BristolUK

Decades worth of "our" bananas, prawn cocktail crisps, mushy peas and sausages being banned by Euro bosses, smelly French, cowardly Italians and all the rest is plenty of 'reason' for the X in many eyes.

Oakvillian

Because the Prime Minister has shown himself, in the few weeks he has been in office and for years prior to that, to be utterly untrustworthy, dishonest and underhanded. All the shenanigans through the last ten days have been because (a) he prorogued Parliament despite saying, in writing and fewer than two months ago, that he would not; (b) removing the whip from MPs in his own party for voting against a Government motion, when he himself (and, in bizarre point of fact, the then prime minister herself) had voted against his own party's motion twice, earlier this year; these amongst the most egregious and obvious voltes-face in a catalogue of mendacious and untrustworthy statements in person and in print, going back years and years.

If the PM could have given a concrete assurance that an election would be held before the Brexit deadline, then I'm quite sure the opposition parties would have leaped at the chance. But nobody believes a word he says about anything, so his bluff was called.

Of course it should be bleedin' obvious. But somehow the fools in Westminster have become so blinkered by their own dogma that they fail to see the reality of the world around them.

So many reports, from the usually-trusted sources of journalists on all sides of the political divide, suggest that the UK government has not presented any meaningful alternative proposals. to Brussels. There is no other plan for the EU to accept or reject; very little has been done to present one, and the EU (rightly, IMO) has said consistently that it is not their role to bring new proposals to the table: if the UK doesn't know what it wants, it's unlikely that the EU could propose something the fractured UK parliament could agree to.

Or, as some of us have suggested for some time, the UK could realize that it's left itself in an impossible situation, and decide that the only logical way out of the hole is to stop digging, rescind Article 50 (which as has been pointed out several times, does not require any agreement from the EU), and think long and hard about what a practical Brexit would look like.

There's nothing to gain, realistically, from apportioning blame. But if one were to play the blame game, then apart from Mr Cameron's spectacularly ill-advised idea to call the referendum in the first place, then the current mess lies squarely at the feet of Theresa May, who had three years to make progress but did the square root of FA for two and a half of them. Her arrogance and intransigence got the country into the current mess: if he were a more sympathetic figure, one could almost (almost...) feel sorry for BoJo for being the one who will destroy what little remains of his reputation in a probably vain attempt to get out of it.

Or for dying in a ditch, whichever happens sooner.

BEVS

Just placing this really.
The feeling I am getting from an extended amount of folks we know back in the UK is that they are pig sick of all the waiting , the talking, the 'plans' and just want it finished. They are over the 'end game'. They simply want the game to end.
Many seem to feel that Boris is the man for this.

dave_j

Absolutely.
Like so many MPs, posters here are arguing themselves into a blind tunnel over the minutiae of the problem.
But... those who'll decide, Mister and Missus Average don't give a dingo's wanger about any of this, it's all about the result.
The Uk voted to leave, they voted to keep the cash, they voted to control migration but most of all they want it over and woe betide anyone who says No.
Politicians are supposed to have their finger on the pulse of the nation but they've lost it... or most of them have.

BEVS

That isn't really what I posted or why I posted as I did. Without going over old ground the nation showed itself to have equally two pulses and two opposing views for very many reasons. But that is by the by.

What I was posting about was that I am seeing all manner of folk expressing a fatalistic weariness over the whole issue now. The wrangling has been going on for too long and therefore regardless of what they feel the future holds for themselves and the country in times to come, they just want it all done and dusted one way or another . I feel they do not want an extension for more wrangling. They want something delivered - In/Out - Deal/No Deal . From there they will deal with whatever comes along. They are simply 'over it' .

None seem to want another referendum at all. Most seem to see the last one as the pits on all sides now.

It is in that from what I am hearing and reading I feel an election might well go Boris Johnsons way . Not because he is any good at all. It would be simply because he is the only one seemingly making shouty hard firm statements in a good old-fashioned way. The 'do it my way or the highway' and no need for anyone else to think otherwise. If Corbyn could do the same with precise clear cut statements then he might win the day.

Above all, no matter what those folks originally felt at the time of the referendum nor their PoVs now or their concerns for their futures, most all want it over.

Shard

It's definitely unfortunate that Corbyn is as divisive as he is. And that his ego has inflated so much that he won't step aside (temporarily) to permit a remain coalition under a more neutral leader. With that in mind, you may be right about the shouty one having more support than many of us like to admit.

One of the ironies is that if you rewind to a year before the referendum, very few people had serious misgivings about EU membership. Of course there was the general 'government are useless' grumblings, but it was really only the loony UKIP types that were vehemently anti-EU. Somehow, through the referendum and subsequent quagmire, many have become far more attached to the issue than they ought to be.

dbd33

Then the pitch for "remain" is that "leave" means ten more years of wrangling with the EU. while concurrently having a similar haggle with President Sharpie.

BristolUK

I don't see him as any more firm than Theresa May with her "Brexit means Brexit", unless one accepts determination to follow a path, no matter what the obstacles, is firm. In any case, he keeps saying he's "on the verge of a deal" and that there are "an abundance of proposals" as if there are alternatives to a no-deal, so to me that makes him more of a ditherer than maybe we think. Or, of course, he's completely unreliable and untrustworthy.

I'm sure that matters, even now.

I can certainly see the fed up with it all and get it over with one way or the other. I'm just glad I'm not living in the UK with it all.

Jingsamichty

On the contrary, it is the most exciting, crazy time you could image. For decades, politicians have just been trusted to get on with politicking while the rest of us just got on with our lives. A few politicians and industrialists used this to their advantage, then a few more, then a few became a flood. To the point where politicians were actively complicit with individual vested interest that were very definitely not in the best interest of the country. And still most people didn't care.

But this latest piece of political chicanery - Brexit - is, I think, the straw that broke the camel's back. More and more people - especially young people - simply will not accept the status quo and are demanding changes. We are pretty much in the middle of a revolution.

What a great time to be alive and in the thick of it!!

Shard

Not a football follower, but I can't imagine it's a patch on the politics of the last several months !

JamesM

Good luck to them all. This has several more years to run.

Oakvillian

This. If the Remain parties - Lib Dem, SNP, Plaid Cymru - and the Remain elements of Labour, could lead with "the only way to get this to stop going round and round in circles for a decade or more is to call a halt to the whole charade" I bet they'd pick up an awful lot of support from the disgruntled, fed-up voters.

Jingsamichty

I can't help feeling that if there were to be a "pro-Remain alliance" of Labour, LDs, SNP, PC, Greens, then there would certainly be a corresponding "pro-Leave alliance" of the Tories and the Brexit Party. And I reckon that if that were on the table in an election, we'd end up pretty much exactly where we are now.

The country is split right down the middle. What an absolute idiot Cameron was to offer a binary referendum on such a divisive matter. Not that he gives a monkey's, he's doing alright thank you very much.

Almost Canadian

I disagree. In or out were the only options. It is only after the result that the losing side has attempted to argue that leaving didn't actually mean leaving.

In any event, there can be no disputing what the options are now and an election would provide all those that campaign with a clear mandate and, if the result of the election is as close as you believe it will be, that will give those that are elected support for the whole "leave didn't actually mean leave" argument. However, if the result massively favours the PM's current position, they should then respect both of the results.

Novocastrian

Because Boris wants a snap election before the EU Commission meeting on Oct17-18th, or so he says. Nobody trusts him not to move the date to November if the opposition were stupid enough to approve an election under the Fixed Term Election Act prior to no-deal being ditched. That may well be the ditch that Boris dies in,