Brexit

Lagamorph wrote:Rumours circulating this morning that Theresa May has privately agreed to a €40billion exit bill.

We shouldn't be paying them a penny etc.

I wonder when that guy realised how badly he strawberry floated up?

Did he get home from the polling station and proudly announce “I voted out!” only to get an earful from his wife?

Was it the next morning when he was celebrating the results? Did he shout “YES! We can kick out the Romanians!” only to then look at his French wife crying while packing her bags?

Did it take a few weeks/months until he realised why his wife wasn’t talking to him anymore?

Problem with the final bill is most voters have Dr. Evil's understanding of finance. A lot of people probably think 1 billion is a massive amount of money. So whatever bill they settle on will have people frothing at the mouth. Seeing as they don't understand the scale of the figures anyway, might as well ignore them.

twitter.com/dannyctkemp/status/921314571184476160

May dodged questions about money. She's definately conceeded something.

In good news - the EU has agreed to start internal discussions on trade, hoping for negotiations to progress later in the year.

I read an article a couple of days ago. It gave the opinion that May essentially doesn’t have to worry about the Tory rebels etc because she knows she isn’t going to fight the next election in 2022.
They drew comparison with second term US presidents - who know they have a fixed amount of time left and so it frees them to a certain extent. She also doesnt need to appeal to the electorate either - specifically the Leave voters. So she can get a so called soft Brexit and the Leavers can piss and moan all they like. She’s got nothing to lose in the long term. Her successor would have to deal with it.
She could go with the 40 billion and say to the europhobes - that’s the deal, it’s a compromise. If you don’t like it back me or sack me.

The question is whether she has the stones to do that.

That’s what I’d do. At least then she’d salvage some dignity and self respect from this mess.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a tough stance. The EU have. Thst tough stance can them be softened with negotiation and compromise and we reach a deal.

The problem is is that the Brexiteer lot — particularly some of the Tory ones - don’t want compromise. You can’t negotiate with that stance. It’s strawberry floating idiotic.

Then you get gooseberry fool what Grayling came out with. A stupid sound bite from a man who knows nothing about the industry he has speaking about.
It makes us look stupid and amateurish and downright petulant and infantile as well.

Amazing how differently the media are reporting this mornings annoucnements.

The bbc are extremely positive that trade talks will begin soon whilst the DM have gone with may rebuffed in 90 secs as EU refuse to begin talks.

It's all dependent on the next summit in December but if word gets out the UK has agreed to give the EU £40bn in the meantime then it could be scuppered.

I hope she has done that deal.

Photek wrote:It's all dependent on the next summit in December but if word gets out the UK has agreed to give the EU £40bn in the meantime then it could be scuppered.

Scuppered by who?

It seems likely she'll agree that figure, then spin it as a victory because she got the bill down from €100bn to only €40bn.
It doesn't matter if the €100bn figure was ever actually a real demand/request, it was mentioned in some of the right wing press so it'll get thrown out there as fact in order to use it for propaganda.

Denster wrote:

Photek wrote:It's all dependent on the next summit in December but if word gets out the UK has agreed to give the EU £40bn in the meantime then it could be scuppered.

Scuppered by who?

The tabloids and the anti EU Tory lot will go mental and make here position potentially untenable.

See my previous post. She’s PM and needs to get it done. She doesn’t need to pander to them. Especially the press.

They actually have far less threat to her than you’d think.

Denster wrote:I read an article a couple of days ago. It gave the opinion that May essentially doesn’t have to worry about the Tory rebels etc because she knows she isn’t going to fight the next election in 2022.
They drew comparison with second term US presidents - who know they have a fixed amount of time left and so it frees them to a certain extent. She also doesnt need to appeal to the electorate either - specifically the Leave voters. So she can get a so called soft Brexit and the Leavers can piss and moan all they like. She’s got nothing to lose in the long term. Her successor would have to deal with it.
She could go with the 40 billion and say to the europhobes - that’s the deal, it’s a compromise. If you don’t like it back me or sack me.

The question is whether she has the stones to do that.

