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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46188790

Agreement is finally in Number 10's grasp.

The text that's taken months of officials' blood, sweat and tears has been agreed, at least at a technical level.

Now a paper's being drafted to present to the Cabinet tomorrow ready for the government's hoped-for next step - political approval from Theresa May's team, even though many of them have deep reservations.

Remember in the last 24 hours some of them have been warning privately that what's on the table is just not acceptable, and will never get through Parliament. Some even believe the prime minister ought to walk away.

But the government machine is now cranking into action. With a text ready, their long-planned rollout can begin.
The BBC's chief political correspondent Vicki Young said some ministers had "deep concerns" about the shape of the likely agreement, which critics say could leave the UK trapped in a customs agreement with the EU.

She said they would have to decide whether they could support it, and if not, whether to resign from cabinet.

Leading Brexiteers have already condemned the draft agreement, Boris Johnson saying it would see the UK remain in the customs union and "large parts" of the single market.

He told the BBC it was "utterly unacceptable to anyone who believes in democracy". "Am I going to vote against it. The answer is yes," he added.

And Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said "given the shambolic nature of the negotiations, this is unlikely to be the good deal for the country".

'Failure to deliver'
Both the UK and EU want to schedule a special summit of European leaders at the end of November to sign off the reportedly 500 page withdrawal deal and the much shorter outline declaration of their future relationship.

Brussels has insisted it would only agree to put the wheels in motion for the summit if agreement can be reached on the issue of the Irish border.

Ambassadors from the remaining 27 EU states will meet in Brussels on Wednesday.

If a deal is agreed with the EU, Mrs May then needs to persuade her party - and the rest of Parliament - to support it in a key Commons vote.

Conservative Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg said if details of the text reported by Irish broadcaster RTE were true, the UK would become a "vassal state" with Northern Ireland "being ruled from Dublin".

Such an agreement "failed to deliver on Brexit" and the cabinet should reject it, he told the BBC.

"I think what we know of this deal is deeply unsatisfactory," he said. "There seems to be growing opposition to these very poor proposals."

Meanwhile, following pressure from all sides of the Commons, ministers have agreed to provide MPs with a legal assessment of the implications for the UK of the Irish backstop and other controversial aspects of any deal.

Cabinet Office minister David Lidington said Attorney General Geoffrey Cox would make a statement to MPs and take questions ahead of the final vote on any Brexit deal.

MPs, he said, would get to see "a full reasoned position statement laying out the government's both political and also legal position on the proposed withdrawal agreement".

The Democratic Unionists' Westminster leader Nigel Dodds said he was pleased Parliament had "asserted its will" as it was imperative that all parties to the deal were clear in what way and for how long it would "legally bind" the UK.

Chequers minus it is. Whatever happened to no deal being better than a bad deal.

We should have been far more aggressive in negotiations with Brussels. They all but stated immediately after the referendum that they were going to bumrape us for having the temerity to leave, so we should have told them that unless and until they got serious, we'd basically go full on tax haven mode and steal all their big companies - and funnel money and support to Eurosceptics in Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland, and Hungary.
 
Survation predicted things accurately last time around. Complete with the narrowing lead for the Tories down to the Hung Parliament and was the only pollster to do so. This time around they've given them consistent double digit leads and no sign of the same gap closing to the level we saw in 2017.
Cool, so the UK could be looking at a Tory majority of 40-70 seats then?
 
I've just voted. (Only once - I'm not a Labour supporter). There was a queue of 13 people waiting outside the polling station when I arrived at 7am! Five or six more arrived after me as I was leaving. They said they'd had a record number of registrations and had extra people on because of the expected numbers. And it's a dark, cold morning here in Blighty.

Frankly, I'm not convinced or lulled by polls saying the Conservatives are heading for a comfortable majority. And there is some very big, very dark money aligned against Brexit. The LibDems are, I strongly suspect, violating spending laws left, right and centre. There really should be an investigation into where they're getting so much money right now. The electoral commission doesn't seem to fussed about investigating possible corruption though. The Supreme Court is a political weapon, Tory MPs themselves have proven turncoats last time around... Unless the Conservatives get a really strong majority, I can see this country tearing itself apart even more.

I think I have persuaded one person to vote Conservative. Another I at least got them to reconsider voting Labour, I think. But beyond that I'm not sure how much success I met with. Polls or not, tonight is going to be a big unknown, personally.
 
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I've just voted. (Only once - I'm not a Labour supporter). There was a queue of 13 people waiting outside the polling station when I arrived at 7am. Five or six more arrived after me as I was leaving. They said they'd had a record number of registrations and had extra people on because of the expected numbers. And it's a dark, cold morning here in Blighty.

Frankly, I'm not convinced or lulled by polls saying the Conservatives are heading for a comfortable majority.
Did any of the people there look trashy? (Usual indicator of what side they're on.) Got to admit, record number of registrations makes me a bit nervous.
 
