'Brexit' wins, UK to leave the EU?

Re: Brexit wins, UK to leave the EU

One thing I have noticed, was voiced by my parents when people voted for the leader of the Labor party (and Corbyn got in by a land slide).
After the first round of votes and all the media bashing, they received a phone call and emails about who they'd vote for in the second round. They decided not to say who they where voting for, because they thought it would only increase the media bashing (as close as you can get to calling it rigged without using the words).

I've heard numerous stories of people 'secretly voting Trump'. If this is a larger pattern, then the PTB's feedback mechanism for predicting/rigging things now no longer works so well.

Carl said:
Yes, I do feel another 'f*** you' vote coming. And this could actually be a more productive one than the Brexit and Trump votes.

Agreed, with the caveat that a lot of people will probably keep that opinion to themselves until the last minute.
Social proof then is very important.
 
Re: Brexit wins, UK to leave the EU

There has been a surge of bets for Jeremy Corbyn to become the next prime minister.
Bet comparison service Oddschecker revealed that more people have now put their money on Labour winning the election.

It’s a reversal from yesterday, when the Tories took the majority of bets with Corbyn only getting a 29% share.
Something is leading a change in opinion, as looking at bets placed so far today, 48% of punters are putting their money on a Labour win, with only 35% putting their money behind the current prime minister.
The remaining bets were mainly placed on the Lib Dems, who could enjoy a resurgence over their anti-Brexit stance.
Elections are big business for gambling, with one punter winning £1.2m from betting on Trump to win the US election.
Yesterday, MPs voted 522 to 13 to hold a general election on June 8.
People could be placing more bets on Corbyn because the odds of him winning are much more generous, with polls suggesting Theresa May will increase her majority.
However, the last American and British elections, as well as the EU referendum, have also showed that polls can be mistaken.
According to Paddy Power, Theresa May has odds of 1/18 to be the next prime minister, meaning for every £18 you bet, you would only get an extra pound if you win.
Odds are 17/2 for Corbyn to move into Number 10, meaning you get £17 for every £2 bet if it happens, not including your original stake.

http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/20/surge-in-bets-for-jeremy-corbyn-to-be-the-next-prime-minister-6585824/#ixzz4eulq3zaF

This was being discussed at work for quite a lengthy period and funnily enough, when gently reminded about Trump and Brexit, those who ridiculed Corbyn having any chance at all stopped to pause and contemplate those outcomes.
So Just for luck ;) seeing how football has such a huge sway over here, I threw in that Leicester City winning the premiership title (football) last season and was 5000/1 ;D
 
Re: Brexit wins, UK to leave the EU

Can Won said:
There has been a surge of bets for Jeremy Corbyn to become the next prime minister.
Bet comparison service Oddschecker revealed that more people have now put their money on Labour winning the election.

It’s a reversal from yesterday, when the Tories took the majority of bets with Corbyn only getting a 29% share.
Something is leading a change in opinion, as looking at bets placed so far today, 48% of punters are putting their money on a Labour win, with only 35% putting their money behind the current prime minister.
The remaining bets were mainly placed on the Lib Dems, who could enjoy a resurgence over their anti-Brexit stance.
Elections are big business for gambling, with one punter winning £1.2m from betting on Trump to win the US election.
Yesterday, MPs voted 522 to 13 to hold a general election on June 8.
People could be placing more bets on Corbyn because the odds of him winning are much more generous, with polls suggesting Theresa May will increase her majority.
However, the last American and British elections, as well as the EU referendum, have also showed that polls can be mistaken.
According to Paddy Power, Theresa May has odds of 1/18 to be the next prime minister, meaning for every £18 you bet, you would only get an extra pound if you win.
Odds are 17/2 for Corbyn to move into Number 10, meaning you get £17 for every £2 bet if it happens, not including your original stake.

http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/20/surge-in-bets-for-jeremy-corbyn-to-be-the-next-prime-minister-6585824/#ixzz4eulq3zaF

This was being discussed at work for quite a lengthy period and funnily enough, when gently reminded about Trump and Brexit, those who ridiculed Corbyn having any chance at all stopped to pause and contemplate those outcomes.
So Just for luck ;) seeing how football has such a huge sway over here, I threw in that Leicester City winning the premiership title (football) last season and was 5000/1 ;D

Well played. Corbyn is still 8/1 also, with labour overall majority sitting around 40/1. The betting odds have been very wrong recently.
 
