Brexit delayed

[Mellsblue]

Not sure the ultra-Brexiteers are represented. UKIP is a shell of its former self - and unelectable unless you’re a racist - and there is no Brexit party.
The party in power will always lose votes, though not as much as this, but Labour is the standout.

That's not unfair. The cult of personality that Farage is building would define a vote for UKIP as treacherous and I suspect his supporters are keeping their powder dry for the Euro elections.

Puja

Agreed. Also, voting for UKIP is now a blatantly racist vote with Batten in charge and Tommy Robinson as an advisor and this will put off lots of people.

[Banquo]

Pretty clearly an anti Brexit vote has done for the Tories, with maybe a touch of leavers not voting. Labour's position is trickier to interpret- they had a pretty poor showing in the equivalent vote in 2015, so a low base to lose anything from - on the other hand they haven't been absolutely taken apart by an anti-brexit vote, so you could argue their positioning as reluctant leavers (which is BS wrt to Corbyn and McD) has minimised the damage caused by having Leave in their manifesto. I'd say excellent night for LD's, ok for Green, meh for Labour, what you'd expect for the Tories.

Still think Labour are just about playing a good political game, even if its shyte for the country. Though anyone watching Thornberry on Question Time wouldn't or shouldn't go near Labour if she is likely to be in a Cabinet.

Edit- both Labour and Tories looking at 28% of the vote apiece if this were a GE. Which it isnt . 19% LD, 25% 'other'. So 56% voting to Leave the EU now (lights blue touch paper)

[Digby]

Lib Dems showing up well, not too surprising I guess. They need to find themselves a good new leader asap.

In other news, apparently Boris tweeted he'd just voted Tory in the council elections; except there wasn't an election in his manor. Twat.

There are elections where he is registered to vote, ie his house in Oxfordshire, but not in his parliamentary constituency.

Fair enough, still a twat tho. One wonders why he deleted the tweet.

I don't think we wonder, it's because it noted he'd just voted and physically that wasn't seen as possible

Though it is also possible it was an aide doing the update , but he's still a prat

[Banquo]

So both Jezza and Tezza conclude the message from the local elections is to just get on and deliver Brexit? OK...................

[Digby]

And you can't have another referendum as the result may still be disputed, but the initial vote wherein the winning side lied, broke the law repeatedly, sometimes in quite disgusting fashion, and received significant funding from foreign agents is clearly the will of the people

I'd say the best I can hope for for Jezza and Thessa is they just drop dead, but what follows might be equally shite or even worse

[Stom]

And you can't have another referendum as the result may still be disputed, but the initial vote wherein the winning side lied, broke the law repeatedly, sometimes in quite disgusting fashion, and received significant funding from foreign agents is clearly the will of the people

I'd say the best I can hope for for Jezza and Thessa is they just drop dead, but what follows might be equally shite or even worse

Yeah, can you imagine...The Tories will fight for control between...

Gove, Hunt, Boris, JRM...

[Son of Mathonwy]

Remarkably strong correlation between vote swing and how pro-remain the parties are.

Clearly a message from the voters to "get on and deliver Brexit".

In some alternate universe.


This remainer would like to think that Labour would take some notice and realise that there are votes to be won here. I mean, if they can't trounce a Tory party which has reached the summit of incompetence, they need to change something.

Unfortunately Jezza isn't a remainer, so nothing will be done.

[Digby]

There was also a swing to independents and a fair number of those must be raving lunatics or leavers, so I wouldn't want to just claim a swing in favour of remain

[Puja]

If only there were some kind of mechanism that we could employ to check if public support was still behind the idea rather than relying on 3 year old data and reading the tea leaves from unrelated elections...

Puja

[Mellsblue]

A referendum on EU membership every three years? No thank you.

[Sandydragon]

If only the remainder parties would cooperate, they could really dent the two party system.

[Mellsblue]

The EU elections will be ugly for the Conservatives and not much better for Labour:

[Son of Mathonwy]

The EU elections will be ugly for the Conservatives and not much better for Labour:

Well, they remember the war. Or war films.

[Banquo]

I did think that somehow they'd find way not to have the EU elections. What a fckin farce.... not that it wasn't already, but....

[Digby]

I did think that somehow they'd find way not to have the EU elections. What a fckin farce.... not that it wasn't already, but....