That’s what I’d do. At least then she’d salvage some dignity and self respect from this mess.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a tough stance. The EU have. Thst tough stance can them be softened with negotiation and compromise and we reach a deal.

The problem is is that the Brexiteer lot — particularly some of the Tory ones - don’t want compromise. You can’t negotiate with that stance. It’s strawberry floating idiotic.

Then you get gooseberry fool what Grayling came out with. A stupid sound bite from a man who knows nothing about the industry he has speaking about.
It makes us look stupid and amateurish and downright petulant and infantile as well.

I think you are right that May knows she will not be the leader at the next election and that sort of frees her up.

But (and it’s a big but and I cannot lie) she is not a President and she doesn’t get to make the decisions by herself. Anything she agrees with the EU will have to go through the cabinet, her party as a whole and Parliament. If the Sun, Mail and the rabid Leavers out there don’t like the deal, then she will be scuppered long before anything is finalised.

Her “no deal is better than a bad deal” soundbite will come back to haunt her if the hard right wing of the Tories and/or media decide that they don’t like whatever she has cooked up with the EU.

I am not sure that the EU have taken a tough stance either. They basically said “no trade talks until the other stuff is sorted” and stuck to it. That’s not really tough talk, it’s just somebody with a royal flush who knows their opponent only has 2s. Britain’s problem since the referendum has been trying to talk tough while having nothing to back it up.

Yes, SHE needs to get it done. Yet there she is asking the EU to deliver a deal she can give to the British voters. She's basically asking/begging the EU to help her save face.
The entire Brexit strategy seems to be to try and put pressure on the EU to make them do all the thinking and all the work. Which is the opposite of what should be happening.

If we'd had a remotely competent negotiation team that bill probably could've been even lower. Then again if we had remotely competent leadership Brexit wouldn't be going ahead at all.

Pretty much but do the Tory Naysayers offer much of a threat numerically if it came to a vote in the commons.
The real question is whether she has the balls to challenge them.
Don’t forget - they tried and failed with a no confidence bid. Very recently. That shows the support for a leadership contest is not there within the party. Not yet.
If she drives it through and says back me or sack me. She’s calling their bluff.
The press can say what they like. She’s withstood plenty of bad press in the last six or eight months.

It’s whether she has the courage. She needs to lead.

It’s also then for the rest of the Commons to back her.

Given that May's nickname around parliament is "The Submarine" because she was known to vanish whenever important decisions needed to be made I wouldn't rely on her courage to do anything.

It's literally up to Paul Dacre really. If he chooses to run with 'May saves UK money' then all will be good but if he goes full plebtard and lambasts her for waisting £40bn then the brexiteers will line up in force.

If the latter happens then there may be some sort of deal down the line but the Tory party will be torn apart.

Denster wrote:Don’t forget - they tried and failed with a no confidence bid. Very recently. That shows the support for a leadership contest is not there within the party. Not yet.

The one led by Grant Schapps via WhatsApp (once he was allowed to join the group)? I am not sure anything led by that fool can be held up as an example.

You are probably right that the Tory naysayers are weaker than we all imagine. But the rest of the Tories are ambitious and are looking at what best suits them. If the likes of the Daily Mail are screaming about Theresa’s betrayal, the backbench Eurosceptics are screeching and it’s looking like the deal might struggle to make it through Parliament? Then I can see a few Tory frontbenchers thinking that now is their chance to become PM.

No. None of them want it right now. They’re jostling for position for when they get rid of her.
If she manages to get a decent deal. They’ll let her push it through and then look at 2019 onwards for a new electable leader.

Lithuanian leader:
It was not expected to have a success at this European council. We hope we will be able, and she will be able to have success in December.
[We need] from words to real deeds. And probably we all – not only the UK, us also – it is time go for real negotiations and and not just negotiating in the the media by rhetoric.
Usually, the first stage of a negotiation starts in the media. We try to position ourselves make nice rhetoric, to show up. Enter thoughts for internal politics, either in Britain or Europe
It is time to go straight to the table.