Re: Brexit wins, UK to leave the EU

I came across this promoted tweet earlier today: https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/866346585894133761/video/1

This is the Conservative Party's election ad. I don't often check out these videos and comments because it's usually followers of a given party that comment on them. But this one was a promoted tweet, which means it showed up on both Conservative and Labour voters home pages, not only Conservative twitter followers .

Out of curiosity I clicked on the tweet to check out the comments and I must say it took me a lot of scrolling to find some positive ones. Theresa May doesn't seem to be very popular at all.

I can't help but wonder how much ridging will be involved in the upcoming June elections, it looks like in France they really bent over backwards to ensure the result was what they wanted it to be.
 
Re: Brexit wins, UK to leave the EU

Ant22 said:
I can't help but wonder how much ridging will be involved in the upcoming June elections, it looks like in France they really bent over backwards to ensure the result was what they wanted it to be.

That's my impression too. Corbyn attracts masses of people on the street lately, and he seems to have a rockstar presence he didn't have before. On the other hand, I have yet to see Theresa May stand in front of a crowd (more than a dozen or two people for the photo-op, that is). Instead, I've seen a couple of videos in which locals are 'chasing' her away! (And another chasing Boris Johnson away too!) So I get the feeling that the polls are rigged and they'll probably try to rig the actual election as well. If they do, then there's a lot of people going to be upset, cause I see from social media that Corbyn supporters are starting to think that the possibility of him winning is very real. That means that they may be facing the problem of rigging the election first, and second, making the fraud believable. If they do try their tricks, I hope they at least get exposed.
 
Re: Brexit wins, UK to leave the EU

[quote author= Ant22]I can't help but wonder how much ridging will be involved in the upcoming June elections[/quote]

The witch will get 110% of the votes, then all hell breaks lose. Somehow, they need to make the outcome believable. Though the situation as it is seems pretty desperate, I wonder if they will make a grave miscalculation on their behalf.
 
Re: Brexit wins, UK to leave the EU

France’s powerful Israel lobby group CRIF has forced another candidate to quit next month’s parliamentary elections.

Israel lobby forces second candidate out of French legislative election
_https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lobby-forces-second-candidate-out-french-legislative-election?utm_source=EI+readers&utm_campaign=1fcb8bbdb3-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e802a7602d-1fcb8bbdb3-290660781

CRIF, a strongly pro-Israel Jewish communal organization, announced that William Tchamaha has been dropped by President Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche party due to an “anti-Zionist” tweet.

He’s the second candidate forced out for expressing support for Palestinian rights and international law.

CRIF had demanded that Macron’s party drop Tchamaha, who was running for a seat in the Seine-Maritime region, because of a tweet he posted on 8 February calling for Israel to be held accountable for its violations of international law.

The tweet read: “An outlaw state that disdains the law. Boycott Israeli products and economic embargo.”

Tchamaha’s tweet included a link to a news story on UN criticism of a new Israeli law to facilitate the theft of Palestinian land by settlers.

Tchamaha has apparently deleted his entire Twitter account.

Imposing discipline

Earlier this month, Macron’s party dumped another candidate, TV producer Christian Gerin, after complaints from CRIF and another Israel lobby group LICRA.

Gerin had posted tweets critical of the growing role CRIF plays in French politics and in support of holding Israel accountable.

CRIF’s president Francis Kalifat has a history of extremism. He was a member of the far-right Zionist youth movement Betar, known for its violence.

Macron’s party has put up a slate of political novices, more than half of whom have never held any political office.

Tchamaha, an education counselor, identified as a left-wing candidate, defending the principles of “humanism and solidarity.”