I'm not really sure why people are so annoyed or pretending to be annoyed. What's the problem with saying whilst we're negotiating our departure the UK is a country that upholds its legal commitments (other than perhaps the Good Friday Agreement?)?

We should have been cross at the idea we'd try to subvert the law as it was politically expedient

[Banquo]

I did think that somehow they'd find way not to have the EU elections. What a fckin farce.... not that it wasn't already, but....

I'm not really sure why people are so annoyed or pretending to be annoyed. What's the problem with saying whilst we're negotiating our departure the UK is a country that upholds its legal commitments (other than perhaps the Good Friday Agreement?)?

We should have been cross at the idea we'd try to subvert the law as it was politically expedient

The point is pretty clear tbh.

[Digby]

I did think that somehow they'd find way not to have the EU elections. What a fckin farce.... not that it wasn't already, but....

I'm not really sure why people are so annoyed or pretending to be annoyed. What's the problem with saying whilst we're negotiating our departure the UK is a country that upholds its legal commitments (other than perhaps the Good Friday Agreement?)?

We should have been cross at the idea we'd try to subvert the law as it was politically expedient

The point is pretty clear tbh.

We're all in a rush in the age of Donald to say bollocks to commitments and due process, and rather than worry people it's seen as a good thing

[Puja]

I'm not really sure why people are so annoyed or pretending to be annoyed. What's the problem with saying whilst we're negotiating our departure the UK is a country that upholds its legal commitments (other than perhaps the Good Friday Agreement?)?

We should have been cross at the idea we'd try to subvert the law as it was politically expedient

The point is pretty clear tbh.

We're all in a rush in the age of Donald to say bollocks to commitments and due process, and rather than worry people it's seen as a good thing

I think the major issue is that we should never have been in this situation in the first place and it's risible that we're electing officials for what may be a 4 month period. It's not the honouring our international obligations bit that's the issue, but the bit where we've fucked everything up so badly that we have to.

Puja

[Digby]

The point is pretty clear tbh.

We're all in a rush in the age of Donald to say bollocks to commitments and due process, and rather than worry people it's seen as a good thing

I think the major issue is that we should never have been in this situation in the first place and it's risible that we're electing officials for what may be a 4 month period. It's not the honouring our international obligations bit that's the issue, but the bit where we've fucked everything up so badly that we have to.

Puja

I'd agree the idea we'd ever have been done in this time frame was lunacy, but now we're here it's thusly not a surprise and I'd prefer we honour our obligations

Though I do also think the European Parliament a waste of time and money, I'd have no issue with elected national governments simply submitting representatives or perhaps national parliaments on a proportional basis

[Banquo]

The point is pretty clear tbh.

We're all in a rush in the age of Donald to say bollocks to commitments and due process, and rather than worry people it's seen as a good thing

I think the major issue is that we should never have been in this situation in the first place and it's risible that we're electing officials for what may be a 4 month period. It's not the honouring our international obligations bit that's the issue, but the bit where we've fucked everything up so badly that we have to.

Puja

well quite, I thought even a Diggers high on snowballs would have gotten that.

[Stom]

We're all in a rush in the age of Donald to say bollocks to commitments and due process, and rather than worry people it's seen as a good thing

I think the major issue is that we should never have been in this situation in the first place and it's risible that we're electing officials for what may be a 4 month period. It's not the honouring our international obligations bit that's the issue, but the bit where we've fucked everything up so badly that we have to.

Puja

I'd agree the idea we'd ever have been done in this time frame was lunacy, but now we're here it's thusly not a surprise and I'd prefer we honour our obligations

Though I do also think the European Parliament a waste of time and money, I'd have no issue with elected national governments simply submitting representatives or perhaps national parliaments on a proportional basis

Oh God no.

That would be terrible. Remember not every country has an actually functioning (or used to be functioning) government. The Romanians would just be even more corrupt than now, and that's before you get to the fascists in government elsewhere.

However, if the EU wants an elected parliament, that has to be where the power resides. With the closed doors Commission running the show, it's a farce.

[Which Tyler]

However, if the EU wants an elected parliament, that has to be where the power resides. With the closed doors Commission running the show, it's a farce.

Yeah - about that.

You know that European election thing that everybody's been talking about? You'll never guess what it's for!

