Brexit.

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[danielravennest]

I really wonder why France would do that - and what's in it for them.

Revenge for Agincourt.

 

[Romana]

 

[Kara Spengler]

ETA 2:

Am I the only one that finds that strange? Not only did he give a heads up days ago (and does not NEED to do it until she submits it) but lots of people have been theorizing on it lately.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Some recent advise from the Donnie:

I seriously would not trust him with giving advice to girl scouts on how to sell cookies.

 

[Kara Spengler]

People just have no clue how our system works. Not the slightest. I don't think it's ever covered in school, at least it never was in mine, and it's not something that you are going to just absorb over time. If you do not go out of your way to educate yourself you will never know.

It seems to vary over location. I had social studies pretty much every year before college. Which covered general civics, how the constitution works, and some history topics. In fact we had a running joke that we learned history up to the revolution (or civil war some years) every year.

 

[Kara Spengler]

I really wonder why France would do that - and what's in it for them.

Since when does France need a reason to annoy the UK? Or vice versa?

 

[Porsupah Ree]

Interesting polling data (again from YouGov) on voting intention, were there a new referendum:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/zrgautmsk5/PV_190315_Results_w.pdf

The Indie has a story up on it:

Remain would win second Brexit referendum, polling indicates

Survey comes as expectations of Final Say vote grow

www.independent.co.uk

Takeaway: Remain would be likely to win by a substantial margin, but bizarrely, with no-deal being a more attractive option than May:

Sixty-one per cent of the population would vote to remain while 39 per cent would opt for the existing deal. However, if people were asked in a public vote whether they would prefer to remain in the EU or leave with no deal in place, Remain would still win, though by the smaller margin of 57-43 per cent.

It shows a 22-point lead for Remain over Ms May’s deal, or a 14-point lead for Remain over no deal at all.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Is there any limiter to resubmitting A50? If not, and the MPs are not against a long delay, they can get 2 years+ easy ...

 

[Da5id Weatherwax]

Is there any limiter to resubmitting A50? If not, and the MPs are not against a long delay, they can get 2 years+ easy ...

It would have to be finessed rather carefully. Revocation of A50 can't be done with the expectation that it will be resubmitted. However if it is phrased as being impossible to reach a consensus in the current parliament under the current government, positively ruling out any restart of the Brexit process absent a change of government or general election, it would likely stand. A future gvernment would have to start the process de novo, including presumably a whole new referendum campaign or something equivalent.

 

[Chin Rey]

Is there any limiter to resubmitting A50? If not, and the MPs are not against a long delay, they can get 2 years+ easy ...

I think there is some sort of formal limit but even more important, it will cause and uproar in the UK. All indications say that Brexit no longer has a majority support in the British population but it's still supported by a large minority and even many remainers are so tired of this whole mess they just want to get over with it.

I think the core problem is not Brexit at all, it's that the name United Kingdom is so misleading. UK is not united, it's split into so many fractions who only are lookign out for their own perceived self interest and are unwilling and unable to find compromises wth each other, let alone with other nations. I hate to say this but in the end, maybe a no deal Brexit is the katharsis Britain needs to get their feet back on the ground. It's going to be a harsh lesson but sometimes harsh lessons are necessary for people to learn.

 

[Beebo Brink]

I think the core problem is not Brexit at all, it's that the name United Kingdom is so misleading. UK is not united, it's split into so many fractions who only are lookign out for their own perceived self interest and are unwilling and unable to find compromises wth each other, let alone with other nations. I hate to say this but in the end, maybe a no deal Brexit is the katharsis Britain needs to get their feet back on the ground. It's going to be a harsh lesson but sometimes harsh lessons are necessary for people to learn.

Your "United" is pretty much in the same state as our "United". But not even two years of Trump has taught us anything, so there's a chance all you'll get is the "harsh" and none of the "lesson."

 

[Porsupah Ree]

A good roundup of the State of the Omnishambles™:

Brexit: End of the Road | naked capitalism

The UK has run out of time for Brexit machinations, even if that isn't well recognized yet.

www.nakedcapitalism.com

It's too long to usefully summarise, but it draws on a variety of papers and birdsite peeps. It goes into some detail about recent events, who's leaning which way, and explains quite what a precarious situation this is.

 

[Ariane]

So, May's cabinet wants a short extension. EU won't give a short extension without the NA passed. There are not enough votes to pass it, and the Speaker says it cannot even be voted on without "substantial changes" which the EU will not grant. The only "substantial changes" that might work are bribes for the DUP support, but in the event of "No Deal", DUP could see a huge windfall when they sue the UK for ending the Good Friday agreement.

At this point, I'm not even sure EU would grant an extension in the event of a new election or second referendum, but May's cabinet is unlikely to allow either to happen anyways. At this point, I don't blame the EU, why extend this mess?

Parliament has already spoken on the issue of "No Deal", but EU considers it only binding to the UK government, and needs to hear it from May.

Basically there is only time to revoke Article 50, or face "No Deal" the Torys seem content with the latter.

 

[Tigger]

Watching the numbers: almost 2,000 signatures a minute.

8 hours later and it's still rising at about 1200 signatures a minute.

 

[Ariane]

Could an online petition stop brexit? Theresa May wants a vote between her NA and No Deal as the final say since EU declines an extension. The only hope is a push by opposition, to force the vote to be NA vs. No Brexit. This petition, which has to be considered since it got 100,000 signatures, and the previous motion to take No Deal off the table even after the deadline, could do it.

Saw petition jump past 600,000 as it is growing 4 to 5000 a minute.

Looks like it broke at 617,000

 

[2tee2]

PS C:\Users\joshua> while ($true) {Get-Date; (Invoke-RestMethod https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584.json ).data.attributes.signature_count; Start-Sleep -Seconds 600}
Thursday, March 21, 2019 10:49:26 AM
603229
Thursday, March 21, 2019 10:59:27 AM
Invoke-RestMethod :
502 Bad Gateway
502 Bad Gateway
nginx
At line:1 char:27
+ ... {Get-Date; (Invoke-RestMethod https://petition.parliament.uk/petition ...
------------------------------------------------------------
PS C:\Users\joshua> (Invoke-RestMethod https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584.json ).data.attributes.signature_count
Invoke-RestMethod : Response status code does not indicate success: 503 (Service Unavailable: Back-end server is at capacity).
At line:1 char:2
+ (Invoke-RestMethod https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584.js ...
------------------------------------------------------------
Petitions is down for maintenance
We know about it and we're working on it.
Please try again later.

 

[Chin Rey]

Your "United" is pretty much in the same state as our "United". But not even two years of Trump has taught us anything, so there's a chance all you'll get is the "harsh" and none of the "lesson."

It's not my "united", I'm Norwegian so I'm just watching the show but apart from that, yes.

 

[Arkady Arkright]

I seriously would not trust him with giving advice to girl scouts on how to sell cookies.

He'd be too busy grabbing their pussies...

 

[Chin Rey]

Looks like it broke at 617,000

It does get back for a few seconds every now and then. Count is up to 619,344 now.

Could an online petition stop brexit?

Not in itself. But this is unprecedented. The petitin has more than enough signatures to force a serious debate in the parliament and it's enough it must have caused any MP considering re-election to think twice. This is going to be a very interesting debate.

Will EU agree to an extension now that it's clear May's plan won't get support from the parliament in time? How long will the extension be and on what terms? Wil there be a re-election? Will there be a second referendum?

The UK has jsut nnine days to find out.

In the meantime, here's some light entertainment: Brexit quotes back to haunt politicians - on giant billboards
There are more of them, just do a Google search for brexit billboard tweets