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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.
 
Whatever your actual political position, a "leader" who "leads" you into the worst political drubbing in a generation isn't one worth keeping.

B-but they won the argument! It's just that the people were - were too brainwashed by the tabloid press and fascist media and didn't know what they were voting for!
 
Or, put differently, they seem obsessed with "winning the argument" and completely uninterested in winning the election.

That's the issue right there, same thing that lined up comic books and Hollywood for the corona killshot, they do not see the public as their final market, the fan doesn't matter, the voter doesn't matter, the one they're trying (and SHOULD be trying) to impress/win over are not the masses, but the elite, the stockholders/party big wigs/ the woke blogs.

The rest of you can just buzz off, you're a bunch of toxic racist idiots who haven't a clue.

How they can't see this fundamental disconnect is destroying them, I have no idea.
 
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Or, put differently, they seem obsessed with "winning the argument" and completely uninterested in winning the election.

Politics is politics and if you aren't in office, you are a fucking loser, and you are completely useless to whoever was hoping you'd do something for them, and you need to go away and eat a bowl of dicks while leaving.
 
Even more embarrassing than Keir Starmer beating out every Momentum choice was the choice for Deputy Leader of Opposition. Angela Rayner, possibly the most unqualified individual to ever get close to a senior position in a party. Near zero qualifications, child at 16, grandmother at 37 (she's 40 now), has to my knowledge not made any serious contributions or spearheaded any bills of note, and she's the choice for Deputy Leader. She is in a position where if the stars align and Labour somehow win an election, she will likely be in one of the 4 great offices.

IMO there has been a serious decline in the level of parliamentarians since a generation or two ago. We have a system where young student union members jump straight from university to the Westminster or Union bubble to work as some lap dog for either main party and curry favour until they are chosen to stand as an MP in a safe seat. God forbid Labour wins an election and someone of her caliber gets put into one of the Great Offices.
 
Politics is politics and if you aren't in office, you are a fucking loser, and you are completely useless to whoever was hoping you'd do something for them, and you need to go away and eat a bowl of dicks while leaving.
The saying "You can't govern if you don't win" doesn't seem to have sunk in for them. Still.
 
IMO there has been a serious decline in the level of parliamentarians since a generation or two ago.

Burgerland has the same issues. Seems like the ability to get elected and hold power is based not on how competent you are but how flexible you are to special interest groups. Any idiot can just be a mouthpiece for various industries and grievance groups so the bar just keeps getting lowered.
 

If I remember correctly Brown had good popular support for a time after he took over and it was theorized that if he'd held the election sooner he might have won. But he waited too long and squandered it.

Even despite that they'll probably be viewed more favorably in the annals of history, given the level of Corbyn's defeat in the last election.
 
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Even despite that they'll probably be viewed more favorably in the annals of history, given the level of Corbyn's defeat in the last election.
By the public as a whole, sure. But Labour still thinks favorably of Jezza. And so do the Tories, I might add.
 
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By the public as a whole, sure. But Labour still thinks favorably of Jezza. And so do the Tories, I might add.
The fact Corbyn still has a political career at all, let alone a seat in Parliament, is the single greatest evidence against democracy since the Nazis forced their way into power in the 30's. What will it take to remove the living dead from political life?
 
If I remember correctly Brown had good popular support for a time after he took over and it was theorized that if he'd held the election sooner he might have won. But he waited too long and squandered it.

Even despite that they'll probably be viewed more favorably in the annals of history, given the level of Corbyn's defeat in the last election.

Brown got the "bounce" during his initial tenure in which he'd have won a solid, but moderate majority if he'd gone to the polls. He'd set himself up as a "Father of the nation" sort in which he was a little paternal but in a solid way and had handled a couple of crisis that came across his desk well.

Cameron, like Corbyn would later, banged a drum non-stop demanding an election, that the Tories were spoiling for a fight.

Brown didn't call his bluff and after that, the retreat to the bunker began.

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A huge, huge chunk of the Labour Party has zero interest in electability or compromise. Same as Militant did in the era before, they're not interested in what the plebs think of them (because the plebs really don't like what's seen) and rather than become electable and sneak through a few more of their outlandish policies they all wank themselves off thinking of playing commissar and storm trooper and unironically call themselves "Comrade" like it's 1917 and the moment of revolution will soon be at hand.

