Brexit

Lucien wrote:I'd vote for a referendum on our trade agreement.

Hexx wrote:Pfft. They won't all vote that way.

A chance to undermine Corbyn and rabble rouse against Brexit

Rex Kramer wrote:

Lucien wrote:I'd vote for a referendum on our trade agreement.

I don't see the point in that, the majority of the electorate wouldn't have a clue what they were voting for. You could cover a turd in glitter and stick a Union Jack in it and they'd vote for it in droves.

Tim Farron, Statement wrote:Labour’s claim to be the official opposition must break the Trade Descriptions Act. It comes after Labour claimed to have stopped hard Brexit the same day that Theresa May announced she would take us out of the single market - and I thought that was beyond parody.

Not only did Jeremy Corbyn fail to campaign against Brexit in the referendum, he is now actively helping Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and David Davis to pull Britain out of the single market at a huge cost to jobs and prosperity.

How can you profess to stand up for worker rights when you are conniving in a policy that will costs vast numbers of jobs? This shows that the Liberal Democrats are not only the real opposition to the Conservative Brexit government, we are now the only opposition.

• 47% are confident in Mrs May's negotiating skills, 38% are not.
• 57% of the UK supports leaving Europe's Single Market.
• 56% are in favour of leaving the Customs Union (allowing tariff-free trade across the continent).
• 56% think EU member states will reject her demands.

KKLEIN wrote:You can see why Corbyn is going along with it, even if he was pro-EU.

Labour clarifies its position on imposing a three-line whip on any article 50 bill

Labour has sought to clarify its position on whether it will impose a three-line whip on any bill allowing the government to trigger article 50. Party sources are now claiming that no final decision has been taken on how the party will whip the vote, although they are not disputing that Jeremy Corbyn wants his MPs to vote in favour.

If Labour does not impose a three-line whip (an instruction to vote a certain way), it could alternatively allow a genuinely free vote or what one might term a “free” vote - one where MPs are technically free to vote as they wish, but encouraged to vote a certain way. It could ask MPs to abstain. Or it could impose a looser, less strict form of whip (a one- or two-line whip), although these are not used for important legislation.

In his Sky interview Corbyn did not explicitly say he would “order” his MPs to vote for article 50, as some people have pointed out when they have questioned our headline.

But Corbyn was specifically asked, twice, if he would impose a three-line whip and both answers clearly signalled that the answer was “yes”. You can read his answers, in full, at 1.12pm.

The interviewer put the question twice because she wanted to clarify that Corbyn was talking about imposing a three-line whip. Corbyn could have said that he had not yet decided, or that there might be a free vote. Instead he said that MPs would be “asked to vote in that direction”. Like almost all other reporters who wrote up the interview, I interpreted that as “asked” as in what happens when your boss “asks” you do to something. Our headline was perfectly fair, but in the light of what Labour sources are saying I’ve changed “says” to “suggests”.

Lagamorph wrote:

KKLEIN wrote:You can see why Corbyn is going along with it, even if he was pro-EU.

In what weird parallel dimension was this?

Grumpy David wrote:Tidied up

Dowbocop wrote:

Grumpy David wrote:Tidied up

Watched the Andrew Neil video as requested. Not watching the Farage or Gove ones because I genuinely hate them and their politics, and try to reduce my exposure to them as much as possible.

If everyone on Leave was clear about leaving the single market, then when people did start talking about the different models, the Leave campaign should have said "We are not proposing alternative memberships, we are proposing a full exit." Instead they let the public be misled into thinking softer options existed because they wanted those less hardline individuals to vote Leave, even though the softer options were apparently never on the table.

As it was apparently "the government's job to have a plan", Leave didn't say anything, and made the referendum effectively "the status quo vs anything else whatsoever." They still only just won.

I know I've kind of missed the boat on this and the thread has moved on, but I just completely disagree that this was a clear choice between two well defined options. I also don't accept that the waters weren't muddied just because the official Leave campaign didn't say it during the actual referendum period. Eurosceptics spoke of soft options before, have been weighing up soft options since, and didn't disabuse people of their misconceptions during.