Signalcalc
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Sorry, I thought that remainers have a problem with tiny percentage majorities?!
mike.
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I do hope Liberals take control. Always thought Nick Clegg and Liberals did well to support the Tories defeat Labour and recover from 2008 turmoil. However, haven't done well since.
Time is right for Liberals to take control and put Brexit/Brexin debate through Parliament in safe constitutional hands.
Nahh, Tim Farron is our local MP, Certainly not leadership meterial....Probably walked into the room just as the news about Clegg loosing his seat was announced........Yep, you will make a fantastic lib leader, whats your name again ? ehh Timothy....brilliant, sign here........:whistling
Atilla
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Beg to differ. I think he speaks really well. Not your typical posh accent but feel conviction in his words. In fact I like his accent.
Not polished but he elaborates well, comes across warm and I understand every word he speaks without the we've made it clear nonsense everyone else utters.
counter_violent
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I don't see Tim Farron on the shortlist.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38217040
:clap::clap::clap: Go Nigel :clap::clap::clap:
Bringing honesty back into politics.
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Atilla
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It won't take as long as it has for you to denounce Farages views as it has Thatchers; ie deregulate the banks with the Big Bang and decimate manufacturing. I'll give you 10 years.
As it happens I've been on T2W now a full 10 years. Don't I get a watch or something. :whistling
As it happens I've been on T2W now a full 10 years. Don't I get a watch or something. :whistling
Atilla
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Theresa May Faces Tory Rebellion Over Her Secrecy About Brexit
Thus far all the Prime Minister has said is that she will trigger exit talks by the end of March, when she formally notifies the EU that Britain is leaving the bloc, under Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. She insists on keeping her negotiating position a secret despite calls for clarity from business leaders, European politicians and now her own members of parliament.
I've been arguing that there is no advantage to keeping these negotiations secret on the contrary quite the opposite.
Moreover to expect the EU to reciprocate on options like negotiating exit along with new agreements, whilst we play this silly buggers game will not do us any favours when the time comes.
I can just see the headlines now, those pesky Europeans. :whistling
Not fair sport is it?
Thus far all the Prime Minister has said is that she will trigger exit talks by the end of March, when she formally notifies the EU that Britain is leaving the bloc, under Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. She insists on keeping her negotiating position a secret despite calls for clarity from business leaders, European politicians and now her own members of parliament.
I've been arguing that there is no advantage to keeping these negotiations secret on the contrary quite the opposite.
Moreover to expect the EU to reciprocate on options like negotiating exit along with new agreements, whilst we play this silly buggers game will not do us any favours when the time comes.
I can just see the headlines now, those pesky Europeans. :whistling
Not fair sport is it?
Theresa May Faces Tory Rebellion Over Her Secrecy About Brexit
Thus far all the Prime Minister has said is that she will trigger exit talks by the end of March, when she formally notifies the EU that Britain is leaving the bloc, under Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. She insists on keeping her negotiating position a secret despite calls for clarity from business leaders, European politicians and now her own members of parliament.
I've been arguing that there is no advantage to keeping these negotiations secret on the contrary quite the opposite.
Moreover to expect the EU to reciprocate on options like negotiating exit along with new agreements, whilst we play this silly buggers game will not do us any favours when the time comes.
I can just see the headlines now, those pesky Europeans. :whistling
Not fair sport is it?
It's clear she is doing this to have a negotiating advantage. You wont see any business man walk into a negotiating meeting and place all the cards on the table before negotiating.
counter_violent
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Obvious innit.
All the usual suspects turn up and their only intention is to derail and undermine the negotiating position.
Like I said before...UK needs to do very little over the next few months, just watch and wait as the EU buckles under internal pressure. They will be begging us to do a deal next year
Atilla
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Well what one thinks is an advantage is considered a disadvantage by other parties.
The point remains international agreements reflecting the will of all people are never negotiated in private.
Private business practice for the vested interests of owners are not the same as Public Government practice for all the people.
Big difference.
