David Kronenbourg
Well-Known Member
Tonight's episode of the house of commons is great
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The BBC’s Nick Watt said he asked the unnamed MP why Ms May was calling a third vote on her plan, the unnamed minister said: “F*** knows. I’m past caring. It’s like the living dead in here.”
They're doing a fairly stupid thing today (again!)
The MPs are voting on just the Withdrawal Agreement - not the Political Declaration.
The EU have been treating both of these separately, but the original Westminster legislation required a vote on both of them together.
To get around the Bercow judgement, which said they can't vote on it for a 3rd time, they're voting on half of it.
However... the EU has three basic requirements
The Withdrawal Agreement is what Theresa May has negotiated - so it's those three requirements being met but using the "red lines" Theresa May has set down. Labour have talked about a customs union which would mean the Northern Ireland border isn't necessary.
- Pay what's due. This is the €39 billion. This is comprised of a bunch of things. Before the EU Referendum the UK committed to spending on EU projects up until 2020. Now they're leaving, they can't just walk away from those commitments. The main part of this is pensions - basically the UK has to pay the pensions of all those British EU officials (and MEPs... yes, including Nigel Garage).
- Don't fuck over EU nationals living in Britain
- Don't put physical border infrastructure on the island of Ireland and don't break the Good Friday Agreement.
It's all subtle stuff, but the MPs are being asked to vote (again) on Theresa May's take on it - and most of them don't agree with what she's negotiated.
The EU don't really care how the UK meet these requirements, but as it stands the only negotiated agreement is the Withdrawal Agreement. The extensions that have been granted are not on Westminster voting on the Withdrawal Agreement; it's on Westminster voting to agree to meet the requirements of the EU.
Anyway... it's all totally up in the air.
No deal isn't a default. The British will be choosing a No Deal Brexit, even if they're not aware they've chosen it.
I just hope some sanity sets in. On the face of it Britain has been doing fine. However Brexit is exposing just how broken British politics is. It's centuries out of date and their parliament is just not working. It strikes me time and time again how the British parliamentarians, and their media commentators, twist logic to fit in to "how Westminster works". They've assumed that because it's tradition, because it's been done like this for centuries, that it's sacrosanct and sensible.
I suppose, in IT terms, it's like using a very jazzed up, highly customised version of Windows 95 as the operating system for a large organisation. It may have been brilliant when it came out first; it may have even lasted for much longer than it should; but it's still Windows 95 and comically out of date.
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