CRIF and other Israel lobby groups appear to be trawling through candidates’ social media accounts in an effort to impose political discipline and send a message that no criticism of Israel will be tolerated.

So far Macron, who rose to power promising change, has demonstrated that he is all too willing to comply.

As a candidate he vowed to continue his predecessor’s crackdown on the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.

France seeks extradition of Jewish extremist

Meanwhile, French authorities are showing a rare willingness to challenge Israel in the case of the French Jewish extremist Gregory Chelli.

Chelli, who goes by the name Ulcan, operates from Israel. He has been accused of a series of hoax calls that have resulted in police violently raiding innocent people’s homes.

In the most notorious such incident, Chelli targeted the family of French journalist Benoit Le Corre, possibly precipitating the death of his father.

The Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz reported on Sunday that Chelli, who lives in a beachfront apartment in the city of Ashdod, is the subject of a French extradition request on 50 criminal charges.

Chelli is now at the “at the heart of a dispute between France and Israel, which is refusing to extradite him, despite serious pressure and even a special visit here by the French foreign minister,” according to Haaretz.

Implicated in death

In July 2014, Chelli, impersonating police, allegedly called Le Corre’s elderly parents to tell them their son had been killed in a car accident.

Two days later, Chelli called police impersonating Benoit Le Corre’s father and claimed to have killed his wife and son. Armed police raided the home in the middle of the night. Five days later, the elder Le Corre had a stroke that put him in a coma and took his life a few months later.

Following his death, Paris prosecutors opened an investigation for wilful violence resulting in the death of person without intent, a charge that carries upto 15 years in prison.

A medical examiner’s report, published in part by the website Rue 89, established that the elder Le Corre’s fatal illness had been precipitated by stress, indicating a possible direct link to Chelli’s harassment of the family.

Chelli’s actions were reportedly reprisals for Le Corre’s reporting on Chelli’s hacking attacks on pro-Palestinian websites.

Safe haven for extremists

Israel has a long-standing policy of refusing to extradite extremists, including those implicated in violence and killings.

Another French Jewish extremist, Joseph Ayache, has escaped prison by fleeing to Israel. Ayache, the leader of a violent gang of Zionist extremists was sentenced by a Paris court in 2016 to a year in prison.

He had been found guilty of leading a series of “extremely violent and coordinated attacks” against pro-Palestine activists in Paris in 2012.

Members of the Jewish Defense League, thought to be behind the 1985 California assassination of Palestinian American peace activist Alex Odeh, fled to an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Keith Fuchs and Andy Green, the FBI’s prime suspects, are thought to be living in an extremist settlement near the Palestinian city of Hebron.

Israel is also reportedly refusing to extradite to the US the Israeli accused of making hundreds of bomb threats to Jewish institutions, causing terror and panic over an upsurge of anti-Semitism since the election of Donald Trump.

Given that Israel is willing to thumb its nose at even its biggest patron, the United States, there seems little chance that France, habitually so eager to appease Israel, will be any more successful in securing justice for the victims of Chelli’s alleged crimes.
 
Re: Brexit wins, UK to leave the EU

I think I'm finally seeing the light on why the Conservative government under Cameron even held an in/out EU referendum in the first place. Peter Hitchens, in his talk here, says that the Tories were surprised when they got a majority win in the 2015 election (after having ruled since 2010 thanks to coalition with the Lib Dems). Their inclusion in their 2015 manifesto of a promise to hold a referendum was 'wot won it' for them, swaying the large 'silent majority' who wanted out, and would use the Tories to do so.

If they had been smart about it, they would have realised that their election result pointed to the likely result of the referendum, but they grossly miscalculated.
 
Re: Brexit wins, UK to leave the EU

Slow motion Brexit: Free movement will ‘continue for years after Britain leaves the EU’

https://www.rt.com/uk/397068-brexit-free-movement-transitional/

The free movement of EU citizens to Britain could continue for up to two years after Brexit as part of a “soft landing” transitional deal, it has been reported.
Senior sources have suggested that a major shift in opinion is underway in cabinet that will delay the full implementation of a Brexit deal until 2022.