They are debating this same issue in Parliament. The prerogative and rights of the PM versus Parliamentary rights on passing legislation and change in agreements.
Begs the question what's the point of having Parliament or House of Lords if PM has absolute prerogative powers???
Atilla
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Obvious innit.
All the usual suspects turn up and their only intention is to derail and undermine the negotiating position.
Like I said before...UK needs to do very little over the next few months, just watch and wait as the EU buckles under internal pressure. They will be begging us to do a deal next year
Is it obvious? Really?
20 Tories likely to be voting with Lib-Labs.
Euresceptics v Europhiles.
Eurosceptics the biggest moaners since 1975 will get a taste of their own medicine. :cheesy:
that's an odd position to be and one that doesn't conform to standard negotiating rules.
sminicooper
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All the Shenanigans on both sides – Brexiteers & Remoaners - is just trivial and inconsequential when you look at the big picture. The EU is in terminal decline both financially and politically. Worldwide, the peasants are politically revolting. The ruling elite don't know how to handle it.
My thought is that we can go 2 ways from here: "They" regain control and put the peasanterati back in their box where they belong OR we see a seismic change in politics over the next 5 to 10 years. Anybody's guess which it will be – if either!
Remember the European revolutions and anti-authority movements of the 19th century – we're not there of course, but sentiment is changing. What's different now is that the peasanterati have access to instant and wide-ranging information and are not just only on the end of loudmouth politicians who wind them up.
Interesting times and I'd like to be around in 50 years to look back.
My thought is that we can go 2 ways from here: "They" regain control and put the peasanterati back in their box where they belong OR we see a seismic change in politics over the next 5 to 10 years. Anybody's guess which it will be – if either!
Remember the European revolutions and anti-authority movements of the 19th century – we're not there of course, but sentiment is changing. What's different now is that the peasanterati have access to instant and wide-ranging information and are not just only on the end of loudmouth politicians who wind them up.
Interesting times and I'd like to be around in 50 years to look back.
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Atilla
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_treaty
A secret treaty is "an international agreement in which the contracting parties have agreed, either in the treaty instrument or separately, to conceal its existence or at least its substance from other states and the public."[1]
According to one compilation of secret treaties published in 2004, there have been 593 secret treaties negotiated by 110 countries and independent political entities since the year 1521.[2] "Secret treaties were a central instrument of balance-of-power diplomacy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries," but are rare today.[3]
Secret treaty or an international agreement between 28 countries or even 5 is very rare.
Addenda: Nothing against Parliament voting to leave. However, as mentioned before one is not permitted to lie or deceive in Parliament so debate will be richer and challenged. Facts will previal and can be voted upon.
If the people wish to punish the MPs then after an election Brexit supporting MPs representing their electorate can do as they like.
Right now current cabinet carrying on like a banana republic and thank goodness for our esteemed and established institutions and democratic process to protect interest of the UK. Checks and balances.
If what you say is true about EU falling apart then UK can get to have her cake and eat it. Just follow the process instead of the eurosceptics trying to hump parliament out of the way.
Be patient and carry on.
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counter_violent
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Yeah that'll float obviously.
People already have no respect for bloody experts and there is certainly no deference to the supposed elites.
Rising number of talented amateurs can easily out debate the career politicians.
That is, if you can even find One willing to debate. Most of them run away when challenged.
Farage had to start somewhere and look at him now....a national hero
Pat494
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It has been a dreadful year for the European Union. It has just got a lot worse. Next year could transform a looming existential threat into a terminal reality. The end of a joint 60-year project to transform the politics of an entire continent is now a distinct possibility.
Some would greet the prospect with glee, others with horror. But few have thought through what it would mean if the pillars came crashing down.
The Italian vote means, as here, a populist, anti-establishment surge has defenestrated a prime minister.
There, as here, a new prime minister may be anointed without the bother of a general election. There, unlike here, that would probably further stoke the fires of popular discontent.
