EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

And the spanking new AC equipped trains originally promised have been replaced with knackered old rolling stock dating from the 1950's.

So Govia Thameslink, basically?

I think all sides need to accept this as the compromise. once we have left EU we can start making up our rules which they will need to meet if trading in this country. Manufacturing will therefore need to meet the strictest of the requirements if they want one product for all countries.

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So much salt from the remoaners.
Can't wait to serve it on my freedom fries once we break the shackles of the EU and bring back the British Empire.

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Building our own satellite capability would be great, other ex EU nations can pay us to use it when they follow our successful departure. Don't listen to the scare stories about losing security capabilities post Brexit. They are simply lies. It will never be in any countries interest to shut doors on mutual efforts to combat crime and terror.

Some choice quotes from the BBC comments

Don't read the comments!

There was a great one last week though in reply to people complaining about economic forecasts being wrong.

"Are you all high? What does it matter if the damage is 3% to gdp or 8% of gdp, none of the projections show an improvement, do they???" or something to that effect

I don't really understand why the full legal advice is considered so important, but I suspect the fact that the Government is trying to withhold it suggests that there may be something there, although I'd be surprised if there were some kind of smoking gun. Or could it be a false trail to distract from something else?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/03/not-a-document-to-sink-the-deal-what-the-brexit-legal-advice-says

It'll be interesting to see what becomes of this:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/03/cabinet-minister-suspension-brexit-legal-advice-deal

Obviously, May has played the same tactics throughout this process from the start, trying to uninvolve Parliament and has blocked even simple things so that people had their work cut out getting past all those obstacles she put in place. It's mean-minded and ultimately probably effective in evading scrutiny to some extent.

Our latest word cloud provides both a political and psychological perspective on what we call the May Dealers.

Spooky

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/dec/03/take-back-control-could-self-sufficiency-be-the-answer-to-a-no-deal-brexit

But what font is it?

Look closer.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/30/grow-your-own-self-sufficiency

Aha - the medium is the message.

I guess that would also work as your next local council election poster, Will.

The middle one is quite telling.

There is a belief that Cox said something along the lines that the backstop is a bad idea and will tie the UK to the EU in perpetuity as the backstop will be forever ongoing.

We have been working on a forum word cloud but the results were too distressing. Brexit politics is generally a kinder, more rational arena.

Advocate General seems to talk sense, advises that UK can unilaterally withdraw Article 50.

https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2018-12/cp180187en.pdf

I don't really understand why the full legal advice is considered so important

Modern politics appears to be about dissembling, distraction, and the ability to reinterpret everything you do at any stage.

Publication of third party advice, on which you purportedly acted, means that you are pinned down and your narrative is restricted.

Or you could just be called out for making unsupported decisions for your own ends.

Very seasonal - I like it!

And when I say "like", I mean "don't really understand, but want to appear as though I do".

Is this the legal advice that was leaked?

https://twitter.com/BrexitCentral/status/1069473309526581248?s=19

That contains the line

the WA [Withdrawal Agreement] could have effect for approximately 150 years from the end of the TIP [Transition Implementation Period]

Though that line relates to the odd case of someone affected by the WA having a child late in life, who then lives for a long time.

I don't really understand why the full legal advice is considered so important, but I suspect the fact that the Government is trying to withhold it suggests that there may be something there, although I'd be surprised if there were some kind of smoking gun. Or could it be a false trail to distract from something else?

Because the advice will contain a section called "how we could break the terms of the withdrawal agreement" or something similar - and I imagine the government doesn't want the routes that they have mapped out for screwing the EU made public.

Yeah, Dominic Grieve, who knows about this kind of thing, was on C4 news last night saying requiring the government to publish advice from their attorney is madness.

It could have detail about which member states may have issues with different areas of the deal, and recommend strategies for managing this going forward. Not things you want either in the open for the press, or for those on the other side of the negotiating table.

I doubt that kind of thing would appear in the same document though (I've no experience with this, it might...)?

Isn't the simplest explanation that there's something bad / very bad in the legal advice that they want buried for now.

Then maybe the conservatives should have voted against the motion rather than waving it through.