Brexit.

[Innula Zenovka]

Of course, like apologists for Communism in the 1990s, he says it's only failed because it wasn't done properly, but nevertheless he accepts it's failed.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Thread

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I think it's inevitable that the UK will rejoin the EU. However, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

For it to happen, first Labour must win the next election, which will probably be held in October next year.

If they win, as seems likely they will, Labour will first need to be seen to do their best to "make Brexit work" by taking a more realistic and pragmatic approach to relations with the EU. Then, come the time of the election after that -- presumably 2028 or 2029 -- they may be able to go into the election saying, "We've given it our best shot but Brexit simply isn't working. We need a new, closer, relationship with the EU, and if we win the election we'll take that as a mandate to start discussing that with them.

There's no point in speculating about what happens after that. As far as I'm concerned, re-joining is the only sensible option -- joining the single market, for example, without joining the EU, seems pointless because we wouldn't have any say in important decisions that affected key aspects of the economy -- but people will want to debate all the other possibilities, and we don't know what the political or economic situation will be like in the EU or the UK that far ahead.

Then, assuming the British government decides to apply to rejoin, and assuming the EU agree, that will need negotiating with the EU, which will take as long as it takes, and then the new terms of accession with need to be agreed by both the EU and all the then member states.

Meanwhile, there's the question of what happens to the UK Conservative Party, which is gearing up for big fight, assuming they lose the election, about where they go from here. At the moment, they're a very unhappy coalition between right-wing populists who previously supported UKIP and more traditional Conservatives, who Boris Johnson was able to bring together temporarily because they both wanted to break the parliamentary deadlock over Brexit and to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Downing Street.

Now both those goals have been achieved, there's little to keep them together, and the coalition seems set to break apart after the next election, with results that are completely unpredictable.

 

[Essence Lumin]

I think it's inevitable that the UK will rejoin the EU. However, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

For it to happen,

Then there is the matter of whether the EU wants the UK back. Which seems more than a little uncertain.

 

[Sid]

The UK can vote twice a month if they want, but I don't see a new membership happen any time soon in the near future.
It takes two to tango. I don't think that the EU will be in a hurry when a request for a membership would be send at the moment.
A membership of the EU is something else than the membership of a local tennis club, where one can come and go at whim.

And I don't think that many people from the UK want to let their pound sterling go. New members can't stick to their own currency any more. Euro it will be then.
It would be a terrible start of a new relationship if the UK would go for yet another special treatment within the EU.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The UK can vote twice a month if they want, but I don't see a new membership happen any time soon in the near future.

I can't see the UK being in a position to apply for at least ten years, and probably not for at least fifteen.

That's way too far ahead to predict how things will look, either politically or economically, in the UK or anywhere in the EU. However, I think by then the Conservative Party will have completed its break-up, and either the right wing Euro-haters will join up with whatever UKIP's latest reincarnation is calling itself by then or the more liberal and centrist Conservatives will join the Lib Dems, who are now a very serious threat to the Conservatives in much of the traditionally-Conservative South and South East.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The impending report from the Privileges Committee, of which he's been given an advance copy, must be pretty damning.

Boris Johnson resigns as MP, declaring war on Rishi Sunak and blaming 'kangaroo court'

The former Prime Minister has quit as an MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, triggering a by-election

inews.co.uk

Thread

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

 

[Soen Eber]

Something like this is going to be a generational change. We'll have to wait, I think, for everyone in power or contending to be power to be safely settled in the nursing home, writing their biographies.

Too much bad blood, too many fantasies to squash.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Rishi Sunak faces mounting problems as third Tory MP quits in 24 hours

Nigel Adams’ resignation follows Boris Johnson’s dramatic decision to stand down from the Commons in a row over MPs’ partygate probe.

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Sid]

So what next?
General elections?

 

[Govi]

Yet to come: BRapplication or BRe-entrance

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Yet to come: BRapplication or BRe-entrance

Brunion? Breunited?

 

[Govi]

BRapologize

 

[Innula Zenovka]

So what next?
General elections?

There will have to be by-elections to replace Johnson and the two others. Labour will almost certainly win in Uxbridge, Johnson's old constituency, and should also win in Selby, Nigel Adams' constituency (it's one that Labour will need to win at the next election if they are to have any hope of a majority then). Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats hope to win in Nadine Dorries' old constituency of Mid-Bedfordshire, which is normally a safe Conservative seat, but not in the current circumstances.

Assuming the results are as bad for the Conservatives as seems likely, that will cause problems for Prime Minister Sunak, as his party is forced yet again to contemplate their probable defeat in the forthcoming general election, which must take place no later than January 2025, but will probably be held in October 2024. I don't think they'll bring a general election any closer, though.

When Johnson became leader of the Conservatives, he assembled a coalition of both anti-EU Conservatives and both former UKIP-supporters and former Labour supporters in parts of the north of England and the midlands, at the cost of alienating (and, in many cases, expelling from the party) more traditional pro-EU and socially liberal Conservatives.

That coalition has now fallen to pieces and we're seeing the Lib-Dems pick up more and more politically-homeless pro-EU Conservatives in the south and west of England, and traditional Labour voters returning to Labour now that Brexit has failed them.

What happens to the remainder of the Conservatives is anyone's guess, but it's very likely they'll split into two parties after the next election, and I think we're seeing the start of that.

 

[WolfEyes]

BRapologize

BRbeg'n'grovel

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]