Either way, sooner or later (which means in 2018) the main opposition, the Five Star movement, could be elected promising a referendum on membership of the euro, if not the European Union itself.
The EU was hardly in a self-confident, ebullient mood in the first place. The continent's economy still stutters. The euro crisis returns with the wearing familiarity of a pantomime villain.
Members question its other great project, the common borderless area, in the light of the migrant crisis. Now this, the second EU straw in a populist gale that will blow throughout next year.
And Italy was the birthplace of the union, where the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957.
Could Italy's Five Star Movement and leader Beppe Grillo win a general election?
The UK leaving the orbit of the European Union is one thing. There's no denying Brexit was a serious smack in the face for the EU. But however unexpected, in a sense the other members were long-braced for such a blow.
We were a late addition, always rather reluctant, still part of the solar system but orbiting some where beyond Pluto, not part of the euro, not part of agreements on justice and home affairs, not part of the borderless arrangement.
Why Italy's vote matters
Marine Le Pen: Trump win boosts my chances
Chancellor Merkel: Germany's shrewd survivor
Geert Wilders: EU is 'more or less dead'
By contrast, Italy is one of the inner planets.
So is the Netherlands. There, Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom is predicted to do well in the elections next year, perhaps with him becoming prime minister. He wants to take the Netherlands, another founder member, out of the European Union.
But France is the big one. Most expect the French presidential election to be a play-off between the National Front's Marine Le Pen and Francois Fillon from the centre right. She has promised the French a referendum on the membership of the European Union. He wants an end to dreams of a federal Europe.
The Italians, the French, the Dutch will, over the coming year, raise profound questions about the EU. Its fate will be a, perhaps the, central issue in their elections. The apparent success of hard-right parties will push mainstream parties to consider their more popular ideas.
Italy leaving the euro would be a profound shock to the EU's most important project, but it could survive. But an EU without France and the Netherlands as well as the UK?
Both Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders could gain power in their respective countries
In theory it could live on without three of Europe's biggest economies, but it would be a very different proposition, an army regrouping in retreat, not a nascent continental superpower on the march.
So far I have ignored the elephant in the room. But these days Germany is not so much the thick-skinned pachyderm, disdainful of the flea bites that irritate lesser beasts.
Nearly all commentators believe Angela Merkel will become chancellor for a fourth term, after taking a bit of battering in the elections. No-one thinks she will lose. But this time last year almost no-one thought Donald Trump would end up as president of the United States.
The hard-right-wing AfD poses a serious challenge. While it doesn't formally suggest leaving the EU, it seems many supporters and some representatives do.
It does want to leave the euro and to return more powers to the nation states: to put Germany first.
Those who believe in the EU are painfully aware of the popular mood, but their response is hardly dynamic. It is standard to call for policies to promote jobs and growth. Or argue that the European Commission should do less, and cut red tape.
But these arguments are hamstrung from the start. The EU has little direct influence over the economy. The activist anger is, in some ways, a response to the Delors Commission of 20 years ago. The commission does do less than it used to, only people don't believe it.
Commentators believe that Angela Merkel will win a fourth term in 2017
There is some fresh thinking: from the soon-to-be-former Italian Prime Minister, the Council President Donald Tusk and the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte. Their basic argument is that the EU has stumbled because it ran before it could walk.
It abolished internal borders without securing its external ones and set up a shared currency without the common tax policy or treasury required to make it function smoothly. But all their answers require more, not less, Europe. They are hardly designed for an easy sell, or to gain traction in today's world.
They are, in a sense, over-earnest, analytical and policy-driven solutions, not grasping that this is about moods and symbols as much as rules and regulations.
Those who do respond by arguing for a looser confederation, like many in Eastern Europe, also want to keep the very bits, such as the single market and subsidies, that do seem to demand common rules and a supranational honest broker like the commission. The logic hasn't been thought through.
It could be these elections will prove a high tide of euroscepticism, and none of the anti-EU populist parties will get anywhere near power. If so, I would suggest when the waters recede the EU will still look a very different place, eroded and fragile in the face of popular obloquy.
