Almost Canadian

Thank you. I didn't know that

dave_j

I received an email from a relative yesterday.
Unprompted she included the phrase "everyone absolutely sick of Brexit in this country".
Forget logic, party affiliation, who told lies etc etc, it'll be a party promising an end to it all that'll win.
I realise that once brexit is decided there'll be further trade negotiations way into the future, but this won't matter to the voter, the election question of note will be "Who'll break this brexit bubble for good?"

DaveLovesDee

Well, they're not going to be disappointed in the options then......

The Brexit Party want to end it with a hard Brexit.
Boris wants to end it with his deal being accepted, or a hard Brexit.
Labour wants to end it by a public vote.
The Lib-Dems want to end it by revoking Article 50.

Any of those will break the Brexit bubble. Which way does your family member want it broken?

dave_j

I don't now how she'll be voting but I suspect it'll be Tory.
I'm not sure that the voters interpret the Labour and Lib-Dem stand in the same way as you do.
Labour promises yet another vote, call it what you like, but it'll not lance the boil it'll simply get bigger and hurt more.
Lib-Dem promise to stop brexit. I don't think anyone believes they're going to win and even as a partner in a hung parliament with Labour Article 50 will remain in place.

dbd33

If the Conservatives win, do you think they'll ask for an extension in July?

DaveLovesDee

Maybe, but they're all promising to finish Brexit, whether they're able to do so or not.

dave_j

I'm not sure anyone will win outright. The Brexit Party holds a big spanner that it'll toss into the Tory hopes and the Lib Dems likewise into Labour.
It's all a bit of a mess really. If politicians could only put personal and party ambition to one side for one moment then a coalition that could get it's act together could guarantee a win.. they all know this but they can't bring themselves to do it.

Paul_Shepherd

Yes it seems thats the issue, MPs are not serving the British people, they are using their vote in parliament as personal vote, not neccesarily what their respective parties represent. I wonder if Brexit and the Conservatives would form a coalition to get Brexit done? But both probably have totally different ideas on what a deal should look like, so probably couldn't work together.

dave_j

The future for the Brexit Party appears to hang by a thread.
If the Tories win outright with a decent majority then Boris's deal will pass and brexit will happen.
Q. Where does the Brexit Party go from there?
A. Oblivion.
If I were a cynic I'd suggest that they're hoping to cripple the Tory vote to ensure brexit continuity. Turkeys, given the choice, wouldn't vote for Christmas would they.

dbd33

Not necessarily. Firstly, it's not a given that, if the same deal were reintroduced, it would pass. Secondly, if it did pass, say at the end of February, then it only opens negotiations, it doesn't end them. The next debate would be over whether or not to seek another membership extension in July; if no extension is sought and granted then the likely outcome is a no deal Brexit at the end of 2020 Electing the Conservatives just means repeating last year over and over again.

Annetje

Shard

If as Dave suggestes, the Tories do win a decent majority wouldn't they be able to push the WAB/modified-WAB through fairly quickly (31 Jan?) and then commence the trade deal negotiations? I think the parliamentary dynamics will change too. There's a different speaker, and with a reaffirmed Tory government, the opposition parties would have far less confidence in being able to disrupt proceedings. So I don't know if would be a repeat of 2019? I think it would be some kind of actual Brexit.

dbd33

I'm certainly open to the idea that anything might happen. However, if the Conservatives had a "decent majority", then they'd want a harder Brexit than foreseen by the previous withdrawal agreement. They wouldn't see "no deal" as a failure or problem and so would, I think, go back to Brussels to try and renegotiate the withdrawal agreement. If they have a tiny majority, or a governing minority, then I think the same deal might be reintroduced. Either way, that makes 2020 a year of haggling with the likely outcomes being a no deal or an extension. People who are tired of all this need to vote Lib Dem.

dave_j

Noted.... but I did qualify my post by stating that Boris won with a 'decent majority', the assumption being that he could then ram through his deal against any opposition.
I don't subscribe to the theory that he'd reopen discussions with the EU. He has his deal and the certain rebuff from the EU would not sit well with the faithful. Note that he's turned down an electoral pact with the Brexit Party so I don't see a no-deal as forming part of his future now that he's PM.
As his detractors keep saying, his policies are flexible enough to keep with his deal even though he might have hinted otherwise in the past.

Jingsamichty

I couldn't disagree more. The past couple of years have been an absolute triumph for parliamentary democracy... in other words, "taking back control". It proves that 650 MPs cannot simply be whipped into accepting whatever the government wishes. This is because the MPs are voting for the best interests of ALL their constituents. Not just the ones who voted for them. Sometimes even against the ones who voted for them, but always with a view to what is in all of their best interests.

If you want to live in a country where the Party or Government wishes are absolute and sacrosanct, I suggest you try North Korea...