EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

^ I've heard of onion strings in kitchens. Funny enough 2/3 french people I know are card carrying jazz lovers good old friendly stereotypes :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42329118

Withdrawal bill rebellion. Really, for real this time? Actually doing it? ;)

Another genuis diplomatic move from Johnson

Boris Johnson mocked Juncker at Foreign Office reception last night: "Caesar Augustus in Brussels has declared, 'Sufficient Progress'"

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/940886618101178368

Sorry if this has been posted already, but I think the Economist had a pretty good summary of the future in a No Deal Britain.

Text is behind paywall so copying in below:

IT HAS long been an article of faith for hard Brexiteers: there is nothing to fear from the World Trade Organisation. Many are suspicious of the compromises that a free-trade deal with the EU may entail, such as accepting its rules or even its courts. So why not just walk out and trade with the EU as other countries do, on WTO terms?
One answer is that Britain’s relationship with the EU is far more intimate than most countries’. The EU accounts for 43% of Britain’s goods exports and half its imports. In services, which make up 80% of British GDP and almost half of exports, the EU market is crucial. Theresa May has dismissed a Canada-style free-trade deal because it would mean “restriction on our mutual market access”. Shifting to WTO terms would be worse still.It is also misleading to claim that the rest of the world trades with the EU on WTO terms. The Institute for Government, a think-tank in London, notes that all big countries have bilateral agreements on such trade-facilitating measures as customs co-operation, data exchange and standards. Hosuk Lee-Makiyama of ECIPE, a Brussels-based think-tank, says that only seven countries trade with the EU on WTO terms alone—and they are small fry like Cuba and Venezuela.
In any case, reverting to WTO rules is not simple. Britain was a founder of the organisation but now belongs as an EU member. To resume WTO membership independently will require a division of EU import quotas, notably for beef, lamb and butter. A first effort was roundly rejected by big food exporters like Brazil, Argentina and America. The WTO proceeds by consensus among its 164 members. Were Britain to leave the EU on acrimonious terms, negotiating its resumption of full WTO membership could be difficult.
Brexiteers say trade with third countries would be easier. Perhaps, but the EU has free-trade deals with some 60 countries, including South Korea and Mexico, and is negotiating one with Japan. It will not be easy for Britain to “grandfather” these deals, especially if it has walked out with no deal, if only because doing so would need EU agreement, too.
Then there is the WTO’s “most-favoured-nation” rule, which bars discrimination unless it is allowed by a fully registered free-trade deal. If after no deal Britain and the EU wanted bilateral trade to stay tariff-free, both sides would have to offer the same privileges to all WTO members. Services are barely covered by WTO rules. But even here, were Britain to seek to keep trade in services, the same terms would have to be given to several countries with which the EU has free-trade deals, including Canada. Subjection to WTO rules might yet prove more irksome than Brexiteers realise.

You forgot Love thy neighbour.

The answer is what do experts know.

Mind Your Language is in the same (lack of) class. Are either of these ever repeated?

Looks like Tories are about to be defeated. Following news tickers. Hope it's awkward.

Defeated by 4 votes. Boom.

Saw that :-)

I'm tempted to admit that Dominic Grieve may be one of the few honourable Tories.

And so it begins... hopefully ;)

Grieve is a bit hit and miss for me reading the wiki, but fair play for him for this.

Well done to the Tory rebels over what really should have been uncontroversial (at the end of the day, it's not about 'Brexit' but about basic legal principles, and it's good that lawyers in Parliament stand up for those) if May didn't possess such a ridiculous streak of authoritarianism brought on by lack of confidence and authority. I can't wait for her to depart the political stage, it's very long overdue.

Is this not somewhat meaningless though?

I think that depends on what happens next - right now (as DD said) if parliament voted "no" to the deal then we'd get Hard Brexit, as the deal so voted on would be the only thing on offer.

However, there's still something to play for - a vote of "no" from the UK parliament could force an application for an extension to the A50 process, potentially - although this keeps the UK in the role of supplicant, asking the EU parliament for their permission to do this.

So I think the answer is "not sure", what happens next is important.

With luck, enough pressure means parliament will consider
1 - Nope, hard Brexit
2 - No, renegotiate
3 - No, ask via another referendum or vote to stay in EU

And so it rumbles on, but I DO think it's good parliament gets the vote, even though the result may be the same. After all it's out (atm very imperfect) representation of us the people.

Bypassing it is quite a bad sign if history is anything to go by, at least that's been stopped.

Depends when the deal is voted on - it it's Feb 2019 then there's literally no time for anything other than grabbing our collective ankles.

The only transition on offer is EU membership without any say - I expect that DD and May will piss time away yet again before capitulating, which will leave basically no time at all for the trade framework, but given that this can't be negotiated until we're out that's not going to change a whole lot.

I expect we'll see our team burning what little good-will, negotiating capital and advantage we have remaining to us in order to arrive (in a year) at exactly the same position that we could accept in January.

Good job we hold all the cards, really, or this would be a total disaster.

Donor cards, most likely...

Nigel Farage tweet ...

My contempt for career politicians knows no bounds.

yet he appears to have endless admiration for pederast, racist, homophobe ones.

Ed Milibands reply to Nige:

And mine for people who travel thousands of miles to endorse a groper of young girls who also happens to be a racist homophobe. Time for a period of silence.

Is this not somewhat meaningless though?

Well, it's largely procedural, and given the general atmosphere of constant political disasters at the moment it's not much. However, I think it's still important to stop May's apparently intended autocratic style of 'governance', which smacks of insecure and incompetent control freakery. She needs to learn how to negotiate within her own party and understand that people like Clarke have strong arguments (I'm not trying to imply that I agree with them) that need a hearing, even if they ultimately don't end up being followed. If you try to suppress them, as she has been trying to do, something will end up festering and at some point the discontent will just spill out. Paradoxically, she's been undermining her own position by what she's been doing.

This ^ all day.

It's amazing that this is being painted as some sort of tragedy by the tabloids.

The narrative is that the Marxists have won one. Politics and journalism in this country are infantile.

i don't think anything printed in the sun or the mail remotely qualifies as journalism and anyone that works for dacre or murdoch has no business describing themselves as a journalist. they regurgitate the facile opinions of their bosses, little else.

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2017/12/14/brexit-a-familiar-return-to-chaos-and-embarrassment-for-may