Brexit

[Bjauck]

Reality Check: Boris Johnson, Brexit leader, just cannot stop old habits.

"The claim: Boris Johnson told a Channel 4 News reporter that he "didn't say anything about Turkey during the referendum. Since I made no remarks…I can't disown them".
Reality Check verdict: Boris Johnson talked about the issue of Turkey joining the EU several times in the lead-up to 23 June 2016 and was co-signatory of a letter to the prime minister warning about Turkish membership a week before the vote."
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-46926119

[BlackPeter]

https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/18/prose...-mess-8359804/

[Bjauck]

https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/18/prose...-mess-8359804/

Also in The Metro:

The Past of Brexiteers should haunt them on billboards:
https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/17/past-...oards-8354027/

According to Theresa May she believes that the UK leaving the EU would make her country less secure from terrorism and more prone to crime. Just with that belief in itself one would think would make her unable to hold public office with the main goal of withdrawing her country from the EU.

[macduffy]

Shades of Peter Fraser? (Whose he? I hear someone ask!)


https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...ectid=12193657

[Bjauck]

Shades of Peter Fraser? (Whose he? I hear someone ask!)


https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...ectid=12193657

I would say that it sounds superficially similar.
The first was a war-time pledge from the PM of NZ to the UK.
Back then the UK was flighting the horrors of Hitler and Nazi fascism.

Today the UK government is voluntarily subjecting itself to the uncertainty of withdrawing from arrangements that the UK had voluntarily entered into with its biggest trading market and from the trade arrangements that market has with other countries.

Ardern’s Hope for liberalising free movement of people between the UK and NZ is ironic considering Theresa May’s Brexit plans seek to boost the UK’s control on immigration. Indeed it is a red-line for her and the number of migrants was a rallyiing cry for Many Brexiteers!

Ardern has not pledged that maintaining and improving relations with Post-Brexit UK should come at any cost to NZ or NZ’s relationship with the EU. A totally different situation to the commitment that came with Fraser’s Pledge of loyalty to the UK over 70 years ago.

Actually I think that Ardern is striving to limit the harm to NZ’s interest’s that Brexit entails. Many NZ companies have established UK offshoots on the basis of the UK membership of the single market. So maintaining and trying to build on close relations with the UK, after the UK leaves the single market and EU, is damage limitation for NZ. The harder the Brexit that the UK government undertakes, the more damage limitation is needed by NZ. Will Welsh and Scottish farmers post-Brexit be any less protectionist than as at present within the EU?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...ectid=12193630

[macduffy]

Agree with all that, Bj. Just surprised that my throw-away quip warranted such a detailed response.

[Bjauck]

Agree with all that, Bj. Just surprised that my throw-away quip warranted such a detailed response.

Peter Fraser was acting PM when war was declared. MJ Savage was sick at the time. However I think the speech you may have been referencing was made by Michael Joseph Savage several days later in which he said:
”Both with gratitude for the past and confidence in the future, we range ourselves without fear beside Britain. Where she goes, we go. Where she stands, we stand. We are only a small and young nation, but we are one and all a band of brothers and we march forward with union of hearts and wills to a common destiny”

Of course since 1973 when Britain joined the EEC its common destiny lay with Europe and NZ has moved on. The current NZ PM’s speech lacks the colonial cringe of yesteryear.

[BlackPeter]

Amusing: Mays big plan B is to continue proceeding with a plan which parliament defeated with a landslide rejection and which the EU is not prepared to renegotiate. Delusion seems to be these days a requirement for inept populistic leaders.

But I guess nobody forced the Brits to hop onto the BREXIT bus with an inept busdriver (Theresa May) in charge. The fact that the potential replacement driver (Jeremy Corbyn) hasn't got anymore clues does not help either. Neither of them has the brains nor the desire to stop the bus driving down the cliff and they don't even called an ambulance waiting at the bottom. March 29th will be interesting ...

