Theresa May

There is precious little confidence that Mrs May’s talks will bear fruit given the political limitations on both sides to make concessions. More likely, fear EU diplomats, Mrs May will fall and a leadership election and then a general election will ensue.

Ultimately they may have to console themselves with the fact that a one-year extension at least means they won’t have to think seriously about Brexit until after Christmas… but then as my mother used to say, Christmas always comes around quicker than you think.

I have no idea, although I strongly suspect that a psychiatrist might. She is exhibiting the signs of a personality trait which causes her to believe she's infallible.

But Sir Keir said the government was not "countenancing any change" on the wording of the existing plan.

Are we surprised? That's what Vince Cable and Nicola Sturgeon reported when she had a meeting with them a week or two ago. She didn't want any input, just to reiterate 'her deal' and expect them to go along with it.

That was the meeting at which, when Cable said that 'no deal' would cause people pain, she said that 'people had voted for pain'. Like some demented Dickensian schoolmaster... "You want pain? I'll give you pain..."

Can anybody suggest any halfway rational reason why she might be doing this?

The government has not proposed any changes to the PM's Brexit deal during cross-party talks, says shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer.

Meetings have been taking place between Tory and Labour politicians to find a proposal to put to the Commons before an emergency EU summit next week.

But Sir Keir said the government was not "countenancing any change" on the wording of the existing plan.

He said it was "disappointing", adding: "Compromise requires change."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47833841

We might have hoped that as a negotiating team, between them they would have possessed those qualities but look at the bunch of them. We might have thought that the collective intellects and political experience in Government could have designed something better than chaos.

Is it really all down to TM's obduracy? Why could the Cabinet not contain her?

Mrs May is one of the last people who should ever have been negotiating with the EU, or anyone else. She is simply incapable of negotiating. She has no people skills, no capacity for cooperation, no ability to listen or find ways to move forward in a collaborative manner, no ability to bring this country together.

There are only so many times you can – or should – give someone the benefit of the doubt. In asking Donald Tusk and the European council for a ludicrous, pointless extension just until June, Theresa May has surrendered any right to be seen as a prime minister acting in good faith.

The truth is that the last five months have been – by far – the worst in modern British politics. Because of May. From the moment that she pulled the vote on her withdrawal agreement (because she knew that our democratic institutions would not consent to it) she has consistently placed her own, narrow interests above those of this country. She has ignored and misled parliament. She has acted as a demagogue, giving licence to those who threaten and harass MPs. She has burned bridges with our European partners and has treated the British people with contempt.

Staying just until June solves none of the problems that her Brexit deal creates. It constructs yet another melodramatic cliff-edge, which she hopes to use as yet another threat in yet another vote on the same deal that parliament has rejected three times. It will mean electing MEPs in full knowledge (hope, even) that they will be ejected just a month later. It places no deal – with all the associated economic and human harm – back on the table.

Why has she done this now? She did not need to – parliament is in the process of legislating for a long extension, the European council does not meet until next week. What is more, this makes a mockery of the negotiations that May is supposedly conducting with Jeremy Corbyn as I write. What is the point of these discussions if she is going to act unilaterally against the expressed wishes of Labour and of parliament?

The truth is that deep down we all – even those of us who have up till now given her the benefit of the doubt – know why. She has done this now because she cannot let go of the idea that she may yet triumph in her borderline abusive relationship with parliament and the country. Failing that, she hopes to place the blame for a long extension on everyone except herself.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/05/may-extension-brexit-demagogue-people-britain

my yellow cycling jacket is handy

A former Tory minister who quit over Brexit has launched a scathing attack on Theresa May’s spin doctor as he accused him of wanting to “destroy” efforts to find a cross-party consensus.

Nick Boles, who dramatically resigned after the second round of indicative votes on Monday, accused Robbie Gibb of trying to thwart efforts to find a compromise in the Commons.

“I am no longer a member of the Conservative Party. So I can be blunt where previously I may have been discreet,” Mr Boles wrote on Twitter on Wednesday evening.

“The Prime Minister’s head of communications Robbie Gibb is a hard Brexiteer who wants to destroy the Prime Minister’s new search for a cross-party compromise.”

www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/brexit-latest-nick-boles-launches-scathing-attack-on-pms-spin-doctor-as-he-accuses-him-trying-to-a4108911.html

The fact that TM has surrounded herself with these ultra brexiters , like Robbie Gibb, is significant. Gibb's former career was with the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation. He is a former editor of the BBC's Sunday Politics and Daily Politics programmes. Gibb was head of BBC Westminster in overall charge of the BBC’s political programme output - Daily and Sunday Politics, Andrew Marr Show, This Week and Radio 4’s Westminster Hour. Prior to joining the political team at Westminster he was Deputy Editor of BBC2’s Newsnight. During the EU referendum campaign Gibb was editor of The Great Debate at Wembley Arena and Editor of the BBC’s General Election debate during the 2017 General Election.

I suggest yellow jacket takes over ASAP

To get back to the subject of this thread, this was, imo, the best most insightful comment on Theresa May

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsvH3CK_4Dg

Ginny42
Well done you...