If one or more of these elections does deliver a hammer blow, the fracture will spread slowly, incomplete yet utterly chaotic.
We'd have to take seriously the return of a Europe of disconnected nation states, without a single market, with borders, and ask what vestiges of cooperation and common policy would remain.
It would be in tune with the mood across the Atlantic, with talk of trade barriers and an end to internationalism. The meat and drink of Brexit, the debates over customs unions or free trade would become continent wide.
Russia would be exultant and Vladimir Putin would, most likely, have the luxury of picking friends and enemies, rather than facing a bloc imposing sanctions.
But central would be what happens to Germany, for 60 years like a dutifully blinded Samson willingly bound to the pillars of the temple.
The EU was constructed to contain German might, and Germany is now hard-wired to see its destiny as European and multi-national, with a heavy responsibility to find consensus.
That is unlikely to change unless the hard right do come to power. But it is difficult to predict how Germany would lead amid the ruins of a unique and ambitious project in which it invested so much.
Some would greet the prospect with glee, others with horror. But few have thought through what it would mean if the pillars came crashing down.
The Italian vote means, as here, a populist, anti-establishment surge has defenestrated a prime minister.
There, as here, a new prime minister may be anointed without the bother of a general election. There, unlike here, that would probably further stoke the fires of popular discontent.
Either way, sooner or later (which means in 2018) the main opposition, the Five Star movement, could be elected promising a referendum on membership of the euro, if not the European Union itself.
The EU was hardly in a self-confident, ebullient mood in the first place. The continent's economy still stutters. The euro crisis returns with the wearing familiarity of a pantomime villain.
Members question its other great project, the common borderless area, in the light of the migrant crisis. Now this, the second EU straw in a populist gale that will blow throughout next year.
And Italy was the birthplace of the union, where the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957.
Could Italy's Five Star Movement and leader Beppe Grillo win a general election?
The UK leaving the orbit of the European Union is one thing. There's no denying Brexit was a serious smack in the face for the EU. But however unexpected, in a sense the other members were long-braced for such a blow.
We were a late addition, always rather reluctant, still part of the solar system but orbiting some where beyond Pluto, not part of the euro, not part of agreements on justice and home affairs, not part of the borderless arrangement.
Why Italy's vote matters
Marine Le Pen: Trump win boosts my chances
Chancellor Merkel: Germany's shrewd survivor
Geert Wilders: EU is 'more or less dead'
By contrast, Italy is one of the inner planets.
So is the Netherlands. There, Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom is predicted to do well in the elections next year, perhaps with him becoming prime minister. He wants to take the Netherlands, another founder member, out of the European Union.
But France is the big one. Most expect the French presidential election to be a play-off between the National Front's Marine Le Pen and Francois Fillon from the centre right. She has promised the French a referendum on the membership of the European Union. He wants an end to dreams of a federal Europe.
The Italians, the French, the Dutch will, over the coming year, raise profound questions about the EU. Its fate will be a, perhaps the, central issue in their elections. The apparent success of hard-right parties will push mainstream parties to consider their more popular ideas.
Italy leaving the euro would be a profound shock to the EU's most important project, but it could survive. But an EU without France and the Netherlands as well as the UK?
Both Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders could gain power in their respective countries
In theory it could live on without three of Europe's biggest economies, but it would be a very different proposition, an army regrouping in retreat, not a nascent continental superpower on the march.
So far I have ignored the elephant in the room. But these days Germany is not so much the thick-skinned pachyderm, disdainful of the flea bites that irritate lesser beasts.
Nearly all commentators believe Angela Merkel will become chancellor for a fourth term, after taking a bit of battering in the elections. No-one thinks she will lose. But this time last year almost no-one thought Donald Trump would end up as president of the United States.
The hard-right-wing AfD poses a serious challenge. While it doesn't formally suggest leaving the EU, it seems many supporters and some representatives do.
It does want to leave the euro and to return more powers to the nation states: to put Germany first.