Win - win: the Brits get what they deserve and asked for and the EU is losing a bunch of troublemakers who only know what they don't want, but not what they do. Just a pity about wasting two years for pointless negotiations.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...tile-once-more

[Biscuit]

Amusing: Mays big plan B is to continue proceeding with a plan which parliament defeated with a landslide rejection and which the EU is not prepared to renegotiate. Delusion seems to be these days a requirement for inept populistic leaders.

But I guess nobody forced the Brits to hop onto the BREXIT bus with an inept busdriver (Theresa May) in charge. The fact that the potential replacement driver (Jeremy Corbyn) hasn't got anymore clues does not help either. Neither of them has the brains nor the desire to stop the bus driving down the cliff and they don't even called an ambulance waiting at the bottom. March 29th will be interesting ...

Win - win: the Brits get what they deserve and asked for and the EU is losing a bunch of troublemakers who only know what they don't want, but not what they do. Just a pity about wasting two years for pointless negotiations.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...tile-once-more

Not sure that May fits the description of a "populist leader". She is just the mug who got landed with an impossible job. She cannot solve this problem, only the people can.

[BlackPeter]

Not sure that May fits the description of a "populist leader". She is just the mug who got landed with an impossible job. She cannot solve this problem, only the people can.

OK - she is no Trump - i give you that. However she choose this job and she took it despite opposing BREXIT. Quite dishonest.

She choose as well to push the job in secrecy without taking the people with her - and she choose to promise a BREXIT where she would have had for 2 years the chance to tell her people that they have been lied at and that any BREXIT is against the best interest of the UK.

But hey - you might be right: while she is dishonest and while she is inept indoing her job, she still might not be a populist ...

[moka]

I disagree that Theresa May was dishonest to take the job when she disagreed with Brexit. It shows strength of character. Everyone including leaders has to do things they disagree with. That’s life. I respect her for tackling a very difficult job and doing the best she could. She was given an impossible task.

[Bjauck]

Brexit was always going to be the overwhelming issue for whoever took over sorting out the mess left behind by Cameron.

The chief task of the PM is to strive to make their country safe and prosperous. She has previously stated that a Brexit will make the UK less safe and less prosperous. Yet now she is voluntarily in charge of pursuing a Brexit.

Theresa May on Brexit:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38653681

[BlackPeter]

I disagree that Theresa May was dishonest to take the job when she disagreed with Brexit. It shows strength of character. Everyone including leaders has to do things they disagree with. That’s life. I respect her for tackling a very difficult job and doing the best she could. She was given an impossible task.

She wasn't given this task, she choose to pick it and she defined it herself. Remember her famous "Brexit is Brexit". How hard can it be to implement a Brexit she could define herself on the hoof? She only made a dogs breakfeast out of the task she picked herself. Incompetent.

May didn't act out of conviction or to serve the British people - she only jumped on the opportunity to hold the reigns of power, no matter what the cost to the British people (and to the EU). And remember as well - May was the ratbag inflaming all this anti immigration hype in the UK with her "go home or get arrested" campaign during the time she run the home office.

She certainly deserves no pity. She stands equal to the other BREXIT rats like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farrage.

[BlackPeter]

Memorable lines from todays "the guardian":

Theresa May about Jeremy Corbyn:

The right honourable gentleman has been willing to sit down with Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRA without preconditions, yet he won’t meet me to talk about Brexit.

Jeremy Corbyn about Liam Fox and Theresa May:

The international trade secretary promised 40 trade deals the second after Brexit. This morning he couldn’t name a single one … So why is the prime minister prepared to sell people’s jobs and living standards down the river rather than negotiate a customs union that would be part of a sensible deal for the future.

Good they have all time of the world to play their games ...

[Bjauck]

Memorable lines from todays "the guardian":

Theresa May about Jeremy Corbyn:



Jeremy Corbyn about Liam Fox and Theresa May:



Good they have all time of the world to play their games ...

Weimar Britain? Extremists shouting at each other with the leader claiming the will of the people supports her vision?