Leading Brexiteers in cabinet, including Liam Fox, Boris Johnson, and Michael Gove, have now signed up to the idea of a substantial “implementation phase” after the UK leaves in 2019, in order to give business and government time to adjust to leaving the bloc, sources say.

In return, Remainers such as Philip Hammond and Amber Rudd have reportedly finally accepted the idea that the UK will ultimately leave both the single market and the customs union.

The softer “off the shelf” transition deal comes following weeks of division among the Tories, including sustained attacks on Hammond, who favors a “soft” Brexit.

Hammond, the Chancellor, has been championing the case for a phased exit from the EU that prioritizes “economic logic.”

As part of Hammond’s plans, EU citizens would still be able to move to Britain for up to two years, The Times reported on Friday. The Guardian cited a senior cabinet source as saying free movement could last for up to four years.

“The cabinet is now united on the need for a transitional period – that wasn’t the case five weeks ago,” the government source told the Daily Mail.

“No one is bothered about the free flow of people with the EU continuing during the transition – the Brexiteers are all focused on the end point.

“Nobody has set a time limit on the transition – it could be two years, it could be a bit longer. It needs to be driven by practicalities like getting customs arrangements in place and ensuring the needs of business are met.”

Fox, the international trade secretary, previously argued against the idea of a transitional deal, warning it would delay the benefits of Brexit, such as striking new trade deals and controlling immigration.

Gove, a leader of the Brexit campaign, is said to have changed his mind on the issue after being appointed as environment secretary, where he is now grappling with the issues involved in disentangling Britain’s farming and fishing industries from 40 years of regulation by Brussels.

The first full round of talks to extricate Britain from the EU ended in Brussels on Thursday.
 
Re: Brexit wins, UK to leave the EU

Some 'Brexit' news over the summer:

'UK business leaders to call for indefinite delay in leaving single market'

The Guardian, 6 Jul 2017

Business leaders are to demand that ministers agree an indefinite delay in Britain’s departure from the European single market and customs union to give more time for talks on a long-term trade deal.

In a dramatic escalation of the battle to soften the government’s Brexit strategy, groups representing thousands of UK employers aim to present a united front during a summit at Chevening country house hosted by the Brexit secretary, David Davis.

“This is a time to be realistic,” Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI, was due to say in a London School of Economics speech on Thursday outlining their demands. “Instead of a cliff edge, the UK needs a bridge to the new EU deal. Even with the greatest possible goodwill on both sides, it’s impossible to imagine the detail will be clear by the end of March 2019.”

'Schaeuble Says U.K. Welcome Back If Brexit Was Overturned'

Bloomberg, 13 Jun 2017

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that the U.K. would be welcomed back to the European Union if the British decided they no longer wanted to quit the bloc.

Asked if the government might reverse its decision to quit the EU, he said it “would not be helpful” to speculate whether that will happen or not. “The British government has said we will stay with the Brexit,” Schaeuble said in the interview during Bloomberg’s G-20 Germany Day. “We take the decision as a matter of respect. But if they wanted to change their decision, of course, they would find open doors.”

Asked about Schaeuble’s comment at a joint news conference in Paris after meeting British Prime Minister Theresa May, Macron said “the door is also open as long as the Brexit negotiations aren’t over.”

'Why Brexit is unlikely to deliver what supporters believed they voted for'

Globe and Mail, 31 Mar 2017

Brexit has now happened. Yet Brexit, in any meaningful way, is unlikely ever to happen.

As a legal act, Britain’s divorce from its 27 neighbours and key trading partners is now under way. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Theresa May served notice of separation from the European Union.

As a practical outcome, however, Brexit will be very unlikely to deliver any of the things its supporters believed they had voted for.

I think we might want to qualify the title of this thread with some added punctuation: 'Brexit' wins, UK to leave the EU?

Then there's this:

Deep state: Macron told before becoming president to forget about EU Army and remember Anglo alliance

Emmanuel Macron was warned a month before he announced his bid for the French presidency that maintaining military ties with Britain is far more important than the planned EU-wide defense pact, according to emails published by WikiLeaks.