To my understanding, there's a European Parliament, which is elected by PR (and MORE democratic than, for example, our parliament).
Then there's the European Council - made up of the elected leaders of the individual countries - and hence democratic (and a damned site more so than, for example, the House of Lords).
And of course, there's the Comission - which is the civil service; no more or less democratic than anyone else's civil service. It MAY hold too much power; but it really doesn't "run the show" any more than anyone else's civil service. It enacts the decisions made by the elected representatives.

The decision making is held by the 2 democratic institutions.

The EU is MORE democratic than, for example, the UK - claims otherwise are what's known in the trade, as "lies"

[Stom]

However, if the EU wants an elected parliament, that has to be where the power resides. With the closed doors Commission running the show, it's a farce.

Yeah - about that.

You know that European election thing that everybody's been talking about? You'll never guess what it's for!

To my understanding, there's a European Parliament, which is elected by PR (and MORE democratic than, for example, our parliament).
Then there's the European Council - made up of the elected leaders of the individual countries - and hence democratic (and a damned site more so than, for example, the House of Lords).
And of course, there's the Comission - which is the civil service; no more or less democratic than anyone else's civil service. It MAY hold too much power; but it really doesn't "run the show" any more than anyone else's civil service. It enacts the decisions made by the elected representatives.

The decision making is held by the 2 democratic institutions.

The EU is MORE democratic than, for example, the UK - claims otherwise are what's known in the trade, as "lies"

Sorry, I got confused between the comm. and council. And I don't think the council is democratic. If it doesn't want to make meetings open, or allow anyone access to minutes, including it's own MEPs, then I think we can say there's something not quite right there.

But I'm not anti-EU. I think it has some wonderful concepts and things, it's just that it's seriously laden down with bureaucracy. Making it a bit of a pain to get anything done, or any case to get seen quick enough.

[Mellsblue]

However, if the EU wants an elected parliament, that has to be where the power resides. With the closed doors Commission running the show, it's a farce.

Yeah - about that.

You know that European election thing that everybody's been talking about? You'll never guess what it's for!

To my understanding, there's a European Parliament, which is elected by PR (and MORE democratic than, for example, our parliament).
Then there's the European Council - made up of the elected leaders of the individual countries - and hence democratic (and a damned site more so than, for example, the House of Lords).
And of course, there's the Comission - which is the civil service; no more or less democratic than anyone else's civil service. It MAY hold too much power; but it really doesn't "run the show" any more than anyone else's civil service. It enacts the decisions made by the elected representatives.

The decision making is held by the 2 democratic institutions.

The EU is MORE democratic than, for example, the UK - claims otherwise are what's known in the trade, as "lies"

Sorry, I got confused between the comm. and council. And I don't think the council is democratic. If it doesn't want to make meetings open, or allow anyone access to minutes, including it's own MEPs, then I think we can say there's something not quite right there.

But I'm not anti-EU. I think it has some wonderful concepts and things, it's just that it's seriously laden down with bureaucracy. Making it a bit of a pain to get anything done, or any case to get seen quick enough.

Yep. It’s incredibly bureaucratic and opaque, which is big stick to beat it with and one that could easily be removed from its detractors.

Also, the Commission isn’t like the civil service as it instigates policy, leads on trade deal negotiations, implements EU wide policies, drafts the EU budget etc. It’s actually pretty much what Diggers wants. A senior body that has representatives from each member country and a leader - Jean-Claude Drunker - elected by the leaders of the member countries. It’s a bit like having the Lords as the senior House in the UK with a few extra civil service powers thrown in. In essence it’s a political civil service that is more powerful than the more democratic bodies, which is everything you are meant to avoid. The EU works in a way where the less democratic/representative the body the more power it holds. Power is slowly moving towards the parliament but it is still essentially a rubber stamping body.

[Digby]

We're all in a rush in the age of Donald to say bollocks to commitments and due process, and rather than worry people it's seen as a good thing

I think the major issue is that we should never have been in this situation in the first place and it's risible that we're electing officials for what may be a 4 month period. It's not the honouring our international obligations bit that's the issue, but the bit where we've fucked everything up so badly that we have to.

Puja

well quite, I thought even a Diggers high on snowballs would have gotten that.

It still should have been obvious from the outset we'd be in this position, getting upset about the obvious coming to pass is weird