Did any of the people there look trashy? (Usual indicator of what side they're on.) Got to admit, record number of registrations makes me a bit nervous.

Not particularly. A couple looked like what you mean but the majority looked like those slightly upper-middle class types who will shank you with the keys to their never-seen-a-dirt-track SUV if you dare call them that. You know, the sort that function and have money but will tell you about this amazing book they're reading by Greta Thunberg. They wont necessarily finish the book but it's important you know they're reading it.

Of course it's pitch black and raining so I'm judging this solely by quality of coats and how much their bobbly hats look like they're bought from Edinburgh Woollen Mill. If I'm going to stereotype, I'd peg them as LibDem types. But then I think a lot of the LibDem voters might be turning to Labour in the belief that the LibDems can't win. Tory messaging pushing the idea that it's them or Labour might be back-firing slightly. Also, I believe a part of the surge in registrations is students as this is taking place during semester time for most of them. Naturally students are never up at this time of the morning. (Or indeed, morning). But the electoral fellah I spoke to said that was part of it. That's worrying to me as Universities are heavily Left-wing echo chambers. But it also means that some of that surge will be balanced by them not voting at home.

Still, impression I got is that turn out is going to be whopping and I can't help but feel this leviathan is one that polls didn't really account for and that unnerves me.


Got a strange celebrity meltdown watch for you lot.

Lord Buckethead.

Yep that one. He's been shilling for the Labour candidate despite being allied to The Loonies, who should be above that shit

I have lost a lot of respect for Lord Buckethead.
 
So I went over to my Pillockby (Subdivision of Pillockville) polling station. One of two for my ward (the other is in the community centre while I get the church hall).

I was about the 15th person in glancing at the listing at 7.30. This is in stark contrast to 2017 when I was the 15th or so by 10.30.

There was already one person just finishing their vote as I arrived, and three other people followed me in.

Type was pretty usual for my leafy bit of my leafy county. Middle class looking, all driving decent cars and an older chap wrapped up warm against the chill.
 
In America politicians generally look photogenic. In Britain...


photogenic.jpg
A regular ol' horse race they have going on.
 
In America politicians generally look photogenic. In Britain...


View attachment 1047419
A regular ol' horse race they have going on.

The Lib Dems saw the utter train wreck of the May Campaign of 2017 and decided a similar presidential style election campaign with more lurid fascist undertones (They just wanted to bin Brexit altogether if they got into government) and thought it was a good idea.

Our hope is that, like Tim Farron before her, she loses her seat tonight to the SNP, the one SNP gain I will actively celebrate.


Good old Steve Coogan decided to make a complete twat of himself while the Channel 4 people all smugly chuckled and laughed away at his funny man antics of calling everyone (some 17.4m people in the referendum and probably north of 12 million people this election) "Ill informed and ignorant" and despite the UK spending 4.3% on education (2nd only to the NHS on 9.6%) he claims the Tories "don't invest in education" because they need "a certain level of ignorance" to be a conservative.


What a nice man.
 
Dunno if its worth bothering in my seat, the labour candidate has a majority of over 32k

In a 62k seat

Whittling down their majority is always good fun.

Lots of seats that used to be very solid Labour seats have been slowly and labouriously chipped away from the high rock solid safes to marginals or even swing seats.
 
I live in a "labour stronghold", and it feels like there has been a big push with labour leaflets this year. Normally they don't bother. So either I wasn't paying attention before, or labour is getting worried.

depends
is it a metro stronghold like liverpool? Or more rural/town like auckland/wigan?

if its the latter, they are
 
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Whittling down their majority is always good fun.

Lots of seats that used to be very solid Labour seats have been slowly and labouriously chipped away from the high rock solid safes to marginals or even swing seats.

I'm in a Labour safe seat, but I'll still be adding my vote to the pile. Its the only way it can eventually become a marginal.

And you want to live in a marginal, regardless of your political affiliation. If your MP knows they can be turfed out any minute, they're more likely to actually DO something for the constituency. You'll also find that the ruling party of the day pours money into the area.
 
Voting overseas for the constituency of Canterbury (never changed it since I left). This will be the test as to whether it's a proper flip to Labour, or if it was a hiccup last time. Labour MP Rosie Duffield is holding on to the seat with a 180 person majority, and I remember they had to wheel down Thornbelly from central to whip up a storm and get it turned and heavily push the student population to vote there tactically. IDK if they were doing tactical voting, but my ballot had a Lib Dem and and independent candidate on it.
 
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Linder and I went to our polling station at about 8ish. Empty, but the guy working there said that they'd already had as many people as they'd normally get in a whole morning.

Lots of high turnout reports. Nobody's sure if it's good news or not, as the High Turnout in 2017 resulted in the hung parliament mess.

Mind, after three years of stupidity and only one party saying to get stuff done and to finally move on rather than endlessly repeat 2016 again it could be good for the Tories.
 
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