In the emails, a senior adviser warns Macron that France will be caught between the urge to maintain defense ties with the UK and pressure to fully enact the EU integrated defense plans known as the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). [...]

"In terms of multinational interventions and industrial cooperation, France is going to be caught between the temptation to seize Brexit to advance the CSDP and the desire to maintain a critical mass of exchanges with the British who - despite their present obvious withdrawal - remain the most important and the most active country in the field of defense," Grandjean adds.

Macron's former defense adviser, Francois Heisbourg, later takes part in an email exchange with another adviser, Clement Beaune, in which Heisbourg slams EU military integration plans.

"The Germans have evolved a lot on defense but they pay their projects with their money. They are not ready to entrust to us, directly or through the EU, the keys to the safe."

Beaune responds by saying that France might be tempted to reject the EU plan and strengthen military ties to the UK instead.

He adds that any joint funding initiatives in the future should also be designed "to integrate the British."

That'd be NATO, and more specifically, the 'triple entente' of the US, UK and France, which has jointly 'managed the world' since 1917. Note that 'German designs' remain as critical to their strategic concerns as back then!
 
I guess the EU was never going to make the divorce easy - for either party:


Dunkirk 2.0: Merkel slaps UK with hefty Brexit bill in another effort to break the Brits: https://www.rt.com/op-edge/401294-merkel-uk-brexit-dunkirk/

Angela Merkel has done a U-turn on Brexit and is now demanding the UK pay a staggering €100 billion ‘divorce settlement.' The dirty tricks campaign not only makes the EU look a loser but will create a ‘Dunkirk victory’ for Britain once again.
One must wonder if German leader Angela Merkel has seen the recent blockbuster film, ‘Dunkirk,' directed by Christopher Nolan, which portrays Britain’s initial defeat at the beginning of WWII?

While the film glosses over one or two historical details, it succeeds in showing how a fortuitous German leader believed he could emerge victorious by isolating British forces on a French beach after retreating from the Wehrmacht’s lightning advance across Europe. The tactic, however, failed to achieve the desired result as the humiliation of Dunkirk only strengthened the morale and febrile determination of those British soldiers to defeat Nazi Germany even more. In addition to attacking Russia, it was a significant tactical error.

Is history repeating itself with Germany’s recent tough stance on Britain and its bid to abandon the EU project? Has Angela Merkel underestimated the resolve of the British?

Looking at Merkel’s recent comments, it’s as though she too, along with a complicit cabal of EU senior officials, are now falling into the ‘Dunkirk trap,' as Merkel has gone back on her comforting words of just a few months back when she called for a sensible and amicable ‘divorce.' At the same time, the EU is now showing its true colors by not wanting to negotiate a real Brexit, but a disingenuous one based on stalling any progress which can be made by the British team. The history books will note that making the costs for Britain leaving the EU a top subject to be tackled at the very beginning of the negotiations – the so-called ‘divorce settlement’ – is really a trap, which Britain’s David Davis has fallen into.

What we are experiencing now is a huge delay in the negotiations because the EU has set this divorce bill so ridiculously high at €100 billion. If London refuses to pay it, then a hard Brexit follows. If London agrees to pay it, Brussels immediately becomes the one who leads the negotiations.

Brussels wants to set harsh example
Because Brexit has lost its appeal with a small group of voters in the UK who chose ‘leave’ but later, according to a number of media reports, now believe Brexit might not even happen, both Brussels and Merkel appear to now think stalling any progress by London will weaken Theresa May’s government as the UK economy slows and political unrest spikes, against her, in particular. They seem to believe a ‘hard Brexit’ – that is, one which is not agreed on when the talks reach their deadline of March 2019 - will bolster their agenda: to set a very firm example to other euroskeptic countries considering a referendum on membership – like Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Hungary, Czech Republic, Sweden and Denmark – that the price is too high to contemplate.

