EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

I don't really get the Uncivil War thing. Who's it for / what's it trying to achieve? A dramatisation (definitely not a documentary) on current events just feels weird. Is it meant to be entertainment?

Pretty much exactly what I thought

Interesting read. You can definitely see where Cadwalladr is coming from, but she does come across as having a huge bias, for e.g.

But that question is immaterial right now. The much more important question is whether we are leaving Europe on the back of an illegal and corrupted vote – and that has been completely glossed over.

Not to take anything away from the illegal donations, but the remain campaign had a mountain of institutional support that if monetized would dwarf £8m.

imo people understanding the influence of unelected unaccountable ex-spads using the sort of targeted covert advertising that was weaponised is really fucking material.

fwiw I also missed that DC's questioning at the end was set in the future.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-politics-46803112

Parliament defeats government and no money can be spent preparing for a no deal brexit without approval of parliament.

I can hear the: "oh then we just brexit with no preparations" already.

The advantage of 'Engerland' as opposed to 'England' is the extra syllable.

So business as usual then

(/s but not really, no preparation seemingly happening at all)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/08/cross-party-alliance-of-mps-tells-may-we-will-stop-no-deal-brexit

I can understand why she might be biased in that regard, her and a colleague spent two years investigating the illegality of all the leave campaigns.

Also, and I am definitely no expert on this and suffering from some fatigue with regards to brexit so also less caring about it all, but weren't there campaign spending limits in place which is why there were so many leave campaigns and that whistleblower, (whats his name? Wylie? you know the yoof with the funny coloured hair, yes thats him) were transferred from 'Vote Leave'to set up a seperate campaign 'BeLeave' and given a ~£600k donation to run targeted advertising on behalf of vote leave.

or something like that.

Edit: some source, the independant investigation reporting
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-illegal-vote-leave-eu-referendum-dossier-whistleblowers-chris-wylie-shahmir-sanni-a8275041.html

and from that article:
"They said the dossier, along with witness statements from Mr Wylie and Mr Sanni, “strongly suggest” a donation of almost £680,000 made by Vote Leave to BeLeave was actually used for Vote Leave’s benefit.

The money was not recorded as Vote Leave expenditure, but if it had it would have taken the group’s spending over the legal £7m limit, breaching electoral law."

So I think it doesnt matter how much could have been monetized, to keep the campaign legal you couldnt spend it...maybe. im new to all this political shenanigans. I vote we bring back the days where it didnt matter if I didnt care about this shit. Im tired of trying to understand it and keep abreast of it all tbh

"imo people understanding the influence of unelected unaccountable ex-spads using the sort of targeted covert advertising that was weaponised is really fucking material."

also, this. Both aspects are hugely important to me. People accept what they read in papers and online so very easily and the ability to manipulate viewpoints is a very real danger in such a modern connected age. current technologies are moving so much faster than any legislation designed to protect individuals from such clandestine activities can ever hope to move.

I have to say I agree, so why is he lying?

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i missed that, what were his remarks?

Edit: I found them

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46807083

"The government is to publish plans later to give Stormont the power to vote on new EU rules if the border backstop comes into force after Brexit. "

OK so you don't want NI to be different, but then you do want it to be different. Even though we have no fecking government, mostly thanks to the DUP but SF isn't completely innocent either (they also have put their hand in the tax payer money jar), and then you want to give power to the no government we don't have that is sort of the DUP atm due to their power play on Brexit.

GREAT. And how exactly will the EU let NI vote as the UK is out of the EU? the backstop isn't a"you get a full seat" agreement.

More shuffling of the deckchairs.

"The government is to publish plans later to give Stormont the power to vote on new EU rules if the border backstop comes into force after Brexit. "

I wonder if they've run that by those chaps over in the EU yet?

Doesn't really matter, does it? Every hare-brained scheme that fails to fly, they can blame it on the EU.

Fuuuuuuuuuck!

"Theresa May is being urged to wield her powers as prime minister to ensure Brexit is forced through – regardless of whether there is a successful vote of no confidence against her government."

Gosh, didn't know "I want to leave the EU AND live in a de-facto" dictatorship was on the referendum ballot. Must have been invisible ink.

I struggle to see how they’d get that past Parliament. If she loses a no confidence vote, then I’m sure an extension to article 50 would be sought so a new Government could reassess Brexit.

Plan is to set the election date before a vote of no confidence.

Have we had the story that the company contracted to handle postal votes in the EU referendum had prominent leaver, Peter Lilley, on its board?

There are allegations that hundreds of thousands of votes were marked as invalid by the company.

I struggle to see how they’d get that past Parliament. If she loses a no confidence vote, then I’m sure an extension to article 50 would be sought so a new Government could reassess Brexit.

The suggestion is that if she loses the vote of no confidence she gets to set the date of the next general election and Parliament is immediately dissolved, so there would be no-one there to seek an extension to A50 or change anything else (which would require at least a minimal statute being passed). By setting the GE date to April 5th (or anything past 29th March) there can't be any further debate/action before the UK crashes out of the EU.

I very much doubt this would happen though. I think it's someone just having a bit of fun with a game of "what if".

I very much doubt this would happen though.

Based on what? I really don't know what to think on this topic so I'm curious to know why you doubt it.

Corbyn wants a GE he doesn't have the numbers
So the next policy for Labour then is to support a vote on the deal.
Say there is no GE.
Parliament backs a vote on May's withdrawal agreement (not a deal) with enough rebels in the Tories and with Labour
The EU grants a delay on A50
Nobody likes the WA
If no-deal is not on the table, cos parliament is sovereign, the hard leavers will moan and threaten with all sorts, but then it is Remain VS WA.
That's going to be a tight vote as well.

January is going to be...interesting.

So... about those ferries.

The British government has accepted that a company awarded a contract to provide ferry services in the event of a no-deal Brexit will be unable to deliver them before late April, several weeks after the UK is due to leave the EU.

I'm unclear what the rules are now, but if may tried to call an election, would the opposition have the opportunity to go to the Queen and demonstrate their ability to form a government before the election was approved?

It seems likely to me that Labour could demonstrate the votes to get a government together for at least long enough to stop a no-deal Brexit by skullduggery.

What would they need for numbers - themselves plus SNP? SNP and Greens?

Themselves, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the LibDems and Caroline Lucas combined would still leave them with 5 seats less than the Tories.

Once again, the DUP hold the balance of power. I’m sure it’ll be fine this time