Michael St George’s article in TCW yesterday ‘Where do we go from here?’ brought in many comments. Here is a selection of extracts:
Greenlander wrote:
This isn’t just about Britain. As the EU is playing hardball not only to keep the UK screwed to their floor they have to frighten the other dissenters and keep their grumblings in check. We must be strong to show them that there is another way other than the EU’s way.
Mojo wrote:
Where has Sir Tim Barrow been in all this? I thought as our ambassador to the EU he would have been advising Mrs May to stand firm for the UK or has he been out of the country for so long he has no loyalty either?
J M wrote:
I always thought that the EU would make it ‘bumpy’ for us pour encourager les autres.
So it has proved.
If we walk away from this deal, I expect the Francophones in particular, who have never forgiven us for bailing them out twice within half a century, to behave appallingly. There will be chaos at Calais with consequent problems on this side of the channel.
However, life will go on. The sun will continue to rise. We will have to roll up our sleeves and get to work. There will be problems, but we will work through them. We always do. We never prepare, but once we get going we are unstoppable. It is our way.
Therefore, I am very reluctantly driven to the conclusion that we now have no choice but to say to the EU, ‘You have overplayed your hand. The deal is not acceptable. On 29th March 2019 we leave the EU. We will be making no payment. We will trade openly with you on WTO terms. If you want, you can have tariff free trade so long as you offer that to us. If you engage in aggressive trading practices we will reciprocate. We wish you well and want nothing but friendly and cooperative relations with you. Goodbye!’
No HS2…No EU wrote:
With Treason’s mad deal, how can we still be a member of the UN Security Council, as she has signed away our Armed Forces? What do we do with our nuclear force, if the EU is in charge of it? Who pays for it, or do we pay and the EU tells it what to do?
Just how mad/stupid is she?
Bristol_Hum wrote:
I think we should ask Germany to pay us back for all the billions the UK spent on rescuing them from fascism in WW2.
seKxXcb5jZ wrote:
‘All departmental energies must be directed towards preparing for a No-Deal Brexit and all work on any other options suspended.’
Something like this (maybe not as extreme) should have happened once the Article 50 notice went in if not before. To show to the UK public and Brussels that the Government was preparing for the worst while hoping to negotiate something better. Plenty of investment in border, customs and fisheries services and infrastructure would have benefited UK trade, travel and security regardless of the negotiation outcome.
But you can see now why none of this happened – because the government and civil service are not going to let us leave so didn’t bother to prepare.
Lumpen Proletariat wrote:
We face the imminent demise of British democracy and the Conservative Party – and her reaction last night? A smile. One wondered what medication she was on.
too good to waste wrote:
Give Nigel a job.
Simon Maxwell wrote:
I’ve just been reading some of what May said on LBC this morning, and I can’t believe it. I mean, we know now that she has been deceiving the country for over two years. But she still goes on a radio programme and the lies keep coming out of her mouth. Lies about being out of the customs union and single market, about taking back control of our laws and money, and about freedom of movement. She must go. Now.
John Piggott wrote:
We have to understand this as a Civil Service coup, probably coerced privately upon May by the respective Permanent secretaries/under-secretaries to the Treasury, Foreign Office, and Home Office, and taken up executively by the Cabinet Office and the policy and government directorate of No 10. May’s function is acquiesce, isolate the Brexit departments she herself created, and front the political effort with Hammond operating in deniable support.
PierrePendre wrote:
Whoever’s bacon is being saved here, it is not Britain’s and it is not the British people’s. We and our country have been reduced to pawns on a chessboard where the stakes are Mrs May’s reputation and the survival of the Conservative party – if such a thing is possible once we can get our hands on them at a general election.
theSailor wrote:
Hidden in the small print of this ‘deal’, as I understand it, is the power of the ECJ to veto any attempt by Britain to leave at any time in the future.
John Clegg wrote:
Added to this, we have to give them 6 months notice that we want to leave before the arbitration panel of 25 will consider our request. I believe the panel will be made up of 25, 10 Brits, 10 EUs and 5 independents. So just who will choose our 10 Brits? May and Hammond perhaps. It stinks to high heaven.
ibnezraster wrote:
If there is indeed a shadowy cabal of background influences who are controlling May like a robot to make a deal so unattractive to both sides as to collapse Brexit and cause a return to the status quo, then they will seek to install another useful idiot by all the means at their disposal, notably pressing Remainers with threats and bribes. Was the new D Mail Remainer editor a result of their work? There is more going on in the shadows than we know, that’s for sure, including orchestrated smearing of Leave MPs. This will be a demonic battle.
Paul Weston wrote:
I would like JRM leading now and remaining there for as long as is humanly possible. He is a brave, highly intelligent, decent, honourable man.
James Chilton wrote:
Wherever we go or end up, it will be thanks to the likes of Little Mickey Gove who has decided not to resign but to ‘work for the best outcome’ for Brexit.
Andy J M wrote:
As Michael Portillo said last night, all it needs is for the EU to insist that the Treaty is signed in a railway carriage at Compiegne for the humiliation to be complete.