As a message to such countries and the rest of Europe in general, it’s a poor one though which makes Brussels look like a loser and a bully. Not exactly a thriving, profitable trading bloc which can break away from the US and determine its own foreign policy with a new army. More a weak, insecure and struggling anachronistic organization that is deeply worried about its survival and is wildly deluded about its importance. Even the UK-EU divorce figure shoots both Merkel and Brussels in the same foot. If Britain is so unimportant how come its leaving the union will hit Brussels so hard? It’s a perverse dichotomy of logic which hasn’t been thought through. Like the euro. Or the EU army. Or the EU’s €1 billion ‘diplomatic’ service.

The EU doesn’t do contingency planning.

Currently, Brussels mandarins are riding high on a feel good wave based on the French presidential election installing their own kind and a recovering euro; the former was a huge boost to a project which before Emmanual Macron, 39, took the Elysee, looked like a plane in a tail spin. But as Macron’s makeup bill soars, while his popularity plummets, the EU elite has gained a little confidence.

But to be fair, Britain’s own politicians’ floundering and buffoonery have also boosted their mojo.

May's team’s ignorance increases Brussels confidence
Recently Boris Johnson accepted in principle there would be a payment of some sort to be made for the 'divorce.' It was absurd ignorance of him and others about the EU project to not have foreseen this. But there were also other oversights, which the British PM and her ministers should have spotted.

Leading throughout the Brexit campaign much was made of the idea that Brussels would not be so stupid as to give Britain a hard time at the negotiating table, risking losing UK’s €100 billion trade with, in particular, France and Germany. Again, it seems the EU would cut its nose to spite its face and that it would probably consider how to use EU cash to compensate German car workers or French wine makers.

But there are other areas of ignorance on the British side. There is their share in the highly profitable European Investment Bank (EIB), which, on paper, is worth about €40 billion - which no British media or politicians wish to talk about, but which could be sold to wreak havoc in Brussels.

This realistically could be offered into the talks, and with some leverage as presumably the EU would try and block the sale of the share. Or insist that it is sold equally to all member states - rather than, say, Germany.

Is it possible that May, Johnson, and Davis simply don’t know about the share?

But if Merkel is really heading this charge against the British, it will be the second time in almost 78 years - albeit under radically different conditions - that Germany has tried to break British resolve. The first time was on the beaches at Dunkirk where Berlin massively underestimated the UK.

If a hard Brexit is what we're heading for, the EU will be the loser as even if the pound crashes, there will still be a 'grey market' of trade between the EU countries and the UK. Plus, a much lower pound would make UK exporting companies way more competitive than their EU competitors and also Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) would flow to the UK like never before.

Even the doomsday scenario the staunchly pro-EU Economist predicts a Britain in a depressing period similar to post-war Britain, but one which is still very much a survivor. And therein lies the problem. The EU cannot afford Britain to come out of a hard Brexit as a survivor as this would send the wrong message to those who are mulling their own exits. It needs Britain’s economy to crash entirely; in other words, to become the basket case economy of Europe.

And this explains the panic of the EU and why the €100 billion divorce is so important. It’s part of what Brussels hopes will be a meltdown, a relentless arduous torture which breaks the soul of the British people. A Dunkirk moment, if you like.

But galvanizing the British people and their resolve is exactly what the EU should avoid. Currently, the country is still divided into two camps: largely those of hard and soft Brexits – the latter not being a full exit from the EU at all, but still one as a periphery member. Simplifying this rationale to a single anti-German or anti-Brussels hatred, brought about by a dirty tricks campaign to destroy the UK economy, will blow up in the face of those who conspire it.

The last thing Brussels wants is a polarized view to emerge in Britain, which sees Germany as a country that once again wishes to defeat Britain. Merkel needs to rethink her Dunkirk plan and consider how the British appear to thrive in a crisis and diligently pull together in wars. Her recent, more aggressive stance against Britain is short-sighted and ill-conceived and resonates from a previous decision made by a German leader who thought he really knew how to put the British in order.

Never before in the Brexit talks has the adage ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’ applies.
 
