Are we nearly there?

Keeping on saying something doesn’t make it true. Glad you all think our politicical leaders so brilliant and will look after everyones’ interests. Must be very comforting to have simple beliefs.

crystaltipps
I see we've changed thick for simple.
The high commissioner for Australia to the uk is obviously simple as well as he has stated that a no deal is the best thing for us as it was for Australia when we dumped them 28 years ago. He also said they are ready and waiting to sign a free trade deal.

lemongrove I have never felt ruled or bullied by the EU - I have felt it needed changes and that we should have been working to improve it from within. Given the political climate of Europe in general, had we stayed, we could have been a major player in reshaping and reforming. I think that would have been the best outcome.

Cabinet ministers Greg Clark, Amber Rudd and David Gauke warn they will help delay UK's exit from EU to stop no-deal

www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/brexit-news-latest-three-cabinet-ministers-signal-they-will-help-force-a-deal-to-brexit-to-stop-a4074541.html

Let's hope we are getting there - firstly to stop "no-deal", secondly to stop brexit.

Three cabinet ministers who signalled they could vote to delay Britain’s withdrawal from the EU should resign, a Tory Brexiter MP has said.

Amber Rudd, Greg Clark and David Gauke should step down, said Andrew Bridgen, a member of the hard-Brexit European Research Group (ERG). He said the ministers were rejecting government policy in breach of cabinet collective responsibility.

“What they are actually saying is that they are rejecting collective responsibility of being in government, they are rejecting government policy,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “In that case, they should do the honourable thing and resign from the government immediately.”

Theresa May must go in three months, cabinet ministers say

He accused Downing Street of orchestrating their actions in an attempt to pressurise Tory Brexiters into backing Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement.

Well there’s so many MPs that should be resigning including the ERG who have become a party within a party with their own whip etc, they should do the honourable thing and resign from the Tory party as they have voted against their own government and maybe join UKIP . Why don’t they all resign and we should completely revise our broken political system? We should get rid of the unelected undemocratic Lords while we’re at it.

And they say that the Labour Party are in disarray. This Tory party is the government in the UK at present, but even within Cabinet, they cannot agree on how Brexit should be handled.

You could not make it up, could you.

There’s only one way out of this Brexit nightmare – revoke Article 50

The EU has the UK in an impossible bind, but there is something we can do

www.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/theres-only-one-way-out-of-this-brexit-nightmare-revoke-article-50/

Another attack by the ‘fear’ campaign is to accuse the ERG of intransigence, of insisting on a crazy purity. In fact, the ERG has sacrificed a great deal that it holds dear to seek some consensus.

Its members recently voted for the Brady amendment, which accepted Mrs May’s deal so long as she took the backstop out of it. It devised, with ‘sensible’ Remainers like Nicky Morgan and Damian Green, something called the Malthouse compromise. It is, as its name suggests, a compromise.

In return, the ERG gets no thanks. Its concessions are pocketed, and then it is assailed once more. Within days of accepting Brady, Mrs May moved surreptitiously from promising to “replace” the backstop, to “changing” the backstop, to “making changes” in the backstop.

Brexiteers are amused to hear Remainers complaining that she gives them an unfair slice of her attention. In reality, she makes herself inscrutable to both sides, but reserves her animosity for Leavers.

It is now much too late in the day to persuade many people to change their minds either way on the issue of Brexit itself.

But it should at least be obvious that when anti-Brexit MPs hum and haw about what they want and don’t want, they relieve Brussels of any need to make its own hard choices. You will have seen pictures this week of Mr Juncker with Mrs May and he looked happy.

It cannot be said often enough that if MPs want a good deal for Britain they have to convince the EU that, if we don’t get one, we shall leave anyway. Mrs May, in her heart of hearts, cannot face this. Uncoincidentally, she has got a very bad deal so far.

Tory MP Guto Bebb , leading supporter of the People’s Vote campaign, stated:

“The Malthouse Compromise is a choice between a backstop-free unicorn Brexit and a pig-in-lipstick version of a no deal Brexit. Neither beast is going to fly.