Just bare in mind, the guy who came third, Richard Burgon, hails Nicholas Maduro as a hero.

Y'know, the country where there's no toilet paper being made whatsoever, and people are variously starving to death.
 

Scottish chief medical officer been off spending the weekends at her holiday home after telling everyone not to make unnecessary travel (notice how she got a "warning" from the police not a fine like normal people are getting). Sturgeon won't accept her resignation of course because weak leadership and propping women up in positions of power are the key policies of the SNP.
 

Scottish chief medical officer been off spending the weekends at her holiday home after telling everyone not to make unnecessary travel (notice how she got a "warning" from the police not a fine like normal people are getting). Sturgeon won't accept her resignation of course because weak leadership and propping women up in positions of power are the key policies of the SNP.

I need to see an SNP White Paper on independence while oil is $23/barrel. The sheer shadenfreude would power the national grid for the next century.
 
Even more embarrassing than Keir Starmer beating out every Momentum choice was the choice for Deputy Leader of Opposition. Angela Rayner, possibly the most unqualified individual to ever get close to a senior position in a party. Near zero qualifications, child at 16, grandmother at 37 (she's 40 now), has to my knowledge not made any serious contributions or spearheaded any bills of note, and she's the choice for Deputy Leader. She is in a position where if the stars align and Labour somehow win an election, she will likely be in one of the 4 great offices.

IMO there has been a serious decline in the level of parliamentarians since a generation or two ago. We have a system where young student union members jump straight from university to the Westminster or Union bubble to work as some lap dog for either main party and curry favour until they are chosen to stand as an MP in a safe seat. God forbid Labour wins an election and someone of her caliber gets put into one of the Great Offices.

Very true. I saw her on TV recently, clearly she's dim and also an abrasive loudmouth. She was talking about people going out and 'flaunting' the lockdown rules. I'm not particularly snobbish or strict about spelling and grammar but to be a politician at a national level should require a minimum level of intelligence.

If we want good candidates we need to start paying MPs more than 80k a year and properly restrict the the money they take for their second jobs and places on boards of companies etc. while they are in office and afterwards.

If you look at the top few hundred positions in the private sector and compare their salaries with our top politicians it's no wonder we end up with the thickos or the chancers who use it as an opportunity to enrich themselves. Why would anyone talented want to put up with all that bullshit to earn the equivalent of middle management salary.
 
She was talking about people going out and 'flaunting' the lockdown rules. I'm not particularly snobbish or strict about spelling and grammar but to be a politician at a national level should require a minimum level of intelligence.

Flaunting/flouting is also one that really pisses me off. Flaunting your illiteracy by flouting the rules of the Queen's English is reprehensible.
 

KINDER GENTLER.png

Kinder, gentler politics in action.
 
IMO there has been a serious decline in the level of parliamentarians since a generation or two ago. We have a system where young student union members jump straight from university to the Westminster or Union bubble to work as some lap dog for either main party and curry favour until they are chosen to stand as an MP in a safe seat. God forbid Labour wins an election and someone of her caliber gets put into one of the Great Offices.
I believe this has the same core problem that Hollywood has: so many people went to college (often a private elite college) and then went straight into writing (or the governmental bureaucracy) and have no life experience outside that narrow path. It isn't that these people are necessarily stupid, they're just inexperienced (credentialed, not accomplished, as Glenn Reynolds likes to say).

Burgerland has the same issues. Seems like the ability to get elected and hold power is based not on how competent you are but how flexible you are to special interest groups. Any idiot can just be a mouthpiece for various industries and grievance groups so the bar just keeps getting lowered.
Barack Obama was kind of the personification of this-- he was good at (and greatly enjoyed) running for office, but when he actually got elected? "Eh, that day-to-day stuff is boring. You take care of it."
 
Hopefully just an overabundance of caution because he is the PM.

I hope so as well. I know some of the lefties here and my pro-EU friends back home are rejoicing because they think, and not entirely incorrectly, that the death of Boris would be a blow to anti-EU movements across the EU as well as the definitive end to Brexit.
 
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