Some background from a UK top diplomat:

_https://www.rt.com/uk/407830-may-screwed-brexit-article50/
May ‘screwed’ Britain by triggering Article 50 too early – former diplomat

British PM Theresa May “screwed” the UK by triggering Article 50 and commencing the Brexit process too early, according to the country’s former ambassador to the EU Sir Ivan Rogers.

The ex-diplomat was giving evidence at the Commons Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday, when he said that May’s decision had allowed the EU to “dictate the rules of the game” in Brexit talks. She had squandered the leverage that the timing of triggering the article had provided, he added.

Rogers, who retired last January, said that he had advised the Government to initially establish the format and sequence of the negotiations before triggering the exit process by invoking Article 50.

“My advice as a European negotiator was that that was a moment of key leverage and, if you wanted to avoid being screwed on the negotiations in terms of the sequencing, you had to negotiate with the key European leaders and the key people at the top of the institutions and say: ‘I will invoke Article 50 but only under circumstances where I know exactly how it is going to operate,’” he said.

May triggered Article 50 last March, on a set date that she had announced in October 2016 – four months after the Brexit referendum. Rogers quit the Brexit negotiations team in January, calling on his colleagues to “challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking.”

The former diplomat has not been surprised by the lack of progress in the talks, he told the Committee. The EU has refused to discuss future trade deals until the terms of the UK’s exit – including a financial settlement – are finalised.

“If you were in their shoes, that is exactly what you would do. You would think ‘Let’s just maximise the pressure on the British side to move on money and squeeze as hard as possible,’ because the debate they really want to have is about the future partnership,” said Rogers.

He predicted that the two parties would resort to “name-calling across the Channel” if no trade deal is established by December. “A ‘no deal’ – that is a walkout or a breakdown anywhere between December [and] March – is unlikely to be anything other than bloody, a breakdown of trust – very difficult,” he said, adding: “There will be a big fist fight and the UK will make our own contingency plans.”

That makes sense to me - in other words, May screwed the Brits for short-term gains in the elections. Hasn't turned out well neither for the Brits nor for May, it seems.

Note that if the negotiations fail, economic relations between the UK and the EU may default to the WTO treaties as far as I understand, with many bad consequences for everyone. But the alternative may be a very bad deal for the UK.

Kind of a quagmire: EU says "here are our conditions (financial etc.), if you don't comply, we won't even talk about the new treaty", UK says "well, then we let negotiations fail and go WTO, and everyone loses". This situation is why the diplomat predicts that parties would resort to "name-calling across the Channel", osit.
 
Absolutely luc, it makes sense to me too. Since Article 50 was invoked I thought May played her cards very badly, precisely because she lost all her leverage, as that guy says. Before, it was the threat of brexiting that could move the EU into making concessions. But now that Article 50 has been invoked, the EU is like "well f*** off then, you aren't getting anything from us". Had she followed a different strategy, she could have reached a reasonable Brexit deal in which no party was a big loser, but now it's all a mess. And she did it, she thought, for popularity's sake. May is such an agent of chaos, and she doesn't even know it.
 
Brexit Bill Becomes Law, Allowing UK to Leave the EU
(updated 14:06 26.06.2018)

The Speaker of the UK Parliament's House of Commons chamber has announced the EU Withdrawal Bill had been signed into law by the monarch, to cheers from Conservative lawmakers.

"I have to notify the House in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967 that her Majesty has signified her royal assent to the following acts… European Union Withdrawal Act 2018," Commons Speaker John Bercow told lawmakers during a session of the house.

READ MORE: House of Lords Pass UK's New Version of Brexit Bill

According to the UK Prime Minister Theresa May, passing the Brexit Bill is "a crucial step in delivering a smooth and orderly Brexit — the Brexit people voted for."


The EU Withdrawal Bill enables the implementation of Britain's exit from the European Union by repealing the European Communities Act 1972, the source of European Union law in the UK. Laws by EU institutions won't affect the UK anymore, with the majority of existing EU law becoming domestic UK law.

Britain voted to leave the EU in a referendum on June 23, 2016. Brexit negotiations between Brussels and London have officially kicked off in June 2017 and are expected to conclude by end of March 2019.


Edit added: :shock:
 
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