“Rather than have another round of game playing and fantasy Brexit, my appeal to all Conservatives is to put country ahead of party and recognise with Parliament so deeply divided we have to agree on a deliverable rather than a fantasy Brexit and then allow the public a final say through a People's Vote.”

www.peoples-vote.uk/bebb_malthouse_compromise_is_a_choice_between_a_unicorn_and_a_pig_in_lipstick

We will be leaving in just over 30 days’ time.
I’m happy. ?

Our country is in a state of chaotic uncertainty. Only a fool would make any predictions.

It is obvious to most of us that Theresa May is in full supplication to the ERG, and will if not stopped force us over the edge of the brexit cliff . The ERG are a bunch of unbelievably arrogant carpet baggers, who can’t wait for deregulation to sell off what remains of our public services and even more deeply divide the U.K. Brexiteers dithering and procrastination has led us to this latest political crisis, with absolute no unity or agreement. Whatever happens, the U.K. is, and will be even more, weakened and divided. Thank you Tories.

The whole fiasco is just so sad. Splitting not “just” the nation but family too.
I am exhausted, deeply saddened and disappointed with it all. I, and others, have angry and frustrated family. Some families have been changed forever.
I think it will take a generation at least for the wounds to heal.

I don’t understand how people can genuinely be happy about our situation - whichever side of the Brexit divide they may sit.

Those who are smugly happy because they have “won” ( won what exactly remains to be seen and they can’t agree what it looks like) leave a trail of animosity and hate and obviously are happy at the prospect of further discord, division and a weakened society. Enjoy.

What was it that the wicked EU deprived us of? I know it was something to do with bananas but I can't remember whether it was straight bananas or bendy bananas. Whichever it was there are some folk looking forward to getting them back if the brexit nonsense is not stopped.

There’s more to leaving the EU than the shape of bananas.
We wouldn’t have to accept decisions forced on us by other countries

Many EU decisions are taken under “qualified majority voting” rules, where countries’ voting weights depend on their size. That means countries can be outvoted, forced to accept decisions with which they disagree. Britain was outvoted more often than any other country. Between 2009 and 2015, Britain was on the losing side of 12 per cent of QMV decisions. By contrast, France was on the losing side of less than 1 per cent of votes. The areas where Britain was most often outvoted included the EU budget and EU foreign and security policy.

Just an aside - watching the Andrew Marr show and wondering why some people who voted Leave are called hard Brexiteers when ardent Remainers are not called hard Remainers?

Is there a difference between hard remainers and remainers? They all want to remain don’t they?
Ok if U.K. voted against 12% decisions, that means they voted for 88% decisions, which is a rather a large majority in anyone’s book. What rules have been forced on us we don’t like which we voted against? Please tell.

May has cancelled the vote again; running down the clock. What the hell is going on?? And this is all in the name of democracy ...

Democracy??? Fraud, lies, foreign interference, illegal money ... talk about 'banana republic' Mr Gove.

Let’s forget bananas ( since it has sod all to do with Brexit)
There could be a breakthrough with May’s deal this week ( anything is possible) otherwise Parliament is simply chaos.
I hope MP’s realise how puerile they appear to the general public.

Do you honestly think there will be a breakthrough, lemon. The future of this country is at stake and the PM is running down the clock so she can take us over a cliff edge to save herself and her party [and don't get me started about the Labour Party either]. Why can't people see what the hell is going on. Angry? I'm apoplectic at this moment in time....you know the bit in the Exorcist where her head spins round. Well, that's me....

No, I don’t really think so, but I hope so, and my word was
‘Could’ ( and anything is possible.)

I really don’t think that May wants a no deal scenario, since she has been negotiating for so long to get a deal, she then got a deal, but MP’s refused to go for it.
She is now trying to get the Irish backstop position is improved, but even if she does, the MP’s will try and scupper it.
What part of all that is May wanting a cliff edge exactly??

Gove talked about the country being like a 'banana Republic' if the Ref. was not respected. And my post above said that any vote, election or Referendum based on lies, fraud, foreign interference and illegal funding - would be just that, the politics of a 'banana republic' -and we would be the first to condemn it. The hypocrisy is vast.