The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[RED-DOG]

Brexit’s tricky Irish border dilemma is well explained here ( at length) by Irish Times EU correspondent. I

https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2018/0224/943212-brexit-and-the-border-the-great-reckoning/

OMG!

Just trying the grasp problems is giving me a headache.

[TightEnd]

Analysis: Corbyn has no inherent desire to do independent free trade deals, and calculates that Leave voters care much much more about NHS money - “a Customs Union” raises stakes for a PM about to face a squeeze on Irish border agreement legal text:

https://news.sky.com/story/jeremy-corbyn-calculates-that-brexit-supporters-dont-really-care-about-free-trade-deals-11269164

[TightEnd]

Foreign Secretary says that the Camden-Islington border is a “very relevant comparison” for the current debate on the post Brexit Ireland-UK border

no really,he did

newsworthy because it is the Cabinet floating a London congestion charge precedent literally at a time when the EU27 says it is obliged to detail in imminent draft legal text the backstop “full alignment” solution to NI, in absence of UK-supplied solution

pause, clears throat

Perhaps NI can be governed by an Oyster Defence Regiment?

exit stage left

[TightEnd]

leak of hard border letter from Foreign Sec to PM - document is Johnson response to PM asking him to substantiate a claim made at a meeting of her Brexit "war Cabinet" on 7 February, when ministers' talks centred on Northern Ireland and immigration

Click to see full-size image.

Downing Street insists there will be no hard Irish border despite leaked Johnson letter

A leaked letter to the PM, seen by Sky News, suggests the Foreign Secretary is downgrading expectations of no change in Ireland.

https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-tells-pm-wrong-to-see-govt-task-as-no-irish-border-after-brexit-11270041

[TightEnd]

 Draft text: North may be considered part of EU customs territory

https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2018/0227/944002-eu-customs-border/

[TightEnd]

There is about to be an almighty brexit fight on Ireland...just two months after the issue was fudged in December’s joint report. How did we get here?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/02/26/analysishow-christmas-fudge-irish-border-unravelled-two-months/

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[TightEnd]

ANALYSIS: Jeremy Corbyn confirms we're going to need a bigger cake

https://www.politicshome.com/news/europe/eu-policy-agenda/brexit/analysis/93143/analysis-jeremy-corbyn-confirms-were-going-need

[TightEnd]

Corbyn's Brexit shift: "intelligent naivety" http://www.norgroveblog.co.uk/2018/02/intelligent-naivety.html …

[TightEnd]

Liam Fox in favour of a customs union from 2012 is still up on his website

https://www.liamfox.co.uk/news/dr-fox-mail-sunday

[TightEnd]

 Irish leader Varadkar urges Sinn Fein to take its seats in the House of Commons to “make things better” for Ireland - ie vote for a customs union/ in Withdrawal

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/take-commons-seats-and-defend-ireland-sinn-fein-is-urged-hc5p08x9r

Click to see full-size image.

[TightEnd]

Leaving single market 'like swapping a meal for a packet of crisps', warns ex-trade chief

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/27/uk-economy-at-risk-outside-single-market-warns-former-trade-chief?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_b-gdnnews#link_time=1519736706

[TightEnd]

The Irish border poses a bigger problem for Brexiteers than a Tory rebellion,

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2018/02/irish-border-poses-bigger-problem-brexiteers-tory-rebellion

[TightEnd]

[TightEnd]

So, Evan Davis off that there Newsnight writes....

Parliament clearly doesn't want a cliff-edge Brexit, but Brussels may make that the only choice, other than a very soft Brexit (which the EU thinks is the only solution to the Irish border issue).

But what happens if parliament votes to yield to the EU, and soften Brexit; and then refuses to boot the government out in a confidence motion? Every outcome seems implausible.

First and easiest solution: Theresa May stays on and negotiates Brexit on parliament's terms. But it seems really difficult for that to happen. It would be like David Cameron staying on to deliver Brexit in 2016

Second outcome: Tories have a new leader.. a Brexiteer. Many in the party would like that, but can you imagine Michael Gove say, delivering Britain into a Customs Union?

Third outcome: Tories appoint a soft Brexiter as PM. Seems just possible, but could such a leader possibly gain support of their own backbenches, at a time when the party is apoplectic with rage at the soft Brexiters

Fourth outcome: There is a general election. Could happen, but I fail to see how two-thirds of this Commons would support that (as needed under the Fixed Term Parliament Act) knowing that many would lose their seat, and that Jeremy Corbyn would very possibly become PM

 it just possible we would arrive at a soft Brexit national government? Labour, LDs, SNP etc plus soft-Brexit Tories stand behind a caretaker soft Brexit PM (Amber Rudd?) to negotiate Brexit and then to agree an election?

The fundamental problem is that majority opinion in the current Commons is arguably paralysing: a) it perhaps supports soft Brexit b) opposes an early election and c) doesn't support an alternative to a Tory PM. While in addition d) the plausible Tory PMs are for hard Brexit.

[TightEnd]

Young voters do not link Corbyn with disastrous past socialist experiments. And what he offers to them is far more attractive than anything the Tories are saying

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/02/as-the-tories-rail-against-corbyns-past-theyre-losing-the-fight-for-the-future/