's deal but claiming they'll make (unspecified) changes to the backstop arrangement - seemingly oblivious to the fact that the EU says the issue isn't up for further debate, and the fact that if it was possible it would already be part of May's deal.

Then there's the numpties proffering no deal in a game of brinkmanship to bring the EU to their senses.

And finally the psychos who want a straight up no deal, no doubt because they and theirs will not feel the impact anywhere near as much as the general public.

 

If he wants to shape uk policy, maybe he should've tried for the uk parliament... again...

8th time's a charm and all that...

 

Even if they could convince the EU to reopen negotiations, look at the timetable:

Supposed date to leave is 31st October 2019
UK Parliament has two recesses coming up, basically after the new PM takes up office UK parliament will f*** straight off until September (And later have another week off).

So that would mean doing the same thing as May did, hide in Chequers and hammer out something that probably once again won't stand a chance in the HoC instead of working with Parliament to develop some alternative that might actually pass (which would require time).

On the EU side it doesn't look much better: new Parliament won't start until July, then it takes time until Commission posts are appointed etc, then there has to be a new mandate to negotiate something else and that something else has to have a realistic chance of getting approved by Ireland and Spain (so the range of options is severely limited either way).

So if we are very optimistic for no reason... the UK might have a plan on what to ask for in September and lets be even more optimistic and say negotiations are done and dusted in October...

Even so, there ain't no way to fit in the whole rigmarole of approval from all EU states plus UK Parliament plus passing all supporting legislation in this decade (much less before 31st Oct 19).

So why are those leadership candidates who want to renegotiate not acknowledging the need for a long delay? (Except for Gove the backstabbing toad), this really proves they've either understood nothing about the complexity of Brexit or are telling porkies (Party over Country etc).

Because if they make unrealistic promises now about leaving on time it will be politically very expensive for them to then fall over and beg the EU for further extensions, so maybe for once try being honest up front? Yeah I know, that would be asking far too much from Tories.

And when we look at the alternatives to renegotiate...
2nd ref? So Parliament can eat itself over what the options in it should be? Plus same problem as above regarding time.
Revoke and remain? Nah, that would require a spine and good leadership.
No deal? Yeah, sure lets just set the house on fire... what could possibly go wrong?
Managed No deal? Doesn't exist. Of course you would try to manage the fall out from No deal, what kind of dunce would fall for the idea that there is any difference whatsoever between No Deal and Managed No Deal?
Somehow force the May WA through Parliament where it has been rejected 3 times? So unrealistic not even a politician would promise it.

And that is just Brexit, if you dig into the candidates regarding other topics then any sane person would jump into a ballpit full of actual snakes rather than letting those people run a country.

 

"Managed no-deal Brexit" is like making sure to cover the room in plastic sheets before blowing out your brain with a Desert Eagle.

 

Next Brexit secretary?

 

I disagree - The UK won't be able to get a desert eagle before brexit, and won't be able to afford one after it.

Probably want something easier to get. H&K USP. We already have procurement options through them, judging by all the other guns of theirs we use.

 

I'll do it.
If they pay me in advance and in a stable currency like cocaine and allow me to phone in my performance from a beach somewhere far away.
I reserve the right to quit faster than the square root of the previous Brexit secretaries once I've been paid.

 

Pretty sure that was Boris' demands for the foreign secretary job too...

 

I thought his payment was to silence his mistresses, only that fell apart when they couldn't decide on which one to silence first...

 

Not that was for his writing gig for the torygraph iirc... or was it the times?...

 

Ahh the good old times when he got fired from The Times for writing stories so laughably fake that even Dominic "holy **** we are on an island" Raab could have seen they where fake, only for the Torygraph to hire him because they desperately needed someone with no shame to write europhobe fanfiction on a regular basis whenever he wasn't trying to sink to the intellectual level of an Arlene Foster by using expressions like picaninnies or tank-topped bumboys...

 

With Raab and his ilk floating the crazy idea to prorogue parliament to force Brexit on 31st Oct I've just wasted far too many hours reading up on the consequences of doing so to see if I've missed something.

First of all the shortage of reading material on the topic should serve as a sobering wake up call in regards to just how far down the rabbit hole one has to sink to even contemplate such an idea like prorogation of parliament to get their way...

But second here a short summary of what I've found:

Nothing.
No seriously, there are more ways to annex the moon than leave the EU while Parliament is prorogued (in a way that is legal under UK law and centuries of precedents).

So to Raab and his ilk: Bring it on, I dare you.
It in this context being your own total political and legal annihilation.

 

Like most thing brexit it sounds good and plays well to their base... the fact it can't actually be done is immaterial/someone else's problem...

 

Well they'd try to do it, Bercow will tell them it's not on in a democracy and the Mail will then claim he's the spawn of Satan.

Cue ranting and nothing happening. Much like the past few years.

 

tl-dr, group of people who have never been told 'no'... don't like being told 'no'...

 

That would be a horribly shallow and I really dread to use the term, unpatriotic way of looking at it if they simply blamed Bercow.
(ok I'll concede that one,The Daily Heil, Express etc consider horribly shallow as an aspirational goal rather than something to avoid).

1: Whether a new PM likes it or not, the authority to reduce the rights of British citizens rests so firmly with Parliament that there is no way around it (not even with Foreign Affairs Royal Prerogative), which means that there is just no way to lawfully make Brexit happen while Parliament isn't around for whatever reason.

What about any argument that Brexit would not meet the criteria for the idea to fail in point 1?
The UK Supreme Court held in the Miller case with a 8-3 majority that Brexit will inevitably reduce the rights of British Citizens (while that doesn't make Brexit illegal it establishes Parliamentary approval as an absolute requirement).

2: The whole idea of prorogation for a purpose other than ending one session of Parliament and starting a new one?
To find precedents for that you basically have to go back to the times when the Monarchy was still fiddling around with how the concept of a Parliament works, but even going that far back I couldn't find anything that would legitimize the notion of Government suspending Parliament to achieve their own ends.
I'm not even gonna go into details here about Privy Councils and so on, but the list of processes and laws being violated would be near endless.

3: If it isn't doable under UK law, it actually becomes illegal under EU law as well. What this means is that EU law would require the UK to do it in a way that is legal under UK law, in absence of that it is automatically illegal under EU law as well, so the ECJ would take the same view as the UK Supreme Court.
Also it can be argued that the EU would be required under EU law to give us an extension for the time period in which Parliament is prorogued (to avoid the EU breaching EU law).

So any PM attempting such foolishness would make an enemy out of both Houses of Parliament, the UK Supreme Court, the Queen (and everything attached to her), the ECJ and everything and everyone in between.

Sad thing is those candidates promoting such snake oil "solutions" aren't even getting anywhere near sufficient push back, to the point where I "wasted" hours trying to find out if I missed something, but nope, It really is as impossible as any rational person thought.