Those who believe in the EU are painfully aware of the popular mood, but their response is hardly dynamic. It is standard to call for policies to promote jobs and growth. Or argue that the European Commission should do less, and cut red tape.
But these arguments are hamstrung from the start. The EU has little direct influence over the economy. The activist anger is, in some ways, a response to the Delors Commission of 20 years ago. The commission does do less than it used to, only people don't believe it.
Commentators believe that Angela Merkel will win a fourth term in 2017
There is some fresh thinking: from the soon-to-be-former Italian Prime Minister, the Council President Donald Tusk and the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte. Their basic argument is that the EU has stumbled because it ran before it could walk.
It abolished internal borders without securing its external ones and set up a shared currency without the common tax policy or treasury required to make it function smoothly. But all their answers require more, not less, Europe. They are hardly designed for an easy sell, or to gain traction in today's world.
They are, in a sense, over-earnest, analytical and policy-driven solutions, not grasping that this is about moods and symbols as much as rules and regulations.
Those who do respond by arguing for a looser confederation, like many in Eastern Europe, also want to keep the very bits, such as the single market and subsidies, that do seem to demand common rules and a supranational honest broker like the commission. The logic hasn't been thought through.
It could be these elections will prove a high tide of euroscepticism, and none of the anti-EU populist parties will get anywhere near power. If so, I would suggest when the waters recede the EU will still look a very different place, eroded and fragile in the face of popular obloquy.
If one or more of these elections does deliver a hammer blow, the fracture will spread slowly, incomplete yet utterly chaotic.
We'd have to take seriously the return of a Europe of disconnected nation states, without a single market, with borders, and ask what vestiges of cooperation and common policy would remain.
It would be in tune with the mood across the Atlantic, with talk of trade barriers and an end to internationalism. The meat and drink of Brexit, the debates over customs unions or free trade would become continent wide.
Russia would be exultant and Vladimir Putin would, most likely, have the luxury of picking friends and enemies, rather than facing a bloc imposing sanctions.
But central would be what happens to Germany, for 60 years like a dutifully blinded Samson willingly bound to the pillars of the temple.
The EU was constructed to contain German might, and Germany is now hard-wired to see its destiny as European and multi-national, with a heavy responsibility to find consensus.
That is unlikely to change unless the hard right do come to power. But it is difficult to predict how Germany would lead amid the ruins of a unique and ambitious project in which it invested so much.
Atilla
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Answer is simple really.
EU membership is voluntary. If member countries feel their interests lie outside they can leave.
If right wing and Brexit parties feel they can do better elsewhere they can do so.
The Euro will float to find its suitable level and existing members will continue as they were.
Existing joint projects and agreements will either continue or be amended.
Fate of the EU and BAU is known. It is the uncertain outcome of these exiters that need scrutiny.
Perhaps the UK, France and Italy can setup a competing union and let other member states pick and choose. Big question, will France wish to brake off relations with Germany or same for Italy and enter binding agreements with the UK. Why not?
We live in exciting times.
Atilla
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EU membership is voluntary.
These kind of references are just soundbites which lead to no where fast.
It is more about leading and good stewardship.
If peeps (in UK, Italy and Greece) think their interests are better outside of the EU let them walk. I think the well read who have an ounce of awareness about how these nations were before they joined the EU will know what will be waiting them.
counter_violent
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EU membership is voluntary.
These kind of references are just soundbites which lead to no where fast.
It is more about leading and good stewardship.
If peeps (in UK, Italy and Greece) think their interests are better outside of the EU let them walk. I think the well read who have an ounce of awareness about how these nations were before they joined the EU will know what will be waiting them.
Yeah, they went down the collectivist route thinking there was safety in numbers.
We all know how that ends don't we !
Well there goes our nuts on a golden platter to the Frenchie who thinks his opinion (18 months) supersedes an official legislation. But it's okay because our mps will sleep better at night knowing they have slapped their opinions on the most important negotiations in a generation.