GG54 what are you referring to? You don't have to tell me what I need to do! Already done it all thank you.

Ginny42
Chatting about it does nothing, zilch.
You're all on a self congratulatory merry-go-round, agreeing and disagreeing and trying to points score.
We can all read the papers. We all hear the news in some way or another. Why reiterate what is first stated?
Writing to your MPs would be a start, if you haven't already done so, or starting an online petition to curb the abuse meted out to certain MPs named upthread.
IMO, talk the talk only if you are willing to walk the walk.
Talk is cheap.

tomorrow...

I do not entirely disagree with you lemon when you say that MPs have behaved disgracefully, Theresa May certainly has, and her ERG colleagues, the DUP and some brexitextremists on the Labour benches, such as Kate Hoey, and I am sorry to say Jeremy Corbyn, who has been the best ever gift to the Conservative Party.

However many MPs have acted in the interests of the country, such as Vince Cable, Jo Swinson, Tom Brake and the other Liberal Democrats, Ian Blackford and all the SNP, Caroline Lucas, Plaid Cymru, some Conservatives like Dominic Grieve, Phillip Lee, Jo Johnson and Sam Gyimah, some Labour MPs like Ben Bradshaw, David Lammy, Margaret Becket, Hillary Benn and Tom Watson, the TIGs and some others.

These MPs have domne their job as it should be done and acted in the best interests of their constituents and the country.

My (limited!) understanding is that it was never expected that a definitive result would come from yesterday's votes - someone (forget who, sorry) compared those votes to the group stage of the World Cup, with next week's votes being the knockout round(s).

Having said that, I believe there will be a deal passed very soon, now that MP’s realise that voting no to a bunch of ideas doesn’t advance their cause.

Varian we could all trot out words from anyone to suit our own purpose.
MP’s have behaved disgracefully and that’s all there is to it.

Ex-Brexit minister George Bridges, writing in "The Spectator", says "I can tell you – May’s ‘plan’ was built on sand. There were many failures during the negotiations – but the buck has to stop with No. 10.

Failure no. 1 — from which many other failures flow — was a lack of honesty. Brexit is the biggest challenge we’ve faced since 1939. It’s complex, existential and will take years. It demands a sense of national endeavour, of ‘let us go forward together’. One example of dishonesty was the much–repeated idea, which I had to trot out as a minister, that the whole thing would be completed by now, and we would enter an ‘implementation period’. This had the whiff of ‘the troops will be home by Christmas’. Not only is it impossible under Article 50 to negotiate the final relationship until the UK has left, but it was delusional to think we could do so in two years.

This brings us to failure no. 2: a lack of clarity. The core Brexit exam question is ‘What matters more: trade with the EU and access to their markets, or parliamentary control?’ Only when you have answered that can you define success and the options available to achieve your goal. Yes, white papers were published, but behind them lay fuzzy thinking. The opaque description for our objective was a ‘bespoke partnership’. Bespoke means tailored for the individual. To Remainers one could say: ‘Yes, Dominic, we will continue to have frictionless trade — suits you sir!’ To Brexiteers: ‘Don’t worry, Iain, we’ve seen the back of those EU judges — suits you sir!’

www.spectator.co.uk/2019/03/as-an-ex-brexit-minister-i-can-tell-you-mays-plan-was-built-on-sand/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_content=300319_Weekly_Highlights_13&utm_campaign=Weekly

Sorry David I meant it as a rhetorical question, not serious just wishful thinking.

She’s not going today because she is still in control, she is still PM until a replacement takes office, the votes in parliament are only indicative.

TM has made 2 promises
1) Not to stay if there is a long extension beyond June 30
2) To resign when an agreement is made.

Both amount to the same thing, by the time a new Tory leader takes office it will be June at least so she is going to be PM until then, as we have seen,beleaguered though she is, control is hers, ministers resign and will be replaced

Apologies for formatting fail. I hope it's clear which passage is from the manifesto.

I don't recall the 29th March as Exit Day and No Deal and no Custom's Union being in the 2017 tory manifesto.

Is this the passage that Braverman is depending on?

^Following the historic referendum on 23rd June 2016, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union. Only the Conservative Party, under Theresa May’s strong and stable
leadership, can negotiate the best possible deal for our country. In her Lancaster House Speech, the prime minister laid out the twelve principles she intends to follow in seeking a new deep and special partnership with the European Union. We have explained our
approach in the White Paper on the United Kingdom’s Exit from, and a new relationship with, the European Union, during the passage of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act, in the prime minister’s letter to the president of the European Council invoking Article 50, and in the Great Repeal Bill White Paper.^

s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/conservative-party-manifestos/Forward+Together+-+Our+Plan+for+a+Stronger+Britain+and+a+More+Prosperous....pdf

The whole manifesto makes deeply ironic reading IMO

My MP has just retweeted this:

@SuellaBraverman
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Tonight I voted against extending Article 50. In line with manifesto promises, I used my vote to maintain 29th March as Exit Day, in favour of No Deal and against a Customs Union.